Let me also say something about the reality of this process. I am not a lawyer. I am one individual facing four experienced labour lawyers — two from OPSEU and two from Humber. Two days before the hearing they submitted roughly 800 pages of material across five or six separate filings. That is the environment I am dealing with. I have never brought a DFR before. I have no legal training. Yet I have done my best to respond carefully and thoroughly. They asked for particulars — I provided them. My submissions are organized, detailed, and responsive to what was requested. But much of what I am dealing with involves pleading a negative: asserting that certain actions were not taken. By definition, you cannot “prove” a negative in the way they suggest; if the union claims it acted, then it is up to them to show evidence that it did. That is basic logic.
So yes, there is a massive imbalance here: one person without counsel facing multiple institutional lawyers who are filing hundreds of pages at the last minute while trying to derail the hearing. And into that situation you arrive anonymously, claiming to know what happened and accusing me of non-compliance. I have no idea who you are, and you have not even had the courage to attach your name to your comments. If you believe you understand this case so well, then identify yourself and explain your evidence. Otherwise it simply looks like an anonymous stranger jumping in, making confident claims about matters he clearly does not understand.
Naya Lekht, Adam Louis Klein, MAAZ, Andrew Pessin, Rona Kaufman... they could all tell you this is a classic antizionist abuse pattern. The obsessive repeated accusations of moral ugliness (libels) by those in authority, the inversions (the accusation is a confession). This is what anti-Jewish hate looks like.
It is important to call out the whole pattern of abuse and explain it.
Hamas is indeed connected to Nazis through Al Husseini who allied with both Nazis and Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas descended from MB. All of them are very fluent with mirror propaganda as are their supporters. The Nazis were the first to accuse Israel of genocide (before the term was even invented). It was an inversion intended to enable the crime, just as the accusations of hate crime against you are inversions and themselves are part of an antizionist hate crime against you.
I stand firmly against antisemitism in all forms. Hate towards Jews is wrong and why are we supporting groups like Hamas or any other group that promotes hate and violence. We should be united in rejecting hatred and stand for peace.
If anyone on here wants to help, there is and will be no go fund me (you can't litigate against a multimillion dollar institution that has already spent a million), the only thing that would help, and there is no compulsion, that people sign up for the $8.35 paid subscription to my Substack, as other than my farm, it is my only source of income.
You are very brave to deal with ADHD and PTSD. Perhaps Howard Levitt could suggest some lawyers whom you could ask to consider a contingency case; but if you find one you'll still need to launch a fundraiser to pay for disbursements and Adverse Costs Insurance.
Your story is heartbreaking. Thank you for being a righteous person and standing up for Israel. This is happening here in Melbourne . The cancellation mainly to Jews but also to those who stand up for them. I hope you will somehow overcome this. Your belief in the system will never recover. Just as mine will never trust my adopted country again . My country of birth has discarded me in infancy. What have learnt after October 7th that Jews have no place in this world. But we do have Israel, and the IDF and we will fight. Thank you for your sacrifice and the pain this is causing your family.
This is an absolutely terrifying story. It is like a Canadian Dreyfus Affair. Antizionism is truly a genocidal hate movement that destroys everything it touches and has absolutely no limits. Last, I cannot help pointing out the irony: the only way a person can believe that attacking Hamas equals offending "all Muslims" is by believing that every single Muslim is a terrorist. If I were a peaceful Muslim, I would sue these bastards.
Like every single antizionist, you are erasing Jewish history and indigeneity to the land of Israel, vomiting antizionist libels and antizionist "academia" horseshit and spewing hate. Antizionists are racist, genocidal, deranged bigots. Antizionists are the scum of the Earth. Antizionists see an article about the vile, relentless, psychopathic persecution of a professor who dared to see Israelis as people and then go to the comments section to claim that "Zionists are Nazis" (!!!).
Zionism is a hateful ideology with NO CONNECTION to Semetic peoples of Palestine. It is a creation of Herzel in the late 19th Century, and furthermore, "israel", as a mere 78 year-old entity has no history to speak of, unlike the indigenous Semetic people, many of whom were driven out in the ethnic cleansing of 1948.
Your hasbara is weak, shabby even..just like "israel", iitself.
