Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the members of the committee for inviting me to appear.

You're inviting us to speak to you about a very specific fundamental right. Freedom of expression is much more than a fundamental right. It's the bedrock of the vast majority of fundamental rights. There is no freedom of religion, for example, without freedom of speech.

It is appropriate to make an observation before formulating avenues to protect freedom of expression.

The first observation is that it's too easy to forget that angering or disturbing remarks fall specifically under freedom of expression. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that over and over again. The second observation is that freedom of expression is sometimes mistreated, including by federal regulators, as well as Parliament itself.

I'll give you some illustrations, starting with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.

In 2020, the title of a book that may be considered offensive by some was mentioned on air on the Société Radio‑Canada. However, there is nothing racist about this book. It's one of the books that left its mark on Quebec in the 1970s. However, the CRTC blamed Radio-Canada, and went so far as to require a written public apology from the Crown corporation. The Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, or FPJQ, was alarmed by this decision, as were a very large number of Radio-Canada journalists. The Federal Court of Appeal intervened and blamed the CRTC for ignoring freedom of expression and for underestimating the risks of self-censorship created by its own decision.

The Canadian Parliament isn't blameless either. Look at the brand new crime of Holocaust denial that was adopted in 2022.

It was rushed through, buried in a 450-page budget bill. The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs apologized for doing things this way, as did the Canadian Bar Association, or CBA. The process didn't provide parliamentarians with the analytical framework they should have when a law infringes on freedom of expression. My point is simple. There need to be institutional safeguards, parliamentary safeguards, so that bills that impede freedom of expression aren't rushed through.

I can give another example, that of the current Bill C-63, which concerns online harms. I'll be explicit. This bill is valid and legitimate in a number of respects, but it contains provisions that undermine freedom of artistic creation and contravene the teachings of the Supreme Court of Canada. I can talk more about that if you wish. Surprisingly, that same bill prohibits counselling certain perfectly legal sexual activities. The infringement on freedom of expression seems glaring to me.

Considering the passage of federal legislation that would proclaim the importance of freedom of artistic expression, as well as journalistic expression, as other states have done, could be a solution. This legislation would also remind us that the mere act of offending another person is not a valid reason to silence speech.