Ann Coulter Gets Exactly What She Wanted in Canada
March 25, 2010
It seems Ann Coulter is lying about the police shutting down her talk at the University of Ottawa, having claimed a near riot threatened her security at the venue. This was reported by Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen, who I am a definite fan of, and then mentioned on Pharyngula. Shame on her. She is indeed a despicable woman with harmful rhetoric that one must decisively confront.
On the other hand, I can't agree - and voiced this loudly on the Michael Coren Show today (on tonight on CTS TV at 6pm EST) - with the message sent by the University administration essentially threatening her with a hate speech violation if she said the wrong thing.
The “accusation” of which Ms. Coulter speaks is a reference to an email she received from University of Ottawa vice-president and provost Francois Houle on Friday, warning her that freedom of speech is defined differently in Canada than in the U.S. and that she should take care not to step over the line.
That email included the following:
Our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here.
That is a form of bullying and censorship which ironically helped incite hate against her, for which she is now pursuing a human right violation (I suppose she'll claim conservatives or christians as an identifiable group which should be protected by hate speech law). She claims to have received death threats, and actually I believe it, having attended her talk at the University of Western Ontario. Clearly she'll lose in front of the human rights commission, but when she does it will make a valid point about the hypocrisy with which our hate speech - and free speech - laws are applied. How can they be applied to protect one identifiable group (say those with "muslim ideas") while condemning another (say those with "conservative" ideas) ?
For that matter, so too are our hate crime laws applied inconsistently. Remember two years ago when the police refused to consider the attack against me while postering for an atheist event a hate crime, even if they had caught the assailants. Our hate crime laws differentiate between being attacked for two different epistemological positions, belief and non belief, for no good reason.
In conclusion, my friends on the left in Canada would have done well to have simply ignored Coulter and waited patiently for her to go back home, rather than hand delivering her victory, through administration bullying, unacceptable censorship and quite likely a death threat or two. Don't you imagine she was setting herself up precisely for this, coming to Canada sponsored by a free speech organization, and having her presentations opened by Mr. Free Expression himself, Ezra Levant, who will now be making her human right complaint to the very commission that once tried to crucify him.
I already knew Ann Coulter was abrasive. This week I learned she isn't stupid. We on the left didn't give her a warm reception, but when she crossed our border we gave her exactly what she wanted.
Comments:
#2 Nathan Raymond (Guest) on Thursday March 25, 2010 at 11:36am
You would do well, Justin, to remember that some of the members of CSA (Canadian Secular Alliance) are conservatives like me, and very much agree with the majority of what Coulter has to say. I reject, utterly, the very notion of “harmful rhetoric”; I would only expect this kind of language from a campus Marxist/anti-free speech proponent, and needless to say it serves as a poor preamble for a defense of Ms. Coulter’s rights.
Given the revelation of CSA leadership’s leftist leanings (in this and other recent items of interest), I am regretfully compelled to reconsider my membership and will be asking many of my friends - people I had previously convinced to join - to do the same.
#3 Gary (Guest) on Thursday March 25, 2010 at 11:50am
I hope Nathan Raymond does not follow through and drop out of CSA. I am also a member and of conservative opinion. This is something that people who choose to post opinions under the CSA banner should keep in mind and to resist the temptation to identify themselves with the left or the right. The issue of free speech is politically neutral, or, if it isn’t it ought be.
What went on in Ottawa was clearly an attempt by a number of people (we are unclear on the exact number) to try to prevent her from speaking. They succeeded. This is not the first time a mob has tried and succeeded in preventing a speaker from airing his or her views on a Canadian campus, it happened in Montreal with Netanyahu. We cannot permit free speech to be dicated by mob threats. That is the issue.
#4 Gary (same one) (Guest) on Thursday March 25, 2010 at 12:02pm
For another take on the Coulter affair, check out this website:
#5 Lee MacNeill (Guest) on Thursday March 25, 2010 at 2:30pm
Dude… she’s a professional troll.
Troll-baiting, flame-baiting, disinformation and distortion is what she does. I’d be willing to bet that as distasteful as the average Canadian finds her, nobody cares enough to send death threats because she’s just not that important, and death-threats aren’t really our Thing.
I bet the death threats were staged so she could gain more publicity and grow more controversy.
The best thing to do with someone like Coulter is like you said, to just ignore her.
Somebody should have told the press that.
#6 Justin Trottier (Guest) on Thursday March 25, 2010 at 7:05pm
Raymond, you seem to be defending free speech while also condemning my expressing my personal point of view (it is a personal blog post not an organizational policy position). Or is it that as the leader of a secularist group I may not have any personal political opinion. Yes, I am more so on the left, but trust me I don’t have typical views of most leftist policies and have gotten into more trouble with fellow leftists than those on the right especially on the issue of loudly defending silenced abortion debates on campus. I am defending Coulter’s right to speak, and I have championed without hypocrisy the right of both liberals and conservatives that seek to inflame issues to speak without censorship. That IS a Canadian Secular Alliance position, and one being defended in my post. My point in paragraph 1 was to indicate that even despite my personal misgivings, I defend Coulter’s right to be heard. If you want to use the same tactic as the U of Ottawa administration and bully me into silence by withdrawing from the CSA, that is your prerogative, but it doesn’t really make you any different from those you claim to criticize.
