Time Immortal

Apparently, Ezra Levant’s interrogator at the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) — Shirlene McGovern — has quit:

I’m not sympathetic. I believe that any government bureaucrat who makes a living interrogating citizens about their political beliefs ought to be held in public contempt. McGovern truly doesn’t get it — she thinks what she does for a living is perfectly bland, just like her.

As I wrote in the Globe last month, at my interrogation, McGovern wanted to make small talk and shake my hand. I upset her by not being complicit in my own prosecution.

In the future, I suggest that, if asked at cocktail parties, McGovern tell people she has a less disreputable job — say, tax collector, or parking ticket issuer.

This is what denormalization means. Human rights commissions are bullies, even if their officer of the day is a spacey, middle-aged drone. Surely McGovern can find a less destructive career elsewhere in government or — heaven forbid, in the private sector.

Of course, Richard Warman is also an ex-employee of an HRC, and we all know how he turned out. McGovern may in fact be an even bigger problem on the outside of the system than she was on the inside. Or, perhaps, she’ll just go away quietly and find meaningful employment in an agency that does not make Censorship its mandate. One can only hope, for her sake and ours.

But, given their rather unambiguous statement on the value of freedom of expression, the Alberta Liberal Party is looking like a pretty good choice compared to Ed Stelmach’s Progressive Conservative party. Especially since Ed can’t seem to sort out his head from his butt when it comes to said same important issue:

“We have in the Province of Alberta a system where the Alberta Human Rights Commission, um, hears, ah, different cases that come forward, uh, under the Charter, and protection of human rights. I know that, ah, this is an issue that came as a result of some comments made, uh, and cartoons I believe with respect to the Muslim faith. Uh, and, uh, it’s–it’s most unfortunate because Alberta is a mosaic of many cultures, and, uh, our goal is here to, of course, the additional resources we put in to arts and culture that we bring — uh, just better understanding the various cultures in the Province of Alberta that we can live together in peace.”

Does anyone know what that means — other than the man politically responsible for the Alberta Human Rights Commission hasn’t got a clue?

His statement was one part free association, one part drivel, two parts political correctness and five or six empty cliches, all delivered with the hestitation of a deer caught in the headlights.

Ugh. What an embarrassment.

Islamist imam Syed Sohawardy has withdrawn his complaint against Mr. Levant’s publication of the Muhammed cartoons. Interestingly, he first announced this to the Calgary Herald editorial board; I can’t see the reasoning behind that move.

Ezra comments thusly:

If he’s really withdrawing the complaint, this is the first I’ve heard about it; and when I spoke with my lawyer this afternoon, the complaint was still proceeding against me.

It might be a lie — it wouldn’t be Soharwardy’s first, but then again, lying to an infidel newspaper isn’t immoral to someone like [Syed Soharwardy]. It’s called taqqiyah.

But even if Soharwardy withdraws his complaint against me, an identical complaint filed by the Edmonton Muslim Council still proceeds.

So why would Soharwardy do this — and why now?

The answer lies in another Arabic word: hudna. A hudna isn’t a peace treaty. It’s a temporary truce called by a Muslim warrior who’s losing in battle. It’s pretty easy to understand how hudnas work by watching Israel fight Hamas and Hezbollah. Those two terrorist groups lob rockets and send suicide bombers into Israel for months; then, every once in a while, Israel deploys its military and flattens Hamas and Hezbollah, who then call for a hudna. The UN intervenes, saving Hamas and Hezbollah to fight another day. That’s a hudna: a tactical truce for a strategic advantage.

Soharwardy wants a hudna because he’s losing badly. Not financially: he hasn’t spent a penny to further the complaint against me — that has been done courtesy of Ed Stelmach’s government and the taxpayers of Alberta, to the tune of $500,000, I’d guess. Nor has Soharwardy had to spend hundreds of hours battling against me at the commission — Alberta government employees do that for him. It’s because over the past two years — and the past month in particular — Soharwardy has become known for what he is: an Islamofascist imam, who’s trying to bring Saudi values to Canada. Though I’m being pummelled in a kangaroo court, he’s being pummelled in the court of public opinion. He didn’t expect it, and he hates it.

He hates that hundreds of bloggers ridicule him. He hates that my video clips, in which I describe his illiberal nature, have been viewed almost 500,000 times. He hates that his own enemies within his mosque have taken advantage of this media coverage to shine a light of scrutiny on the way he runs his mosque - from his financial irregularities, to his abusive treatment of women. These documents here, here, here and here, first published on my blog, have been viewed thousands of times and led to a series of newspaper items in the Calgary Herald and even the Washington Times. Soharwardy is embarrassed — as well he should be. He is no longer polite company. Now he’s known as a censor, a fascist, a sexist. He’s un-Canadian. And if the complaint against me goes to a tribunal, he’ll go through this again on a larger scale.

