Time Immortal

Here are two examples of his salient, clear and rational thinking on issues facing Canada today.

First, on the nature of the committee decision that saw Henry Morgentaler awarded with the Order of Canada:

Like many, many, many Canadians, I took the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to membership in the Order of Canada — proclaimed on “Canada Day” — as a stick in the eye for everything we believe in. As a gratuitous insult to the memory of three million aborted babies.

It was intended as that.

…

A very dark thing was done, as such things are always done — in a very dark way.

Yet I think it may be for the best, in a longer view of things.

We might often grumble that the “ruling class” in Canada — the smug, self-serving, “progressive” political, legal, academic, and media elites, including that prime example in Rideau Hall — belong to some other world than the one from which they suck taxes. But seldom is there an event so stark, that we see them as they are. The Morgentaler award revealed that to so many Canadians.

The whole issue of Morgentaler getting the Order of Canada smacks of duplicity. It was obviously not a popular choice for many Canadians, and (what is more) the Governor General’s office had explicitly denied, back in February of this year, that he was being considered for the award.

The sudden reversal is enough to give one whiplash.

And as noted here and elsewhere, the decision to award Morgentaler — ostensibly for humanism — was not unanimous, a first for the committee that decides who does and does not receive the Order. At every step of the way, it seems, there has been a slippery, eel-like activity that has brought this travesty about, and perhaps that is somehow fitting for someone of Morgentaler’s character.

It’s still repugnant, and tells us something very troubling indeed about those who are “in charge” of this nation.

But then, we knew that much already from the travesty of the human rights commissions, and Mr. Warren has something very profound to say about them as well:

In the course of this last grim week, the Ontario government of Dalton McGuinty quietly announced a huge expansion of the , giving its apparatchiks enhanced powers of intrusion, removing the cap on fines, providing a new class of lawyers to assist in prosecutions, and opening 22 new “hearing and mediation rooms” around the province where these star chambers will conduct their quasi-legal proceedings.

As a writer who does not subscribe to the “politically correct” ideology, it is reasonable to expect that, sooner or later, they will come for me. Of course I also realize that, in making this statement, I will be mocked by the usual leftwing jackals. But in light of what has already happened in this province and country, my assertion is reasonable. Moreover, I write with the sincerity of a man who has already tasted the New Canadian tyranny, and the threat of imprisonment without due process, under the feminist rewrite of Ontario family law.

I was born a free citizen of the Old Canada, and before her God I declare, that I will go to jail rather than acknowledge the legitimacy of any “human rights” commission. I invite other journalists and indeed, every other Canadian, to declare likewise.

In the wake of Canada Day, one could not ask for a more stirring call to action than that; if there is anything left to feel proud of in Canada, it is that some Canadians — like David Warren, like Ian Hunter — are still able to articulate a clear moral standard in opposition to the received wisdom of the day, to the wind-blown sentiments of progressivism.

I take Mr. Warren’s closing sentences as my own here.

Update: Welcome, UnAborted readers!

Not exactly a surprise: just the latest in a string of lawsuits directed at Mr. Levant. He feels that the suit will probably fail, but notes that it is only because of the generous support of the blogosphere that he is even able to afford to defend himself against all the ligitation and HRC filings directed at him.

One cannot help but get the feeling that Ezra is in the middle of a targeted, concerted effort to destroy him — financially, if in no other way. And one cannot help but get the sense that there is a certain inter-connectedness to the various legal filings against him — one notes that in the official notice of suit received by Mr. Levant, the barristers in question identify themselves as “Solicitors for Richard Warman.”

Conicidence?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The CHRC has dismissed the complaint against Catholic Insight magazine filed by Edmontonian homosexual activist Rob Wells.

Deb Gyapong has some preliminary details (check the link, above), with more promised, but for now let it be sufficient to say that this is a major victory for the right to religious expression in Canada. And it may also be a sign that the CHRC is beginning to feel the heat that us freespeechers are giving it — they are much more wary, it seems, concerning which cases to pursue. And if so, that’s a very good thing indeed.

Score one (more) for the good guys.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Ezra Levant has been doing some research, and has noted that there seem to be quite a lot of parallels between modern Canadian human rights commissions and their medieval counterparts. Not surprisingly, the most striking parallels concern the original Star Chamber from around 1632.

