Worth the Fee to Read It

“Surely you’re not saying that anyone should be able to use their fortune to buy so much advertising that they can force us to do what they want?”, said an interlocutor earlier this week, when I suggested that the public sector unions in BC were absolutely right to be fighting the Campbell Government’s gag laws on public expression in the half year leading up to the next provincial election.

Yes, I am. In fact, I’m insisting on it.

In this, of course, I find myself championing the same sort of freedom of expression once championed — no longer, apparently — by our Prime Minister in his days at the National Citizens’ Coalition. A free people need the ability to communicate their views to others. In this era of the Internet, where anyone can open a blog or build a web page and attempt to get people to view it by using Adwords or some other matching program, what election “communication restriction” regulations and laws do is essentially say “your stated and historic rights to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly (it is often illegal to even advertise a meeting on a political issue near an election), or freedom of the press (if I’m paying for the publication, such as in blogging, I “own” a press) aren’t worth the paper we wrote them on.”

Canadians may not have had a revolution and subsequent period of Constitution-writing to enshrine the principle that Government is the servant of the People and not the other way around as did the Americans, but from Magna Carta onward that is the thrust and summation of our own history. By calling, in the 1840s, for responsible government, Baldwin and LaFontaine set Canada on a course where we people would determine the form and content of our government, not accept what was given by “our betters”, the Crown or the Family Compact. By passing the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960, then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker encoded this into Canadian law. Section 2 of the Charter further encoded these rights, by making them Constitutional Law rather than Statute Law.

Our bureaucratic masters and political betters — as they most assuredly do think of themselves (the 2006 election’s outburst by Scott Read, the infamous “beer and popcorn” dismissal of the individual Canadian’s ability to make a decision on their own, was bad politics, and no accident: it reflects perfectly this type of thinking) — of course point to Section 1 of the Charter and say “these are reasonable limits”. But are they?

Who is protected by limiting my ability to speak out on issues in the lead-up to an election? Fundamentally, it’s not even the politicians themselves who are protected: it is their parties and the campaigns they run. This is hardly in the class of a “reasonable limit” — unless you live in the courtier society where senior bureaucrats and senior party figures intermingle, and where campaign tactics are worked out. There, anything that disturbs the planned schedule of sound bites, photo ops and “messaging moments” and the smooth working of the spin machine needs to be pushed aside. Imagine, having to actually have an unplanned, unscheduled “reaction” to events! (As for the bureaucrats, the sine qua non of civil service life, born out of the mantra “never have the Minister have to answer a question about us in the House”, is that no information should be shared, no thinking aloud is tolerated, and nothing that hasn’t come through the policy development process, i.e. through approved channels or via a co-operative quango or think tank, should ever enter the public’s consciousness.)

Sorry. In the wonderful words given to the fictional and immoral British politician, Sir Francis Urquhart in Michael Dobbs’ series House of Cards—To Play the King—The Final Cut, “you might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment”. Your gag laws, of course, are designed to make that so: by force, you overblown champions of self-importance and confusers of personal, party and national interest will ensure that the second part of that statement is made true.

But it isn’t so: the onus is on those who would restrict our freedom of speech, of publication, of assembly to demonstrate the reasonableness of their limits prior to implementation, not by imposing the regulations and forcing us to — “when allowed” — fight them at our own expense (You worry about the monied buying up advertising? Have you priced the cost — in money, time and emotional toil, not to mention “collateral damage” to business interests and personal reputation — of spending years fighting the near-infinite resources of “the Government”? Few of us can afford it, no matter how many hours of pro bono legal help we receive!). Or, of course, defy them and engage in a Gandhi-like struggle with civil authority through deliberate civil disobedience.

I’ve no particular message I want to champion throughout the upcoming BC election period, or during the next Federal election period. But I am a blogger. However many or few readers my written thoughts might reach, entertain and influence, what both the regulations of Elections Canada and the new gag regulations in British Columbia say is that, for the relevant period, I must censor myself. I must avoid topics I might want to write about, that are “my right” on one day and “illegal” on the next.

