Human Rights Commission: Canada's Kangaroo Court

betsy · March 29, 2009

Ezra Levant had exposed the atrocities of the Human Rights Commission in his book titled: "Shakedown". As a guest at the Michael Coren Show, he enumerated several rulings dished out by this quasi-judicial court that are absurdly laughable... and yet scary at the same time for it could easily happen to you or me.

Levant said he was able to fight because he had the money to spend and friends from the media that the HRC decided to back off. But a pastor in Vancouver did not have influential friends or the money so HRC easily quashed his rights. This pastor was ordered never to express his opinions regarding homosexuals in public or private, for life! Can you believe that??

Why is this happening in Canada? Why are we letting this happen in Canada?

SHAKEDOWN

By Ezra levant

“My new book about Canada's abusive human rights commissions, called Shakedown, will officially be released on March 24th.

I'm pretty excited about it: the informal feedback I've received from book reviewers who received early copies is pretty positive. It was a pleasure to write the book -- it's part of the fight to denormalize HRCs by winning the argument in the court of public opinion. The HRCs hate that: they prefer to operate in darkness, punctuated only by occasional cheerleading stories written about them by ideological dupes in the mainstream media. That era is over.

A year ago I made the decision not to let the "lawfare" being waged against me turn me into a sour crank. I knew if my readers could help me cover my enormous legal bills, I could stay positive, knowing I had public support and that if we just kept writing the truth about the HRCs, we'd win in the court of public opinion in the end. My goal was to be, to borrow the title of Mark Steyn's column in National Review, a "happy warrior".

I think I've got that tonal balance in Shakedown. There's a good helping of outrage in there. But I think Canada's HRCs are even more laughable than they are outrageous. Frankly, it's easy to mock them.

My goal is to get the whole country laughing at them, destroying their false respectability, and pressuring governments to act to reform or repeal them.”

http://ezralevant.com/2009/03/shakedown.html -

REVIEWED BY REX MURPHY

Globe and Mail Update

March 27, 2009 at 5:09 PM EDT

“Ezra Levant is the No. 1 advocate for, and defender of, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of thought in modern Canada. His story, and the reason he has written Shakedown, began with the now famous Danish "Mohammed" cartoons.

Levant made the case that since the cartoons were news, and were alleged to be the occasion that brought about such mayhem, his readers should actually be able to look at the cartoons themselves — to see the items that were said to be stirring such a storm. He was a publisher making a news judgment.

In Calgary, an imam, who claims to be a descendant of Mohammed — having first tried to have Levant arrested — made a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Thus began Levant's long, costly, surreal descent into the whirlpool of human-rights investigation and adjudication. In every case brought before Canada's HRCs, the complainant merely launches the action and bears no cost. The "target," if he doesn't not bend and break immediately, has to deal with the extended legal process and its government lawyers and functionaries.

It's very costly: $100,000 so far for Levant. As he has said very often: "The process is the punishment."

Levant didn't bend or break. Therein lies this tale.

Now, some people do not like Levant's style. They say he is too aggressive, too noisy and assertive, that he courts controversy and publicity. They should read Shakedown, and they will quickly realize that anyone less "aggressive" or "noisy" would have long ago been suffocated by the remorseless, inequitable, taxpayer-funded, bureaucratic grinding of Canada's human rights tribunals and commissions.

On the matter of his alleged taste for controversy and publicity, again, after reading Shakedown, they will realize that without his ability to withstand controversy and generate publicity, an insidious and largely unaccountable process of diminishing the central concepts of our democracy — freedom of speech, press and thought — would largely have gone unnoticed, and what is far worse, unchallenged.

Ezra Levant, for my taste, could be the love child (ideologically speaking) of Noam Chomsky and Ontario human-rights impresario Barbara Hall, but his indictment of the procedures, practices and ideology of Canada's human rights commissions, their Orwellian character, shameless amateurism and overweening reach is simply right. He has their number. He has experienced their practice. He has documented their absurdities and pettiness.

And he has — with courage and no little cost — stood up to them in a manner so straightforward and clear that he is positively un-Canadian. On this issue — Liberal, New Democrat, Conservative, Green — it should matter not. Were he to elope tomorrow with Jane Fonda, he would still be right, and I would still support him in this matter.

I read Shakedown and I am awed at Levant's persistence and powers of endurance.

