by Donald Morton | North Frontenac News Media – NFNM
Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrines robust protections for free speech and self‑expression, recognizing that open dialogue, even when uncomfortable, is essential to a healthy democracy. Yet at the North Frontenac Township Council meeting in Plevna on June 12, 2025, that principle was overshadowed by a hasty motion to outright ban the swastika in Canada—one of the most fraught symbols of our time.
At that meeting, Mayor Gerry Lichty and nearly every councillor voted to approve the motion without any public consultation. The lone exception was Councillor Fred Fowler, a respected local artist, who stood up in defence of free expression. Instead of engaging with his concerns, a fellow councillor publicly shamed Mr Fowler, accusing him of ignorance about Jewish culture simply for urging deliberation and dialogue. Fowler’s articulate reminder that free speech protects all ideas, even hateful ones, was treated as a transgression rather than a contribution.
This local vote mirrored a federal bill recently endorsed unanimously by the House of Commons in Ottawa, which would criminalize the display of the swastika in all contexts—no exceptions for artistic, historical, or educational use. Canada already has in place powerful legal tools to address hate propaganda: sections 318–320 of the Criminal Code make it an offence to advocate genocide or to incite hatred against an identifiable group, and provide for the seizure and disposal of hate propaganda.
It’s worth recalling why Canada went to war in 1939. Our soldiers did not fight only for one community; they fought for the universal ideal of freedom against tyranny. The liberation of Holocaust victims was one chapter in that struggle; our collective commitment was and remains, to uphold freedom for all, not to weaponize speech codes against ideas we find distasteful.
The driving force behind this new prohibition is B’nai Brith Canada, an advocacy group with just 4,000 paying members as of 2007. Membership is restricted to those who adhere to and financially support the organization’s mission. While their concerns about antisemitism are legitimate, democracy demands that no single group dictate the boundaries of public discourse. If the swastika is criminalized, what prevents tomorrow’s motion to ban other symbols deemed offensive by well‑organized minorities? Iranian flags? Religious garb? Artistic iconography?
Critics of absolute bans point to the United States Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, which affirmed that even deeply offensive symbols are protected under the First Amendment; any outright prohibition was deemed unconstitutional. Banning taboo symbols only pushes them underground, amplifying their mystique rather than diminishing their power.
Moreover, the swastika itself predates Nazism by millennia. It appears in Neolithic art, in Hindu and Buddhist iconography as a symbol of peace and good fortune, and even in the city‑planning diagrams of ancient Egypt with its arms rotating clockwise or counterclockwise signifying life’s unfolding cycles. Stripping a symbol of all contexts risks erasing history and stunting the critical conversations we need to understand our past.
At the Plevna meeting, a World War II veteran spoke eloquently of what freedom meant to those who fought and died. The room applauded him, but, then returned to business as usual, refusing to revisit the motion at his request. That’s a shameful dereliction of duty. Councillor Fowler alone upheld our Charter’s promise, but he was silenced for his courage.
If local representatives cannot resist virtue‑signalling pressure campaigns and are unwilling to consult their constituents, they have betrayed the public trust. I, therefore, call for the immediate resignation of every council member (except Fred Fowler) for failing to represent the community, for undermining the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and for setting a dangerous precedent that chips away at our Canadian identity. True empathy and justice come not from criminalizing symbols, but from confronting hatred head‑on; as individuals, communities, and a nation committed to the free exchange of ideas.
