DENNIS E. CURRY: Trudeau cravenly wobbles on free speech in Frances time of need – TheChronicleHerald.ca

DENNIS E. CURRY Guest Opinion

I first wrote on Justin Trudeau nearly five years ago in relation to the federal governments proposed legislation on medical assistance in dying.

I wrote then and believe now that the Trudeau Liberals ultimately failed in writing a law in keeping with the spirit of the Supreme Courts unanimous decision. To add insult to injury, it was Trudeaus justice minister who gave flashy assurances against a Charter challenge despite many legal experts invalidating this analysis.

The MAiD situation is important in its own right but also serves as a useful case study for this Liberal government and for Trudeau and his affinity to take the path of appeasement over principle; in essence, to be a government and a leader seemingly only focused on re-election odds and perceptions.

At around the time of the MAiD ruling in 2015, the world was fixated on ISISs hijacking of Islam, and its rise in the Middle East and abroad. Several gruesome attacks on free societies in the West completed in the name of radical Islamist ideology overtook news cycles and the public conscience.

Among the hardest-hit of Western democracies in this wave of terrorism was France. Multiple attacks on roadways and theatres led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent French citizens. The massacre of cartoonists at Charlie Hebdos head offices in Paris, following their publication of unflattering caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, reignited an international debate on the extent to which freedom of expression would need to be saddled with certain limitations.

It is worth noting that Charlie Hedbo has historically taken a harsh and iconoclastic approach to its political drawings, aiming with relatively equal weight at various religions, ideologies and sacred cows.

Both Charlie Hebdo and France are back in the news following recent attacks. Last month, a schoolteacher in the Paris area was stalked and decapitated on the street after choosing to show Hebdo cartoons to students in his class on free speech.

Following this attack, French President Emmanuel Macron has been forceful in his defiance of the bullying tactics used by Islamist ideologues. The public discourse is reminiscent of past cartooning controversies in France and Denmark.

The same script with many of the same questions. Should satire in the press be championed by Western leaders? Should free societies and governments cave to the pressure of radical fundamentalists who threaten physical retribution and violence when their own sacred cows are caricatured? If so, what does this say about how free our societies are if it is simply unlawful violence that can crumble the foundations of these so-called freedoms?

Resolved in his defence of French values, Macron insisted that the schoolteacher who chose to show cartoons caricaturing Islam was in the right and the assailant in the wrong.

Speaking after the attack, Macron said: One of our compatriots was assassinated today because he taught. He taught his students about freedom of expression, freedom to believe or not believe. It was a cowardly attack. He was the victim of a terrorist Islamist attack.

He went on: This evening, I want to say to teachers all over France: we are with them, the whole nation is with them today and tomorrow. We must protect them, defend them, allow them to do their job and educate the citizens of tomorrow.

There you have it. The French, Macron told the world, would not submit to thugs and bullies who have hijacked a religion, nor would it submit to their misguided apologists, however hell-bent the formers ideology and however tough the general war over these freedoms may become. This kind of resolve and fortitude, in the era of reactionary and damaging woke politics is a pure spectacle. Regardless of how one views the controversial cartoons, the noises Macron is making on this issue must be respected as principled.

Many miles from France, and in response to the cartoon crisis, our own prime minister has failed a key litmus test in principle. Speaking to reporters, Trudeau condemned the attack and pledged to stand with France predictable and necessary political pickings, but low-hanging and insincere fruit, to be sure.

Trudeau failed most miserably where he often does:on the substance of the question on the very nature of freedom of speech and expression.

When pressed on whether expressive freedoms extended to making fun of religious leaders, Trudeau initially claimed that we would always defend freedom of speech in Canada. He would, however, add: Freedom of expression is not unlimited. For example, it is not allowed to yell fire in a packed theatre

He expanded further: In a pluralist, diverse and respectful society like ours, we owe it to ourselves to be aware of the impact of our words, of our actions on others, particularly these communities and populations who still experience a great deal of discrimination.

His arguments for this case have the toxic combination of being superficial, deceptive and incoherent. In any other context, those words would be agreeable. Of course we should be mindful of our words. Our course we should try to stamp out discrimination where it exists. But as it relates to the freedom to say what we want, to engage in satire or humour regardless of whether some may find it distasteful, where was the full-throated endorsement of the principles enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms? He is, after all, the prime minister of the country bound by this Charter.

Trudeaus failed leadership in this case was further pronounced when Macron thanked Quebec Premier Franois Legault earlier this week for his defence of free speech in the wake of the attack.

In the context of the free speech debate, Trudeaus response amounted to textbook passivism. It flipped the script of assailant and victim, and for these reasons was one of his weakest and most embarrassing moments. Circling back to the all-too-often uttered but failed argument of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Trudeau relied upon the shouting fire in a theatre ploy, holding this up as the shining example of why limits on non-violent expression are comprehensible and necessary.

As essayist Christopher Hitchens pointed out in his case for the freedom of speech in Toronto in 2006 he opened his lecture by repeatedly saying the word fire shouting fire in a crowded theatre is about as weak an argument as can be made for the need for limits on free expression.

More disturbing than Trudeaus use of this lazy rhetoric, however, was that he seemed to suggest his own pacifist take on the question was more in keeping with what he called pluralistic society than was Macrons response. Surely if a society is to be called pluralistic and respectful, its political leaders ought to condemn sidewalk decapitation as punishment for showing a cartoon in a class on free speech. In choosing not to side with the cartoonists and the teacher, Trudeau disgraced the very essence of pluralism. Trudeaus ability to get such an important question so perfectly backwards was breathtaking.

Much has changed for Trudeau since his majority mandate in 2015, but his gravitation towards the most spineless of positions on the big questions are as consistent, fixed, and robust as any of his bizarre political and philosophical features.

The apple, as it happens, has fallen very far from the tree. Indeed, Pierre Trudeau, by all accounts, would roll over in his grave on review of these remarks.

In his address on the topic of freedom speech in Toronto, Hitchens summed up centuries of thinking and progress on the issue in a simple and elegant way: freedom of speech covers not just the freedom to speak, but the freedom to listen and to hear (and see). To appease in the way Trudeau does would be tantamount to giving radicalized terrorists control over our rights to listen and hear and see.An appreciation for this larger principle, not a focus on any specific exampleper se, is what ultimately shelters us from the dark of ignorance.

Whether in relation to public dissent or the work of peaceful cartoonists armed only with pens and pencils, we would do well to view the issue through the lens that Hitchens and now Macron have championed.

We are unfortunately at war, and Trudeaus reluctance to support and to give cover to a trusted and principled ally in a dire time of need is an embarrassment and a shame but it is completely unsurprising.

Vive la France.

Dennis E. Curry is a senior medical student studying at Dalhousie University in Canada.

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DENNIS E. CURRY: Trudeau cravenly wobbles on free speech in Frances time of need - TheChronicleHerald.ca