Two points to draw attention to. Firstly, this isn’t the only complaint that has been filed against Ezra Levant, and the other one is still in process. Secondly, by all indications, Syed Sohawardy has had a very sudden change of tune, since as little as two weeks ago he was threatening additional legal action against Mr. Levant. There’s not a great deal of room to draw breath over this issue, because the issue of Canadian Muslims abusing the already corrupt HRCs in an attempt to impose Saudi Arabian-style (or Iranian-style) Censorship is still very much at large. There’s also not a great body of evidence which suggests that there’s any merit or trustworthiness to Syed Sohawardy’s claim that he is withdrawing his complaint, and a much more substantial body of evidence which suggests that he’s telling another convoluted lie.

One more thing:

Well, back in the land of real laws and real rules of court, there’s a tort called “abuse of process“, and Soharwardy has just admitted to it.

Now, let’s reflect on something here. What the above means is that Ezra Levant will be pursuing legal action against Syed Sohawardy, to recover financial costs of having to defend himself against a spurious and unfounded human rights commission claim (that’s the way HRCs work, by the way — the plaintiff spends nothing, because it is a government “investigation”, while the defendant is responsible for his/her own legal fees), that is not to say that Levant is now employing in reverse the tactics that Sohawardy employed against him. In a civil court, both plaintiff and defendant pay their own way until a decision is reached — the case itself is judged on the merit of weight of evidence (not hurt feelings), and the loser will typically have to pay all or a portion of the winner’s legal fees. It’s a fair process, in other words, unlike a HRC tribunal.

Notes Jay Currie:

Now, no doubt the niceniks and the Kinsellians will moan about how Ezra will not give this ?Imam? a break and how mean Ezra?s being. Suing the man for abuse of process? How un-Canadian. I say go for it. It is well past time that people like this learn actions have consequences. Serious ones. A million dollars in damages? Go for it. It sends exactly the right message.

Personally, I say we’ve been tolerant enough in this country to last us all several lifetimes. If people wish to come to Canada and abuse the services and processes of the government to advance an Islamist agenda, it’s about time we stopped giving those abuses a pass and started hitting back. And given the choice, it’s better that we hit back with rhetoric and financial penalties — actual violence being substantially less preferable.

The Alberta Liberal Party stands up for freedom of expression:

The Alberta Liberal Party supports Mr. Levant’s freedom to express his opinions and to maintain, what the American Supreme Court termed, “the marketplace of ideas“. If citizens and publishers don’t maintain the limits of their freedoms it would bring about a chill in fundamental freedoms which could adversely affect all Canadians. The Alberta Liberal Party shares the opinion expressed in Ross v. New Brunswick School District No.15; when discussing the importance and limits of expression, Justice La Forest opined in s. 2(b):

“…[freedom of expression] is not restricted to views shared or accepted by the majority, nor to truthful opinions. Rather, freedom of expression serves to protect the right of the minority to express its view, however unpopular such views may be…”

I think it would be fair to ask every Progressive Conservative candidate what his or her party’s take on this issue is. Freedom of expression is, frankly, a substantially more important issue than oil revenues.

Albertan voters are so fickle, though…Ed Stelmach may enjoy approximately 10% higher popularity ratings than Liberal leader Kevin Taft, but that seems to have less to do with his policies than it does with the fact that he’s from this area of the province. It was the same, although in reverse, with Ralph Klein.

Ezra Levant’s proposed new initiative:

A couple of weeks ago I wrote on my personal blog about the need for Canadian bloggers to form a mutual aid society to protect themselves from unwarranted attacks on their freedoms.

I have recently experienced one form of those attacks — an out-of-control government ‘human rights commission’ grinding me through a punitive, costly and arbitrary process for two years because I published cartoons that allegedly hurt someone’s feelings. And I’ve observed the other form, much more frequently: in the past few weeks alone, I’ve seen 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 baseless threats of defamation against Canadian bloggers (plus 6, 7 against me), none of which have real merit, but all of which are designed to frighten bloggers (usually conservatives) into censoring themselves.

The common thread amongst all of these threats is that they’re not legitimate legal actions to remedy a real tort committed by bloggers. The blog posts in question all contain true facts and fair comments; no real defamation action lies against any of them. These threats are intimidation tactics — bullying — dressed up in legal robes.

And, unfortunately, they often work. Not because bloggers make a thoughtful decision, with competent legal advice, that they ought to retract a truly false and defamatory statement, but because bloggers make a panicked decision, without legal advice, in fear of the cost and hassle of a lawsuit, and in the hopes of appeasing the threatener. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about this sort of thing.

He’s even got his first case, before the Union has been formalized.

