Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists Blog
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April 29th, 2006
Orwellian actions Calgary -- Re The Right Not To Be Offended by Margaret Wente (April 13): Marie Ridelle of the Alberta government tells Margaret Wente that Alberta's human-rights commission intends to ask me some "hard questions" about why the Western Standard magazine published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.
What could those hard questions be? Do we think we have the right to publish the cartoons? That's not hard. Section 2(b) of the Charter guarantees us that right. Can we justify our decision to publish them? That's not a hard one, either: We have exhaustively justified our decision to our magazine's readers and to the public at large, including to Globe and Mail reporters. But we will not justify ourselves to a government inspector.
The real issue is how this matter has been transformed from one of editorial taste -- where reasonable people can disagree about our views -- to one of government censorship, where our very right to publish is now under attack.
The government commission pursuing us has at its disposal vast coercive powers including, for example, the right to enter our magazine's offices and seize documents. I must now attend an Orwellian "reconciliation meeting" where a government official will try to convince me to see the error of my views and "compromise" my thinking.
If I fail to attend this re-education meeting, I may face sterner consequences. The commission may investigate us, fine us, and order us to issue a public apology and renounce our beliefs. Not even convicted murderers can be ordered to apologize for their crimes. But a forced, public self-denunciation is in fact the only remedy the complaint against us seeks.
And if we fail to comply with such an apology order, we can be held in civil contempt -- which could mean more fines and potentially even jail time and my disbarment as a lawyer.
I'm sure Canada's liberal defenders of press freedom, diversity of opinion, secularism and the separation of mosque and state will be along any moment now.
- EZRA LEVANT (in the Globe & Mail 14/04/06)
_________________________________________________________ Ezra Levant in the Israpundit _________________________________________________________ Comments: Brian and Pat make good points. I'm also in favour of offering our public support to the Western Standard -- especially since this so-called human rights complaint appears little more than an politically-correct attempt to shut the magazine up. This is something all cartoonists should be concerned with since the very same tactic could be used against any one of us.
However, I don't think our dirt-poor association should be offering financial support. Our moral support is enough.
- Malcolm Mayes (Edmonton Journal) _________________________________________________________
Comments: I am against sending money to the Western Standard. Ezra Levant did not
run the cartoons to further the cause of freedom of speech. He did it
for the publicity, and it backfired. - Patrick LaMontagne (Banff) _________________________________________________________ My humble opinion...
I don't think they the Western Standard did anything noble by reprinting cartoons which had already caused enough of an uproar for two weeks before. The point was made, but it wasn't made by the Western Standard, the source was the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. It became clear that the widespread violent overreaction of protesting muslims actually validated the message in some of the Danish cartoons.
For us cartoonists freedom of the press includes freedom for an editor not to publish certain expressions he doesn't like. We've all worked at our jobs long enough to know what our boundaries are. We grudgingly accept the role of an editor to spike a cartoon if he thinks we've overstepped our boundary. Why is Ezra Levant's decision to reprint the cartoons something we need to rally behind? Maybe he and the Western Standard needed the sort of filter we answer to on daily basis.
Ezra Levant had nothing to lose by reprinting the cartoons. It was less an issue of standing up for freedom of expression than it was pushing his right of centre, pro-Israel, goad-the-muslims stance that was really at play in reproducing the cartoons. If we're going to defend anyone, defend Jyllands-Posten, not some copycat editor.
***************************************** Comments: I’d be in favour of sending a cheque to the Western Standard
. - Pascal Elie _________________________________________________________ As odious to me as Ezra Levant and his stick-your-finger-in-your-eye
tabloid is, I regretfully acknowledge our need for a collective stance
of support from our association. - Pat Corrigan (Toronto Star) _________________________________________________________ I'm in favour of using our huge financial
clout to help the Western Standard with legal fees.
- Gareth Lind ***************************************** Danish cartoon crisis comes to Canada This is an email sent to Michael de Adder, the president of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists, from Brian Gable (cartoonist for the Globe & Mail) outlining a concern for our association in relation to the Danish cartoon crisis and a Human Rights complaint in Canada. This email is reprinted here to spark debate within the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists. Michael de Adder (The Halifax Daily News),
You've probably noticed the Western Standard is currently fund raising
to pay legal fees for a Human Rights hearing launched against them in
relation to their running the infamous Mohammed editorial cartoons.
Brian Gable (Globe & Mail)
***************************************** Read Brian Gable's column on the cartoon crisis *****************************************
***************************************** Danish cartoons: Western Standard: Western Standard Legal Defence Fund Legal PDFs: Read the lawsuit against the Western Standard (PDF)
Related news items:
The caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad: Expression, Freedom, or Islamophobia?
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