CFE Blog

On June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada (the “SCC”) released its decision in British Columbia (Attorney General) v Council of Canadians with Disabilities unanimously upholding the right of public interest organizations to mount legal challenges on behalf of members of marginalized communities.

Historically, stand-up comedy has pushed expressive boundaries and found itself at the forefront of battles over free expression. In Part 1 of this series, I made the case that stand-up comedy, even the deliberately offensive kind, can tell us something important about free expression.

On June 2, 2022, when Ontario voters went to the polls for the province’s 43rd general election, organizations employing more than 25 workers were obligated to have put in place a written policy on disconnecting from work; the so-called ‘right to disconnect.’

Day in and out, the news attests that freedom of expression is as precarious as ever, in Canada and around the world – imploring us at all times to remain vigilant and not take freedom for granted. 

Recent news of challenges to books in school and public libraries remind us that book challenges are not uncommon in Canada and, in most cases, are dealt with by the library staff. When the public does hear about a book challenge in a school library learning commons, it is usually where the school policies were not followed and the decision to remove the challenged item was carried out by school officials working outside the bounds of the book-challenge procedures.

A recent bombshell of a book about the corporate capture of Alberta’s energy regulator sheds light on how private organizations and public institutions sometimes converge into powerful networks that disseminate misinformation. The peer-reviewed book elucidates the inner workings of this phenomenon by developing an approach to analyzing institutional influence and dysfunction that can be used by investigative journalists, scholars, and anyone else opposed to abuses of state and corporate power.