Last year the Canadian Human Rights Commission commissioned University of Windsor professor Richard Moon to review the censorship provisions of the Canadian Human Rights act. Alas, his principal recommendation was that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights act be repealed. The CHRC, refusing to stand idly by in the face of a suggestion that their well-funded bureaucratic censorship racket be dismantled, has now released its own report, the self-laudatory “Freedom of Expression and Freedom from Hate in the Internet Age“, which concludes that section 13 should stand, with a few minor changes.
The CHRC’s new report, a disarmingly banal document full of vaguely Kafka-esque nostrums and presumptuous royal “we” us-words, openly deifies a putative international standard that deems the American model to be behind the times on the matter of free speech. Building its forcefully-announced conclusions on the foundation of its own bureaucrat-mandarin language, the report calls for the HRCs to continue to prosecute hate speech regardless of the speaker’s or writer’s intent. In other words, the report recommends that the effect of your speech on society at large shall be determined by twee bureaucrats, who will then in turn decide whether or not you shall be hounded into silence by the progressive state.
It’s round 2 in the fight for free speech in Canada. Fortunately, we have in our corner Ezra Levant, the free-speech equivalent of Henry Armstrong. A veritable Gatling-gun of damning evidence about the HRCs, Levant is not just capable but willing and eager to chop down the misinformation and falsities put out by the HRC-types; the twee, effete busybody HRC-types know it, too. Judge for yourself: CTV’s “Power Play”, hosted by Tom Clark, invited Jennifer Lynch, the Chief Commissioner of the CHRC, to appear on the program, but Lynch informed CTV in no uncertain terms that she would refuse to appear on the program if Ezra Levant was there — in other words, she tried to get CTV to censor Ezra Levant, even though she continues to spin the idea that she wants to have a “real debate” about censorship.
The show went ahead without Lynch. (Kudos, btw, to Tom Clark and CTV for neither acceding to Ms. Lynch’s demand nor downplaying the absurdity of the resulting situation.) Here’s the farcical result:
Tom Clark:
Now inevitably, any discussion about Human Rights Commissions brings up the issue of what role they are playing, what role they should be playing in this country, and therein also lies a very vigorous debate in this country. We wanted to bring you that debate with the principals involved but unfortunately we could not, and let me explain why we could not: we invited Jennifer Lynch, the Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, on the show, but she said she would not appear if on this program if one of her major critics, Ezra Levant, was anywhere appearing on this program. So, the commission then said that they would offer instead Philippe Dufresne — he’s the Director and senior counsel of the Commission — but only on the condition that he did not have to talk to Ezra Levant. So, here’s what we’ve done in order to facilitate a conversation: Mr Dufresne has been invited — he joins me here in fact in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill — and Ezra Levant also joins us from out studios in Calgary. Ezra, good to have you on the program.
(Ezra, joking about the absurdity of the situation, pantomimes a few words…)
He is of course the author of Shakedown, which is a critique of the Human Rights Commission in Canada. Well, thank you both very much for being here. And unfortunately, Ezra, because of the conditions set down by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, I have to ask you to be silent for the next few minutes while I talk to Mr. Dufresne, and then, when we’re finished that conversation, I will come back to you and we can have our conversation. Hope everybody’s got that straight…
SDA readers should watch the whole thing.
Perhaps we should conclude here with the words of Jennifer Lynch, from her recent Globe and Mail piece entitled “Hate speech: This debate is out of balance”:
“To be sure, the debate over freedom of expression and hate messages will continue. The Commission welcomes that debate….”
“Experience has established that institutions, which at the outset were
useful, often end by becoming intolerable abuses owing to the simple
fact that everything around them has changed […] and they have not.”
— Sir Wilfrid Laurier
V: Good quote, and having come from a liberal, one would think they just might want to jump on the bandwagon. Having Mr. Dithers part II as Opposition Leader makes it less than likely unless he is saving it for part of his ‘opposition but no policy until I can call an election’ platform.
Mr. Harper, let’s get the ball rolling on this puppy, the supporters have waited long enough.
As a former regular contributor to the CPC, I am still contacted by them. My answer is still the same. When you at least abolish section 13 I will re-consider my donations, until such time, not one thin dime. Period.
I’ve written my province’s MPs about the travesty that is Jennifer Lynch. Have you?
If not, please do!
Lynch: “This debate is out of balance” Uh huh. When the debate is only to be among those on the one side, she’s right. Some debate. Furthermore she intends to keep it that way don’t ya know. Fire. Them. All.
Tom: “Speak English”
Careful, Tom – Talk like that borders on hate speech when you’re talking to a francophone! You’re dangerously close to an investigation all your own!
I’ve been following this for a long while here and at Ezra’s, even going so far as to tell the CPC fundraiser on the phone not to expect any more of my money till they forcefully address this issue. But it wasn’t until this morning that I went and bought Shakedown.
