Ivison: Trudeau makes sudden course correction on freedom of speech

Lest there was any room for confusion about the prime minister’s free speech credentials, he reinforced the point in English. “Our journalists, our artists have an important challenge function in our society and we need to leave them free to do their work. I have always believed that and I’ve always said it.”

At least he had the decency to look sheepish.

Because, of course, that’s not what he has always said.

Those with prodigious memories will recall it was last Friday that the prime minister said something quite different.

When he was asked at last week’s press conference whether we should be able to laugh at religion or make fun of the Muslim prophet, Trudeau defended freedom of expression but said there are limits on those freedoms. “We do not have the right to shout ‘fire!’ in a movie theatre crowded with people,” he said. In a pluralistic, diverse society, people have to be aware of the impact of their words and actions, particularly on groups that experience discrimination, he added.

In the aftermath of the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty for showing his class some Charlie Hebdo cartoons that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, it was a response that discounted the barbarity of the assault on Western values such as freedom of thought.

It smacked of Trudeau’s rather academic reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing seven years ago, when, after the new Liberal leader had mused about the “root causes” behind the attack, prime minister, Stephen Harper, accused him of “committing sociology.”

On Monday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault made it known he “totally disagreed” with Trudeau’s equivocation on freedom of expression, despite his own government’s stance on the wearing of religious symbols by teachers and civil servants in its own secularism law.

Instead, Legault backed French President Emmanuel Macron, who has vocally supported the right to make fun of religion.

On his Facebook page on Tuesday, the Quebec premier revealed that he received a call from Macron, thanking him for his support in defending freedom of expression, a posting all the more delicious because it is clear that Trudeau did not get one.

It appears the prime minister’s sociological musings did not resonate with Canadian voters either, given the course correction on Tuesday.

No wonder. A cornerstone of liberal democracies for the past 160 years has been the English philosopher John Stuart Mill’s “harm principle” – that individual freedom should only be infringed to prevent harm to others.

In the struggle between liberty and authority, Mill said that if the state is to err, it should do so on the side of liberty.