FREEDOMCURRENT CENSORSHIPTOREAD ISSUES IN CANADA BOOK AND PERIODICAL COUNCIL 2014 volume 30

Jessie Housty Bringing Books to Bella Bella

Code of Silence Shushing Librarians and Archivists Delay and Deny Muzzling Canada’s Scientists Web of Intrigue Borderless Electronic Surveillance 30th Anniversary Section 30 Challenged Books and Magazines www.freedomtoread.ca | #FTRWeek | @Freedom_to_Read PLUS Scatological Kids’ Lit Get Involved Books Children Love and Ideas for Educators Parents Loathe

FREEDOMTOREAD2014 This year’s Freedom to Read review marks the thirtieth anniversary of its publication and of Freedom to Read Week in Canada. It was 1984 when the Book and Periodical Council, through its Freedom of Expression Committee, first published this annual review to explore the freedom to read in Canada and elsewhere and to inform and assist booksellers, publishers, librarians, students, educators, writers and the public. To commemorate Freedom to Read’s thirtieth anniversary, some of our writers have cast a look back over the past three decades. Franklin Carter describes challenges to 30 publications and looks at the origins of Freedom to Read Week. Jason Openo traces his life from his teen years as a book borrower to his career as a public librarian and considers the changing landscape of the librarians’ profession. Mark Bourrie and Pippa Wysong each cast a critical eye at the restrictions placed on the ability of government librarians, archivists and scientists to freely share information. Charles Montpetit examines how artists and writers can fall victim to censorship, especially if the material is deemed violent in nature. Ann Curry takes a more lighthearted look at what adults hate but children love in “scatological” children’s literature. Finally, the “Get Involved” section provides exercises and resources for teachers, librarians and students. This and previous issues of Freedom to Read, as well as appendices and other resources, are available at www.freedomtoread.ca. We hope you enjoy this issue. Book and Periodical Council THE BOOK AND PERIODICAL COUNCIL (BPC) WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR GENEROUS SPONSORSHIP OF FREEDOM TO READ WEEK 2014:

Canadian Library Association

THE BPC WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND IN-KIND DONATIONS:

Manitoba Library Association

reva pomer design Nunavut Public Library Services

THE BPC THANKS THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR SPONSORSHIP: ARC POETRY MAGAZINE, CANADIAN CHILDREN’S BOOK CENTRE, CANADIAN AUTHORS ASSOCIATION, CANADIAN LITERATURE, DESCANT MAGAZINE, THE FIDDLEHEAD, GROUNDWOOD BOOKS, HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS, THE INTERNATIONAL FREE EXPRESSION REVIEW, MAGAZINES CANADA, THE NEW QUARTERLY, CHARLES PACHTER, PRISM, STUDIES IN CANADIAN LITERATURE.

THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE CONTRIBUTED AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF TIME AND ENERGY PRODUCING THE KIT AND POSTER AND MAINTAINING THE WEBSITE: CATHERINE BARANDIARAN, ELIZABETH CAMERON, FRANKLIN CARTER, ANNE MCCLELLAND, PEGGY MCKEE, SCOTT MITCHELL, MARG ANNE MORRISON, REVA POMER, ELIZABETH RAYMER AND SANDRA RICHMOND. WE ALSO THANK THE MEMBERS OF THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION COMMITTEE: RON BROWN, FRANKLIN CARTER, SANDY CRAWLEY, BRENDAN DE CAIRES, TERI DEGLER, BRIANNE DIANGELO, KATE EDWARDS, AMANDA HOPKINS, DAVID KENT, HOLLY KENT, MARK LEIREN- YOUNG, ANNE MCCLELLAND, MARG ANNE MORRISON (CHAIR), REVA POMER, JANE PYPER, ALVIN SCHRADER AND ERIN STROPES. THE BPC, ALONG WITH THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION COMMITTEE, THANKS ALL WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORS FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 2014 FREEDOM TO READ KIT. THE BPC GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE SUPPORT OF ITS MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS AND THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS.

 ™ 2014 FREEDOMTOREAD Contents EDITOR Elizabeth Raymer CONSULTING EDITOR Franklin Carter CREATIVE DIRECTOR/POSTER DESIGN Reva Pomer EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BPC Anne McClelland CONTRIBUTORS Mark Bourrie, Donna Bowman, Ron Brown, Elizabeth Cameron, Ann Curry, Ethan Gaiser, Alexa Iwanic, Hilary McLaughlin, Charles Montpetit, Jason Openo, Shelagh Paterson, From left: Malala Yousafzai, Dieu Cay and Jessie Housty Julie Payne, Alvin M. Schrader, 4 Position Statement: Freedom of 33 Teaching Tough Topics Ken Setterington, Philip Slayton, Expression and Freedom to Read By Ken Setterington Pippa Wysong 4 Book and Periodical Council 34 2013 Awards © Book and Periodical Council 2013 Members 2013–14 No part of this publication may be reproduced, 36 Surveillance Without Borders stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in 5 NewsBytes By Philip Slayton any form or by any means without prior written By Franklin Carter permission of the Book and Periodical Council or, 37 Access to Information in Crisis in the case of photocopying or other reprographic 8 Heiltsuk Cultural Architect: By Julie Payne copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Jessie Housty in Conversation 38 Ontario Inches Toward Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). By Elizabeth Raymer Please credit the Book and Periodical Council on any Anti-SLAPP Legislation copies of kit materials. 11 Classified: The Silencing of By Ron Brown The opinions expressed in Freedom to Read Librarians and Archivists 38 The School Library as Intellectual 2014 do not necessarily reflect the official By Mark Bourrie Freedom Fighter views of the Book and Periodical Council or its member associations. 13 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: By Shelagh Paterson ISBN 978-0-9739099-9-9 Scientific Research Under Wraps 39 Intellectual Freedom Questioned: By Pippa Wysong Challenges to Library Resources Please send your comments and ideas for and Policies in Publicly Funded future issues of Freedom to Read to the 16 Censoring Violence in Book and Periodical Council, Suite 107, Entertainment Media: Canadian Libraries in 2012 192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C2. Who Are the Real Victims? By Alvin M. Schrader Phone: (416) 975-9366 Fax: (416) 975-1839 By Charles Montpetit and Donna Bowman E-mail: [email protected] Visit www.freedomtoread.ca for more information. 18 Bums, Poops and Pees: 41 Book Profiles: Dear Sir, I Intend Why Children Love and Adults to Burn Your Book; The War on Censor Scatological Children’s Science; Banned on the Hill; Books Black Code By Ann Curry By Hilary McLaughlin 20 The Provocative and Profane: A Librarian Looks Back over Get Involved Three Decades of Challenges By Jason Openo 43 Ideas for Educators 22 The Origins of Freedom 43 Get Involved in Freedom to Read to Read Week Week By Franklin Carter 43 Get Involved Online 23 Dear Teacher: An Open Letter 44 Talk It Up from Margaret Laurence to Schoolteachers 44 Activity: Freedom to Read 2014 Quiz 24 30 Challenged Publications By Franklin Carter 45 Activity: Host an Event 30 Telegram from the BPDC to Alice 46 Winning Student Essays and Video Munro, Janet Lunn and June from the Calgary Public Library’s Contest, 2013 Poster Image: The Painted Flag, Callwood Charles Pachter, acrylic on canvas, 31 Meanwhile in Quebec … 47 Activity: Word-Search Puzzle 1986. By Charles Montpetit 48 Activity: Acrostic POSITION STATEMENT thebpc FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND FREEDOM TO READ BOOK AND PERIODICAL COUNCIL A statement of the basic tenets of the Freedom of Expression Committee The Book and Periodical Council is the umbrella of the Book and Periodical Council organization for Canadian associations that are or whose members are primarily involved with the writing, editing, translating, publishing, producing, “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms . . . distributing, lending, marketing, reading and thought, belief, opinion, and expression.” selling of written words. — Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms MEMBERS 2013–14 FULL MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS Freedom of expression is a fundamental right of all Canadians, and freedom to read Access Copyright is part of that precious heritage. Our Committee, representing member organizations Association of Canadian Publishers and associations of the Book and Periodical Council, reaffirms its support of this Canadian Authors Association vital principle and opposes all efforts to suppress writing and silence writers. Words Canadian Library Association and images in their myriad configurations are the substance of free expression. Canadian Publishers’ Council The freedom to choose what we read does not, however, include the freedom to Editors’ Association of Canada choose for others. We accept that courts alone have the authority to restrict reading League of Canadian Poets Literary Press Group of Canada material, a prerogative that cannot be delegated or appropriated. Prior restraint Magazines Canada demeans individual responsibility; it is anathema to freedom and democracy. Periodical Marketers of Canada As writers, editors, publishers, book manufacturers, distributors, retailers and Professional Writers Association of Canada librarians, we abhor arbitrary interpretations of the law and other attempts to limit The Writers’ Union of Canada freedom of expression. ASSOCIATE MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS We recognize court judgements; otherwise, we oppose the detention, seizure, Association of Book Publishers of British destruction or banning of books and periodicals—indeed, any effort to deny, repress Columbia or sanitize. Censorship does not protect society; it smothers creativity and precludes Association of Manitoba Book Publishers open debate of controversial issues. Book Publishers Association of Alberta Endorsed by the Book and Periodical Council BookNet Canada February 5, 1997 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Canadian Copyright Institute Ontario Library Association Organization of Book Publishers of Ontario PEN Canada Bienvenue aux francophones! The Word on the Street The Writers’ Trust of Canada Dans notre site Internet, vous trouverez une compilation de plus de 150 AFFILIATES auteur‑es francophones ou documents disponibles en français qui ont été Calyx Ground Transportation Solutions l’objet d’attaques depuis 1930 au Canada. L’écrivain Charles Montpetit, Canpar Transport LP lui-même frappé de plusieurs interdictions, relate les circonstances Disticor Magazine Distribution Services entourant chacun des cas, et invite le public à lui en signaler d’autres Fraser Direct Distribution Services en prévision de futures mises à jour. Georgetown Terminal Warehouses Ltd. www.freedomtoread.ca/censorship-in-canada/index/ Pal Benefits Inc. Sameday Worldwide Universal Logistics Inc. BPC EXECUTIVE To order kits and posters Chair: Anita Purcell ➵Freedom to Read kits may be ordered from the Book and Periodical Council for $16.50 (Canadian Authors Association) Vice Chair: Vacant plus shipping, handling and HST. Orders for 10 kits or more, shipped to a single address, receive a 20 per cent discount and may be accompanied by a purchase order. Flat, Past Chair: Stephanie Fysh rolled, full-colour posters are available for $10 plus shipping, handling and HST. (GST/ (Editors’ Association of Canada) HST#R106801889). All orders are non-refundable. Treasurer: Joanna Poblocka (League of Canadian Poets) Book and Periodical Council 192 Spadina Avenue, Suite 107, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C2 BPC STAFF Phone: (416) 975-9366 | Fax: (416) 975-1839 | E-mail: [email protected] Executive Director: Anne McClelland www.freedomtoread.ca | www.theBPC.ca Program Co-ordinator: Catherine Barandiaran facebook.com/FreedomToReadWeek  | twitter.com/Freedom_to_Read

4 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 newsbytes By Franklin Carter Current Libel Disputes In Canada, provincial libel laws prohibit the publication of false statements that hurt a person’s reputation or an institution’s reputation. Libel laws also limit freedom of expression. Sharp disputes over allegations of libel can trigger the filing of lawsuits. Fighting such lawsuits in court can be costly and time consuming. Fines, if imposed by a court, can be costly too. Here are a few of the more noteworthy libel disputes in Canada today. As of November 2013, not one of the allegations in these disputes had been proven in court.

Furlong v. Robinson as a witness at a hearing of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and argued In British Columbia, John Furlong that Maclean’s magazine had pub- is suing Laura Robinson. Furlong is lished anti-Muslim journalism. On his the former CEO of the organizing blog, Levant commented on Awan’s committee of Vancouver’s Winter testimony and concluded that Awan Olympics. Robinson is a freelance had perjured himself. Awan denies journalist. In 2012, she wrote in The the allegation. Georgia Straight that Furlong had abused students when he was a York University v. Toronto teacher in Burns Lake, B.C., more than Life 40 years ago. Robinson stands by her In Toronto, York University is suing story; Furlong denies the allegations. Toronto Life. In its October 2013 Black v. Random House issue, the magazine published a non- of Canada fiction story by Katherine Laidlaw DALE ASKEY In Toronto, Conrad Black is suing that describes the university’s campus expressed a professional opinion. Random House of Canada and non- as a hunting ground for sexual preda- Because Askey took a job at fiction author Bruce Livesey. Black— tors. University officials and profes- McMaster University in Hamilton a book author, newspaper columnist sors say the story presents a distorted in 2011, Richardson chose to sue and former press baron—says that picture of women’s safety at York. him in Ontario. four passages in Livesey’s Thieves In Canada, universities rarely sue of Bay Street expose him to “hatred, Bird v. Jenkins for libel. ridicule and contempt in Canada.” In Ontario, Michael Bird, the Gravel v. LifeSiteNews and The publisher denies that the book Anglican bishop of Niagara, is suing Quebec Life Coalition has caused Black any injury. David Jenkins. Bird’s lawsuit says In Quebec, Raymond Gravel—a that statements and digitally altered Richardson v. Askey Roman Catholic priest and former pictures on Jenkins’s blog—Anglican Herbert Richardson is suing Dale Bloc Québécois MP—is suing two Samizdat—portrayed the bishop as Askey. Richardson is the founder Christian organizations. Gravel says a weak leader, a sexual fetishist, an of Edwin Mellen Press (EMP), a their websites mischaracterized his atheist and a thief. In his statement publisher of scholarly books in public statements about abortion of defence, Jenkins says that he was Lewiston, N.Y. Askey is a librarian who and homosexuality and also damaged using his freedom of expression to criticized the quality of EMP’s books his prospects for re-election and his satirize a public figure. on a blog when he worked at Kansas reputation. LifeSiteNews says that its State University in 2010. Richardson Awan v. Levant writers acted in good faith and report- says the blog post damaged EMP’s In Ontario, Khurrum Awan is suing ed Gravel’s statements accurately. reputation; Askey says he merely Ezra Levant. In 2008, Awan appeared NEWSBYTES CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 5 NEWSBYTES

NEWSBYTES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 identifiable minorities to hatred or contempt. Section 54 listed penalties Canada such as fines. Sections 13 and 54 were intended Canada’s Justice Minister to protect minorities from hateful Proposes Crackdown on words and images. But the support- ers of Bill C-304 successfully argued Cyberbullying that these sections were incompatible In November 2013, Justice Minister with the guarantee of free expression Peter MacKay introduced the in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Protecting Canadians from Online Freedoms. Crime Act. The legislation, which is The change in the law will take also called Bill C-13, is intended to effect on June 26, 2014. However, the stop cyberbullying. passage of Bill C-304 did not nullify Bill C-13 proposes a maximum similarly worded bans on hateful penalty of five years in prison for expression in the provincial human posting or distributing an “intimate rights codes of British Columbia, image” of a person without securing Alberta and Saskatchewan. that person’s consent. A ban on hate propaganda also The bill defines an intimate image main aims: “to protect children from remains in sections 318–320 of as one that “depicts a person engaged exposure to adult pornography” Canada’s Criminal Code. in explicit sexual activity or that through ISP filters and “to tackle the depicts a sexual organ, anal region magnitude of child sex abuse images or breast.” online.” International Bill C-13 would give the police Smith added that she did not greater powers to investigate cyber- intend to block or censor legal por- Pakistani Schools Ban bullying. After acquiring a court nography from adults. Adults could Education Activist’s Book order, police officers could seize any “opt in” to view pornography by con- In 2013, Malala Yousafzai won computers, phones and other devices tacting their ISPs. acclaim in the West. used in an alleged offence. Smith described home-based The teenaged Pakistani who The bill would also give the police Internet filtering as useful but inad- barely survived a murder attempt easier access to metadata, the digital equate. for speaking in favour of girls’ information that identifies specific In July and August, Smith’s pro- education co-authored a well-pub- phone calls, computers, images and posal prompted Canadians to debate licized book entitled I Am Malala, e-mailed messages. whether national Internet filtering is was nominated for the Nobel Peace Bill C-13 is the federal government’s politically and technologically feasible. Prize and received the European response to the suicides of Rehtaeh Union’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom Parsons and Amanda Todd, two Parliament Scraps a Ban of Thought. Canadian teens who suffered many on Hateful Expression The Canadian government offered months of online bullying and On June 26, 2013, Parliament abol- honorary Canadian citizenship to her, torment. ished a nationwide ban on hateful and Prime Minister Stephen Harper expression. even invited her to visit Canada. Conservative MP Demands Senators voted 49–32 to pass Bill But in Pakistan, I Am Malala was Internet Filtering C-304, An Act to amend the Canadian banned throughout the nation’s In July 2013, Joy Smith—a backbench Human Rights Act. On the same day, private schools. Senior education Conservative MP—called for national the bill received royal assent. officials said the book showed insuf- Internet filtering to block children’s The bill scrapped sections 13 and ficient respect for Islam. They also access to pornography. 54 of the act. Section 13 banned the questioned the motives of the people Smith, who represents the fed- repeated electronic transmission (i.e., who had published it. eral riding of Kildonan–St. Paul in by telephone or through the Internet) In November, Adeeb Javedani, Manitoba, said that she had two of messages that tend to expose president of the All Pakistan Private