#7 Graham (Guest) on Friday March 26, 2010 at 7:00am
Justin, he “reject(s), utterly, the very notion of “harmful rhetoric””. I see nothing there of him condemning your expressing your personal opinion. I think you are reading into his words something that is not there, but I’ll let him clarify what he said - I just do not see how you assumed he wanted you muzzled, which is what you were trying to draw a parallel for.
You feel bullied, but I don’t see any intimidating words being spoken by either him, nor the UoO. Do you have other information that you are not making public?
#8 Ron Brown (Guest) on Friday March 26, 2010 at 8:23am
I don’t really see what the big problem is with Houle’s email. That email could easily be interpreted - and this was my first interpretation - as a favour to Coulter. Houle didn’t say “you better not say X, Y or Z or we’ll make sure you pay”, he simply informed her that speech laws do differ between the US and Canada and she should be aware of the ways that they differ so as to not unknowingly get herself into a situation she did not see coming.
I don’t think that she should have been prevented from saying what she wanted to say, and she wasn’t.
We can have a debate as to what speech laws in Canada should be. But that is a whole other issue. Houle merely drew her attention to the way that things are, and if I were Ann Coulter, I’d surely find this information to be worth knowing.
#9 Robert Sentenza (Guest) on Friday March 26, 2010 at 8:39am
If we strike her down she will become more powerful than we can possibly imagine.
#10 Mike J (Guest) on Friday March 26, 2010 at 8:43am
Perhaps I am naive as I do not see Mr. Houle’s letter/e-mail as an attempt to threaten, veiled or otherwise, but rather as an attempt to make Ann Coulter aware of legal differences. Our laws are different than the United States and, as I have read in the media in the past, Americans are sometimes uninformed about Canada and, therefore, I am somewhat surprised that Mr. Houle’s letter be interpreted as a threat or an attempt to threaten rather than as an attempt to ensure that Ann Coulter be aware that there are differences. Guess I’m just really naive or I don’t read between the lines well enough.
#11 ipxwfy (Guest) on Wednesday April 14, 2010 at 12:47am
SZIpso bnthzamrthaz, jimcpagtgiaq, [link=
#12 zxmsele (Guest) on Thursday April 22, 2010 at 9:36am
CG71JT fubiynmemteq, ggdqbpvxtybr, [link=
#13 Lee MacNeill (Guest) on Thursday April 22, 2010 at 5:46pm
sigh
Why oh why doesn’t this page have a Captcha?
#14 SurfinGuy575 (Guest) on Monday April 26, 2010 at 3:47am
Well it turns out my girl friend of 2 years has been cheating on me for weeks. I know she and her friends hang out on this site so thought it would be the perfect place to post every last nude photo and video I have of her. Just go to
#15 SurfinGuy646 (Guest) on Thursday April 29, 2010 at 8:54pm
My Girl friend just broke up with me and I have uploaded every nude PIC I have of her to the net. Just go to
#16 SurfinGuy84 (Guest) on Monday May 03, 2010 at 2:26pm
I know you and your friends are memebers on this site Erica… Well guess what? Now they get to see you slutty naked ass! HAHAHAH. Just go to
#17 deadxnufnw (Guest) on Sunday May 16, 2010 at 11:13pm
3Q1FY4 mnqbtvqonwya, uuoglisslnuh, [link=
#18 Lee MacNeill (Guest) on Monday May 17, 2010 at 6:48pm
Please close this article to further comments. Thank you.
#19 dmquypdndxu (Guest) on Sunday June 13, 2010 at 1:56pm
sKjFzV iozbabyuumzt, trfkfpwzetve, [link=
#1 Sean Polreis (Guest) on Thursday March 25, 2010 at 11:33am
I do agree with much of what you say Justin but I think there will be confusion over the choice of some of your words. I also think Francois Houle was completely in the wrong for sending any kind of warning to Coulter regarding the difference between free speech laws in Canada and the United States. However, you ponder how hate speech laws can be “applied” to protect one identifiable group while “condemning” another. Houle is the one who is trying to use hate speech laws to scare Coulter. This is one person’s opinion (which we both happen to disagree with). The law is not being “applied” to “condemn” her. If that were the case, she would face charges and be found guilty in a court of law. I believe this would not happen due to the precautions put into place regarding our hate speech law. It is essential to keep in mind that our hate speech law did not find Coulter guilty of anything.