timeimmortal

In yet another response to the CHRC’s proposed self-review, the National Post editorial board delivers a simmering indictment of the whole idea.

…In an interview with the Post on Tuesday, [CHRC Chief Commissioner Jennifer Lynch] exclaimed, “I’m a free speecher. I’m also a human rightser,” as though the two were separate. No human right is more basic than freedom of expression, not even the “right” to live one’s life free from offence by remarks about one’s ethnicity, gender, culture or orientation. Ms. Lynch seems mistakenly to believe there is a delicate balance between free expression and other, newer human “rights.”

She also tipped her hand about the probable outcome of the review she had initiated: “We have a responsibility to lead the debate on how we can keep our policy up to date to effectively regulate hate on the internet.” Her interest appears to be in not whether to regulate speech, but merely how to do it “effectively.” There seems to be little doubt in her mind that a government agency must have the ultimate say.

Frankly, we doubt the sincerity of Ms. Lynch’s call for review, especially given the timing. The CHRC has recently landed itself in hot water for the overly aggressive methods it appears to have used to investigate white supremacists on the Internet and for investigating Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine over material they published that offended some Muslim law students. It’s a little too precious that the CHRC has chosen now for its self-examination, when a private member’s bill in Parliament would strip it of the right to investigate hate speech allegations altogether.

The only splinter of hope we hold out for the review is that the chief reviewer, University of Windsor law professor Richard Moon, appears to be a fairly impartial expert on the constitutionality of free expression. He has upbraided judges in obscenity trials for trying to impose their personal value judgments simply by “dressing them up in the objective garb of community standards.” Yet at other times, he has appeared favourable to more collectivist notions, writing that speech has a “social character,” with great “potential for harm.” And that expression, if left unchecked, “can cause fear, it can harass and it can undermine self-esteem.”

Sadly, it seems Professor Moon is not all that and a bag of chips, at least as far as his supposed impartiality is concerned. Reading some of his material, it’s hard to tell him apart from an HRC apparatchik.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Someone once told me that he felt entitled to live in a country governed by some European convention on human rights.

He’s welcome to it, for what little it seems to be worth.

…Whereas weblogs are an increasingly common medium for self-expression by media professionals as well as private persons, the status of their authors and publishers, including their legal status, is neither determined nor made clear to the readers of the weblogs, causing uncertainties regarding impartiality, reliability, source protection, applicability of ethical codes and the assignment of liability in the event of lawsuits,…

[The European Parliament] suggests clarifying the status, legal or otherwise, of weblogs and encourages their voluntary labelling according to the professional and financial responsibilities and interests of their authors and publishers; …

Translation: “reasonable” limitations on freedom of expression, a fundamental human right. And likely, that’s just the beginning…because what the government giveth in legislation, the government can taketh away in legislation.

Remind me why we sent young men to die in the cause of Europe’s liberation…twice?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

It kind of sounds like an attempt to save face. Of course, it’s easier to save one’s face before one blows it off with a shotgun, but perhaps we won’t tell the CHRC that just yet.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) has launched a comprehensive policy review of how best to address hate messages on the internet. Leading constitutional law expert Professor Richard Moon of the University of Windsor will conduct an independent study as an important part of this review.

Speaking today to the Canadian Association of Statutory Human Rights Agencies (CASHRA), CHRC Chief Commissioner Jennifer Lynch, Q.C. said, “The current debate on how to balance freedom of expression with the need to protect Canadians from hate messages in the Internet age is an important one. We are confident that this review will provide insight into the issues and move the discourse one step further.”

Growing public interest and continued advances in technology all point to a need to examine issues surrounding hate on the Internet. The Commission is dedicated to ensuring that the Canadian Human Rights Act remains effective. “Legislation must evolve – when necessary – to respond and reflect changes in society,” said Lynch.