6 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 Schools Management Association, by performing only for people who said that his organization had banned had been invited to see the play. the book from the libraries of its Two censors eventually turned up 40,000 affiliated schools and had and stopped all performances. asked the government to keep it out On September 1, the Lebanese of school curricula. journal Now quoted Bourjeily: “Everything about Malala is now “It is strange that, as an artist, you becoming clear,” Javedani said. “To have to go present your work to a me, she is representing the West, not military bureau. And in this play us.” there was nothing from the usual Kashif Mirza, chairman of the All sets of taboos that could get Pakistan Private Schools Federation, censored—no sexual content, no said his organization had banned I violence, nothing like that. But the Am Malala throughout its affiliated story itself criticizes the censorship schools. bureau, and so they decided it was Mirza objected to the book’s failure never going to get played.” to follow Mohammed’s name with the initials PBUH (“peace be upon him”). American Library He also frowned on a reference to Association Names Most Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Challenged Books Verses and a passage that expresses I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with In 2012, the most frequently chal- sympathy for Pakistan’s persecuted Christina Lamb (Little, Brown & Company, 2013) lenged books in U.S. public libraries Ahmadiyya minority. been inactive. Members of the public belonged to Dav Pilkey’s Captain have referred only eight books to the Underpants series, announced the Ireland’s Parliament board since 2008, and no new board American Library Association (ALA). members have been appointed since Considers Anti-Censorship Americans who sought to have 2011. Bill these children’s books removed from In October 2013, a member of libraries objected to their “offensive Ireland’s parliament tabled a Lebanese Censor Bans a language.” They claimed the series motion to abolish the Censorship Comedy About Censorship was unsuited for children. of Publications Board. In 2013, a military censor in Lebanon In 2012, the second most frequently Niall Collins, the justice spokes- banned Lucien Bourjeily’s play Would challenged book was Sherman man of Fianna Fáil—the Republican It Pass or Not? Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Party—tabled the motion. Fianna General Mounir Akiki, a Part-Time Indian. Would-be censors Fáil is an opposition party. spokesman for General Security’s said the book contained “offensive “The Censorship of Publications censorship bureau, appeared on TV language.” They also said the book Board is an archaic, redundant body on September 3 to announce the ban. was “racist,” “sexually explicit” and which has not had any use from Citing the opinions of four unnamed unsuited for its intended age group. 2008,” Collins said. critics, Akiki said the play lacked Other titles on the ALA’s challenged The board was established in 1929 artistic value. book list include Thirteen Reasons to purge Ireland of “obscene” books Bourjeily wrote the play, which Why by Jay Asher, Fifty Shades of and magazines. Board members depicts comical conversations at the Grey by E.L. James, And Tango Makes usually adhered to strict Roman censorship bureau, to promote free- Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Catholic values. dom of expression in Lebanon. The Richardson and The Kite Runner by Over the decades, the board title—Would It Pass or Not?—conveys Khaled Hosseini. banned thousands of magazines the question that Lebanese artists ask In 2012, the ALA’s Office for and books, including the works of themselves before they submit their Intellectual Freedom received 464 Brendan Behan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, work to the censors for approval. reports of challenges to materials James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Edna In April 2013, a troupe of actors (i.e., books, magazines, DVDs) in U.S. O’Brien and Radclyffe Hall. performed the play at universities. public libraries. In 2011, the number But in recent years the board has The actors sought to avoid censorship of reported challenges was 326. 

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 7 PERSPECTIVES

JESSIE HOUSTY Courtesy of Lliam Hildebrand CulturalArchitect

8 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014

Jessie Housty in conversation with Elizabeth Raymer

n the early morning of July 12, 2013, a fire destroyed the Thistalalh Memorial Library in the island town of Bella Bella, B.C. The library, which was named after a community leader, belonged to the Heiltsuk First Nation. It was the only library available to this small, isolated community on Canada’s western coast. IIn 2007, Jessie Housty established the library through her job as a director of the Qqs Projects Society in Bella Bella. Book donors around the world—including book publisher Louise Dennys and her husband, Ric Young—contributed to the library’s collection. When the library burned down, Bella Bella was devastated but Housty resolved to build a new one. Housty is the youngest person ever elected to her band’s tribal council. She is also a graduate student of medieval English literary history at the University of Victoria. In August 2013, Elizabeth Raymer spoke to Housty about her love of books and her drive to rebuild the library. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

ER: How did you first get involved for anyone who ever had a desire to in First Nation community read seemed like a really important organizing? initiative. We didn’t want people to JH: Involvement comes naturally have to work to satisfy their desire when you grow up in a small, remote to read. community. I was fortunate to grow We hadn’t had an all-ages library as up in a very traditional family, and a community space before. We had to I was surrounded by people who start from square one in Bella Bella believed strongly in community to sell people on the idea of having a values: making sure that people were library, of borrowing books and then taking care of themselves and of each environmental aspect and a strong returning them. I don’t think there other, and making sure everyone had sense of being connected to place. was resistance to the idea of a library, what was needed. But we’ve also realized along the but there was a lot of work that had ER: How did you come to establish way that it’s important to focus on to be done to build a culture around the Thistalalh Memorial Library? education, so this library was the books and reading. Charles George, Heiltsuk Rattle, 1998. Photo by Barry Prophet JH: I work for a community-driven first major literacy- and education- [Many members] of my parents’ non-profit called Qqs Projects Society. focused project that we created and grandparents’ generation were “Qqs” is the Heiltsuk word for “eyes.” within the organization. taken away to residential schools; Our mandate, when we were founded ER: Can you tell me about the open- their experience of education was in 1999, was to open the eyes of ing of the library? Did you experience not necessarily positive. There’s been youth in our community to their any resistance or get any encourage- an ongoing effort in the community responsibility as stewards of our land ment? to ensure that all of our educational and culture and resources. Since JH: Bella Bella, geographically, is very institutions deliver their programs in 1999, we’ve been developing a suite of isolated. We’re a sizable community— a way that’s consistent with commun- programs that support leadership and there are about 1,500 people in Bella ity values and accessible to commun- capacity development, particularly for Bella—but we’re on a remote island ity members. When we were creating families in the community. and have limited access to resources. the library, we had to consciously fold A lot of what we do focuses on Growing up, I was a very avid reader, that in as well. We were making an building a stronger sense of indig- but there was no bookstore or library. important space for books and learn- enous cultural identity with a strong So making books readily accessible JESSIE HOUSTY CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 9 PERSPECTIVES

JESSIE HOUSTY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 certainly increased over its lifespan. province who are volunteering to ing, but also privileging in an equal There were always parents and coordinate donation sites. We have way oral storytelling and other means families who believed that it was people collecting books in Toronto. of knowledge transmission that you important to promote education in Some books have made their way to might not always find in the library. the home, but they didn’t have the Bella Bella already. People sailing up One of the neat things about the resources to make that happen. the coast to Alaska pulled into Bella library was that it was not just a col- We realized that we were going to Bella to drop off boxes of books for lection of books; it was a place where have an ever-evolving collection. I’d us. We’ve had books arrive in the mail people gathered and shared stories. solicit donations of children’s books from Australia. So a huge community We made it a comfortable space; and once or twice a year give books mobilized around this, and my house we made time for elders to come away to young people in the com- is teeming with books. We have and tell stories. We helped recreate munity who wanted to come in and thousands! intergenerational teaching models pick out a book. Just to be able to give ER: When will the library reopen? that exist in our culture. You would such gifts—to have young people take JH: At the end of September [2013], get three or four generations all in the books home to become part of their we hope to reopen again. We’re same room, passing down knowledge daily lives—was really important to getting the generous gift of a Britco or sharing stories. Making space for me. I grew up in Bella Bella but didn’t trailer. As soon as it arrives, we’ll be [intergenerational conversation] was have that kind of access. able to start stamping and labelling as important as making space for a ER: Tell me about the library burning books and putting them on the book reading or a book club. down. shelves. ER: What was the process of opening JH: We were located in a building that In retrospect, it makes sense that the library? provided other community services. there was such strong community JH: Almost all of the books were The fire was caused by a group of support for the original library idea— donated. We made a conscious choice teenage girls. It originated outside and for the new library that’s on the early on: if we wanted a community the building, against a wall near the way. As First Nations people, we draw library, then we wanted to have a library. [The library was not a target.] our identity from our stories and broad definition of the word “com- ER: What will you do next? from the way our stories are written munity.” And there was a community JH: It was a really difficult thing. The on the landscape. Finding ways to of supporters across B.C., Canada, first time I walked into what was left honour stories makes a lot of sense even internationally. of the building, I saw six years of to the community. Two early champions were Ric hard work ... reduced to knee-high ER: How can people send books to Young and Louise Dennys, who black pulp on the floor. Nothing was you? really supported what we were doing. salvageable, but it was incredible to Around the time of Ric’s birthday, he me how quickly people mobilized. JH: Volunteers created bellabella asked people to donate books rather People reminded me that we had library.com the day after the fire than give him gifts. We received a started from nothing the first time happened to help us coordinate small avalanche of beautiful, hand- and that there was no reason we rebuilding efforts. We’re updating picked books. We had an incredible couldn’t do it again. In fact, this time the site to create easy ways for people collection of books that had been we had more support because the to send books or make financial inscribed by the authors for the community realized the value of what contributions. library and the community of Bella we were doing. And frankly it’s been ER: You’re pursuing a master’s degree Bella. It was just incredible to hold a overwhelming and beautiful and in English literature: medieval literary book signed by Salman Rushdie, who chaotic and wonderful. We have been history with a focus on ethnoecology sent his best wishes for our project. flooded with books, and we are well and medieval botany. Did you ever Even though we were geographically on our way to rebuilding. consider studying library science? isolated, we felt community support ER: How many books were in the JH: I feel very lucky that I grew up as for our project was really strong. original collection? someone who loves stories. I think ER: What were your activities and JH: We had 4,000 books in the original that experience has prepared me successes? Did community feeling collection, and we’re likely going more for building this kind of library toward the library change? to have more in the new one. Right than any formal education I could JH: I think the buy-in for the project now there are people across the have received. 

10 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 ClassifiedBy Mark Bourrie The Silencing of Librarians and Archivists

Of all national assets, archives are the most precious. They are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care of them marks the

extent of our civilization. —Sir Arthur Doughty, former chief archivist of Canada

he quote is carved, in both official identified as high risk to LAC and to the employee with languages, in the granite base of regard to conflict of interest, conflict of duty, and duty the statue that commemorates to loyalty.” Canada’s second chief archivist The code warned employees not to accept speaking in Ottawa. But the lesson, like the engagements in which they would be expected statue, is almost lost. to talk about their work, and to watch what TSir Arthur Doughty’s statue is well hidden they posted on the Internet. It was issued behind the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) by Daniel Caron, who headed the agency building just west of Parliament Hill. Inside for four years, from 2009 to 2013. Caron the building, services have been slashed, was trained as an economist, not a librar- employee morale is dismal, and visiting ian or archivist, and his tenure saw a rapid scholars are angry. deterioration in services. The words “dusty” and “archives” are some- Researchers often had to wait years for material times used in the same breath by people who to be examined by LAC’s “protection of privacy” don’t understand that history is a living thing team. Materials remained classified for security that can, and often is, remade to suit political reasons for long periods of time, simply because agendas. History can also be hidden by gov- no one had declassified them. For instance, plans ernment officials who want to write their own for World War II fortifications along the Pacific narrative of a country. Coast are still secret, even though the forts them- So it makes sense that historians, who have selves were demolished decades ago. seen a stunning deterioration of LAC services and Historians and archivists see LAC as yet another have been refused access to many of its collec- agency caught up in the Harper government’s tions, are angry and concerned. So are longtime campaign to change the emphasis in popular and employees, who have watched as an organization academic history from examinations of society that was recognized as the best in the world three and politics to the celebration of military suc- decades ago became a political pawn. cesses and great national events. At the beginning of 2013, employees were handed They are particularly concerned as the govern- something called the Library and Archives Canada ment ramps up its plans to celebrate the 150th Code of Conduct. They were told: “As public servants, anniversary of Confederation in 2017. our duty of loyalty to the Government of Canada and “The 150th anniversary can’t just be a PR its elected officials extends beyond our workplace exercise,” says Christina Nichols, executive to our personal activities. Such activities have been CLASSIFIED CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 11 PERSPECTIVES

CLASSIFIED CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 much as Moore had. Caron’s claims in the state’s collection. He also director of the Canadian Council of included about $4,500 for Spanish reformatted the backup drive. All the Archives. “It has to have meaningful lessons and $2,000 for lunches at the images were permanently lost. context and that meaningful context Rideau Club, along with expensive The digital issue came to a head in is the archives. That’s where our his- trips to Europe, Australia, Puerto Rico, mid-2013 when the Ottawa Citizen tory is, the memory of the nation. Quebec City and Toronto. broke the news that LAC had made There will be masses of information Archivist and librarian Myron a deal with Canadiana.org, a group that they won’t have the resources to Groover, who writes a blog called owned by Canada’s university librar- make accessible.” Bibliocracy and is a member of the ies, to make digital copies of millions Last year, heritage minister James British Columbia Library Association, of documents and photos. The deal Moore announced that the Canadian accused Caron of showing “pretty allows Canadiana.org, which is making Museum of Civilization will be profound contempt for the profes- an initial $2-million investment in a re-crafted as the Canadian Museum sionals that he needed to work with to document digitization program, of History. Moore said rebranding get things done.” In his blog, Groover to charge researchers to use the the Canadian Museum of Civilization criticized the LAC for wasting tens material. Canadiana.org will have will place Canadian history front and of millions of dollars on digitization rights to the material for 10 years. centre in the institution. The plan will projects that are now years behind James Turk, head of the Canadian also provide museums across Canada schedule. He also argued that these Association of University Teachers, with access to the museum’s 3.5 mil- projects have failed to deliver on which represents 68,000 academics lion artifacts, 90 per cent of which are the promise of making the nation’s across Canada, called the deal “odi- in storage, as the museum will now documentary heritage accessible to ous” and “a fundamentally wrong be required to lend its artifacts. the public; just a small fraction of the solution … it was negotiated in secre- Moore, speaking during debate archive’s records are available online. cy and people were sworn to secrecy.” on the bill to change the name and Can LAC change to a user-friendly Turk said LAC should stop cutting mandate of the museum, said the digital system, as Caron promised? staff and rebuild its digitization team country needed a national institu- Few seem to believe it’s possible. to handle the tens of millions of doc- tion in Ottawa “that celebrates our Éric Méchoulan of the Université de uments stored in boxes in buildings achievements and what we have Montreal, who was paid $15,000 by throughout the Ottawa Valley. accomplished together as Canadians. LAC to advise the agency on digital Yet Canada does not have a national Paul Taillefer, president of the issues, warned that digital images institution that connects all of these Canadian Teachers’ Federation in can be “retouched and transformed,” local museums across the country.” 2013, said the deal, “which was raising authenticity issues. And NDP politicians said the Harper surreptitiously negotiated behind changing technology can make digital government wanted to create a “wax the backs of the texts’ owners, the archives obsolete, he warned. museum” of selected prominent Canadian public, will result in citizens Canadians, and heritage critic Pierre Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin being forced to purchase works that Nantel denounced the federal notes that when the archives of they in fact already own. This closed- government for making cuts to Parks East Germany’s secret police, the door deal by the Harper government Canada, which, he said, abandoned feared Stasi, were opened to the undermines our access to valuable “fragile historic sites across Canada.” public in 2001, no one could read educational resources which have Nantel also claimed the government them because both the software and been cherished by Canadian teachers had “destroyed” Library and Archives hardware had changed too much. and students for years.” Canada, an opinion that won’t likely On average, he warned, web pages Secrecy, inaccessibility, failure: be challenged by the scholars, gene- last just 44 days. Hyperlinks become the gift from this generation of alogists and members of the public useless quite quickly and digital files policy-makers may keep on giving who use the institution’s collection. break down. for a very long time.  Caron resigned in May 2013, after Then there are the human errors, Mark Bourrie is an Ottawa-based the Ottawa Citizen reported he had deliberate or not. Recently, a techni- journalist. He is the author of The billed about $175,000 in expenses cian in Alaska reformatted a hard Fog of War: Censorship of Canada’s over two years, nearly twice as drive containing 800,000 pictures Media in World War Two.

