| Written by Dorothy Cummings McLean,
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 There is an old joke that only those who own presses enjoy freedom of the press. Indeed, not a few have begun their own presses to enjoy that freedom. Some of these presses, like The Catholic Register, have thrived. Some, like the Western Standard, have folded.
Such is the market. In a free country, so long as readers buy subscriptions, newspapers thrive. If readers don’t buy subscriptions, newspapers fold. No one can force The Catholic Register to print something that it does not want to print. Yet.
The Canadian Islamic Congress wants to remove the freedom of at least one press to say “no” to articles it doesn’t want. It is pursuing a complaint against Maclean’s magazine through Canadian human rights tribunals. The “right” Maclean’s has been violating, in the minds of the CIC and its law student protegés, is their (non-existent) right to rebut articles the CIC calls “islamophobic” in Maclean’s itself.
The federal commission and British Columbia tribunal, which are hearing the complaint, have yet to rule. Thus, on April 30 the Canadian Islamic Congress made another offer to Maclean’s: print a rebuttal by an author mutually acceptable to Maclean’s and the CIC, and the CIC will drop the B.C. complaint. However, Ken Whyte, publisher of Maclean’s, has already stated that that he’d rather go bankrupt than be dictated to by the CIC’s protegés.
The announcement was made at a press conference in the Royal York Hotel. There are probably few nicer hotels in Toronto in which to hold a press conference. It is possibly the safest place on Earth to investigate threats to freedom of speech, so to the Royal York I went.
Although the CIC release named the law students as those making “the public offer” to Maclean’s, it was lawyer Faisal Joseph who did the talking. He was an imposing, broad shouldered figure. He dwarfed the slender, silent students to his left and right. The young women sat on the outside. They never said a word. A polite young man with a shaven head sat at Joseph’s left; he spoke briefly. But for the most part, the students gazed silently. Occasionally they nodded and smiled.
I am particularly interested in the controversy around press freedom and religious minorities for I have read slights against the Catholic Church and the Holy Father in Toronto papers all my life. But I also watch in dismay as Canadian Christians, most notably Calgary Bishop Fred Henry and the editors of Catholic Insight, are made subject to costly investigations by human rights tribunals for voicing their opinions. Of course we get tired of jeers against religious folk in the mainstream press, but the HRC cure seems to be worse than the disease. Meanwhile, we do have our own newspapers.
When the Toronto Star publishes its perennial Christmas and Easter “Was Jesus real?” articles, I don’t threaten the editor so that he’ll give respected theologians as much space as he gives to Tom Harpur. I merely put down his paper in disgust and pick up The Catholic Register instead. If The Register came with a TV guide, there’d be no need for my family to take the Star at all. Freedom of the press means freedom of the religious press.
This in mind, I asked Faisal Joseph how many newspapers the Canadian Muslim community had. He didn’t seem to know, but he cited a Muslim newspaper in London, Ont., with a circulation of 5,000 readers. How about Montreal, I asked. How about British Columbia? Any papers? “But those are community newspapers,” said Joseph. “That’s like comparing grapes and watermelons.”
I’m not so sure about that, especially as the tiny Catholic Insight, like Maclean’s magazine, is considered worthy of an HRC complaint. The issue, then, appears to be not that Muslims associated with the CIC are denied freedom of the press, but that the CIC wishes to publish its views in a press with a wider circulation than it can itself achieve. Joseph reminded the “ladies and gentlemen of the media” that the B.C. human rights tribunal might force Maclean’s to publish the CIC’s rebuttal. If it does, it will have set a very frightening precedent.
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