Here, courtesy of Mississauga Matt, are the videos of Mark Steyn
and Ezra Levant testifying in front of the Standing Committee on
Justice & Human Rights, in Ottawa, on 2009-10-05. Thanks, Matt.
Update: Quotes from parts of the testimony of Mr. Steyn:
- I whole heartedly support laws against the incitement
of violence, but what the human rights regime is doing
is now criminalizing differences of opinion. - […] not just bad in theory, but wholly corrupt in practice.
- Truth should be the ultimate defense.
This YouTube footage is good news, folks. Tell others about it.
Thanks for the public service, Matt.
I managed to catch Ezra and Mark live this afternoon. They made all the salient points we have seen before only now before a Parliamentary Justice committee.
Dosangh pointedly did not agree with Ezra, though other members on the committee were somewhat more sympathetic or interested in exploring the matter further.
The long and short S.13 is not a protection but rather an affront to free speech.
Real hate speech per s319 of the criminal code affords more robust legal protections as compared to the procedural abuse of the HRCs.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
After watching each of Ezra’s and Mark’s remarks I was expecting a big applause.
I am glad to have these 2 guys speaking on my behalf.
I’m now watching Part 6. Ujjal Dosanjh is trying to trip up Levant & Steyn but is clearly outmatched.
MP Joe Comartin (NDP) was a prick to Ezra and Mark. (Pardon the language Kate.) Reminded me of how Senator Barbara Boxer treated Brigadier General Michael Walsh. Comartin told Ezra that he (ie. the comittee) makes the rules around here.
The guy is full of himself.
I used to respect Comartin as one of the only Dippers with brains, guess I was fooled. The opposition clearly do not care about REAL human rights, just their rights to a huge pension. Sad. They have the power, but they are abusing it by pretending to care about human rights.
Yeah, and later Comartin completely misses Levant’s obvious point. It’s like Comartin wasn’t listening. But this is not, at least I don’t think, so much about Comartin or Dosanjh.
It’s no wonder the Maritimes are such basket case provinces when they elect smarmy bastards like this Murphy guy. There was no translation for the
French so I don’t know what the second fellow went on about, but that’s probably for the best. I am trying to steel myself for Dosanjh, but don’t know if I have the strength, after putting up with him as
the NDP inter-regnum here in B.C..
All i can say is there are alot of others out there who are just as passionate and well educated and articulate. There is something to be said for first hand expierience, witch both of these gentlemen have I can honestly say i could not think of two more suited people in this country to defend our freedoms than these two gentlemen. Good on them and i think they actually won people over as time went on.
Those people who were dead set from the get go that this was a waste of time will be rudley awakened once they read there copy of the cases before them . I am proud of these two men as well as shadle and you as well kate and all of the others who get these thing’s out there who help educate me and others, who refuse to let our country slip away .
Everyday people even if it is one canadian every day someone is reading hearing and at least able to create an intelegent and informed opinion based on the facts before them ,so thank you kate ,kathy ,ezra,mr.steyn,and all of the others, you know who you are. Cheers.
Thank you all .
Paul in calgary
If you want to peer into the minds of some really scary individuals, take a look at the discussion on the CBC site. Click on Sort by “Most Recent”. You will see numerous folks chastising Levant & Steyn for demanding their Free Speech rights.
On the other hand, perhaps all these individuals are just CHRC staffers working overtime via multiple aliases?! LOL
Dosanjh actually makes an interesting point, however irritating he might’ve been about it. But it would’ve been ideal if, at that point, Steyn had pointed out that by quoting Keegstra (or paraphrasing him), Dosanjh was–strictly speaking–conveying to his audience material ‘likely’ to expose Jews to hatred, contempt etc. (Just as Steyn apparently was doing when he quoted the Norwegian Imam in his Maclean’s piece.)
I rather enjoyed the part where Mr. Comartin started going on about how a lack of hate speech laws didn’t stop Hitler. Mr. Steyn’s response was a satisfying punch-line to Mr. Comartin’s unwitting set-up.
