Former federal cabinet minister Stockwell Day and Free Speech Union of Canada Executive Director Kate Marland will speak on October 26.

Canadian Students for Free Speech and Free Speech Union of Canada to host Stockwell Day and Kate Marland at UBC

The October 26 discussion on free expression at Canadian universities is the first British Columbia event for Canadian Students for Free Speech.

 

VANCOUVER: The Democracy Fund (TDF) is pleased to announce that Canadian Students for Free Speech (CSFFS), in partnership with the Free Speech Union of Canada, will host "No Safe Spaces: A Discussion on Free Expression at Canadian Universities" at the University of British Columbia on Monday, October 26, 2026. Doors open at 5:00 p.m. for VIP ticket-holders, and at 6:00 p.m. for the general public, on campus. 

The event is the first CSFS has held in British Columbia.

Those interested can buy tickets here.

The exact location will be revealed to all ticket-holders the week before the event.

The speakers are the Hon. Stockwell Day and Kate Marland.

Mr. Day served in the federal cabinet under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, including as Minister of Public Safety, Minister of International Trade and President of the Treasury Board, and was previously leader of the Canadian Alliance and Leader of the Official Opposition. Ms. Marland is the Executive Director of the Free Speech Union of Canada and the Deputy Editor of the online journal Without Diminishment. The two will discuss the state of free expression on Canadian university and college campuses.

The event follows a difficult few years for campus speech. On September 29, during a "Make Your Case" debate at the University of Calgary, a masked individual poured a bottle of water over Dr. Tom Flanagan, professor emeritus of political science, and journalist Drea Humphrey while they were speaking with students. TDF's private security detained the man and handed him to police, and the event was ended for safety reasons.

The warning signs have been building for a decade. In 2016, Jordan Peterson refused to be compelled by law to use government-endorsed pronouns, and for taking a principled stand he received warning letters from his own university and watched protesters at McMaster University drown out his lecture with noise. A year later, Wilfrid Laurier University teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd was hauled into a disciplinary meeting for showing her class a clip of Professor Peterson debating on public television, and Ryerson University cancelled a panel on campus free speech, of all things, citing security concerns. In 2023, the University of Lethbridge cancelled a talk by former Mount Royal professor Frances Widdowson, and when she came to speak anyway, protesters shouted her down. South of the border, Charles Murray was driven off stage at Middlebury College in a mob that left a faculty member injured, and swimmer Riley Gaines was forced to barricade herself in a room for hours at San Francisco State after speaking in defence of women's sports. Then, in September 2025, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University while doing exactly what universities are supposed to encourage: inviting students who disagreed with him to step up to the microphone and argue. The pattern is unmistakable: when argument fails, too many have turned to intimidation, cancellation, and violence.

Universities exist to test contested ideas through argument and evidence.

Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are fundamental freedoms under s. 2(b) and s. 2(c) of the Charter, and the principle behind both is that speech others find offensive or uncomfortable is answered with more speech, not with intimidation, disruption or cancellation. When speakers need private security to hold a conversation on a Canadian campus, that principle is under strain for every student, whatever their views.

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JOIN US

On Monday, October 26, the Hon. Stockwell Day and Kate Marland will take the stage at the University of British Columbia to talk about where free expression on Canadian campuses stands today, and how we win it back.

This is Canadian Students for Free Speech's first event in British Columbia, presented in partnership with the Free Speech Union of Canada, and we'd love for you to be in the room.

Doors open at 5:00 p.m. General admission and VIP tickets are available now, but seating is limited, so please don't wait!

Click here to buy your tickets today.

We hope to see you there!