This week, I spoke with Toby Young, founder of the The Free Speech Union for Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Inside policy talks. We covered the evolving threats to free speech in the UK, Canada, and beyond.

We covered:

– How the UK went from a free-speech leader to a place where people are arrested for silently praying or retweeting controversial views, and Canada’s many examples, including the recent cancellation of Sean Feucht tour stops.

– The troubling expansion of speech content restrictions proposed through Canada’s Online Harms Act and Online Streaming Act, and legislative reform efforts —like the UK’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act

– The differences between two visions for reform of the universities: Heterodox Academy’s reform from within vs. the Manhattan Institute’s government-imposed change

– The spread of censorship across education, media, HR departments, and the civil service—not just universities

-Whether liberalism’s overemphasis on personal feelings, subjectivity and safety has undermined the conditions for true open inquiry

Toby shares lessons from the front lines of legal advocacy, public policy, and institutional resistance—along with what Canada and the UK can learn from one another.