The right to free expression is defended through challenging legislation, protesting censorship and book seizures, as well as lending support to occasional individual cases. PEN Canada supports the efforts of Little Sister's Bookstore of Vancouver which, with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, took the Dept. of National Revenue to court to challenge book seizures by Canada Customs. The B.C. Supreme Court ruled that Canada Customs has frequently violated Charter guarantees of freedom of expression and of equality but falls short of ruling that the legislation itself is not unconstitutional. PEN Canada has called upon the Canadian government to modify the language of Bill C-128 to ensure that the fundamental principles of free speech and freedom of expression are respected. Self-censorship is the most difficult form of censorship to quantify and to defeat.
Free speech is a central tenet of a free and democratic society.
This list of links was put together by Sandra Bernstein on behalf of Periodical Writers Association of Canada and The Book and Periodical Council of Ontario. It's pretty long, and has some annotation as well. Chronicle of Freedom of Expression in Canada Also by Sandra Bernstein, this lists the main events of the history of freedom of expression in Canada from 1914 to the present, with lots of info on the last few years. Freedom to Read Week Find out what you can do to mark Freedom to Read Week , February 24 to March 2, 1997. This campaign is dedicated to intellectual freedom and to committment on the part of writers, publishers, librarians, educators and booksellers to support the rights of Canadians to choose for themselves what they read.