timeimmortal

Mark Mercier, in the Nova Scotia Chronicle-Herald, gives a brief historical refresher on Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

It’s…rather shameful to have to admit that Canadians should have seen the present HRC fracas coming almost twenty years ago.

Canadians heard a long time ago, at least as long ago as 1990, that they are not free to speak their minds as they see fit. 1990 was the year the Supreme Court of Canada ruled constitutional Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Section 13 says that it is “a discriminatory practice” to communicate “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

…

A person of sense in 1990 could easily have predicted that s. 13 would soon be used, as it has indeed come to be used, to bully people away from saying what sitting commissioners happen not to want to hear.

The Supreme Court had three people of sense on it in 1990. The Court upheld the constitutionality of s. 13 by a mere 4-3 majority.

The Justices who got their way discounted their colleague’s fears. As long as authorities remember that hatred and contempt are extreme feelings, they said, and keep in mind that the purpose of the Act is to overcome discrimination, and not to censor speech, Canadians have no reason to fear that a chilly climate for opinion will descend on the country or that s. 13 will be used to control the expression of opinion and emotion. These Justices neglected the sage advice never to make a law that requires intelligence or goodwill on the part of those who administer it.

Happily, Keith Martin, the member of parliament for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, a riding on Vancouver Island, has introduced into the House of Commons a private member’s motion, M-446, to delete s. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Unhappily, the matter of s. 13 hasn’t yet become a political issue. Unless a political party takes it up, M-446 will languish, and unless Canadians make s. 13 a political issue, no party will take up M-446. We need to communicate to politicians our support for M-446.

I don’t think it can be said any clearer than that. If, as Canadians, we value freedom — which means valuing freedom even for those we perhaps find distasteful — then the only option is to support Bill M-446. If we fail to do so, we knowingly abdicate any future claim to be free people.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

MP Dan McTeague has given his support to Dr. Keith Martin’s Bill M-446.

Way to go, Mr. McTeague — thank you for standing up in support of this important human rights issue!

Now, if only a couple of Conservative MPs would follow suit…

Erf writes in with a request for a bit more information about the Facebook group I mention in this article.

Since at least some of your readers (such as myself) aren’t on Facebook and therefore can’t look at the group you linked to, would you mind telling us a little more about them? It sounds like there’s a group of people who oppose government Censorship and are trying to stop such a censorship bill from passing. (I’ve heard about this bill, and it’s pretty bad news for small filmmakers.) What about the group has convinced you that (a) they’re liberals, (b) they’re whiny, and (c) they’d still support stuff like the HRCs? The last in particular sounds like quite a jump. if a bunch of liberals are supporting freedom of speech, I thought you’d be pleased.

While I am generally happy to see people standing up for freedom of expression, I utterly despise people who pick and choose which freedoms of expression to stand up for — on the subject of fundamental human rights, I’m very much “all or nothing” and cannot stand to see a person at one moment advocating for his or her right to speek freely, while in the next breath advocating for some manner of restriction on another person’s right to do same.

And I do happen to think this group, unfortunately, is comprised mostly of people who act in that exact way. I joined the group for all of five minutes and asked, on the group’s “Wall” (sort of an open chatbox concept) whether anyone who opposed Bill C-10 likewise supported MP Dr. Keith Martin’s Bill M-446, which would see subsection 13(1) removed from the Canadian Human Rights Act, ending the particular form of government censorship that we call the human rights commissions.

I’ve left the group already, but I keep checking back on it from time to time. As yet, I’ve yet to receive a reply to my question.

But let’s take Erf’s questions in order, O Reader.

First, why do I suspect that the group is comprised of liberals? Well, apart from the fact that it was founded by a political science professor, and aside from the fact that all of the people on my friends list who have joined are of a liberal political bent, I have no concrete evidence. But gut feeling and experience suggest to me that if one did a survey of the group’s membership, the predominant majority would be of a left-wing bent (especially if the trends I have seen among the people on my own friends list can be taken as any kind of indicator).

Second, why do I classify the group as whiny? Well, let’s begin by taking a look at the group’s “charter”:

http://ualberta.facebook.com/profile.php?id=120403672

WHAT THIS GROUP IS FOR:

This group is for people who are *opposed* to the provisions in Bill C-10 relating to tax credits for film and TV production, and who want to work together fight the Bill. Purposes of this group include:

* Supporting one another in writing letters of protest about Bill C-10 (see info below).