Aside from the rigours of defending himself over three years, at costs that exceed $100,000 (for a complaint withdrawn almost on a whim toward the end of that marathon), he has also been sued on numerous occasions by his opponents, by members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission itself, and he has been put under a hail of complaints to the Alberta Law Society — in an effort to have him, for all his pains, disbarred.

In any other society, what Levant has endured would be seen and spoken of for what it is: a persecution. I wonder why the lawyers of Canada, particularly those of Alberta, have not seen this blizzard of lawsuits and complaints to the Law Society for what they are: attempts to shut Levant down by other means, payback for being "noisy" and "assertive" and "controversial" and refusing to accommodate the soft tyranny (not so "soft" now that I think of it) of provincial and federal tribunals and commissions.

I do not have the space adequately to summarize the arguments and examples that Levant has presented in Shakedown. But I will emphasize that it is a book of argument and examples. Levant is a clear thinker, a very patient researcher (reading the judgments of some of the more ludicrous cases ruled on by these tribunals calls for a mind of granite, a will of iron and a soul of steel) and an advocate of real courage.

Some of the particular cases he details — the case of the lesbian hecklers at the comedy club; the case of the Wiccan working at Boston Pizza who didn't like the rock music in the kitchen; the case of the Self-Medicating Pot Smoker who wanted to smoke in the doorway of Gator Ted's, a Burlington, Ont., pub, even though the patrons didn't like it and in Ontario there are those "smoke-free" regulations, leaving the owner of Gator Ted's on the prongs of two bureaucratic forks — are simultaneously absurd and frightening, Kafka dipped in Wodehouse. Welcome to the strange new world.”

Rex Murphy speaks freely as a commentator with CBC-TV's The National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...../home -

Edited March 29, 2009 by betsy

eyeball · March 29, 2009

Why is this happening in Canada? Why are we letting this happen in Canada?

Simple, Canadians have no meaningful controls over the state and the decisions it makes. Why is apparent in all the various threads that touch on issues like PR, mandatory voting, electoral reform etc. Note the majority in these threads are usually the first one's screaming bloody murder at things like HRCs. Actually I think they mostly just don't have a lot of use for human rights generally but perhaps I'm mistaken.

In any case its interesting that conservatives talk a mean streak about reforming the way we govern ourselves but when it comes right down to it they also want to leave the government just the way it is. Its wierd.

betsy · March 29, 2009

Simple, Canadians have no meaningful controls over the state and the decisions it makes. Why is apparent in all the various threads that touch on issues like PR, mandatory voting, electoral reform etc. Note the majority in these threads are usually the first one's screaming bloody murder at things like HRCs. Actually I think they mostly just don't have a lot of use for human rights generally but perhaps I'm mistaken.
In any case its interesting that conservatives talk a mean streak about reforming the way we govern ourselves but when it comes right down to it they also want to leave the government just the way it is. Its wierd.

Perhaps you need to look past political leanings. So you're saying we should just accept this?

betsy · March 29, 2009

How the Canadian Human Rights Commission violates the rule of law

By Ezra Levant on March 11, 2008

“this stunning internal Canadian Human Rights Commission document posted by Connie Fournier of Free Dominion. Here's her analysis. And here's mine:

Andrew Guille filed a "hate messages" complaint with the CHRC. He complained that a website called Recomnetwork.org, run by an "anti-hate" group, contained hateful messages that contravened section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, by discriminating against people based on race, colour, national origin, religion and sexual orientation.

So what happened? Did the "anti-hate" group in question, with all of the bigoted remarks on their website, become the first defendant ever to be acquitted in a section 13 trial? Or did Guille pull a Richard Warman -- slam-dunk a bigoted website and collect a few thousand dollars for bringing the complaint to the CHRC's attention?

Neither, actually. The CHRC refused to take the matter to a tribunal hearing, ruling it a frivolous complaint. But look at the grounds upon which this complaint was dismissed: Andrew Guille, said CHRC investigator Dean Steacy, is the "sibling of both Melissa and Chris Guille", who Steacy implies are racist. Steacy -- whose job it is to investigate complaints of bigotry -- indeed conducted an investigation. But not into the website and its hate messages. He investigated Guille himself. Steacy met with Sgt. Don McKinnon of the London Police Force to get the low-down on Guille; he spoke with "anti-hate" activists with their own axes to grind and books to sell. None of this was done under oath; none of this was done with Guille there to cross examine his defamers (or to challenge McKinnon's right as a government employee to disclose Guille's personal information without permission). But even those offensive procedures aren't the point: the point is the CHRC simply wouldn't accept a complaint from someone they didn't like, for the most tenuous and circumstantial reasons.