I think one of BCF’s commenters expresses the sentiment that captures the mood of this situation the best: foxes are indeed extremely vigilant when given the opportunity to guard the henhouses. And unless the outcome of this review is the conclusion that the HRCs of the land have no authority to prosecute cases against Internet hate sites (with the government retaining the right to prosecute those site operators whose websites engage in incitement), that’s more or less what will have been achieved in Canada: the foxes of the human rights commissions will have been entrusted to guard the hens that are the rights Canadians are promised in the Charter.

And just like hens, such rights will be eaten up one at a time, when it suits the needs and aims of those in power over them.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The ambiguously-named muslimperson writes in concerning Mitra Kermani — the owner of Misom Halal Food Products, a supplier of halal (that is: conforming to Islamic religious dietary requirements) foods that Loblaws Companies Inc. cut ties with a couple years ago.

Since that time, Ms. Kermani has been harassing and threatening workers and executives of Loblaws’ — the company that owns the Real Canadian Superstore, Extra Foods, and No Frills (if memory serves). She is discussed in this post.

How come you support freedom of speech and talk on otherhand you support…ban Mitra to talk by ocurt order…this is look like HRC acting on other side of story how justice can hear if one party has no right to talk? Mitra Kermani got helped from Italian Canadina and German Canadian did not like her and steal her business Mitra likes Catholic Italian alot.

It’s a bit difficult to sort out the gist of the message from the atrocious grammar, but I think that the first question basically distills down to this: how can someone who supports freedom of speech support, at the same time, Loblaws’ “ban” on Mitra Kermani.

The answer is simple: that’s business. Mitra Kermani is a business owner, a supplier of products of specific nature. Loblaws is a retailer, and is in essence a re-seller of the products that companies like Misom produce, procure, or otherwise make available. As such, Loblaws is free — and has every right — to choose whether or not to do business with business owners like Mitra Kermani.

We don’t have all the details as to why Loblaws’ decided not to renew its contract with Ms. Kermani — perhaps they were simply not making money off of the halal foods she was supplying (poor return on investment is a common reason why business arrangements of that nature are ended). Regardless, Loblaws’ is not “banning” Ms. Kermani — they are simply, for whatever reason, choosing to no longer do business with her company. She has not been prohibited, in any way, from continuing to sell halal foods in other markets, or at all.

Ms. Kermani does not have an intrinsic right to see her products sold by Loblaws-run stores. Indeed, the rights in this case rest with Loblaws, which is free to choose which suppliers it chooses to do business with, and which suppliers it chooses not to do business with. Perhaps her prices were too high, or perhaps her product quality had fallen — whatever the reason, Loblaws made a decision to no longer procure halal foods from Misom. It means Misom loses a large client, but that’s business for you — it’s how the market works in the West, more or less. And it works well, generally speaking. It’s not about “banning” — it’s about the bottom line, return on investment, and getting the best product possible for the best price possible.

Evidently, Mitra Kermani and her company did not meet some aspect of that metric, and so Loblaws decided to stop using Misom as a supplier. And that’s Loblaws’ right — nobody, and no business, can be compelled to purchase products from someone it no longer wishes to do business with. And that’s not Censorship…that’s freedom, including the freedom to run one’s own business, or to spend one’s own money, as one chooses, rather than being told where, and upon whom, to spend it.

Yes, the loss of the contract kind of sucks, but there are other markets, and Ms. Kermani should have sought those out. Instead, she embarked upon a lengthy campaign of threats, intimidation, and harassment against Loblaws, its executives, and its employees — a campaign that included the use of death threats.

She is in the wrong, here, in other words.

Upon a second reading, it seems that what muslimperson is actually saying is that Loblaws’ act of having hired a lawyer to procure a restraining order against Mitra Kermani is more or less the same thing as the censorship of the HRCs — she is being, muslimperson asserts, “banned” from speaking.

This also is untrue.