There is no such thing as "Semitic" people. There are only Semitic languages. The "Semitic people" were an invention created by antisemites to demonize Jews as a non-white, alien, polluting race poisoning the veins of Europe (yes, I know, the very same people you now claim are the whitest and most European creatures the world has ever seen, like, true vikings!). You are vomiting LITERAL antisemitic, Nazi-style crap born in the 19th century. Every single Jewish diaspora came from Israel. This is not up for debate. Period, full stop! Your "white colonizer" antizionist libel is a historic and moral aberration and a weapon of mass destruction that was carefully engineered to morally justify the persecution, torture, rape, murder and kidnapping of Israelis and Jews. You are part of a genocidal hate movement, and history will judge you accordingly.
You're a fucking clown, and nobody believes your bullshit.
World opinion has turned, and "israel" will never again be held up as an example of anything but ignorance, genocide and inbred Europeans looking for free homes.
In 1975 the UN voted 72-35 in favour of declaring Zionism a form of racism. Zionists *are* Nazis, scum of the earth and must be treated accordingly, with noooses. Zionists *and* Nazis collaborated in the 30's to export Ashkenazi Jews, wholesale, to Palestine, and even minted a coin to commemorate the alliance.
You're a Nazi, and should be held to account at Nuremberg.
So false allegations are fine if it's against people who are sufficiently bad? Lies that ruin careers are fine if they believe a specific thing you don't like. And you think other people are Nazis.
Janine, that’s simply not accurate. You’re collapsing a complex historical idea into a caricature.
There is a clear distinction between modern Zionism and the biblical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel—but to say they have “nothing at all to do with each other” ignores basic history.
The Jewish connection to that land is not a modern invention. It runs through religious texts, cultural identity, language, and a continuous presence over thousands of years. That’s what people mean when they refer to the biblical dimension.
Modern Zionism, as a political movement, emerged in the late 19th century—largely in response to persistent persecution and exclusion. But it didn’t arise in a vacuum. It drew directly from that longstanding historical and cultural connection.
So no, they are not the same thing. One is religious and ancient; the other is political and modern.
But they absolutely overlap.
Dismissing that overlap as “brainwashing” doesn’t strengthen your argument—it just sidesteps the history.
There was never a country called "Palestine". THAT is the manipulation going on here, and you clearly cannot see it. Arab clans living in an Ottoman land that the Romans had called Syria-Palestina after massacring the indigenous people, the Jews (the only ones for whom this area was ever their national kingdom!)... These Arabs weren't even a nation, let alone a country. There has ALWAYS been a Jewish presence in the land of Israel. They never entirely left. And the Jews who went back home in order NOT TO DIE did not steal land from anybody. Lands were bought (often at extortionate prices) by Jewish organizations from Arab landlords who often lived in Damascus or Beirut and never gave a toss about this area until it got clear that the Jews were going to reestablish their state and not be powerless anymore. The Arabs got 78% of the British Mandate for Palestine (Jordan). Even though it is PREPOSTEROUS if you think about it, the Jews were always willing to split the other 22%, a territory that was allocated BY INTERNATIONAL LAW to them and them alone. But the "Palestinian" Arabs never accepted that. They never wanted a state. Not if the price that they have to pay for this state is that the Jewish state gets to live.
I’m sure you didn’t read it. People who refer to things as “clownishly unwitting projections” don’t tend to be good readers. If you want to insult me, idiot, stop with the gibberish.
“Finlayson says Humber College and OPSEU Local 562 are now doing exactly what the university did earlier — conducting what he calls trial by defamation. Statements and filings, he says, repeat damaging characterizations rather than address the facts.”
This is also my experience. No regard for truth-finding or procedure fairness. You say something reasonable but unfashionable, then your educational administration fanatically builds their case by heaping pile upon pile of false but defamatory allegations on you. They do nothing else. Truth and justice are distractions to them—leading them away from the exalted virtue-signalling than comes from debasing a Socrates of our time.
This is difficult to read! Difficult to believe that such evil exists. So sorry for what you have been dragged through. May you find wisdom and strength!
That something as atrocious as this could happen today in Canada is not surprising. Canada is following closely in the foot steps of their mother country and other European countries. That a college would go so far into the muck for something as innocuous as saying you stand with Israel (and not on campus) speaks volumes of the hate there. As for the union, that's not surprising as unions are the stepchildren of Marxism.
My message to those Palestinianist students, administrators, and their supporters would be to advise them to vigorously insert their heads into a particularly uncomfortable and constricting orifice.
