International Free Press Society Canada, and Free Thinking Films present an evening with Bruce Bawer
IFPS launches it’s Canadian branch with a fantastic evening of speakers, in coordination with Fred Litwin’s ‘Free Thinking Film Society‘, a libertarian film group attempting to fill the void in Canada’s movie scene which, according to Fred, has no shortage of Michael Moore movies in theaters but has a conspicuous absence of any other point of view.
FTFS and IFPS-Can. joined forces to bring together a rather excellent collection of widely diverse thinkers such as Bruce Bawer, author of two most excellent books on the issue of Islam and it’s effects on Western secular liberal democracy, and the focus of the event, as well as Canadian ‘left leaning’ journalist, Terry Glavin, Quebec blogger and researcher and founder of the French language blog, Point Du Bascule, Marc Lebuis, and Canadian counter terrorism expert and founder of the intelligence group, INSIGNIS, David Harris.
The evening has been broken down into two segments. The speech by Bruce Bawer as well as an introduction by Fred Litwin, and the panel discussion and Q&A afterwards.
Please enjoy and feel free to comment.
James Cohen
VP of the newly minted, IFPS-Canada.
Link: 
Sept. 16th Bruce Bawer spoke in Montreal. I did not post the lecture in Montreal as it is very similar to the Ottawa speech. However the Q&A is very interesting.
Q&A Panel discussion Ottawa Sept. 14th 09 with Bruce Bawer, Terry Glavin, Marc Lebuin and David Harris of INSIGNIS
Link:
Comments
By Trenchant Commentator on September 22nd, 2009 at 8:57 am
This is kind of amusing since Canada doesn’t have a free press and hasn’t had for many decades now. Speaking as a veteran communications professional, I note that Canadian employers increasingly look to the USA for “communications expertise” since Canadian universities only churn out propagandists. The Government of Ontario routinely specifies “familiarity with communications theory” in employment ads when NO UNIVERSITY IN ONTARIO offers such an education. Indeed, there WAS a time when Canadian universities were known for the quality of their communications and journalism graduates. That was a LONG, LONG TIME AGO. Last Chance U. (Carlton) is the wellspring of contemporary Cdn. journalists! HA-HA-HA-HA I’ve had to interview too much human detritus with Last Chance U credentials. It’s sad but also hilarious. I advice Canadian journalists with talent to move south and discover their true worth. Canada doesn’t want REAL journalists. Canadians are far happier in their shared psychiatric “folie” that “Canada and Canadians are better”. They aren’t. They’re just LESS CONSCIOUS and LESS KNOWLEDGEABLE.
By James Cohen on September 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 am
Clearly Canada needs it’s own division of the IFPS then. Please feel free to cite examples. I suspect the beginning of all this was Trudeau. Would you agree?
By Trenchant Commentator on September 23rd, 2009 at 2:18 am
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, though a dynamic personality, did more damage to Canada than virtually any politician in my lifetime. It was Trudeau’s “Bilingueal;ism & Biculturalism Commission” which resulted in Canada’s adoption of a policy of multiculturalism. At the time, the word “multiculturalism” was used to describe the Canadian diaspora, which was discovered to be NOT BIcultural (English and French) but MULTIcultural. Over time, the word took on new meaning as generations of compromised communicators handled the issue. Today, “multiculturalism” has come to mean something entirely different – and embody the notion that “all cultures are equal”. They are not. I lived for a period of four years in Oman. I can assure you that Omani culture pales when compared to almost any civilized culture. Similarly, I feel certain that my western European culture is more life-sustaining than, say, any Islamic cultural entity.
Back to your question: So Trudeau “got the ball rolling” so to speak, but mounting Canadian ignorance in the face of “multiculralized” education etc has led to a Canada I barely recognize. My work requires me to particpate in interviews across the country of new graduates for communications jobs. The erosion in the quality of graduates is ASTOUNDING over the years – so much so that my wife and I placed out own children in private academies – two sons to military academies in the USA and our daughter to a private institution two provinces away. ALL THREE of our kids went on to university (although not in Canada), post-graduate work (again, not in Canada) and full-time professional employment. None of my seven grandchildren – aged 3 to 17) has EVER seen the interior of a Canadian school.
Canada’s history had always been plagued by the “Two Solitudes” – the English and the French. Multiculturalism has produced a Canadian Tower of Babel of Solitudes – a fractured population of thousands of “ethnncultural groups” all vying for THEIER piece of the pie. There is no “us” in Canada anymore, really. Factop in liberal post-modern self-hatred and you’ve a recipe for the most fractured country in the western world
Today, Canada is the ONLY western democracy without: a national housing strategy/policy; a national transportation strategy/policy; a national education strategy/policy. Indeed, Canada is NOT a country but a “political jurisdiction”. Canada no longer HAS a distinct culture of its own. I seriously doubt that Canada will even exist a half-century from now if things continue this way.
