Why Is Free Expression So 'Fundamental?'

In the final episode of season two, you'll hear a recording of a Centre for Constitutional Studies Event from the summer of 2024, titled 'This Ain't Texas, It's Tiktok.' The event features a discussion with Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Emily Laidlaw, Associate Professor Law at the University of Calgary and Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law. With Dax moderating, Jameel and Emily discuss the regulation of big tech platforms and the different law and policy environments between Canada and the United States.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Sabreena Delhon, Chief Executive Officer of the Samara Centre for Democracy. They discuss some of the threats faced by elected officials in Canada online and in person, the roots of our contemporary discontent, the fine line between free expression and a hostile public environment, and some ideas for strengthening Canadian democracy, among other things.

In this episode, Dax speaks with David Schneiderman, Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Toronto. They discuss the culture of free expression in Canada, the relative absence of scholarship examining free expression, the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, major threats to free expression, university protest encampments, and the relevance of the Charter on campus, among other things. He also asks him about what he misses about the Centre for Constitutional Studies, as someone who helped build the centre we have today.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Kristopher Kinsinger, a lawyer with SV Law's Civil Litigation and Municipal Law practice group. They discuss the fundamental nature of free expression and its most compelling justifications, some Supreme Court jurisprudence, the intersection of free expression and other freedoms like equality, the new Online Harms Bill and human rights commissions, and the fraught politics of free expression right now, among other things.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Christopher Dummitt, Professor of Canadian Studies at Trent University. They discuss the differences between academic freedom and free expression, some historical context for these concepts in Canada, recent research on self-censorship and viewpoint diversity, threats to open discourse on campus, the concept of institutional neutrality, and the prospect of government intervention, among other things.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Irfan Chaudhry, hate crimes researcher and inaugural Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion at Hockey Canada. They discuss the legal definition of hate speech in Canada, the intersection of hate speech and digital technology, the challenges of defining and regulating hate speech, the potential unintended consequences of criminalizing hate, and some strategies for responding to hate in society, among other things.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Josh Dehaas, Counsel with the Canadian Constitution Foundation. They discuss the historical origins of fundamental freedoms and some important cases in Canadian jurisprudence, the relationship between free expression and other fundamental freedoms like association and assembly, the legal definition and importance of peaceful assembly, some of the contemporary cases and challenges to freedom of assembly, and some of the current issues preoccupying the CCF at the moment, among other things.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Eric Heinze, Professor of Law and Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. They discuss the ancient origins of free expression, philosophical justifications for free expression, contemporary challenges to free expression, the possibilities for a non-liberal version of free expression, the unintended consequences of censorship, the impact of the culture wars, and some thoughts from his most recent book, among other things.

In this episode, Dax speaks with Jillian York, the Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They discuss the technological optimism once associated with the Internet, the dual nature of technology enhancing and limiting our freedoms, the intersection of the digital free expression and need for moderating content and regulating platforms, the international dimensions of digital free expression, data commercialization, and misinformation, among other things. Links: https://www.eff.org/speaking-freely https://www.eff.org/how-to-fix-the-internet-podcast https://atlasofsurveillance.org/ https://ssd.eff.org/

In this episode, Dax speaks with Emmett Macfarlane, Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. They discuss the politics of free expression in Canada and how it relates to the culture wars, the challenges of universities responding to free expression controversies on their campuses, and the task force at the University of Waterloo and its report, including how universities should approach protest encampments, divestment, extramural expression, institutional neutrality, and the relevance of the Charter.