Yes : In 2023, during the COVID period, I was expelled from Université Laval (Quebec) without a hearing, a meeting, or any academic review. My “offense” was raising methodological concerns about public health measures (lockdowns, COVID passes, etc.) — concerns that have since been validated. For years, the university kept the case quiet.
Ben voyons donc! Si vous ne pouvez pas comprendre que des responsables politiques n’ont pas le choix de foncer vers les premières solutions disponibles et rapides lorsque leurs citoyens tombent comme des mouches, et ne pas comprendre que devant un tel déluge de morts il n’est pas permis de laisser des suppositions potentiellement légitimes mais incertaines venir freiner les efforts d’endiguement du virus, c’est que vous flottez sur un nuage.
Je suis à la course dans le corridor d’une bâtisse en feu, les seaux plein d’eau à la main et voici un individu qui se met dans mon chemin et tente de freiner mon élan pour me montrer je ne sais quelle découverte extraordinaire il vient de faire sur l’étage. Désolé mon vieux, c’est peut-être bien intéressant mais j’ai pas le temps, c’est plein de monde ici, la structure de la bâtisse est menacée, tout pourrait s’écrouler alors tassez-vous de mon chemin!
C’est pareil pour le prof en question. Il y a une population qui en massacre une autre, live, en ce moment même. On s’en câlisse du comment et du pourquoi! On tasse le type qui s’assoit dans le chemin pour chialer et brailler. Il n’y a pas de temps pour ça. On y reviendra peut-être plus tard mais pour l’instant, tout ce qu’on veut c’est que ça s’arrête, et au plus vite.
C’est difficile à comprendre? Difficile à accepter? Qu’il y ait parfois des urgences collectives qui se doivent impérativement de passer outre les élans individuels, aussi légitimes soient-ils?
Mais bien sûr que je suis sérieux. J’en ai contre ceux qui, troublés de voir les pompiers défoncer les portes et toitures tentent de s’interposer en plein incendie pour venir ensuite se plaindre qu’ils ont été bousculés. Qu’on questionne les méthodes après coup, ce que vous faites présentement, je veux bien, aucun problème là-dessus, mais dans l’urgence, ce n’est pas le moment. C’est tout ce que je dis.
Je suis d'accord avec votre point de vue, même s'il est désormais clair que le 11 mars 2020 constituait un crime contre l'humanité, avec en plus la perte des droits fondamentaux.
Of course they would keep quiet. You did not seriously think just because it was nominally francophone, outwardly purportedly more tolerant or at least open to a possibility of dual views, Laval Uni would actually permit serious dissent?
Because if you did, it would have been very naïve.
No, not naive. I acted based on the knowledge of the Canadian Charter of Rights, Article 2(b), and similarly, the Quebec Charter, Section 3. From my March piece on Laval University:
"Recent reflections on democratic fragility have emphasized the importance of resilient institutions capable of sustaining open debate even in crisis. The historian Timothy Snyder has argued that the strength of democratic systems ultimately depends on institutions’ capacity to preserve norms of intellectual independence and critical inquiry. When those norms weaken, the erosion of democratic culture may occur gradually, through the quiet normalization of conformity rather than through dramatic acts of repression."
Let me also say something about the reality of this process. I am not a lawyer. I am one individual facing four experienced labour lawyers — two from OPSEU and two from Humber. Two days before the hearing they submitted roughly 800 pages of material across five or six separate filings. That is the environment I am dealing with. I have never brought a DFR before. I have no legal training. Yet I have done my best to respond carefully and thoroughly. They asked for particulars — I provided them. My submissions are organized, detailed, and responsive to what was requested. But much of what I am dealing with involves pleading a negative: asserting that certain actions were not taken. By definition, you cannot “prove” a negative in the way they suggest; if the union claims it acted, then it is up to them to show evidence that it did. That is basic logic.
So yes, there is a massive imbalance here: one person without counsel facing multiple institutional lawyers who are filing hundreds of pages at the last minute while trying to derail the hearing. And into that situation you arrive anonymously, claiming to know what happened and accusing me of non-compliance. I have no idea who you are, and you have not even had the courage to attach your name to your comments. If you believe you understand this case so well, then identify yourself and explain your evidence. Otherwise it simply looks like an anonymous stranger jumping in, making confident claims about matters he clearly does not understand.
