» Resources » Timeline: 40 Years of Free Expression in Canada

Timeline: 40 Years of Free Expression in Canada

Feb. 18–24, 2024

Freedom to Read Week celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Sept. 13, 2023

Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s minister of education, orders a halt to the purge of older books in public school libraries throughout the Regional Municipality of Peel. “It is offensive, illogical and counterintuitive to remove books from years past that educate students on Canada’s history, anti-Semitism or celebrated literary classics,” he says in a statement.

May 23, 2023

In Manitoba, school trustees of the Brandon School Division vote 6–1 to reject a proposal to create a committee of trustees and parents to review and ban books that focus on sexual minorities and sexual health. Hundreds of people attend the public meeting.

Apr.–Sept. 2023

In Ontario, administrators in the Peel District School Board – which is responsible for 259 public schools in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon – order teachers and librarians to remove innumerable books from school libraries. The administrators seek to “promote anti-racism, inclusivity, and critical consciousness” and to remove “any harmful, oppressive, or colonial content from collections.”

Feb. 22, 2023

In Chilliwack, B.C., an RCMP investigation concludes that books about sexual minorities in local public schools do not meet the legal definition of child pornography. Action4Canada, a citizens’ group, had claimed that the books depicted child pornography and had demanded their removal from schools.

Feb. 18, 2022

In Vancouver, two student journalists—Spencer Izen and Jessica Kim at Eric Hamber Secondary School—send a student press-freedom bill to David Eby, B.C.’s attorney general. They hope the legislature will enact the bill to stop school authorities from censoring the student press.

Oct. 29, 2021

The Supreme Court of Canada rules on Ward v. Quebec (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse). In a 5–1 decision, the court rules that Mike Ward, a comedian, did not breach the limits of free speech in his stage act when he repeatedly mocked Jérémy Gabriel, a young singer with disabilities.

Oct. 2021

In Ontario, the Waterloo Region District School Board begins a two- to three-year review of its libraries to identify and remove any texts deemed “harmful to staff and students.” The review will affect 121 school libraries in seven municipalities, including Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. The review also raises fears of censorship.

July 20, 2021

In the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Justice Douglas Thompson rules against the RCMP’s attempts to limit journalists’ access to Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island. Fairy Creek is the site of a months-long dispute between Teal Cedar Products, a logging company, and Indigenous and environmental activists.

Mar. 2, 2021

In California, Dr. Seuss Enterprises declares that six of Dr. Seuss’s children’s books portray racial minorities in ways that are “hurtful and wrong.” They include McElligot’s Pool (1947) and If I Ran the Zoo (1950). On the same day, public and Roman Catholic schools in Ontario’s Hamilton-Wentworth region begin removing all six titles. Three days later, Thunder Bay Public Library follows suit.

Sept. 24, 2020

Superior Court of Quebec Justice Marc-André Blanchard acquits Yvan Godbout, the author of Hansel et Gretel, a horror novel that briefly depicts the rape of a child, of producing child pornography. Blanchard also acquits Godbout’s publisher François Doucet, the founder and owner of Éditions AdA, of distributing child pornography. But Godbout and Doucet suffer damage to their reputations for years.

June 30, 2020

Justin Brake, a reporter who works for The Independent, learns in provincial court in Newfoundland and Labrador that the Crown will not try to convict him for criminal mischief. Brake no longer faces any charges – he had faced three – for following an Inuit and Innu protest onto the construction site of a hydroelectric dam at Muskrat Falls in Labrador in 2016.

May 15, 2020

Writing Home, a documentary by Holly Moore and Brittany Guyot, airs on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. The documentary reveals that Canada’s Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources secretly monitored and sometimes withheld the private letters of Inuit who were being treated for tuberculosis in southern Canada in the 1950s and 1960s.

Jan. 2020

In Quebec, the Grande Bibliothèque in Montréal and the Gatineau Municipal Library withdraw the works of Gabriel Matzneff from their shelves. The award-winning author and resident of France had admitted to having had sex with youngsters.

Oct. 29, 2019

Meghan Murphy, a writer and the founder of Feminist Current, speaks to an audience about gender identity politics inside a branch of the Toronto Public Library. Outside, hundreds of people – including members of sexual minorities – denounce Murphy for her views. An earlier attempt to get the library to cancel the event fails.

Sept. 27, 2019

The Supreme Court of Canada rules on Denis v. Côté. The justices toss an order that required Marie-Maude Denis, a reporter who works for Radio-Canada’s Enquête, to reveal the names of people who gave her information about the case of Marc-Yvan Côté, a former provincial Liberal minister in Quebec charged with bribery and fraud. Journalists hail the decision as a victory for a free news media.

Aug. 2019

Judge Richard Blouin of the Ontario Court of Justice sentences LeRoy St. Germaine and James Sears for the crime of promoting hatred against Jews and women in the pages of Your Ward News. On August 22, Sears, the paper’s editor, receives a sentence of one year in jail. On August 29, St. Germaine, the publisher, is sentenced to one year of strict house arrest.

2019

Freedom to Read Week celebrates its 35th anniversary.

Jan. 10, 2019

Meghan Murphy, a writer and the founder of Feminist Current, speaks to an audience about gender identity ideology and women’s rights at the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Transgender activists who dislike Murphy’s views try but fail to get the library to cancel the event.

2019

In Ontario, a school board – the Conseil scolaire catholique Providence – orders the removal of books about Indigenous people from libraries in 30 schools. The board believes the books are outdated and stereotypical. School employees remove more than 4,700 books and burn 30 books in a “flame purification” ceremony to symbolize reconciliation between Canadians and the Indigenous population of Canada.

Dec. 13, 2018

In Ottawa, Bill C-51 receives royal assent. The law abolishes the 126-year-old ban on publishing blasphemous libel and the 69-year-old ban on publishing, printing, distributing or possessing crime comics.

Nov. 30, 2018

In R. v. Vice Media Canada Inc., the Supreme Court of Canada upholds a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal and orders reporter Ben Makuch to surrender copies of his communications with Farah Mohamed Shirdon, a suspected terrorist, to the RCMP.

May 3, 2018

The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom honours Justin Brake with a Press Freedom Award. Brake, who reported Innu and Inuit protests at the construction site of a hydroelectric dam in Labrador in 2016, faces resulting charges of disobeying a court order, mischief and contempt of court.

Oct. 18, 2017

In Ottawa, the Journalistic Sources Protection Act receives royal assent. The federal law seeks to provide greater protection for reporters’ confidential sources of information.

Mar. 13, 2017

In the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Roy Arthur Topham of Quesnel receives his sentence for wilfully promoting hatred against Jews. Justice Bruce Butler orders the permanent removal of Topham’s website, RadicalPress.com, from the Internet.

May 19, 2016

British Columbia’s Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act receives royal assent. The law seeks to prevent convicted criminals from making money by recounting their crimes in books and other media. B.C. becomes the sixth province to enact such a law.

Jan. 22, 2016

Ontario Court Judge Brent Knazan rules that Gregory Alan Elliott is not guilty of criminally harassing two feminists—Stephanie Guthrie and Heather Reilly—on Twitter.

Oct. 19, 2015

Canadians elect a Liberal government. Justin Trudeau becomes prime minister.

Oct. 13–16, 2015

The 81st Congress of PEN International meets in the city of Québec. PEN International releases a briefing paper, Free Expression in Canada, that describes threats to free expression and access to information.

June 18, 2015

In Ottawa, the Anti-terrorism Act receives royal assent. The law criminalizes, among other things, the promotion of terrorism and terrorist propaganda. Critics say that the law will inhibit some expression and dissent.

Mar. 9, 2015

The federal government’s Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act comes into effect. The law seeks to curtail bullying, harassment and the non-consensual circulation of sexually intimate images on the Internet.

Jan. 11, 2015

Samara Koning petitions the Canada Council for the Arts to revoke a Governor General’s Literary Award. She finds Raziel Reid’s When Everything Feels Like the Movies “offensive and graphic.” The petition attracts 1,966 supporters, but Reid keeps his award.

Nov. 2014

In Langley, B.C., the Langley Teachers’ Association, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the staff of an elementary school meet to discuss censorship. School authorities had removed thousands of books that did not match the students’ presumed reading abilities from a school library.

Oct. 8, 2014

Evidence for Democracy, a non-profit organization, releases Can Scientists Speak? The report, written by Katie Gibbs and Karen Magnuson-Ford, says that scientists who work for the Canadian government may not freely speak or publish about their work.

June 26, 2013

In Ottawa, Conservative MP Brian Storseth’s amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act receives royal assent. The amendment abolishes a ban on the repeated transmission of hateful messages on the Internet.

Feb. 27, 2013

In Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds most of section 14 of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code, which bans the distribution of hate literature.

