Little Sisters - Big Loss

Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium, a bookstore in the Davie Street area of Vancouver, have decided to abandon their 20 year legal battle against the Canadian border guards. For those of you not familiar with it, it is a sad tale of Canadian border guards censoring/stealing books and reading material entering Canada.

The Globe and Mail has an article in today's paper about the battle and obstacles Jim Deva, the owner of Little Sisters, has faced since his fight began 20 years ago when they first found delays or disappearances of stock shipped to Little Sisters. Often shipments would go missing. Other shipments that did arrive would have the boxes taped back up although it would be obvious that customs had opened up and disturbed the contents. The contents of the stock would often be sex manuals or other sex-related materials as the store carries sex items catering to its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender customers. Many of us, and I am one, would assume that perhaps the bookstore was over-reacting to a few misplaced or border-examined orders but as the excerpt below points out, there was a definite pattern to the disappearances.


Those unexplained disruptions stopped while litigation was active, Mr. Deva said, adding that he believes Customs did not want to add to the evidence before the court by intercepting shipments.

In 2000, when Little Sisters won its Supreme Court case, shipments began disappearing within two weeks of the verdict.

"It starts with shipments we can't find," Mr. Deva said, predicting that Customs will intensify its scrutiny.

Derek Mellon, spokesman for Canada Border Services Agency, said he did not wish to comment directly on a case still before the courts.

But he said the agency has a constitutional duty to prevent obscene material from entering Canada. "We remain committed to fulfilling that obligation."

I think it is really sad that they are giving up. I understand why they are and they are probably doing the right thing, both personally and professionally, but I would like to think that Canadian law courts are a place where private businesses can challenge the practices or government organizations and both will be judged impartially and fairly. Looks like I might be wrong.

Thanks to Shelf Awareness for their piece on this.