I blocked the person who was attacking me and Substack withdrew his comment. Wasn’t speaking to a ghost.
Naya Lekht, Adam Louis Klein, MAAZ, Andrew Pessin, Rona Kaufman... they could all tell you this is a classic antizionist abuse pattern. The obsessive repeated accusations of moral ugliness (libels) by those in authority, the inversions (the accusation is a confession). This is what anti-Jewish hate looks like.
Here's a legal article that discusses it further:
Source: Scholastica https://share.google/O8WaA6539SYFlepna
It is important to call out the whole pattern of abuse and explain it.
Hamas is indeed connected to Nazis through Al Husseini who allied with both Nazis and Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas descended from MB. All of them are very fluent with mirror propaganda as are their supporters. The Nazis were the first to accuse Israel of genocide (before the term was even invented). It was an inversion intended to enable the crime, just as the accusations of hate crime against you are inversions and themselves are part of an antizionist hate crime against you.
It is good to see such moral clarity.
The US State Department should issue a travel advisory that Canada is an enemy of human rights, and is to be avoided.
I stand firmly against antisemitism in all forms. Hate towards Jews is wrong and why are we supporting groups like Hamas or any other group that promotes hate and violence. We should be united in rejecting hatred and stand for peace.
Canadians beware you do not have a democracy!!
His name is Josef K.
Do you think the system works?
If anyone on here wants to help, there is and will be no go fund me (you can't litigate against a multimillion dollar institution that has already spent a million), the only thing that would help, and there is no compulsion, that people sign up for the $8.35 paid subscription to my Substack, as other than my farm, it is my only source of income.
You are very brave to deal with ADHD and PTSD. Perhaps Howard Levitt could suggest some lawyers whom you could ask to consider a contingency case; but if you find one you'll still need to launch a fundraiser to pay for disbursements and Adverse Costs Insurance.
I met him. He is a good man and tried. But the union that I am fighting wouldn’t return his calls either.
Now there is a gofundme. Change.
This is so frightening. I hope it is dealt with appropriately as he moves forward. More people need to read and understand what this means.
I will get letters threatening me from their lawyers in the morning, and I will post any. Everything is accurate, I am tired of these thugs.
Your story is heartbreaking. Thank you for being a righteous person and standing up for Israel. This is happening here in Melbourne . The cancellation mainly to Jews but also to those who stand up for them. I hope you will somehow overcome this. Your belief in the system will never recover. Just as mine will never trust my adopted country again . My country of birth has discarded me in infancy. What have learnt after October 7th that Jews have no place in this world. But we do have Israel, and the IDF and we will fight. Thank you for your sacrifice and the pain this is causing your family.
We are grateful to you, Paul. What you have gone through is truly Kafkaesque.
This is an absolutely terrifying story. It is like a Canadian Dreyfus Affair. Antizionism is truly a genocidal hate movement that destroys everything it touches and has absolutely no limits. Last, I cannot help pointing out the irony: the only way a person can believe that attacking Hamas equals offending "all Muslims" is by believing that every single Muslim is a terrorist. If I were a peaceful Muslim, I would sue these bastards.
Zionists are Nazis. Fuck them and everyone who supports them.
Zionism is an Ashkenazi movement with no ties to Semetic peoples.
Like every single antizionist, you are erasing Jewish history and indigeneity to the land of Israel, vomiting antizionist libels and antizionist "academia" horseshit and spewing hate. Antizionists are racist, genocidal, deranged bigots. Antizionists are the scum of the Earth. Antizionists see an article about the vile, relentless, psychopathic persecution of a professor who dared to see Israelis as people and then go to the comments section to claim that "Zionists are Nazis" (!!!).
He also has no idea what semitic means either. Can't even spell it.
Zionism is a hateful ideology with NO CONNECTION to Semetic peoples of Palestine. It is a creation of Herzel in the late 19th Century, and furthermore, "israel", as a mere 78 year-old entity has no history to speak of, unlike the indigenous Semetic people, many of whom were driven out in the ethnic cleansing of 1948.
Your hasbara is weak, shabby even..just like "israel", iitself.
"israel" delenda est.
