The YCL-LJC joins forces with organizations across Ontario to denounce the so-called “free speech” directive passed by Doug Ford’s provincial government and urges all progressive and democratic students to oppose and resist this directive by all means possible. We encourage young people across Canada to express their solidarity with students in Ontario.
Passed in August, this directive purports to defend freedom of expression in Ontario universities by denying funding to those who, by January 1, have not complied with the directive through bylaws, policies, or other mechanisms designed to counter any restrictions on this right; a fundamental principle already protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Those deemed to have violated said policies would also be subject to individual punishment by the school. The HEQCO (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario) is tasked with auditing the performance of this resolution – if the school is deemed not to have sufficiently enforced these policies, the HEQCO may report this to the Ontario government, which will then threaten their funding. This use of funding as leverage for compliance with government policy is undemocratic and unconstitutional.
This reactionary government’s bogus “free speech policy” is in fact a justification for racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic propagandists to legitimize venomous discourse within young people and the popular masses while circumventing resistance from universities and colleges.
Recent years have seen the issue of freedom of speech develop into a weapon through which far-right forces may popularize their ideas under nonsensical claims to protect free speech. “Academics” such as Jordan Peterson and Lindsey Shepperd may, without resistance, portray manufactured concern and pseudo-scientific, conspiratorial claims as if they were serious and rigorous theories by manipulating the prestige conferred by university accreditation.
How are we to believe that this law is ideologically neutral when this provincial Government also cut the sex-ed curriculum in high school in order to silence discussion about the rights and legitimacy of LGBTQ+ students? How can we lend legitimacy to a law singing the virtues of freedom of expression when the same government also shelved consultation with Indigenous people and nations to revise the Ontario curriculum to empower Indigenous perspectives? This government targets progressive motions such as Al-Quds Day, saying these should be illegal – yet it does not attack one of the most repressive laws in Canada’s history, Bill C-51 / 59, bills that enable mass surveillance, targeting specifically activists, Indigenous peoples and racialized people.
There is no doubt that this policy represents a double standard, and that the Ontario government’s motive is not to defend free speech, but to propagate reactionary interests. It does not guarantee speech for those who need it most: marginalized groups, community movements and organizations, political parties that dare to question the power and authority of the ruling class and capitalist hegemony; trade unions, student associations, the oppressed and marginalized and all those who fight and mobilize against all forms of injustice, oppression and exploitation. In fact, this policy threatens to enact disciplinary measures and funding cuts to Student Unions and student activists who speak up against hateful and oppressive groups speaking on campus. It extends freedom of speech only to those who need it the least: reactionaries who claim to be transgressing the system, whereas they are the first to defend, enforce, and benefit from capitalism’s oppressive and exploitative structures.
This policy represents none other than the interests of the ruling class and its proudest representatives. Freedom of speech does not entitle reactionaries to act, speak and spread their ideology without resistance. Genuine freedom of speech includes the freedom of resistance, organization and protest. Yet this very resistance is the main target of this policy, as it seeks to muzzle those who bravely struggle against far-right ideology and the institutions through which it is legitimized: universities are one of few places where capitalist hegemony is questioned, and the Ford government looks to render them sterile.
The intent and effects of this policy prove that this law, aimed at confusing people by targeting any opposition to it as being against freedom of speech, constitutes, in fact, a severe attack on democracy, especially for young people and progressive movements.
This is why we believe that the time for consultations and aimless analysis of what this Conservative attack represents is over. It is time to organize, to fight, to resist and to mobilize in order to block this insidious attack on our democratic rights.Throughout the world, we are witnessing a revival in the popularity of far-right ideas, the rise of fascist organizations and movements. Canada is no stranger to this dynamic, as illustrated by the election of populist Ford last June, which lead to the formation of far-right parties such as the “People’s” party by Maxime Bernier, and the recent election of the CAQ in Quebec.
Therefore, we call on all progressive youth – students and workers – to organize and mobilize on campuses; but also in workplaces and in communities; in order to resist this law which, if implemented, will not only benefit the extreme right, but will also strengthen the Ford government to further its attacks on the social and democratic gains of the working class over the last several years. Less than a year until the next federal election, these motions only benefit the Conservatives, far-right ideologues such as Maxime Bernier, and especially corporate power.