I don’t know what jurisprudence says in Islamic states, but in Canadian law there is a provision made whereby a person who behaves in a harassing or threatening manner toward another person (or group of persons) can be ordered to cease and desist that behaviour. This is not the same thing as censorship, because the harassment in question must meet certain criteria. In the specific case of Mitra Kermani, those criteria were met the moment she uttered death threats against Loblaws executives.

I’ve talked in the past about how there is a difference between freedom of expression, even hateful expression, and incitement to violence. Death threats and stalking haraassment, of the sort uttered and enacted (respectively) by Mitra Kermani, are analogous to incitement, and under Canadian law are considered criminal. It is thus entirely consistent to simultaneously support freedom of speech and the restraining order issued against Ms. Kermani. She isn’t being banned from speaking — she’s being told not to utter death threats.

There’s rather a large difference there, O Reader.

I’m not sure what Italian Catholics and business-stealing Germans have to do with the issue.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Angelweb posted a copy of a letter received from Rob Nicholson, the Canadian Minister of Justice, over at FreeMarkSteyn.com. The text of the letter is, frankly, damn promising.

Dear [name removed] :

The office of the Prime Minister has forwarded to me a copy of your correspondence concerning the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). I regret the delay in responding.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental freedom enshrined in the Canadian , which, in a free and democratic society, may be limited only when such an action is justified.

The Government of Canada is committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. To that end, the Government has introduced in Parliament Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act, which calls for the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) to apply equally to all Canadians. Bill C-21 would repeal section 67 of the CHRA, which currently shields some actions of the federal government or First Nations entities from the application of the CHRA. The repeal of Section 67 would extend the rights of First Nations people, primarily those living on reserve, to file complaints with the CHRC.

Canada’s record on human rights is second to none; it is a record of which all Canadians can be proud.

As you may be aware, the CHRC, which administers the CHRA, operates at arm’s length from the Government of Canada and reports to Parliament independently.

However, I would like to inform you that my caucus colleague Mr. Rick Dykstra has tabled a motion that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights examine and make recommendations with respect to the CHRC, including its mandate, operations, and interpretation and application of provisions relating to Section 13 of the CHRA, which addresses hate messages. I look forward to that review.

Please be assured that your concerns have been given proper consideration. I appreciate having had your comments brought to my attention.

Yours truly,

The Honourable Rob Nicholson

This is, as I said, damn promising — it re-affirms that the Canadian government is coming on-side against the HRCs and their flagrant abuse of (and transgressions against) a fundamental human right that is a cornerstone of every free society: freedom of expression.

Also, I think it’s time to put out a new banner:

(I direct the Reader to the media page)

I see that York University’s student government is once again trying to ban pro-life groups from the campus, on the grounds that “pro-life organizations seek to deny women of their basic human right to choose.”

Of course, Gilary Massa, the vice president of the YFS, doesn’t call them “pro-life” — she prefers the term “anti-choice.”

One of the ladies at ProWomanProLife points out an obvious problem with that misleading label:

I always am skeptical of a body that insists on calling a pro-life organization “anti-choice.” It pretends abortion to be the only valid ‘choice.’ (Note to pro-abortionists: Choice and abortion are NOT synonyms.)

Then again, perhaps in the minds of many pro-abortionists, abortion is the only valid choice out there; after all, Canada’s dismal birth rate has to come from somewhere.

The plain fact of the matter is that the YFS is just looking to censor those with whom they disagree; this isn’t really about human rights or women’s rights. Pro-life groups have no power to deny anyone access to anything in particular — most are only interested in introducing additional information back into a discussion that has become increasingly one-sided (and then in favour of rampant birth control use and pro-abortion advocacy). It’s becoming increasingly difficult to discuss pregnancy in a university campus’ health centre without having the option of abortion rammed down one’s throat as a first option.

