Lawrence Martin, in the Globe, reports on Michael Behiels, University of Ottawa constitutional history professor, who wrote an op-ed last November criticizing PM Harper's Quebec=nation resolution. Whereupon Senator Marjory LeBreton, Conservative leader in the Senate, wrote to the Chancellor of the University of Ottawa demanding he be disciplined. Don't the people in the government know the basics about free speech?
Apparently UofO is not going to comply. But apparently they have not yet told the senator just what she can do with her demand.
Michael Behiels must be feeling quite historic himself. When was the last time powerful public figures demanded that a university punish a historian for his views?
T'other hand, I saw a Michael Bliss byline recently that said he has retired from the University of Toronto and is now an independent scholar. I'd never reflected on that description before. I trust Michael Bliss's scholarship has always been independent and that Michael Behiels stays that way.
