Reason #81 of '101 Reasons Why I Heart Edmonton'

Avenue, VUE Weekly & The Journal By Emil Tiedemann Freedom of the press is an important part of how we live here in Canada. It’s a democratic right in our country, but a mere pipe dream for many other regions around the world. That freedom was suddenly threatened here in Alberta some eight decades ago, by our very own then Premier William Aberhart and his Social Credit government, which passed the infamous Accurate News and Information Act in 1937. This statute required all newspapers to divulge their sources on the demand of the government, and forced them to print “clarifications” of stories that a government-appointed committee deemed accurate. It went against everything we stand for, and in fact, Alberta’s newspapers refused to abide by these partisan rules. The Edmonton Journal , about 34 years old at the time of the kerfuffle, led the fight against the Accurate News and Information Act, which was eventually deemed by the Supreme Court of Canada as unconstitut...