The Optimisms Project

Torontoist and Jacob McArthur Mooney team up for The Optimisms Project, a space for poets under 30 “to express, in whatever way they choose, what makes them feel optimistic about the future of poetry in Canada.” Optimistic poets? Are we certain this isn’t an April Fool’s prank?

SFU supports open access publishing

Simon Fraser University is officially supporting its researchers publishing in open access journals that are free online. Does this mean people will actually start reading academic journals? Probably not. But at least we can if we want to!

Vancouver’s poet laureate isn’t celebrating Olympics

Brad Cran, Vancouver’s poet laureate until 2011, has posted his reasons for not participating in the Olympics’ opening ceremonies. Good on him, I say.

There are Canadian writers involved in a few of the other 193 listed events but when it comes to the celebration stages our writers are not just neglected, they are totally ignored. As Poet Laureate I was offered time on one of the celebration stages where I would be allowed to read poems that corresponded to themes as provided to me by an Olympic bureaucrat. One of the themes was “equality” but since VANOC had blown the chance of making these Olympics the first gender inclusive Olympics in history by including a female ski jumping event I didn’t think they would appreciate a reading of the one Olympic poem I had written on equality: “In Praise of Female Athletes Who Were Told No: For the 14 female ski jumpers petitioning to be included in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.”

Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn testify before Parliament

Ezra Levant has posted video of Mark Steyn and Levant testifying before the Justice and Human Rights Committee about the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It’s a long discussion, which means Godwin’s law applies. The first video is below. Click through for the others. And here’s Levant’s reflection on the process.

Book “removed” from English course

A Brampton school has removed To Kill a Mockingbird from its curriculum after a parent complained. Isn’t there a more recent book they could be fighting over?

Atheist ads may be coming to a bus stop near you

A recent court decision by the Supreme Court of Canada allowing political advertising on Vancouver’s TransLink transit system has the Atheist Bus people optimistic about their ads. It looks like Halifax has already agreed to run them.

The prince of pot’s farewell tour

The Sun reports Marc Emery has launched a farewell tour across Canada before he’s sent to jail in the U.S. on drug charges. Read more at Cannabis Culture magazine and Emery’s blog, where he explains why he decided to plead guilty to the charges.

I am doing this because my lawyer framed my options thusly: To challenge the extradition would be a lost cause and result in my extradition to Seattle to stand trial on three counts: conspiracy to manufacture, conspiracy to distribute, and conspiracy to money launder. Even waiting for my trial in Sea-Tac jail would take approximately 6 months to a year. Sentencing on the money laundering involves a mandatory minimum 10 years in federal prison. It also comes with the possibility of a substantial financial penalty, perhaps as high as $250,000 or up to $1 million in fines. If there is a financial penalty attached to my conviction, I cannot be transferred to a Canadian prison while any amount owing is outstanding. To challenge all three charges involves a potential jail time of 10 years plus 5 years plus 5 years plus $250,000 or more in fines.

On the charge of marijuana distribution I will plead to, the Assistant DA, Mr. Greenburg, is going to be asking for 5 – 8 years. My lawyers will ask for less, much less, in punishment, but it’s likely to be a stint in a US federal prison.

(Image from BillyWarhol’s Flickr stream.)

Arsenal Pulp Press gets censored again

First it was the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, now it’s Kansas. Of course, it’s Kansas.

Today, we received yet another letter from prison censors, this time the Kansas Department of Corrections; the simple, unsigned form letter states that a copy of The Embroidered Couch, a translation of the classic Chinese erotica novel written in the seventh century, which had been ordered from us by a prisoner, had been “rejected” because it contains “graphic descriptive sexual encounters and illustrations showing nudity throughout in violation of KAR 44-12-313.

CRTC wants to hear from you on net neutrality

The CRTC has opened an online consultation on Internet traffic management practices.

Current Internet services have made it possible for Canadians to use new applications and services, such as video streaming and peer-to-peer networking. Certain Internet service providers (ISPs) maintain that this growth in traffic can cause congestion, especially during peak times. This has led some ISPs to manage the flow of traffic on their networks or adopt new business models.

The CRTC is examining the current practices of ISPs operating in Canada, as well as those that could be adopted in the future. The proceeding’s main objective is to determine whether and to what extent such practices are appropriate under the Telecommunications Act.

Here’s the site where you can register your opinion and read the comments of others. Don’t hold back now.

Banned at the border

Xtra has an article about some gay porn films banned by the Canada Border Services Agency (potentially NSFW image) — including Piss!, which was nominated for a best fetish film award — and links to the full list of prohibited items from October to December 2008 (PDF link). I wish there were explanations for the decisions. For instance, why is Scott Hancock’s Throated No. 3 admissible while Scott Hancock’s Throated No. 5 is prohibited? Curiousity is killing me. (Via This Magazine.)