Dec. 22, 2012

A Montréal jury declares that Rémy Couture is not guilty of corrupting morals. Couture, a special-effects artist, had displayed realistic but fictional images of rape, torture and murder on the Internet.

Nov. 9, 2012

Julien Fréchette’s Le prix des mots (Silence Is Gold) premieres at a film festival in Montréal. The documentary examines the costly libel dispute between two Canadian mining companies and a book publisher in Quebec.

Oct. 17, 2012

The Alberta Court of Appeal rules on Lund v. Boissoin. The court upholds the expression rights of Stephen Boissoin, the Christian author of an anti-gay letter that appeared in the Red Deer Advocate in 2002.

Oct. 19, 2011

In Crookes v. Newton, the Supreme Court of Canada rules unanimously that hyperlinking to libellous sites on the Internet – but not repeating the libels – is permissible.

Mar. 31, 2011

On the Poundmaker Cree reserve in Saskatchewan, actors defy a band council’s ban and perform Deanne Kasokeo’s adaptation of Antigone. The play portrays a corrupt chief.

Oct. 22, 2010

In Globe and Mail v. Canada (Attorney General), the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rules that reporters may keep their sources’ names secret when reporters can show that maintaining secrecy is in the public interest.

May 7, 2010

In R. v. National Post, the Supreme Court of Canada rules that reporters have no constitutional right to keep their sources secret. The judges rule 8–1 against the newspaper, which sought to prevent the RCMP from examining a confidential, but possibly forged, document.

Mar. 15, 2010

In Regina, convicted murderer Colin Thatcher loses his right to profit from sales of his memoir. Justice Ted Zarzeczny of the Court of Queen’s Bench rules that Final Appeal: Anatomy of a Frame violates Saskatchewan’s Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act.

Dec. 22, 2009

The Supreme Court of Canada rules in the defendants’ favour on two libel disputes, Grant v. Torstar Corp. and Quan v. Cusson, creating a new defence against libel charges: public interest responsible communication.

Oct. 10, 2008

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal rules on a dispute between Maclean’s magazine and the Canadian Islamic Congress. The tribunal says that an article about Islam by Mark Steyn in the October 23, 2006, issue of the newsmagazine does not expose Muslims to hatred or contempt.

Aug. 1, 2008

The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission dismisses a complaint filed by Muslims against Ezra Levant, former publisher of the Western Standard. The commission decides that the February 14, 2006, issue of the newsmagazine—which features eight Danish cartoons of Mohammed—does not incite hatred against Muslims.

June 27, 2008

In WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson, the Supreme Court of Canada entrenches and expands the legal defence of “fair comment” in libel cases. The court dismisses a libel suit against Rafe Mair, a radio host who had described a conservative anti-gay activist in British Columbia as a bigot in 1999.

Dec. 18, 2007

In Ontario, the Halton Catholic District School Board votes to ban Philip Pullman’s fantasy novels – The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass – from its schools. The board objects to “atheist” themes in the books.

Jan. 19, 2007

In Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada denies public money to the bookstore to fund its latest lawsuit against Canada Customs, saying that the bookstore’s challenge to government censorship lacks enough public importance to merit the awarding of advance funds.

Nov. 3, 2006

Federal Justice Minister Vic Toews announces he will not appeal Justice Lynn Ratushny’s decision of October 19, which freed Juliet O’Neill from the threat of criminal prosecution for having received information from a government source to write a newspaper story about the Maher Arar affair.

Oct. 19, 2006

Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny strikes down sections of the Security of Information Act that prohibit the receipt or communication of secret information without government authorization. Ratushny then quashes the warrants used by the RCMP to search the office and home of Juliet O’Neill in 2004.

Apr. 13, 2006

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal rules that Hugh Owens – an evangelical Christian – did not violate the province’s human rights code when he cited four anti-gay Biblical verses in an ad in Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix newspaper in 1997.

Feb. 8, 2006

In Ontario, the Canadian Jewish Congress objects to the inclusion of Deborah Ellis’s Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak in a voluntary reading program for grades 4–6 in public schools. The CJC fears the effect of the book on youthful minds. By mid-March, at least five school boards restrict student access to it.

Feb. 2006

Canadians debate whether reprinting 12 Danish cartoons of Mohammed – which are inspiring Muslim riots overseas – is principled or legal. Most Canadian news agencies refrain from reprinting the cartoons to avoid offending Muslims. Peaceful Muslim demonstrations against the cartoons occur in Halifax, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Jan. 23, 2006

Canadians elect a Conservative government. Stephen Harper becomes prime minister.

