Canada caves when free speech is under fire

When I came under fire, no one in Canada had my back. It was U.S. groups that stepped up. That says a lot about the state of our institutions

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It’s been a busy few weeks in Anglosphere politics. Canada and Australia both held federal elections, while in England, voters went to the polls for local races and a high-stakes parliamentary byelection.

The campaigns—and their results—couldn’t have been more different. In Canada and Australia, incumbent left-leaning governments shaped their campaigns around external threats, particularly U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs. They portrayed these as “existential threats” to national sovereignty, crowding out debate on urgent domestic issues like housing, affordability and migration.

But English voters weren’t interested in fear campaigns. Instead, they used the opportunity to send a clear message of frustration with their own political class, punishing both the stumbling Labour government and the disoriented Conservatives.

Across local councils and mayoral races, the upstart Reform Party, a populist, centre-right movement, swept aside the traditional parties. Reform captured more than 30 per cent of the vote, winning 677 council seats and control of 10 of the 23 contested councils. The Conservatives collapsed, losing 674 seats, Labour dropped 187, and the Lib Dems gained 163. In the first parliamentary byelection since the 2024 national vote, a supposedly safe Labour seat—Runcorn and Helsby—flipped to Reform by just six votes.

These results reveal more than political turbulence. They expose important differences in political culture. British voters, with their long democratic tradition and broader economy, proved more resistant to fear-driven narratives centred on U.S. politics. Canada and Australia, more economically dependent and less institutionally resilient, were more vulnerable to manipulation by politicians exploiting insecurity and simplistic caricatures of American threats.

The cost of this vulnerability is domestic neglect. In Canada, conversations about civil liberties, housing, immigration and cost-of-living pressures, especially on younger Canadians, were largely sidelined.

This failure isn’t abstract. I experienced it firsthand.

In 2022, I was appointed chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Soon after, a small but vocal activist group targeted me with allegations of Islamophobia and racism, based on a misrepresentation of a 2009 academic article I wrote on political theology. Canadian institutions that should have stood for due process and free expression remained silent.

Support only arrived once the story caught the attention of American organizations. Groups like the Middle East Forum, the Clarity Coalition, the National Association of Scholars and Law & Liberty offered platforms for me to speak, publish and respond. Only then did some Canadian outlets take notice.

At the heart of this silence was a deeper issue: Canada lacked the civic infrastructure to defend free speech, academic freedom and open debate, especially when they challenge prevailing orthodoxies.

That, thankfully, may be starting to change.

Since my dismissal, several new organizations have emerged. The Clarity Coalition, an alliance of Muslims, ex-Muslims and allies committed to liberal democracy, launched a Canadian chapter, which I now co-chair with Yasmine Mohammed. In 2024, it joined others to form the Alliance of Canadians Combating Antisemitism. And earlier this year, lawyer Lisa Bildy, who represented the late Richard Bilkszto, a Toronto principal targeted in a cancellation campaign, founded a Canadian chapter of the Free Speech Union.

These developments mark a long-overdue pushback. For the first time in years, Canadian groups are coalescing around foundational values and offering critical support to individuals willing to challenge entrenched activist networks.

Still, the fight is uphill. These organizations are new, their resources are limited and the pressure is intense.

In my own case, my legal counsel has filed a defamation suit against several of the groups that destroyed my reputation and cost me my position. Legal action is costly, and so far, the only significant financial support I’ve received has come from the Lawfare Project, a New York-based legal defence group founded by a Canadian.

That in itself says a great deal.

There are signs of momentum. Muslims Facing Tomorrow, a Canadian group led by the courageous Raheel Raza, recently issued a public statement supporting my legal action and called on Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery to reinstate me as chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

If that happens, my first act would be to establish an advisory council on free speech and academic freedom, because no society can remain democratic if it doesn’t defend its core values.

Whether Alberta’s government will act remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: if Canada wants to protect its democratic soul, it must stop relying on others for courage and start standing up for its principles at home.

Collin May is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a lawyer, and Adjunct Lecturer in Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, with degrees in law (Dalhousie University), a Masters in Theological Studies (Harvard) and a Diplome d’etudes approfondies (Ecole des hautes etudes, Paris).