Despite being a veteran of two military camopaigns and having served in the military for over a decade, I no longer have much hope for my country of birth. I am fortunate, however, in that I acquired a second citizenship to a REAL country with a culture and EVERYTHING (imagine that!). I plan on retiring in a few years, and take great comfort in the knowledge that I will leave fractious, broken, blind and self-hating Canada behind. I wish I felt differently. I honestly, I WEEP when I think of what has been done to my country.
By James Cohen on September 23rd, 2009 at 2:49 am
I am just barely old enough to have a feint memory of Canada pre Trudeau. It was the Canada of the self reliant. Of a proud people who worked hard and thought of themselves as beavers, hard working, industrious and the very notion of welfare was anathema.
Now, survival is dependent on a degree of partnership with the state and success is based on criteria more political than truthful. Those few souls that feel rotted in the public service and move to the private sector deserve a medal. More typical, is the sanctimonious Canadian who gets a highly paid job with one of the many layers of government bureaucracy and makes it his or hers life’s work to interfere with the production of wealth in some manner or other and force those few left who actually do anything, to hide more and more of their activities lest they be discovered to be productive, and made illegal due to breach of pseudo-environmental beliefs or some other nonsense not fitting in with the Trudopian narrative.
I wish you best of luck in your new home. It is sad that Canada loses one of the few left who’s ideas and understanding may save her, but I do not begrudge your choice. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, I will head south as well, much to the jubilation of Trudopian Canadians who warm themselves with moral superiority for their Marxist programming unaware even, that is what it is.
One can’t help but wonder though, how far behind the US is. Is Obama the Trudeau of the South? When Americans make a cultural shift it tends to be fast and hard. If Obama is America’s Trudeau, it may be worse there than here.
By Trenchant Commentator on September 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 am
James:
You have my e-mail address. Please write to me. I have a VERY NEWSWORTHY STORY about how a Canadian government agency is refusing to deal with a corporate “broadcaster” which routinely carries calls for a genocide of French Canadian and Quebecois. I’ve just received the Cdn. goverment’s offical non-response. BTW, I have a relative/compatriot in Quebec who has received precisely the same response from Canada’s government. I am more than willing to provide you FULL DOCUMENTATION about the case in point.
ABOUT YOUR RESPONSE: Yes, Canada and Canadians were far more self-reliant prior to the infantilizing initiatives of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Jmaes, write to me at the email address I have provided. Thanks so much.
By josie erent on March 20th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I strongly encourage free press…However, not when your society encourages…and pays for People like Ann Coulter the Republican Ignorant witch…..who has nothing to contribute except racist comments, extreme right wing Republican views that poision society….that encourages free speech based on respect of individual rights, religions, political views..et.
Tell Ms Coulter she is not welcome in Canada.
By James Cohen on March 21st, 2010 at 3:54 am
Ann Coulter is being sponsored by the Canadian Free Press Society. This site, it’s personnel, it’s volunteers and so on, had nothing to do with that decision.
Please feel free to take it up with http://ifpscanada.com/
I would be most happy to discuss the various speakers and events that IFPS International is involved with.
By Indigence on April 1st, 2010 at 10:10 am
Here in N.B. there are 6 reservations that are poorer than downtown eastside Vancouver. As a matter of fact Tobique First Nation is the poorest community in the country. But how can that be?
We have a lawyer for a chief, four high profile Liberal politicians,the duputy Aboriginal Sec’t, and the Lieutentant Gov. of N.B. all from Tobique.
We also have an unaccounted casino since the lawyer/chief has been elected.
We are also $40 Million Plus in debt. Ever heard of anything? When the Irvings sent a reporter from the Telegraph Journal to interview us they wrote about a man drinking a beer by the bands office. Oh we are also in a land claim for N.B. … coincidence? The same people that put us in this mess are still at the helm. All of them.
By RecentGrad on February 1st, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Trenchant your first comment is grossly incorrect in its assumption that no uUniversity in Ontario deals in communication theory. I employ you to check out the University of Western Ontario’s Media Information and technoculture program or the communications department at Laurier.
Canada has a rich history of internationally renowned media, culture and communication theorists (i.e. Mcluhan, Innis) are taught day in and day out by their modern equivalents throughout Canada. I am not sure when you last looked at our school system but you should take another peek. I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
By RecentGrad on February 1st, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Dear Trenchant,
Your comment is grossly incorrect in its assumption that no University in Ontario deals in communication theory. I employ you to check out the University of Western Ontario’s Media Information and technoculture program or the communications department at Laurier.
Canada has a rich history of internationally renowned media, culture and communication theorists (i.e. Mcluhan, Innis) are taught day in and day out by their modern equivalents throughout Canada. I am not sure when you last looked at our school system but you should take another peek. I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
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