From the monster $1B expenditure on the G8/G20 summit security, and the associated police brutality, to the latest robocalls that were used to mislead voters during the last federal elections, finding an answer for this question is more important than ever before. How about the Occupy movement? Was it succesful in mobilizing the masses? If yes, why? If not, why not?
These are only three examples, out of many others, that would point to the importance of public dissent in times of crisis and turmoil. After all isn’t public dissent an essential and an integral pillar of a healthy and a functioning democracy!
Societies that lose their internal dissent and self-criticism have a sad and scary record
Rick Salutin
Prism has invited the award-winning and long-time dissident columnist Rick Salutin to share with us his thoughts about the status of public dissent in Canada, and whether there is, or ever was, enough dissent with respect to matters of national importance. For those who want to know more about Rick we have included below a sample of his writings and video clips.
Rick will speak in Ottawa at 3:00pm on April 21 at the Ottawa Public Library located at 120 Metcalfe Street. Rick’s latest book (launched in Montreal the day before) Keeping the Public in Public Education will be on sale at the Octopus books table located at the entrance to the auditorium. Rick will also be available between 2:15pm to 2:45pm (prior to the event) to sign his new book.
Those who are interested in attending the event can purchase tickets online or can purchase paper tickets from Octopus books (located at 116 Third Avenue in the Glebe). The ticket price is $15 (regular) or $10 (students/seniors).
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following event sponsors (silver sponsorship is still available. Contact us for more details):
Media: Rabble
Platinum: Champ & Associates
Gold: Deb & Dave, Royal Lepage
Stephen Harper – the last Straussian?
Who are the friends of Israel?
When security makes you feel insecure
This work by Prism Magazine is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Pat Gibbs
April 22, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Will you be publishing the transcript of Rick’s lecture? I not only would like to see it for myself but I would like to be able to pass it on (via email as I am not a Facebook user) to others who also have an interest in dissent and civil rights in Canada but who, like me, are nowhere near Ottawa.
Maher Arar
April 23, 2012 at 9:30 am
An excerpt of the speech (and an article) will appear on the Prism Website on Wed.