* Organizing demonstrations and other forms of action to oppose the Bill (see Discussion Board).

* Keeping track of the progress of Bill C-10 through the legislative process, so that our activism can be well directed.

WHAT THIS IS GROUP NOT FOR:

This group is not for arguments against public funding of the arts in Canada. It is not for bashing people who oppose Bill C-10. It is not for talking about other issues that people should be concerned about instead of Bill C-10. If you are not sure whether this is the group for you, please see the Terms of Use below.

We don’t want to constrain others’ speech; we just want to be able to use this group to plan political action against C-10, and don’t want to get sidetracked. We’ve created another group if you want to discuss whether C-10 is a good idea, whether the arts in Canada should be funded at all, etc. This group is called “What’s so bad about Bill C-10?” and is at http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=8184619495

WHAT IS BILL C-10?

Bill C-10 is a long, omnibus bill of technical changes to tax laws; but hidden away in there is a provision that would allow the Heritage Minister to withhold tax credits if a production was considered ‘contrary to public policy’. We are opposed to this legislation because:

* IT IS UNDEMOCRATIC: This controversial new provision to screen the content of productions in awarding tax credits was never debated in the House of Commons, because it was hidden away in a long, technical piece of legislation.

* IT WILL HAVE EXTREMELY NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON THE WHOLE CANADIAN FILM AND TV INDUSTRY: Films and TV programs apply for tax credits late in the game, after scripts have been written and principal photography completed. They use the predictability of tax credits to apply for federal subsidies, loans, and Telefilm Canada grants. With the proposed new guidelines, films and TV programs with even a whiff of controversy will become risky for funders, and artists will be under strong pressure to self-censor. Indeed, all productions will find it more difficult to secure financing due to this uncertainty. See these discussions for details: http://facebook.com/topic.php?uid=9036150977&topic=4369 and http://ualberta.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=9036150977&topic=4388

* IT FEELS LIKE A COVERT ATTEMPT TO IMPOSE A RIGHT-WING CULTURAL AGENDA ON CANADIAN FILM AND TV: The Tories’ evangelical base is celebrating the new legislation as a victory: the Globe and Mail reports that “Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and ‘numerous’ meetings with officials in the Prime Minister’s Office. ‘We’re thankful that someone’s finally listening,’ he said yesterday. ‘It’s fitting with conservative values, and I think that’s why Canadians voted for a Conservative government.’ ‘There are a number of Conservative backbench members that do a lot of this work behind the scenes,’ he said.”

See Items Posted for links to news stories that will tell you much more about the Bill.

Incidentally, the last point above might also support my theory that the group is predominantly liberal in its outlook. Notice, O Reader, how willing the group is to denigrate Bill C-10 as a method of imposing a “right-wing cultural agenda” — “right-wing” being a negative thing here (and the implication thus being that “left-wing” is preferable).

But let’s unpack the first two claims made about Bill C-10.

First, is it undemocratic? Well, no…it’s not being imposed by a judge, after all (which would truly be undemocratic, since judges are unelected). Instead, it is a bill which must pass through multiple votes in the (elected) Legislative Assembly of Canada — the same Legislative Assembly that was democratically elected by the people of Canada. And even if the bill passes, future governments always have the option to strip out the amendments made in it. There is nothing undemocratic about this bill.

Second, will it have negative effects? Reading through the charter above, one gets the strong sense that the founder of the group feels that Canadian filmmakers are entitled to government funding, but that the government has no business saying what content it feels comfortable funding in Canadian films. That’s a bit of a double standard, methinks. But really, is that not the government’s right? If the government is going to be expected to fork over dollars for the development of television programs and films that do not have enough private funding on their own, shouldn’t the government be able to say whether or not it feels that a television program or film is something it would be comfortable to support? Canadian citizens have that right — we cannot be compelled to hand over money to causes we do not support (I will note that federal funding of abortion is one exception to that statement), nor can we be compelled to pay money to see a movie we would rather not see. That’s one of the cornerstone principles of a free and democratic society: that the people can choose what to support, and what not to support, based on an individual set of criteria.

Why shouldn’t the government of a free and democratic nation have the same right?