Even if their hunches and their gossip was right -- even if Guille was, himself, a racist -- so what? If a website is bigoted, isn't it the CHRC's job (an immoral job, an improper job, but their job nonetheless) to investigate it? Does the offensiveness of the site in question depend on the character of the complainant? Is the question of whether the Canadian Human Rights Act, a law of Parliament, is violated depend on who brings an alleged offence to the attention of the commission?”

http://ezralevant.com/2008/03/how-the-cana...man-rights.html -

Edited March 29, 2009 by betsy

Michael Hardner · March 29, 2009

Simple, Canadians have no meaningful controls over the state and the decisions it makes. Why is apparent in all the various threads that touch on issues like PR, mandatory voting, electoral reform etc. Note the majority in these threads are usually the first one's screaming bloody murder at things like HRCs. Actually I think they mostly just don't have a lot of use for human rights generally but perhaps I'm mistaken.
In any case its interesting that conservatives talk a mean streak about reforming the way we govern ourselves but when it comes right down to it they also want to leave the government just the way it is. Its wierd.

The controls we have are less obvious, but they're there. A lot of what the PR advocates bemoan, it just the fact that most people prefer the status quo. This is why revolutions are difficult to start.

I think the stories about HRCs are more likely to result in people shaking their heads to yet another boondoggle in action than taking up arms.

betsy · March 29, 2009

CHRC doesn't like complainant, so Steacy calls the cops!

"In April of 2006, Andrew Guille's complaint against Canadian Anti-racist Education and Research Society (CAERS), and their website www.recomnetwork.org was accepted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Although they admit, "CAERS appears to have technically violated section 13 of the Act by allowing postings containing hatred to appear on its website" , it is Dean Steacy's recommendation that the Commission not deal with this complaint. It is apparent that the fact that Richard Warman's buddy Alan Dutton and his CAERS organization were friends of the CHRC, (and on the government dole) was far more important to Mr. Steacy than whether or not they had actually violated the Human Rights Act.

The reasons

Steacy states that CAERS is a registered charity that "receives funding from both the federal and provincial governments and it has a long history of opposing racism. One of its projects is the operation of www.recomnetwork.org whose purpose is to track and monitor hate crime and provide solutions to racism."

CAERS receives government funding so they should be above investigation.

But, most frightening of all...

The most frightening part of the report from Dean Steacy relates to how the Commission invaded the privacy of the complainant. The Human Rights Act is supposed to protect the complainant from harassment, but we see in the official report that Dean Steacy himself began an investigation of Andrew Guille in an attempt to justify throwing out his complaint. He starts by naming members of Guille's family, and commenting on the unsavoury reputation of Guille's sister, Melissa.

Then Steacy writes, "On July 13, 2006, the investigator [steacy] interviewed Sgt. Don McKinnon of the London Police Force."

Steacy not only conducted an investigation of an innocent complainant, he went to the police about him!

"[sgt McKinnon] indicated that he also has pictures of Mr. Guille partying with white supremacists at several different rallies that they have held in southwestern Ontario."

By: Connie Fournier

www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1156179 - 95k

betsy · March 29, 2009

Kangaroo Canada

by Douglas Farrow

“These commissions (HRCs, for short) were set up in the 1960s and 1970s with the aim of combating discrimination on a practical level. In recent times, however, they have transmogrified into mechanisms for enforcing politically correct ideologies and silencing dissent. “It never occurred to us,” remarks Alan Borovoy, one of the originators of the HRCs, “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.”

That is exactly what has happened, through the mechanism of Section 13 of the Human Rights Act, which prohibits hate messages. Under Canada’s criminal code, the incitement of hatred is already counted a crime—but against that charge, truth and good faith are viable defenses, and the burden of proof lies with the accuser. Not so with the Human Rights Act. As James Allan, a law professor in Queensland, marvels: “To be in breach of these hate-speech provisions, you don’t have to counsel violence; you don’t have to urge discrimination; you don’t have to express hatred; you don’t even have to have said or written something that did, in fact, subject some group to hatred or contempt. All that is needed is that your comments, in the view of the sort of people chosen to staff these tribunals, are ‘likely’ to expose someone or some group to contempt or hatred.”

