In a Supreme Court of Canada decision last week, Vancouver queer bookstore Little Sister's Book & Art Emporium lost the right to access public funds to cover legal costs in its ongoing fight against Canada Customs. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court judges refused "advance funding" because the case - Little Sister's believes Customs continues to halt shipments it considers obscene in an "arbitrary and discriminatory" manner - is not broad enough to engage the public good. Little Sister's own response is here.

[Editorializing would go here, if I were to get on my hobby horse, about how, um, Canada Customs deciding what constitutes obscene is like letting the donkeys guard the henhouse, but anyway...]

Then today, in weighs the Writers Union of Canada, with a press release abridged below...

The Writers' Union of Canada has expressed its disappointment over Friday's ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada to deny Vancouver's Little Sister’s Bookstore the advance funding from Canada Customs it will need to pay its interim legal costs and continue its fight against the government’s book banning practices at the border.

"By denying that the issue of Canada Customs’ conduct is a matter of compelling public importance, the Supreme Court has missed the significance of Little Sisters’ long fight for freedom of expression," asserts Ron Brown, chair of the Writers' Union. "In 2000, this very court called on Canada Customs to halt some of its censorship practices, which it hasn't done, yet it denies the bookstore the ability to continue the fight against arbitrary censorship including the unfair targeting of Little Sister’s."

In 1990 Little Sister’s bookstore, a gay and lesbian bookstore in Vancouver, launched an action against Canada Customs with respect to its seizing books and magazines destined for the store — materials that Canada Customs claimed were "obscene." After years of delay, which some claim was intentional, the case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada. Canada’s highest court decided that it was unconstitutional for the Customs Tariff to require the bookstore to prove that material was not obscene before it could be released and it struck down the section of the Customs Tariff that placed this “reverse onus” on the importer. It also found that there were systemic problems with the manner in which Canada Customs censored materials at the border.

In 2002 Little Sister’s took Customs back to court over subsequent book seizures and its failure to amend its practices following the Supreme Court 2000 decision. When the advance funding ordered by a lower court judge for this litigation was removed by the BC Court of Appeal, Little Sister’s appealed this funding issue to the Supreme Court of Canada.

"The practices of Canada Customs have continued unabated,” said Brown. "They have simply ignored the previous order of the Supreme Court regarding this. But now the court has basically told the bookstore, which has insufficient funds to continue, that its fight is over. Yet there remains an issue of free speech and censorship — a breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — about which we should all be very concerned and for which there is a real need for advance funding."

..."With this Little Sister’s decision the Court has opened the door for Canada Customs to continue to flout the Court's own previous ruling, while making it nearly impossible for the small bookstore to fight 'Big Brother'" added Brown.