Alberta won the 2025 Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy after the Alberta Information and Privacy Commission found the provincial government had repeatedly violated its own freedom of information laws. cfe.torontomu.ca/index%2ephp/...

Age verification may be desirable in theory but it has more dangers than benefits in practice. www.politico.eu/article/eu-b...

The V-Dem Institute report on global democracy shows Canada's democratic decline, accelerated by the firehose of government bills undermining basic civil liberties, human rights and democratic practices-- C-5, C-4, C-15, C-12, C-14, C-9, and C-22. cfe.torontomu.ca/blog/2026/06...

In a move that will help disinformation proliferate, the Trump administration has penalized leading European tech regulators. Ironically no western government is engaged in as much censorship as the US under Trump. U.S. Bars 5 European Tech Regulators and Researchers www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/t...

C-9 is a terrible bill that infringes on fundamental Charter rights. It should be withdrawn not made even more unconstitutional. If it is not withdrawn, I guess we will have to sort it out in court.

🚨 URGENT: Bill C-12 could be voted on THIS WEEK (as early as Dec 4) Your call can stop this anti-immigrant bill. MPs are counting constituent calls RIGHT NOW before the vote. Takes 2 minutes. Make it count. migrantrights.ca/actionslist/... #cdnpoli #cdnimm #cdnref #refugeeswelcome #stopc12

Will Canada abandon environmental assessment in the Ring of Fire?: Unfortunately, there has been no answer to this vital question. Odds not good that Carney will preserve environmental protections. ricochet.media/indigenous/w...

‘Elbows Up’ — Yesterday’s Slogan -- Judy Haiven is right that our apologetic (to Trump) Prime Minister uses the rhetoric of Canada charting its own course while pursuing policies that bring us evermore into the U.S. orbit. That leads no where good. open.substack.com/pub/judyhaiv...

Leading AI assistants misrepresent news content nearly half the time according to a European and British study of 3,000 responses to questions about the news from leading artificial intelligence assistants. www.cbc.ca/news/world/a...

The opponent of foreign interference in U.S. elections is doing his best to interfere in Argentina’s www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Trump Administration’s attack on freedom of expression is being particularly felt by editorial cartoonists. Some sad stories and great cartoons can be found in this article fair.org/home/us-cart...

Alberta Education Minister's ban of all books with any sexually explicit content from all school libraries will only hurt kids. We all learn about sex. Too bad there won't be access to the best books available -- which are sexually explicit in age appropriate ways. cfe.torontomu.ca/blog/2025/07...

Former Canadian MP Charlie Angus reflects on where MAGA's celebration of a camp built for the express purpose of dehumanizing and brutalizing migrants could lead. Unfortunately, his fears should be all our fears. American Dachau open.substack.com/pub/charliea...

Congress just passed the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in American history. All those well-intentioned poor and modest-income Americans who voted for Trump will pay a huge price. So will the United States. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Canadian legal & human rights scholars call on York Region to reinstate paramedic fired for Facebook comment critical of Israel; not altogether different from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmer's Haaretz op-ed “Enough Is Enough. Israel Is Committing War Crimes.” tinyurl.com/3yz3vjud

Instead of the “elbows up” Priime Minister Mark Carney promised to be, he has shown only cowardice and capitulation to Trump’s threats. Last night’s cancellation of Canada’s Digital Services Tax, as Trump demanded, is a disgrace to Canada and Canadians. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Great source of recommended readings

Decisions about what books should be in school libraries should be made by professional educators and librarians, not by politicians using children in their culture wars as is happening in Alberta. cfe.torontomu.ca/blog/2025/06...

Studies consistently show a LARGE portion of vaccine related adverse events are caused by the nocebo effects. Eg: Republicans & the hesitant experience more adverse events. My take: Vaccine safety, politics and the nocebo effect healthydebate.ca/2025/04/topi... via @healthydebate.bsky.social

Premier Danielle Smith has found a way to bring Alberta's Treaty First Nations & the Calgary Chamber of Commerce together in common cause-denunciation of her coy flirtation/encouragement of Alberta separatism. tinyurl.com/5n7xur4d First Nations unity displayed at rally against Alberta separatism

A fine statement of leading U.S. civil liberties' organizations. The surest protection against authoritarianism is active resistance by civil society - despair, apathy, cynicism, hopelessness are the authoritarian forces' best friends.

Breaking news: The U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualized rate of 0.3 percent, a stark reversal after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty upended spending patterns and raised fears of an impending recession.

Government of Ontario wins national award for outstanding achievement in government secrecy - for using private cell phones and personal emails for government business - undercutting public access to information under Ontario law.https://tinyurl.com/4ye4xwhd

There is hope in this dark time when the higher education sector is standing up to the bullying tactics of the Trump Administration - quite unlike their cowardice during the period of McCarthyism in the 1940s and 50s.

There is hope in this dark time when the higher education sector is standing up to the bullying tactics of the Trump Administration - quite unlike their cowardice during the period of McCarthyism in the 1940s and 50s.

The cruelty, short sightedness, and incompetence of the Trump administration is staggering.

