Coulter free speech controversy in Canada
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter is touring Canada this week, making headlines all along the way.
The first speech signaled what the tour was likely to generate, as reported here by the CBC:
On Monday night, Coulter sparked controversy when she spoke to about 800 people at the University of Western Ontario in London. She drew applause when she attacked the health-care overhaul bill U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday.
But the regular Fox News commentator drew outrage from some, including a 17-year-old Muslim student who asked her a question about her views on Muslims.
Coulter has said all terrorists are Muslims and has suggested all Muslims be barred from airlines and use flying carpets.
When the student said she didn’t have a flying carpet, Coulter told her to “take a camel.”
In an interview on CTV News Channel Tuesday, Coulter called that remark a joke. “They wouldn’t be bringing me in here for a speech if I never told a joke, if I never used satire,” she said.
Tuesday evening Coulter was to speak at the University of Ottawa, after being warned by a school official that Canada has different standards on free speech and “hate speech” could land her in legal trouble.
No matter, that talk was canceled in the interest of public safety after pro- and anti-Coulter protesters stirred things up, generating reams of ink and blog posts about the state of free speech in Canada in general and at Canadian Universities in particular.
Ottawa Citizen Columnist Dan Gardner managed to interview Coulter earlier that day before taking in the clash of equally benighted ‘true believers’ (his term) at the student protests that night. Gardner says the anti-Coulter agitators got a key point wrong: hate speech is not defined as speech you hate. Read the whole column here.
National Post Full Pundit blogger Chris Selley proclaimed “There is nothing more important in Canada today than what Ann Coulter didn’t say in Ottawa.”
Coulter’s next stop is the University of Calgary. Security has been beefed up with the aim of ensuring no cancellation at tonight’s event.
CBC reported that University of Calgary provost Allan Harrison had these comments on Wednesday:
“The purpose of the university is to encourage and promote the free exchange of ideas. To do anything other than that is I think to go against what the university stands for….We have laws in this country that ensure that people cannot promote hatred. If she is deemed to be promoting hatred, those who feel that she’s doing so can seek redress through the law…It’s not our job to determine in advance what she might or might not say and whether that is the promotion of hatred.”
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It was reported elsewhere that Canadian citizens appeared outside the venue in Ottawa brandishing sticks and rocks. If true, it sheds a new light on our mild mannered cousins to the north.I suppose we should just be thankful Al Franken or Howard Stern didn't head north.
Dan Gardner points out that Ann Coulter never stops anyone from speaking nor anyone from listening.That is opposite of the viewpoint where anyone who opposes your opinion must be silenced.
Hate speech is any speech that brings hate toward an identifiable group.For example, someone telling a conservative speaker like Ann Coulter that they don't like her comments……. that is a good example of hate speech.
magic carpet??camel??hate speech??Are they serious??
Canada is moving from left to right, slowly but surely. These extreme leftist elements must be leftovers from the Bush years.I am ashamed… these leftist mobs are just as bad as the tea baggers down south.I agree that hate speech is not defined as speech you hate.
Canada should invade America, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Canadians.
She should be well received in Calgary as long as she stops trying to be funny.
She should be well received in Calgary as long as she stops trying to be funny.
"That is opposite of the viewpoint where anyone who opposes your opinion must be silenced."Nice try but no one has a God-given right to address a university audience or any other crowd. Anyone can stand on a corner and insult people but being given a podium by prestigious universities is a privilege granted. She was an invited guest. That was a privilege granted not a right owed.What about that Ward Churchill character (who said something like America deserved 9/11) that the right wanted to be stopped from talking at US colleges? Necessary for the free exchange of ideas is… well… ideas.I don't agree with the idea of the mob trying to get her privilege from speaking revoked. But they have as much right to lobby the university for their point of view as Coulter does at giving hers.
Besides, I'm sure she'll be more well received in Calgary. It's the Dallas of Canada and Alberta is their Texas.
Though it's ironic everyone's upset that poor Ann Coulter is being merely criticized for her beliefs while Congresspeople who supported the health care plan are being threatened with physical violence by those who would no doubt agree with Coulter.
Brian:Most of the "threats" that the congressmen are reporting are hoaxes designed to get sympathy on the side of those who sold the American people out.You report to us the factual ones, please. You know, the kind with an actual letter, video, or audio to back up the claim.There was an actual shooting – against a Republican office. Wonder who did that?There was a recording against Stupak – before he caved. Turned out it was a "pro-choicer" who was upset that Bart was holding out for the life of a baby.Please keep your standards high and report the facts, not repeat the rumors. That is unbecoming.
