News

Marcellus Turner, CEO and Chief Librarian at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, and Carla Graebner, Data Services and Government Information Librarian at Simon Fraser University, are the newest members of the Centre for Free Expression Working Group on Intellectual Freedom. Turner spent the past ten years as the Executive Director and Chief Librarian at The Seattle Public Library in Seattle, Washington which, in 2020 under his leadership, was awarded the prestigious 2020 Library of the Year by Gale/Library Journal. 

In a joint letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, World Press Freedom Canada, and the Centre for Free Expression call on the Canadian government to take even more robust action against the Government of Belarus after President Alexander Lukashenko`s direct order to have a Belarusian military aircraft force a Ryanair flight traveling from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, to land in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, to illegally arrest and imprison Roman Protasevich, a

Michèle Brill-Edwards and John O’Connor are joining the group that guides the Centre for Free Expression’s many whistleblowing initiatives.

In an open letter today, 13 major organizations from across Canada call on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fulfill the commitments to transparency that he has been declaring repeatedly since 2014. The letter points out that “the COVID-19 pandemic has repeatedly exposed the fracture lines of your government, not least of which has been an accelerating loss of transparency.” 

Alberta physician John O’Connor was awarded 2021 Peter Bryce Prize that honours individuals who serve the greater good by courageously speaking up about wrongdoing and abuses of public trust.

The Ottawa Police Service has been named as the recipient of the 2020 Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the law enforcement category.