CENSORSHIP IN CANADA: I wish that this were a surprise.

UPDATE: Sissy Willis notes that it’s not just Canada. Read this, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I guess it goes with the mindset differences displayed by these two towns, one American, the other Canadian:

First we called up the respective town authorities. Hyder, the American town, turned out to have no town authorities–and, technically, no town. The Hyderites chose not to incorporate as a municipality, creating instead a community association–a private nonprofit corporation. Stewart, the Canadian town, is a real municipality with a traditional government.

When we phoned Stewart, the government agent refused to answer any questions until they were submitted in writing. The Hyder community association representative said, sure, she’d tell us anything we wanted to know, right now, on the phone. But to make it a fair comparison, we faxed written questions to both parties, and got written answers back.

The Canadian government official, evidently aspiring to create a faceless bureaucracy in this 700-person outpost, signed the response as “Government Agent”–capital letters but no name or sex–and explained that Stewart had a “Municipal Government incorporated under the laws of the Province of British Columbia,” with a mayor and a city council of six members. As to Stewart’s nearby neighbors, Government Agent from Canada said diplomatically, “I’m not sure how Hyder is governed,” but expressed polite disapproval of its apparent libertarian streak.

Heh.

UPDATE: Reader Sean Galbraith points to this entry from The Vancouver Scrum, saying that the censorship claim linked at the top of this post is wrong.