If anyone here is anti-choice, it’s those who would deny pro-life groups their right to hold and articulate a contrary opinion. What’s truly odious is that at no time has abortion been legally declared a human right in Canada. Meanwhile, the freedom of expression of these pro-life groups, which York University is seeking to deny, is enshrined as a human right, and is being taken away in favour of a demand that York students only be exposed to approved opinions.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how the truth is precisely the inverse of the rhetoric of the progressive elements in this story?

Update: What the heck?

I was extremely shocked to discover that the increasingly notorious Gilary Massa is a hijab-wearing Muslim woman. I mean, radical pro-choice activist does not bring the hijab to mind. Islam is against abortion. But one thing I unfortunately do associate with Islam in Canada right now (but not all Muslims, of course, and especially not the ones I know personally) is assaults on Canadian freedom of speech. In Halifax. Against Ezra Levant. Against Mark Steyn. Against the MCC, which suffers death threats from fellow Muslims. Ditto Irshad Manji. What, I ask, gives here?

Maybe she’s a progressive Muslim, you know? One of those moderates we keep on hearing about in the various mythologies that percolate through political discourse these days? She’s just fine with the hijab and what it represents, but don’t you dare get between her and the right of a woman to “control her own body.”

Sorta like those pro-choice Catholics, O Reader. Except, in a headscarf.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Ian Fine, Director General and Senior General Counsel for the Dispute Resolution Branch of the Canadian Human Rights Commission has posted his opening remarks to a panel discussion put on by the Canadian Association of Journalists.

The panel topic? Human Rights and Free Speech: Where are the Limits?

Mr. Fine’s statement is lengthy, and I don’t have much time for analysis myself (I see I am not alone in this), but I wanted to remark on one thing that struck me as odd.

Mr. Fine opens with this observation:

Free speech is also a cornerstone of human rights.

He finishes thusly:

The Commission acknowledges that human rights are not static. They evolve and change with changes in society and the law.

A free and inclusive society must draw a line between free expression and hatred. They are not one in the same.

Free expression is the foundation of a free, open and inclusive society.

Hatred is the poison that erodes the tolerance and open-mindedness that must flourish in a multicultural society committed to the idea of equality.

I am tempted to sing “one of these things is not like the others,” but…instead, let’s take the closing remarks point by point.

1) Firstly, it is the opinion of the CHRC that human rights “are not static” — that is, they can be granted or revoked at the whim of those who have established themselves as overseers of human rights in Canada. Fine attempts to hide this understanding behind the acknowledgement that rights “evolve and change” as society and law change, but this is really nothing more than an artful untruth: the HRCs operate — as Ezra Levant continues to chronicle — well outside of Canadian law, and regard themselves as unaccountable to any court or investigative body.

What is even more damning about Fine’s rhetorical dodge, though, is the way it also abdicates human rights entirely. Should “changes in in society and the law” result, after successive generations of increasingly radicalized Islamic immigrants, in Canada becoming a Sharia state, by his own statement Mr. Fine has no grounds to object to the sudden and dramatic shift in human rights that such a change would effect…even as the burqas are being passed out.

In essence, this is a totalitarian sentiment wrapped in a puffy outer coating of pseudo-tolerant rhetoric. And the orator of such an irrational statement is a twit.

2) It is also the opinion of the CHRC that free people “must draw a line between free expression and hatred,” because the two are not the same. This is false: hateful or bigoted speech and non-hateful or non-bigoted speech are both forms of freedom of expression, and in fact both must be allowed if freedom of expression means anything. If people are only free to express views deemed “acceptable” in public discourse, those people do not have freedom of expression at all.

It’s Henry Ford’s car colours applied to speech, really: you can say anything you like, as long as it’s nice/happy/whatever.

Mr. Fine is ultimately confused: free societies do not need to draw a line between free expression and hatred, but between free expression and incitement to violence. Saying hateful things must be permissible, if distasteful, up to (but not including) the point where that hateful speech crosses the line to incitement to violence and other acts of racial hatred.

