Imagine it… a school district, supposedly in charge of educating our children, deems the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be “inappropriate”.
No, I am not making this up.
Prince Rupert School District No. 52 recently banned teachers from wearing a T-shirt with “2(b) or not 2(b)?” on the front, and the text of section 2 of the Charter on the back: 2(a) freedom of religion, 2(b) freedom of expression, 2(c) freedom of peaceful assembly, and 2(d) freedom of association.
Freedom of Expression is, one would think, a principle educational institutes would trumpet from the rooftops. Not the morons at the Prince Rupert School Board…
The freedom to express our thoughts, beliefs and ideas is fundamental to Freedom and Liberty here in Canada, current pogroms against those vile individuals who actually practice Freedom of Speech aside…
For a school board to ban not only Free Speech but also the mere text of one of our Charter Rights is absurd in the extreme.
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BBCLA) issued the following statement after learning about this ridiculous abuse of power at the local level.
“The school district’s decision to ban free speech about free speech reminds us of a badly-written comedy sketch. But this isn’t an Air Farce skit, it’s a troubling violation of teachers’ constitutional right to free expression,” said Lindsay Lyster, President of the BCCLA.
“The School District has an obligation to respect free speech, and there is no lawful justification for the District to ban these t-shirts.
“In considering the Shakespearean questions posed on the front of the T-shirt, the school board has evidently decided that “not 2(b) is the answer. That answer is not only wrong, but is in violation of Canada’s constitution.”
At the February 24, 2013 board meeting Prince Rupert School Board Trustee Barb Gurber, clearly showing her ignorance of or complete disconnect from reality said the letter from the BCCLA was “a piece of garbage”, saying a concerned third party had no business even writing the letter.
Her ill-informed opinion was shared by the rest of the board, it seems, as the chair of the Prince Ruperrt board of education, Tina Last, said she didn’t like the “tone” of the letter.
Tina Last, Barb Gruber and the rest of the Prince Rupert School Board need to pull their heads out of their behinds, and fast.
Clearly these unthinking ninnies have breathed their own fouled intestinal gases for far too long when they view being chastised for violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as inappropriate.
Since they refuse to reverse their asinine ban on the actual text of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms I suppose it will take a lawsuit to force these bureaucratic minions of the Thought Police to drag their sorry carcasses back to reality.
Common Sense… it’s just not that common.
