Category Archives: Human Rights Commission

Mr. Stelmach– tear down this free speech wall!

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Calgary Herald… Is the tide of Canadian censorship finally starting to turn?

We are hopeful, though not tempted to complacency.

This week, the Alberta Human Rights Commission cited a string of recent court and commission climb-downs, in the reasons it gave for dismissing a complaint lodged against this newspaper and its corporate companion, the Edmonton Journal.

Naturally, the Herald –which has been very vocal on this issue for many years, if not decades– welcomes the decision.

However, it rests on an interpretation by a human rights commission of its own powers: The situation is thus somewhat comparable to the police investigating allegations of police misbehaviour. So, while it is a good thing that commissions are starting to realize how much they have exceeded the intentions of those who established them, a reduction of their powers must be cemented with new legislation, if free-speech rights are to be properly protected.

The case involving the Herald and the Journal arose from an editorial published in April 2002, which catalogued several allegations of duplicity, manipulation, atrocity and hypocrisy on the part of Palestinian leaders in their dealings with Israel.

At the time, reports of terrorist activity came almost daily, interspersed with the late Yasser Arafat’s protestations that all he wanted was peace: The matter was top of mind, and ripe for public examination. However, Muslim advocates complained that it was “likely to expose to hatred or contempt Palestinian Arabs and Muslims,” though there was no proof of that whatsoever and it was certainly not the intent.

Initially, the AHRC was inclined to agree, its 2004 Investigating Report finding “merit” to the complaint.

However, nearly five years later (and seven years after the original publication) it changed gears. “. . . Although offensive, the editorial does not infringe Section 3 of the Act . . . This is supported by recent case law since the issue of the Investigating Report,” wrote commission director Marie Riddle.

And, what did the new case law say? Continue Reading →

Abercrombie & Fitch sued for not making an exception for Muslims.

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Arbitrary this Vs. arbitrary that. Group A makes up arbitrary rules of conduct or dress. They tell people, ‘if you want to be part of group A then you follow our rules and then all is well. If you do not, things are great also, you just do not get to be part of group A. For the most part, everyone in the world understands this basic tenant of group membership. Join, and be part, or do not join, and do not be part, or even, start your own group, make up your own rules.

lil-kim-burqa

Now a Muslim woman is suing Abercrombie and Fitch because they would not make an exception to their own dress code to accommodate the equally arbitrary dress codes of Muslims.

it is likely that governments will side with Muslims because it is religion, over a company who’s dress codes could be argued to be more practical and less arbitrary even, than religion, as any potential practical purpose for religious dress codes would likely be no longer applicable, while a clothing company typically knows what is in it’s own interests.

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In any case, this is one set of arbitrary dress codes Vs. another, and there is simply no exuse for government to come down on the side of one over another, except where rational issues of public safety are involved, like no copper underwear and pants for employees of Hydro companies for example. Some kind of state legislation would make sense in this case. However when four Muslim women sued UPS because UPS insisted that they obey safety dress codes, USP lost and the women won a fat settlement. Remember, UPS had asked these women not to wear pants because the traditional Muslim long loose evening gowns are unsafe on ladders, and UPS employees in that position are all required to go on ladders.

Here is the story as Time Magazine reports it.

Below is the Burka issue resolved as I would like to see it.

Continue Reading →

Excellent video on selective enforcement on ‘hate speech laws’

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This really is a must see video. Please spread it around

Montreal cabbie fined, ordered to remove dashboard adornment

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From The Globe and Mail

Personal and public space

How a cabbie’s dashboard sparked a court battle

Arieh Perecowicz received six tickets for a total of $1,400 from the Bureau du taxi, a municipal agency whose inspectors ordered the cabbie to remove the items.John Morstad/The Globe and Mail

Arieh Perecowicz says Montreal authorities are violating his Charter rights by ordering him to remove photos, religious artifacts from his taxi

INGRID PERITZ

MONTREAL — From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2009 04:22AM EDT

Anyone entering Arieh Perecowicz’s taxi in Montreal quickly knows what’s close to the man’s heart. At various places around the dashboard, he’s posted photos of his family, religious artifacts, a couple of flags and a Remembrance Day poppy.