In other words: it has to be okay to say that e.g. Jews are reponsible for all the wars in the world. It must not be okay to say that all Jews over the age of 18 are legitimate targets. The former is an ignorant and bigoted statement, but ultimately harmless statement (apart from its potential to cause a few hurt feelings…but it is only a very deluded person who believes that he or she can save people from ever having to experience a hurt feeling). The latter is incitement to violence against a specific category of person.

3) “Free expression is the foundation of a free, open and inclusive society.” This is exactly correct (and hearkens back to Mr. Fine’s opening remark) — it’s just a pity that in the statement before, and the statement after, Mr. Fine undermines the very idea of freedom of expression in Canada. If we are truly an open, free, and inclusive society, then we even have to “include” those whose opinions we find contemptible — we have to be open to everyone, including the Zundels of the world, if in fact we value the freedom to speak that we ostensibly have.

4) Mr. Fine dismisses hatred as “a poison that erodes the tolerance and open-mindedness that must flourish in a multicultural society.” This is exactly backward: if a society is truly tolerant and open-minded, it must (by definition) allow for hatred to be expressed (within the reasonable limits imposed by laws prohibiting incitement) alongside all other viewpoints. “We don’t tolerate intolerance” is not a worldview; it is a nihilism. We must tolerate to hear expressed even those things that are intolerant, or else we must concede that what “freedom” we have to express ideas is ultimately meaningless, since we are all just following a script anyhow.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Mark Frieman, writing in the National Post, seems to think so. Jay Currie has the details.

I’m short of time, so here’s the meaty bit out of Jay’s review of/response to the article:

It is a very intelligent and compelling argument and, I suspect, represents the political fallback position of the CHRC and its dwindling band of supporters. Freiman refers to “procedural lapses or errors” and suggest that these should not vitiate the powerful idea that the Canadian telecommunications system should not “be used as a vehicle for hate propaganda“.

Unfortunately, as the CHRC’s investigative methods and total lack of process, discretion and restraint are revealed in the Lemire case and in the Steyn matter, it becomes increasingly apparent the CHRC has long since abandoned any pretense of addressing the concerns the Supreme Court of Canada raised in Taylor. The highhanded conduct of the Member in Lemire, the fraudulent invocation of s. 37 of Canada Evidence Act by the Commission, the attempt on the part of Commission counsel to deny public access in that matter, the lying under oath of CHRC management employees, the arbitrary truncation of proceedings and cross examination based on no law whatsoever and a whole host of other gross violations of natural justice all suggest that the CHRC is not capable of properly and fairly administering s.13(1). In fact, the antics of the CHRC suggest is has become a greater ongoing evil than the de minimus evil it is seeking to suppress.

It’s that last bit that’s really relevant: the damage that the human rights commissions are causing to and in Canada is exponentially greater than the amount of hypothetical damage they might prevent. Hate crimes are a terrible thing, but stripping away — or imposing limits on — a fundamental freedom like the right to expression is actually even worse. Because while hate crimes lash out against groups or individuals, destroying or impairing freedom of speech attacks the nation as a whole.

That’s Liberal MP Dr. Keith Martin’s description for the Canadian government’s lame-duck attempt to justify the legality and necessity of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. That’s the same section of the act which, through the human rights commissions, is used as an instrument of Censorship and a weapon against the fundamental human right to freedom of expression in Canada.

Deborah Gyapong has the details:

“Well, there were a lot of things in the Justice Department’s missive which I find absolutely shocking,” said Martin. “Not only that but about blithely talking about restrictions on freedom of expression. That has absolutely nothing to do with hate crimes, nothing to do with hate crimes and nothing to do with hate speech whatsoever. So the Justice Department’s missive really was a trampling of basic human rights, human rights that are enshrined in our Charter and I was very disturbed by their intervention. So I’m hoping that our Justice Committee actually reviews the Commission and hopefully they’ll be able to — that we’ll be able to bring in members from the Justice Department to be able to account for their statements.”

