Compared to the rest of the world, Canada doesn't do too badly in the area of press freedom. The Canadian Newspaper Association's Anne Kothawala puts our situation into perspective.

From the Globe and Mail: (paywalled for non-subscribers)

We have a government in Ottawa that has been criticized for restricting access to information, and for using aggressively manipulative tactics to control media "spin." We have a national police force with a disturbing inability to recognize the public's right to know, as evinced by the RCMP's botched efforts to censor reports on taser use, alleging disclosure would violate the privacy rights of victims. Such solicitude, if genuine, is surely ironic.

Nevertheless, Canadians can usually rely on an independent judiciary to uphold our democratic rights. One upcoming case in the Supreme Court of Canada will test whether the public has a constitutional right to government information. Another case will test the principle of "responsible journalism in the public interest," and whether reporters and editors should be vulnerable to libel charges when every possible means of verifying a story has been exhausted.

Yet, at the same time, two reporters for the Montreal daily, La Presse, face jail time after a judge ordered them to reveal the confidential source of information in a story about an alleged al-Qaeda suspect. Joël-Denis Bellavance and Gilles Toupin are among the nominees for Canada's annual World Press Freedom prize, to be awarded in Ottawa today, for standing up for a vital principle: the freedom of media to gather information.

Our democracy is an anomaly in a planet hostile to basic freedoms. If we don't celebrate them, who will?