I’ve read through the discussions taking place in this Facebook group, and most of them seem to devolve into condemnations of conservative politics and religious belief. One would think, reading some of the comments, that Canada is only a couple of days away from becoming a formal theocracy, and then a fascistic one.

But when I read the actual text of the bill itself, all I see is the government saying that it won’t automatically support all television programs or films produced in Canada, that it would rather not support a Canadian-produced movie like Young Teens F***ing (you think I’m making that up, don’t you?).

These complaints are based on sensationalism and deliberate distortion of the facts. They are, in a word, whiny, and much more than that as well.

Now, in response to Erf’s third question, why I think the group would nevertheless support Section 13 being kept in the CHRA…well, I do seem to have already answered that, and I am still waiting on a reply to my question about Dr. Keith Martin and Bill M-446. But it one takes a stroll through the many and various liberal-minded Canadian blogs out there, one tends to note that in many corners, the response to Bill M-446 is extremely negative, even (and perhaps especially) on blogs that oppose Bill C-10. I would find it difficult to believe that the membership of this group thinks differently about the issue.

I would bet good money that pretty much every member of this Facebook group (”Keep your censoring hands off of Canadian film and TV! No to Bill C-10!”) would nevertheless support keeping subSection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) intact, and would condemn Liberal Party MP Dr. Keith Martin as an associate and abettor of hatemongers and Nazis.

In other words, another pack of whiny little liberals who have the physiological appearance of being all grown up, but who have the capability for rational thought of elementary-level schoolchildren.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

I interviewed Keith Martin again today. He said support within the Liberal caucus for his motion is “huge.”

Stephane Dion has not talked to him about it, or asked him to withdraw it. Only a couple of Liberal members raised concerns, but no one has asked him to remove the motion.

“There is enormous support within caucus and across party lines,” he said.

Stay tuned.

P.S. Check the Dion link, because the one time he is on the record talking about the Martin motion, he is not in favor.

Good to hear.

Did you know that, O Reader?

…But the surprise came from Duffy himself: he reminded viewers that the Canadian Human Rights Act does not apply to Canadian Indians. Right now, section 67 of the CHRA explicitly exempts Indian reserves from the application of the law.

This has been a long-time grievance of Aboriginal women, not because they have a hankering to file complaints about “hurt feelings” under the (recently-added) “hate speech” provisions of the Act, but because there has historically existed on many Indian reserves significant, real discrimination — such as the wholesale disenfranchisement of women who marry non-Indians, cutting them off from government funds and other rights as band members. Unlike for the rest of us who live in a free society, the libertarian solution to discrimination — simply move on to another restaurant, apartment, job, etc. — doesn’t work when the entire economy, and all property, are owned communally and are apportioned by fiat by chiefs and councils. That’s how it works under Canada’s Indian Act.

And guess what? Just last week, Liberal MPs tried to delay a Conservative initiative to extend the Canadian Human Rights Act to Indian reserves. Liberal Anita Neville showed the soft bigotry of low expectations, arguing that Indians just aren’t culturally ready for the kind of laws that apply to the rest of us.

Ms. Neville said there’s “a real ideological divide” over the issue of individual versus collective rights in the repeal legislation. “There doesn’t seem to be, on the part of the government, a willingness to respect the tradition of collective rights for First Nations on reserve.”

So, in the same week that we have Stephane Dion demanding that his MP, Keith Martin, rescind his private member’s motion to remove the “hate messages” provision of the CHRA, Dion’s MPs are blocking the entire CHRA from applying to hundreds of thousands of Canadian Aboriginals.

Hypocrisy from the Liberal Party? Perish the thought!

On a more serious note, however, I was actually unaware of the “exemption” provided under the CHRA for Natives. Personally, I think that’s absurd that this is, in fact, the case, and Ezra Levant enumerates a number of very real, and very good, examples why that is (above). Bigotry does not just flow one way, and there can be an immense prejudice on reservations against those who “go outside” the reservation in some way (the issue of marrying non-Natives is one example). Many people on reservations are very disenfranchised, precisely because of these reasons. Many people on reservations are denied basic human needs, and basic human rights, by usurious and greedy band councils.

