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A few months before Charlie Kirk was shot dead on a university campus, I had a long conversation with him — almost an hour.

He was worried about Canadian universities. The cancel culture. The silencing of conservative students. The indoctrination factories he had spent his entire career fighting south of the border. He had seen it up close, and he asked me: were we going to fight back?

I told him yes.

Then, on September 10, 2025, a politically motivated sniper climbed onto a rooftop at Utah Valley University and put a bullet in Charlie Kirk’s neck while he was doing exactly what he always did — standing up for free speech on a university campus.

I’ve thought about that conversation a lot since then.

Because Charlie understood something that too many people on our side still refuse to face: the university campus isn’t just where young people go to get degrees. It’s where the woke mob is manufactured. It’s where the cancel culture foot soldiers are recruited, trained, and radicalised — before being sent out into the world to tear down everything we hold dear.

We’ve made real gains. Independent media is getting stronger. We win (sometimes) in the courts. And the battle for free speech has new allies, like Elon Musk and his social media platform, X.

But the woke machine at our universities is still running at full capacity.

You know the stories: Lindsay Shepherd was a 22-year-old teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University. She showed a short video clip of Jordan Peterson in class — as part of a lecture on a controversial topic. Her professors hauled her into an interrogation and compared her to a Nazi showing propaganda films. This past January, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis was refused permission to hold an event at York University. A sitting Member of Parliament — barred from speaking to students.

Those are just the stories that got coverage. Every day, thousands of our students sit down, stay quiet, and self-censor — terrified of being destroyed by the mob before their careers have even started.

And nobody is fighting for them.

If we don’t fight at the source — inside the lecture halls and student unions where the actual indoctrination happens — we’re only ever chopping heads off a hydra. It will keep growing new ones.

And right now, on Canadian campuses, our side has nobody.

The Conservative Party’s campus clubs are too nervous to stick their necks out for anyone — they don’t want to risk their political careers. No think tank is focused on campuses. The faith communities, the advocacy organizations — all doing important work, but few of them are walking through the doors of our universities.

That is why The Democracy Fund is launching Canadian Students for Free Speech — a TDF-led national network that will establish student-led, officially recognized free speech clubs on every post-secondary campus in Canada.

If you care about free speech, if you want to support conservative and freedom-oriented students on Canada’s university campuses, learn more about Canadian Students for Free Speech and donate to help build it.

Here is the plan. The Democracy Fund is recruiting students with backbone, and we will train them in campus organising and free speech philosophy. We will coach them step by step through the process of getting their clubs officially recognised by their universities — and trust me, that battle alone will be worth documenting and publishing. We will equip them with professionally printed posters, pamphlets, and proven messaging to promote free speech.

Canadian Students for Free Speech will bring speakers directly to those campuses: Tamara Lich, and other freedom fighters who’ve been through the fire. Debates, town halls, and meet-and-greets that give conservative and freedom-loving students a reason to come together and realise they are not alone.

Canadian Students for Free Speech will train every club member to document every act of censorship — and we will publish every story. And when the administration comes after them — and they will come after them — Canadian Students for Free Speech will show up with cameras, journalists, and The Democracy Fund’s lawyers. Our students will not face the mob alone.

To do this properly, The Democracy Fund is hiring a full-time National Campus Coordinator. This is a real, demanding job. This person will travel coast to coast — from UBC to Dalhousie — recruiting student leaders, running training weekends, coordinating speaker tours, managing club applications, and fielding that call at midnight when a dean suddenly decides to cancel a student event. They will be the spine of the entire operation.

Beyond the salary, there are real costs to account for: printed materials for clubs at dozens of campuses, travel expenses for our speakers, legal fees when universities try to block or deregister our clubs, and the infrastructure to run a national student network. This is not a small project. But then again, losing an entire generation to indoctrination is no small matter.

Charlie Kirk gave his life on a university campus, fighting for exactly this. The least we can do is show up. There are three ways you can help right now:

If you believe in this mission, please donate to The Democracy Fund today to help them build Canadian Students for Free Speech. Your donation funds the National Campus Coordinator, the club materials, the speaker events, and the legal backup our students will need. (And, because it’s through The Democracy Fund, you’ll get a charitable tax receipt!)

If you are a recent graduate with experience in politics or campus organising — and you believe in free speech with everything you have — apply now for the National Campus Coordinator position. The Democracy Fund will train you, equip you, and back you up at every step of the way.

And if you are a student who wants to build a free speech community on your own campus, apply here to start a club and Canadian Students for Free Speech will help you every step of the way.

Canadian campuses are manufacturing the next generation of activists — and right now, our side has no one inside the gates. Your donation to The Democracy Fund changes that. It funds a full-time national coordinator, recognised clubs coast to coast, speaker events, and TDF lawyers ready to fight when universities come after our students. Please donate today to help build Canadian Students for Free Speech. (And you’ll get a charitable tax receipt, too.)