It’s been more than a week since MPP Sarah Jama was booted from the Ontario NDP caucus and censured by the Ontario government for daring to name Israel as an Apartheid state. It’s been more than a week since CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn agreed to
i cant believe how popular this view is on social media.
It’s not a view. It’s written into our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and empowered by our constitution.
freedom of speech is not an exclusively legal term
Both the article in the OP, and the comment you’re responding to are using it in the legal sense.
unless i am failing to understand what is being said the article is saying otherwise.
You’re misunderstanding something then.
It’s complicated. Legally we don’t have “freedom of speech”.
For clarification: Do I believe that’s a core human value? Absolutely.
Do I believe that tolerance is a social contact we should all abide by? Very much so!
Do I trust society to regulate itself? Heck no, from a sociological point of view that’s a mess for lots of reasons. In smaller communities it may be ideal, but anything anyone says now is considered on a global scale.
So, from where I stand, it makes sense for a governing body to place limited restrictions on what a person should be allowed to say in the public sphere. This specific issue is debatable and relies on a certain amount of faith in the institution. Is it right that these people were punished for saying their beliefs? That’s another complicated view that depends on a case by case basis. Is it legally allowable that a politician be censured for what they say? That depends on what they said. Is it morally allowable? From a moral absolutionist point of view, probably not, but our charters were made to prevent people from calling for violence in the public sphere. Is it morally acceptable to allow for someone to call for violence in a very real way as a political representative? What constitutes violence? How far can we deconstruct the rhetorical arguments our society is based on?
It’s complicated. We don’t have freedom of speech and we don’t have freedom from consequences. If you give people you agree with freedom from consequences you also have to give it to the people you don’t agree with.