Time Immortal

Ezra Levant reports that Jennifer Lynch was allowed to place a wreath from the CHRC at the Cenotaph in Ottawa — her disgusting insult to the memory of fallen Canadian soldiers went as planned.

He also includes a photograph that enables one to precisely locate the wreath, and makes a suggestion:

If any reader is in Ottawa, help fight vandalism — remove that filthy wreath from the cenotaph, and place it where it belongs: in the garbage.

This is actually not a bad suggestion for one simple reason: Lynch placed the wreath not in memory of fallen soldiers, whom the Cenotaph commemorates, but to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN declaration concerning human rights (a declaration that is ignored by most UN member states anyhow). It seems to matter not to Lynch that she’s a month early in marking that anniversary, and she evidently thought nothing was wrong with co-opting a national day of remembrance to serve her own agenda.

The point is: the wreath was not placed in memory of fallen soldiers, but in lip service to what might just be the single most often ignored UN document. As such, it doesn’t belong on the Cenotaph, and should be removed.

Think I’m overstating the case?

Jennifer Lynch, Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), plans to lay a wreath during the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa tomorrow. This despite the fact that she and her department are committed to the very antithesis of the ideal of freedom for which so many Canadian men and women gave their lives in war.

(And, as Ezra Levant points out, despite the fact that the CHRC is essentially the biggest purveyor of neo-Nazi rhetoric in Canada today, which only gives additional insult the the memory of the men and women being commemorated who gave their lives in the cause of defeating Hitler’s dark regime and ideology.)

The kicker in all this, though, is that Lynch plans to lay her wreath to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN’s “universal declaration” concerning human rights. Which includes the right to freedom of expression. Which is the right that Lynch and her ilk seek to deny to Canadians.

So she’s not even laying the wreath because its Remembrance Day, nor is she laying the wreath to mark the sacrifices that we are supposed to be remembering on the solemn day that is November 11th, Remembrance Day. She’s laying it to mark the ratification of a UN document that most UN member states ignore anyhow, and which she herself does not fully give heed to.

This warrants a letter of complaint to an MP, methinks.

Update: For the record, the declaration of human rights was ratified by the UN on December 10, 1948. Not only is Lynch’s gesture tone-deaf, it’s just plain incorrect.

Apparently not.

Ezra Levant is back to blogging, and has just posted an update of his latest dealings with the CHRC, this time over his publication of an opinion column by Red Deer pastor (and HRC victim) Stephen Boissoin, who was ordered — in effect — to renounce at least some of the tenets of his faith in public (specifically pertaining to his views on homosexuality).

Anyhow, Rob Wells has filed a human rights complaint against Levant for re-printing Boissoin’s words. Levant has, of course, submitted his statement of defence to the CHRC…but get this: the CHRC officer assigned to his case, Natalie Dagenais, actually redacted (read: censored) part of Levant’s statement prior to passing it on to the commissioners!

Which, of course, was a big mistake, given that this is Ezra Levant we’re talking about.

But still…is that even legal! Not only does the CHRC have almost absolute power to censor any Canadian person or publication, but they even have power to dictate to you what you can and cannot say in your defence, to the point of redacting any documents you submit prior to their submission to the commission and, presumably, the tribunal that may follow?

This is not “justice” according to any legitimate definition of the word. This is farce! One would stand a far better chance in front of one of the much-vilified inquisitions of centuries past! And one would get a fairer hearing in front of those old courts, no doubt!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Mark Steyn has been on hiatus for over a month now, and now it appears that Ezra Levant is giving blogging a pause until October.

Ah, well, he’s earned the rest; his seemingly tireless efforts in the cause of freedom of expression have surely taken their toll on him and his family, and it’s always good to take time to regroup.

So sayeth Ezra Levant to the entire staff of the CHRC.

The reason? Well…it could have something to do with the fact that the CHRC seems to be a state organ devoted to servicing the needs of anti-Christian bigots…

…the bullies at the CHRC have already found that the exact words at the center of this complaint are contrary to the Section 13 “hate speech” provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act. In CHRC investigation number 2005-2462, you decided that a Christian pastor, Rev. Stephen Boissoin, had contravened the law by publishing the exact same words in an Alberta newspaper.

