Alberta, Canada: “A Calgary-area mother who spoke out to CBC News over concerns about a large combined Grade 2 class at Red Deer Lake School has been handed a cease-and-desist letter by a law firm on behalf of the school board….Other parents have also received the letter and are not willing to be interviewed as a result.” [Jennifer Lee, CBC]
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….arrogant and oppressive government school bureaucrats do not exist in U.S. (??)
lawyer and lawyer letters often ignore the law
In Canada, section 2(b) of the ‘Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ protects “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”
Canada does not have an equivalent to US courts’ robust First Amendment law. To the extent free speech is protected from overweening bureaucracies, it is due to pressure from elected politicians.
The Charter of Rights does protect freedom of expression but the protection is weaker than in the US, both because of a greater willingness to allow other considerations to take precedence and because government-run universities, which are the majority, are not considered state actors. Nonetheless, I am confident that in this case the school district will be slapped down. Protection of freedom of expression is weaker in Canada when it comes to what might be considered “hate speech”, but when it comes to simple criticism of the government like this, the situation is not very different from that in the United States. So long as you don’t get into saying unkind things about protected minority groups, criticism of the government, even robust criticism, is protected in Canada and is indeed quite common.
If you follow all the restrictions on “hate speech”, “racist speech”, and the such in Canada, as well as the imposition of “inclusive” curricula on schools – even religious schools – at all levels,you quickly realize that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has very little influence.
I.e., it’s a joke. BTW, the same is being attempted here, but so far SCOTUS has been holding the line.
words on a page
As I recall, Canada was a free country, back in the day. And Canadians were polite.
Maybe the loss of one has something to do with the loss of the other?