Time Immortal

Just insane. Recommendations for how the can be improved include the following:

- ‘hate incident’ means any act or omission, whether criminal or not, that expresses bias, prejudice, bigotry or contempt toward a vulnerable or disadvantaged community or its members. A ‘vulnerable or disadvantaged community’ is any group or community identified as such on the basis of characteristics protected by the Criminal Code of Canada, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Ontario Human Rights Code, or Section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [Charter]

When I read this, I can’t help but think that it means that one could potentially be hauled before a human rights commission not for the crime of articulating a racist sentiment, but for not speaking out against racist speech that one happens to overhear…even though deciding to let the bigot waste his breath, and to not dignify his words with a response, is not a crime.

Perhaps I am being paranoid. Then, again, I re-read the above statement and wonder how exactly “any act or omission, whether criminal or not” is a criteria set to which there is any notable exception.

We come, yet again, several steps closer to the day when we may all yet be under the gun of the HRCs. Except they won’t literally have guns, because progressives hate those.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has dropped the case against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine, but one should be wary of calling this a victory too soon. Reading the commission’s statement on the matter, their only reason for not proceeding with the case is a jurisdictional one:

Denying a service because of race or creed can form the basis for a human rights complaint. However, the Ontario Human Rights Code does not give the Commission the jurisdiction to deal with the content of magazine articles through its complaint process.

Of course, Maclean’s didn’t deny “service” to Mohamed Elmasry (the plaintiff in this case, not to be confused with the four Osgoode Hall law students he uses as sock puppets) on the basis of his race or Religion; service was denied because Maclean’s is a private enterprise and wasn’t in the mood to be told that it must allow a rebuttal to be printed.

And, as Mark Steyn notes, the commission seems also to have convicted Maclean’s and himself, at least in terms of organizational opinion:

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

That first sentence is a laugh, isn’t it, O Reader?

Ah, well — one expects the sort of petulance that drips from ths commission’s statement from…I don’t know…adolescent girls on the cheerleading squad. It’s shameful that a government department would engage in such verbal cheap shots. Then too, there are a couple of positives to be derived from what we see here. Firstly, of course, this is one less human rights complaint that Maclean’s and Mark Steyn are going to have to fight, and that is a good thing in and of itself. And as a bonus, for what it may be worth, the has now put down in writing their commitment to freedom of expression. Whether they believe that or not, it might be something they can be held to in the future.