I’m not saying that Natives should file more human rights complaints (if in fact they could) — the tribunals have to go, and nobody should patronize them. But the tribunals are one small part of what the CHRA deals with, and many of its other provisions are both relevant to the situations on many reservations, and also necessary tools for combatting those situations. And it’s shameful that Canada does not extend the legitimate protections of the CHRA to the Native people of this country.

Doubly shameful, of course, is that the Liberal Party has been attempting to block a Conservative Party attempt to extend the CHRA to include Natives and the reservations. Levant asks:

So which is it? Is the Canadian Human Rights Act so sacrosanct that not even a single section can be amended? Or is the Act so unimportant that Canadian Aboriginals can be denied all of its provisions for years to come? Mike Duffy pointed out this contradiction today; I wonder if any other journalists will follow up.

Personally, I very much doubt any of them will — our media is, as a general rule, terrified of printing anything that might result in a swell of support for Stephen Harper’s government. Which is a shame, because the hypocrisy of the Liberals over this issue is staggering.

Update: Welcome, Steynians and FreeDoMinions!

Blazing Cat Fur sends in the following link:

http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry080207- 155248

The above is a link to an entry rather amusingly entitled “Bring It”. It’s primarily a pre-emptive response to an editorial by Jon Kay in today’s National Post.

Mr. Kinsella posits an interesting question:

This post is what has moved Jon to write about me and my views. The Wicked Witches of the West and East - plus their Muslim-loathing Winged Monkeys, and the Freespeech Martyrs Brigade, [Ezra Levant] and [Mark Steyn] - have also devoted lots and lots of space to it, in some cases sneering that I am a pedophile, that I made it all up, that I am a Nazi, and so on. Immodestly, all of this suggests to me that the things I have been writing on this web site about racism, anti-Semitism and human rights have perhaps had an impact. If I wasn’t having an impact, a friend said to me this morning, why would they bother?

While I’m not sure that I’d go so far as to suggest that Warren is “one toke over the line” — I don’t know whether Mr. Kinsella is currently a user of marijuana — I think there’s some validity to the statement that Neo ends his post with: “Or maybe Warren… you just need to take a couple weeks in Cancun… snag some rays… loll around on the beach? ‘Cos you’re sounding a little stressed out here, bro.“

Personally, my own reason for “bothering” to write about the post Mr. Kinsella links to in the excerpt above is that when I first read it, I was rather dumbfounded. Was I honestly reading an argument in favour of Censorship, an argument in favour of Dr. Keith Martin being told to shut up, to get in line, and to withdraw Bill M-446, that used as its key argument a blurry cell-phone picture of bathroom graffiti? Was that what I was seeing? Were the people opposed to the removal of Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act so bereft of convincing and persuasive arguments that they were reduced to to taking pictures of pre-adolescent scrawlings in public bathroom stalls in order to find “proof” of widespread Naziism that must be stamped out through a rigorous censorship office?

Who wouldn’t comment after seeing something like that? I took Mr. Kinsella’s post as a sign that us freespeechers were scoring some major rhetorical victories. Who’d have thought that really, I was just in despair over how we were losing this fight?

That would seem to be Mr. Kinsella’s contention, at any rate. Or, rather, his contention would seem to be that because immature youth of today scrawl Nazi symbols on the walls of public bathrooms, MP Dr. Keith Martin should withdraw private members Bill M-446 and all the rest of us in Canada should just not worry about the HRCs or their mission of Censorship.

To be fair, I actually agree with Warren on one point:

That look like a useful contribution to the marketplace of ideas, to you? Perhaps Keith Martin and the editorial-writers at the Globe, Gazette and Post think it is, but I sure don’t.

No, I don’t much think it’s a useful contribution to the marketplace of ideas. But, equally, so what? So it’s a useless contribution to the marketplace of ideas. Again, so what?

Usefulness is a dangerous criteria to begin to use in determining what constitutes acceptable vs. unacceptable speech in any ostensibly free nation, much like wantedness is a dangerous criteria to use in determining whether it is acceptable, morally or under the law, to terminate the life of a human being prior to the point of natural birth. That is because usefulness, like wantedness, is a side issue, a distraction, a dodge that would-be censors can use in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable.

