Darts and Laurels 2003
Darts and Laurels is an annual "report card" presented by the Council's Freedom of Expression Committee to award darts to those who threaten and laurels to those who defend intellectual freedom in Canada.
To Canada's provincial governments for short-changing children in every part of the country by woefully underfunding school libraries. Even though there is evidence that the health of school libraries has a direct effect on student performance, every province has been steadily cutting back on book purchases and staff in school libraries for years.
To the Canadian Coalition for School Libraries and its Honorary Chairman, National Librarian Roch Carrier, for campaigning to restore school library funding in every part of Canada.
To many Canadian school boards for installing Internet filtering software on their school computer systems without consulting teachers or students. Although some Web sites do convey unpleasant and pornographic themes, Internet filters invariably block out innocent sites that provide vital information on subjects that students have a right to know about.
To Canada Customs for continuing to detain and classify as "sexually obscene" books and magazines imported by lesbian and gay bookstores. In December 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada instructed the federal agency to prove its obscenity allegations in open court.
To Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium in Vancouver for taking Canada Customs to court-again-to stop the federal agency from detaining imported gay and lesbian publications as sexually obscene.
To CanWest Global Communications for demanding that all its newspapers – including the National Post – carry identical editorials written by the corporation's head office in Winnipeg. The move prompted journalists to condemn the reduced diversity of opinion in local newspapers.
To Canadian Journalists for Free Expression for its work on behalf of endangered journalists in Canada and around the world.
To the city councilors of Hull, Quebec, who in 2001 ordered the municipal library to withdraw 180 adult comic books from its public shelves. City politicians thus breached the usual arm's-length relationship between themselves and public libraries. In 2002, the order was withdrawn after widespread public condemnation. Nonetheless, an unpleasant precedent of political interference in library policy had been set.
To James Chamberlain and his colleagues for their successful campaign to get B.C.'s Surrey School Board to accept the use of picture books depicting same-sex families in the district's primary classrooms. In December 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the school board was wrong to keep the books out of classrooms on religious grounds because the ban went against the provincial government's policy of encouraging tolerance and diversity in public schools.
To the Surrey School Board in British Columbia for resisting for five years the use of three picture books depicting same-sex parents from primary classrooms in the district.
To the American Library Association for sponsoring its annual Banned Books Week and publicizing lists of the most challenged books in the United States.
To the Tri-County School Board in southwestern Nova Scotia for rescinding an order from its director of education to ban three controversial novels about race relations from the board's schools.
To Marsha Skrypuch, Canadian children's author, who continues to write about the historical experiences of Ukrainians both in Europe and in Canada despite hate mail and death threats from individuals who would sooner she leave such themes alone.
NOTE: In conjunction with Freedom to Read Week, the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council publishes an annual Freedom to Read Kit to examine these and other issues affecting intellectual freedom. To learn more about these darts and laurels, order the 2003 Freedom to Read Kit from the Book and Periodical Council.
For their work on Freedom to Read Week, Peter Carver, Nancy Fleming, and Sarah Thring won the Canadian Library Association's Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in 2002.