I’m convinced that one of the major contributing factors to the spread of leftist thought is sheer ignorance. In some cases it’s willful ignorance, but in many cases it’s just an innocent ignorance, which can be dispelled by men like Levant and Steyn.
Thanks for posting the link, I enjoyed viewing the testimony of Ezra and Mark.
Did anyone else think: shouldn’t the roles be reversed? Why are the stupid people _the ones in charge_?
Even the conservatives sounded ditzy.
It was very entertaining. But personally, meaningless. A bunch of privileged men arguing about what it says on some old piece of paper. Who cares?
Just writing what you want, and smash up your hard drive when they drive up to take it without their stupid warrant. Tell them you thought it would be easier for them to carry away if it was in smaller pieces.
Life really doesn’t have to be this damn complicated. Sheesh.
I posted to Ezra’s blog, that I have no idea how he and Mark managed to NOT jump up on the desk and scream for those morons to pull their craniums from their backsides.
It seemed like most of them were claiming ignorance on the subject. Have they not read an editorial page, of virtually ANY newspaper in the last 15 months?
Gotta say my favourite part was Steyn quoting Iggy!! Well that and everytime Ezra and Mark shot down the so called thoughts of these idiots.
As a rabid libertarian, I was always against hate speech provisions, and a case in point are the laws against “Holocaust denial”.
I was very pleased to see Mr. Levant, a Jew, defend ones right to question ‘details’ of the holocaust as a freedom of expression regardless of its distasteful nature. There are in fact, many so called “holocausts” just ask Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, Kublai Khan…
This is one more example of the insanity of political correctness. Former politicians, aka liberals, saw the HRC as a Canadian effort to maintain our status within the World as a “nice” nation. Gag me with a Koran!
As Mr. Levant, a lawyer, indicated, there are restrictions on free speech in law. These are words that incite illegal activity or criminal organization. Under these laws Hitler would have been prosecuted. Lets leave it at that and get rid of the HRC once and for all and, more importantly, maintain the right of honorable disagreement.
Are all our politicians this stupid?
These speech laws are not to protect nice freindly speak folks iti s to protect peoples right to say darn neer anything they want be it repulivly offensive or not you can’t persicute somebody becaseu they deny the holocaust ….let them sya that …it show’s there lack of intellegence and genuine out of touchness with reality so i say go mark and ezra continue to pund these guy’s into submission they here what you are saying they have no choice now .
Paul in calagary .
Well, let’s see.
Incitement of violence against a tyrannical regime was what brought down communism in Eastern Europe, monarchy in Western Europe and United States.
Steyn is advocating limits on speech, however you put it. He should have worded it more carefully.
There must be allowed no incitement of violence against identifiable groups or individuals, but people must be free to call to violence against the organizations, otherwise it becomes impossible for the people to defend their rights.
True conservatism is very hard to grasp even for the brightest. Thus it is understandable that even the right-most commenters on this blog can sometimes let off a collectivist gaffe.
Golly.
No “not waiting for the asteroid” posting for your neo-con pals at Canwest. How ’bout that?
“Are all our politicians this stupid?”
Evidently yes, if some of the crap I’ve seen on CPAC is representative of what goes on. One could tell just by listening to the questions the political affiliation of each member. Talk about your agenda partisan politics. My DND french is pretty rotten but I’m pretty certain the Bloc were also trying to score political points. The Tories were no better by throwing softballs at Mark & Ezera. I used to think that the committees was where the “real work” of parliament was done.
“Are all our politicians this stupid?” Occasionally, yes, to wit, Rob Nicholson musing about random roadside breathalyzer checks. Driving and drinking is wrong and should be punished, but let us not have more police and legal intrusion. Let reasonable cause for a breathalizer test.
