Canada

Quebec’s prayer ban

This entry was posted in Censorship and tagged Canada censorship liberty religion on by

With Worldcon coming up in Montreal next year, fans who go there will have to be aware of Quebec’s anti-prayer law. It imposes serious restrictions on religious freedom. Group prayer in public requires government permission. People have had to choose between wearing religious symbols and quitting their jobs. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has condemned the law as an “attack on freedom of religion, freedom of expression, protest rights, and equality.”

The law is touted as promoting religious neutrality, but it’s no more neutral than a ban on all protests is.

The law has been challenged in Canada’s Supreme Court, so it might not be an issue when the convention comes around.

Some of its provisions will affect just people living and working in the province. I’ll focus here on the impact on visitors.

Scene from Faust, Mephistopheles commanding Marguerite not to prayA lot depends on the word “public.” What is a “public place”? The streets of Montreal are certainly public, but what about the Palais de Congrès, where the convention will take place? What about hotels where fans will stay? Will the convention be able to schedule religious gatherings? This is a question for lawyers, and I hope the con will have some answers for the public. I wrote to the convention’s address for asking questions, and so far I’ve gotten an acknowledgement but no other response. Probably they’re still working on it.

In practice, there’s a good chance only Muslims will be targeted for enforcement. As an atheist, I’m not directly affected by a prayer ban, but laws denying freedom of expression undermine the principle and have a chilling effect on all discourse. In 2025, Montreal slapped a church with a $2,500 fine for hosting a concert by a singer the government didn’t like. I think Sean Feucht is all wet (bonus pun for German speakers!), but that’s not the point. If the city can fine private organizations for hosting singers or speakers based on the ideas they support, it can silence anyone, and events such as fan conventions aren’t safe.

The Montreal Worldcon code of conduct 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged Canada conventions fandom on by

I’ve registered as an attending member for the 2027 Worldcon in Montreal. Even though it’s in another country, it’s an easy day’s drive from my home. I hope that crossing the border won’t be too dangerous to consider by then, but today I’m here to talk about its code of conduct. There have been better ones and worse ones. I have concerns, but they weren’t enough to scare me out of registering. Let’s take a look, as I have with other conventions.
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Vancouver Comics Arts Festival is looking worse

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged books Canada conventions fandom on by

In an earlier post, I discussed the Vancouver Comics Arts Festival’s exclusion of Miriam Libicki for, in effect, being Israeli. Today I found a newly published interview with Libicki that makes the convention look still worse. Based on what she says, the convention’s motivation was more a matter of book-banning.

She characterizes the disruption which allegedly endangered the convention as “screaming.” As described, it might be grounds for restricting or expelling the person responsible, but there doesn’t seem to have been any threat to anyone. At one point, security removed some people for being disruptive. The “screaming” person was objecting to Libicki’s books without having read them. Subsequently the convention demanded a review of Libicki’s writing. Libicki was asked for digital copies of her books, which she couldn’t readily provide.
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Bigotry at Vancouver Comics Arts Festival

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged Canada conventions ethics fandom on by

A few weeks ago I mentioned USC’s cancelling a valedictorian’s speech because of unspecified threats. In that case, the speaker was seen as pro-Palestinian. The heckler’s veto cuts both ways. It’s been in fannish news that the Vancouver Comics Arts Festival banned artist Miriam Libicki because of unspecified dangers her presence would create. The issue was that she was Israeli and had been in the IDF in the early 2000s, long before the events kicked off by the October 7 massacre.

The resulting reaction from the fan community has thrown the convention leadership into chaos. The people chiefly responsible for the bigoted decision have left the organization, which is good. What’s left of the board has issued an apology, a confession of cowardice. It says in part:

For background, the decision to ban this individual in our previous statement stemmed from two separate incidents on the VanCAF floor that took place during our 2022 and 2024 festivals. Neither incident was instigated by the individual referenced in our previous post. Both involved activists protesting the individual’s presence in a manner that caused concern for the safety of our volunteers, staff, and exhibitors.

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