just listened to Godspeed You Black Emperor!

[azal]

also, Bryan Adams.

 

[azal]

one good thing from Canada though was the TV show Tropical Heat, it was know in the US as Sweating Bullets (or the other way around)



I've heard that the show has KVLT status in the Czech Republic, rightfully so.

 

[lizard]

yes.

although on the plus side, Tea Party, and Headstones. also, Big Sugar

 

[Demonspell]

And Devin Townsend, lest we forget.

 

[AndICried]

And Godspeed you! Black Emperor. . .. .. wait a sec.

 

[mindspell]

You can live without hockey, I can. Brian Adams is only on adult contemporary radio station nowadays and so is easily avoidable. Tons of good music is produced over here.

As for the freedom of speech, the protection might not be as well written in law as the US but the jurisprudence in canada tells you that you can say pretty much whatever you want. The limitation in law is simply in the violence aspect of it, death threats and so on are punishable...

This pretty much summarizes it:

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/JBOUSHKA/vengbun.htm

http://www.constitutional-law.net/expression.html

 

[xfer]

i seem to recall people being convicted of Holocaust denial, completely without death threats being involved.

 

[Cerulean]

 

[jerkstore]

I can't remember the last time I heard a Brian Adams song. Then again, I never listen to the radio so maybe that has something to do with it...

And I love hockey, but it's easy to avoid, provided you don't live in Toronto during playoff time.

 

[lizard]

ever since Columbus got the Bluejackets, I can't get away from it. plus, to complicate the horror, the other day I turned on the radio and they were talking about - COLLEGE HOCKEY

and keeping in mind that my alma mater, UNH, is a hockey power. but still I don't care.

 

[AndICried]

i seem to recall people being convicted of Holocaust denial, completely without death threats being involved.

OMGHAXBAN!

 

[IanDork107]

I read this weekend in Michael Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country? that GYBE were caught up in homeland security hysteria while on tour a couple of years ago...their two vans and equipment vehicle pulled into a gas station and parked next to a fuel tank; they were reported and endured a couple hours of police questioning. As the singer said, "good thing we're just nice white Canadians."

I read that too, first back when it happened, then again recently in Moore's book.

 

[mindspell]

i seem to recall people being convicted of Holocaust denial, completely without death threats being involved.

All those cases that I am aware of (Zundel and the other that I can't remember right now) were convicted in dissemination of false press. Whether or not you believe that falls into the freedom of speech is up to you. Having regulations for the press not to print information that is known to be false is not exactly a bad thing in my view but you could argue that it does restrict freedom of speech. I just think it is a good idea

 

[xfer]

The decline of freedom of expression in Canada began with seemingly minor and understandable speech restrictions. In 1990, the Canadian supreme court upheld the conviction of James Keegstra, a public-high-school teacher, for propagating Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic views to his public high-school students, despite repeated warnings from his superiors to stop. Keegstra was convicted of the crime of "willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group," which carries a penalty of up to two years in jail. Criminalizing hate speech, the court stated, was a "reasonable" restriction on expression, and it therefore passed constitutional muster.

Two years later, the same court held that obscenity laws are unconstitutional to the extent they criminalize material based on sexual content alone. However, any "degrading or dehumanizing" depiction of sexual activity — including material that the First Amendment would protect in the United States — was deprived of constitutional protection to protect women from discrimination.

and of course these cases are not exceptions. a Christian minister in Canada was convicted of inciting hatred against Muslims even though, the court acknowledged, the minister did not willfully incite hatred--but his actions inadvertently contributed to hatred.

For example, University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood." The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans.

works both ways, and any way you cut it--it sucks.

 

[mindspell]

Thanks for pointing to these cases that I was not aware of. Free speech legislation is not exactly my forté. In those cases, it does suck. However, if I go back to the original argument that I would rather live on this side of the line than on yours for a variety of reasons that does not include that part of canadian jurisprudence....

 

[xfer]

the US and Canada have both made choices and decided to sacrifice certain things in order to have other things (for example, China is a much, much, MUCH safer country than either the US or Canada, but at a huge cost to the freedom and human rights of its citizens). all in all, i think both nations made some good and bad choices. i think Canada's choice of not providing a robust protection of freedom of expression is a lot more dangerous to the future that the US' choice not to provide universal health care, though.

whatever, they're both Anglosphere nations. that's pretty much what matters, globally, today.

 

[lizard]

canada's got molson golden. and Bob and Doug McKenzie.