At the forefront of protecting Canadian civil liberties since 1981

 

Battles for Freedom

Red Fascists Riot in Vancouver .. In Vancouver, B.C., the night of Thursday, Sept. 30, was a night to remember as far as the suppression of free speech in Canada is concerned, and no doubt an augur of things to come. It saw a violent, organized disruption of a public meeting in the Vancouver Public Library by communists (who brandished their placards) and their supporters, some of whom belonged to special interest groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress. The occasion was a meeting laid on by lawyer Doug Christie and the Canadian Free Speech League to raise money for Doug Collins's challenge to British Columbia's misnamed human rights law. Mr. Collins , who was the featured speaker, has been a victim of that law on account of columns he wrote for the North Shore News. The scene was one of utter chaos, reminiscent of what went on in Nazi Germany. Over twenty police and security guards were on hand but they could not contain the rioters, who broke through the police lines and tried to break down the doors of the hall in which Mr. Collins was attempting to speak. Several rioters were removed in a police paddy wagon, and at least one arrest was made. The noise was excruciating and fire alarms were set off. Many people who wanted to hear the speech were unable to get into the library, and a "minority" protester kept screaming and shouting for the whole of the time that Doug and Mr. Christie were speaking. Collins told him he was a great advertisement for multiculturalism. The man's obvious aim was to provoke the audience to violence. He didn't succeed, but as the speaker said later he could not refrain from calling him a few names, of which "ignorant lunatic" was the most printable. Typically, the media referred to the Free Speech League in disparaging terms, with quotes from the Communists. One TV station opened its 11 p.m. broadcast with a reference to "Holocaust-denier Doug Collins," which is a lie, although Mr. Collins questions the six million story. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gleefully quoted a protester as saying that public premises should not be used by "racists and right wingers" and that Collins and Christie would be dogged by protests like this wherever they appeared. Mr. Collins's speech - which he insisted on delivering in spite of the din - had nothing to do with racism. The title of the address was "The NDP's attack on Free Speech." (For those not familiar with the situation in British Columbia, the New Democratic Party socialist government has passed misnamed "human rights" laws that have specifically removed the right to free speech. Something that does not seem to worry many in the media.) Mr. Collins has twice been hauled before rights tribunals for columns he has written. The one that really got to his critics was headed "Hollywood Propaganda" and dealt with the movie Schindler's List, which he dubbed Swindler's List. Subsequently, a complaint to the Thought Police was laid by the Canadian Jewish Congress. After going over the media coverage of the library outrage, Mr. Collins said it was no wonder people were turning more and more to the Internet to find out what is going on. For that reason he has provided us with the main points of what he had to say - to the extent that he was allowed to make them. Typically, not a word of his speech was reported in the mainstream media. The Vancouver Sun has not even mentioned the riot , but one can imagine the international media furore there would have been if right wingers had tried to stop a leftist or a Jewish Congress meeting.