Okanagan – Where to Draw the Line: Challenges to Free Speech from Maurice Duplessis to Charlie Hebdo

This is a collaborative event with the Okanagan Jewish Community Centre.

If possible, please leave the small OJCC parking lot for people who might have difficulty parking further away and walking. There is on-street parking on Union Rd and I was told that North Glenmore Elementary, across Snowsell St, doesn’t mind people using their parking lot if they don’t have an event on.

Dr Andrew Irvine will be speaking about the importance of free speech in Canada and other Western democracies. His talk will review the current state of Canadian law with regard to free speech and other fundamental democratic freedoms and will discuss several landmark Supreme Court of Canada cases.

Andrew Irvine teaches at the University of British Columbia. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Sydney University and is Head of Economics, Philosophy and Political Science at UBC Okanagan. He is a past vice-chair of the UBC Board of Governors, a past president of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and a member of the board of directors of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship. He has held visiting positions at several Canadian and American universities and has been recognized as one of British Columbia’s most influential public intellectuals.

Dr Irvine is a renowned expert on Bertrand Russell. He has also published and lectured on topics in the philosophy of mathematics, the history and philosophy of logic, and the philosophy of law. He is an advocate of traditional democratic civil liberties, and has argued in favour of free speech rights, both for political reasons, and in the context of defending academic freedom. He’s even written a play, “Socrates on Trial”!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_David_Irvine
http://phil.ok.ubc.ca/faculty/irvine.html

Time to be determined.