Abstract

Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36 is a complex case within Canada's legal history. The issues at stake were wide-ranged from concerns of equality rights for same-sex parents, parental rights on the education of their children, to concerns about the best interest of children and the impacts of sensitive materials on them. Throughout the case's history, these concerns were discussed provincially and nationally within newspaper editorials, columns, and letters to the editor. The censorship issues that surround the Chamberlain case provide a site to explore how respondents actively create this case's truths and produce emotion effects in the audience through their discourse In this thesis I argue that the discourses of respondents speaking about the Chamberlain case produce 'truth claims' that can be aligned with social imperatives of subjectivity formation in autonomy-based liberal and neoliberal societies. These truths are generated by relying on cultural representations of children and equality rights and through the use of various narrative and rhetorical strategies.