Why can’t we walk the talk on freedom of speech?

A man named Joseph Quesnel writes regularly on indigenous issues. Among other things, he’s been called to provide expert testimony before the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and the House Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

He is listed as a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute. Those two think tanks are a little too right-leaning for my tastes but I often read his stuff and find it very thoughtful.

Last week he wrote a reasoned, rational piece suggesting that indigenous people must accept that their rights are not absolute. He provided examples in which government policies established for the common good have been strongly and not-so-rationally rejected by some indigenous leaders.

He wrote, “Indigenous peoples sometimes need to be reminded that their rights must be balanced with rights and interests of other people.”

The reaction was surprising. Quesnel was immediately suspected of racism. When I pointed out he is Metis, one reader retorted, “Metis is not First Nations.”

I thought that was pretty clear evidence of how good we are at narrowly defining whose opinions we allow to be expressed based on our own experiences and biases rather than on their merits. Another interesting reaction was that I shouldn’t have published the column on ArmchairMayor.ca. What were my motives, at least one reader wanted to know, as if there was something suspicious and ulterior.

Providing a variety of opinions on important issues doesn’t seem to cut it. Media must publish only those opinions and facts that agree with our own. That kind of thinking is why the objectivity of the media is being so dramatically eroded. They feel the pressure to pander to a certain base.

Surprisingly, even proportional representation advocates fall into the trap of looking for motives instead of for substance. If you go to the Facebook page for Fair Vote Kamloops, you’ll find posts that dismiss the opponents of proportional representation as “party insiders,” “professional lobbyists,” people who simply want to hold on to power, a “shadowy group” defending the status quo. The “establishment.” They’re there to “undermine” the referendum.

The PR folks self-righteously purport that experts and political scientists support PR while “big party political strategists” support FPTP. That would be, gasp, the BC Liberals.

It’s all so conspiratorial. Certain people should not be allowed opinions. If somebody has an opinion different than ours, there must be an unsavory motive.

We revile our politicians and reject new ideas. A City councilor retires and she gets insulted. The prime minister issues a positive, upbeat Canada Day message and he’s called an idiot. Solutions are sought for the proliferation of dirty needles and they’re ridiculed.

We have minds like steel traps, always shut. Just as we have to guard against hate speech, we have to be watchful that we aren’t so dogmatic that we become incapable of respectful disagreement.

I leave you with the story about the Japanese fans at the World Cup. In an event and sport that has become increasingly beset by fakery and an absence of sportsmanship, the Japanese fans showed the way things should be.

After their team lost a heart-breaking knockout game that it should have won against Belgium, did they yell, swear, throw things, riot as soccer fans sometimes do when things don’t turn out the way they want?

No. In tears, they stayed to clean up the stands and quietly left. Their defeated team respectfully bowed to their victorious opponents and then cleaned up their locker room.

by Armchair Mayor

Why can’t we walk the talk on freedom of speech?

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