One one hand, it’s sad that something like this has to be announced and advanced. Not that it’s without its reasons or justifications, of course, and certainly in Canada bloggers like myself have more than ample reason to fear the possibility of frivolous legal action. More importantly, bloggers like myself are, for the most part, not legal experts, and won’t be well-equipped (as a general rule) if in fact someone like Warren Kinsella or Richard Warman files a suit (or a human rights complaint) against us. In that regard, at least, the need not only for a legal defence fund, but for legal advice, is obvious.

On the other hand, though, something like this could also serve as a focal point for the /HRC issue in Canada for as long as it takes to resolve the manner in the only acceptable way (i.e. the complete dissolution of HRCs in Canada, and the removal of Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act). Disparate blogs commenting on the issue are all well and good, but a concrete organization devoted to freedom of expression is even better.

Victor writes in a few words of encouragement.

I found your site through freemarksteyn. According to the
last post I read (the cab drivers and inconvenience* store owners) you seem to be losing readership over your outspoken views on Islam. You’ve also gained one, if that’s any consolation, please keep up the good work.

I attend Ryerson in Toronto, where our student union president made moonbat notoriety by joining forces with the [Osgoode Hall] 4, and giving them a public platform from which to whine about their victim-status to my fellow Ryersonians (Mike Brock covered it well at noncogent.blogspot.com). Seeing that shit for 4-8 hours a day, seeing ‘celebrate diversity’ posters with every flag of the middle east (except Israel) beside defaced posters for the school Christian club, well…I sometimes feel the world is upside down. I appreciate doeses of sanity from sites like yours.

Thanks.

Well, Victor, you are more than welcome. The issue of losing readers doesn’t much bother me, although the concern is appreciated. There have been times in the past where I’ve racked up a couple thousand visits in a week, and there are times when I’m lucky to have a few hundred. It is, as Victor notes, a case of ebb and flow…but equally, it is also a non-issue. At the end of the day, I write this blog for myself; if other people derive value from something I say, that’s a bonus, but hardly a requirement. That said, it is always nice to get feedback and to hear that something I’ve written reaches people.

I’m sorry to hear of how set upon Victor sometimes feels at Ryerson, especially because that is something that our progressive “betters” would have us believe they desire all people to be free from feeling. I suppose that the bigotry is still acceptable when it is directed at Christianity, or when it is directed at Jews in a subtle way.

This brings me back to something. Yesterday was, yet again, an interesting time of reflection, and reading the above rather adds to it.

On the face of it, we who live in Canada are really lucky. Really, really lucky. Oh, sure, our government operates censorship commissions (HRCs); and sure, we don’t have the right to private property enshrined in our Charter; and sure, our health care system is bloated and failing; and sure, pretty much every politician we’ve elected in the last 30 years has been hot for gun control. Let’s take all that as granted. We’re still pretty lucky.

We live in one of the biggest, most resource-rich countries in the world, but our population is only slightly higher than that of the capital city of Mexico (and our population density is, for the most part, negligible by comparison to almost everywhere else in the world). We’re more or less free from the burdens of war, famine, poverty, terrorism, and disease that ravage so many other places in the world, and we’re even pretty safe from most natural disasters that befall other places in the world. Yeah, the weather sometimes throws us into the deep freeze, but that’s okay; the variety is good, and it makes us a hardy lot for the most part.

My interesting reflection added one thing to the above: it was that here in Alberta, we seem to be even luckier. It’s with no small amount of relief that I observe that out here, I’ve rarely if ever witness people defacing the posters for the ’s Christian groups, and even the pro-life group’s posters have remained mostly intact (including the huge one that they recently hung in a major student traffic area). The student council has remained mostly non-radical, and in my last year the student president was a practicing Catholic and all-around reasonable guy. One of the busiest lectures held on campus every year is given by a Christian, presenting on the issue of the science-Religion dialogue. And around Christmas time, traditional carols are sometimes sung by choirs inside the provincial Legislature, and a Nativity Scene can be found in the annex thereof.

It seems that such freedoms are becoming a rare thing in other parts of the country. And that is, I think, a lamentable wrong, and hardly befitting a free, Western nation with as proud a heritage as Canada’s. Still, it is wonderful to hear of people continuing to persevere, as Victor does, in the face of the “soft” bigotry of progressives. Canada needs as many people like that as it can get.

So in turn, Victor, thank you. It can be too easy, sometimes, to lose heart, and I hope that you never do.

Update: Actually, since this whole Mark Steyn/Ezra Levant/HRC fracas started, my traffic has tripled. That’s not saying all that much, given that back in December of last year I was averaging about 20 visits a day. But according to Google, I’m up to 61.56 visits/day over the last month, and that’s pretty cool. Admittedly, that’s only about half the traffic that another site that I run gets, but hey…even a single visitor is cool, I think. I’ll take 60 when it happens though, given that it’s about 60 more than I’m ever expecting to get on any given day of the week.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!