Dec 011983
 

1980-xx-xx.emery-thumb2AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:

At some point during 1983, Jennifer Moore of Students Against War was the guest of the Wayne McLean talk radio show on AM 980 (London, Ontario). Moore’s group had apparently been involved in some sort of poorly organized “civil disobedience”, affecting the Mayor of London. Although the group’s aims are not clear, the group apparently was anti-American, anti-nuclear weapons, and anti-NATO. Marc Emery – then publisher of the London Metrobulletin and owner/operator of City Lights bookshop – called in to get some answers.

 

Marc Emery excerpt:
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Nov 211983
 

justice-minister-mark-macguiganAUDIO – DESCRIPTION:

In June of 1983, Canada’s Justice Minister, Mark MacGuigan (Liberal) announced the formation of the Fraser Committee on pornography and prostitution. In November of 1983, Justice Borins of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice stated that, due to the looseness of the definition of obscenity, a person could be in a position where they did not know they were breaking a pornography law until they were convicted in court. It was announced that the committee would commence cross-Canada hearings in or about early to mid December of 1983. This recording is estimated to have been made in mid-to-late November of 1983. It is an episode of Hotline, hosted by talk radio personality Wayne Mclean. Marc Emery calls in to express his views. Later, the Justice Minister called in. Robert Metz called in response to MacGuigan’s call.

Excerpts: Mclean, Emery, MacGuigan, Metz):
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Oct 251983
 

1980-xx-xx.emery-thumb2AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:
It’s 1983. Freedom Party of Ontario has not yet been founded. At least two high-profile historical revisionist deniers of the Holocaust in Germany have been making headlines for their anti-Semitic behaviours. In Alberta, Jim Keegstra has lost his teaching job for telling his students a number of false allegations concerning Jewish people (he alleges a world-wide conspiracy, denies the Holocaust, etc.). Meanwhile, in Toronto, another anti-Semite, Ernst Zundel (a man hailing from Germany, originally) is distributing literature alleging that the number of Jewish people murdered by the Nazis has been exaggerated by Jews in an effort to get money from the German government. Understandably, therefore, there is concern that such false allegations will cause people to turn against Jews in Canada.

On October 11, 1983, four-members of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) testified to a Canadian Parliamentary Committee on Racial Minorities. They, proposed, among other things that the word “wilfully” be deleted from the criminal code provisions relating to hate speech (i.e., so that a person could be found guilty whether or not he “wilfully” did what he did, in order to make findings of guilt easier). So, on October 25, 1983, London (Ontario) talk radio host Wayne McLean invited the Chair of the Steering Committee for the Canadian Jewish Congress, Sharon Wolfe, to be his guest.

After discussing the CJC’s concerns and recommendations, McLean took calls from his listeners. He then spoke with Roy McMurtry (then Ontario’s Attorney General), who said that anti-Semitism was on the rise. He said that there is more anti-Semitic literature around, apparently because of the “aftermath…continuing occurrences in Lebanon” (a reference to ongoing terrorist activity in Lebanon, involving the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, and their Iranian and Syrian backers. NOTE: just two days prior to this broadcast, an American Marine barracks and a French barracks in Lebanon were each truck-bombed by a group calling itself the Islamic Jihad, killing 299 American and French soldiers).

After speaking with McMurtry, McLean took more calls from listeners, including Marc Emery. Emery, who had interviewed Jewish victims of the Holocaust and had written about the Holocaust in his London Metrobulletin newspaper, calls in to explain the dangers of criminalizing even false and hurtful speech. When McLean asks if Emery wishes that it had been possible to pass a law to stop the expression of hate speech in Germany, Emery points out that they did have such a law in Germany: a law that banned speaking ill of Nazis.

After taking calls from Emery and others, McLean also spoke with Alan Borovoy (general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association), who, like Emery, spoke against the criminalizing of speech.

Marc Emery Excerpt:

Complete Recording:
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May 061981
 

1980-xx-xx.metz-thumbAUDIO – DESCRIPTION:

Years prior to the founding of Freedom Party of Ontario, Robert Metz calls into the Wayne McLean radio talk show (the guest of which was Reverend Carson) to comment about capitalism in Ireland. Robert finds it surprising for anyone to consider Ireland capitalistic. Robert discusses the nature of capitalism versus a mixed economy.

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