Many Universities in the US would not have her speak either. Free speech should be free right? Have Coulter come and speak at the student centers for free on her own time and dime, see how much she cares about "free" speech.Come on this is about one thing, it always is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Actually, Churchill made his own bed and got the rewards for being a hate monger towards his own people. It wasn't that the right was saying he shouldn't be rewarded and that what he said was treasonous. Yes, there was anger at what he said. Much of that anger was due to the apparent double standard the media and left wing displays towards people like Churchill.
dear anon 6:41,i also wonder who did that "actual shooting against a republican office," because it was in fact just a stray bullet that had been shot randomly into the air and happened to come down through a window in a campaign office of eric cantor, 2nd ranking republican in the house. we all make mistakes, but this development in the story has been out since yesterday afternoon. so please save the sanctimony until you get your own facts straight.otherwise, there have in fact been lots of documented threats against democratic congressmen and -women. anthony wiener received a letter with white powder (which thankfully appears to be harmless) telling him to "drop dead." jim clybourn and bart stupak have received faxes with images of nooses. louise slaughter had a brick thrown through her office window. tom perriello's brother had a propane line cut at his house after a website incorrectly posted his home address in place of the congressman's. gabrielle giffords had the glass front door at one of her offices smashed. and unfortunately that's not even all of it.
"There was an actual shooting – against a Republican office. Wonder who did that?"Ummm. Not who you think.Twas a case of "Throw your guns in the air, and buck-buck like you don't care."The police report said a conference room window in Eric Cantor's was hit by a bullet in the middle of the night, and after tracing the trajectory and the impact (bullet didn't get past the shades), concluded somebody had fired a random shot into the air and it randomly hit that building. Authorities perceive no foul intent, or intent of any kind. Just good, random gun fun.Nice try at false equivalence, though.http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/state_regional/article/bullet_that_hit_cantor_office_was_randomly_fired/19378/
Harold,The left condemned Churchill, too. And the media absolutely barbecued him.Find me one mainstream clip defending the content of what he said.Bottom line: Ann Coulter has the right to say any stupid thing the right wing publishers pay her to say.And Canadians have the right to shout her down and call her a horsey-faced harpie. Or is that a harpy-faced horsie?
These incidents and this blog are just more press exposure for Coulter. People love controversy. Even in Canada. Coulter has said some things that make me have to ignore the rest of what she says.
Coulter should have been allowed to speak. It would have been interesting to see if she would have been prosecuted for hate speech.
(Sorry for the last delete, my post contained a typo)I'm with Paul, actually. Coulter tries her very best to be provocative. Controversy (spontaneous or self-generated) serves her very well indeed.The conversation should be much less about "but did you hear what she said?!", much less about "did you see what those students did?!" and much more about the higher principles in question.It seems to me various laws and policies in Canada try to have it both ways: theoretical support for free speech, alongside recent well-intended (but poorly thought-out) efforts to ban "hate speech".BTW Coulter says she is going to file a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, claiming she has been the victim of hate speech. An amusing notion, considering many conservatives (and even some liberals) oppose the existence of said Tribunal in the first place.(This Tribunal is quite worthy of discussion on its own as a representative off-shoot of the question of Free Speech in this country.)'Be free' verses 'be nice'. Such a Canadian quandary!Students get a good dose of this very mixed message, and it shows. Listen to the righteousness with which they defend shouting down an unwelcome speaker.As Dan Gardner said, that was a clash of 'true believers', indeed!Or…were student protesters simply expressing their right to free assembly and free speech? (That's a counter argument being floated now.)Freedom of expression is protected as a fundamental freedom in Canada. BUT that right is subject to "reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society".There's a lot of room for argument in that stipulation.This isn't the first such incident at institutions of higher learning here, either. In another controversial case, Pro-Palestinian activists at Concordia University were successful in preventing former Israeli Prim Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from speaking at that campus in 2002.I am biased. I believe the price for the right to speak your mind is that other sides get to sound off too.As soon as some politically correct litmus test is applied, everyone loses.It's crucial to protect the freedom to be right, wrong or idiotic, as all idea are filtered through the eyes of a different beholder.
Yikes!I think I'll crawl in to bed and cover my head until sanity returns.
Hermit Thrush:You provided links to a propane line cut whose cause has not yet been determined. (right wing rumored)You provided a link to a broken window without known cause (right wing rumor)You provided a link to a fax of a noose (oh my)What you forgot is that the real violence occurs when an abortion occurs, and a baby's life is taken.Obama's executive order isn't worth the paper it's written on. It does not trump statue.Faxes, windows, propane lines, recordings didn't kill anyone. Abortions do.
Radio program- I don't recall much MSM frying of Churchill. I do recall several noted media liberals poo-pooing anyone who said he should be held accountable.