The items have never sparked a customer complaint or interfered with his work, the 65-year-old cabbie says. But it did provoke a series of tickets from Montreal’s taxi agency, which have resulted in a court battle that could test the line between personal and public space. Continue Reading →

Ezra Levant: A great day for freedom of Speech (In Canada)

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From The International Free Press Society:

I decided to post a video clip of Ezra at the HRC answering a rather central question to this debate. Know that in this man’s opinion, it was Ezra Levant who basically single-handedly removed the power that the Canadian Human Rights Commissions had accumulated for itself, and with which they ran an unopposed extortion racket in Canada under the guise of section 13, the ‘hate speech’ laws. This victory of the people over the state belongs to Ezra.
Below the video, the National Post article.

James Cohen.

National Post…

Yesterday, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal did something its never done in its 32-year history. It acquitted somebody of “hate speech” charges. Until now, the tribunal had a 100% conviction rate.

In a 107-page ruling, tribunal member Athanasios Hadjis didn’t just throw out the case against Marc Lemire, he threw out the law, too, calling it an infringement of the free speech guarantees of the Charter of Rights.

Hadjis is no wild-eyed civil libertarian. In the recent past, he himself has convicted people under this same law. And, before Jean Chretien appointed him to the tribunal, Hadjis was the boss of one of Montreal’s largest multicultural lobby groups, which thrived on ethnic identity politics. But even Hadjis has had enough of the human rights industry and their fetish for political correctness. He ruled that allowing Canadian citizens to express offensive ideas is preferable to living under a government that prosecutes people for expressing those ideas.

As of yesterday, it’s no longer illegal to write politically incorrect things on the Internet. Now it’s illegal to prosecute someone for it.

This will have an immediate impact on the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), which maintains a large censorship department and has other cases under investigation. If the CHRC were a real police force, and the tribunal were a real court, all existing censorship cases would be dropped, and anyone who was previously convicted would have their convictions voided. Dozens of lawsuits against the government for wrongful prosecution, and compensation for costs, wouldn’t be far behind.

But the tribunal isn’t a real court, and Hadjis acknowledged that he doesn’t have the power to strike down the law, only to declare it unconstitutional and to refuse to apply it. The CHRC has ignored the tribunal before: In this same case, Lemire was routinely denied his procedural rights by the CHRC, including its outrageous tactic of waiting until the trial was over before disclosing all of its documents to him. Even worse, some bizarre CHRC conduct came to light, including confessions by their staff that they joined neo-Nazi organizations and published bigoted comments on the Internet to entrap their targets. A real court would have thrown the case out years ago, and a real police force would have disciplined such rogue conduct.

Still, it’s a great day for Charter values like freedom of speech. But how long will it last? The human rights industry knew this was an important case, and over the past six years it spent millions of tax dollars fighting Lemire. The federal government had six lawyers on the case–four from the CHRC and two from the Justice Minister’s office. And there were five lawyers intervening on behalf of Canada’s tax-subsidized Jewish groups, the B’nai Brith, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC).

Yesterday, the CJC issued a bizarre press release in which it states that, despite the tribunal’s clear ruling, it believes the censorship law “remains constitutional.” In the next few weeks, the CJC and the rest of the human rights litigation industry will clamour for the government to appeal this decision.

It was one thing for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to defend the constitutionality of a government law that was under attack — that’s standard operating procedure. But now that the law has been found to be illegal, it would be quite another thing for Nicholson to positively act to revive such an illiberal law. Nicholson must also put a leash on the disgraced CHRC, and order it not to appeal either. They’ve already done more than enough damage to Canada’s civil liberties, at great expense to taxpayers.

In fact, just leaving Hadjis’s ruling intact isn’t enough–his ruling illustrates a deeper rot in the CHRC. Hadjis found that the CHRC has become much more aggressive and confrontational in recent years, and at the same time it started applying punitive sanctions — such as issuing fines of tens of thousands of dollars. That toxic mix of abusive conduct with criminal-style punishments was specifically forbidden by the Supreme Court when it last reviewed the censorship laws in 1990.