(No doubt the next response to that little anomaly will be to further restrict what can be discussed all the time. There is already a chill that has settled in around aspects of public security — how many of us who fly from time to time on business are willing to risk arguing that the practices of CATSA or the US TSA are ineffective, idiotic, often at odds with our fundamental rights, etc. knowing that the “No Fly” list is arbitrarily established and changed and that the functionary who puts you on it, or who forbids you to travel, need not justify their decision. That is but one example of how restrictions multiply — and rapidly — to the point where people yield their rights and become the Servant to the Master.)

What’s interesting about this whole “gag” situation is that it will be absolutely all right to comment on events — “at yesterday’s bus tour stop in front of the closed plant in Ontario, So-and-So gave a speech that was completely off topic” will be acceptable comment — but not to discuss the issue brought up in that speech if it strays beyond reporting. Analysis, for instance, of a taxation proposal could veer over a line (set only after publication by a faceless bureaucrat, no doubt acting on a complaint from a party campaign official) and be deemed to be in the banned zone, being (in their bureaucratic estimation) “the equivalent of campaign advertising without being associated with a duly authorised campaign”. The expression “gag me with a spoon” is, alas, far too close to the truth here to be comfortable; the thinking, of course, is vintage 20th century Fascist or Marxist at the core (the two ends of the spectrum do nicely wrap together, differing only on details of how the people are to be disposed of for the benefit of the rulers of the state, but agreeing entirely on basic principles).

So, too, a philosophical examination of the purpose of government, the restrictions that should be placed on lawmakers, etc., could all be seen — easily, too: witness the legal battles of the aforementioned National Citizens’ Coalition — as “equivalent to campaigning”. These are all things I have published on here and on previous blogs I have had that are legal today, and illegal tomorrow, for no reason other than political comfort. Of course, actually writing — during the “blackout” period — something along the line of one of my prior pieces on why it may be more appropriate to spoil your ballot, or to formally abstain from voting, is already banned.

Notice, too, that in British Columbia it is the public sector unions who stand essentially alone in this fight. Politically, a fair distance along the spectrum of options from the National Citizens’ Coalition in its national fights on the subject, but in both cases organizations that feel silenced by these regulations to gag them. Note, too, that the one everyone fears — “big business” — is absolutely silent. Why not? Their access already exists. A wag once defined a “business politician” as “one who stays bought”. You don’t need to spend a cent on advertising your position if you’ve already sold your case — and your opponents are barred from speaking out against it. This, at the end of the day, is further evidence in favour of the notion that election gag laws are not about money at all, but about silencing those who would upset totally-planned campaigns.

After the US Constitutional Convention closed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said that the attendees had given Americans “a Republic, if you can keep it”. Peace, order and good government — our Canadian framing statement — likewise requires us to keep it: governments that gag us are not giving us good government. It’s up to us to keep it.

Bring down the gag laws. Refuse to be silent in the face of them. Refuse to bend your neck to those who would be your master. They serve you, not the other way around.

We are only the True North Strong and Free until we fail to Stand on Guard to make it so.

The science-fiction author, Robert A. Heinlein, made the point over and over again in his works that you can have freedom, or you can have security, but not both at once. His main characters, who are all exemplars of “free”, take risks: they don’t stop to tell anyone they’re going, they don’t worry about packing for all contingencies, they just go and do what they believe needs to be done. Heinlein believed that there was no security — you could anticipate certain risks and (as he put it) be somewhere else — but at the end of the day you had to size up the situation quickly, decide what to do, and just take action.

So how did we tame a continent, build a society on it, and have the dogged determination to achieve glory in one century, and become a nation of wimps in another?

Where are the Canadian captains of business deciding to build their enterprises even further? Oh, yes, they took the quick pay-off and sold out. Good heavens, our major beer companies could have had global brands, but for an unwillingness to make a commitment to their first foreign markets and actually advertise their product they gave it all up, sold themselves to global brands, and now don’t even make much of their own product for sale in Canada. Even in the resource sector we’d rather have the security of a bank account filled with the proceeds of sale. Losers for the sake of security, and in turn expecting “guaranteed investments” rather than recognizing the markets are a casino and filled with risk, along with a cut to the house.

