TORONTO — Alan Borovoy, longtime head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and one of Canada’s fiercest but most gentlemanly defenders of the principle of free speech died on May 11 of heart failure. He was 83.

Borovoy was remembered as an accomplished author, a lover of the Yiddish language, and often a lone voice in speaking up for principles he held dear.

He served as general counsel of the CCLA from May 1968 until June 2009. He was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1982.

Borovoy was a member of the community relations committee of Canadian Jewish Congress from 1951 until Congress’ demise in 2011, and before that, served as a youth delegate to the Jewish labour committee, which was one of Congress’ constituent groups, said Bernie Farber a friend of Borovoy’s since 1984.

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Farber, who often sparred with Borovoy on issues of free speech, recalled Borovoy as “a man of great passion, a possessor of a rapier wit” and “a gentleman of the old world.”

He was an advocate of civil rights from an early age.

“He grew up in the streets of Toronto as a minority, a Jewish kid in 1930s and ’40s Toronto where anti-Semitism was rife and seen quite often.

“He saw what it was like to be a minority and saw that without civil rights protection, minorities were vulnerable,” Farber said.

Those early experiences profoundly affected his public life. “He understood the need for civil rights protection” and was one of the architects of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, which legislated equal delivery of services and accommodations without discrimination, Farber said.

A passionate advocate for free speech, Borovoy often found himself disagreeing with others on Congress’ community relations committee, sometimes as a minority of one.

In the mid-1980s, disgraced Alberta school teacher Jim Keegstra and Toronto neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel were being prosecuted under Canada’s anti-hate law and “false news” law, respectively.

Borovoy opposed the prosecutions, arguing that the laws violated principles of free speech. His line, repeated often in debates and in public forums was that “we should let them wallow in the obscurity that they so richly deserve,” Farber recounted.

Farber, who had lunch with Borovoy monthly until his death, said many in the Jewish community confused Borovoy’s opposition to prosecution with support for Keegstra and Zundel themselves.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Borovoy reviled them and what they stood for. But his position put him at odds with many Holocaust survivors, and “he felt he upset survivors. That upset him terribly. I don’t think he ever got over it,” Farber said.

In more recent years, he applauded the revocation of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which had legislated against online hate.

“He felt it was an unneeded and unnecessary piece of legislation,” Farber said. “He never lost his passion for the absolutism of free speech.”

Borovoy wrote several books, including When Freedoms Collide: The Case for Our Civil Liberties. His most recent work was At the Barricades, which was released in 2014.

In At the Barricades, he described himself as “a social democrat, a civil libertarian, a secular Jew, and a philosophical pragmatist… a small-l liberal… [and] an unequivocal anti-Communist and perhaps even a Cold War hawk.”

In a 2014 interview in the Ottawa Citizen, Borovoy was critical of the Stephen Harper government’s tough on crime approach.

But he applauded its support for Israel and the prime minister’s visit there.

“In Harper’s recent visit to Israel, he was paying special respect to a political democracy in that part of the world, in the Middle East. I do appreciate his attachment of a special value to Israel, because Israel is a democracy, a beleaguered democracy,” Borovoy is quoted as saying.

Over the years, he worked with the national committee for human rights of the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights, and the Toronto and District Labour Committee for Human Rights.

In 1963, he ran for the NDP in the provincial riding of Downsview, finishing second.

Known for his sense of humour, “Alan was also a great Yiddishist,” Farber said. “He loved to speak Yiddish. Until recently, he would meet four or five guys for lunch and to speak Yiddish.”

In a news release, Sukanya Pillay, CCLA executive director and general counsel, said, “We are deeply saddened by the profound loss of our dear friend and former leader.

“For over 40 years, he made countless contributions to civil liberties in Canada. We will never forget him. We will strive to honour his life’s work by continuing to fight for fundamental freedoms and human rights. We will greatly miss him – his brilliance, his generosity, his irreverent humour and the passion and dedication to equality that was his life’s work. Canada and the CCLA owe Alan Borovoy an immense debt.”

“It is with deep sadness that we learned of the death of Alan Borovoy,” said David Cape, chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). “His understanding of human rights issues and the need to be vigilant in the protection of our fundamental freedoms was unparalleled. Whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him, it was impossible to not respect him.

 “Everyone who had the privilege of working with Alan had the opportunity to appreciate his passion, dignity, sense of humour and humility. Today we mourn the loss of a great Canadian, a good man and a mensch. May his memory be for a blessing.”