Democracy Put On Hold During Olympics???

Olympic censorship

by Walker Morrow - 21/12/2009

• Feature Article

Late this November, Vancouver City Council said that it would consider amendments to earlier bylaws which regulated the speech of residents of the Greater Vancouver Area.

Particularly the one which would allow bylaw officers in the Greater Vancouver Area to enter any private residence, without the owner or occupiers' consent and with 24-hours' notice, in order to remove or alter signs, advertisements, or graffiti which 'violate' local restrictions.

The amendments to be considered would distinguish between 'political' speech, and 'advertising' speech - the first being protected, the second being just as restricted as before.

The announcement that these amendments would be considered was welcome news to the BC Civil Liberties Association; indeed, it probably was to many of those who were concerned that political speech would be suppressed during the Olympic Games. However, one remains unsure as to what, exactly, the definition of 'political speech' happens to be in the eyes of bylaw officers in the Greater Vancouver Area.

Would, for instance, an advertisement for a political party cross the line?

I suppose it's all rather irrelevant. For the fact remains that our speech is still being regulated. To be told that certain kinds will be left alone, that our government will not deign to walk onto our property and deface or alter our possessions and statements when they happen to be political in nature alone - with other forms of speech left under the dark cloud of potential suppression - is hardly reassuring.

Indeed, try to explain the concept of BC's peculiar approach to political-speech immunity to Amy Goodman, a left-leaning writer and journalist who was recently detained at the border and questioned as to her intentions vis-à-vis the Olympic Games and her coverage of same.

Or maybe you could ask Marla Renn, a member of the Olympics Resistance Network, who, according to her account of things, was searched, photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned for six hours while trying to cross the border in order to give an anti-Olympics speech in Portland, as to how the Olympics and our civil liberties seem to be getting along.

Or perhaps you could ask Chris Shaw and Alissa Westergard-Thorpe, whose lawsuit against the City of Vancouver because of 'advertising' restrictions no doubt influenced the Vancouver City Council's decision to consider leaving political speech outside of their reach.

But that's just the thing. The Vancouver City Council has, essentially, said that they will leave political speech alone, which is something that was expected of them to begin with. Far from deserving congratulations for performing within their own mandate after not doing so for so long, they should be reminded that they never had a thing to do with political speech in the first place.

But then, if we were strictly in the business of reminding politicians of their original mandates, our work would never be done.