Ottawa says no to Atheist Bus

Ottawa has rejected a request to run the Atheist Bus ads.

The city has rejected a “no god” bus ad campaign, a move that organizers hope will serve as a rallying cry for proponents of free speech across the country.

“We need to get people as offended about censorship as they are by the ad,” said Justin Trottier, president of the Freethought Association of Canada.

“It’s not up to the government to control discussions. Everybody should be offended by that.”

Previously:

• Atheistbus to add stop in Canada?
• Atheistbus wants to add Calgary to stops
• Is there a God after all?
• Halifax says no to Atheist Bus
• What’s offensive about saying people can be good without God?

CUPE calls for ban on Israeli academics

I don’t really know what to say about this.

Ontario’s largest university workers union is proposing a ban on Israeli academics teaching in the province’s universities, a move that echoes previous attempts to boycott goods and services from the Jewish state.

The resolution, proposed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee, is in protest against a Dec. 29 bombing that damaged the Islamic University in Gaza.

“In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general,” said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario.

The resolution is still being drafted but the union said it will seek to prohibit Israeli academics from speaking, teaching or researching at Ontario universities. The CUPE committee will distribute the resolution to its members at the end of the month.

“We therefore believe Canada to be a problematic destination”

A group of U.S. academics want a Toronto conference next year to be relocated because concerns about freedom of speech.

Mr. Watson said that professors signing the petition are concerned that recent human rights commission investigations into Maclean’s and Western Standard magazines over articles concerning Islam, and the conviction of pastor Stephen Boisson, who was ordered by Alberta’s human rights tribunal in May to cease publicizing criticisms of homosexuality, suggest that professors risk being chilled from discussing important academic subjects, or ending up in legal trouble. Mr. Watson said he plans to distribute hundreds of buttons to attendees at the Boston conference reading “Toronto 2009, Non!”

Several professors in the working group behind the protest “have written in areas that seem particularly disfavoured by the Canadian legal establishment,” Mr. Watson said. “We are uncertain of the extent of the legal jeopardy that APSA members might place themselves in should they make public arguments in Canada, or post those arguments online, concerning hot-button issues like homosexuality, same-sex marriage, or the nature of the Islamist threat to Western civilization.”

The American Political Science Association, whose members include both American and Canadian academics, is the oldest and largest organization of political science professors. Next month’s annual meeting, expected to draw roughly 7,000 political scientists, will be its 104th. The program includes such discussions as Terrorism and Human Rights; Varying Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage; and Missing Alliances and (Un)expected Transformations in the Politics of Islam.

“The process I was put through was a punishment in itself”

Ezra Levant on beating the fatwa but losing his freedom:

Some 900 days after I became the only person in the Western world charged with the “offence” of republishing the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the government has finally acquitted me of illegal “discrimination.” Taxpayers are out more than $500,000 for an investigation that involved fifteen bureaucrats at the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The legal cost to me and the now-defunct Western Standard magazine is $100,000.

The case would have been thrown out long ago if I had been charged in a criminal court, instead of a human rights commission. That’s because accused criminals have the right to a speedy trial. Accused publishers at human rights commissions do not.

And if I had been a defendant in a civil court, the judge would now order the losing parties to pay my legal bills. Instead, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities won’t have to pay me a dime. Neither will Syed Soharwardy, the Calgary imam who abandoned his identical complaint against me this spring.

Both managed to hijack a secular government agency to prosecute their radical Islamic fatwa against me — the first blasphemy case in Canada in over 80 years. Their complaints were dismissed, but it is inaccurate to say that they lost: They got the government to rough me up for nearly three years, at no cost to them. The process I was put through was a punishment in itself — and a warning to any other journalists who would defy radical Islam.

Appropos

Toronto’s Edward Day gallery presents the Appropos group art exhibition, which addresses the subject of Bill C-61. It runs until July 27.

The Appropos group exhibition is based on the work of artists whose use of imagery integrates existing popular culture products/icons. One of the purposes of the exhibition is to emphasize the crucial relevance of appropriation to contemporary visual artists and their studio practice. As revisions to Copyright Act legislation, known as the Act to Amend the Copyright Act, are currently underway by the Canadian government, there are valid concerns that the elements of contemporary artistic practice such as appropriation and “quoting” could potentially be outlawed by draconian legislation.

Love this quote from the presser: “A future with digital locks is one where works go into the Disney vault and never come out again”.

Image is Diana Thorneycroft‘s Failed Relationships (The Pooh and Mickey) — looks like it’s from the There Must Be 50 Ways to Kill Your Lover series.

“I refuse to be the latest in an assembly line of people ground into powder.”

Eye Weekly on Ezra Levant.

