Article content

The lawyer is reading a newspaper outside a jailhouse when the men roll up to kill his client— maybe to kill him too, if it comes to that. An argument ensues, others intervene, but when the mob disappears, it’s a newsman who comes from the shadows holding a shotgun.

“I had you covered this whole time,” he tells the lawyer.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Gormley: Use Constitution to fight government secrecy Back to video

It’s fiction, of course, but if there’s truth in the best fiction, then one of the great abiding truths in To Kill A Mockingbird is that the press can stand up for justice.

In Canada, however, lawyers may need to stand up for the press. During most of its tenure, the Stephen Harper government has restricted the media’s access to information in ways that are foreign to many democracies, and even to some non-democracies. But the Harper government isn’t merely violating some nebulous democratic ideal that less cynical people in less cynical places might defend. The government may be violating the Charter right to free expression.