CKNW Editorial
for November 18, 1999

It seems that we have gone a long way towards making the insult a crime in Canada. A recent school board decision and a CRTC decision concerning this station, CKNW, seem to make that a certainty.

The Toronto School Board is going to make the use of offensive epithets to or about school children an offence which can bring a fine, presumably against the parents, or expulsion of the child. My colleague, Peter Warren, made a nasty crack about the Roman Catholic church – called them the "scum of the earth" I believe - for which penalty CKNW, in the CRTC version of writing out 100 lines, has had to repeat an announcement about how naughty CKNW and Warren are.

Let’s get this straight from the outset. I don’t think kids should be calling others bad names and I question the judgment Mr Warren used in his remarks. But that is all beside the point. Are we now saying that if remarks to offend someone in charge’s sense of what is proper we will now prosecute for the new crime of rudeness?

Let me digress for a moment concerning Mr Warren. If he had written the same remarks he would not have been subject to censure by any government busybodies. But because he uttered them on air, it’s different and I have to ask, for the unpteenth time in my career, why? Even the excuse that they are public airways and access is limited carries no weight. Does this mean that if pulp is suddenly in short supply in this country and hence rationed that confers upon the government the right to censor out what they consider naughty?

It is clearly wrong that kids should call other kids race based nicknames. It is impolite and I wouldn’t argue that it isn’t sometimes, perhaps often hurtful. But does that make it a crime instead of a social evil that is dealt with by those bringing up the children? And if we’re going to consider insults amongst kids crimes … if we’re about to punish as crimes insults made by adults over the airwaves, where do we stop?

And who is going to decide these things?

Will it be people like Sheila Copps who went into a month long swoon when John Crosbie called her baby? Will cartoonists whose very trade demands exaggeration be hailed before the Beak for drawing Jean Chretien’s face too much out of shape. And what happens to innocents like me when I call the Federal Liberal MPs from this province toadies and lickspittles – is it the slammer for me? I once called Hedy Fry a political whore and the Liberal cabinet wouldn’t speak to me for 5 years – fair enough, that’s a social penalty and is the way these matters should be handled – but is that now to be a crime?

The problem is that all of us, at least in the abstract, want to see politeness reign and nastiness end … although I’m bound to observe that what is an insult to one is not necessarily an insult to everyone. But by making rudeness an offense we do a number of foolish things. First, we take away one of the time honoured verbal weapons of society, practiced by the very best of people including Christ. Second, we do great injury to the notion of free speech. Free speech has always been circumscribed by the laws of libel and in this country too narrowly circumscribed in my opinion but we’re now extending that from damage to the reputation and pecuniary loss to hurt feelings.

It’s different of course if one calls for a criminal activity. It is rude in the extreme to call a Jew a kike, but we would surely all agree if that is coupled with a threat or an incitement to hurt that person or burn down a synagogue it deserves treatment as a crime.

I urge great care here … for if you say that a kid in the school yard can’t call another kid "Tubby", or "four eyes" much less "nigger" or "rug rider" you have to create an offence to cover that. When you have created that offence, how do you limit it? Indeed, can you? Is there a grade in school where the racial taunt is no longer a punishable offence? Or does one have to wait until one is an adult before one can slur away to the heart’s content? Or, do we make it consistent by banning naughty words and insulting remarks for all?

There are ways to deal with racist slurs and that is by public condemnation. In the schoolyard it is dealt with by the teacher and in due course by the parent. In the work I do it’s by public condemnation.

Many will take these remarks as defending racist and other offensive words – those who do will badly misunderstand what I’m saying. My point is this – if we begin legally proscribing language it’s only a matter of a short step or two before you make it unlawful for people to say what they think about public figures. And since public figures are the ones making the rules, you are within an ace of eliminating dissent.

The world is full of countries that make it against the law to mock or otherwise malign authority … does Canada, slowly at first no doubt, wish to join those countries?

We have little enough democracy as it is in this country without finding new ways to condemn free speech, however lofty the motives for that condemnation might be.