Wearing a new suit to his lunchtime speech about freedom of speech, in a conference room at the Ontario Bar Association June 16, former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant noted the crowd was mostly Jewish, mostly lawyers, vaguely familiar: “It’s just like my bar mitzvah.” If so, he might not have been a very popular 13-year-old: soggy sandwich platters, brutal fluorescent lighting and even a half-decent heckler. (More about that later.)

It’s now been over 850 days since Levant’s former magazine was the subject of a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission for publishing those Danish editorial cartoons, a dozen satirical images of the prophet Muhammad.

What might have been perceived as a stunt by a garrulous young media mogul to get banned from the newsstand at Indigo and gain national publicity for a regional magazine has turned into a fight against Canada’s institutional definition of human rights — and the tribunals implemented across the country to enforce it.

Maclean’s complaint dismissed

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed the complaint against Maclean’s by the Canadian Islamic Congress over Mark Steyn’s article on Islam. (Steyn thread.)

 Though gratified by the decision, Maclean's continues to assert that no
human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the
mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial
decisions of the nation's media. And we continue to have grave concerns about
a system of complaint and adjudication that allows a media outlet to be
pursued in multiple jurisdictions on the same complaint, brought by the same
complainants, subjecting it to costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to
say nothing of the inconvenience. We enthusiastically support those
parliamentarians who are calling for legislative review of the commissions
with regard to speech issues.

If you were on holiday like I was for the last three weeks…

… here’s what you missed:

- Jonathan Bennett won the KM Hunter Award for his new novel, Entitlement.

- The lawsuit against Maclean’s over Mark Steyn’s article on Islam made the New York Times and earned a piece on the CBC– read Ezra Levant’s commentary on the commentary here. (Steyn thread.)

- Canada is getting the iPhone — the new and improved iPhone.

- The iPhone will likely change pricing models for all cellphone companies in Canada.

- You can now buy and rent movies on iTunes Canada. The selection is limited, but they are recent releases.

- Canada gets GOOG-411, whatever that is.

- The Tories introduced Bill C-61 (copyright reform) and managed to once again unite most Canadians and nearly the entire media in opposing it, suggesting the Tories may need to work on understanding the concerns of voters… and the 21st century. They should at least learn how to get their message across — or at least not hang up on interviewers (podcast). But some people do see the bill as good for debate.

- Ken Alexander has resigned from The Walrus.

RCMP to investigate human-rights commission

Ezra Levant reports the Mounties have launched an investigation into the Canadian Human Rights Commission over allegations one of its employees used someone else’s Internet account to post messages on anti-Semitic websites. (Previously.)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have begun an investigation into alleged criminal conduct by members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The conduct in question was revealed at an extraordinary hearing on March 25th, a hearing the CHRC desperately tried to keep closed to the press.

An officer of Bell Canada, appearing under a subpoena, testified that the CHRC had hacked into a private citizen’s Internet account, to cover their electronic tracks as they surfed anti-Semitic websites under the alias “Jadewarr”. You can read the transcript of the hearing here — a transcript the CHRC did not release to the public.

The victim of the CHRC’s illegal hacking, Nelly Hechme, told reporters that she was “completely shocked” by the CHRC’s conduct. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, who has jurisdiction over the CHRC, is now investigating the matter.

But not even the CHRC’s most passionate critics could have imagined that the Mounties would be investigating the CHRC.

Mark Steyn, Maclean’s and Islamophobia on The Agenda Part 2

After interviewing Steyn, Paikin interviewed the law students who filed the human-rights complaint against Maclean’s. Then the fun really started, as Paikin brought Steyn and the law students together for an impromptu debate. Here’s the first part of the five-part YouTube video.

Here’s part 2.

If you want to jump straight to the fireworks, click here for part 3.

Here’s part 4 and here’s part 5.

You can also read Paikin’s blog entry about the show.

The program was certainly one of the most heated we’ve ever done, although I believe it stayed civilized almost all the time. We ensured at the outset there would be no shouting or name calling and our guests to their credit stuck to those rules.

What you didn’t see was that after we got off the air and the cameras and lights were shut off, all four participants stayed in the studio for another hour discussing the issues with Wodek and another producer, Navin Vaswani, who helped Wodek with the show.

To Steyn’s credit, he may have offered the first olive branch when he said as I was closing the show, “would you guys like to go for dinner?” One of the lawyers immediately said, “No!” They may not have broken bread, but they did continue the dialogue.

What became clear is that the rancor that started the evening was gone by the end of it. We’re now trying to see whether we can bring all four participants back some time towards the end of the month, in hopes of having a somewhat calmer discussion about the actual arguments in Steyn’s book. We didn’t get to much of that last night because so much time was taken up with questions about whether Maclean’s was practising good journalism or not.