Tag Archives: Amanda Todd

How Thought Crime Came to Canada

March 1, 2013 Wayne K. Spear Leave a comment

Jim Keegstra

WITH THOMAS FLANAGAN and William Whatcott so heavily in the news, section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms might well be designated trope of the moment. Section 2(b), as we are of late reminded, grants to Canadian citizens their freedoms of conscience and religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression. The Charter also submits these freedoms only to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

Personal Essay

Amanda Todd and the Importance of Clear Language

October 15, 2012 Wayne K. Spear Leave a comment

I‘VE NO OBJECTION in principle to NDP Member of Parliament Dany Morin’s motion this week to pursue a national bullying-prevention strategy. This proposal was conceived some months ago, but it is now widely mis-held to be an outcome of the suicide of fifteen year-old Amanda Todd. You are doubtless familiar with her appalling and sad and outrageous story, which has been widely reported and which has now got a great number of people talking about something called “cyberbullying.”