HRCs Decide They Haven't Done Enough Damage, Seek More Power

This one's for all of those optimists who think that the free speech fight in Canada is coming to a close. We haven't won yet. In fact, we don't even have the enemy in retreat.

Ottawa Citizen:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and "media services" websites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.

The council "would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada," reads an OHRC report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The media's freedom of expression comes with a duty to "address issues of hate expression, and (media) should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership," the report says.

Under this proposal, media outlets would have the following choice before them: either to "voluntarily" join a provincial press council (with the implicit threat of coercion should they refuse, of course) or to be coerced into joining some perverse national press council through compulsory membership backed by the government.

Make no mistake about what this proposal amounts to. This would be state control of the media, pure and simple. If this proposal succeeds, government bureaucrats would essentially arrogate to themselves the power to control and limit the words and ideas of all Canadian magazines, newspapers, and media services.

Oops. Now we're Russia.

Mr. Harper, I wonder if these thugs read your interview and wondered just how much more they could get away with before somebody actually decides to do something about these blatant violations of free speech.

These fascists are re-defining free speech right under our noses and inventing duties that do not and should not exist. Like I wrote yesterday, we are a very long way from seeing the end of this fight for the achievement of free expression in Canada. Allow this to function as a bracing reminder not to get cocky just because politicians are discussing section 13.1 of the CHRA.

Sorry, Ezra, But We've Got Miles To Go Before We Sleep

After a year that has been defined by argument over the limits to free expression in Canada, the controversial section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Acts - the section that has been used by Canadian Human Rights Commissions to try Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn for 'inciting hatred and islamophobia' - has finally come up for debate in parliament.

CTV:

The controversial section of the Canadian Human Rights Act governing hate speech comes under scrutiny today when federal politicians decide whether to debate the limits it places on freedom of expression.

Brian Storseth, a Conservative MP, has asked the Commons justice committee to review Section 13 of the act, which contains provisions that deal with hate messages. Mr. Storseth also wants the committee to review the mandate of the commission itself.

It is imperative that the Canadian government initiates a massive overhaul of its policy on hate speech. Unfortunately, this is still a long-term goal since removing section 13.1 will only be the first step - albeit an important first step - towards restoring the complete freedom of expression in Canada.

If this long-term goal is to be realized, however, it will require solidarity on the part of Conservative MPs and a certain degree of non-partisan and cultural support for free speech as well. I'm not at all convinced that either of these conditions have been fully satisfied at this juncture.

Proponents of Section 13 argue that hate speech should remain under the umbrella of human-rights legislation. The Canadian Jewish Congress, for instance, expressed disappointment in Prof. Moon's position, saying the Jewish community knows how devastating hate propaganda can be.

Members of the Canadian Jewish Congress ought to be ashamed of themselves and their organization. The implication of their support for section 13.1 is that propaganda was a contributing factor to the horror of the Holocaust. In fact, Hitler was a strong advocate for hate speech laws. When the government is allowed to limit the expression of ideas in the citizenry, it is only a matter of time before one false idea or another achieves an advocate in power and then that idea becomes government policy. The safest way of protecting a minority is to allow the completely free exchange of ideas. This way, unreasonable ideas are met with reasonable ones. Bad speech is met with good speech.

As Alan Borovoy explains:

Remarkably, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the Canadian anti-hate law. Moreover, those laws were enforced with some vigour. During the 15 years before Hitler came to power, there were more than 200 prosecutions based on anti-Semitic speech. And, in the opinion of the leading Jewish organization of that era, no more than 10 per cent of the cases were mishandled by the authorities. As subsequent history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party of Canada once again missed its cue to convince Canadians that it hasn't sunk into the depths of moral relativism and evil.

Liberal MP Brian Murphy said his party is not in favour of removing Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act. "It is a unique tool for people who are being discriminated against and it's an added protection," he said.

Unique. That's one way of putting it. The Human Rights Commissions are able to trample over the individual rights of Canadian citizens, forcing them to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in legal fees, for making statements or republishing cartoons that offend the perennially offended. Yes, I suppose that is rather unique. Unique for a free country, at least.


Ezra Levant appears to have relatively high hopes for the elimination of 13.1 now that it has achieved attention from the federal government. After all, hasn't Harper condemned the section personally and explicitly?

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is under massive scrutiny for its misbehaviour. Its own hand-picked consultant, Prof. Richard Moon, recommends that its censorship provisions be scrapped. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper tells Maclean's magazine in a year-end interview with him that Canada's HRCs are "abusive" and their conduct is "egregious".

That sounds great, Ezra, except you're dropping the context of the Prime Minister's comments completely.