For example:

I was fascinated to learn that, among its other victims, entire juries were tried in the Star Chamber if they didn’t render the politically appropriate verdict.

But the most striking analogy was a Star Chamber order of 1632, which is a template for the show trial of Maclean’s magazine of 2008.

According to Wikipedia, 1632 is when the Star Chamber:

…banned all “news books” because of complaints from Spanish and Austrian diplomats that coverage of the Thirty Years’ War in England was unfair. As a result, newsbooks pertaining to this matter were often printed in Amsterdam and then smuggled into the country, until the ban was lifted six years later.

So foreign trouble-makers who objected to free speech and who insisted on politically correct versions of current events managed to censor the news. Plus ca change.

But wait, it gets better:

I have found a legal precedent that the BCHRT can use to convict [comedian Guy Earle] even if his jokes were funny. Especially if his jokes were funny!

I spent some time today reading a book I found on Google Books. (It’s an amazing resources; not only has Google scanned countless books, included old and rare books, but they’ve made those books text-searchable.) I was reading a book called The Star Chamber, published in 1880, that contained hundreds of decisions of that court. It also has a very interesting preface, that describes that court’s descent from a well-intentioned idea — a court big and tough enough to take on law-breaking bishops and sherriffs who would be impervious to justice of regular courts — into a corrupt political tool used to destroy the kings enemies, and confiscate their wealth.

The book has a readable summary of hundreds of cases. In it, I read a footnote about someone fined “severlie”, not for telling an offensive joke — but for laughing at it.

I couldn’t find the case of the illegal laugher, but I found a reference to it in a defamation judgment in another old book of Star Chamber cases. It starts on page 149, and the reference to the laugher is on page 152…

It’s nice to know that Canadian justice has caught up with the rest of the world and adopted 17th century standards of jurisprudence.

I’m reminded of a Ron White joke when I read this. Talking about some reform to death penalty law in Texas, White quipped: “Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty. My states’ puttin’ in an express lane.”

*sigh*

Learning that the is going to skip the vetting process for complaints entirely, which means that all complaints will now be referred directly to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal instead, is not happy news to hear in the wake of Canada’s 141st year.

Until now, the Ontario Human Rights Commission acted as a gatekeeper. It would vet complaints, and decide whether or not to send them on for a hearing at the Human Rights Tribunal.

The commission only dismissed about 7 per cent of complaints, referring 93 per cent for a hearing. That was a rather low bar to jump, but somehow this arrangement caused delays. With the processing of cases through the commission bureaucracy and a shortage of adjudicators, a large backlog accumulated. A typical case took about five years to be heard and decided.

Henceforth, the commission will have nothing to do with specific complaints. It will be “proactive,” that is, it will be rather like a free-floating royal commission or public inquiry, choosing its own assignments, armed with daunting powers of search and seizure. Earlier this year, the commission anticipated this role in two separate episodes, showing itself too ready to attribute racism both to rural Ontarian anglers and to Maclean’s magazine (and its contributor Mark Steyn), without evidence that went through the test of a hearing.

Complaints will now go directly to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. The government is adding to the number of adjudicators. Moreover, where once the commission’s staff shepherded complaints, in their stead the new legislation has established the Human Rights Legal Support Centre. Though the estimable Raj Anand (a former head of the commission) will be its chair, this amounts to a firm of lawyers provided free to human rights complainants by the public purse.

Yeah, I’m sure that will improve things.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The Alberta Human Rights Commission hasn’t quite gotten to that point, and so is not quite on par with e.g. the government of Iran. However, it should be noted that the lengths that the AHRC is demanding that Christians go to in order to distribute materials or host a teaching retreat certainly smacks of the various controls and pressures that the Soviet state exerted on the Russian churches.

Consider:

The couple was very concerned about their freedoms here in Canada because they’re offering a teaching on Biblical sexuality that is based in the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) and a small part of their teaching does address homosexuality as sin. They were thinking about cancelling due to risk of prosecution but I encouraged them to keep it in the church and they should be ok. Still apprehensive, the couple decided to contact the Alberta Human Rights Commission to enquire about the legalities surrounding their presentation. You can read the phone log of the conversation with Ralph Roman an officer of the AHRC below.

