Jian Ghomeshi Rebuttal

Jian Ghomeshi, yesterday you gave an essay on the problem of a new code of ethics by Archives and Library Canada having a chilling effect on the librarians and archivists employed there.

You begin by saying "It's not a black and white world out there, there are infinite shades in between."  I'll go further, not only are there infinite shades but it isn't clear that black is bad and white is good.  Because of this you are right to say that the government should not influence what archivists and librarians say, but that is not possible so long as the Library and Archives Canada remains a public institution.

When Roger Williams fled Salem, he learned that the Church needed to be kept separate from the state, not to protect the state but to protect the church from becoming a tool of the state.  If the church was a state sanctioned institution, then the government could determine what is moral.  With that they impose their moral view on society at the expense of all others and worse twist that view to justify the state; state leaders could use the church to justify their authority in the state. It isn't just religion,but also secular beliefs like Fascism that are used in this way.  We need the separation of culture and state.

As with religion, all forms of culture require protection from state influence.   Science, art, entertainment, news, and history can enlighten us, or they can be used to show us only what the state wants us to know, and the lies the state want us to believe.

Lately conservatives have been in a fit because they believe that Canadian historians only apologize for Canada's past.  This is not true, because even when they aren't celebrating war or police action enough, they are celebrating Medicare or the welfare state.  Yet these conservatives have reason to complain when archivists say something they don't believe  since we all own the archives.  That's not true, if we truly owned it we could sell our share.  If I truly owned it I could sell it for something I find to me of greater value, or refuse to pay if I found their work offensive. A public servant is a public servant, so if it is important that archivists have free speech, then we have to consider if they can effectively do their job as civil servants.

We are very fortunate in this country to have a diverse media.  In Europe where news has long been subsidized  the media is unwilling to offend the government that feeds them.  We have the CBC, (which has also never been free of bias) as a state broadcaster, but it does not have a monopoly in telecom, nor does and it never had a monopoly compared to the print media.  There is everything from Sun Media, to the Rabble.ca, and the viewer is free to decide who is telling the truth.

There is no reason why government is needed to run archives.  Indeed universities, or other institutions might be better suited to the task.  In the US, the National Endowment for the Humanities spent $22 million to digitize 5 million pages of newspapers, by contrast, retired engineer Tom Tryniski has been able to upload 22 million pages from his home, and his site receives twice the traffic of the national archive.  Companies like Google and Wikimedia have been saving books and documents.  If Canadian Association of University Teachers values the archive they could run it, or universities could run their own archives and share information.

It is not fair to call on the government to run an archive, or fund science and the media and then expect that government will not try to use it's power.  By separating culture from the state, the diversity and creativity that makes up our common culture is protected from outside influence.  That is why the government should privatize Archives and Library Canada.