Little Sisters v. Big Brother

Ottawa , May 18, 2004 — Lit­tle Sister’s Book & Art Empo­rium, Van­cou­ver ‘s leg­endary gay and les­bian book­store, has long fought for free­dom of expres­sion.   Their on-going bat­tle has included tak­ing Canada Cus­toms to court, charg­ing that, by reg­u­larly seiz­ing mate­ri­als des­tined for the store and brand­ing them “obscene”, the fed­eral agency was guilty of harass­ment and infringe­ment of free speech.   (For back­ground infor­ma­tion, see Susan Crean’s arti­cle “Lit­tle Sister’s and the Supremes in the Spring 2000 issue of CCA ‘s Bliz­zart , Vol. 5, No. 1.)   In Decem­ber 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down a land­mark deci­sion in the case of Lit­tle Sister’s Book & Art Empo­rium v. Canada , which con­demned the arbi­trary and dis­cre­tionary prac­tices of Canada Cus­toms.   Sig­nif­i­cantly, the deci­sion also stated that the onus of prov­ing that expres­sive mate­r­ial is “obscene” lies with Cus­toms, and not with the accused. The CCA , which had inter­vener sta­tus, worked with lawyer Frank Addario to high­light the sig­nif­i­cance of the case for artists and their right to free­dom of expression.

Lit­tle Sister’s bat­tle against cen­sor­ship con­tin­ues.   The book­store recently filed an appeal against Canada Cus­toms for pro­hibit­ing the impor­ta­tion of two adult comic books in the Meat­men series and two books by Larry Townsend.   The comic books are antholo­gies of works by promi­nent and up-and-coming gay artists, while Townsend is widely acclaimed for his gay male sci­ence fic­tion and his­tor­i­cal nov­els.   It is the belief of the own­ers and st af f of Lit­tle Sister’s that the books at issue do not involve the “undue exploita­tion of sex”, as that term is used in Cana­dian jurispru­dence, that they have unques­tion­able artis­tic merit, and there­fore do not fit the legal def­i­n­i­tion of obscenity.

While the cur­rent case against Canada Cus­toms will be the first test case since the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2000 rul­ing, where Canada Cus­toms will bear the onus of proof, the trial will go far beyond that.   The legal chal­lenge will also focus on the obscen­ity pro­vi­sion of the Crim­i­nal Code of Canada and whether or not that pro­vi­sion is con­sti­tu­tion­ally valid.   This aspect of the trial is sig­nif­i­cant in terms of how it relates to Bill C-12 , which threat­ens to remove the artis­tic merit defence, because this case ques­tions the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the entire obscen­ity sec­tion of the Crim­i­nal Code which the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion addresses. Addi­tion­ally, it is unclear if Canada Cus­toms’ move to the new Canada Bor­der Ser­vices Agency, which was formed af ter 9/11 to deal with issues of “national secu­rity”, will have any effect on the new case.

Lit­tle Sister’s has long car­ried the flag for all Cana­di­ans ded­i­cated to pro­tect­ing the right of free expres­sion, which is enshrined in the Cana­dian Char­ter of Rights & Free­doms .   The costs asso­ci­ated with this lit­i­ga­tion are enor­mous and Lit­tle Sister’s appre­ci­ates all sup­port and con­tri­bu­tions, both finan­cial and in kind.   The B.C. store seeks sup­port of mem­bers of Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts in this impor­tant lit­i­ga­tion in the form of “opin­ions” as to whether, as artists, the obscen­ity law con­strains your cr af t.   Their legal coun­sel invites any artist who is able and will­ing to assist to con­tact Lit­tle Sister’s, in order that they can dis­cuss how you might con­tribute your voice in sup­port of this sig­nif­i­cant case, which is set to com­mence in Fall 2004.    Please con­tact the fol­low­ing, and copy your let­ters to the CCA :

Lit­tle Sister’s

Phone:                 (604)669‑1753

Fax:                       (604) 685‑0252

e-mail: lsisters@lsisters.com

web­site: www.littlesistersbookstore.com

Arvay Fin­lay

Phone:                   (250) 388‑6868

Fax:                       (250) 388‑4456

e-mail: jarvay@arvayfinlay.com

e-mail: ifaulkner@arvayfinlay.com

web­site: www.arvayfinlay.com