What a great read! I am about halfway through it and expect to finish it tonight. Very well put together, a brilliant walkthrough of the whole saga.
Woefully off topic, for which I apologize profusely –
Do not, under any circumstances, piss of Conrad Black –
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=1691454
Danm it, Carbuncle, take it here.
“tell the CPC fundraiser on the phone not to expect any more of my money”
I said the same thing to one of them on Thursday night, speaking, as I explained, more in sorrow than in anger. (Yeah, okay, there was a lot of anger too, I was just tryin’ to class it up a little.)
Frau Lynch in jackboots? Comrade Lynch with 5 Red Stars on her epaulettes/shoulder boards?
Slippery slope?
…-
“Peter Hitchens: You can’t hear the jackboots, but this is still oppression
We used to think that Communism would arrive in this country on the bayonets of Soviet soldiers, if it came at all.
We never realised that it would instead materialise amid our freedom and prosperity, step by tiny step, in the form of bureaucratic interference and political correctness.
As one of the few British people who has actually lived in a Communist country (Moscow in the early Nineties, since you ask), I know better than most what such societies feel like, and how they work. And in the past two weeks I have seen several developments in Britain which seem strangely familiar.
The first was a proposal to refuse school places to children who had not been given the MMR injection. I have no idea if the MMR is safe or not. But I know many thoughtful and well-informed people who believe that it damaged their children, or fear that it might do so. A free country would not blackmail individuals in this way.
The next was a sinister report from the ‘Department for Children’ demanding that prying officials be empowered to force their way into the homes of parents who prefer to educate their sons and daughters at home.
This is our all-powerful State’s angry response to a growing rebellion, by mothers and fathers who are sick of seeing their children bullied, neglected and miseducated in the state education system, and rightly think they can do a better job. How can the commissars in charge of the Western world’s worst schools be fit to judge how well a parent is teaching her own child? The pretext for this invasion of privacy is a baseless suggestion that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2271285/posts
Well, it nice to know that the Human Rights Board will continue to have work through to the end of recession and beyond, what a fricken great way to make a living you censoring sons of b#@$%ess!
It seems evident that the CHRC and the Carbon Trading Markets are of the same strand.
This BS leaves me speechless.
There is nothing to be said. Jennifer Lynch and the CHRC refuse to debate or discuss the HRA.
It is absurd for her to openly declare that she wants to debate and then, refuse to do so, with Ezra Levant.
Is she suggesting that she will only talk with people who will merely ask for her opinion, i.e., to a reporter, like Tom Clark? That’s not a debate.
Is she suggesting that she will only talk with people who agree with her? That’s not a debate.
A debate is a situation where both sides of an issue are open to questions, dissent, critique and analysis. Ms Lynch refuses such a situation.
Therefore she is lying to the Canadian public. She refuses to allow debate about the HRAct.
The best line after the guy says they will help Parliament set the conditions, Tom says ‘maybe they are afraid of you’. Canadian Hateful Righteousness Commune.
I read Jennifer Lynch’s piece of sonorous drivel; four minutes of my life I won’t get back. It’s very weird being bored and infuriated at exactly the same time.
Yeah, Speedy, I haven’t watched Tom Clark before, but I thought he was superb. He fully grokked the irony of the HRCers’ behaviour vis a vis the show, and the hypocrisy of it all.
Speedy: “The best line after the guy says they will help Parliament set the conditions, Tom says ‘maybe they are afraid of you'”
Yeah, I have to agree with that. It pretty much states the route we are heading to.
Hello Nazi Canada!
We have a $50 billion dollar deficit. Surely the CHRC can be severely pruned to save a few bucks in these perilous financial times. MPs from all parties would be happy to hear suggestions on how the government can save money.
Fritz, if we had Ezra in for the head of the CHRC we wouldn’t be having to spend any money on court costs.
It’s amazing at first that Fraulynch&creatures selected Moon(he didn’t go far enuff imo) and then deselect his conclusions.
Talk about the xray exposure with Ezra, like lightning to a golfer.
one has to wonder if Mz Lynch has PPhd in sociology????
People do well to read Steyn’s take on the latest HRC report.
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2152/128/
“That title is itself quite revealing. “Freedom of” denotes a genuine human right: Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of movement. “Freedom from” (with the exception of “freedom from government control”) denotes not a human right but a massive government enforcement regime: “Freedom from hate” is an especially repugnant concept to a free society, since “hate” is a human emotion and the degree of state policing required to “free” a society therefrom is by definition totalitarian. No one has the right to be “free from hate”, even if the arbiters of such a concept were less biased, corrupt and deformed than the CHRC and Richard Warman.”