It’s that bullying corporate culture that Nicholson needs to address. Nicholson should start by ordering Jennifer Lynch, the CHRC’s chief commissioner, to stop her expensive campaign of demonization against the commission’s critics. And then he should call in a retired judge — or the auditor-general — to do a thorough biopsy to find out how Canada’s human rights agency became such a threat to our human rights.

National Post

Ezra Levant on Ottawa’s CFRA

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In this, never before seen, interview with Ezra Levant he speaks eloquently on Canada’s so called ‘Human Rights Commissions’ and other subjects that should be of concern to all freedom minded peoples. Watch and comment.

Eeyore

Link: Ezra Levant on CFRA April 25 09

Campus group advertising Israeli Apartheid Week lodge HRC complaint against university

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From the Ottawa Citizen.

Students take Carleton to rights tribunal

Group says school trampled its freedom of expression

By Jennifer Green, with files from Katie Daubs, The Ottawa CitizenAugust 7, 2009

Carleton University was only trying to keep campus political discourse civil. Now, it looks as if it will face Ontario’s human rights tribunal.

In March, a campus group advertised Israeli Apartheid Week with vivid signs of an Israeli fighter jet targeting a Palestinian toddler. Carleton told the group, Students Against Israeli Apartheid, to come up with something less pointed.

It complied, but complained to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario that the school trampled its freedom of expression. A mediation will likely be held in late September or early October, and, if the parties cannot agree, the complaint will proceed to a hearing, said Yavar Hameed, a lawyer representing the Carleton students.

Hameed said criticism of Israel was a sensitive issue on university campuses, and he didn’t know if this case would be resolved during the mediation stage. “The nature of this complaint focuses on the advocacy of Palestinian human rights,” he said. “We’re hopeful the human rights tribunal will take that issue seriously so Palestinian students and their allies will not feel chilled or marginalized when they try to speak about their basic rights.”

In an e-mail, Carleton spokesman Jason MacDonald said the students’ claims were “false and completely unfounded. The issue is now being addressed by the human rights tribunal and will provide us a with formal opportunity to respond point by point to these false claims once and for all. In the meantime we’re not going to do anything to undermine that process.”

Ben Saifer, a member of Students Against Israeli Apartheid, said the group would not back down. “The days of administrative intimidation and sophism are counted at Carleton University, and the tides are turning in North America against the supporters of the illegal Israeli occupation and apartheid regime.”

On its website, the group said: “In its fifth year, Toronto’s Israeli Apartheid Week has seen an alarming increase in harassment, intimidation and physical violence against its organizers and guests. While people who seem to be affiliated with the Jewish Defense League are the primary organizers of the attacks, unfortunately, the student groups Hasbara and Hillel have also joined in, using cameras, physical proximity, and threatening language to intimidate activists, especially women students, calling them ‘terrorists’ and repeating the accusations of ‘incitement’ and ‘hate speech.’ When these incidents of harassment and intimidation are reported to campus police, the police have taken no action.”

The university is also in hot water over its decision in late July to remove sessional lecturer Hassan Diab from a teaching post. A Lebanese-born Canadian citizen, Diab is accused of killing four people in the bombing of a Paris synagogue. Senior administrators at Carleton had approved his appointment, but the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith said it was “deeply disturbed by the news that Hassan Diab, the alleged bomber of the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris in 1980, will be teaching an upcoming sociology course at Carleton University. That terrorist attack, blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations, resulted in the murders of four Jews, with scores more injured.”

The university fired the teacher, but a few days later, sociology and anthropology professors called for Diab’s reinstatement.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Canada’s HRCs denounced in U.S. Senate

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From Ezra Levant:

Here’s a clip from a debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate. After a preamble about the economy, Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina uses Canada as an example of what the U.S. should avoid.

Not Iran. Not North Korea. But Canada.

How embarrassing that our human rights commissions have become an international icon of censorship. Here’s the clip:

Time to disband Canada’s biased HRC’s

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Canada’s Human Right’s Tribunals are a farce and should be disbanded–for good.  Lorne Gunter writes in today’s National Post of how the nation’s ‘out-of-control human right’s commissions have become far more biased than the very people they accuse of bigotry’.  The following case is just one more example of how these quasi courts have ‘damaged the ancient concepts of the guilty mind and reasonable doubt’.

