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Page 8 THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday March 25 1989 Canadian law criticized in recent release By ARNOLD AGES apg fond of thi that they live in a country where the rule of law and individual freedoms are sacrosanct Ac cording to Alan Borovoy however there may be too much law and not enough freedom I have long believed that Cana dian law contains a number of measures that needlessly and ex cessively inhibit the right of effec tive dissent With this sentence found in Chapter 2 of When Freedoms Collide Lester and Dennys pages Alan sets the tone for the lengthy and pro vocative inquiry he conducts on the status of civil liberties in this coun try Borovoy for many years the head of the Canadian Civil Liber ties Association feels that when competing rights collide all too often the loser is freedom This can be seen he argues in such areas as hateliterature legislation the ambit of police powers discre tionary law enforcement the ad ministration ot public welfare and in involuntary civil commitment In his strong polemic author extends the net of his criticism to include our courts whose judges he feels are often coddled by the unnecessary protec tion of the contempt of court and scandalizing the court charges on the dubious grounds that our criminal justice system would crumble if criticism of it were per mitted The boldness of Borovoys argu ment may also be seen in his unrelenting attack on the amend ments to the Canadian Criminal Code that make it illegal to espouse publicly certain forms of racial religious and ethnic hatred The aims of the antihate statutes may be very pious says the author but the effect of such laws often exceeds their intent CHILLING EFFECT Statutes such as these Borovoy is convinced exercise a chilling ef fect on freedom of speech and the risk of having our speech chilled increases with the vagueness of the prohibitory legislation that might apply The conviction Ernst Zundel for denying the Holocaust is a dangerous precedent because it argues for the possibility of pro secuting proCommunists for de nying the atrocities of Stalin or proCatholics for denying the enor mity of the Inquisition The same kind of logical con sistency informs the authors views on pornography He rejects the well known argument that pro hibiting pornography is evoking the same principle as that regulating pollution Borovoy says that chemical analysis applied in detecting air pollutants has no relevance to human psychology and sexuality With regard to CSIS Canadas intelligence arm Borovpy subjects the language of its mandate which empowers the organization to monitor activities that sup port acts of serious violence for the purpose of achieving a political ob jective within Canada of a foreign state to a ferocious dissection He shows that its words are broad enough to have permitted in trusive eavesdropping on Cana dian citizens who raised money for the state of Israel following the Yom Kippur invasion Those who send funds to El Salvador Namibia or Nicaragua could be the Happy Easter All BUICK CADILLAC QUEEN ST BRAMPTON Review targets of CSIS as well Some of the most mordant criticism in this treatise is reserv ed for police departments who often incarnate what Borovoy calls the powerhoarding fallacy Citing examples of police roundups of people involved in drugrelated or homosexual activities Ontario especially the author argues that trivial pursuit is at the heart of the matter To the argument habitually of fered by the police that they do not make the law they merely en force it Borovoy thunders But police dont merely enforce the law They make choices and they have always made choices as to what laws they enforce under what circumstances and how they will do it The fact is that the police cannot give every law the same amount of attention GRAVE RESERVATIONS In his study of police powers the author expresses grave reserva tions about the arbitrariness that surround them In 1983 Toronto police carried out a raid against the Church of Scientology No charges were laid for more than a year after the event Why should the police not be forced to account for such an intrusion Regardless of the churchs wishes it may nevertheless be in the public in terest to know what the police did Disclosure would make possible a public response which could protect everyone elses in terests is also concerned with the interest of those who are on public welfare He cites numerous examples of the indignities foisted upon female recipients and ques tions the discretionary power en joyed by social workers who often exploit the lack of knowledge a per son has about his civil rights The major thrust of Alan Borovoys treatise is the cultiva tion of a kind of healthy disrespect for such hallowed institutions as parliament the courts and the police all of whom he believes must answer for their errors and be held accountable to the pubhc Ironically there is one area in which the author feels that more government and police intrusion is necessary in preventing discrimination against people on the basis of race or creed I believe it appropriate he says to restrict freedom of choice in public life to the extent that its exercise otherwise would be likely to in flict corrosive indignity and deny equal opportunity Borovoy doesnt seem to realize that the same argument could be used to defend Canadas anti hate statutes Arnold Ages a professor at the University of Waterloo is the author of five books Directory of Services Offered in Our Community AUTOMOBILE SERVICE BOOKKEEPING INCOME TAX aii BOB YOUNG 21 Mill St Acton Ontario 8534534 TIRE SALE NEW USED TMES 1ft COOKS SUNOCO tump apt EKhawM Miner Rapalra 8775501 St If You Meal By Accident CALL US WELL GET THE UPTOWN COLLISION S3 RD GEORGETOWN APPLIANCE SERVICE iMilUiiMJ JGS Appliance Service 8778448 Homo Service Calls To All Major Appliances Most makes and models Hour Answering Service Evsnst9CSllsuponnqjusst Serving Georgetown First lor Years 8771012 Quelph Street Georgetown 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