I joined the Ontario PC party recently just so I could vote for Randy Hillier because of his “abolish the HRC” position.
Someone calls last week, presumably hired by the PCO people, to ask about my choice.
I say “Hillier”.
They ask “what issues do you care about” and are about to start a list.
I interrupt. “Human Rights Commissions. Nothing else matters to me right now.”
The person on the other phone pauses, and then laughs.
I guess they’ve heard that more than once.
As for the federal Conservatives – I’ve given up on them. And it looks like after being a member of the Reform party, the CA, and for 3 years the CPC, my persistent return of their donation requests with a letter about the HRCs has finally had me taken off their mailing list.
I know it will be worse with the Liberals, but I just can’t bring myself to care about the CPC right now. There have been so many betrayals… This is how a party destroys itself.
“Yeah, Speedy, I haven’t watched Tom Clark before, but I thought he was superb. He fully grokked the irony of the HRCers’ behaviour vis a vis the show, and the hypocrisy of it all.
Posted by: EBD at June 13, 2009 9:33 PM”
Tom Clark is not your typical Canadian journalist. He roots out the truth.
I’m impressed with him.
Wish I’d seen this particular program.
Old Lori, if the prime minister abolished the CHRC by edict tomorrow, they’d be right back in business with the next Liberal government. The CHRC’s are under scrutiny culturally now, just the way it should be, thanks to the foot soldiers like Ezra Levant, Kate, and Connie and Mark Fournier, and Kathy Shaidle and Blazing Cat Fur and Jay Curry and Mark Steyn and Mike Duffy and Rutherford and Adler and Breakenridge, etc etc etc.
If the battle is won culturally, then it’s irrelevant what the government of the particular day does. That’s the way to go, and that’s the only way to win the war.
Mr. Harper’s job is different than yours or mine. He’s battling an entrenched pro-Liberal bureaucracy, a Lib-PR media, and has Canada’s economy to worry about. He’s the guy at the head of the charge, swinging his sword; what’s wrong with the rest of us helping him out on the flanks? Nothing that I can see.
He’s onside. Read between the lines a bit. And ask yourself this: if thousands of people refuse to donate to the Conservatives because they want him to act by edict on the matter, and then the Liberals win the next election, do you think that’s going to help the fight against the CHRC and the various HRCs? I don’t.
Two years ago, if you looked in the comments at the Globe and Mail and the Star, opponents of the HRCs were portrayed by the majority of commenters as nazi sympathizers. In a short period of time, that’s completely — stunningly — changed, without any top-down edict coming from Mr. Harper. What should that tell you about the nature of this battle?
Chutzpahticular: click on the live link “whole thing” in the post and you’ll see the video.
Lynch speak:
Debate = (re)Education
(re)Education = Indoctrination
Indoctrination = Parroting Lynch’s original viewpoint.
EBD writes “In a short period of time, that’s completely — stunningly — changed, without any top-down edict coming from Mr. Harper. What should that tell you about the nature of this battle?”
What it tells me is that the Conservative government hasn’t lifted a finger to help in this fight for freedom. I know what you are saying: the Liberals are worse, which is true, but I’m telling you, I’m very very reluctant to vote in the next federal election. I’m really angry at Harper for not helping in this fight…I don’t think I’m going to be able to vote for him…
EBD is right. The hrc has been given just about enough rope to hang themselves in the court of public opinion. When the CP wins a majority it can rewrite its terms and defund it with a strong majority in favour of doing so. (they probably should have done do with arts funding but perhaps that is now a lesson learned.)
Ezra steyn et al are the best people to provide the rope and they have done greatthusfar. Warren jackboots Kinsella has been of great service teaching the hrcs how to tie the knot.
Wow, just…wow. Words fail me.
I cannot believe the unmitigated arrogance of that Lynch person or her cadre of Red Guards.
Re Lynch’s article in Friday’s Globe and Mail:
The notion that the state should act against anything that is “likely to expose an individual or a group of individuals to hatred or contempt” is totalitarian, and has no place in a civilized nation.
The idiotic and pernicious notion that “there is no hierarchy of rights” is a serious and tragic mistake. The individual right to life is the primary right, and all other rights flow from it.
Lynch calls the Charter of Rights a model for other free societies to emulate. But we don’t have a free society as long as the Charter remains as is. I could list at least twenty errors in it that need correction.
Lynch claims that the HRCs “ensure all parties are protected by the rules of natural justice”. We all know the long list of counter-examples: truth is not a defence, the inability to get transcripts in time, the complainant gets his expenses paid for; many others.
She complains about an “agenda” of the critics, but there was an agenda in setting up the commissions to begin with: to destroy freedom of speech.
