Students at Dalhousie University were encouraged to put pen to wall at a Jan. 26 event aimed to promote free speech rights.
The free speech wall was sponsored by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom (JCCF), a Calgary-based organization which has played a part in organizing more than a dozen similar events since 2013.
Michael Kennedy, a spokesperson for JCCF, said he thinks university student unions should pass policies that ensure free expression rights supersede discrimination and harassment policy.
Promoting free speech is primarily about raising awareness about the difference between free speech and hate speech, according to Toby Mendel, the Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Democracy.
“There’s a difference between criticizing beliefs and ideas, and criticizing people,” he said.
Section 319 of Canada’s Criminal Code identifies hate speech as a statement that “incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace.” Anyone found guilty of hate speech may be imprisoned for up to two years.
Kennedy called the restrictions in the Criminal Code “narrow” and suggested that offense is not a legitimate reason for censorship.
“You respond to free speech with your own speech, and you criticize bad points and you praise good points . . . That’s how free speech helps facilitate change in a society,” he said.
In January 2013, a “free speech wall” at Carleton was torn down by human rights and political science student Arün Smith after comments including “abortion is murder” and “traditional marriage is awesome” were written on the wall.
Smith said he intervened to highlight the “problematic aspects” of free speech.
“Unregulated speech . . . inevitably leads to hate speech, every single time,” he said.
Smith said the speech of people in “spaces of privilege” should be limited, and said he thinks the Criminal Code has been ineffective in stopping hate speech.
“The access to speech must be . . . in inverse proportionality to oppression, because speech is a wonderfully powerful tool to fight oppression. However it is one that can also reinforce oppression,” Smith said.
Dalhousie is the first university in Atlantic Canada to host a free speech wall. Rinzin Ngodoup, a graduate student in development economics at the university, helped organize the event and said it went off without controversy.
In December, a dialogue about free speech at Dalhousie was ignited when 13 dentistry students were suspended from clinical duties following an investigation into misogynistic posts made on Facebook.
The university has since been criticized by Bruce MacIntosh, a Halifax lawyer, whose client, Ryan Millet, was suspended after he blew the whistle on the offensive group.
Mendel said the suppression of unpleasant speech by universities should be done with consideration of the impact of the speech, and of the impact of any suppressive action on the speech.
“We need a justification and the proper justification . . . is about balance,” he said.
JCCF plans to sponsor free speech walls on campuses at McGill and Concordia, and is interested in helping organize another event at Carleton, according to Kennedy.