NEW: Climate experts expressed shock at the Trump administration's plan to stop collecting American polluters’ greenhouse gas emissions. “Not tracking the data doesn’t make the climate crisis any less real,” one said. “This is just putting our heads in the sand.” By @fastlerner.bsky.social

Now the Trump Administration is trying to bully Princeton - withholding $210-million in research grants. Princeton's president Christopher Eisgruber's response is not the same as Columbia, thank goodness! edition.cnn.com/2025/04/01/u...

Federal government bullying of universities extended to Cornell (withholding $1-billion in federal funds) and Northwestern (withholding $790-million) to make them serve Trump's ideology. Giving in to bullies only empowers them. www.linkedin.com/news/story/f...

It is a sad day for Canada when our universities start censoring artistic work critical of how the US is treating Canada. The University of Prince Edward Island should be ashamed of driving its first artist-in-residence to resign. The University's behaviour is a disgrace. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

If you missed this conversation with Lawrence Hill and Debra Thompson on Wednesday, the video of it, and a list of readings and videos they recommend, are now available on the Centre for Free Expression website: cfe.torontomu.ca/events/we-ca...

Please take 14 minutes to listen to this Ezra Klein podcast about Trump. It is the first thing that has given me hope since Jan 20. Wonderful analysis. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/d...

As soon as you think things could not get worse at American universities, they do. At NYU, an enterprising parent sees a way to get pro-Palestinian students deported. theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...

Not out of the realm of possibility that we could get such an email at UAlberta, given our far-right provincial govt hates EDI & our prez has signalled he’ll do whatever he thinks they want. This will be a challenge to sociologist in particular, given our discipline’s emphases & traditions.

RFK Jr. wanted a natural experiment of unvaccinated kids, which is messed up. But you know what's even worse? The result was unvaccinated kids dying of measles, and instead of the scientific conclusion that vaccination saves kids' lives, he concluded the opposite, and seeks to impose it on everyone.

In response to the U.S. Department of Education's lie that book bans are not real in American school and public libraries, the American Library Association has issued this statement describing the reality. It's short and worth reading. www.ala.org/news/2025/01...

"What should be the limits to freedom of expression in universities?" Tuesday, Jan 28 @7 pm EST. All-star panel: Jamie Cameron, Richard Moon, Louis-Philippe Lampron, & Vershawn Young. Bring your questions. Zoom: torontomu.zoom.us/j/91941276567 cfe.torontomu.ca/events/what-...

A good discussion of the Trump plans for higher education in the U.S. They are more worrisome than most of us imagined. Worth reading by Canadians as ill winds can often blow from the south. pen.org/for-federal-...

The Christian Right's fears are like those of all censors: "Rather than the notion that ideas can be critically analyzed and either accepted or rejected, it held that dangerous ideas can indoctrinate and possess you if you are merely exposed to them." newrepublic.com/article/1900...

Important CFE Virtual Panel: Can editorial standards be applied fairly in highly polarized situations? The case of Israel and Gaza. Tuesday, January 14, 7 pm EST. Panelists: Samira Mohyeddin, Shree Paradkar, Ivor Shapiro. Moderator: Sakeina Syed Zoom: cfe.torontomu.ca/events/can-e...

Record inequality in Canada: New CCPA Report shows the top 100 corporate CEOs by the first working day of the year, January 2 at 10:54 a.m., already have made, on average as much as the average Canadian worker does in a year. www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

I fear this lawsuit against the Des Moines Register is a sure sign of a vendetta the Trump administration will ramp up against media reporting news Trump doesn't like. The road to authoritarianism begins with attacks on the media, political opponents, and academics. tinyurl.com/4srhcm7w

Canada must oppose the United Nations draft Convention against Cybercrime in the UN General Assembly vote next week, says James Turk in a CFE Blogpost today. The CFE joined 8 other organizations in a joint statement about how the treaty is harmful to human rights. cfe.torontomu.ca/blog/2024/12...

Natasha Tusikov and Blayne Haggard's Centre for Free Expression Blogpost on universities and the IHRA definition of antisemitism is well worth reading.

Former ACLU National Legal Director, David Cole's superb article: "What Could Stop Him? Our Constitution includes multiple guardrails against Trump-like presidents. But those checks and balances only work when citizens resist." Please read it and share with others. www.nybooks.com/online/2024/...

NEW: The Israel lobby wants you suspended, fired or in prison. This is what I concluded after reading through a disturbing plan from B’nai Brith outlining a co-ordinated effort to punish advocacy for Palestine. www.readthemaple.com/the-israel-l...

TODAY@7pm ET - Is Investigative Journalism in Canada Dying? Join us virtually to hear top journalists Rob Cribb, Allya Davidson, Marie-Maude Denis, Anton Kuschany, & Cecil Rosner with moderator Julian Sher. What went wrong? What’s at stake? What does the future hold? cfe.torontomu.ca/events/inves...

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt describes Trump's Cabinet nominees: “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

3. Because this is an essential service, we have no choice but to pay for it. The monopoly has us over a barrel. It can therefore charge “entry fees” (also known rents) over and above the costs of delivering the service. It’s a form of coercive private taxation.