Members of Parliament devoted nearly two hours on Wednesday to debating Bill C-47, the Olympic Marks bill. While much of the discussion predictably veered toward completely unrelated issues (child obesity, French language coverage of the Olympics, the "world class" status of Vancouver, camcording), the core elements of the discussion were encouraging. With one notable exception (BC Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal, who urged the government to push foward on the bill without any committee hearings), most of the MPs engaged in the debate recognized that the bill grants the Vancouver Olympic Organizing committee (VANOC) enormous power that should be carefully analyzed and should not be permitted to chill free speech, parody, or other legitimate activities. There were strong calls for committee hearings from Liberal Hedy Fry (who referenced some of my comments) and the NDP's Charlie Angus.
The free speech issue in particular was raised by several MPs.
