By Tim Bloedow
The Interim

Pro-lifers know what it’s like to be targeted by government for censorship, particularly when it comes to criminalizing the free speech rights of peaceful protestors around abortuaries. Another attack on free speech for pro-life citizens and many other Canadians was introduced by the Liberals as Bill C-2 at the beginning of the latest session of Parliament. It was rubber stamped (received Royal Assent) by the Governor General on May 31 after being passed in the House of Commons and the Senate.

Bill C-2 replaces the old election act with new legislation governing the whole election process. In the process of revising election-related legislation, the Liberals included in their bill a provision that many freedom advocates are calling a “gag law.”

Stephen Harper, head of the National Citizens’ Coalition (NCC), condemned this provision of the legislation when Bill C-2 was first introduced. With its passage into law, he has wasted no time in initiating legal action against the law, in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench.

“The new law,” explains Mr. Harper, “now makes it illegal for private citizens or groups to spend more than $150,000 of their own money to comment on political parties, candidates or issues during federal elections. That works out to no more than $500 per constituency.”

The government claims such a law is necessary to “to limit the influence of money in politics.” Mr. Harper, though, says that the intent is “to stifle independent voices at election time. The government wants to shut out and shut up groups like the NCC.”In the case of British Columbia’s gag law, the latest to be thrown out by a Canadian court (in February of this year, as the result of an NCC-financed court case), the judge condemned the province for trying to limit constitutional freedoms based on only a “hypothetical concern.”

In the case of British Columbia’s gag law, the latest to be thrown out by a Canadian court (in February of this year, as the result of an NCC-financed court case), the judge condemned the province for trying to limit constitutional freedoms based on only a ‘hypothetical concern.”

Mr. Harper also charges the government with hypocrisy and deception in its arguments in defence of the gag law by noting a number of other lucrative sources of income that can continue to benefit the ruling party during elections. Illustrating his point in an open letter to the Prime Minister several months ago, he wrote: “Bill C-2 leaves contributions to your constituency associations and party campaigns a purely private matter …. In other words, it remains perfectly legal for wealthy contributors to meet privately with government decision-makers and arrange to make money available to a Liberal association in exchange for a favour. And the public would never know about it. On the other hand, if we take our money and use it to communicate our policy views directly and publicly to voters, this would constitute buying influence in government‚ and we could go to jail.”

Canadian governments, including the feds, have been trying to “gag” election-related freedom of speech since at least 1984. They have had to keep fighting their pro-censorship battle throughout the past 16 years because Canada’s courts keep throwing out their laws as offensive to the freedom of speech that is so treasured in Canada and other free lands.

The NCC has been at the forefront of the battles against gag legislation since first challenging a Liberal law in 1984. Later they went to court to see a Progressive Conservative gag law thrown out. Their latest court battle over a gag law was the aforementioned one in B.C. against a law passed in the province in 1995.

In a Globe and Mail column explaining his recent court action, Mr. Harper said that the scenario is always the same when gag laws come before the courts, and he hopes to see it repeated again this time: “The government concedes the law restricts freedom of expression and association, fails to provide a shred of evidence to justify such constitutional violations, and is laughed out of court.”

During House of Commons debate on the bill, Don Boudria, leader of the government in the House of Commons, argued that the current legislation takes into account the particular constitutional problems raised by the Supreme Court of Canada when they threw out the last federal bill.