Champions of Free Expression

  • Franklin Carter in conversation with Mark Leirin Young

 

Challenges to the Written Word

Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Schools and libraries are regularly asked to remove books and magazines from their shelves. Free expression on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read.

See our Challenged Works section for the real story on censorship in Canada.

Celebrate Freedom to Read Week

February 23 – 29, 2020

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. [more…]

Download the Kit

A PDF version of the Freedom to Read Kit 2019 is now available to download!

 

30 Challenged Publications

Canadians have long tried to remove books and magazines that they deem offensive, or inappropriate for certain audiences, from public libraries and schools. Sometimes they have succeeded and sometimes they have failed. To mark Freedom to Read Week, we present 30 of their targets in recent decades. Download the poster.

 

 

Bienvenue aux francophones!

Sur le présent site, vous trouverez les documents suivants :

  • une liste d’ouvrages en français traitant de la censure canadienne;
  • une étude bilingue des documents qui n’ont pu être importés au pays ou qui ont été référés à l’Unité des importations prohibées à Ottawa parce qu’ils étaient soupçonnés de constituer de la pornographie ou de la littérature haineuse entre 1985 et 2015;
  • une chronologie, divers essais et une compilation de 643 victimes de censure, ainsi que des 1222 titres diffusés en français qui leur ont valu des attaques depuis 1625 au Canada ― l’écrivain Charles Montpetit, lui-même frappé de maintes interdictions, relate les faits saillants entourant chacun de ces cas, et invite le public à lui signaler d’autres incidents en prévision d’éventuelles mises à jour.

Bonne lecture!