So says this Gazette editorial about the government’s case against Paul Bryan for posting election results from eastern Canada on the internet before the polls closed in western Canada:
It was almost 1,000 years ago when Canute, king of England, Denmark and Norway, led his courtiers down to the Sussex seashore. Weary of their flattery, he ordered them to watch as he loudly commanded the waves to recede – and as the waves did not. A king’s powers, he demonstrated, go only so far.
In a gesture almost as futile, but without any of Canute’s wise humility, the government of Canada is fighting in the Supreme Court to make sure Canadians on the West Coast can’t see federal election results from Atlantic Canada until after western polling stations close. As legal causes go, this one is pointless, wrong-headed, arrogant and utterly out of touch with reality.
[ . . . ]
Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees Canadians freedom of expression. There was nothing malicious or even inaccurate about what Paul Bryan did. No one can demonstrate that he did anyone any harm. And in any case, nobody could stop a foreigner from putting results on a website outside Canada.
Information wants to be free, and in this case, at least, the government should stop trying to reverse the tide.
In the last election, I decided to toe the line on this blog and I didn’t post any results until the last poll closed in B.C. But it was an exercise in nonsense, because those results were freely available to anyone with an internet connection and the brains to search for a US-based news or blog source. Not to mention anyone with a telephone and a friend or acquaintance out east.
This law, and the government’s efforts in enforcing it, are completely pointless. I agree with the Gazette: Allow the information to be broadcast, because everyone’s getting it anyway.
S’funny you know, being out here on the Wet Coast my take on it is understandably different; I DON’T want to know how the rest of Canada voted and more to the point I DON’T want my fellow B.C. voters to stay home in droves, because the election has already been decided.
It’s bad enough that we’re under- represented in both the Commons and the Senate without encouraging the (B.C.)Electorate to let someone else do their thinking for them.