A glimpse in the Star Chamber – Part I

I have a real job and wasn’t able to attend the entire hearing, but given a chance to witness a real live kangaroo court in session I couldn’t resist dropping in for a look.
After a cursory security check which involved a quick screening with a metal detector I was ushered into the hearing room with the hearing in session. There was no need to present ID, credentials, explain why you were interested or anything, the Warman versus Lemire hearing was indeed open to the general public.
I arrived while Dean Steacy was on the stand, being questioned by Marc Lemire’s lawyer Barbara Kulazka, with Marc Lemire sitting to her right frequently passing notes and making suggestions.

Sitting behind Dean Steacy was apparently his “assistant”, who was supposed to help the blind witness with finding and reading the documents, yet she seemed to be a lawyer whose objective seemed to be to obstruct most meaningful lines of questioning and generally run out the clock whenever possible. You certainly wouldn’t want to have to pay your own lawyer by the hour when up against this type of process, that’s for sure.
Looking around the gallery, I notice Mark Steyn sitting in the front row at the right, listening intently, and there are at least twenty other people, some of whom are bored to the point of nodding off. It seems odd to come and watch if you’re not actually interested in the proceedings. Perhaps they are journalists or are associated with the perpetually offended complaint-generating organizations like the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Another fellow in the gallery clearly stands out. While the rest of us are sitting orderly in rows, one guy has assembled four or five chairs in a circle with a laptop in front and a smattering of other possessions scattered around him. He is listening intently and hammering in notes on his laptop. I identify him immediately as a blogger.
On to the actual testimony. Barbara K is questioning Steacy about why he created the account Jadewarr at FreeDominion months before any official complaint has been laid. Steacy answers evasively and frankly doesn’t provide much of a credible answer. Couple that with the fact that the first posting that is included in a later complaint is created a couple of weeks after the Jadewarr acount was created I think we have ample reason to be suspicious of what the CHRC is really up to at Freedominion. Nothing they had to say in their defense on this topic gave any reason to have confidence in their honesty or methods.
When pressed to describe what Freedominion is and why they were investigating it Steacy responded – “It is a message board that has content similar to Stormfront”. This generated a derisive snort from the blogger at the front left and some energetic hammering at the laptop. Look for other coverage of this hearing, as there’s sure to be others providing interesting commentary. It certainly says something about the type of person employed at the CHRC if they actually think Freedominion bears any resemblance to Stormfront.
Barbara K reads a long testimony by Richard Warman in a previous hearing into the record. I wasn’t sure where she was going with this at first and we will have to examine the transcript to be sure I have the details right, but it seemed to chronicle a series of events like this:
1.Warman enters a document into evidence that he claims he printed out Friday, December 8. The document is a printout of a posting that starts with “Welcome, Jadewarr”, indicating the user signed on using that account. (Note that Steacy has claimed he never gave Warman the password for that account).
2.Warman “revises” his testimony that the document “originates from the commission”.
3.Pressed further, Warman says he doesn’t know the origin of the document.
Finally, she asks Steacy if he knows where the document came from. He replies that Warman came over to the Commission, searched for the post in question and couldn’t find it, then signed on using the Jadewarr account, found the post and printed it. This was one of a series of incidents that displayed a remarkably cozy dance between Warman registering a complaint and the commission prosecuting it, all the while not being very transparent about how close they work with Warman and later, other police forces.
It will be interesting to examine this transcript more closely now that Steacy has testified exactly where this document came from. To be generous, it makes hard to believe Warman was providing the whole truth when being questioned about the origin of the document being submitted as evidence. I’m not sure when the transcript of this hearing will be available, but I’ll be taking a second look at that part when it is.
Lemire’s lawyer continues questioning, looking for other Ids and websites that were investigated. Steacy volunteers OdinsRevenge as another acount they used, but doesn’t volunteer much else.
Update: Part II.