Will the Liberals restrict free speech? John Robson responds
Channel: Lee Harding
Date: 2020-12-15

Philosophically, they’re in favour of free speech provided that people say the right stuff. And if not, well then we need a law. It’s embodied in all kinds of different legislation...because it’s part of their governing philosophy. So there’s the human rights tribunals. It’s in loopholes in the charter. There’s 1000 ways in which it’s possible for the government to restrict what you say and they’re doing it in the conviction that they’re virtuous.

(Went over changes to Broadcast Act and order to Bains)

We don’t know what the backgrounds of people are. It’s just one of these bizarre statements where if you could get Navdeep Bains and give him Sodium Pentathol and say, ‘Honestly, what do you think that means? Chances are ten to one he would say, ‘I have never given it a second thought, and now that you mention it, I have no idea.’

(Streaming internet services / broadcast act)
What does that even mean? Like, does it mean that Hollywood can’t put on a movie if it doesn’t show sensitivity to the transgenders? Like they aren’t going to anyway. Is Netflix going to have a series where the hero is a conservative Christian pro-lifer? I don’t think it’s even coming up on their radar. All of these themes now have a non-traditional gender hero of some sort.

When you testified in the summer of 2019, what were you trying to ward off there?

I was trying to ward off bad thinking in principle. I thought somebody had to get in there and just restate the argument for free speech so that if anybody cared it would be on the record from a fundamental point of view. Because I think so often that we lose these battles because we decide that principles are for losers, and then we try and fight on the details and we’ve lost the hearts and minds of the populace and of the people in power before we even start. 

But there’s no point arguing the details if you don’t establish the fundamental principles. Those are the people who want to concede that man-made global warming is an imminent threat and then oppose a carbon tax. That’s all just rallying around the white flag. That’s not a strategy that’s ever going to work. 

I was extremely disheartened to see the Conservatives allow the NDP to cut the feed of it. How did you feel about it?

...spineless weasels. I wasn’t even slightly surprised. Politicians are not leaders, especially not Conservative politicians. Look at Erin O’Toole. What a jest that turned out to be—"I’m the true blue candidate.” Oh sure you are, buddy.

The main thing is that they have no courage, right. Some of them have convictions, but they don’t have any courage and without courage, convictions are no use to you. And then they’re just terrified that some Liberal, somehow will dislike them and then the Liberals just hate them anyway and despise them. And then they lose another election and just go, ‘Ah I guess we were too right-wing.’

But no that didn’t surprise me. It would have astounded me if one of them had stood up and said, ‘No, Mr. Chairman, that’s outrageous.’

Where to from here?

Again, I don’t think that the Liberals have a plan. I don’t think that they look at legislation and grasp how it works and what needs to be done, right? You got people like Maryam Monsef, Bardish Chagger, these aren’t people who understand what the civil service is telling them. The civil service probably tells them as little as possible.

Reiterate why free speech is important including this kind?

There are three reasons. The first one is that something you think is untrue might turn out to be true, right? We’ve been surprised before. Think of all the ideas that when first expressed were thought to be not just wrong, but disgusting. And you can say this to a leftist, right? Remember when people first said homosexuals should be allowed to marry. Everybody thought you must be insane. So you have to allow people to say stuff because it might turn out to be true. 
The second reason is because if an idea is false and awful, you want it exposed and refuted. You don’t want it festering in the dark. That’s the Dracula effect—the sun might destroy evil.
And the third reason is that even if something, you think something is true and then it’s challenged and debated and it turns out that it was true—once we’ve actually thought it through and stood up for it and gone through the argument, it is not just a tired slogan, it’s a living truth in our minds.
So the three reasons are 1) it might be true, 2) if it’s really bad we need to expose it and destroy it, and 3) we need to understand our own ideas and enrich them instead of just reciting them. And unless you believe that falsehood will defeat truth in a fair fight, you have nothing to fear from bad ideas.

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