An interesting point here is that this couple was advised by Ralph Roman to get a lawyer to draft a consent form and to also have the person declare that they will keep it private and not make the information public.” …PLUS…, she was advised to have the curriculum reviewed by the Police. Ralph Roman went on to inform her that even with a consent form there was still no guarantee that a complaint could not be filed IF someone was offended….like a teacher for instance.

…

He said the following recommendations were the responsibility of the people who invited me, not my responsibility.

2. Ask the church to get a signed consent form from everyone, parents and children, everyone, stating that they are not forced to attend and are there of their own free will. Later he added that this consent should be drawn up by a lawyer who is familiar with the human rights Laws.

…

4. The church needs to contact the education people and take a curriculum of the program and demonstrate that it is an educational program that is not unwelcome by the group there and everyone is there by consent. Also, the church needs to ask the education people if a license is required. At this point Ralph was uncertain and seemed to think a license would be helpful if problems occurred.

5. The church needs to contact the police to make sure they do not view the program as bordering on criminal activity—need to show them the curriculum so they know what is going on and do not arrive on the scene.

I told Ralph I would be dealing with the “hookup mentality” of this generation and teaching abstinence. He said that is a religious belief that lots of people have, but it cannot be forced on anyone and not taught to anyone who is not a part of the group.

I then told Ralph that the church had already distributed a CD of mine to each of their families to prepare for the retreat that had some statements on it about homosexuals. He said that they needed a consent form from each family that this was not unwelcome material and that their kids would not be talking about any of it in the schools.

Welcome to Alberta. You have papers, yes? Papers please!

So now it appears that it is legitimate for the state (here taken to mean the province of Alberta) to infringe upon, and to regulate, religious expression, subjecting each and every aspect of it to supervision and approval by the relevant state organ?

Good gravy…what country is this?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dropped the complaint against Maclean’s magazine. This is a good and welcome development in the debate over freedom of expression in Canada, although one is left to wonder at why Jennifer Lynch and her CHRC actually went about dropping the case in the first place.

Mark Steyn notes the official reasoning that was given:

The Steyn article discusses changing global demographics and other factors that the author describes as contributing to an eventual ascendancy of Muslims in the ‘developed world’, a prospect that the author fears for various reasons described in the article. The writing is polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Overall, however, the views expressed in the Steyn article, when considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature as defined by the Supreme Court in the Taylor decision. Considering the purpose and scope of Section 13 (1), and taking into account that an interpretation of s. 13 (1) must be consistent with the minimal impairment of free speech, there is no reasonable basis in the evidence to warrant the appointment of a Tribunal.

For these reasons, this complaint is dismissed.

And Maclean’s official statement in reaction to this dismissal (linked to above), notes:

Maclean’s magazine is pleased that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed the complaint brought against it by the Canadian Islamic Congress. The decision is in keeping with our long-standing position that the article in question, “The Future Belongs to Islam,” an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s best-selling book America Alone, was a worthy piece of commentary on important geopolitical issues, entirely within the bounds of normal journalistic practice.

The Maclean’s statement, however, also continues the indictment against the HRCs:

Though gratified by the decision, Maclean’s continues to assert that no human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial decisions of the nation’s media. And we continue to have grave concerns about a system of complaint and adjudication that allows a media outlet to be pursued in multiple jurisdictions on the same complaint, brought by the same complainants, subjecting it to costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to say nothing of the inconvenience. We enthusiastically support those parliamentarians who are calling for legislative review of the commissions with regard to speech issues.

The question could be raised as to why the CHRC decided to back down on this issue. Could it perhaps have anything to do with the fact that the RCMP are investigating the Commission (in regard to, among other things, hacking into a private citizen’s wireless network in order to surf white supremacist websites)? Could it be the brutal beating the Commission has taken in the media, and on the blogs? Could the Privacy Commissioner’s investigation have had anything to do with it? Could the attention being given to e.g. Bill M-446 have played a role?

The CHRC has been under a lot of pressure, and one kind of begins to suspect that they may have issued this dismissal in an effort to appear magnanimous. Personally, I don’t buy it for a second — I think they are looking to regroup, but not to fundamentally change anything about the way they operate. This is little more than skin-saving.

Still, a victory is a victory, and good news is good news. This is both, I think.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!