July 21, 2005

In Ottawa, Bill C-2 receives royal assent. The Liberal bill amends the legal ban on child pornography.

Jan. 14, 2005

In Toronto, Stephen Williams’s lawyer and the Crown’s lawyer negotiate a plea bargain. Williams pleads guilty to one charge of breaching a court order by publishing the names of Paul Bernardo’s sexual assault victims on a website. He receives a suspended sentence.

Jan. 21, 2004

In Ottawa, the RCMP raids the home and office of Juliet O’Neill, a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, searching for the name of the federal government employee who leaked classified information about the Maher Arar affair to O’Neill in 2003. O’Neill faces criminal prosecution for having received the information.

July 11, 2003

Zahra Kazemi dies in Tehran after being brutalized in an Iranian prison.

June 23, 2003

Photojournalist Zahra Kazemi – an Iranian-born Canadian citizen – is arrested in Tehran for taking pictures of a student protest outside Evin prison.

2003

After Stephen Williams publishes a new book about Karla Homolka and creates a website devoted to her and Paul Bernardo’s crimes, authorities in Ontario resume their prosecution of Williams. Police arrest Williams in May. In July, police raid the home of Williams and Marsha Boulton in Mount Forest and confiscate both writers’ work. Williams faces 97 criminal charges related to publishing information covered by a court-ordered publication ban.

Dec. 20, 2002

In Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, the Supreme Court of Canada declares that public school trustees in Surrey, B.C., erred by banning children’s storybooks about homosexual parents from the elementary grades. The justices say B.C.’s School Act requires public schools to promote tolerance and respect diversity.

May 30, 2002

In Nova Scotia, the Tri-County District School Board rejects a call from Black citizens to remove three novels from classrooms because the books – In the Heat of the Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Underground to Canada – contain the word nigger. But the board agrees to train teachers to teach the novels with sensitivity to students.

Feb. 26, 2002

Bowing to pressure from writers and librarians, Mayor Yves Ducharme of Gatineau abolishes a six-month-old policy that discourages people from reading adult comic books in Hull’s public libraries. Librarians move 180 comic books from a closed room at the main library back onto the open shelves.

June 2001

Canada Customs resumes censoring publications imported by Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium in Vancouver.

Jan. 26, 2001

In R. v. Sharpe, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds the law that criminalizes possession of child pornography. The decision requires John Robin Sharpe – a retired town planner in Vancouver – to stand trial again for the crime.

Dec. 15, 2000

In Little Sisters  Book and Art Emporium v. Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada declares that Canada Customs acted wrongly by routinely seizing, turning back and destroying imported books and magazines with homosexual themes. But the justices uphold the constitutionality of government censorship of “sexually obscene” publications.

Nov. 30, 2000

In a Toronto courtroom, Crown lawyers abandon their first attempt to prosecute Stephen Williams, the author of Invisible Darkness: The Horrifying Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The Crown alleges that Williams, while researching his book, violated a court order by viewing the murderers’ videotapes of their crimes. The Crown breaks off its prosecution to avoid replaying the videotapes in court.

Sept. 13, 2000

Michel Auger – one of Quebec’s top crime reporters – is shot six times while standing in the parking lot of Le Journal de Montréal. He survives the attack, but the would-be assassin escapes.

May 17, 1999

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announces its decision not to regulate the Internet. Government regulation would hurt the competitiveness of Canada’s Internet industries, says Françoise Bertrand, chair of the commission.

Feb. 3, 1999

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal fines Doug Collins $2,000 for writing negatively about Jews in four opinion columns in 1994 in the North Shore News, a newspaper published in North and West Vancouver. The elderly Collins dies (in 2001) before a court can hear an appeal.

1999

Alan Borovoy publishes The New Anti-Liberals, which examines the increased support for censorship among left-wing activists and thinkers in Canada.

Nov. 18, 1998

In Surrey, B.C., Tara Singh Hayer – the Sikh publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times and a critic of sectarian violence – is shot to death at his home by an unknown assailant.

May 1997

In Winnipeg, municipal police order librarians to pull copies of Nancy Friday’s Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies from the shelves. In British Columbia, the RCMP demands the book from librarians in Merritt and Sparwood. Police initially suspect the book is criminally obscene but lay no charges.

