Quebec’s bill 59. Canada’s French province runs screaming from the Enlightenment.

For the past couple of days, a Quebec law professor and former director of a George Soros funded ‘progressive-leftist’ group called Open Society Foundations, has been arguing in the Quebec legislature, that criticism of islam should not just be illegal but punishable by massive fines for a first offense and life destroying ones for a second.

The National Post editorial puts it this way:

National Post View: Quebec hate speech bill would re-establish bureaucratic despotism

Strong stuff for a national newspaper. But potentially an understatement.

As this site has argued since its inception, the most problematic aspect of any lever of power like Bill 59 is the fact that it will be selectively enforced. In this case it would be a safe wager that it will be enforced using the guidelines of UN Resolution 16/18 making it a criminal act to criticize Islam, but not stopping Islam from calling for the genocide of non-believers under their right to religious freedom.

Back to the Post:

Bill 59 assigns new powers to the Quebec Human Rights Commission (QHRC) to combat hate speech, as well as a variety of other provisions meant to protect against extremism, by censoring speech that promotes “fear of the other.” Ominously, the bill would allow the QHRC to pursue websites that in its estimation describe and denounce Islamism.

The bill takes its inspiration from recommendations made public by the QHRC in November 2014. Jacques Frémont, the commission’s president, explained that he planned to use the requested powers to sue those critical of certain ideas, “people who would write against … the Islamic religion … on a website or on a Facebook page.”

Let’s let that sink in for a moment before we move forward.

The Quebec Government is contemplating a bill that seems, even overtly, to criminalize and punish anyone who criticizes a political/religious ideology. Even if islam was not a threat doctrine this bill is an outrageous affront to the most core principles of democracy. One cannot make an informed choice without information.

So who is this Jacques Frémont?

Below is a short video with a couple of tiny excerpts from an hour long speech in French where he seems to tip his hand a little bit. In all fairness, I do not speak French, so I cannot be certain that these short excerpts which were sent to us properly represent his point of view. So here is a link to the entire video. Anyone wishing to and who can speak French may want to check it out and make sure these quotes are fairly taken. They are at:

12:11  16:39  and the first cut is within the first 3 minutes. Its only one line.

The Montreal Gazette covered yesterday’s hearings on Bill 59

Quebec hate-speech bill prompts strong opinions at public hearings

But the most heated debates took place at the end of the day with the Association des musulmans et des arabes pour la laïcité au Québec (the Association of Muslims and Arabs for a secular Quebec).

Bill 59 was one of a slew of initiatives presented June 10 by the Quebec government to combat radicalization leading to violence, as it pledged to work with the city of Montreal on a deradicalization centre — their concerted response to terrorist attacks last October and the phenomenon of youths leaving Quebec to join terrorist ranks.

But it was also an answer to how to deal with the growing problem of Islamophobia, and on both counts AMAL-Québec welcomed the initiative.

“It is obvious that when the call to hate, demonize, and dehumanize certain groups becomes commonplace, it has the effect of accentuating attitudes filled with prejudice and stereotypes,” said AMAL president Haroun Bouazzi, before the Commission des institutions at the National Assembly in Quebec City.

For anyone uncertain about what “the call to hate, demonize, and dehumanize certain groups” means, just read a koran, the hadiths and the Sunna, or book of the life of Islam’s founder, Mohamed. Alternativly, sit in for a week or so at any mosque and listen to the sermons. Maybe bring a tape recorder so you can have the Arabic bits translated later.

One might wonder if this particular pernicious individual is so dangerous to real liberty and the Enlightenment if he had caught the notice of any of the Counter-Jihadists before?

Check out this post and video from Dec. 2014:

“I’m sorry. The debate is over. Islam is the religion of Peace!”

This is an interview with the President of the Quebec Human Rights Commission. In it, he appears to be saying that Quebec, or Canada, is going to be implementing something which looks a whole lot like the criminalization of criticism of Islam.

I would like to remind every man, woman, child and bureaucrat that freedom of speech was implemented for one thing in the West. To criticize religious and political authority. That once you limit that freedom even one little bit, all other freedoms of speech will diminish exponentially, because all things can be seen as functions of islamic observance.

Thank you Poste De Veille for the interview video and Sassy for the Translation.

Could it be that the time to make that most ancient of decisions which almost define human history has arrived for Quebecers?

The answer to that appears imminent. The desicion?

Do we stand and fight, or do we move to somewhere not as far along the downward spiral of despotism.

Eeyore for VladTepesBlog