Allan, like many other bemused observers, refers to the HRCs as kangaroo courts. Their proceedings display a bouncy ineptitude and, simultaneously, a sinister level of collusion. Take, for example, Richard Warman, a former investigator for the national commission who decided that it was more fun to be the aggrieved victim of a human rights violation. He has filed twenty-six complaints so far, including more than half of Section 13 complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). What’s more, he has a perfect 100 percent conviction rate for these complaints.

These quasi-judicial bodies are staffed by political appointees who have neither the qualifications nor the independence of regular judges. Their ad hoc procedures provide no firm rules for evidence; bigoted comments, posted by strangers to websites in foreign jurisdictions, have been judged admissible, for example. No actual proof of harm is required in order to obtain a conviction. Investigations and deliberations are driven by far-reaching, utopian mandates to “reduce discrimination and promote social change.”

Rest of article available at: http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6260

DOUGLAS FARROW is associate professor of Christian Thought at McGill University and

author of several books, including Ascension and Ecclesia and Nation of Bastards .

http://blog.freedomsite.org/2008/08/first-...roo-canada.html - 97k -

Edited March 29, 2009 by betsy

betsy · March 29, 2009

SILENCING CHRISTIANS: The Gagging of Stephen Boissoin

By Michael Hoffman

"Anyone doubting the hatred of Canada's quasi-judicial human rights industry for Christianity should look at the ruthless gagging of a Red Deer, Alberta, Canada preacher Stephen Boissoin.

For writing a letter critical of homosexuality to the Red Deer Advocate, he had been ordered by the Alberta Human Rights Commission to pay a $7,000 fine, apologize for criticizing one of Canada's privileged minorities, (homosexuals) and never again in any venue or medium criticize homosexuals. He has, thus, been asked to renounce a key tenet of the Christian faith.

In times past, men and women have died rather than knuckle under to political correctness and renounce their faith. Rev. Boissoin is defiant and has vowed no apology and is appealing the outrageous decision. In a decision reminiscent of Red Chinese executing dissidents and then sending a bill for the bullet to the victim's family, Rev. Boissoin was ordered to compensate his persecutor to the tune of $5,000 for the time and effort he'd spent trying to gag the pastor."

[This article is from the upcoming issue of the Free Speech Monitor, November, 2008. The Free Speech Monitor is published by the Canadian Association for Free Expression and is available by subscription for $15 (10 issues annually) by writing to CAFÉ, P.O. Box 332, Rexdale, ON, M9W 5L3, Canada.]

http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2008...of-stephen.html - 81k –

tango · March 29, 2009

Ezra Levant had exposed the atrocities of the Human Rights Commission

betsy,

These are atrocities.

Curbing hate speech is not an atrocity. It is a means of preventing atrocities.

betsy · March 29, 2009

Gay Magazine: Abolish Human Rights Censorship

By Ezra Levant on February 11, 2009 10:11 PM

"I've noted many time, with admiration, that Egale, Canada's largest gay lobby group, has opposed section 13, the censorship provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Here's Egale's chief, arguing against censorship, even against anti-gay "haters".

Egale even went further; in the abominable case of Lund v. Boissoin, where a busy-body activist complained against a Christian preacher, and the Alberta human rights commission sentenced Rev. Boissoin to a lifetime ban against him preaching about sexuality, Lund had originally requested that Boissoin be fined, and that the fine by paid to Egale.

When Egale heard about this, they advised Alberta's HRC that they were utterly against such censorship, and would not accept the blood money. (Lund then chivalrously requested it for himself, and the commission happily agreed.)

In its latest issue, Xtra, the Canadian gay magazine, has "come out" against human rights censorship yet again. Here's the column. Some excerpts:

...the very nature of the right to free speech is that they get to say it. Then, the rest of us get to argue with them, denounce their views, call it drivel — basically, joust with words.

But, instead, now folks go racing to human rights commissions and say, "I'm offended."

...we may all have a right to free speech, but no one has a right to be published in the newspaper. A free press means that the folks who own and publish and edit the press get to back those decisions.

...The hate speech provisions create an incentive to bring a complaint, so that you can actually then attract attention to your claim that something is offensive.