Here is what PM Harper actually said:

The government has no plans to do [anything about 13.1] ... And it is a very tricky issue of public policy because obviously, as we’ve seen, some of these powers can be abused. But they do exist for valid reasons, which is obviously to prevent public airwaves from being used to disseminate hate against vulnerable members of our society. That’s a valid objective. It’s probably the case that we haven’t got the balance right, but I’m not sure the government today has any answer on what an appropriate balance would be.

I'm sorry, Ezra, but don't you think that your representation of Harper's position on the HRCs is giving him way too much credit?

The fight for free speech must continue to intensify if we are to secure real change. The solution will not be found in deceiving ourselves into thinking that the government is more ideologically committed to securing our freedoms than it has time and again proven to be.

All of that being said, however, it is a good sign that the issue is at least being debated by federal politicians, even if the NDP and Liberals have unambiguously decided to support the section and even though Harper has patently refused to take a stand on the issue.

Conservatives have miles to go before they sleep if they wish to achieve real freedom of speech in Canada in the near future. Not to worry, though. I've got plenty of coffee stored up to get me through this long night.



(*)

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson Does Not Support Free Speech

Or, rather, he's decided to adopt the left's view of free speech. A view in which speech is not actually free in any substantive sense of the term.

What am I talking about? The Conservative Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson has come out in support of section 13(1) of the Canada Human Rights Act. A 50-page response to Marc Lemire's constitutional challenge to 13(1) was released by the Justice department.

Here are some of the choicest selections from the incoherent report:

[H]istory teems with examples of times when lies, distortions and propaganda empowered groups like the Nazis to repress speech. (Par. 58)

[...]

Propaganda against different religions and cultural groups encroaches on the freedom of Canada's diverse peoples to entertain their own beliefs, declare them openly without fear of "hindrance or reprisal" and to manifest them in practice. (Par. 109)

[...]

"[O]n a macro level, the general tone of society can affect the mind", and can lead to incivility and the "breakdown of community protection." (Par. 116)

Each statement is rife with historical revisionism and that last one might not even be written in English. I'm not going to bother commenting on this garrulous and, frankly, boring report. Ezra Levant has already thoroughly deconstructed and responded to its claims in detail.

UPDATE: Steyn's two cents? "Sentimental and ahistorical twaddle."

No Canadian who had a proper respect for the history of his country could write that sentence. Which is why it alone is a good example of why we need free speech. Nobody who gave it ten minutes' study would think that the Dominion of Canada, one of the oldest, peacefully evolved, constitutional democracies on the planet, is as "fragile" as the Weimar Republic or the Kingdom of Italy. So the most obvious "audaciously false propaganda" on display there is from the audaciously false propagandists on the Justice Department payroll. As to the general accuracy of the thesis, see my Maclean's piece on the proto-Trudeaupian "hate" laws of pre-Hitler Germany.

Freedom of Speech In Canada Gains Another Defender

MP Lee Richardson (Conservative, Calgary Center) has declared his support for Keith Martin and his motion to remove section 13(1) from the Canada Human Rights Act.

Ezra Levant provides an excerpt from Richardson's short letter:

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right ... I support removing section 13.1 of the Human Rights Act and will vote in favour of [Keith Martin's] motion when the opportunity arises.

According to Free Dominion, Lee Richardson joins the company of Keith Martin (Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca), Dan McTeague (Liberal, Pickering-Scarborough East), and James Rajotte (Conservative, Edmonton-Leduc) as the only Canadian Members of Parliament to condemn section 13(1) of the Canada Human Rights Act and promise to support the motion to remove it.

A contributor at Free Dominion puts it well:

These three [now four with Richardson added to the list] are worthy of re-election, regardless of their party affiliations, because they have chosen freedom over tyranny, principle over power, and courage over cowardice.

There's a beautiful park near my house. It makes for truly pleasant post-dinner walks. On a recent stroll, a squirrel caught my attention. I suppose the little bugger had spotted a nut or perhaps he had strayed for food and was now returning to his nest. Whatever his reasons, he was interested in crossing the path on which I was walking. As squirrels are wont to do, he timorously inched from the safety of the flora but, before long, he scurried back into the brush, frightened by some shadow and jumpy from a tremendous fear of being exposed.

Unsurprisingly, this anecdote was intended to function allegorically. You see, I have found many politicians to exhibit a similar pattern of behaviour. Most are only willing to stand on principle if somebody else has stuck their neck out first. In democratic politics, it's much easier - and safer, I should add - to pragmatically bide one's time until somebody has forged a path for you than to take the initiative yourself.

Luckily, the trail-blazers have already acted to oppose section 13(1) of the Human Rights Act and stand up for freedom of expression. Four MPs have now declared themselves in support of the motion to remove 13(1) from the CHRA and a ground-swell of support has erupted for Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn who are popular victims of the section. All in all, it's becoming significantly less risky for our squirrelly politicians to support Martin's motion.

Thank you, Lee Richardson, for defending free speech in Canada. Let's hope there's more where that came from.