Thread on recent question period back-and-forth about freedom of expression. Erin O'Toole stood up trying to criticize Justin Trudeau's comments on events in France. O'Toole tried to chastise in the broadest, least specific terms about #FreeSpeech and freedom of assembly. 1/
Obsessive yet undifferentiated focus on the concept of freedom of speech in discussions of this recent case of the murder of Samuel Paty obscures more than it reveals. I have some thoughts for you. 2/
The hook for O'Toole was that Trudeau had uttered the (banal, really, it's Canadian law) phrase that "free speech has limits." O'Toole's questions were trying to make Trudeau look like he'd abandoned the value of free speech by merely stating a legal fact. 3/
Media outlets that picked up this exact angle in standalone articles that describe how "appalled" O'Toole was about the PM's claim: The Post Millennial, The Post Millennial again, RT (which a Hoover Institute senior fellow only learned about last week!), and the Toronto Star. 4/
Let's look at the Toronto Star piece a little more closely. It gives us more detail to show what a questionable claim it is to say the reaction of governing politicians must be to defend #FreeSpeech in an undifferentiated way. 5/
torontosun.com/opinion/column…
torontosun.com/opinion/column…
O'Toole's and Brian Lilley's focus on free speech in this case is an obsession. The need for the prime minister to denounce the terrorism of this attack, to condemn the brutal murder of a teacher is not in question. But his comments on free speech, apparently, are. 6/ 
In teaching in a French school, in designing a lesson on free speech by showing Muhammad cartoons, a teacher is not in a position where what they do would strictly count as an expression of free speech. In France, teachers are civil servants. They present official curriculum. 7/
That point matters particularly for a class where students are encouraged to think about and make use of their own free speech. That speech is not entirely free for students--there are school codes, there is assessment, there are career paths that directly follow. 8/
Under these circumstances, a teacher can encourage students to voice dissent to the showing and publication of these cartoons. But, in this particular lesson on free speech, teachers cannot expect that dissenting students will say all they think or will be able to say it well. 9/
When Charlie Hebdo published the cartoons, that was an act of #FreeSpeech. When the cartoons become part of the curriculum delivered by civil servant teachers, things get a bit murkier. Again, this isn't at all saying that teachers shouldn't be able to or shouldn't show them. 10/
It's saying that in the materials they choose teachers do more than avail themselves of their own right to free speech. And in the case of these very specific materials, they now do so with very strong support by the country's president. 11/
Given that teachers are civil servants, it is only right that the president should speak in the strongest possible terms for their protection as well as in passionate support of the curriculum they teach. That is not a question of free speech vis-à-vis the state. 12/
Lilley praises the reaction of French politicians, including the large-scale projection, for several hours, of the cartoons alongside photos of Samuel Paty on the facades of council offices in two French cities. 14/
Where is the space for dissent here for citizens who don't agree with the state brandishing cartoons of a religious figure, a figure clearly not of these politicians' own religion? 15/
What O'Toole and Lilley demand from Trudeau is not a defence of free speech. What they want him to do is to symbolically flex the muscle of the state in order to quell a discussion that will include hearing from those who think these cartoons are not a good idea. 16/
PS: Note for Erin O'Toole--who thought Justin Trudeau needed to say unreservedly that he's in favour of freedom of assembly and association--even in France, or more accurately, of course in France « free association has limits ». 17/
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