Where speech is not free, small victories are sweet

As we prepare to celebrate the day of American independence, it might serve as an object lesson to look at how our neighbors to the north observe something we take so much for granted - freedom to speak and write and publish.

Columnist and author Mark Steyn and the Canadian newsweekly magazine Macleans have won a small victory for freedom of the press in Canada. The national Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa on Friday dismissed a "hate speech" complaint against Steyn and the magazine for publishing an article that some activist Canadian Muslims found offensive, but which most observers, we believe, would find only mildly politically incorrect.

Whether this decision will lead to less harassment of free speech and the free press in Canada is yet to be determined. The Human Rights Commission for the province of British Columbia, in a separate action, held its own hearings and has yet to issue its decision.

It is important to remember that the United States is almost unique in the Western world in having a First Amendment that protects freedom of speech and the media almost absolutely. There are no commissions or regulators overseeing the press (except for the Federal Communications Commission for broadcasters); any grievances regarding libel or truthful reporting are weighed in court.

In Canada and in much of Western Europe, certain opinions - of people who claim the Holocaust never happened, pastors who say homosexuality is a sin, Brigitte Bardot saying Muslims are undermining French culture, for example - may not be expressed at all. In Canada, strictures against "hate speech," which arguably could stir up hate against a particular group, have morphed into an entitlement of activist grievance-mongers to seek to forbid speech and writing that they claim to find offensive.

What got this case going was Macleans magazine's decision to publish an excerpt from Steyn's book "America Alone." Titled "The Future Belongs to Islam," the excerpt argued that because of high birth rates among Muslims and low birth rates among native Europeans (and Canadians) living in welfare states, Muslims were likely to turn Europe into "Eurabia" in a few generations.

Provocative, yes, but it, in fact, echoed and quoted a Danish imam, shortly after the imbroglio over the cartoons of the Prophet, who said: "We're the ones who will change you. ... Every Western woman in the [European Union] is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children."

Steyn's argument is not watertight. Projecting current trends into the future unchanged is a well-known fallacy. Trends always change. But the argument is far from hateful.

The case against Macleans (Canada's largest-circulation news magazine) has stirred up unprecedented discussion in Canada about the role of national and provincial human-rights commissions. The national commission has appointed a professor to investigate whether it has started to overreach. A measure has been introduced in Parliament to strip commissions of authority to regulate the media. That would be a welcome outcome.