Sorry, but this is crazy. Human rights commissions should not be censors. They should not be deciding just what words are too offensive for the Canadian public to hear. Imagine how gay presses might have fared over the years with these kind of laws, since lots of Canadians think that the stuff that gay people say is, well, totally offensive."

http://ezralevant.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search...;IncludeBlogs=1

Michael Hardner · March 29, 2009

As James Allan, a law professor in Queensland, marvels: “To be in breach of these hate-speech provisions, you don’t have to counsel violence; you don’t have to urge discrimination; you don’t have to express hatred; you don’t even have to have said or written something that did, in fact, subject some group to hatred or contempt. All that is needed is that your comments, in the view of the sort of people chosen to staff these tribunals, are ‘likely’ to expose someone or some group to contempt or hatred.”

Betsy,

From what I have read, a lot of what is wrong with the HRCs could be fixed by eliminating the political appointees, making the process more rigorous, and making it less onerous for the defendants to participate.

But here Professor Allen is talking about the hate law itself.

If " truth and good faith are viable defenses," then someone could conceivably publish pamphlets saying "The jews control the media", as long as they added " ... and this concerns me for the future of Canada."

eyeball · March 29, 2009

The controls we have are less obvious, but they're there. A lot of what the PR advocates bemoan, it just the fact that most people prefer the status quo. This is why revolutions are difficult to start.

Power to the HRC's, the Supreme Court and any similar judicial mechanisms if that's the case. These are the only real levers people have to effect change anymore. OTOH take them away and I suspect a revolution will be easier to start.

I think the stories about HRCs are more likely to result in people shaking their heads to yet another boondoggle in action than taking up arms.

You're only half right, I think these stories are intended to generate outrage which seems to be the only real force for change anymore.

This cuts both ways of course. Keep chipping away at the judicial levers and there will no end to the number of stories about the Robert Dziekanski's and Ashley Smith's of the world to keep people shaking their heads.

Michael Hardner · March 29, 2009

Furthermore, let's call a spade a spade here.

Boissoin did not simply write a letter "critical of homosexuality", he painted a picture of a wide homosexual conspiracy that is hell bent on legalizing paedophilia. He spoke of calling people to war, and an individual associated with his organization assaulted the plaintiff after the letter was published.

While I think that the philosophical discussion of free speech is vitally important here, I think it's equally important to understand the reality, so that the HRC's actions aren't taken out of context.

Michael Hardner · March 29, 2009

eb,

You're only half right, I think these stories are intended to generate outrage which seems to be the only real force for change anymore.

You wrote several things on this thread: Outrage is the only real force for change... and... Canadians have no meaningful controls... and ...the only levers to effect change...

It's unclear to me: If Canadians can change things when they become outrage, isn't that a meaningful control to effect change ?

betsy · March 29, 2009

Betsy,
From what I have read, a lot of what is wrong with the HRCs could be fixed by eliminating the political appointees, making the process more rigorous, and making it less onerous for the defendants to participate.

But here Professor Allen is talking about the hate law itself.

If " truth and good faith are viable defenses," then someone could conceivably publish pamphlets saying "The jews control the media", as long as they added " ... and this concerns me for the future of Canada."

Yes. I think it should be like a real judicial court. With necessary credentials and qualifications. And there should be accountability, after all these judges have the power to disrupt lives.

betsy · March 29, 2009

For those of you interested to tune in on that Michael Coren show with Ezra Levant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NQqjNkW21M

eyeball · March 29, 2009

eb,
You wrote several things on this thread: Outrage is the only real force for change... and... Canadians have no meaningful controls... and ...the only levers to effect change...

It's unclear to me: If Canadians can change things when they become outrage, isn't that a meaningful control to effect change ?

Its more haywire than meaningful, so are the results.

Michael Hardner · March 29, 2009

Yes. I think it should be like a real judicial court. With necessary credentials and qualifications. And there should be accountability, after all these judges have the power to disrupt lives.

Betsy,

The devil is in the details, though. These courts are set up to mediate the in-between cases, and not pursue criminal charges. That said, these proceedings can still cost a defendant a lot in terms of reputation, as well as time and money - so they need to be based in law and not politics.

In Ontario, Barbara Hall is known as a politician, and comes across as a politician, albeit a kindly doddering grandmotherly politician. As such, having her as Chief Commissioner of the OHRC clouds the objective of these commissions.

eyeball · March 29, 2009

Yes. I think it should be like a real judicial court. With necessary credentials and qualifications. And there should be accountability, after all these judges have the power to disrupt lives.