There is no such thing as "Semitic" people. There are only Semitic languages. The "Semitic people" were an invention created by antisemites to demonize Jews as a non-white, alien, polluting race poisoning the veins of Europe (yes, I know, the very same people you now claim are the whitest and most European creatures the world has ever seen, like, true vikings!). You are vomiting LITERAL antisemitic, Nazi-style crap born in the 19th century. Every single Jewish diaspora came from Israel. This is not up for debate. Period, full stop! Your "white colonizer" antizionist libel is a historic and moral aberration and a weapon of mass destruction that was carefully engineered to morally justify the persecution, torture, rape, murder and kidnapping of Israelis and Jews. You are part of a genocidal hate movement, and history will judge you accordingly.
You're a fucking clown, and nobody believes your bullshit.
World opinion has turned, and "israel" will never again be held up as an example of anything but ignorance, genocide and inbred Europeans looking for free homes.
In 1975 the UN voted 72-35 in favour of declaring Zionism a form of racism. Zionists *are* Nazis, scum of the earth and must be treated accordingly, with noooses. Zionists *and* Nazis collaborated in the 30's to export Ashkenazi Jews, wholesale, to Palestine, and even minted a coin to commemorate the alliance.
You're a Nazi, and should be held to account at Nuremberg.
Israel delenda est.
So false allegations are fine if it's against people who are sufficiently bad? Lies that ruin careers are fine if they believe a specific thing you don't like. And you think other people are Nazis.
Janine, that’s simply not accurate. You’re collapsing a complex historical idea into a caricature.
There is a clear distinction between modern Zionism and the biblical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel—but to say they have “nothing at all to do with each other” ignores basic history.
The Jewish connection to that land is not a modern invention. It runs through religious texts, cultural identity, language, and a continuous presence over thousands of years. That’s what people mean when they refer to the biblical dimension.
Modern Zionism, as a political movement, emerged in the late 19th century—largely in response to persistent persecution and exclusion. But it didn’t arise in a vacuum. It drew directly from that longstanding historical and cultural connection.
So no, they are not the same thing. One is religious and ancient; the other is political and modern.
But they absolutely overlap.
Dismissing that overlap as “brainwashing” doesn’t strengthen your argument—it just sidesteps the history.
There was never a country called "Palestine". THAT is the manipulation going on here, and you clearly cannot see it. Arab clans living in an Ottoman land that the Romans had called Syria-Palestina after massacring the indigenous people, the Jews (the only ones for whom this area was ever their national kingdom!)... These Arabs weren't even a nation, let alone a country. There has ALWAYS been a Jewish presence in the land of Israel. They never entirely left. And the Jews who went back home in order NOT TO DIE did not steal land from anybody. Lands were bought (often at extortionate prices) by Jewish organizations from Arab landlords who often lived in Damascus or Beirut and never gave a toss about this area until it got clear that the Jews were going to reestablish their state and not be powerless anymore. The Arabs got 78% of the British Mandate for Palestine (Jordan). Even though it is PREPOSTEROUS if you think about it, the Jews were always willing to split the other 22%, a territory that was allocated BY INTERNATIONAL LAW to them and them alone. But the "Palestinian" Arabs never accepted that. They never wanted a state. Not if the price that they have to pay for this state is that the Jewish state gets to live.
I’m sure you didn’t read it. People who refer to things as “clownishly unwitting projections” don’t tend to be good readers. If you want to insult me, idiot, stop with the gibberish.
Oh. I’m never sure. But he still needs to learn English. Perhaps his drool is getting on the keyboard.
“Finlayson says Humber College and OPSEU Local 562 are now doing exactly what the university did earlier — conducting what he calls trial by defamation. Statements and filings, he says, repeat damaging characterizations rather than address the facts.”
This is also my experience. No regard for truth-finding or procedure fairness. You say something reasonable but unfashionable, then your educational administration fanatically builds their case by heaping pile upon pile of false but defamatory allegations on you. They do nothing else. Truth and justice are distractions to them—leading them away from the exalted virtue-signalling than comes from debasing a Socrates of our time.
Following the Soviet handbook. It’s as if the revolution already happened. Next step for dissidents: the Gulag.
Indeed, Palestinianism is a Russian invention.
100%
You seem to be talking about the UK, rather than Soviets.
I thought we were talking about Canada.
Canada, like Britain, is lost to us
“Wael Ramadan”
I think that’s all we need to know here
Canada is horrifying.
What unfolded is really quite scary - for Canada & anywhere else this is allowed to happen.
Without Lies Palestine dies. And takes academic institutions out with it.