12 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 Don’t Ask

Don’t Tell Scientific Research Under Wraps

By Pippa Wysong from the office of then environment Scientists from various federal depart- n the spring of 2006, Mark minister Rona Ambrose. ments are no longer accessible to Tushingham, PhD, was sched- According to news reports at the journalists, even if all that is wanted is uled to attend a luncheon to time, he wasn’t allowed to speak for clarification of scientific terms. There promote his new novel, Hotter vague reasons, and readers learned are denials that there are muzzling IThan Hell (DreamCatcher Publishing that he was not speaking in an policies in place, but it’s gotten to Inc., 2005). It is a fictional account of “official capacity” for Environment the point where numerous reporters, what effects climate change might Canada. Taking a government scien- especially those on the environment have on Earth in the near future. Parts tist out of public view in this way was beat, don’t even try to get interviews of the world are no longer habitable, a harbinger of things to come. with Environment Canada scientists. there are wars over fuel and land, and When I began in journalism in the And the muzzling disease has Canada is battling the United States late 1980s, getting interviews with spread. There are notable changes over scarce water resources. It tells scientists at federal research labs was at Natural Resources Canada (NRC) the story of a bleak future. easy. I would call the media office for and the Department of Fisheries and But Tushingham was not allowed Environment Canada or other depart- Oceans (DFO), although other federal by his employer to speak publicly ments, ask to speak to a scientist who departments seem unaffected, and about his novel at the luncheon, or was an author of a study I was report- their scientists can still be reached in other venues, or to give interviews. ing on, and, usually within the hour, I for comment easily. He is a scientist with Environment had the scientist on the phone. Often, In September 2010, Margaret Canada and was stopped from I was given a direct number. Munro of Postmedia News broke promoting his book by an order Today, things are different. DON'T ASK CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 13 PERSPECTIVES

DON'T ASK CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 a story that described an internal memo. It announced a policy change to the ability of NRC scientists to speak to the press. “Pre-approval” was now required from the office of the minister of natural resources. The article quotes NRC’s western regional communications manager as saying—in a March 24, 2013, e-mail— that new interview procedures dictate pre-approval for “certain types of interview requests by the minister’s office.” The policy applies to media coverage of high-profile topics such as climate change and oil sands and to reporters at “an international or national media organization (such as the CBC or the CanWest paper chain).” Protocols such as these lead to such significant delays that journal- ists often can’t get needed interviews until after deadlines have passed, if the request is approved at all. Yet the ccording to a 2010 CanWest research is done in federally operated laboratories paid for with taxpayers’ News Service report, the dollars. The news media provide a window for the public to see inside Environment Canada report those labs. Munro’s article also mentioned a noted that senior federal study published in the journal Nature in April 2010 that was co-authored Ascientists were frustrated and felt the by an NRC researcher and university researchers in the United Kingdom. government was trying to muzzle them. The study described a massive flood in North America 13,000 years ago. without prior confirmation with An analysis by Environment Canada The British university issued media [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper’s itself looked at the impact of these releases, but the NRC media office media team—usually denied and, rules and found that after the policy insisted on getting reporters’ ques- when allowed, totally controlled. was introduced, media coverage of tions first and then had to get Scientists were threatened with job climate-change science dropped a approval from the minister’s office. loss if they said anything in an whopping 80 per cent. According to (The approval came through, but interview that was not exactly what a 2010 CanWest News Service report, too late for reporters’ deadlines.) the media team had told them to say.” the Environment Canada report A retired Environment Canada In fact, Environment Canada intro- noted that senior federal scientists scientist who identifies herself as duced its media rules in 2007, and were frustrated and felt the govern- Naomi posted a blog in May 2012 it became harder then for reporters ment was trying to muzzle them. about the muzzling of her depart- to get timely interviews. Scientists Another EC scientist reporters were ment before she left in 2008. She needed permission before giving inter- not permitted to talk to was Mary wrote that “scientists were effectively views, and the rules introduced layers Waiser, who had written two import- muzzled from speaking to the media of bureaucracy and “messaging.” ant papers describing the presence of

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chemicals in Saskatchewan’s Wascana the U.S. space agency NASA. official statements. A reporter might Creek, downstream from Regina’s When Spears called NASA, he be asked for a list of questions in sewage treatment plant. was given a prompt interview with advance and receive vetted, approved The DFO has developed stricter scientists and had all his questions written responses or have a govern- access to its scientists too. Dr. Kristi answered. But when Spears asked ment communications officer partici- Miller, a DFO scientist, investigated to interview an NRC researcher pate in phone interviews. why salmon populations in western who was involved, he was e-mailed The result is that access to infor- Canada were declining. She found technical details about some of the mation and interviews pertaining to the fish were exposed to a virus, equipment used and was never publicly funded research are stifled. possibly from the local aquaculture granted an interview. Yet the public needs to know about industry. Her study was published in Spears filed an access-to-informa- topics such as an international journal, which issued tion request and received copies of • water, air and land a press release naming her as the e-mail that showed his request was contamination; contact. However, media requests for dealt with by close to a dozen people. • the health of the fish that interviews with Dr. Miller, which were The correspondence showed that, people eat; pushed up to the Privy Council Office as various communications and • changing trends in climate; (PCO), were all declined. technical employees became and There are also perceived attempts involved, the drift of Spears’s initial • the effects of global warming to muzzle scientists elsewhere. In questions was lost—a bad case of on Arctic wildlife. early 2013, Andreas Muenchow, an broken telephone. Spears wrote Information helps people make oceanographer at the University of about the experience and posted informed decisions that can affect Delaware, complained in a blog about details online. their health and quality of life. a new non-disclosure agreement he Not only journalists and scientists The CSWA is helping to raise was asked to sign by the Canadian are worried. In early 2013, Democracy awareness through its Let Canada’s government before starting work on Watch and the Environmental Law Scientists Speak program. In 2012, an international collaborative study Centre at the University of Victoria hundreds of scientists staged a mock of Arctic waters. released a report on the muzzling of funeral on Parliament Hill for the “It threatens my Academic Freedom scientists and filed a complaint with “death of evidence.” The Association and potentially muzzles my ability to the federal information commission- des communicateurs scientifiques publish data and interpretation and er, calling for a full investigation. By du Québec won a Press Freedom talk timely on science issues of poten- April, it was announced an investiga- Award in 2012 for its work in expos- tial public interest without govern- tion would be conducted. ing how the government has silenced ment interference,” he stated. Gary Corbett, president of the scientists. Various petitions created At the 2011 annual conference Professional Institute of the Public by individuals and organizations of the Canadian Science Writers’ Service of Canada, a union represent- have sprung up online in the past few Association (CSWA), a spokesperson ing 23,000 Canadian federal scientists years, garnering tens of thousands of for the DFO said the reason for the and researchers, has said, “We believe signatures, protesting muzzling. change in protocol was to save fed- that muzzling scientists who work for Unsurprisingly, scientists are eral ministers from being “caught off the public good threatens the safety unhappy about this muzzling, as guard” by the sudden newsiness of of all Canadians, undermines our are journalists and, increasingly, research that might have policy impli- democracy and our country’s ability members of the public. Various cations. to meet its full potential.” groups, including writers and However, reporters’ queries often Requests for interviews with sci- scientists, must work together to relate to topics that have no imagin- entists studying climate change, oil help Canada return to an age when able policy implications. Consider sands pollution, fish populations and research paid for by tax dollars is what happened when Ottawa Citizen other politically sensitive topics are accessible to the public.  reporter Tom Spears tried to write routed through ministers’ offices, Pippa Wysong is a freelance science, about a study about measuring snow- the PCO or even the Prime Minister’s medical and children’s writer. She is fall in storms that a scientist at the Office. Often, reporters simply can’t also a board member of the Canadian NRC had done with researchers from get interviews or are e-mailed brief Science Writers’ Association.

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 15 PERSPECTIVES

Censoring Violence in Entertainment Media WH Are the Real Victims? By Charles Montpetit

n January 2, 2013, two weeks after the mas- The crime rate has been decreasing for decades, and it is sacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in now at its lowest point since 1972 (Statistics Canada, 2011). Newtown, Conn., a group in the neighbour- If comic books, movies, TV shows, CDs, DVDs, video games ing community of Southington announced and the Internet really drove people amok, wouldn’t coun- that it would prepare a public collection of tries where their consumption is highest have experienced Oentertainment media that were considered violent. The matching crime rates? And wouldn’t those rates flare up with material would be rendered unusable, thrown into the town every new release in these fields? dump and possibly burned. Violent images don’t hypnotize lawbreakers. Sure, given The drive was eventually cancelled, but such misguided the omnipresence of popular media, any offender is usu- initiatives pop up regularly. On both sides of the border, ally interested in at least one of them. Yet the same could be tragedies are inevitably followed by calls to keep them said of desserts, sports and sex, and it doesn’t follow that the from occurring again, and banning something—anything— entire population should give these up. Disturbed criminals becomes tempting. When gun lobbies go into intensive may develop a taste for gory tales, but one shouldn’t assume don’t-blame-us mode, the fury turns to pop culture, generat- that their minds were pure beforehand. ing endless debates about its connection to lethal offences. Works of art aren’t conflict predictors, unlike anti-social Time and again, officials also try to score points with traits, depression, exposure to family violence and peer citizens. After the 1948 shooting of a motorist by two pressure (Christopher Ferguson et al., Journal of Psychiatric young comic-book readers in B.C., Kamloops MP Davie Research, February 2012). Sadly, tackling those issues Fulton persuaded his federal colleagues to pass a bill requires more effort than picking on a scapegoat. Cultural against the production, printing, publishing, distribution, bans are deemed easier and are more likely to fulfill one’s sale and ownership of “any magazine, periodical or book desire to “do something,” regardless of consequences. which exclusively or substantially comprises matter depict- Violence, unfortunately, outsells non-violence, so news ing pictorially the commission of crimes, real or fictitious.” outlets pay little attention to the extensive research that Similarly, the Newtown massacre prompted several U.S. pol- exonerates art (Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson, Grand iticians to launch their own crusades against video games Theft Childhood, 2008; Media Coalition, Only a Game, 2013). (“a bigger problem than guns,” according to Republican Such studies are often ignored outright when scoop-hungry Senator Lamar Alexander). journalists meet the odd proponent of opposite views (see The odd thing is, no one ever calls for a ban on Agatha sidebar). Ironically, few of these reporters worry that their Christie murder mysteries. Still, when censors turn to visuals own coverage of real crimes has adverse effects on the audi- and sounds (think rap music), they assume links to delin- ence. quency. Ah, but is that true? Let’s dig a little deeper. Unscientific findings should be questioned. Given the

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above-noted odds of making a splash (and/or landing sub- stantial research grants), academics may be tempted to make up causal links, even if that task entails a little fudging. To wit: Demonizing ➳ The granddaddy of abolitionist manifestos, Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham (1954), claimed Games that comics turned kids into depraved individuals and was instrumental in persuading the authorities to implement A Case in Point decades of censorship. Only recently was it revealed that JULY 14, 2002: CTV NEWS COVERS A TORONTO Wertham fabricated evidence and “played fast and loose murder, an assassination attempt, a Kashmiri with the data he gathered” (Carol Tilley, Information & massacre—and the animated game Grand Theft Culture, November 2012). Auto III. Bloody excerpts are shown and, as the ➳ Before one puts forth that “violent” movies make camera turns to a printed report, viewers are Are the Real Victims? children more aggressive, one should note that even the told that “research shows excessive exposure to award-winning program Sesame Street can cause simi- violent games increases aggressive behaviour.” lar stimulation. In fact, any adrenaline-producing activ- Media critic Cathy Wing then deplores entertain- ity, including exercise, will amplify any laboratory-tested ment forms that are “killing innocent people.” behaviour, including altruism (Kenneth Gadow and Joyce Sprafkin, Pediatrics, March 1989). We asked her if live humans had indeed been slaughtered and requested a copy of the study. ➳ Lab conditions bear little resemblance to normal life. When researchers show “violent” movies to kids and count “CTV ... was a bit misleading,” she replied. “The ensuing signs of roughhousing, researchers demonstrate report they showed was a survey that the Media laxer standards than parents (Richard Rhodes, Rolling Awareness Network conducted last year, when Stone, November 2000). Such studies only prove that chil- we spoke to 6,000 students about their Internet dren must be reared properly, not that all the arts should use. [Reporter Colin Trethewey] quoted me say- be brought down to a preschool level. ing something to the effect of ‘it’s impossible to draw a conclusive cause-and-effect link between ➳ The positive aspects of controversial media should not be ignored, especially if they outweigh the claimed down- playing games and aggression.’ His script was sides. Gaming, for instance, has been shown to promote subsequently changed by producers in Toronto logic and provide an outlet for frustration. In some cases, after they found a study online.” it can even fight depression and is associated with high Wing cited four recent reports. One provided IQs (Psychologie, July 1998; Review of General Psychology, objective descriptions of game content, one re- June 2010). lied on unpublished sources, and the other two Blaming works of art for felonies, then, is dangerous. Book stated that no link with actual violence had been bans don’t eradicate crime; they prevent authors from established (David Walsh, Video Game Violence: denouncing it. Incest flourished even when it was a taboo What Does the Research Say?, 1998; Craig Emes, subject, and innocent artists were arrested when Canada’s Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, May 1997). broadly defined child-pornography laws proscribed certain As for the study cited by CTV News (Craig A. forms of fiction. (The very first bust targeted not a pedophile Anderson and Karen E. Dill, Journal of Person- ring but 26-year-old painter Eli Langer.) Meanwhile, giving ality and Social Psychology, April 2000), it com- credence to prohibitionists opens escape routes for psycho- prised two sections. One compared the gaming paths who plead that the media “made them do it.” habits and grades of 227 youths, concluding that In the end, many do-gooders may realize that they stand “causal statements are risky at best.” The other on the bullies’ side.  examined 32 students who tried four games once Charles Montpetit is the freedom of expression co-ordinator for and then filled out a questionnaire. We’ll let our the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ). readers decide if this constitutes solid evidence. E-mail him at [email protected].

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 17 PERSPECTIVES Bums, Poops and Pees Why Children Love and Adults Censor Scatological Children’s Books

By Ann Curry of the difficulties children experience established by parents and society. hen the American Library graduating from the congratulations Scatological material provides this Association announced they receive for pooping during potty opportunity to move into territory W in April 2013 that the training to the scoldings meted out to that’s dangerous, but not too scary Captain Underpants series topped them for talking in public about bodi- (like death), because it represents a the list of challenged books in the ly functions. This shift from constant mashup of what is supposed to be United States during 2012, I chuckled topic to controlled topic is confusing: public and private. One librarian over this continuing controversy. I “Younger children have to verbalize compared reading scatological books recalled my experience as a public about pee and poo and are praised for to riding a roller coaster: both have a librarian when, one day, I noticed doing so. But all of a sudden, they are controlled fear factor that often elic- a huddle of little boys reading the not supposed to talk about it.” its laughter. Almost all respondents book Everyone Poops, then watched Librarians mentioned Who’s in the spoke of the importance of children in dismay as a parent—aghast at the Bathroom?, Toilet Tales and Chicken being able to explore taboo subjects boys’ enjoyment of tales of excre- Cheeks as books that post-potty- within the safe context of a book, ment—confiscated the book with training children particularly loved, especially the “ultra-safe” books of the admonishment that “you boys perhaps with a bit of nostalgia for the the public library. shouldn’t be reading that !” simpler days when the rules regarding The librarians related stories of What was behind this great bodily functions were easier for their adults who disapproved of books disparity in attitudes? Why did young minds to understand. and videos containing scatological children (especially boys) love tales All 16 librarians interviewed said or gross content. Most librarians told of the toilet while adults wanted to that young boys were far more enthu- of their frustration with parents who censor these books? siastic about scatological material believe that children’s collections These questions puzzled me than were young girls. They attributed in the public library should contain until two years ago, when I had the this gender variation to differing just the “best literature”; popular opportunity to indulge in a fun bit learning styles and language devel- books like Captain Underpants were of research about bums, poops and opment rates and the constraints of deemed by these parents to be a pees. I conducted in-depth telephone decorum imposed on girls. In some waste of taxpayers’ dollars. The par- interviews with 16 children’s cases, scatological books are the only ents wanted to censor this material librarians across Canada about their books that interest a reluctant boy because it fostered inherent “ani- perceptions of children’s and adults’ reader. One respondent remembered malistic” tendencies in their young reactions toward scatological and the remark of a parent with such a children, instead of the higher moral “gross” information. These librarians child: “If poop and gross slimy stuff thoughts of a well-behaved child. represented eight of our 13 provinces and farts keep him reading, bring it Librarians also recalled adults who and territories, and their years of on.” disapproved of books with a scato- experience ranged from five to 35. When asked why most children find logical theme because they believed They had an average of 19 years each scatological material funny, the librar- that children’s reading needed to have as children’s librarians. ians spoke of young children wanting an “educational purpose” and that it When asked why children love scat- to rebel, but only in a safe way, to must be a “worthwhile activity.” For ological references, librarians spoke test the limits of propriety or safety these adults, reading for fun did not

18 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 Bums, Poops and Pees have value. So if a child read Morris recommend using these materials plaints from adults are now oral and Why Children Love and Adults Censor the Mankiest Monster (complete with in story hours, in summer reading informal. “In my experience, the par- depictions of snot and pimples) or club programs and during school vis- ents wrinkle their noses, but they’re Walter the Farting Dog, then the child its. Approximately half of respondents not offended enough to complain.” Scatological Children’s Books was deemed to be wasting time. Librarians also said that scatological Librarians strongly defended and gross material is far more accept- the place of scatological materials ed by parents today than it was from within a public library collection. The the 1970s to 1990s, probably because intellectual freedom rights of children of the publishing avalanche of such to gain access to materials that they material after the groundbreaking want to read and enjoy were noted book Everyone Poops (published in by over half of the respondents: “Why Japan in 1978) became available in shouldn’t scatological books be in the English in 1994 and after Dav Pilkey’s collection? Kids love them, and they The Adventures of Captain Underpants have a right to have the books they appeared in 1997. They also noted the want in the collection. Adults have far more explicit content on television; questionable-quality romances and bowel movements, for example, have

joke books. Let the kids read what Good Families Don’t by Robert Munsch. Art by Alan been discussed on Oprah. they want to read, whether it’s the Daniel. (Doubleday Canada, 1990) When asked whether they consid- Fartiste or Jurassic Poop.” frequently included such materials in ered any of the scatological content They also emphasized the educa- various programs, mainly to encour- in children’s books to be beyond the tional value of non-fiction scatologi- age boys to read, and they had enjoyed pale, one-third of respondents named cal books such as The Scoop on Poop! great success using this material dur- titles they were uncomfortable with. and Gee Whiz! It’s All About Pee for ing school visits. Others were far more Almost all were titles in translation: teaching children how their bodies cautious; they had never featured That’s Disgusting! by Francesco Pittau work: “It’s much easier for children scatological or gross books in a chil- and Bernadette Gervais was the most to learn about their bodies when the dren’s program and they avoided using frequently mentioned title. facts are packaged with humour.” materials with explicit pictures of The results of this small study cannot Several respondents were adamant poop (The Story of the Little Mole Who be extrapolated to all Canadian librar- that reading picture books about Knew It Was None of His Business and ies nor to all children, but they may body parts and bodily functions The Bear on the Bed were examples) help us understand child and adult helped “childproof” children to resist because of the “morally conservative” reactions to this material and provide inappropriate touching and abuse. nature of their communities. insight into the larger phenomenon of They said that once a child knew It appears that few formal challeng- censorship. The librarians’ experiences the names and functions of his or es to scatological or gross books are and opinions shed light on the dif- her body parts, that scatological and now received. Librarians remembered ficulties encountered when managing sexual knowledge was no longer the written complaints about Robert this on-the-edge material in library exclusive domain of adults. Armed Munsch’s Good Families Don’t soon collections and children’s programs, with this knowledge and vocabulary, after they added it to their collec- and may prompt us all to reflect on the child could more confidently tions in 1990, and Walter the Farting how we make sense of information say no and tell another adult about Dog prompted complaints when it that might shock or disgust us.  inappropriate sexual attention. appeared in 2001. The aforemen- Ann Curry, PhD, is a professor in Although all librarians defended the tioned Little Mole was the subject the Communications and Technology inclusion of scatological books in the of a written complaint in Ontario Graduate Program at the University collection, not all had used or would in 2011. But librarians said that com- of Alberta.

