http://www.nsnews.com/issues99/w061499/tim.html

BULLETINS from the bug house, where sanity is increasingly a stranger: Par example: on Vancouver Island, the mayor of Saanich's hair almost bursts into flames when a now-notorious ex-News columnist appears in one of his municipality's libraries.

The retired columnist's crime?

Attending an event organized to raise funds to offset legal bills in his fight against provincial legislation that limits free expression.

The result? Mayor Frank Leonard fumes that the ex-columnist should not have been allowed to secure the library as a platform for his extremist views -- freedom of assembly apparently not being big on the island.

Meanwhile at the library entrance: bands of anti-free expression zealots engage in physical confrontation of the 78-year-old ex-columnist as he tries to enter the library.

Dim of wit as are most fanatics, they don't see that the law the ex-columnist is fighting applies to them too, that his fight for free expression is everyone's fight. But they of course only believe in freedom of their expression.

In case they missed what the ex-columnist had to say once inside the library, here are a few extremist thoughts taken from his speech and another of his recent speeches.

On the pack of howling library protesters: "There you see the Canada of the future ... it won't be very different from Stalinist Russia."

On B.C.'s human rights machinery: "It's a kangaroo court where truth is no defence. If truth is no defence, lies prevail."

On himself: "You see before you the only columnist in the country who has been judged guilty by a so-called human rights tribunal for having the wrong opinions. That's where it's at these days in Canada. Challenge orthodoxy at your peril."

On the media: "... too many in the mainstream media and most politicians are really on the side of censors."

On Canada: "This is the only country in the Western World that seizes political books at its borders. It's done by the Department of Prohibited Importations, otherwise known as the Canadian Book Burning Department."

Dangerous stuff, eh.

Donations to the Doug Collins judicial appeal can be made out to the Canadian Free Speech League c/o Mr. Doug Christie, 810 Courtney St., Victoria, B.C. V8W 1C4. Funds sent to the News will be forwarded to the Collins defence fund.