The list of attributes based on which one is not supposed to discriminate is a wholly left-wing one: race, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation. But the left has its own list of hatreds: for businessmen, landlords, doctors, Americans, “the rich”. And these days, Jews again. Thus the real purpose of the HRCs is not to prevent hate speech but to silence those who do not agree with left-wing political views.
situations like this I ask myself if the person playing the bratty kid really deep down believes their own fiction or are they just playacting in order to collect a salary.
really. I do. because I cant imagine the ridiculousness of the positions so many in authority latch onto.
so which is Lynch? a true believer or a stage performer reciting a script?
EBD, I hear what you are saying. And I suspect that my extremely active participation in the Globe and Star comments sections is not a small part of the change in comments on the issue of HRCs (I post there multiple times daily in the fight for public opinion).
But there have been many other point of disillusionment, not just the HRCs. It’s a pattern that suggests principles go under the bus because of a fear of losing power, and I am hardly the only one questioning this change. Mr. Harper used to be regarded as principled, but that’s a much weaker position these days.
I am no fan of that Ego-That-Walks-Like-A-Man-Gerry-Nichols, but people like Tom Flanagan are fairly credible.
The change really has occurred in the past year, and I think the arrival of Guy Giorno had a lot to do with the decline of Mr. Harper’s gravitas. It was a serious mistake to take that guy on.
The first spectacular triumph of the non-Christian Eastern
European Democrats was Roosevelt’s recognition, less than 9-
months after his inauguration, of the Soviet government of
Russia… November 16, 1933 — at midnight! …a date our chil-
dren will long have tragic cause to remember.
PROF. JOHN O. BEATY, The Iron Curtain Over America, cite.
W. La Varre, American Legion Magazine, August 1951
“As is the case with all administrative law bodies, they ensure that all parties are protected by the rules of natural justice, and that frivolous complaints are efficiently disposed.”
I wonder what Jennifer Lynch defines as “natural justice”. And WHAT is a “frivolous complaint”?
Natural justice, in the redneck lexicon, means exacting physical revenge against a person who causes you injury.
Surely Jennifer doesn’t condone the old fashioned punch-in-the-mouth!
There is not excuse. Harper could deal with this on a lunch break. He appointed her, he can fire her.
He can order a moratorium on section 13 until he has a bit more time to burn it entirely.
There is no excuse, there is no downside. The vast majority of Canadians on all sides don’t wan this censorship.
Despite appearance, most adult Canadians can deal with any sounds that come out of the mouths of others. Public opinion can shut down the most odious and with freeeeeeeeeee Speech, will also know who they are.
Harper, my family (and friendss .. all agreed) will not bother to vote or donate anything to the CPC until you deal with this.
Don’t tell me it’s worse with the liberals. It doesn’t matter which government doesn’t get rid of the CHRC now does it?
Both government will continue to impoverish us so the freedom to bitch may be all we have left.
It also does not matter which government does not get rid of the gun registry.
Momar, can you teach me how to write in bold letters here, please? I promise not to post entire pages in bold!
The great irony of this pernicious part of Sect 13 is that if you cross some people (hurt their feelings), through the HRC you are likely to be exposed to their hatred (and/) or contempt.
Though, wanting this small provision removed is not an unreasonable request; but it can’t be a deal breaker. This application of Sect 13 is already discredited in the public’s (and media’s) eyes, so the censors crying “censorship” will hardly swing many votes, except maybe the “wrong” way.
It all seems to be unfolding rather nicely right now. The abolish the HRC wing of the party needs to hold fire for now, lest they send the wrong message and make things worse.
Aaron,
I accidentally just did such a thing by error. I see it was removed.
If you are serious. Just use a left pointy bracket followed by a B followed by a right pointy bracket in from of what you wish to bold. Then do the same at the end of it only add a slash in front of the B.
Try is using the preview option to see if you have it right.
Also to Italicize some text … use the same method but us the letter i instead of the B.
EBD:
The CHRC’s are under scrutiny culturally now, just the way it should be, thanks to the foot soldiers like Ezra Levant, Kate, and Connie and Mark Fournier, and Kathy Shaidle and Blazing Cat Fur and Jay Curry and Mark Steyn and Mike Duffy and Rutherford and Adler and Breakenridge, etc etc etc.
He’s correct. The only way to slay this dragon is through public shaming with revulsion for this Inqisition of Neo-Marxist ideology.Its up to us as individuals to tell this tale like it is to increase public awareness of these Thought Police wiht the fact that they not only wnat these star Chambers, but want our regular Court system to be like them, where truth is no defence.
This evil not only has to stop it must be investigated.
JMO
Thx! HTML
I’m sorry, couldn’t watch more than the introductions. When I saw the pastey-faced bottle blonde spokesperson, (oh wait, let’s just say, the epedermically pigmented challenged, follical chemically enhanced spokesperson) I just couldn’t take anything he said seriously.