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 19 CELEBRATING 30 YEARS

The Provocative Pr ofane A Librarian Looks Back over Three Decades of Challenges

By Jason Openo the promotion of unacceptable moral book remains “one of the most was 10 years old when values, and profanity. challenged of all time and is Freedom to Read Week was The targets ranged from Alice frequently challenged because of first launched, in 1984, the Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, its ‘racial insensitivity’ and because same year that I checked out described as “porn, pure and simple,” it ‘perpetuates racism’” through my first item from the library to Robert Munsch’s Thomas’ Snowsuit, the use of the powerfully offensive Ibookmobile. It was heavy-metal band which a principal removed from a N-word (which appears 219 times). AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap school collection without informing This enduring controversy reached album. My mother did not like this the school librarian because it an apotheosis in 2011, when Alan album. She had a conversation with “undermined the authority of Gribben and NewSouth published library staff about how they could let school principals in general.” a version of Huckleberry Finn an impressionable young boy borrow In 2012, age inappropriateness, substituting the word “slave” for a record of songs that have raunchy, sexual explicitness, depictions of “nigger.” Outraged critics such as sexually explicit lyrics such as those violence and offensive language Craig Hotchkiss, education program featured in “Big Balls.” all remained primary reasons for manager at the Mark Twain House I’m not sure how the librarians requesting the removal of items and Museum, wrote that the handled my mother, but they must from library collections. Newer substitution “destroys the book’s have done a good job because she motivations include anti-ethnicity, potency as great historical literature continued to let me use the library inaccuracy, insensitivity, racism and a valuable teaching tool.” (and, eventually, she even became and sexism. A cultural evolution In this case, the method of censor- a fan of AC/DC and Mötley Crüe). has occurred, and movements— ship changed from the removal of a Looking back, I believe this was when such as anti-racism and women’s book from a school curriculum to the my love and respect for libraries and and gay rights—have produced more expurgation of a word that offends their commitment to intellectual and sensitivity to how individuals are twenty-first-century sensibilities. If artistic freedom began. represented within literature. used, the less offensive version of A review of Freedom to Read over An example of how these dynam- the book would not be challenged the past three decades reveals that, ics have both changed and remained by school boards, but we must ask although some things have remained the same is found in the novel The whether this significant change to the the same, there have also been dra- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In text could impede the understanding matic changes in the censorship the 1980s, this book was removed of black American history and of landscape and the challenging of from school curricula in Winnipeg how pervasive and humiliating terms library materials. Thirty years ago, the and Saint John and challenged in such as “nigger” were. principal complaints had to do with Etobicoke and Kitchener. Today, A similar repugnance to the sexually explicit content, age inap- according to Meris Stansbury of N-word led a mother in Manitoba to propriateness, depictions of violence, eSchool News, Mark Twain’s demand through the human rights 20 | FREEDOM TO &READ 2014 ftr 2014

commission that Barbara Smucker’s and harsh images of a bloody received in 2013, similar to the Underground to Canada be with- jackrabbit roundup, used as a challenges I failed to report in 2012.) drawn from provincial reading lists in method of culling these animals So far this year, sexually explicit o 1998 because her child was the only during the Dirty Thirties. magazine covers are my number Pr vocative black student in class. And in 2002, DVD challenges topped book chal- one challenge. Customers complain: this book was temporarily withdrawn lenges in 2012. One Ontario public “Does the library need to include this from schools in Nova Scotia after library received a challenge to all [Maxim] in the collection?” And: “We being targeted by a black parents’ “adult DVDs that contain graphic love coming to the library, but there group. Challenges to books that horror and adult images,” and there is one thing I find bad for my kids: include offensive words—even when were also challenges to DVD circula- the magazines displayed have Pr ofane they advance the need for tolerance tion policies to ensure that libraries provocative images. Psychology and humane values—will likely con- were not circulating R- or 14A-rated Today had inappropriate graphical tinue, and incidents like these high- DVDs to underaged patrons. sexual content on the cover page light how sticky these issues remain. And then there’s the Internet. It’s titled ‘What Your Desires Reveal.’ I While profanity remains a concern, easy to forget that 30 years ago we believe it can have a bad influence a comparison of then and now shows lived in a world without constant on kids and my child. Take prompt that parameters for foul language connectivity to the web. Today, action to remove these items.” have been stretched too. In 1978, however, the librarian can expect to In the 30 years since Freedom to Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners receive challenges to Internet policies, Read Week began, a lot has changed. was banned by the Huron County filtering and even customer viewing Depictions of violence, profanity and Board of Education and challenged behaviour. For example: “A young boy sexually explicit materials continue in other communities because of the near me is viewing someone actively to be primary reasons to challenge line, “No, I’m crying for God’s sake.” killing real people with knives and library materials, but with the rise In 2012, I received a challenge to the guns. Is this acceptable?” of the Internet, video games, DVDs, book Go the F*ck to Sleep because As I investigated this case, I dis- hypersexual magazine covers and “the language is deplorable.” Family covered the video in question was bands with names such as Holy Fuck, First in New Zealand also challenged created by Fred Wong (or FreddieW), the environment is more difficult, this book because of “grave concerns one of YouTube’s most popular film- dynamic and unpredictable than ever about its effect on aggressive and dys- makers. His films have been viewed before. functional parents” through passages almost 500 million times. Wong Librarians will need to skilfully such as “I know you’re not thirsty. holds a degree from the University handle the wide array of challenges That’s bullshit. Stop lying. Lie the fuck of Southern California’s School that will continue to come our way. down, my darling, and sleep.” of Cinematic Arts, and his films use Because of increased sensitivity to So, while offensive language consis- airsoft rifles/pistols, special effects how individuals are portrayed in tently motivates people to challenge and references to popular culture to publications, librarians will likely library materials, the language that make send-ups of video games. Many receive complaints from customers is causing offence has substantially of his videos are very graphic, but who view items as “anti-Israeli changed. In this case, the patron said, they use satire and parody to mock propaganda” or “Islamophobia.” “For a publicly funded library to sup- the violence that has become com- Since 10 per cent of challenges come port this type of vulgarity is shameful monplace in video games and movies. from library staff, libraries will have and a poor use of my tax dollars.” What remains constant, though, is to build effective training programs Other significant changes to cen- that most challenges go unreported. to convey the importance of the sorship and challenges to library According to the 2012 Canadian freedom to read so that all library materials are the result of entirely Library Association survey, no maga- staff can manage the situations when new formats and technology. Graphic zines were challenged. This result is personal and professional values novels tell stories more powerfully a good reminder that librarians need conflict in the workplace. than words alone. In 2011, I received to do a better job of recording our  a challenge to Matt Phelan’s The challenges with our national library Jason Openo is a librarian and the Storm in the Barn from a customer associations. (I, for one, will make director of the Alberta Public Library who objected to the foul language sure to log the challenges I have Electronic Network.

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 21 CELEBRATING 30 YEARS  originsThe of Freedom to Read Week By Franklin Carter campaigns succeeded; sometimes ideas for anti-censorship activists. they didn’t. Canadians were encouraged to organ- he Book and Periodical ize public events (readings of chal- Council launched the first In 1978, one such campaign got lenged books, essay-writing contests Freedom to Read Week on rolling in Huron County, Ontario. for students and displays of chal- September 16, 1984. Thirty Evangelical Christians pressured the lenged publications) across Canada. Tyears later, the annual event—which school board to drop three novels— The committee also hired an artist to reminds Canadians of censorship Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners, design a poster to publicize Freedom threats and encourages Canadians John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to Read Week in libraries. Today, the to celebrate their freedom to read— and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the annual event is still organized and still occurs from coast to coast. Rye—from Grade 12 English classes. promoted in much the same way. Each year, Freedom to Read Week Although they met opposition from increases in popularity. At least 54 esteemed writers such as Alice Munro In the years following 1984, the volunteer events took place across and June Callwood, the book-banners Freedom of Expression Committee Canada in 2013, the Book and succeeded in getting The Diviners— learned more about other threats to Periodical Council learned. But a winner of the Governor General’s Canadians’ freedom to read. In the some people might wonder why Literary Award—removed from the 1990s, the committee opposed the Freedom to Read Week exists at all. county’s high schools. government’s practice of classifying Skeptics might say that Canadians The BPDC responded to this imported gay and lesbian publica- are free to read whatever they want. defeat by creating the Freedom tions as obscene and banning them Canada’s bookstores, newsstands, of Expression Committee. The at the international border. The schools and libraries are packed with committee’s members—who committee also opposed the clamour books, magazines and newspapers. included writers, editors, librarians, to censor the Internet when web Many Canadians have unfettered publishers and retailers—spent the browsing became popular. access to the Internet. So why all next few years trying to expose and In the new century, the commit- the fuss? Is Freedom to Read Week oppose the removal of books and tee criticized the clauses in human really necessary? magazines from public libraries rights acts (especially Canada’s, The answers to these questions and public schools across Canada. Saskatchewan’s, Alberta’s and British are rooted in the 1970s, when the But the committee soon real- Columbia’s) that allow human rights then-named Book and Periodical ized that these periodic outbursts tribunals to impose fines and gag Development Council (BPDC) was of attempted censorship (which the orders on publications that offend established in Toronto. committee termed “challenges”) some readers. The committee also During these years, a few citizens weren’t going to stop. Members continued to monitor the courts for across Canada pressured local school started looking for ways to keep instances of “libel chill.” boards and public libraries to remove news about censorship in front of In 2014, Canadians remain free to contemporary novels by authors such Canadians’ eyes and to enlist more read almost everything. But Freedom as Timothy Findley, W.O. Mitchell and support in resisting it. Inspired by to Read Week remains necessary to Alice Munro from their shelves. The the example of the annual Banned remind Canadians of the importance book-banners objected to the use of Books Week in the United States, of that freedom and to prevent its profanity, blasphemy and depictions the committee decided to launch erosion.  of sex in fiction. They didn’t want a similar event in 1984. Franklin Carter is a freelance editor young people—including high school For the first Freedom to Read Week, in Toronto. He has been on the Book students—reading these novels. the committee published a Freedom and Periodical Council’s Freedom Sometimes these local censorship to Read kit filled with information and of Expression Committee since 1996.

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IN 1978, THE BOOK AND PERIODICAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (BPDC) published a pamphlet entitled C*ns*rsh*p: Stopping the Book Banners. The following two items appear in it.

The first item is an open letter written by Canadian author Margaret Laurence. She addresses an unnamed teacher who must face the men and women who seek to ban her novels as well as the novels of other Canadian authors.

Dear Teacher

I wish that those people who are so keen to ban serious contemporary novels would learn to read properly. I wish they would not take excerpts and read only these, out of context. I wish they would learn to hear what my novels are truly saying, which is a celebration of life itself and of the mystery at the core of life; and a portrayal both of human beings’ ability to love one another, and of man’s tragic inhumanity to man. I wish they would not be so oddly preoccupied with sex, which is only one aspect of life, and only one aspect among many others dealt with in my novels or other serious novels. I wish that they would understand that writers must be true to their fictional characters, and must present them truthfully, as they are, and as compassionately as possible. I wish that they would learn that to tell our young people that they must not read anything about sex, either its joys or its pitfalls, and that they must not know anything about life’s tragedies, will not prepare them for life—the reverse, rather, is true. Social injustice, cruelty, exploitation, suffering—these things exist, as do people’s love and kindness towards one another. Surely it cannot do other than help in the growing towards a responsible maturity for our young people to read novels in which many aspects of human life are dealt with, by writers whose basic faith is in the unique and irreplaceable value of the human individual. I wish that the people who want to ban certain novels would talk to some of the many Grade 12 and 13 students with whom I have discussed my writing. These students have read the novel they are studying—all of it, not just snippets here and there, and they have no difficulty, under the guidance of sensitive and informed teachers, of seeing that this work is an affirmation (and I think a serious and a moral one) of faith in life and in humanity.

Margaret Laurence

PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION OF THE ESTATE OF MARGARET LAURENCE

C*NS*RSH*P CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 23 Barometer Rising Lives of Girls and Women Hugh MacLennan Alice Munro At a convention in 1960, members In 1976, a high school principal in Peterborough, Ont., of the Manitoba School Trustees removed this novel from the Grade 13 reading list. The novel Association voted unanimously to ask depicts the life of a girl growing up in small-town Ontario in Manitoba’s department of education the 1940s. The principal “‘questioned its suitability’ because to remove this novel from the high of the explicit language and descriptions of sex scenes,” school curriculum. Barometer Rising reported Jeff Sallot in The Globe and Mail. is a story of family conflict and romance set in Halifax during World War I. “What the trustees objected to is the vulgarity and the language used in it,” said Frank Kennedy, a trustee from Norwood, Man. Most trustees had not read the novel.

Such Is My Beloved Morley Callaghan In 1972, two Christian ministers tried to get this novel removed from a high school in Huntsville, Ont. The novel, which is set in the 1930s, tells the story of a young Roman Catholic priest who tries to persuade two women to abandon their lives as prostitutes. The ministers objected to the novel’s depiction of prostitution and the use of “strong language.”

A Jest of God Margaret Laurence In 1978, a school trustee in Etobicoke, Ont., tried but failed to remove this novel from high school English classes. A Jest of God— which won the Governor General’s Literary Award 3 for fiction in 1966— Canadians have long tried to depicts the unhappy life of an elementary schoolteacher in small-town Manitoba. The remove books and magazines trustee objected to the portrayal of teachers “who had sexual intercourse time and time again, out that they deem offensive, of wedlock.” He said the novel would diminish the authority of teachers in students’ eyes. or inappropriate for certain audiences, from public libraries Go Ask Alice Anonymous and schools. Sometimes they In 1978, school boards in Richmond and Langley, B.C., removed this book from their high schools. Go Ask Alice, which reads like a diary, describes a teenage girl’s experiences with narcotics and sex. have succeeded and sometimes In Richmond, students sent a petition to the school board to protest the ban, and the Richmond Teacher-Librarians’ they have failed. To mark Association supported them. In Langley, a committee of school trustees, librarians and parents recommended keeping copies in school counsellors’ offices. But these efforts failed; the thirtieth anniversary of both bans stayed in effect. Freedom to Read Week, Clockwise from left: A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence (McClelland & Stewart, 1966); Such Is My Beloved by Morley Callaghan (McClelland & Stewart, 2007); Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1971); we present 30 of their The Last of the Golden Girls by Susan Swan (Lester & Orpen Dennys Publishers, 1989); The Young in One Another’s Arms by Jane Rule (Doubleday, 1977); The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (Penguin Group Canada, 1995). targets in recent decades. 24 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 Canadian Poetry: The Modern Era John Newlove, editor ftr 2014 In 1987, Parents for a Quality Curriculum objected to the use of this anthology—and five other works of contemporary Canadian fiction—in high schools in Victoria County, Ont. The parents objected to “anti-establishment attitudes” in the poems, The Last of the Golden Girls but the school board voted to keep Canadian Susan Swan Poetry on its reading list. In 1989, two women in Alberta heard the author read a passage from this novel, which describes the sexual Hold Fast escapades of three female friends in Kevin Major Ontario’s cottage country, on CBC In 1988–89, an individual tried to get this Radio. Thinking the passage obscene, young-adult novel removed from a high school the two listeners complained to the library in Estevan, Sask. Hold Fast tells the tale of police in Edmonton. A few months a troubled lad from small-town Newfoundland later, after having listened to the tape, who challenges adult authority at almost every a detective dismissed the complaint. turn. School authorities in Estevan considered the complaint but kept the book in the library.

Challenged By Franklin Carter Publications

The Young in One Another’s Arms Jane Rule In 1990, Canadian customs officers seized this novel 3 en route from the United States to Glad Day Bookshop Canadians have long tried to in Toronto. The officers were searching for sexually obscene literature, but later released the novel to the importer. The novel, which depicts gay characters remove books and magazines positively, is legally published and sold in Canada. that they deem offensive, or inappropriate for certain audiences, from public libraries and schools. Sometimes they have succeeded and sometimes More Challenged Publications they have failed. To mark The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz the thirtieth anniversary of Mordecai Richler In 1990, parents demanded the removal of this novel from high school reading Freedom to Read Week, lists in Essex County, Ont. They objected to “vulgarity, sexual expressions and sexual innuendoes” in the text. The novel, which is set chiefly in Montreal in the 1940s, tells the story of a young Jewish man who strives for material success. we present 30 of their Noted Canadian authors—including June Callwood and Al Purdy—defended the book. But the Essex County Board of Education advised teachers and principals targets in recent decades. to avoid using novels in class that “might provoke undue controversy.” FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 25 Challenged 3 Publications continued

The Impressions (Series) Jack Booth and David Booth, editors In 1991, 30 angry parents entered Rosary Catholic School in Manning, Alta., detained the principal and demanded the removal of Impressions. The parents claimed the fairy tales and poems in this language arts series for youngsters conveyed morbid, Satanic themes. Later, the school board ordered the removal of the books.