I for one, have never viewed the Aspers as being neo-con, or even connservative. They are as liberal can possibly be. They do however know a good thing when they see it, and when they bought it from Black they made very little in the way of changes, because they had the “right” market cornered. They also had the best columnists in Canada. If CanWest fails it will be because of the Aspers and not because of the National Post’s content. Not to mention the waste of money on human rights Museums; etc..
Larry said:”I for one, have never viewed the Aspers as being neo-con, or even connservative. They are as liberal can possibly be. They do however know a good thing when they see it, and when they bought it from Black they made very little in the way of changes, because they had the “right” market cornered…”
Conrad Black referred to the Aspers as St. Laurent Liberals during their purchase of his paper. As such, he had no fear of Post going wobbly.
So I read up on Louis St. Laurent and IMO, he’s a far different, almost conservative, Liberal than Pearson, Trudeau et al.
Posted by: Harry J. Balsac at October 6, 2009 9:09 AM
It is apparently beyond poor ol Phil that Kate is not here at the moment.
“Are all our politicians this stupid?”
No, you didn’t the truly clueless ones at this hearing. Some of the others are too stupid even to be Liberals:
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2069640
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/10/06/kelly-mcparland-liberals-flee-dhalla-pension-bill.aspx
Jay Curry has got the ball rolling. We are proposing to forward a list of reader submitted questions you would like to see the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights hearing on Section 13 (1) ask Jennifer Lynch during her scheduled appearance.
We hope to do this formally with say a top ten list of reader questions e-mailed to each committee member but I also recommend you e-mail the committee members individually.
As Flea suggests you should make your questions short and sweet and back them up with publicly available evidence.
…
On my site is the contact information for each member who attended yesterdays session, grouped by party affiliation, so you can frame your questions appropriately.
http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2009/10/questions-for-jennifer-lynch-of.html
I kept wondering whether these politicians were thick, or disingenuous, or just not paying attention. Steyn and Levant had to explain everything five times.
Is it normal for these guys to do any homework before presiding over something like this? The Dickson decision from 1990 seemed to be the only relevant piece of info. any of them were familiar with at all.
And why all these questions – from Dosanjh especially, but not only from him – about hate speech being banned under the Criminal Code? Steyn’s against that, so’s Levant, so am I, so are you, but so what? Section 13 and the HRCs were the issue here.
Krig @2:14 – that was my favorite bit too.
The most salient point was the PROCESS, blatant strong arming a defendant substituting mere words without the need to prove context or intent…Although the legitimist criminal justice system does use some of these sleaze practices behind the scene.. The Tribunal is form of Vigilante justice.. They know the defendant is guilty!
Blazing cat fur, here’s my question: Does MP Joe Comartin (NDP) have any tiniest f-ing clue how many people are going to see this video? Or that Bloc clown? He sounded like a moron even in French, and I don’t speak French.
At some point these guys are going to have to get a clue that this isn’t the old days any more. They are on prime time TV at 7pm, all day every day, forever more.
Mr. Joe Comartin (NDP) sir, yes you do make the rules. For now. But if I have anything to say about it, and I do sir, you won’t after the next election. And the beauty of it is, I won’t have to do anything but post YOUR WORDS on my blog. For free. And having done so, kids twenty years from now will be able to see your insufferable arrogance on live video, at will, on their phone.
Mr Comartin sir, your political opponents are giggling sir. Giggling with glee at the fun they are going to have making up their campaign ads using footage of you being you.
Fire them all.
Black Mamba: “And why all these questions – from Dosanjh especially, but not only from him – about hate speech being banned under the Criminal Code?”
I can’t stand Dosanjh. Having said that, it looked like Dosanjh was saying the criminal code is good enough. I don’t think he is agin striking down section 13.
The others? I’m guessing they don’t know the difference between the criminal code and section 13.
Could I suggest that our Politicians intentionally ‘dumb-it-down’ because of the severe ‘political correctness’ imposed on us all? Imposed on us by our beloved media.
In the past, many Politicians were hounded by Journalists until they apologized for saying what most Canadians think?
