John Carpay Challenges Jason's Kenney's Decision to Suspend the Rights of Students at York University

John Carpay is a long time Reform-Alliance-Conservative supporter, running himself unsuccessfully for the Reform Party in 1993, along with Rob Anders and Jason Kenney, who were all supported by the Fraser institute. Carpay was a member of Jason Kenney's Canadian Taxpayers Federation and now runs the Canadian Constitution Foundation, after it's founder John Weston, quit to run for Harper's party in 2005. (1)

Carpay is currently defending the rights of university students to speak openly and without restraint against Israeli Apartheid. He claims that freedom of expression is the lifeblood of democracy, and even if it offends, that right to offend is enshrined in section 2 of the charter of rights and freedoms.

What Jason Kenney has tried to do is silence students at York University, by not allowing them to put up posters advertising anti-Apartheid week. They have not displayed images of dead Palestinian children, nor have they emblazoned a swastika for all to see, and yet they are being forced to remain silent on an issue that is very important to them.

Opposing a country is not the same as opposing a people, and yet Mr. Kenney is trying to class their protests as being anti-Semitic.

Carpay will have none of this and plans to take it to the highest court of the land. Students pay tuition to go to York University, and it is their constitutional right to be able to express freely their dissent.

Of course this is not entirely true. Carpay is actually defending the rights of University of Calgary students to display images of aborted fetuses emblazoned with a swastika. Because you see Mr. Carpay does not really believe in freedom of expression, so much as he believes in the right to simply oppose abortion by using graphic images and a shock factor.

He would never defend the rights of Canadians to speak out against Israel. His corporate and Religious Right backers would have his head. Quite a double standard these people have.




While I am pro-choice, I have no problem with the posters, because if anything they shed light on the thinking of many pro-lifers. Going right to Hitler, they lose credibility, so I would not oppose the posters. Besides, the longer they are visible, the more they lose their shock factor, so they in fact may be hindering their anti-abortion sentiment.

I mean they pulled out all the stops with these. Dead babies and swastikas. What do they have left?

These so called constitutional challenges initiated by Carpay and Weston, are simply more neoconservative nonsense. Because if they really cared about the lives of children, they would be joining the Anti-Apartheid movement at York University, or protecting our rights to oppose the war without being called a 'Taliban dupe'.

Sources:

Canadian Constitution Foundation Challenge Against Single-Tier Medicare, Ontario Health Coalition, May 2007