Maxine’s Tree Diane Léger In 1992, an official of the woodworkers’ trade union in B.C. asked for the removal of this children’s book from elementary school libraries in Sechelt, B.C. The official said the book, which tells the story of a girl who tries to protect a tree in B.C.’s rainforest, promoted an anti-logging viewpoint. The school board rejected his request.

La première fois. 2 vols. Of Mice and Men Charles Montpetit, editor John Steinbeck Between 1992 and 2002, secondary In 1994, in Alberta’s legislature, schools in Quebec invited Montpetit Victor Doerksen called for the to talk to students about this award- removal of profane, irreligious winning non-fiction anthology for books from Alberta’s schools. teenagers. The government body He cited Steinbeck’s novel, that funds such visits also sent which describes the hardships each school copies of the books to of migrant workers in California distribute to students. But on five during the Great Depression, occasions, school authorities as an example. Doerksen had a belatedly realized that the authors petition that bore the signatures in La première fois had written of 811 Albertans who wanted about sex or sexual experiences. schools to withdraw books that The schools refused to distribute “demean or profane the name the books and asked Montpetit to of God and Jesus Christ.” discuss other works. Clockwise from left: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2002); Maxine’s Tree by Diane To Kill a Mockingbird Léger, illustrated by Dar Churcher (Orca Book Publishers, 1990); Asha’s Mums by Rosamund Harper Lee Elwin and Michele Paulse, illustrated by Dawn In 1991, an African-Canadian organization called PRUDE (Pride of Race, Unity and Lee (Women’s Press, 1990); Marie Tempête: Dignity through Education) in Saint John, N.B., sought to remove Lee’s Pulitzer Le secret d’Emilie by Patrick Cothias and Prize–winning novel and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Pierre Wachs (Editions Glénat, 1994); Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker school reading lists. PRUDE disliked the portrayal of racial minorities in both novels. (Penguin Books, 2003); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (Raincoast Books, 2000).

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Publications continued Asha’s Mums Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse In 1997, school trustees in Surrey, B.C., banned the use in the elementary grades of children’s storybooks that depict same-sex parents. One of the banned titles was Asha’s Mums. A teacher, James Chamberlain, challenged the ban in court. In 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada declared that B.C.’s School Act required secular and non-discriminatory education. A ban on books about same-sex parents could not be legally justified.

The Harry Potter (Series) Marie Tempête: J.K. Rowling Wallpaper Le secret d’Emilie In 2000, a Christian parent in Corner In 2001, a patron Patrick Cothias and Pierre Wachs Brook, Nfld., complained about the of the Toronto Public In 2000, feminists in Hull, Que., began presence of these popular fantasy novels Library complained campaigning to remove adult comic in an elementary school. The parent about the June 2001 books and graphic novels that depict objected to the depiction of wizardry and issue of this glossy violence against women from the city’s magic, and the school principal ordered style magazine. libraries. In 2001, they persuaded the city the books’ removal. Neither the parent The cover features council to ban “all visual documents … nor the principal had read the novels. a photograph by that trivialize and/or condone acts of sexual Joachim Baldauf aggression or sexual violence” from public of three topless libraries. Librarians reluctantly restricted models—two male access to 180 books. Among them was Marie and one female— Tempête: Le secret d’Emilie, a graphic novel standing in the sea. set in eighteenth-century France. The patron said that In 2002, a public outcry in Quebec prompt- the female model ed politicians to repeal the ban, and the was being used as books returned to the open library shelves. a sex object to sell the magazine, but the library retained its copies. More Challenged Publications

Underground to Canada Barbara Smucker In 2002, African-Canadians lobbied the Tri-County District School Board in Nova Scotia to remove Underground to Canada, John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird from classrooms. The complainants objected to the depictions of black people and the use of the word “nigger” in these anti-racist novels. The school board rejected their request.

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 27 Challenged 3 Publications continued

Maclean’s On Oct. 23, 2006, Maclean’s magazine excerpted Mark Steyn’s bestselling book America Alone. The book considers the impact of Muslim immigration to West- ern democracies. In 2007, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) filed complaints with three Canadian human rights bodies. The CIC said Steyn’s “flagrantly Le grand cahier Islamophobic” writing exposed Agota Kristof Muslims to hatred and contempt. In the spring of 2003, the father of a 16-year-old girl in St-Jérôme, Que., complained to The Canadian and Ontario human school authorities and the news media about this novel. Le grand cahier, which won literary rights commissions dismissed the awards in Europe, describes the effects of war on two boys who live in an unnamed country. complaint without hearing it, but the The parent described the novel as “very violent and grossly pornographic.” The school B.C. Human Rights Tribunal held a quietly dropped the book from its reading list at the beginning of the 2003–04 school year. hearing in 2008. The tribunal cleared Maclean’s of any wrongdoing. Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak Deborah Ellis In 2006, the Ontario branch of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) objected to the inclusion of this non- fiction book in a voluntary reading program in Grades 4–6 of Ontario’s schools. In Three Wishes, children speak frankly about the strife around them in Palestine and Israel. Concerned about the “toxic effects” of the book on students’ minds, the CJC urged school boards to withdraw Three Wishes from the reading program. At least five school boards restricted or denied access to the book. The Golden Compass Philip Pullman Western Standard In 2007, Ontario’s Halton Catholic District School Board voted to ban In 2006, the Western Standard—a magazine published in Alberta—reprinted Philip Pullman’s trilogy of fantasy eight of 12 Danish cartoons about Islam to illustrate a news article. In Calgary, novels—The Golden Compass, an imam—and later the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities— The Subtle Knife and The Amber complained to Alberta’s human rights commission. They said the cartoons Spyglass—from its schools. The exposed Muslims to hatred or contempt. board objected to “atheist” themes In 2008, the commission rejected the complaint. The magazine’s publisher, in the British author’s books. Ezra Levant, estimated that he had spent $100,000 defending himself. During the dispute, the Western Standard ceased publication.

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Vue Weekly Publications continued In 2007, the Edmonton Public Library received a complaint about this local news and entertainment magazine. A patron described Vue Weekly as “a very negative, even dark publication” and objected to the sex ads. The library retained copies in its collection. Contes pour buveurs attardés Michel Tremblay The Handmaid’s Tale In 2010, a Christian parent in Laval, Que., Margaret Atwood tried to persuade a high school to ban this In 2008, a parent in Toronto collection of macabre short stories. She said complained about the use that she did not want her son exposed to “Sa- of this dystopian novel in his tanism and pedophilia.” The school rejected son’s Grade 12 English class. her demand. The Handmaid’s Tale tells the Tremblay is one of Quebec’s best-known au- story of Offred, a woman who thors, and Contes pour buveurs attardés has lives in a future patriarchal appeared on Grade 10 reading lists in Quebec theocracy. The parent disliked for years. In the book’s preface, the author the novel’s “profane language,” says that his stories tackle homosexuality, in- anti-Christian overtones and cest and encounters with the devil, although themes of “violence” and these references are so allusive that they are “sexual degradation.” almost undetectable. In 2009, a review panel of the Toronto District School Board recommended that the novel be kept in the curricula for Grades 11 and 12. The Handmaid’s Tale remained on Grade 12 reading lists.

Les nombrils (Series) Marc Delafontaine and Maryse Dubuc In 2009, a school for troubled teens in Laval, Que., pulled this comic book series off its library shelves. School authorities feared that the young, thin female characters in the books might encourage anorexia among female students. The books returned to the library shelves after the vulnerable girls had graduated.

The Wars Timothy Findley In 2011, parents complained to Ontario’s Bluewater District School Board about the use of this novel in Grade 12 English classes. The novel tells the story of a Canadian soldier in Europe during World War I. One woman objected to depictions of sexual violence and prostitution. Students and others defended the novel’s literary value. The school board’s textbook review committee recommended that The Wars be kept in the secondary school curriculum, and the novel remained in classrooms.

Clockwise from left: Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak by Deborah Ellis (Groundwood Books, 2004); The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 1996); The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Seal Books, 1998); The Wars by Timothy Findley (Penguin Books, 1996); Les nombrils by Marc Delafontaine and Maryse Dubuc (Dupuis, 2008).

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 29 CELEBRATING 30 YEARS

C*NS*RSH*P CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 The second item is a telegram. The BPDC’s newly formed Freedom of Expression Committee sent it to Canadian authors Alice Munro, Janet Lunn and June Callwood when they travelled to Huron County, Ontario, to protest the removal of The Diviners, The Catcher in the Rye and Of Mice and Men from the county’s high-school reading list.

13 June 1978

Outside of love the most precious gift we can offer children is respect for their integrity. If we fear their integrity then we show them that we fear our own. We cannot legislate perception, we cannot hide the horizon, we can only degrade our children by pretending that we can. If we create a society in which there is fear of knowledge, fear of creative thought, fear of free expression and fear of reality, we will have created a society in which there is fear of life. Fear of life aborts compassion. In loving our children, in respecting their integrity, we seek both for them and for ourselves the freedom to mature as individuals. The written word expresses this best when it is freed of human fear. Books measure the heartbeat of the human spirit and its capacity for compassion. If they are silenced then the heart is dead.

 Association of Canadian Publishers  Canadian Book Publishers’ Council  Canadian Booksellers Association  Canadian Library Association  Canadian Periodical Publishers’ Association  League of Canadian Poets  Periodical Distributors of Canada  The Writers’ Union of Canada

30 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 Meanwhile in Quebec ... By Charles Montpetit t’s been a bit of a slow news year in Quebec, so instead of my usual annual roundup I thought I’d commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of IFreedom to Read Week in Canada by tackling one of the most frequently asked questions from our readers. Namely, why is “Freedom to Read Week” translated as “Semaine de la liberté d’expression”? Aren’t the two concepts somewhat different? L’Affaire Corridart: Postcards (Véhicule Press, 1977). Corridart Collection P119, Concordia University Records Why yes, they are. Sit back and I’ll Management and Archives explain. ... in 1976, the 60-artist, six-kilometre-long street exhibition It all started with the first assaults on free expression in Lower Canada. Corridart was taken down overnight, two days before the The colony’s second bishop, Jean- Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières opening of the Olympic Games, because some of the works de Saint-Vallier, took issue with just highlighted the destruction of beloved heritage properties. about anything that distracted the population from its churchgoing duties. Back in 1685 he even outlawed run in Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, the 16-artist anti-establishment Refus dancing between men and women, Ottawa, Kitchener and Sherbrooke. global manifesto—one of the spring- as well as all theatrical plays such as Their impresaria is taken to court boards of the Quiet Revolution—cost Molière’s Le Tartuffe. “These com- for having enrolled them in an abstract painter Paul-Émile Borduas edies,” he decreed, “are not merely “immoral” spectacle. his teaching job. Then, in 1971, a dangerous, but also evil and criminal So have times really changed? raging debate sprang from numerous per se, and cannot be attended Don’t use that argument with Denise calls to have Jordi Bonet’s massive without sin …” Boucher, whose “blasphemous”1978 mural erased from the walls of the Um, you say. Do we need to go that play Les fées ont soif (The Fairies Are newly inaugurated Grand Théâtre de far back? Sure, things were different Thirsty) generated one of the hot- Québec because it featured Claude then, but times have changed, haven’t test controversies in Quebec history, Péloquin’s admonition “Vous êtes they? prompting the seizure of its script pas écoeurés de mourir, bandes de Okay. Fast-forward to the Montreal throughout the province. And don’t caves? C’est assez!” (“Aren’t you tired World Fair in 1967, when the morality bring up Nudité, which required that of dying, bunch of morons? That’s squad interrupts the play Équation both actors and audience be naked, enough!”) And in 1976, the 60-artist, pour un homme seul (Equation for a even though nothing sexual happened six-kilometre-long street exhibition Lone Man) because the soundtrack onstage. The police shut it down Corridart was taken down overnight, and the actors’ body language are after its Montreal première in 1996, two days before the opening of the reminiscent of “the games of love.” arguing that it required an erotic Olympic Games, because some of the A few weeks later, six women of the performance permit (although three works highlighted the destruction of Guinean troupe Ballets africains are other Montreal plays had not been beloved heritage properties. forced to cover up their breasts for interfered with for featuring nudity). As for the most memorable a performance at Place des Arts, The fine arts have generated their upheaval in Quebec history—the notwithstanding an uneventful own share of outcries, too. In 1948, QUEBEC CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 31 PERSPECTIVES

QUEBEC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31 segments. The publicly funded Rémy Couture Update October Crisis of 1970—much of the Télé-Québec fared no better when it In the 2013 Freedom to Read review, censorship it generated was musi- pulled a feminist documentary about we reported that special effects creator cal. The police arrested chanteuse pornography, Bad Girl, from its 2001 Rémy Couture would be going to court schedule. In this specific instance, Pauline Julien; the residence of to fight off charges of moral corruption singer Claude Gauthier was raided; the viewers’ outcry forced its rein- stemming from two short films of and Radio-Canada banned a slew statement a few months later. simulated gore on his website. The of songs from its airwaves. Among All this isn’t to say that literature has case threatened to turn any kind of them: Gilles Vigneault’s “Mon pays” been spared. (See our list of French- fictitious violence into a crime, (“My Country”), Jacques Michel’s “Un language book challenges at www. whether the work was a scene from nouveau jour va se lever” (“A New freedomtoread.ca/censorship-in- a thriller or the cover illustration Day Will Rise”), Michel Pagliaro’s “J’ai canada/index/.) In 1995, when the of a whodunit. marché pour une nation” (“I Marched Union des écrivaines et des écrivains Going to court was no easy decision. for a Nation”) and Gilbert Bécaud’s québécois sought support from other Couture could have pled guilty to a “L’important, c’est la rose” (“It’s the groups to launch a Quebec version lesser charge and walked, sparing Rose That Matters”) for fear that it of Freedom to Read Week, two things himself $35,000 in legal fees. His would be seen as a reference to became clear: lawyer, Véronique Robert, also reported that she was deprived of revolutionary Paul Rose. • Given the prominence of the evidence, as the shorts were seized Then there were the movies that, above-noted incidents (and many before the Régie du cinéma, which contrary to other artistic works, had more like them), it would have classifies Quebec films, could rate to be approved by Quebec’s Bureau been counterproductive to focus them. Even the documentary DVD de censure as of 1913. More than exclusively on writers. To reach Art/Crime, which included said films, 8,000 feature films were forbidden, critical mass, the francophone was pulled from the shelves and kept including Frankenstein with Boris coalition of anti-censorship from being aired. Karloff in 1932 (“Only God can create groups had to be as sizable as its In the end, Couture was found not life”) and Children of Paradise, which English-Canadian counterpart, guilty, and the Crown did not appeal was deemed “anti-family” in 1946. and in Quebec that goal could the ruling. The shorts, Inner Depravity It all came to a head in 1960, when only be achieved by denouncing 1& 2, were approved for adult audi- incensed spectators picketed theatres threats to all works of art. ences and released for distribution. to protest the removal of 14 minutes • Focusing exclusively on French And award-winning comic Mike Ward from Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon book bans would hardly have organized a benefit that covered the amour. Although the bureau kept generated enough cases to keep filmmaker’s remaining expenses. on banning films, its editing scissors the issue alive year after year. would soon be replaced by age- Since public libraries were appropriate warnings. beginning to add audio and Of course, television did not video documents to their escape unscathed. The TVA network collections, it made sense to cancelled its encore presentation of compile challenges in those fields, the 1988 revue Grande liquidation too, especially when they could des fêtes (Great Holiday Clearance) set precedents against works of by popular satirists Rock et Belles literature (see sidebar). Oreilles because it caricatured Anglos There’s your answer, then: “Semaine who depicted themselves as victims de la liberté d’expression” is not of a Fourth Reich. Translated pro- meant to be a literal translation of grams were also heavily edited by the “Freedom to Read Week” as it reflects

TQS network throughout the 1990s; the united front of Quebec artists Funfilm Production despite airing risqué movies late against potential censors. And that, at night, the executives were oddly incidentally, is also why this very col- squeamish about the violent imagery umn covers challenges in any media. in The Simpsons’ Itchy & Scratchy You’re welcome. 

