View topic - G&M Editorial - HRCs Shake that role of policing ideas :: Free Dominion - Principled Conservative - Party and Canadian Politics

HUMAN-RIGHTS COMMISSIONS Shake that role of policing ideas

Globe and Mail
February 4, 2008

There are those who disagree vehemently with Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant. Both men are staunch conservatives whose success is built largely upon the ability to provoke. Mr. Steyn is a brilliant writer who sometimes pushes the boundaries of mainstream opinion; Mr. Levant is an unabashed self-promoter. Yet even those Canadians who take issue with the opinions or methods of Messrs. Steyn and Levant should be more offended by the gross overreaching of this country's human-rights commissions in investigating the two men's work.

Mr. Levant's case is the more straightforward of the two. He has been taken to the Alberta Human Rights Commission by a group called the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada because his now-defunct magazine, the Western Standard, republished controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in an unflattering light.

In Mr. Steyn's case, it is not the writer but his publisher, Maclean's magazine, that is being targeted. Offended by an excerpt from Mr.

Steyn's book (America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It ) in which he claimed that Muslims "hot for jihad" could exploit their religion's high birth rate to conquer the West, the Canadian Islamic Congress demanded equal space in Maclean's - along with full editorial control and promotion on the magazine's cover - to respond. When they were denied it, they took their complaint to the Canadian, Ontario and British Columbia human-rights commissions.

It is easy enough to understand why Muslims took offence in both instances. The Mohammed cartoons, which prompted violent protests elsewhere after their initial publication, were designed to test the bounds of tolerance. And the excerpt from Mr. Steyn was derided by The Economist as "an alarmist screed" that is "notable for its simplistic demographic projections." It is perhaps even understandable that Muslim organizations, seeking to use all of the available channels to make known that they had taken offence, would file complaints with human-rights commissions, if only for the publicity. Less clear is why those commissions would take seriously, even for a moment, the notion that privately owned publica- tions do not have the right to offend or that they are required to give equal space to both sides of every issue.

Neither Maclean's nor the Western Standard published materials that incited violence or other injustices against Muslims. They did not violate anyone's human rights. Recognizing this, the commissions should have immediately identified the cases brought to them as nuisance complaints and dismissed them. That they have not done so suggests a change in their mandates is much needed.

Reforms of human-rights commissions, notably in Ontario, are currently aimed only at making the complaints process more efficient and eliminating backlogs. More useful would be to change the language of human-rights legislation to remove such clauses as Alberta's protection against publication of material "likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt" - a protection that, based on Mr.

Levant's case, commissions are far too zealous in providing. (Liberal MP Keith Martin has talked of introducing a private member's bill to make a similar change to the Canadian Human Rights Act.) Established in the 1960s and 70s, human-rights commissions were intended to curb such problems as workplace discrimination. While that need has considerably diminished, it may be argued that the odd case still merits the commissions' continued existence. They may still play a valuable role, too, through public education and participation in the shaping of public policy. But they were never intended to serve as thought police, charged with stamping out all unpleasant arguments and ideas.

"It never occurred to us that this instrument, which we intended to deal with discrimination in housing, employment and the provision of goods and services, would be used to muzzle the expression of opinion," Canadian Civil Liberties Association founder Alan Borovoy recently lamented. Yet that is precisely what the commissions are doing - if not through their punishments (typically relatively small fines), then through the public shaming of those deemed to have caused offence, not to mention the legal costs of those who must defend themselves from complaints. It's time to rein them in before further damage is done to Canadians' right to free expression.
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"...single men must have access to donor eggs and “gestational carriers.” - David Johnston, Governor General Appointee
(The man Stephen Harper calls "the best of Canada")

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 10:49 am Post subject:

Kudos to the Globe and Mail for today's editorial! Here is proof that the MSM can get past Woman Kinsella's spin and report this accurately!
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"...single men must have access to donor eggs and “gestational carriers.” - David Johnston, Governor General Appointee
(The man Stephen Harper calls "the best of Canada")

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 11:03 am Post subject:

A big thumbs up to the Globe for getting through an entire article without the word racist. I really hope that we have turned a corner and journalists and media are doing leg work first and writing articles later. It's been so long since we had that in this country that it's a refreshing change.
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FREE DOMINION FORUM RULES
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope ~ Sir Winston Churchill
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people''''s money." Margaret Thatcher

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 11:08 am Post subject:

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 11:13 am Post subject:

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 12:48 pm Post subject:

The MSM will not take sides, unless it calculates that its best interests are served for it to take sides.

Build the behavioural model of the MSM on that, and I daresay we wind up with a very authentic and realistic model
which explains the MSM.

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 2:19 pm Post subject:

Well, if you can’t even count on the Globe & Mail to come to your rescue, you know things are bad for the “perpetually-a-victim, my-FEELINGS-NOTHING-MORE-THAN-FEELINGS!-are-really-really-hurt” crowd.

Hey Shirley! Yo Laurie! Time to start looking for a new gig.

There comes a time that belonging to a pariah organization - even if it is sponsored by the gov’ment - is still not that great for one’s own reputation.

When this ship finally sinks, we need to have a party, man.

Still, it is a positive sign that the Left is split on this issue. It means that they are thinking outside of the gulag they helped to create these past forty years. Maybe it will mean more critical examination of the other foolish dogmas they try to enforce on the sheep in Canada.

The MSM tried to protect their lock on our reality by virtually ignoring this story for three weeks. Only when Keith Martin started making some political movements did they start to wake up, but even then, they attempted to warp the coverage into some kind of “white supremacist” cause. How thoroughly bankrupt and pathetic they are.

Power to the Bloggers and YouTube for once again showing the utter irrelevancy of the MSM. People saw Ezra's "Braveheart" performance 500,000 times before the MSM finally rolled out of their beds. Wake up guys, you're three weeks late and are taking up airwaves. Message to the MSM: "Why don't you step aside and let real reporters do the job that you refuse to do?"

The thing about free speech that we all have learned through this whole debacle is this: IF YOU DON’T USE IT, YOU’LL LOSE IT. If Ezra had not published those cartoons, we’d still be sinking further and further into the socialist, islamic gulag without even knowing it. Sometimes, you need some shock treatment and, boy, did Ezra ever push the right button.

During the last Ontario provincial election, there was a record low 52.6% turnout. That kind of gives you an indication what Canadians think of exercising their free speech. Materialism and self gratification leave little room for pushing back a tyrannical kangaroo kourt abetted by decades of socialist group-think legislation when you’re on the dole and your biggest complaint in life is not getting a clear signal on the dish.

http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/?p=635
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Socon Or Bust: http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/

This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it. - G. K. Chesterton (The Superstition of Divorce)

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 4:18 pm Post subject:

Posted: 02/ 04/ 08 5:16 pm Post subject:

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