How to Build a Strong Corporate Culture in the USA

Despite the assumptions of the title, the Oxford Professor of Poetry is not expected to teach or produce poetry; his primary responsibility is to present 12 public lectures, one per term for four years. Ford's writings in the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books are good examples of the style, so I voted in anticipation of his lecture series. Although Ford was not chosen, I am not disappointed with the eventual winner, AE Stallings. She is a vivacious poet whose work is structurally sound. It is also frequently classically oriented, as befits someone who lives full-time in Athens; nonetheless, she will have to work hard to match the classical eccentricity of the first Oxford Professor of Poetry, Joseph Trapp, who was supposedly fond of extemporizing Shakespeare's lines in Latin. That's quite the party trick.As the end of the month approached, it was time to return home for Dominion Day, Stampede, and the perennial charivari of Canadian politics, which will be discussed further next month.In her Interim Report, "Searching for Missing Children and Unmarked Burials," Independent Special Interlocutor Kimberley Murray recommends that the government implement additional legal mechanisms, such as civil and criminal remedies to combat "denialism." 

In her review, Murray stated that

There are significant gaps in legal protections at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels to protect the sites pending searches and investigations" as well as, "[…] denialists are attacking the credibility of Survivors' truths about missing children, unmarked burials, and cemeteries at Indian Residential Schools as sensationalist." Murray's idea has been openly supported by Attorney General David Lametti, thus it deserves consideration.Lametti, who appointed Murray to her position, stated at her recent presentation at the Cowesses First Nation that he is open to all options for combating residential-school denialism. He stated that this involves "a legal solution and outlawing it," and that Canada should turn to other countries that have criminalized Holocaust denial.The Oxford Dictionary defines "denialism" as "a person who does not acknowledge the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence". It is a phrase stolen from psychology, as are many current lobs in the culture wars, to describe someone who rejects an uncomfortable or identity-threatening reality. Denialism has recently developed as a shibboleth for supporting increasingly repressive limits on free expression.

There is such a lack of rigor and clarity in what 

defines denialism that any legal project intending to impose criminal punishments on it would be bereft of clarity and predictability, which are fundamental tenets of the rule of law. Does residential school denialism, for example, include investigative journalism like Terry Glavin's trenchant piece from 2022?Glavin concurred in his explosive investigation for the National Post that the government's residential school policy constituted cultural genocide and involved harsh psychological, physical, and sexual assault. Glavin also determined that, despite the country's paroxysms, no mass graves or human remains had been located a year after the statements. There was no trace of any of the 3,201 children listed as deceased on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 2015 record. Glavin also emphasized the concern expressed by local Indigenous leaders who are most involved in the areas in question.Glavin's post raised legitimate and serious questions in the aftermath of such a heinous claim as the discovery of unmarked children's graves: What remains were discovered, and how do they relate to known historical records? What charges should be laid? Who will take the lead in these efforts? The legacy media declared Terry persona non grata for raising these questions. Journalist Bari Weiss, who interviewed Glavin for her Honestly podcast in September 2022, described her interest in the Glavin case as demonstrating what happens to a society "when the truth no longer matters."

Murray's report quotes MP Leah Gazan, who claims that 

denying genocide is a type of hate speech. That kind of discourse is violent and causes re-trauma in individuals who endured residential schools." However, hate speech is already criminalized in Canada—though defining the line between merely repugnant speech and hate speech is a notoriously difficult exercise, and free speech defenders like myself would be more comfortable if the state relegated itself to its most severe constraint on liberty—imprisonment—only in cases of actual or threatened physical violence, because it is precisely these grey areas that have such a chilling effect on open discourse.However, Murray's plan appears to go beyond that, advocating for the passage of new legislation that would combine any critical discussion of residential schools and unmarked graves with hate speech or pathological denialism. If the new law goes beyond what has traditionally been characterized as hate speech, it is likely unlawful under the Charter's Section 2(b), which protects even the most offensive and abhorrent speech that falls short of hate speech.Aside from being unconstitutional, such a law would be extremely illiberal and ill-advised. It raises the prospect of driving anti-Indigenous racism underground, where it can thrive without the cleansing influence of open speech.Other discourse that Murray appears to target, while objectionable, is best addressed with rational argument rather than criminal censure. There is a small, obscure group of Canadian conservative intellectuals who support residential schools, and I find these apologists misguided and repulsive. Brian Giesbrecht lamented in an op-ed published last year that, in the midst of a national frenzy of self-flagellation following the announcement of the discovery of 215 human remains, nobody bothered to mention that enrolment in the schools was often voluntary, nor did they mention "the fact that at that time the school had an impressive outdoor swimming pool."