Darts and Laurels 2004
Each year, the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council draws up a report card that evaluates the current climate affecting intellectual freedom in Canada. In 2004, on the eve of Canada's twentieth annual Freedom to Read Week, the committee presents its latest darts and laurels.
To Canada's National Librarian Roch Carrier for his tireless campaign to get provincial and territorial governments to provide proper funding and professional staffing for school libraries in every part of the country.
To the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for raiding the home of Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill on January 21, 2004. O'Neill had reported on the federal government's role in the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was deported to Syria by U.S. authorities in 2002 and jailed by the Syrian government for 10 months without charge. The RCMP confiscated O'Neill's computer and boxes of files to discover the name of the Canadian official who had leaked information about Arar to O'Neill. The raid undermined a cornerstone of a free and independent press by threatening the confidential relationship between a journalist and her source.
To Canadian authors June Callwood, the late Timothy Findley, Margaret Atwood and scores of other writers, booksellers, librarians, and educators who have stood firm in their support of Freedom to Read Week for the last 20 years. Most continue to do so.
To the Ontario Attorney General's office and the Ontario Provincial Police for seizing a computer and professional papers belonging to Marsha Boulton, the author who lives with Stephen Williams. Boulton's property remains in police hands despite not having been charged with violating any court-ordered publication ban. In a CBC interview aired on February 11, 2004, Boulton said the police were treating her like "a chattel" of Williams, preventing her from working on a novel (originally slated for publication in late 2003) and making it impossible for her to earn a living as a writer.
To PEN Canada for aiding foreign-born writers who have found refuge from political persecution in Canada. PEN Canada, through its Writers in Exile Network and its Writers at Risk Abroad Project, reminds us that Canada is a safer place for those who wish to think their own thoughts, write them down, and read what they want.
To the Ontario Provincial Police for carrying out a morning raid on July 18, 2003, on the rural home of writers Stephen Williams and Marsha Boulton. The OPP confiscated the couple's computers, files, and other materials before laying 95 new charges against Williams for allegedly violating a court-ordered publication ban of 1995. Williams, a true-crime author, has published two books about sex murderers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka; the books are critical of the Ontario authorities' investigation of the killings in the early 1990s. Williams' lawyer Edward Greenspan said that he had never seen anyone charged with so many offences in his career.
To James Chamberlain, a primary schoolteacher in Surrey, B.C., for winning the Canadian Library Association's annual Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada. Throughout 1997-2003, despite strong opposition from his school board, Chamberlain pushed for the use in kindergarten and Grade 1 classes of three fictional children's books that depict same-sex families. In presenting the award, the CLA noted Chamberlain's "principled courage and tenacity in the face of overwhelming opposition and political intolerance."
To the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency for its aggressive persistence in opening and detaining shipments of books and other materials imported by Canadian gay and lesbian bookstores at the Canada-U.S. border. In 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the CCRA's authority to inspect and seize "sexually obscene" materials but criticized the federal agency for singling out materials with homosexual themes imported by gay and lesbian booksellers.
To Women's Press of Toronto for reprinting Rosamund Elwin's Asha's Mums. The children's picture book, which depicts a child living with same-sex parents, was one of three books banned for six years from kindergarten and Grade 1 classes by a public school board in Surrey, B.C.
To Canada's federal politicians for proposing to eliminate several legal defences, including the "artistic merit" defence, from Canada's Child Pornography Act. These defences help protect serious writers and artists who deal with sensitive sexual themes from being wrongly convicted of producing child pornography. The proposed amendment to the Child Pornography Act, dubbed Bill C-20 during the legislative session that ended in late 2003, could still be passed by Parliament before the federal election of 2004.
To Dr. Diane Ravitch, a noted U.S. educational expert, for publishing The Language Police in 2003. The book argues that educational publishers in the U.S. produce boring textbooks for students because the publishers apply absurd writing guidelines that screen out controversial or stimulating themes, images, and language.
To the Surrey School Board of B.C. for continuing to bar the use in its classrooms of three picture books — Asha's Mums, Belinda's Bouquet, and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads — that portray same-sex families. In June 2003, Surrey's public school trustees approved the use of other books that portray same-sex families. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada urged the school board to emphasize, in selecting materials for schools, "tolerance and inclusion, and . . . [an] understanding of all family groups."
To Peter Carver, who is retiring after 20 years of researching and writing the Book and Periodical Council's Freedom to Read Kit. The annual booklet monitors threats to intellectual freedom in Canada's book and magazine industry.
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 2004 Freedom to Read Kit.
See also: Darts and Laurels 2003