(1) ask Jennifer Lynch during her scheduled appearance.
Does the CHRC intend to publish an unambiguous glossary of the approved Canadian use of the English Language?. What is the meaning of IS?
It looked an awful lot like the committee members could not fathom the idea that government regulation of non-criminal speech is not necessary. This reflects their inflated view of their own importance.
The idea that “real” courts can handle the necessary limits on freedom of expression- well, that would mean the government would voluntarily relinquish a piece of its power. Completely at odds with politicians’ self-image.
infinitysquared – yes, that was my impression too; but it seemed slightly beside to point. He was trying to turn the hearing (is that the correct term?) into an abstract debate about Freedom of Expression. That’s far too broad. Vitruvius wouldn’t have let him get away with it.
BTW when Comartin was going on about hate speech and Holocaust denial in pt. 4, how I wish somebody had pointed out that in Turkey there are laws against acknowledging that the Armenian genocide ever occurred.
Comartin (NDP Windor area) gave a similar performance to his collegue Wayne Marston (NDP Hamilton area) who sat on the committee for the previous episode when Langtry (CHRC deputy) was there.
What is with the union/labour wing of the NDP, are they all this self-important, is that what their constituents expect?
Geez it would serve any one of those MP’s right to have to follow in Ezra or Mark Steyn’s HRC investigative footstep on their own dime.
They might well sing a different tune!
Anyhow, Mark Steyn managed to jerk MP Comartin (ARROGANT TWIT’S) chain pretty good.
I like when Mark Steyn quotes Iggy. How can the Liberals frame this as some kind of Conservative “hidden agenda” when the head of their party agrees with them?
You have to admit that Mark and Ezra both appear to be much, much more intelligent than the politicians who are trying to question them.
Black Mamba: “That’s far too broad.”
Maybe. But for these clowns, you can’t tear down anything without leaving something in place. Criminal Code 316 is that thing that is still in place.
I think the “proper” response from Steyn/Levant might have been “at least Keegstra had his day in a real court and had the opportunity to appeal the decision”.
Why should the CHRC or indeed the government stop at holocaust deniers?
What about 9/11 Truthers, Birthers or people who believe that Mohamed was a pedophile or that Jesus C was merely a man.
Many Japanese deny the Rape of Nanking, or at least the western portrayals of the atrocities. Should Japanese Canadians who feel this way be prosecuted?
I watched the whole thing and was SO proud of both Ezra and Mark!
When Comartin, being a real smart ass, responded to Mark Steyn, “I get to decide what I do as a parliamentarian, Mr. Steyn,” I thought, how typical of an entitled socialist leftie, to put himself on a pedestal and disregard the reality that it is he who SERVES his constituents, not the other way around.
But, what else would you expect from a Dipper from Windsor?
‘Next to nothing.
The whole problem is that the committee was as a whole completely ignorant and unprepared for Ezra and Mark, who outclassed and outwitted them all. Including the Conservatives, though , they, at least, were so much more respectful.
The libs, bloc and ndpers seemed to think their positions were being challenged. Which they were if we all accept they should have abolished this nonsense a long time ago. They seemed more inclined to protect rather than actually listen to the real and salient points Ezra and Mark made. Even morons could not fail to understand their points they were so very well articulated.
I guess that speaks volumes for those members of the committee who chose to pretend they do not understand.
Levant and Steyn did a wonderful job as I expected, however, I can tell that this committee is a dead end and completely useless. By my count there are 6 Conservatives (5 not including the Chair), 3 Liberals, 2 Bloc, and 1 NDP. That means that in any vote, the brain dead opposition parties will all band together (6) to vote against what the Conservative party wants (5). It says that the Chair only votes when there is a tie.
this issue just appears to be molasses uphill in january despite the cries of fire in the theatre.
any reasonable person would think that just the mention of “secret trials” would have had them all on their feet yelling and screaming: fire.them.all.