32 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 ToughTeaching Topics By Ken Setterington

“Sex-Ed Gone Too Far in Toronto,” screamed headlines in early May 2013.

schoolteacher, Wade Sandals, who endorsed Mr. Vroom’s In late May, Mr. Bolton said that Vroom, had posted suspension. She said, “The materials the parents “obviously felt that it was explicit safer-sex that are being used are totally inap- appropriate for him [Mr. Vroom] to brochures in his propriate and are in no way connect- return to the classroom, otherwise he Grade 7 and 8 ed to the Ontario health and phys. ed. wouldn’t be there.” classroom at the curriculum.” “I’m happy to have him reinstated,” DeltaA Alternative Senior School in It was all very clear that the teacher said David Eddie, a parent who spoke Toronto. The media—Sun News was in the wrong and had acted to The Huffington Post. “I wasn’t crazy Network, to be precise—was tipped without authority, and it looked as if about the poster, but I don’t feel like off by “a concerned parent” and he was going to be punished. As the my son was harmed in any serious released its “exclusive” story with story made its way through the media way. No harm, no foul.” warnings of explicit sexual content. and online forums, many writers “If you want to talk to a 12-year-old The brochures, which had been called for firings at the TDSB. or a 13-year-old … then talk to them provided by the AIDS Committee But what the media, the school about real stuff,” said parent Eric of Toronto, had been posted in the administrators and the TDSB hadn’t Mackey in the National Post. “Use the classroom seven months earlier, in counted on was the support of the word ‘fuck.’ Use the word ‘blowjob.’ October 2012. students in the school and—more That’s what they’re talking about.” The public outcry was immediate, importantly—the support of their Especially gratifying for those who and the Toronto District School Board parents. They called for the return care about the freedom to read was a (TDSB) acted swiftly. Mr. Vroom was not only of the brochures but also statement made by the co-chair of the suspended with pay and ordered to of the teacher to the Grade 7 and 8 parent council at Delta: “I have real work from home. The brochures were classroom. When Mr. Vroom was concerns about this teacher facing an taken down. suspended, the school’s principal, anonymous accusation that we think “They were put up by the teacher the superintendent and Chris wasn’t even from a Delta parent [and in an attempt to speak more directly Bolton—the chairman of the TDSB— then] being thrown under the bus by to youth on what is a sensitive topic,” quickly convened a meeting with the TDSB and politicians right up to said Ryan Bird, a spokesman for the parents. There was overwhelming Queen’s Park.” TDSB. “Having said that, they were support for Mr. Vroom, according to The bottom line: parents who wish clearly inappropriate and have been two parents who attended. their children to be exposed to chal- taken down.” Before putting up the brochures, lenging materials—books, magazines It was reported that Delta’s Mr. Vroom had asked the parents or brochures—in their schools can principal and the rest of the school’s what “hot topics” they hoped help win the fight for the freedom to administration knew nothing of the would be covered in their children’s read when they get involved.  brochures and that Mr. Vroom did education. High-risk behaviour such Ken Setterington is a retired children’s not have permission to post them in as sex and drug use were among the librarian and an author in Toronto. the classroom. most popular responses, and they His most recent book is Branded by The story soon reached the new remained a high priority even the Pink Triangle (Second Story Press, provincial minister of education, Liz when the scandal erupted. 2013).

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 33 PERSPECTIVES 2013 Awards DIEU CAY writing “transcends the boundaries minority—is a broadcast and On October 24, 2013, PEN Canada of national divides and inspires magazine journalist. While she bestowed its One Humanity Award connections across cultures.” The worked on news stories about on Dieu Cay, a Vietnamese blogger, at award is worth $5,000. gender inequality and Eritrea’s the International Festival of Authors FOUR FOREIGN JOURNALISTS economic struggles, she faced sexual in Toronto. The award recognized On October 16, 2013, Canadian harassment, faith-based persecution Dieu Cay’s “courageous dissent and Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) and threats of imprisonment. continued advocacy for human rights announced the winners of the annual All three Eritreans fled to Uganda in Vietnam.” International Press Freedom Award. where they created the Unitedvoices Dieu Cay is serving a 12-year CJFE chose this year’s winning Media Center. This website strives to prison sentence in Vietnam for journalists—three Eritreans and one provide unfettered, fair and accurate “conducting propaganda against Turk—for their courage in uncovering news about Eritrean issues. the state.” He helped pioneer the and reporting the news in their In Turkey, AhmetŞS¸ık works as a homelands. freelance journalist and photographer. The three Eritreans are Dessale He has written about torture cases and Berekhet Abraham, Ruth Zecarias claims, police brutality, threats to free Ghebre and Mebrahtu Teclesion expression and summary executions. Berhe. The Turk is Ahmet S¸ık. S¸ık has been praised for his work, but “Our 2013 honourees have shown he has been jailed several times as well. His most recent book isİImamın˙ tremendous courage in speaking Ordusu (The Imam’s Army). It alleges out. They’ve risked everything: their that followers of Fethullah Gülen— lives, their reputations and their a conservative Muslim theologian livelihoods,” said CJFE spokeswoman who lives in the United States—have Carol Off. “Their stories are very infiltrated Turkey’s police. The book different, but they share a dedication was banned andŞS¸ık was detained for to making sure that the voices of a year. At press time, he was awaiting ordinary people are heard, not just the government line.” trial. DIEU CAY Courtesy of Dân Làm Báo Eritrea, a country in northeastern STEPHEN MAHER use of social media on the Internet Africa, is governed by a presidential AND GLEN MCGREGOR to expose corruption and human dictatorship. Eritrea is one of the most On May 3, 2013, the Canadian rights violations in his homeland. heavily censored places in the world. Committee for World Press Freedom He also criticized China’s foreign Dessale Berekhet Abraham began (CCWPF) announced that Stephen policy toward Vietnam. working as a radio journalist in 1996, Maher of Postmedia News and Glen In 2011, Dieu Cay refused to eat but later switched to print journalism. McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen had food for four weeks to protest the He even wrote books. He found won the World Press Freedom Award. living conditions in his prison camp. working in state-censored media The CCWPF recognized the two In 2013, after being locked up in frustrating and difficult. journalists for researching and writing solitary confinement and denied In 2001, Mebrahtu Teclesion news stories about the automated medical care, he staged a second Berhe was arrested, interrogated telephone calls that purportedly came hunger strike that lasted five weeks. and tortured by army officers for from Elections Canada on election Dieu Cay—a pseudonym—means investigating the detention of day in 2011 and deliberately directed “the peasant’s pipe.” The author’s students in military camps (including voters to go to the wrong polling true name is Nguyên˜ Va˘. n Hai. He is Eritrea’s infamous Wi’A prison). Later, stations. The stories not only touched 61 years old. he was sent to a military camp. off a political firestorm in Canada but PEN Canada gives the One Ruth Zecarias Ghebre—a member also exposed the two journalists to Humanity Award to a writer whose of Eritrea’s Pentecostal Christian vilification.

34 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014

PATSY ALDANA On February 28, 2013, the Writers’ Union of Canada presented its Freedom to Read Award to Patsy Aldana in Toronto. Aldana, the former publisher of Groundwood Books, produced contemporary and often controversial books for young readers. “Patsy Aldana has been a tireless promoter and defender of literature that digs into and examines chal- lenging and often uncomfortable realities,” said John Degen, the union’s executive director. “She has defended the right of children to read widely, and make up their own minds.” STEPHEN MAHER Courtesy of Postmedia News In recent years, two of Ground- wood’s books became the targets The award includes a cash prize of CLA President PILAR MARTINEZ and MASASHI $2,000 and a certificate of honour. of censorship pressure in Ontario’s CRETE-NISHIHATA Courtesy of the CLA Margaret Munro—a science writer public schools: Anne Laurel Carter’s of cybertechnology and for its courage who also works for Postmedia News— The Shepherd’s Granddaughter and in defending intellectual freedom received an honourable mention for Deborah Ellis’s Three Wishes. Both against human rights violations.” a story that described the Canadian books focus on the Israeli-Palestinian The Citizen Lab’s Masashi Crete- government’s restrictions on the pub- conflict. Nishihata received the award at the lic communications of scientists who Aldana received her award at the Book and Periodical Council’s annual work in the federal civil service. Book and Periodical Council’s annual Freedom to Read Week event in Freedom to Read Week event in LESLIE RICCIARDI Toronto. Toronto. The CCWPF awarded the first prize IDLE NO MORE CALGARY Aldana stepped down as publisher in its International Editorial Cartoon On February 28, 2013, the Freedom to of Groundwood Books in October Competition to Leslie Ricciardi of Read Committee of the Calgary Public 2012. She became a member of the Uruguay. He won $1,500 and a certifi- Library presented its annual Freedom Order of Canada in December 2010. cate. of Expression Award to Idle No More Ricciardi’s cartoons have appeared THE CITIZEN LAB Calgary. in El Païs in Montevideo, Uruguay, On February 28, 2013, the Canadian Idle No More is a national aboriginal and in La Nac´ion in Buenos Aires, Library Association (CLA) presented its protest movement. Argentina. Advancement of Intellectual Freedom Idle No More Calgary earned the The theme of the competition—the in Canada Award to the Citizen Lab in award by raising awareness of the cul- thirteenth—was Hard Times and Free Toronto. tural heritage and history of Canada’s Speech. Cartoonists were asked to The Citizen Lab is in the Munk First Nations; the social, educational think about how hard economic times School of Global Affairs at the and economic issues affecting their and the threat of job loss affected University of Toronto. Under the lives; and the obligation of govern- their willingness to tackle tough issues direction of Ron Deibert, the Citizen ments to respect the treaty rights of in their cartoons. Lab studies the relationships between First Nations. Dale Cummings of Canada won digital media, global security and Chantal Chagnon, an organizer second prize. He got $750 and a human rights. It monitors, analyzes and spokesperson for Idle No More certificate. Peter Chmela of Slovakia, and tries to influence political power Calgary, accepted the award on behalf who placed third, got $500 and a and public policy on the Internet. of the organization during Freedom to certificate. The CLA bestowed the award on Read Week. The award-winning cartoons and the Citizen Lab “for its commitment Fast Forward Weekly, a news journal the runners-up can be seen on the to research, advocacy and activism in published in Calgary, sponsors the CCWPF’s website. [exposing] national and global abuses award. 

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 35 ASSOCIATION UPDATES Surveillance Without Borders By Philip Slayton In addition, neither the American nor Canadian legislation fter Edward Snowden’s exposé in 2013 of the “require[s] probable cause and both can be used to obtain American government’s secret PRISM elec- any type of records or any other tangible thing. Moreover, the tronic surveillance program, the distinction target of both warrants need not be the target of the national between foreign and domestic freedom-of- security investigation.” expression concerns became moot. Issues such as these have made Canada’s PEN centre in- A“There is no border,” cyber-expert Ron Deibert told The creasingly sensitive to freedom of expression in our country. Toronto Star on June 7, 2013. Deibert said that “90 per cent Whether dealing with laws governing access to informa- of Canadian [Internet] traffic—no one really knows the exact tion, concerns about the government’s power to silence number—is routed through the United States.” critical charities through the use of overly broad language Snowden’s leaks showed how bodies such as the U.S. in the tax code or the right of prisoners to receive written National Security Agency (NSA) have taken advantage of materials in jail, PEN Canada has continued to focus on the cyberspace’s legal and territorial ambiguities to help them- need for Canadians to know their rights. selves to digital information that passes through American Following the June 2, 2013, arrest of Toronto Star pho- servers. Deibert noted that the data tographer Alex Consiglio for trespassing in a Toronto travels through “filters and railway station, we published a lengthy checkpoints, [and is] shared analysis on our website of the “right with third parties, with law to photograph” in Canada. The enforcement and of course post received thousands of hits intelligence agencies that and was widely commented operate in the shadows.” on in social media. Canadians wondering to Citizens who know their what extent their own govern- rights inevitably press their ment could monitor this digi- governments for greater free- tal traffic soon learned that dom and more transparency. a ministerial directive, issued The public outrage in the in November 2011 by defence United States following the leaks of the NSA’s minister Peter MacKay, had authorized PRISM program has been instructive on this Communications Security Establishment point. President Obama quickly downplayed Canada—our national cryptologic agency—to the NSA’s actions as “modest encroachments gather metadata from any telephone conversation on privacy,” but a New York Times op-ed by two or online activity that took place within Canada. While the legal scholars claimed that, to the contrary, the surveillance order did not permit eavesdropping on the communica- violated “both the letter and the spirit of federal law.” tions themselves, PEN Canada voiced concerns that such The op-ed criticized the White House for “legal contor- extensive surveillance ran counter to the spirit of the Privacy tions” that sought to create the impression that Congress Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we noted “intended to implicitly authorize mass surveillance” after that the data gathered was “ripe for misuse by domestic law 9/11, and it dismissed the administration’s legal sophistry as enforcement agencies.” “wordplay, fear-mongering and a highly selective reading of Anyone who believes that Canada’s privacy rights are the law.” more robust than those in the United States should read We could do worse than treat our own government’s more Michael Geist’s 2005 analysis of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence modest encroachments on our freedom of expression with Surveillance Act (FISA). Geist, a law professor at the University similarly robust skepticism.  of Ottawa, notes that “Canada has similar disclosure provi- Philip Slayton is the chair of PEN Canada’s National Affairs sions as those found in the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act” and points Committee. PEN Canada is a non-partisan organization of out that “section 21 of the Canadian Security Intelligence writers who work with others to defend freedom of expression, Service Act provides for a warrant that permits almost any at home and abroad. It promotes literature, fights censorship, type of communication interception, surveillance or disclo- helps free persecuted writers from prison and assists writers sure of records for the purpose of national security.” living in exile in Canada.

36 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 Access to Information in Crisis By Julie Payne So what needs to change? We believe that reform of the act anada’s access-to-information system, once should be guided by the following principles. used as a model for other countries, is now in • The default action should be to release, not refuse, deep crisis, and without urgent reforms it will information. Access should be the norm, secrecy become dysfunctional. the exception. This fact was most recently recognized on • Exceptions and exemptions to the right of access COctober 9, 2013, when the information and privacy commis- must be discretionary, narrowly defined and subject sioners and ombudspersons from across the country met in to both a test of actual harm and a mandatory Vancouver and called for urgent updating of Canada’s Access public-interest override. to Information Act. Suzanne Legault, information commis- • Canada’s ATI law should cover the federal cabinet sioner of Canada, said: “Freedom of information … is fun- and its documents; exemptions for confidentiality damental to the functioning of democracy. Canadian access should be limited. Canada and South Africa are the laws must reflect this important role and become the gold only countries with access laws that exclude cabinet standard in access to information worldwide.” information. Once upon a time, Canada set the gold standard. When it • The government, its agencies and its employees was enacted in 1982, the Access to Information Act placed have a duty to create records about their delibera- Canada in the vanguard of nations that were developing laws tions, communications and policy decisions. to make information available to their citizens. Yet by 2013, • ATI needs to be embedded in the design of public Canada was placed 56th out of 95 countries—behind many programs at the outset. developing countries and just ahead of Malta and Rwanda— Beyond these principles, CJFE recommends the following by the Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy, which reforms. annually ranks the right-to-information laws of countries • We need a more consistent definition of which that have them. government entities are covered by the act. Most The issue isn’t just one of national pride; access to informa- significantly, the House of Commons and Senate tion (ATI), or the lack thereof, has real-world consequences. should be covered. (Exceptions to protect informa- Through the use of the ATI system, Canadians have learned tion that falls within parliamentary privilege would about the transfer and treatment of Afghan detainees, the be allowed.) It is hard to comprehend why two of the RCMP’s use of Tasers, airline safety records, food inspec- most significant institutions in Canadian democracy tion records and the decades-long government surveillance are not normally subject to ATI inquiries. of Canadian statesman and icon Tommy Douglas. Without • The powers of the information commissioner should information, citizens can’t truly engage in the democratic be increased. The commissioner is an ombudsman process. Without information, free expression is a hollow but needs the powers of an order-making tribunal. right. Otherwise many of the reforms mentioned above It’s a point that Canadian Journalists for Free Expression won’t work, and delays in the ATI system won’t be (CJFE), along with other Canadian free-expression organ- reduced. izations, has been hammering away at for some time. In It is heartening to see support for reform of the Access to January 2013, CJFE submitted a report to the Office of the Information Act. But the time has come to translate this talk Information Commissioner, outlining recommendations for into action.  reform of Canada’s ATI law. CJFE board member Bob Carty, who co-authored the Julie Payne is the former manager of Canadian Journalists report, wrote that “it is crucial that the Government of for Free Expression. To read CJFE’s full report, visit https://cjfe. Canada listens and takes action. We’ve seen too many calls org/resources/publications/hollow-right-access-information- for reform fall on deaf ears.” crisis.

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 37 ASSOCIATION UPDATES

Ontario Inches Toward Anti-SLAPP Legislation By Ron Brown issue. Here, too, the union has long commentators call “libel tourism.” any years ago, tried to encourage legislation that Happily, in 2013, Attorney General shortly after I joined would discourage such litigation John Gerretsen introduced anti-SLAPP the Writers’ Union of and allow freer discussion about the legislation, Bill 83. He acted on the Canada (TWUC), sev- issues. recommendations of a panel set up in Meral Canadian writers were the sub- In Ontario, a developer recently 2010 to review the effects of SLAPPs jects of libel suits by such influential launched legal action against local on public discussion. individuals as Allan Gottlieb, Conrad residents near Lake Simcoe. The In 2013, more than 140 organiza- Black and the Reichmann family. residents had voiced their opposition tions submitted a petition to Ontario’s In response, members of TWUC to the developer’s proposed resort, MPPs and encouraged them to enact staged a “blank placard” protest Friday Harbour at Big Bay Point in the bill. Among the signatories were around the offices of Gottlieb, Black Innisfil. The developer launched no the Council of Canadians, Canadian and the Reichmanns in November fewer than nine suits against citizens Journalists for Free Expression and 1990. They paraded, showing placards and lawyers who opposed the devel- Greenpeace. with nothing on them as a visible opment. Not one suit made it to trial; Ideally, by the time Freedom to demonstration of libel censorship. however, some of the citizens felt the Read is published in 2014, Bill 83 will SLAPPs are slightly different. The developer intended to stifle criticism. have been enacted by the Ontario acronym stands for “strategic litiga- Legislation regarding such suits legislature.  tion against public participation.” falls under provincial jurisdiction, Ron Brown is the Writers’ Union of These lawsuits are initiated against and Ontario is considered the Canada’s representative on the Book one or more individuals or groups most plaintiff-friendly of the prov- and Periodical Council’s Freedom of who have spoken out on a public inces. It’s a magnet for what some Expression Committee.

