PEN Canada envisions a world where
writers are free to write,
readers are free to read,
and freedom of expression prevails
On October 17, 2012, as part of Non-Speak Week, PEN Canada partnered with the Canadian Science Writers Association to host Sci-lenced, a panel discussion on the prevention of media access to government scientists. The venue was intimate, the crowd was thoughtful, and the conversation was engaging.
In a letter to City Hall, PEN Canada voices concern regarding proposed revisions to the City of Toronto’s anti-discrimination policy and funding conditions for grant applications.
he prisoners have different motivations – some just want social contact, or to get a breath of fresh air from their normal routine – but many are sincere and want to improve their skills, get GEDs and that sort of stuff.
On November 19, 2012 PEN Canada voiced concerns that the “vague language of the Income Tax Act gives government officials discretionary powers that are overbroad and easily abused” with respect to determining the political activities in which charitable organizations can engage. PEN urged the federal government to reconsider the issue of “so-called ‘partisan’ activity by [...]
The last parliamentary budget included $8 million for the express purpose of CRA purging its rolls of charitable organizations it deemed unworthy of the status.
PEN Canada today voiced concerns that current law and policy on partisan activities by charitable organizations muzzles political dissent and stifles public debate within Canada.
Cyberspace seemed to change all that, and the Internet quickly became one of the most exciting, abused, and hotly contested fora for freedom of expression in the new century. But have our digital conversations really changed the politics of free expression?
Whenever I try to explain to ordinary people why the present Conservative government’s muzzling of its scientists is a wrongheaded and self-destructive act, I begin by stating the obvious. Not letting scientists readily talk to journalists expresses a fundamentally un-scientific mentality.
Libel law allows someone to protect his reputation against unfair attack. This seems like a good idea, but Brian Rogers, one of Canada’s leading libel lawyers, says that the common law of libel can be “the invisible hand of censorship.”
Now is one such moment, and choices and decisions made now could tilt the evolution of the network media ecology in Canada toward a more closed, surveilled and centralized regime instead of an open one that strives to put as much of the internet’s capabilities into as many people’s hands as possible.
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Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules