Other than in the most egregious or frivolous cases, I always feel it my duty to defend Canada against the criticisms of outsiders

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For some weeks, I have been committing the moderate indignities that are of the lot of all authors selling newly launched books. Even though I do not attempt to live off the proceeds of the book sales, I’m obligated to the publishers to do my best to promote sales, and am, of course, happy to do so. It leads to interesting encounters with an extraordinary variety of people in an era in which I can speak from a specially wired and illuminated place in my home by Zoom or Skype or equivalent methods to people and groups almost anywhere. Because my current book (the first volume of my anticipated three-volume treatment of the modest subject of the political and strategic history of the world), insofar as it attracts any interest, could be appreciated by people who can read English anywhere, I have so far spoken to people and groups in most states in the United States and an appreciable number of British and Australian connections, and I’m really just getting underway in Canada.

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My reason for mentioning this is that, throughout this process, I have found that Americans are intensely curious about what they understand to be the destruction of human rights in Canada. I have never known Americans to be so familiar with pending legislation in this country as they are with Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, which deals with hate speech communicated over the internet. Obviously, every responsible person disapproves of the incitement of hate, other than in the rare cases where it is objectively justifiable — no one would reasonably object to the incitement of hate against physically belligerent Nazis or other racist terrorists or almost all categories of those who commit unprovoked and premeditated murder. And Bill C-63 does carefully establish that it is not aiming at........

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