I agree these should be like real judicial courts. And there should be transparency, after all these judges need the power to disrupt the state when necesarry.

Argus · March 29, 2009

Simple, Canadians have no meaningful controls over the state and the decisions it makes. Why is apparent in all the various threads that touch on issues like PR, mandatory voting, electoral reform etc. Note the majority in these threads are usually the first one's screaming bloody murder at things like HRCs. Actually I think they mostly just don't have a lot of use for human rights generally but perhaps I'm mistaken.
In any case its interesting that conservatives talk a mean streak about reforming the way we govern ourselves but when it comes right down to it they also want to leave the government just the way it is. Its wierd.

There is what the Conservatives could do - and what they cannot do. There is no way the opposition would side with the Conservatives to hamstring the human resources industry. Quite the contrary. Most of the opposition is quite pleased with the Human Rights agencies, and if anything, want them further strengthened.

If the Conservatives tried to weaken them the united opposition would not only deny them, but would claim that this was further evidence of their assocation with extremist, right wing, neo nazi, fringe type philosophies, and that they're only doing it so their friends, the Nazis and white pride bunch, would be free to produce lots of hate literature against brown people.

Edited March 29, 2009 by Argus

Progressive Tory · March 29, 2009

Ezra Levant had exposed the atrocities of the Human Rights Commission in his book titled: "Shakedown". But a pastor in Vancouver did not have influential friends or the money so HRC easily quashed his rights. This pastor was ordered never to express his opinions regarding homosexuals in public or private, for life! Can you believe that??

I don't know who the Vancouver Pastor was, but he may be referrring to Bill Whatcott, a Catholic activist who received a lifetime ban on public criticism of homosexuality. He was from Ontario but was charged in Saskatchewan. Is there another one?

Mr. Whatcott was not banned because he simply spoke out against homosexuality. He incited hatred with graphic pamphlets and fear mongering rallies. He's an absolute nutcase. This was not about 'freedom of speech'.

The provincial Human Rights Commission noted Whatcott was "ordered to discontinue distributing any materials that promote hatred against people because of their sexual orientation."

"The material is offensive and it's an affront on the basic tenets of our society, which is about multiculturalism, tolerance and peaceful co-existence," Const. Steve Camp, of the Edmonton police hate crimes unit, said.

Was there another case?

Progressive Tory · March 29, 2009

Yes. I think it should be like a real judicial court. With necessary credentials and qualifications. And there should be accountability, after all these judges have the power to disrupt lives.

It's very easy for us to blame the HRC for trampling on our freedom of speech by citing high profile cases, but to me their aim is not to stop us from simply speaking our minds. They are called upon when individuals abuse their freedom of speech to incite hatred against an individual or a group of individuals. There is a big difference.

I might ask Ezra Levant how he feels about our freedom when Jason Kenney banned the British MP Galloway from entering the country, because of his ideas. Or how about making any criticism of Israel's role in the conflict in Gaza as anti-Semitism. Isn't that trampling on our freedom of speech or freedom to listen to ideas?

The Conservatives can't have it both ways. You either believe in freedom or you don't.

lictor616 · March 29, 2009

Ezra Levant had exposed the atrocities of the Human Rights Commission in his book titled: "Shakedown". As a guest at the Michael Coren Show, he enumerated several rulings dished out by this quasi-judicial court that are absurdly laughable... and yet scary at the same time for it could easily happen to you or me.
Levant said he was able to fight because he had the money to spend and friends from the media that the HRC decided to back off. But a pastor in Vancouver did not have influential friends or the money so HRC easily quashed his rights. This pastor was ordered never to express his opinions regarding homosexuals in public or private, for life! Can you believe that??

Why is this happening in Canada? Why are we letting this happen in Canada?

Our country was and still is inhibited by the fiction about "human rights," which are presumably ordained by some unnamed deity, so that we could not face the fact that there can be no rights except those a society, whether a tribe, a nation, or a country, bestows on its members and may deem it expedient to extend in part to such aliens as it tolerates in its midst. And in a multi-cultural and multiracial country, which is not a society but only congeries of biologically, culturally and psychologically incompatible individuals, there can be no actual rights, only minorities bartering and hustling for preferential treatment or only concessions its rulers deem it expedient to make at any given time.

Our courts have long been opposed to justice, but none more so then the travesty called "the human rights commission" ...

