Censorship News

 
British Columbia’s Court of Appeal Rules Against Little Sister’s
The Book and Periodical Council is dismayed that British Columbia’s Court of Appeal has ruled against Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium, a bookstore in Vancouver that specializes in gay and lesbian literature, in its dispute with Canada Customs over the seizure of imported “obscene” books and magazines.

On February 18, 2005, British Columbia’s Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that granted public funds to Little Sister’s to help defray the costs of the bookstore’s lawsuit against Canada Customs. Mr. Justice Allan Thackray declared that the lower court had erred in granting public funds to Little Sister’s because the bookstore was not poor and because the case lacked public importance.

“I am not satisfied that it is necessary for Little Sister’s to be the instrument of reform of Customs,” Mr. Justice Thackray wrote. “Further . . . it has not been established on the evidence that ‘the issues raised transcend the individual interests of the particular litigant, are of public importance, and have not been resolved in previous cases.’ Nor, in my opinion, has it been shown that the case at bar is ‘special,’ even extreme.”

The Book and Periodical Council disputes the court’s assertion that the case lacks public importance. For 15 years, Little Sister’s has been trying to stop Canada Customs from repeatedly detaining, damaging and destroying imported publications with homosexual themes. As early as 1994, in British Columbia’s Supreme Court, Little Sister’s lawyers proved that many of the publications seized by Canada Customs are not legally obscene and are freely imported by other bookstores as well. In 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada rapped Customs officials on the knuckles for their high-handed treatment of Little Sister’s.

In 2005, however, Canada Customs continues to detain thousands of “obscene” books and magazines imported by this small bookstore and other importers. Because of administrative delays and prohibitively high legal costs to importers, few of these detentions are examined in open court. Little or no public scrutiny of the federal border agency’s conduct ever occurs. This confiscation of books and magazines in secret by government officials amounts to censorship.

Since the 1990s, numerous organizations have protested to the federal government about the laws that authorize Canada Customs to detain, turn back and destroy “obscene” publications. The list of organizations includes the Book and Periodical Council, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Booksellers Association, the Canadian Publishers’ Council, the Editors’ Association of Canada, International PEN, PEN Canada, the Periodical Marketers of Canada, The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois. These organizations have demonstrated their interest in Little Sister’s Sisyphean struggle against Canada Customs and think that the issues raised in Little Sister’s lawsuit have weighty public importance.

The Book and Periodical Council believes that British Columbia’s Court of Appeal erred in thinking that no one outside Little Sister’s and Canada Customs cares about the result of this dispute. The practice of seizing books and magazines at the international border is incompatible with the right of a free people to read and think without government interference. The Book and Periodical Council hopes that Little Sister’s appeals this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada and succeeds in its legal campaign to abolish censorship at the border.