Thank you, Madam Chair. It's interesting that you say “expression”.
Being an old guy, I remember how in grade 12 I would have been kicked out of school if I didn't shave and if my hair touched my collar. When you talk about freedom of expression, I would have been denied an education if I didn't shave or cut my hair. Not too long before that, girls weren't allowed to wear pants in school as an expression.
You're very right, Madam Chair, that expression can come in very different ways. Sometimes we forget history in the sense of what rules we can effect for expression.
It's World Teachers' Day. I am a former high school teacher and university instructor, and one of the challenges I always presented to students was expressing opinions, and a wide range of opinions, to get students at secondary and public school and university to feel free enough to express whatever opinions they would like in a setting in which they should be free to do that.
I was in university in the States in the riot and revolution times in the late 1960s when universities got burned down and cities got burned down. I was in those places. I was in Detroit when it burned. I was at San Francisco State University when it burned.
If you haven't lived where violence becomes extreme, then be careful what you're saying about what you know. Freedom of expression is critical. It needs to be respected, but when people feel they are living in a society where they can't express their opinions, then we have moved in the wrong direction. We all understand legally why you can't yell “fire” in a theatre. We know that in a public space. Anyone who has been through legal training knows what freedom of speech is allowed and not allowed, whether you're sued for libel or whether you're disrupting the peace.
Freedom of expression is critical in a democracy. My youngest grandchild is taking political science in university. We've corresponded a lot in the last month about questions she has asked. She asked about democracy in her last assignment.
I said that we, as a representative democracy, try to represent our people in our constituencies. Our constituencies are varied. The city I live in is a small one, but per population it is the most ethnically diverse one in Canada. That's for economic reasons: The largest meat-packing plant in Canada is right beside my community. We have over 100 different nations represented in our community. It's a very lively, very culturally diverse community, and that is really a good thing.
There is freedom of speech on our city council, on our school board. We have different races on our school board and on our councils representing our community. Freedom of speech is critical to that happening.
When I see things like Bill C-11 and when I see things like the announcement this week, those things bother me because that's the kind of thing I encouraged in a university classroom, the kind of thing I encouraged in high school classrooms, to get young people to think, to express their opinions and to be varied in their opinions.
Sure—do research. Attempt to do all the research you can and find it, but there were over 100 Christian churches burned in the last couple of years in Canada. There were well over that. It's been well documented. I'm not saying it's something concerning my religion or background, but you have to make sure you're talking about both sides of the issues.
This is a place where we need to express our opinions in this setting. If we're a representative democracy we can express a variety of opinions, as my friend Mr. Julian does, I do and several others on the committee have done for years. We need to do that in these committees. This is what freedom of speech is about. We're a representative democracy. We need to protect freedom of speech and protect it at all ends.
I've seen situations in which it has not been protected. Those are pretty brutal and they destroy our society. We need to protect freedom of speech.
Thank you, Madam Chair.