We have a Black-coddling and criminality-excusing justice system that is in the process of DESTROYING the hard earned freedoms given to us by earlier and saner candians.

I remember when blacks took to the streets of montreal when a raucous street thug "Freddy Villaneuva" jostled a female police officer of 115 pounds (who got her job probably thanks to affirmative action under the ruling of that same "human rights commission") for her pistol, and was shot down and murdered...

this caused an outrage among our dear sensitive minorities, and this made them riot and burn and rape and loot for a few days.

this was an instant wherein the commission caused the problem and made it impossible to implement a solution.

Our sacrosanct minorities naturally loot and destroy when they see a good opportunity or have a suitable pretext for tribal festivities. It was not at all remarkable that in Montreal packs of savages drove up in their taxis and cars they had been given, directly or indirectly, by canadian idiots, and looted and destroyed stores and even fire departments (!) right in front of cameras while the human rights comission of Quebec ordered the police not to be too rough with the little darlings. Our minorities contempt for the Canadian tax-paying animals that work for them is almost infinite and certainly justified.

The incidents in Montreal will, of course, be repeated frequently, greatly improved and on a continually enhanced scale in the near future. Eventually, even small "un-diverse" towns who are too backward to enjoy the echo of the recent festivities the Big Cities, will share in our country's progress toward the ideal status of what was Rhodesia and the new South Africa.

lictor616 · March 30, 2009

It's very easy for us to blame the HRC for trampling on our freedom of speech by citing high profile cases, but to me their aim is not to stop us from simply speaking our minds. They are called upon when individuals abuse their freedom of speech to incite hatred against an individual or a group of individuals. There is a big difference.
I might ask Ezra Levant how he feels about our freedom when Jason Kenney banned the British MP Galloway from entering the country, because of his ideas. Or how about making any criticism of Israel's role in the conflict in Gaza as anti-Semitism. Isn't that trampling on our freedom of speech or freedom to listen to ideas?

The Conservatives can't have it both ways. You either believe in freedom or you don't.

incite hatred?

what a perverse concept.

Anything can incite hatred... there is no such thing in western ethics or rational judicial systems of the West as a "hate speech"... the concept doesn't exist. You cannot prove to be victimized by one's WORDS. The concept is inimical to a free and rational secular society.

And The Self-Chosen People can hardly complain about "anti-Semitism," a term which is incorrectly made to mean disrespect for the most viciously anti-Semitic race/people in the world (Jews). If words have not become mere babble to excite emotions in lefty halfwits instead of tools of communication, Jews who are currently in the process of ethnically cleansing Palestine of other Semites (ie palestinians) are the "ANTI-SEMITIC incarnate".

And again, what in the world does it matter if a statement is anti-Semitic or unflattering to this or that group ... doesn't TRUTH trump emotions? Why is it better to be Politically COrrect then TRUTHFUL?

What you need to understand now is that when the organization of society that was called Communism in Russia and liberal 'Democracy' in Canada is fully operative, it, by its very nature, requires Thought Police, vigilant to detect and suppress symptoms of rationality among the herds of livestock.

And really when are we going to draw the line? Speaking truthfully about the apartheid regime in the gangster state of Israel warrants deportation and banishment from Canada!?

to those who are capable of reason and (like me) distressed about your prospects in the future, if you wish to speculate, estimate how long it will be before failure to kowtow before Jews will automatically entail death by torture...

does anybody else think we,ve had enough of this politically correct dopeytalk dumped in our laps?

capricorn · March 30, 2009

It's very easy for us to blame the HRC for trampling on our freedom of speech

Yes it's easy and that's what many people are saying.

I might ask Ezra Levant how he feels about our freedom when Jason Kenney banned the British MP Galloway from entering the country, because of his ideas.

Levant's views are readily accessible.

This case is an interesting intersection between free speech and national sovereignty and security.
Galloway is not a Canadian citizen; he does not have a right to come to Canada (nor any other rights guaranteed to our citizens). He would be a guest, and he is being turned away for security reasons.

Were he a citizen, he would have the right to spout his bigotry in Canada (but not to engage in material support for terrorists, which is a crime.) If he were a citizen, he would be allowed back home, and arrested for his crimes.

I don't see this as a free speech issue; I see it as a sovereignty issue -- keeping out an undesirable foreigner who has no right to be here, and who boasts about violating our criminal code.

http://ezralevant.com/