May 10, 1996

In Toronto, Pat Findlay and Marty McKay fail in their decade-long attempt to rid variety stores of men’s sex magazines such as Penthouse and Hustler when Chief Commissioner Rosemary Brown of the Ontario Human Rights Commission decides not to refer the issue to a board of inquiry.

Feb. 25, 1996

In Quebec, the first French version of Freedom to Read Week – Semaine de la liberté de lire – occurs.

Apr. 20, 1995

In a Toronto courtroom, Justice David McCombs rules on the Eli Langer case. Langer is the first artist to have his work confiscated for violating the newly amended ban on child pornography. McCombs says that Langer’s oil paintings and pencil sketches of nude children and adults show artistic merit and pose no realistic risk of harm to children. He releases the art to the artist.

Mar. 1, 1994

During Freedom to Read Week, in Alberta’s legislature, Victor Doerksen calls for the removal of books that feature profane or anti-Christian language from Alberta’s public schools. Doerksen says John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is particularly offensive.

Oct. 25, 1993

Canadians elect a Liberal government. Jean Chrétien becomes prime minister.

July 5, 1993

In St. Catharines, Ontario, Justice Francis Kovacs orders a publication ban at the trial of Karla Homolka, the wife of Paul Bernardo. The ban prompts Canadians to seek information about the sensational murder trial in U.S. news media and on the Internet.

June 1993

The House of Commons and the Senate pass a Progressive Conservative bill to amend the ban on child pornography. The new law criminalizes depictions of people under the age of 18 engaged in explicit sexual activity.

Aug. 27, 1992

In R. v. Zundel, the Supreme Court of Canada strikes down a ban on spreading false news, saying that the vaguely worded law jeopardizes free expression rights. Ernst Zündel, a Nazi propagandist who had been convicted in Ontario under the law, goes free.

Mar. 16, 1992

In the House of Commons, Pierrette Venne of the Bloc Québécois attacks Mordecai Richler for writing Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! She accuses Richler of calling Quebecers “a mean-spirited racist tribe” and demands to know whether the government will ban his book as hate propaganda. The government ignores her.

Feb. 27, 1992

In R. v. Butler, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds the ban on sexually obscene publications. Censoring violent and degrading pornography is necessary to ensure the equality rights of women and is a justifiable limit on free expression rights, the justices say.A111:A112

Sept. 1991

In Manning, Alberta, 30 angry parents enter Rosary Catholic School, forcibly detain the principal and demand the removal of Impressions. The parents say that the fairy tales and poems in Holt Rinehart’s language arts series convey morbid, Satanic themes. The school removes the books.

Dec. 13, 1990

: In R. v. Keegstra and three similar cases, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds the ban on hate propaganda, saying that although the ban infringes the Charter right to free expression, it is justified by the wider goal of defending democracy and racial tolerance.

June 7, 1990

In Vancouver, Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium files a lawsuit in B.C.’s Supreme Court against Canada Customs, seeking to prevent it from censoring imported homosexual publications.

Nov. 3, 1989

Following a six-month police investigation into John Philippe Rushton’s research on race, Attorney General Ian Scott of Ontario announces that insufficient evidence exists to justify charging the professor with spreading false news or wilfully promoting hatred.

Feb. 17–19, 1989

During Freedom to Read Week, Canada Customs seizes copies of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Officials decide the novel isn’t anti-Muslim hate propaganda and release it to the importer.

Jan. 19, 1989

John Philippe Rushton, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, summarizes his research on racial differences at a scientific convention in San Francisco. Anti-racist activists in Canada subsequently demand Rushton’s dismissal from his job.

May 4, 1987

Justice Minister Ramon Hnatyshyn introduces Bill C-54 to broaden the legal ban on pornography. Opposition from artists, librarians, women’s groups and others eventually kills the bill.

Mar. 20, 1987

Ontario District Court Judge Bruce Hawkins rules that Canada Customs wrongly seized The Joy of Gay Sex as prohibited obscenity and allows Toronto’s Glad Day Bookshop to import the book.

June 10, 1986

Justice Minister John Crosbie introduces Bill C-114 to broaden the legal ban on pornography. Within weeks, the bill dies on the order paper.

1985

Women Against Censorship, a collection of feminist essays edited by Varda Burstyn that explores sexual imagery and censorship in Canada, is published.

Sept. 16, 1984

The first Freedom to Read Week is launched in Toronto by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Development Council.

Sept. 4, 1984

Canadians elect a Progressive Conservative government. Brian Mulroney becomes prime minister.

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