…

“I think Mr. Harper has told Mr. Nicholson, our Justice Minister, to put a muzzle on their MPs. But the Conservative MPs, as many members in my caucus, have expressed deep concerns about where the Canada Human Rights Commission has gone. They have expressed a great deal of support for my motion to remove Section 13-1 from the Act. And I think that’s a fair thing to do would be to have this out and open. Have a public hearing through the Justice Committee and televise it so that Canadians coast to coast can hear those who believe that the status quo is acceptable and those of us who believe that the Human Rights Act has to be amended to ensure that we have freedom of speech because in my view freedom of speech is being trampled in Canada right now.“

I don’t think it can be stressed enough what an important ally in the fight for freedom of expression in Canada Dr. Martin really is. Do be sure to send him a note of thanks, O Reader.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Deborah Gyapong has an excellent report published in the latest edition of the Western Catholic Reporter concerning, of course, Canada’s human rights commissions, this time in light of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to the UN.

Pope Benedict’s speech to the United Nations last month serves as a reminder to Canada that human rights discourse stems from a world view based on universal truths and an objective notion of right and wrong.

“Either we recover some of these assumptions and make a serious course correction,” McGill University professor Douglas Farrow said, “or we begin to encounter quite rapidly the consequences.”

Farrow sees Canada’s human rights commissions as a sign the country is in a transitional phase, because increasingly the Canadians are seeing human rights as what we say they are.

“Thus laws can be written concerning human rights that have nothing to do with universal standards.”

…

Increasingly, various individuals and groups are using human rights commissions to “generate traction” for that group’s particular construct of rights, he said. This method has often been used to suppress religious freedom, especially that of Christians.

Farrow said the real basis for human rights springs from a world view like that the pope outlined in his speech - a theistic world view that sees a benevolent Creator and human beings made in God’s image, with a capacity to distinguish between good and evil.

The pope exhorted the world body to return to its founding principles as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The declaration is based on “the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations,” Benedict told the UN.

Human rights should mean the fundamental freedoms to which all human beings are entitled, exercised within a framework of obligations and responsibilities, the burden of which all human beings must bear. The notion of human rights, however, has been abgorated and, I would say, abducted by those whose view of rights is that they are a series of entitlements which are accompanied by no reciprocal responsibility whatsoever. Whereas there should be a natural “give and take,” the view of the HRCs and their “clients” increasingly is that rights is all “take” with no “give” reciprocal to it.

To call that immoral, to call it unethical, and to call it a violation of natural law would at once be accurate and an understatement.

I’m no fan of the UN, as the regular Reader will know, but at least the UDHR recognizes that the right to freedom of expression is one of the bedrock principles of human freedom. Yes, there are responsibilities that go along with that right, and yes we do have some legal protections in place in Canada to make sure that freedom of expression does not cross the line to incitement to violence.

But in regard to freedom of expression, it is worth noting two things:

1. it is nowhere written that, included among the responsibilities that accompany the right to freely express one’s opinion, we have a responsibility to avoid hurting people’s feelings or offending people’s sensibilities. Social convention encourages us to be polite even when expressing disagreement, but some ideas cannot easily be expressed in a manner that pays good observance to social convention.
2. it is nowhere written that any of us has the right to not be offended, nor is it anywhere written that any of us has the right to not have our beliefs and views challenged

Perhaps the word “yet” should affixed to the end of both of those points; I don’t know.

The plain fact of the matter is that, through the existence and operation of human rights commissions, specifically in regard to Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Canada is going far beyond where it needs to go in order to ensure that so-called “reasonable limits” on freedom of expression exist. There is only one real “reasonable” limit on freedom of expression anyhow, and that is making incitement illegal. Limiting freedom of expression because some things are e.g. hurtful or offensive to others is not a “reasonable” limitation at all — such limitation is, in fact, the antithesis of freedom of expression: it is Censorship.

And as such, it has no business in Canada.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!