I republished the same words as Rev. Boissoin and yet you have recommended that the CHRC not proceed against me.

There is only one reason for this: the CHRC is anti-Christian, and thus you excuse in me what you condemned in Rev. Boissoin.

This is not the first indication of a deep-seated bigotry at the CHRC. You have mercilessly persecuted other Christians in Canada for merely expressing their faith, such as Fr. Alphonse de Valk of magazine and Ron Gray and the Christian Heritage Party to name just two others.

I note that the CHRC has never once prosecuted a “hate speech” complaint against any non-Christian, though there is plenty of non-Christian bigotry in Canada. No Muslim extremist, no Tamil extremist, no Sikh extremist has ever been prosecuted, though those communities are wracked with internecine hates between radical and moderate camps, that sometimes spill over into violence. But you’d rather pick on a seventy-something Catholic priest for publishing a newsletter.

That’s why you’re letting me go — I’m not a weak, penniless Christian clergyman.

This is one of those “I’m glad he’s on our side” moments.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

This time from Clifford D. May, opinion columnist for the Minneapolis newspaper, the Star Tribune:

The assault on free speech has gone global

…On campuses and within Western governments it is increasingly taboo to label terrorists who slaughter in the name of Islam “Islamist terrorists.” In Canada, “human rights commissions” attempt to enforce this taboo by putting such writers as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant on trial for the “crime” of expressing opinions that offend Islamic grievance groups — and also for quoting Islamists accurately and thereby casting them in an unfavorable light. If that’s not Orwellian, what is?

Be sure to thank your local HRC, O Reader, the next time you have the chance. Thank them for making Canada into an international pariah which people believe has done away with that bedrock principle of free society: freedom of speech.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

But it’s not exactly a victory, is it? Nine hundred days, 15 government bureaucrats, and over $600,000 spent — $500,000 by the taxpayer-funded AHRC and another $100,000 by Ezra Levant in the course of his defence — brought things to a most unsatisfying result:

Is this a victory? I suppose, in a narrow technical sense, it is. I’m off the hook now for both of the HRC complaints. That’s two legal battles done –- though I’m still up to my eyeballs fighting defamation suits and other legal actions that the human rights industry piled on top of these complaints.

But I’ve read the dismissal letter three times now, and each time it makes me more angry. Because I haven’t been given my freedom of the press. I’ve simply had the government censor approve what I said. That’s a completely different thing.

Pardeep Gundara –- a second-rate bureaucrat, a nobody –- had to give me his approval for me to be allowed to go back to my business. For 900 days I was in the dock, waiting for this literary giant to pronounce his judgment on me. And I found favour in his eyes -– but barely.

Sorry. I don’t give a damn what Gundara or the HRC says. Getting his approval is not a success. I won’t legitimize his arrogant “authority” by saying “thank you, master”. I’ll say: “who the hell are you? Besides a busy-body bureaucrat?”

Look at his rationale for acquitting me: because the Western Standard met Gundara’s home-made tests of reasonableness. We published the cartoons in “context”; we published letters that “criticized” them; and my favourite, the cartoons weren’t “simply stuck in the middle” of the magazine. Gundara must have thought for ten whole minutes to come up with that list of journalistic do’s and don’t’s. And –- phew! -– he likes me. He really likes me!

Sorry again, I don’t give a damn if he likes me. In fact, it rather creeps me out that a whole squad of teat-sucking bureaucrats spent 900 days inspecting me and the Western Standard. I positively want to offend them. In fact, that’s pretty much the only test of my freedom: can I do exactly what Gundara says I shouldn’t? I’m not interested in publishing recipes or sports scores. I’m interested in bothering the hell out of government.

The debate is far from over, and this victory is — as Ezra notes — only a technical one. The HRC has, in its rejection of the second complaint, nevertheless shored up its power as an office of Censorship at work in the province of Alberta.

That is as unacceptable now as it was when this all came to light.

BCF informs me that apparently I am beginning to make a tiny little name for myself in the wider blogosphere and the political scene in Canada.

A very tiny little name, in fact.

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