Canadian Association for Free Expression

Box 332,

Rexdale, Ontario, M9W 5L3

Ph: 905-274-3868; FAX: 905-278-2413

September 15, 2005

Dear Free Speech Supporter:

            This fall will be one of intense political activity in the battle for free speech. Unfortunately, it will also be one of hefty expenditures for many of us in the free speech battle. Several people have asked me from time to time: "What exactly does CAFE do, Mr. Fromm?" It's a fair question. Why should people part with hard earned money and not know where their money is going? After all, CAFE is not the government which just seizes your money and is virtually unaccountable.

            The Canadian Association for Free Expression, to which I devote much of my time, is Canada's leading free speech advocate. We're the one in there building political and moral support for the many victims of censorship and, where we can, raising money to help them fight persecution. Sad to say, there is little establishment or even press support for freedom of speech. Papers like the Toronto Star have studiously avoided even mentioning the name of Ernst Zundel when they report on the abuse of the "security certificate" and secret trials. One hears only of the five politically correct Moslems who have fallen victim to this totalitarian throwback to the Court of the Star Chamber. Yet, the best example and the most manifestly unjustly accused, the best known security certificate case, Ernst Zundel is ignored.

            My point is that it falls to us -- not the supposed guardians of free speech in the mass media -- to inform people of threats to freedom of speech. We do this through the Free Speech Monitor, through our Internet website, through frequent e-mails to our supporters and to opinion makers, through press releases and protests and through meetings across Canada to expand our group -- the group of people who value freedom of speech and are willing to help the victims.

            Thus far this year, CAFE has held over 30 meetings from Montreal to Victoria, often with me as a speaker, but with Brad Love and  lawyers Ron Leitch and Peter Lindsay participating as well in some locations. In the ongoing effort to rally people to help Ernst Zundel,  a man who has been a political prisoner in three countries -- the U.S., Canada and now Germany -- I have given  ten talks in the U.S. (Washington, D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania [twice], Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Florida and Indiana). And more are planned. Some of these trips are fully paid by the organizers; others are not. As you read this, I shall be on my way to Australia to be the keynote speaker at the Australian League of Rights Annual Seminar and Dinner. A speaking tour will follow. My topic is Freedom of Speech Lost: The Grim Lesson of Canada for Australia.

            Along the way, I have given numerous press interviews on a wide variety of freedom of speech subjects. This August, I was part of an Internet television programme hosted in Louisiana and devoted entirely to the plight of Ernst Zundel. Other participants included Dr. Ingrid Rimland and Mark Weber.

            We need your continued help for three major purposes:

            1. Ongoing support for our publishing, meeting and outreach programme. Our fall programme, which will include a major cross-Canada speaking tour by British actress, model and activist Lady Michele Renouf, will cost us $30,000 and the pot  now is nearly  empty.

            2. Ongoing assistance to various thought crimes victims, like Brad Love, Tom Winnicki, Glenn Bahr, Ernst Zundel and others. As you send us money for these people, we assist them.

            3. Here I must get personal. The price of being an outspoken immigration reformer and free speech supporter for over 25 years is sometimes persecution. Since I took a leading public role in backing Ernst Zundel in 2003, I have been ruthlessly harassed by Canada Customs. These lazy bureaucrats are utter cowards. They won't reveal their names, after an hour's worth of harassment and the seizure of some Celtic Fairy Tales, for example. This happened to me in June. They're brave enough harassing my two teenage sons, my 87-year-old father,  a WW II  vet with a walking disability, and myself on a recent flight from the U.S. to Vancouver. Naturally, we were delayed just long enough to ensure that we missed our ongoing flight home to Toronto. However, these anonymous Customs cowards  recently abandoned their posts when they learned some black fugitive, armed and dangerous, from Kentucky might be heading to Canada. The Customs censors now want guns.

            Such harassment is annoying and a nuisance. Much more serious, of course, was the fact that, in 1997, after a six year campaign, several Jewish lobby groups, including the League for Human Rights  [well, not mine] of B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress prevailed on the Peel Board of Education to fire me after a teaching career called "exemplary" by a former Director of Education. My crimes were organizing a free speech conference in Vancouver in March 1996 and attending a memorial service in Urbana, Illinois for the late patriotic author Dr. Revilo Oliver. Both activities were on my own time away from school property,. The denial of the right to earn my living in my chosen profession was calculated to break me and marginalize me. Well, it didn't work.

            Now, professional complainer Richard Warman who has harassed so many people who dissent from political correctness with lawsuits and complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission has sued both CAFE and myself for defamation for having called him "an enemy of freedom." We are scheduled to go to trial in Ottawa, November 21. Your past support has helped us meet initial expenses and to line up helpful witnesses. However, we have a legal bill of $10,000 which must be settled before the trial.

            I don't want to belabour the matter, but you and I have to ask ourselves: What is freedom of speech worth to me? I've given a great deal and willingly so. I know people who have given Ernst Zundel thousands of dollars and proudly so.

            Once again, I must ask for your help. Once again, you must ask yourself: What is the battle for freedom of speech, the battle against thought control freaks and censors worth to me?  The price of a bottle of Coke? The price of a movie ticket or something more?

            I thank you in advance for the continuing support that make this battle possible.

                                                                                                Sincerely yours,

                                                                                                Paul Fromm