No, scrawling “White Power” and two swastikas on the bathroom wall is not a useful contribution to the marketplace of ideas, anymore than drawing a picture of a penis on the same wall would be. Strangely, I don’t hear Mr. Kinsella arguing that depictions of human anatomy should be outlawed. I mean, he makes the point of mentioning that the scrawlings he took a picture of* are at “a kid’s eye level**” — if this is all about “the children,” then one would think that Mr. Kinsella, and all decent people, would be every bit as up in arms over grotesque depictions of the human anatomy on bathroom walls as Mr. Kinsella is over this bit of Nazi-eqsue rubbish. Why should some scrawlings be allowed and others disallowed, if in fact all of them send poor/bad/hurtful/disgusting messages to the children?

The beauty of the marketplace of ideas is analogous to the beauty of the actual open-air market, of the sort that one finds all over places like, for example, Greece. At a food market, you can tell within seconds when rotten meat is on display, and react with appropriate revulsion to it. In the marketplace of ideas, the same principle applies; when rotten ideas are aired, the rest of us can react — almost immediately — with the appropriate levels of revulsion. We can hear these ideas and make the conscious choice to reject them.

When ideas are suppressed, even distasteful ideas, people will go in search of them, because curiosity is a part of the human condition. That alone is sufficient argument against the imposition of censorship through the human rights commissions. That those who would seek to maintain the imposition of censorship are reduced to taking pictures of bathroom scribblings to advance their cause is just icing on the cake, I suppose.

* who whips out a camera — even a cell-phone camera — whilst sitting on the can, anyhow?

** perhaps this is a clue as to the probable age and level of maturity of the person who composed the scrawl in question? And maybe, just maybe, could it be that we don’t want to be talking about censoring freedom of expression in Canada because some ten-year old thought to draw a swastika or two just for kicks?

Update: I like Kathy Shaidle’s take on this:

With all due respect to my commrade in arms Jay Currie, I believe he is missing the key point of this entire story, which is:

Jesus in a rainhat! Warren Kinsella is taking pictures of graffiti in public washrooms for &*$#’s sake!!

Seriously, what do these pictures prove besides:

a) crazy men shit, and

b) Warren needs a life?

Is there, like, some connection between this graffiti and that concentration camp they’re building on the old Varsity Stadium site?

What? Nobody’s building a concentration camp in downtown Toronto?!

It’s been how long since the Christie Pits riots? Wow, that long, eh…?

This would be like blaming Orville Wright for 9/11 — except that 9/11 actually happened.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Hon. Jason Kenney (Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity), CPC): “Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely on the public record defending freedom of speech because this government and this party believe in our constitutionally entrenched and protected rights to , freedom of speech and freedom of the press and we will always defend those freedoms, those ancient freedoms.

Some uppity NDP type stood up to demand that the Conservative government vote down Bill M-446. The above is the response. Good for Mr. Kenney — it needed to be said.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

I think we’ve all heard that saying before.

With regard to yesterday’s news about Bill M-446 introduced by MP Dr. Keith Martin, Mike Brock notes that the majority of blog support for Bill M-446 is coming from the political right. (Or from racist nutbars, who do also stand to gain from Section 13 being struck down…but that’s a necessary consequence of freedom, as I’ve been saying…)

The political left has been largely silent. Or, alternatively, they have chosen, like blogger BigCityLib, to turn on Dr. Martin and label him a Nazi sympathizer.

With friends like these…

Not that I’m all that surprised to see Liberals turning on one of their own who just happened to dare to depart from the established narrative. God forbid that a member of the Liberal Party of Canada be an actual liberal, in the classical meaning of the word. But then, that’s the nature of fascistic ideologies, I suppose; eventually, they turn the guns on their own followers.

The continued existence of Section 13 is an affront to the Charter-ensured right of every Canadian to freedom of expression. There is also, within that same , a sufficient framework in place for dealing with those rare occasions where what is expressed is genuinely harmful (i.e. to deal with torts and incitement). Hurting someone’s feelings, however distasteful the act might be, is not illegal. That is why Section 13 has to go: not because there is a large segment of the Canadian population that is anxious to freely and openly express Nazi sentiments, but because the best way to combat those sentiments is to let them be expressed in the light of day so that the rest of us, reasonable folk all, can reject them as the rubbish that they are.

That is, I think, the real problem with progressives like BigCityLib: they don’t trust the ability of the average Canadian to think for him/herself, and would that Canadians leave the thinking to their “betters.”

Update: Welcome, Steynians!