AAmen
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
This is difficult to read! Difficult to believe that such evil exists. So sorry for what you have been dragged through. May you find wisdom and strength!
Sad state of affairs.Australia is no different.The leftist/islamic thought police are active here and have won..
That something as atrocious as this could happen today in Canada is not surprising. Canada is following closely in the foot steps of their mother country and other European countries. That a college would go so far into the muck for something as innocuous as saying you stand with Israel (and not on campus) speaks volumes of the hate there. As for the union, that's not surprising as unions are the stepchildren of Marxism.
I wish the Professor good luck.
My message to those Palestinianist students, administrators, and their supporters would be to advise them to vigorously insert their heads into a particularly uncomfortable and constricting orifice.
Me too.
https://x.com/LMucchielli/status/2032426999835148793
https://indepnews.org/en/what-the-laval-case-shows-about-academic-freedom/
https://indepnews.org/en/academic-dissent-at-universite-laval-during-covid/
https://indepnews.org/en/why-canada-cannot-handle-dissent/
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/structural-diagnosis/comments
Did you do a DFR?
Yes : In 2023, during the COVID period, I was expelled from Université Laval (Quebec) without a hearing, a meeting, or any academic review. My “offense” was raising methodological concerns about public health measures (lockdowns, COVID passes, etc.) — concerns that have since been validated. For years, the university kept the case quiet.
Ben voyons donc! Si vous ne pouvez pas comprendre que des responsables politiques n’ont pas le choix de foncer vers les premières solutions disponibles et rapides lorsque leurs citoyens tombent comme des mouches, et ne pas comprendre que devant un tel déluge de morts il n’est pas permis de laisser des suppositions potentiellement légitimes mais incertaines venir freiner les efforts d’endiguement du virus, c’est que vous flottez sur un nuage.
Je suis à la course dans le corridor d’une bâtisse en feu, les seaux plein d’eau à la main et voici un individu qui se met dans mon chemin et tente de freiner mon élan pour me montrer je ne sais quelle découverte extraordinaire il vient de faire sur l’étage. Désolé mon vieux, c’est peut-être bien intéressant mais j’ai pas le temps, c’est plein de monde ici, la structure de la bâtisse est menacée, tout pourrait s’écrouler alors tassez-vous de mon chemin!
C’est pareil pour le prof en question. Il y a une population qui en massacre une autre, live, en ce moment même. On s’en câlisse du comment et du pourquoi! On tasse le type qui s’assoit dans le chemin pour chialer et brailler. Il n’y a pas de temps pour ça. On y reviendra peut-être plus tard mais pour l’instant, tout ce qu’on veut c’est que ça s’arrête, et au plus vite.
C’est difficile à comprendre? Difficile à accepter? Qu’il y ait parfois des urgences collectives qui se doivent impérativement de passer outre les élans individuels, aussi légitimes soient-ils?
Vous êtes sérieux, là ? En affirmant ce qui précède...
Mais bien sûr que je suis sérieux. J’en ai contre ceux qui, troublés de voir les pompiers défoncer les portes et toitures tentent de s’interposer en plein incendie pour venir ensuite se plaindre qu’ils ont été bousculés. Qu’on questionne les méthodes après coup, ce que vous faites présentement, je veux bien, aucun problème là-dessus, mais dans l’urgence, ce n’est pas le moment. C’est tout ce que je dis.
Je suis d'accord avec votre point de vue, même s'il est désormais clair que le 11 mars 2020 constituait un crime contre l'humanité, avec en plus la perte des droits fondamentaux.
Of course they would keep quiet. You did not seriously think just because it was nominally francophone, outwardly purportedly more tolerant or at least open to a possibility of dual views, Laval Uni would actually permit serious dissent?
Because if you did, it would have been very naïve.
No, not naive. I acted based on the knowledge of the Canadian Charter of Rights, Article 2(b), and similarly, the Quebec Charter, Section 3. From my March piece on Laval University:
"Recent reflections on democratic fragility have emphasized the importance of resilient institutions capable of sustaining open debate even in crisis. The historian Timothy Snyder has argued that the strength of democratic systems ultimately depends on institutions’ capacity to preserve norms of intellectual independence and critical inquiry. When those norms weaken, the erosion of democratic culture may occur gradually, through the quiet normalization of conformity rather than through dramatic acts of repression."