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Part of a library mandate is ensuring all voices are heard.

That was the message Toronto Public Library (TPL) City Librarian Vickery Bowles delivered to a luncheon crowd at The Empire Club of Canada on Monday.

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She said libraries must be places of free speech — not censorship — and provide a forum where people of different backgrounds can take part in democracy.

In the fall of 2019, the TPL rented space to a controversial feminist speaker, Meghan Murphy, who openly refuses to recognize transgender people.

Bowles defended her right to speak on TPL property and took much backlash from critics including Mayor John Tory and Pride Toronto.

Several hundred protestors descended on the library the evening Murphy spoke. Bowles stressed public libraries were founded on equality and inclusion.

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“We found ourselves defending free speech,” she said, adding that while voices need to be protected, transgendered people face discrimination and violence on a daily basis.