The School Library as Intellectual Freedom Fighter n this section, Shelagh Paterson, the executive director and 8 students. They wrote blog posts. of the Ontario Library Association, presents the think- Vicky Deng, Grade 7 Student ing of a teacher-librarian and a student on intellectual Vicky reports what she learned at the Toronto Comic Arts freedom. Festival in the spring of 2013. She muses on popular ste- IDiana Maliszewski, Teacher-Librarian at Agnes Macphail reotypes about comics and graphic novels and how their Public School in Toronto dismissal is a form of censorship. Where do students learn about intellectual freedom? At their “Toronto Comic Arts Festival: Comic Defence 101” school library. Teacher-librarians teach digital citizenship, Comics can’t help students improve in reading. which includes educating students and teachers about the This statement is actually false. Comics are books that can digital footprint, cyberbullying and safety, information ethics help kids who are struggling with reading. There are pictures and responsible use. to help decode the meaning of each panel, so by looking at However, during the past 10 years, the presence of a school the pictures it makes it easier for readers to understand what library program has diminished significantly. In Ontario is being said. alone, just 56 per cent of elementary schools have a teacher- Comics are easy reads. librarian, and most teacher-librarians work part-time in This statement is also false because in some graphic their roles. The lack of a properly resourced school library novels, the vocabulary is harder. But the pictures help decode affects reading engagement and information literacy for the meaning so students can learn harder vocabulary. students. The Ontario Library Association views the erosion Besides learning these stereotypes, I also learned that of the school library program across Canada as a serious comics are challenged more often than some other books. impediment to fighting censorship. Here are some other interesting facts that I learned: Inspired by a “Freedom to Read” unit designed by Jo-Anne • Comics help make good inferences. Gibson, a teacher-librarian at Acadia Junior High School in • Comics can help autistic kids. Winnipeg, I adapted and shared the unit with my Grade 7 • Comics can help advanced students. 

38 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 Intellectual Freedom Questioned Challenges to Library Resources and Policies in Publicly Funded Canadian Libraries in 2012 By Alvin M. Schrader and Donna Bowman

n 2012, the number of reported challenges to DVDs directed and edited by Jason Eisener—too violent. It was exceeded the number of reported challenges to also targeted in 2011. books for the first time in the seven years that In 2012, only one series was reported challenged: a season the Canadian Library Association (CLA) has con- of six episodes of the British television comedy Little Britain ducted annual surveys of challenges to materials in USA. Each episode is counted as a separate challenge. Canadian public libraries. A poster entitled “The Reluctant Reader’s Bill of Rights” IA challenge is an attempt to arbitrarily remove or relocate was challenged because it might “encourage youth to go a library resource—a book, a magazine, a DVD, a CD, a against their parents’ wishes and read books they have been newspaper etc.—because of its content. instructed not to read.” Just over half of the targeted items were DVDs, including The CLA’s Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee has one movie trailer, while four in 10 were books. Challenges conducted the Annual Challenges Survey since 2006. The to adult works, in both DVD and book committee wants to document and shed formats, predominated. light on objections to library materials In 2012, a total of 148 reasons were and policies in publicly funded libraries given for the 73 reported resource and in Canada. policy challenges. These challenges The survey informs the CLA’s efforts— occurred in 14 public libraries in three expressed through policy and advocacy provinces. work—to maintain intellectual freedom. Goat Story—a 2008 Czech computer- Because participation in the survey is animated film directed by Jan Tománek voluntary, reported challenges repre- and released in English in 2010—was sent only a fraction of all challenges that challenged four times. It was challenged occur during any calendar year. more than any other work in 2012. More important than statistics, how- There were also three challenges to ever, are the ideas behind the challenges the 2009 film I Love You Phillip Morris. Circus ABC Art by Jason D’Aquino. and the motivations behind the ideas. As This film—released on DVD in 2011 and Designed by Mark Cox. (Simply Read Books, 2010) in previous years, the reasons that com- directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa—stars Jim Carrey plainants gave for challenging library materials and policies and Ewan McGregor. Two library patrons called for the in 2012 were multifaceted and complex. For example, the outright removal of the DVD from the library, while the objections to Jason D’Aquino’s Circus ABC were racism, third called for a higher movie rating. (The Ontario Film sexism, nudity, “creepiness,” age inappropriateness and the Review Board had rated the film 14A, but the Motion Picture depiction of “Africans ... as circus freaks.” Association of America had rated it R.) In another instance, a patron expressed concern about the I Love You Phillip Morris also prompted two objections to word “poop” in a picture book. She claimed that her fam- library policies. One complainant objected to the unrestrict- ily members “do not poop.” In the survey, the library staff ed lending of movies rated 14A. Another complainant called member reported: “I simply had a chat with her about other for staff screening and rejection of all “offensive,” “disgust- people having the right to discuss poop with their families ing,” “obscene” or “sexually explicit” material accessible by and the need for us to have a wide variety of materials and children. “The public library system should contain mate- topics available to provide access to all expressions of intel- rial that upholds the values and moral strong points of our lectual activity.” society to preserve it and improve it,” the complainant said. In 2012, four objections accounted for two-thirds of In 2012, Jason D’Aquino’s Circus ABC was challenged three all challenges to library resources and policies: age inap- times; complainants thought the illustrated book didn’t propriateness, sexual explicitness, violence and offensive belong in the library’s children section. language. There were 13 complaints about racism in library And there were two challenges to the R-rated DVD Hobo materials—including three that alleged negative depic- with a Shotgun. Two complainants deemed this work— CHALLENGES CONTINUED ON PAGE 40

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 39 ASSOCIATION UPDATES

CHALLENGES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39 tions of Islam—nine complaints about nudity, eight about The Reluctant Reader’s Bill of Rights insensitivity and seven about sexism. 1. The right to read at your own pace. The complaints about nudity included an objection to the cover picture of Harry Hamlin’s autobiographical book, Full 2. The right to choose whatever book you want. Frontal Nudity: The Making of an Accidental Actor. 3. The right to read graphic novels and manga. As in earlier surveys, three out of four challenges were 4. The right to read magazines. initiated by patrons, and a few patrons self-identified as 5. The right to read non-fiction. parents or guardians. One complainant in 2012 was a library patron in Grade 7. Library staff, also patrons, initiated more 6. The right to not like a book. challenges than in any previous survey. Just over half of the challengers called for the removal Adapted from The Reader’s Bill of Rights by Daniel Pennac of materials from libraries, while the remainder wanted children’s picture book published in 2009—was challenged titles relocated to adult collections. Four requested warning because it portrayed excessive violence. The complainant labels. said that the illustrations of men holding guns and other Not all of the concerns expressed by complainants were weapons were unsuitable for preschool children. about new or recent titles, and not all were initiated by And Jackie Morris’s Luminaria—a children’s fantasy novel “conservative” critics. The romantic comedy That Touch of published in 2010—was challenged for being “littered with Mink—directed by Delbert Mann and starring Cary Grant grammatical errors and hate-based.” and Doris Day—was released in 1962 and challenged in 2012 For the second year in a row, a whole genre of library for misogyny. resources—adult DVDs, particularly horror films with Similarly, Woyzeck—a movie directed by Werner Herzog “graphically violent images on their covers”—was chal- about a famous murder case in 1821—was released in 1979 lenged. The complainant objected to their shelf location: and challenged for misogyny in 2012. Both content and DVD the DVDs were within the sightlines of children, near the cover art were challenged. library’s circulation checkout area. In the survey, whole- More recent titles challenged in 2012 include Precious: genre challenges are counted as library policy challenges. Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. This drama, directed Eight in 10 challenges resulted in no change to the status by Lee Daniels and released in 2009, was challenged for its of the library holdings or policies, but a few individual titles “depiction of toddlers being abused, physically and sexu- were reclassified and relocated to adult collections. Four ally,” and for its “graphically disturbing” images. challenged titles were removed from library collections. Donald Capone’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra—a war-themed One challenge was resolved by affixing a content warning label to the resource. Another challenged work was referred to the publisher who was asked to review it for accuracy. UNREPORTED Nine of the 11 policy challenges were linked to previously unsuccessful attempts to persuade library staff to remove IN 2012, NO CHALLENGES TO SAME-SEX PICTURE items from collections, to change age-based lending condi- books or magazines were reported to the CLA’s tions for DVDs, books or comics, to modify movie ratings Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee. The (whether official or unofficial) or to affix a content warning absence of such a challenge is a first in the seven label. years that the committee has conducted its Annual “As a fundamental value to librarianship and a right in Challenges Survey. Canada’s free and democratic society, intellectual free- Before 2012, Canadian librarians reported dom continues to be a critical area of advocacy for librar- challenges to the following works: And Tango Makes ies and those who support libraries,” said CLA President Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; The Pilar Martinez. “The CLA promotes the right of all people Sissy Duckling by Harvey Fierstein; Uncle Bobby’s in Canada to share and explore different ideas and to Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen; King and King by have access to all beliefs and opinions without restriction. Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland; and My Princess Indeed, libraries play a vital role in promoting and safe- Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis. guarding intellectual freedom.”  Before 2012, Canadian librarians also reported Alvin M. Schrader and Donna Bowman sit on the Canadian challenges to Xtra! West, a newspaper for gay, Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Advisory lesbian, bisexual and transgendered readers. Committee. Visit the CLA’s website to gain access to its data- base of challenged titles and policies.

40º | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014

Book Profiles Reviewed by Hilary McLaughlin

Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book: In discussing censorship, Hill occasionally notes other An Anatomy of a Book Burning bans proposed by individuals who have read (if at all) only parts of the books they found objectionable. In the interest of By Lawrence Hill (The University of Alberta Press, 2013) the freedom to read, this point might have been better devel- In 2012, Lawrence Hill deliv- oped. Ignorance is always the bluntest object that challenges ered the Kreisel Lecture, free thought, and the notion that people seek to erase books an annual literary speech, that they have not even encountered is frightening. in Alberta not long after a Dutch group—the Founda- tion to Honour and Restore The War on Science: Payments to the Victims of Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness Slavery in Suriname—pro- in Stephen Harper’s Canada tested the title of his award- By Chris Turner (Greystone Books, 2013) winning novel, The Book of Negroes, and threatened to The title of this tome may burn the Dutch translation in sound daunting, but it is a Amsterdam. In the event, the page-turner, one with an protesters only burned the urgent message. We are not dust jackets for the cameras. getting the scientific truth in Hill’s novel is set in the Canada, and it is not because eighteenth century. It tells people do not know it or are the tale of an African girl who is abducted by slavers and not seeking it. Scientists in transported to a plantation in South Carolina. Years later, Canada, once a world leader she serves the British in the American revolutionary war and in environmental initiatives registers her name in the Book of Negroes, an actual ledger and research, are striving to that lists the names of former slaves who remained loyal to find it out. But even if they the British Crown and who merited safe passage out of the do, they cannot tell us what newly formed United States. they find. In Dear Sir, the published version of his lecture, Hill offers Turner describes how a wide-ranging and generous reaction to his brush with the government of Prime book burning. He explains why his critics were offended by Minister Stephen Harper muzzles its scientists. They may the title and makes it quite clear that he understood their no longer report findings in articles, interviews or press objection. conferences without the explicit permission of the govern- Although not entirely happy about the novel’s title change ment. When interviewed by journalists, government scien- in the United States, Australia and New Zealand (to Someone tists often have “media relations” minders at their shoulders. Knows My Name), Hill professes to understand the rationale The federal government has systematically defunded sci- for using a less offensive title. By the time the German edi- ence programs—some of international repute. The govern- tion was ready for publication, the Dutch incident had taken ment has also rejected findings that interfere with its political place; Hill made sure that the Germans were alerted and agenda. As a result, Canada failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol recommended that they use the alternative title. and came last among G8 countries in greenhouse gas emis- It seems that Canadians, who made the book a runaway sion improvements. bestseller (600,000 copies were sold in Canada alone), Turner argues that there has not been such a blatant war either understood the title or trusted a writer with a good on science since the U.S. presidency of George W. Bush, who track record. The originator of the book-burning threat, was accused of shutting down scientific advisory commit- Surinamese-Dutchman Roy Groenberg, had not read the tees. Bush’s attack on science allegedly stemmed from his book. BOOK PROFILES CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 41 BOOK PROFILES

BOOK PROFILES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41 Black Code: Christian beliefs, while Harper’s attack is allegedly rooted in Inside the Battle for Cyberspace his pro-business ideology. Scientists who describe climate change, ice reduction, low fish stocks and the negative impli- By Ronald J. Deibert (McClelland and Stewart, 2013) cations of pipeline construction are stifled. Harper closed the If the above-reviewed Office of the National Science Advisor. books set off alarm Turner’s book is engrossingly readable, and he hopes that bells, Black Code is the people who care about the environment will prevail. But almost apocalyptic. Ron it is hard to see the clearing at the edge of this particular for- Deibert is director of est. If the Harper government lasts much longer, the forest the Canada Centre for will be clearcut, and we will have an unobstructed view of the Global Security Studies dirty sky and the new pipeline. and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Banned on the Hill: Affairs. He describes the A True Story About Dirty Oil and more common threats Government Censorship in cyberspace—spam, occasional viruses, un- By Franke James (The James Gang, 2013) wanted porn and even Franke James is an releases of personal environmental activ- data—as harmless as ist and artist who is playground games. critical of the federal Some of the worst threats Deibert describes are aimed Conservative govern- at nation states. Stuxnet, for example, is a weapons-grade ment, its environ- computer virus that was probably devised by the U.S. and mental policies and Israeli governments to disrupt Iran’s nuclear facilities. Other the exploitation of threats, such as the secret monitoring of Internet traffic, are Alberta’s oil sands. aimed at ordinary citizens. In 2011, Canadian The purpose of Internet monitoring can be purely com- government officials mercial. Google’s appetite for its users’ information is so worked behind the voracious that the company seems bent on discovering scenes to discourage users’ underwear sizes and fabric preferences. But Internet Europeans from sup- monitoring can be turned to other purposes. The U.S. porting a planned tour government monitors the e-mail and cellphone calls of its of James and her art. citizenry; in 2013, it made a villain of Edward Snowden, the Banned on the Hill—a self-published trade paperback lav- government contractor who disclosed the classified details of ishly illustrated with James’s naive but powerful graphics—is U.S. and British surveillance programs to the press. a potent attack on the federal government’s environmental Governments and the Russian mafia mine and manipulate policies. Her main target is the oil sands. The text con- online data, undermining the Internet’s early promise of risk- sists largely of e-mail and correspondence between James free and easy exchange. Deibert argues passionately, if too and various government departments, including access-to- briefly, for the maintenance of the Internet as a “commons” information requests and their heavily redacted replies, and where all can express themselves free of regulation by even accounts of attempts to get answers to key questions. benign governments and free of attack from the malware This book is a page-turner of a different sort: many pages that assaults our financial, medical and other personal infor- feature only one drawing, logo or slogan. It is expensive too, mation. but the paper quality and full-colour illustrations make it It is tough stuff, but Black Code is as gripping as a top- worth viewing. notch thriller. It is well worth reading because our world is The book packs a great punch and leaves the reader with now so technology dependent that no one will be spared the some faith that one person can make a difference. The suc- consequences. We need to know the problems to discover cess of James’s efforts to share her message shows that one the solutions.  crusader can soon become several. Then the possibilities are Hilary McLaughlin is an Ottawa journalist and communica- infinite. tions consultant.

42 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 ftr 2014 Get Involved Ideas for Educators

anadians can count themselves among Answers to the quizzes in this section are taken from the most fortunate people in the world. the articles and newsbytes that appear earlier in this review. We live in a democracy where many rights The “Get Involved” section aims to are guaranteed, and we enjoy freedom of • highlight freedom of thought and freedom of expression, freedom of speech and the right expression as universal human rights; to read whatever we choose. But, as the • examine the educational value of controversial texts; Carticles in this review suggest, Canadians cannot afford to and become complacent. • emphasize tolerance of viewpoints as a vital principle Whether you are a schoolteacher, librarian, student or of democratic education. citizen at large, we hope you take ideas from the following This section is intended for use by high school, college and section to organize activities in or outside the classroom university students and by members of the public who for Freedom to Read Week 2014 (February 23 to March 1). might want to plan community events.

Get Involved in Freedom to Read Week February 23 to March 1, 2014 CENSORSHIP ISSUES RARELY MAKE THE HEADLINES, BUT THEY affect the right of individuals to decide for themselves what they want to read. Lend your voice to those whose own voices are threatened. For ideas on activities for students and adults during Freedom to Read Week, visit our website page at www.freedomtoread.ca/get-involved/.

Get Involved Online We keep the conversation going about Freedom to Read Week through our website, Facebook and Twitter pages.

TWEET ABOUT US SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER Year-round the @Freedom_To_Read Twitter Once a month, we e-mail a newsletter that includes stories account is your best source for news about about censorship, suggestions about getting involved with freedom of expression and censorship Freedom to Read Week, and a list of events and campaigns issues in Canada and abroad. in your area that you might like to check out. To subscribe, visit our website or Facebook page. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK Our Facebook page includes news items about VISIT OUR WEBSITE censorship and challenged books, as well as ideas Freedomtoread.ca includes a list of challenged materials, for the defence of the freedom to read. Like our news stories about censorship, clip art and banners, an page at facebook.com/Freedom_to_read. Send us interactive events page, resources for educators and even news stories and updates about what’s happening in your more ideas for participating in Freedom to Read Week. neighbourhood, and we will post them on our timeline. Visit our website today!

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 43 Talk It Up: You can be a part of Freedom to Read Week without ever leaving your house. Here’s how!