Where are the Canadian politicians willing to stand up and be counted for anything? There isn’t any one of them truly willing to stand up for their party’s principles, or honour the expectations they engendered. We have Conservatives who don’t conserve and who extend rather than claw back the reach of government and restore the open, free society we once were. No, we get ever more government meddling in how we invest, a focus on crime and “law and order” (it polls well, you see), and more promised regulations. Of course, their fear and trepidation at actually standing for something is never tested, for they have no opponents at this game.

We have Liberals who are as illiberal as they come, not caring to defend the notion that the individual is supreme and unhyphenated that is at the core of their dogma one iota, yet there’s no problem playing pussy-foot with the rule of law (Caledonia). We have Bloc et Parti Québeçois members cheering for Kosovo — c’est nous! — and denying in the very same breath that the same principle applies to anyone not wanting to join them in creating Zimbabwe sur St-Laurent. We have New Democrats whose idea of an “ordinary Canadian” is tossed onto the front of anything and everything they want to pipe up for, rather than actually figuring out what parts of the Canadian economy most of us are actually working in these days — and let’s not mention some of the “drop everything and they’ll throw flowers on us as we leave” thinking they bring to the role of the Canadian Forces — and, well, the Greens might actually have a few things to offer that are worth hearing, but they are hard to sort out amongst the normal 120 decibels of ear-piercing shrieking about how evil everyone is.

But none — nary a one — of these politicians will take a risk. Nothing is uttered without being polled to death and focus grouped to hell and back. Every word, every camera angle, is chosen. The very notion of speaking from the heart, in an unguarded moment, is anathema to them and to their handlers. As a result, even when the outrage might be real, it always comes across as scripted and fake. Even when a question raised in the House might be answered, it won’t be, because actually treating the person across the aisle (going in either direction) as a human being engaged in a national conversation might come with the risk of having to say “I see. Thank you very much”, and that would never do.

This is how you get the collection of losers leading the various Alberta political parties oh-so-cautiously through an election that ought to be of some import, but instead makes watching soap suds form swirling patterns in a bucket of dirty water much more interesting than the future of a province which, by international standards, has done a piss-poor job of managing its bounty and turning it into a legacy for its citizens. This is how you get the illustrious John Tory — truly a legend in his own mind — and the snake-oil salesman Dalton McGuinty — who, having power and the ability to act, would rather whinge with rather less charm and sincerity than a two-year-old testing the limits of the people around him — both doing their part to destroy Ontario, and the future of Ontarians, while everyone just goes on without a care in the world other than to keep supporting this sort of nonsense. But, then, in Canada’s two major head office hubs — Calgary and Toronto (and as with Montréal in this regard) — the politicians and the business leaders are interchangeable. None of them know how to take a stand, take a risk, set an audacious goal and make us want to join in that vision.

When we’re left with the BC Government’s new carbon tax as the thing that everyone can get excited about, it shows that we’re truly running this country on fumes. It’s another too-small, too-timid move — or, if you’re not buying into Green Mania, another cash grab for no purpose [take your pick] — but it stands out, after months of preparing the way, as a sign of the truly bold initiative, when all of that reputation stems solely from the whispers having led somewhere, for once.

We allow surveillance cameras galore, half-undress at the airport, publicly support police that break our laws (on the grounds that “they’re protecting us”), answer the same “twenty questions” every time we want to deal with our bank (even when they call us), and vote, sheep-like, for the same old patterns all on the ground of being, and feeling secure. We want 15%+ returns, and no risk. (The unwinding American empire at the hands of the collateralized debt obligation slicers-and-dicers, when those debts in turn are composed of decomposing mortgages that never should have been written, ought to have been warning enough that there’s no free lunch, but still we stampede to the next “too good to be true” offer.) I could go on, but my blood pressure is high enough now…

At the end of the day, it comes down to you. You, as an individual, must decide whether you want security or freedom. You can’t have both.