TWEET YOUR EVENT SHARE YOUR PHOTOS Facebook page if you’re looking for Use the hashtag #FTRWeek to tell us We love to receive photos of your inspiration! how you celebrate your freedom to events! Send them to info@freedom Our website’s interactive events read. toread.ca and we’ll post them on our page allows you to find Freedom to Tweet the details of your event and Facebook gallery. Read Week events in your area and expect a retweet (RT) from us! Every year schools, libraries and also lets you post an event listing if During Freedom to Read Week, cultural centres put up displays of you are hosting a Freedom to Read you’ll see people live-tweeting events. banned and challenged books. Photos Week celebration. They’ll use the hashtag #FTRWeek. of past displays are available on our

Activity: Freedom to Read 2014 Quiz

1. What is the name of the First vince Parliament to ban the pro- caused an uproar in May 2013? Nation that Jessie Housty duction, printing, publishing, dis- 16. According to Pippa Wysong, belongs to? tribution, sale and ownership of what environmental scientist 2. What destructive event occurred “any magazine, periodical or book was prevented from promoting in the summer of 2013 in Bella which exclusively or substantially his climate-change novel, and by Bella, B.C.? comprises matter depicting pic- which government office? 3. What did Alberta librarian Jason torially the commission of crimes, 17. What does Mark Bourrie say Openo call the “number one real or fictitious”? Library and Archives Canada challenge” in 2013? 9. Is Canada’s crime rate increasing employees received at the 4. According to Jason Openo, what or decreasing? beginning of 2013? topped challenges to books in 10. According to Charles Montpetit, Canadian libraries in 2012? during the October Crisis in 18. According to teacher-librarian 5. According to the Canadian Quebec in 1970, what type of Diana Maliszewski, what has Library Association (and Alvin M. artistic material was most happened to school library Schrader and Donna Bowman), frequently censored? programs over the past 10 years? what were the four grounds for 11. In what year was Canada’s Access 19. What is the Communications objection that accounted for two- to Information Act enacted? Security Establishment Canada thirds of all challenges to library 12. What does the acronym SLAPP authorized to do? resources and policies in 2012? stand for, and what bill was 20. According to Franklin Carter’s 6. What do Schrader and Bowman introduced in Ontario to feature on challenged books and say was the category of material counter SLAPPs? magazines, what lobby group that managed to escape chal- 13. According to Ron Deibert’s urged that a book be withdrawn lenges in 2012—for the first time Black Code: Inside the Battle for from school libraries in 2006, and in seven years of annual surveys? Cyberspace, some of the worst what was the book? 7. What did residents of a town near cyberthreats are aimed at what? Newtown, Conn., threaten to do in 14. According to Ann Curry’s research, 21. In 1976, Nobel laureate Alice January 2013, after the massacre at are young boys or young girls Munro’s novel Lives of Girls Sandy Hook Elementary School? more enthusiastic about and Women was removed from 8. According to Charles Montpetit, scatological book material? the Grade 13 reading list of a what event in 1948 prompted an 15. What was the nature of the Peterborough, Ont., school. Why? MP from Kamloops, B.C., to con- Toronto classroom exhibit that QUIZ ANSWERS: SEE PAGE 47

44 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 Activity: Host an Event Anyone can host a Freedom to Read Week event. We encourage you to have someone read the following message aloud at the start of your event or post it on a sign so that your attendees can read it. This event is being held as part of Freedom to Read Week, a project of the Book and Periodical Council. Freedom to Read Week is an annual celebration promoting intellectual freedom and raising awareness of censorship and access to books, magazines and information in Canada. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Freedom to Read Week (February 23 to March 1, 2014). For more information, please visit www.freedomtoread.ca.

Highlights of Freedom to Read Week Events Across Canada in 2013

Challenged Book Open Mic The Book and Periodical Council Langara College Library, Vancouver, B.C. and Raconteurs Present: Censored The Scoop: An event for all freethinkers and provocateurs! The Garrison, Toronto, Ont. Participants were invited to share their favourite challenged The Scoop: Six storytellers recounted true stories about book at an open mic event. Students, instructors and library censorship and the freedom to read. The Canadian Library staff read from controversial books, shared their favourite Association also presented its Award for the Advancement banned materials and explored censorship in Canada. of Intellectual Freedom in Canada, and the Writers’ Union Freedom to Listen of Canada presented its Freedom to Read Award. Stanley A. Milner Library, Edmonton, Alta. Challenged, Censored and Banned Book Trivia The Scoop: Attendees heard about what happens when major Thunder Bay Public Library, Thunder Bay, Ont. record labels don’t want you to hear certain kinds of music. The Scoop: What book read in local schools was once This talk’s focus was Danger Mouse’s infamous Grey Album— described as a “filthy, filthy book”? Why would anyone object which fused the Beatles’ “White Album” and Jay-Z’s Black to E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web? And what picture book about Album—as well as copyright and mash-up culture. sweet penguins is still causing controversy eight years later? Free a Reader, Free a Book Participants were asked to answer trivia questions to learn Airdrie Public Library, Airdrie, Alta. more about censorship. The Scoop: During the Week, participants were invited to come Free the Challenged Book to the library and read a banned/challenged book of choice in Timmins Public Library, Timmins, Ont. the “cage of oppression.” To free themselves and their chosen The Scoop: The library invited the public to free a challenged books, they had to raise $100. The public was encouraged to book from February 24 to March 2, 2013. Participants could help free a reader by donating to his or her cause. All funds simply check out one of the books in the library’s display case went to support the APL’s book budget. and read it. Only then would the book be free. Mount Royal University Presents On March 2 at 2 p.m., following Freedom to Read Week, the Freedom to Read Week 2013 Timmins Public Library invited those who had freed a book to Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alta. come to the library to defend their book and tell everyone why it should—or shouldn’t—be free. This special Defend a Book The Scoop: Staff, students and faculty—including the Day was open to all. university president—read short passages from banned or challenged books. Everyone was welcome to listen. Public Libraries, Public Space and the Question Becoming Book (Exhibition) of Community: A Radio Documentary Sherwood Village Gallery, Regina, Sask. CKDU 88.1 FM and www.CKDU.ca, Halifax, N.S. The Scoop: Conversations were held with public librarians The Scoop: This exhibition investigated the relationships across the country to see what public libraries are doing, between readers, writers, publishers and censors. It featured how they are changing, how they are staying the same works by Troy Grondsdahl, Lee Henderson and Eve K. Tremblay. and what challenges they are facing. This project was Annual Freedom to Read Marathon completed as part of a master’s degree in library and Millennium Library, Winnipeg, Man. information studies at Dalhousie University and supervised The Scoop: The Winnipeg Public Library and the Manitoba by Dr. Fiona Black of the School of Information Management. Writers’ Guild once again invited everyone to exercise their rights by reading aloud from a banned or challenged book of their choice. T

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 45 Winning Student Essays and Video from the Calgary Public Library’s Contest, 2013

“Silenced Voices” By Ethan G. (Grade 9) “Freedom to Read” By Alexa I. (Grade 7)

ON FEBRUARY 14, 1989, THE SPIRITUAL LEADER OF IRAN WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE? WHAT IF YOU called on all devout Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because could only read what someone else chose for you? of references to the prophet Mohammed in his novel The If you didn’t have the freedom to choose what you read, Satanic Verses. In response, thousands of people worldwide you would be losing an important right. The Charter of showed their solidarity by wearing “I am Salman Rushdie” Rights and Freedoms allows us to express our opinion in buttons. Rushdie went into hiding until 1998, emerging any way we see fit and be able to choose what we want only when the order was lifted. to read. Canada is a free country, but even so, certain In a world without the freedom to read, I am Salman books and magazines are banned. This affects the right of Rushdie. Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to I am 460 Confucian scholars who were suffocated to read. death so that recorded history would begin with the reign Any type of reading is good for your language-arts skills. of Emperor Shih Huang Ti. Reading comprehension is an important part of education. I am Martin Luther, whose Ninety-Five Theses was If you are reading something that some organization made burned, but not before it set the stage for the Protestant you read, your knowledge will be limited because you are Reformation. only exposed to certain opinions. More important, you are I am Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes not processing the information you would if you were read- Kepler, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David ing a book that you enjoyed or chose on your own. Hume, whose masterpieces of science and philosophy, What you choose to read is an important part of who you though critical to the development of Western Civilization, are. If you have no choice in the matter, then part of your were prohibited by the Catholic Church and listed in identity is no longer yours. Reading a book can take your the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for almost 400 years. mind off things that are hard in your life. Books can allow I am Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations was banned you to escape and take you on an adventure into another in England and France because of ideas that inform our world where imagination becomes reality. capitalist economic system today and contribute to its Judy Blume said, “It’s not just the books under fire now prosperity. that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. I am Nobel laureates John Steinbeck, whose books were The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear burned for depicting the plight of American migrant farm of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real los- workers; Donald Woods, who was driven into exile for ers.” Remember this quotation, and you will realize what it denouncing South African apartheid; and dissident Liu would be like if you didn’t have the freedom to read. Xiaobo, who was imprisoned for criticizing China’s human rights record. Video I am Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, who was beaten By Julia C. and to death after documenting the suffering in Iranian Danika V. (Grade 8) prisons, but whose story has yet to be told fully by either the Canadian or Iranian governments. WATCH THIS I am schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, brutally shot for ENERGETIC VIDEO blogging about girls’ rights to education in Pakistan. BY TWO STUDENTS AT In a world without the freedom to read, I am anyone www.freedomtoread.ca/freedom-to-read-week/

who has ever been censored into silence.

Eww P. Supper L. Margaret H. Hottest

Acrostic Solution (from page 48): D.

Left O. Dereck K. Debrief G. Enemies C. —Margaret Atwood, —Margaret The Handmaid’s Tale Handmaid’s The

Approve N. Intel J. Newlove F. Hop Hip B. blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.” more us gave It print. of edges the at spaces white blank

the in lived We papers. the in not were who people the were “We The Seine The M. Atwood I. Aweigh E. News The A.

46 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014 Activity: Word-Search Puzzle See if you can find the words D D S M A T S D L Q E M F T J Y E J R A listed below in the puzzle. Z E A I H Y L O I X Y L E T P J F H R W The words could be listed in any direction: up, down, B R M E N B O U P I J U A C Z G I N I Q diagonally or backward. N C S H R H H R Y C W N T U K T Q W C M Atwood Y H T P C D E N N A B T F I R K I Y H D Expression R A B S C S J F J L F D Z Z A E R V L E Mitchell N L P M S X W S R T C Z K L C A N E E I Banned Findley J L S I S P K W Z E I L L T R M E C R Y Munro E E O A H B T A L Q E E F B U O H S E K Callaghan H N K R H S L N X L S D I I R W Z F M C Freedom Read D G Q N M B R W M N I L O W N H G O A D Canada R E B A U L O O I Y N H S M P D F U W Y Hill P A P H N V L K S Q W V F I C I L W W W Richler Censorship F W Z G R Q L E W N Q H Z W L A W E B C Kinsella J A E A O P V F H Z E N T C V L P Z Y T Right Q Q G L U O J R G C N C B A V R E P E H Challenge A C P L G X U L G S T G E N I J T K B G Laurence School P A L A B D Y I J P G I V A O V A J A I Ellis A J R C N X W U Q Y P C M D C O Y W V R Library B S H L J H D O O W T A J A H H U S U Z Swan

Quiz Answers (from page 44):

explicit language and descriptions of sex scenes. sex of descriptions and language explicit 1982 11.

The school principal reportedly objected to the book’s book’s the to objected reportedly principal school The 21. Musical 10.

and Israeli Children Speak. Children Israeli and It is decreasing. is It 9.

urged school boards to withdraw withdraw to boards school urged Three Wishes: Palestinian Palestinian Wishes: Three readers in British Columbia. British in readers

The Ontario branch of the Canadian Jewish Congress Congress Jewish Canadian the of branch Ontario The 20. The shooting of a motorist by two young comic-book comic-book young two by motorist a of shooting The 8.

online activity that takes place within Canada. within place takes that activity online ment media that they considered violent. considered they that media ment

It gathers metadata from any telephone conversation or or conversation telephone any from metadata gathers It 19. - entertain destroy publicly and collect to threatened They 7.

The programs have been considerably diminished. considerably been have programs The 18. Same-sex picture books and magazines and books picture Same-sex 6.

The Library and Archives Code of Conduct of Code Archives and Library The 17. offensive language offensive

minister Age inappropriateness, sexual explicitness, violence and and violence explicitness, sexual inappropriateness, Age 5.

environment the of office the Tushingham; Mark 16. in 2012. in

Explicit safer-sex brochures safer-sex Explicit 15. DVDs topped challenges to books in Canadian libraries libraries Canadian in books to challenges topped DVDs 4.

Young boys Young 14. Sexually explicit magazine covers magazine explicit Sexually 3.

Nation states Nation 13. The town library burned to the ground. the to burned library town The 2.

Strategic litigation against public participation; Bill 83 Bill participation; public against litigation Strategic 12. Heiltsuk Heiltsuk 1.

FREEDOM TO READ 2014 | 47 i

Activity: Acrost c By Charles Montpetit Fill in the entries to the right of the clues and transfer each letter into the grid cell with the matching number. Ignore the upside-down hints if you can; they are a last resort. Eventually, you’ll figure out some of the words in the grid, and they, in turn, will help you complete other entries. (The small letter in each cell indicates in what entry that cell number can be found.) In the end, three sentences will appear in the grid’s horizontal rows, and the 16 entries’ initials will form the title of the oft-censored work from which they are excerpted. Solution on page 46.

1 I 2 C 3 P 4 A 5 H 6 F 7 D 8 B 9 C 10 N 11 D 12 F 13 L 14 O 15 M 16 F 17 M

18 D 19 A 20 P 21 G 22 H 23 J 24 I 25 M 26 C 27 F 28 I 29 D 30 O 31 L 32 I 33 B

34 G 35 N 36 A 37 E 38 C 39 F 40 B 41 N 42 M 43 I 44 G 45 A 46 D 47 B 48 K 49 G

50 J 51 H 52 M 53 K 54 P 55 A 56 M 57 J 58 G 59 L 60 N 61 H 62 K 63 F 64 M 65 N 66 A

67 D 68 E 69 L 70 M 71 K 72 E 73 A 74 C 75 B 76 G 77 B 78 H 79 J 80 C 81 O 82 E 83 H

84 H 85 E 86 F 87 D 88 L 89 D 90 C 91 N 92 K 93 E 94 O 95 L 96 J 97 N 98 G 99 I 100 H

CLUES ENTRIES HINTS ______words) (2 boy oh heard, Lennon John What …or: A. State-controlled domain in China (2 words)

66 55 4 45 73 19 36 ______style Latifah Queen and J Cool LL Cent, 50 …or:

B. Music genre with parental advisory stickers

47 40 77 8 75 33

…or: Isaac Bashevis Singer’s ___: Singer’s Bashevis Isaac …or: ______Story Love A C. Tyrants and freedom of speech, for example

2 80 9 90 26 38 74 ______feverish or close attractive, Superlatively …or: D. Most likely to get prohibited by prude viewers

29 18 67 7 87 89 46 ______seabed the in hooked of instead up, Pulled …or: E. Gene Kelly movie Anchors ___, cut in Ireland

85 37 93 82 72 68 ______words) (2 flame old an of opposite The …or: F. Canadian Poetry’s challenged anthologist John

27 6 16 39 12 86 63 ______mission secret one’s after J] [entry Extract …or: G. Expose someone’s hitherto hidden genitalia?

98 58 49 21 44 34 76 ______God?” there, you “Are asked, who Preteen …or: H. First name of the author quoted in this puzzle

100 61 5 84 51 78 22 83 ______MaddAddam and Crake Oryx, of Creator …or: I. Last name of the author quoted in this puzzle

32 28 1 99 24 43 ______spy a G] [entry you when it obtain You’ll …or: J. Releasing the army’s got WikiLeaks in trouble

79 23 57 96 50 ______Chisora boxer heavyweight Controversial …or: K. Suffer Little Children’s banned author O’Brien

71 48 92 11 62 53 ______dinner from different wholly be to used It …or: L. The Last ___: mural parodied “blasphemously”

59 88 13 31 69 95 ______words) (2 bridge Mirabeau the under Water …or: M. Paris censors sank many films in it (2 words)

25 17 15 64 70 56 52 42 ______succinctly more bit a disagree, to Disagree …or: N. What church authorities do with imprimaturs

65 60 10 35 91 41 97 ______oddly favourite, southpaw a or west Either …or: O. Political group often silenced by right wingers

14 30 94 81 ______“Yeech!” …or: P. Expurgators’ reaction, just before they pounce 20 3 54

48 | FREEDOM TO READ 2014

FREEDOMTOREADWEEK

ALICE MUNRO IRSHAD MANJI MARGARET ATWOOD ROHINTON MISTRY DAVID BOOTH TIMOTHY FINDLEY W.P. KINSELLA CHARLES MONTPETIT DENISE BOUCHER DEBORAH ELLIS JANE RULE MORDECAI RICHLER D.H. LAWRENCE ROBERT MUNSCH MARGARET BUFFIE MARGARET LAURENCE MORLEY CALLAGHAN JOHN NEWLOVE DIANE LÉGER SYLVIE RANCOURT ANNE LAUREL CARTER JOYCE CAROL OATES KATHERINE PATERSON 3 JACK BOOTH J.D. SALINGER NEIL GAIMAN HARPER LEE BARBARA SMUCKER PATRICK COTHIAS AGOTA KRISTOF BRIAN DOYLE MICHELE PAULSE ROSAMUND ELWIN JUSTIN RICHARDSON PETER PARNELL SALMAN RUSHDIE SUSAN SWAN 0 KEN SETTERINGTON BERTRAND GAUTHIER PHILIP PULLMAN LAWRENCE HILL YEARS JOHN STEINBECK JAMES JOYCE NIKKI TATE STEPHEN KING MICHEL TREMBLAY HUGH MACLENNAN J.K. ROWLING KEVIN MAJOR MARK TWAIN CENSORSHIP FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ACCESS TO INFORMATION FEBRUARY23–MARCH1, 2014 www.freedomtoread.ca | #FTRWeek | @Freedom_to_Read

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