Phony courts, phony racism

Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Friday, July 31, 2009

As if more proof were needed of how out-of-control Canada’s human-rights commissions have become, and what a threat they pose to impartial justice, along comes the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal’s ruling last month against Michael Shaw, a white Toronto police officer.

In the spring of 2005, Constable Shaw was patrolling the Bridal Path–a singularly wealthy Toronto neighbourhood composed of large mansions on sprawling multi-acre estates. Ronald Phipps, a black man, was criss-crossing a street in the Bridal Path, delivering letters in substitute for the regular mail carrier, who was away.

Even though Mr. Phipps was wearing a Canada Post uniform and carrying two official mail satchels, the officer thought his behaviour was unusual. For instance, Mr. Phipps returned to a home at which he had already delivered mail, and retrieved it.

So the officer followed Mr. Phipps for a short distance, then asked him for some identification. He ran his name through police computers, thanked him for his cooperation and sent him on his way. He also verified Mr. Phipps’ identity with a regular letter-carrier he knew in the area, a carrier who happened to be white.

From this series of events, Mr. Phipps gleaned that he had been racially profiled. He filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and, in June, adjudicator Kaye Joachim determined that the fact that Mr. Phipps “was an African-Canadian in an affluent neighbourhood was a factor, a significant factor, and probably the predominant factor, whether consciously or unconsciously, in Const. Shaw’s actions.” He found the officer guilty of discrimination.

Mr. Phipps admits that Const. Shaw never insulted him. He was not detained, not even briefly, nor was he arrested. He was asked for ID, thanked for producing it and permitted to go about his business. He was not tasered or struck with a club. No racial slurs were hurled at him.

He claims that since the incident he has been teased mercilessly by his co-workers. But that is their misbehaviour, not Const. Shaw’s.

He claims that since the incident, he has had trouble sleeping, has lost weight and is having difficulty fulfilling his second job as a personal trainer — all because a police officer asked him to produce some ID four years ago.

“This was always broader than Const. Shaw,” he told the Toronto Star (a newspaper that has made a self-parodic fetish of splashing this — and other insubstantial accusations of racism — on its front page). His comments make him sound like someone with a bigger cause in mind from the start, someone who may just have been waiting for a chance to lodge a complaint.

The most disturbing aspect of the case is the way the adjudicator, Mr. Joachim, has damaged the ancient concepts of the guilty mind and reasonable doubt.

While he could find no evidence that Const. Shaw knowingly discriminated against Mr. Phipps, the adjudicator said no evidence of intent was needed. Whether “consciously or unconsciously,” the policeman had offended Mr. Phipps by his actions; he had caused the letter-carrier to feel discriminated against and that was enough.

———–

Guilt, now, apparently is solely in the mind of the complainant. No one needs to prove you had intent to discriminate, that you had a guilty mind. The minute a rights charge is levelled, it is up to you to establish your innocence.

And forget about “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Mr. Joachim found that “on the balance of probabilities,” Const. Shaw was guilty.

While a rights tribunal does not purport to be a real court, both are in the business of fact-finding, and the adjudication of rights and wrongs –and so must both be judged on that basis. Mr. Joachim’s assertion is similar to a Crown prosecutor arguing (and a judge accepting) the notion that a black man, or an aboriginal, immigrant or poor person, should be convicted of such-and-such a crime, even in the absence of conclusive evidence, because he is probably guilty.

Rights commissions were set up to be simple forums for settling discrimination complaints. They were never intended to be taxpayer-funded cudgels with which activists and grievers may beat their enemies without the expense of a court case, and without the need to follow the normal rules of due process.

As this case helps demonstrate, Canada’s human-rights commissions are horribly biased–far more biased than the people they accuse of bigotry –and need to be disbanded.

lg*****@**aw.ca

Banana republic? Try Canada republic. Except without the republic part.

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This is terrifying. As much as we have blogged on the Canadian ‘Human Rights Commissions’ it never ceases to amaze us here at VTB how much worse it is than we previously thought.

Watch this and be very very angry. We should be filling the streets like they are in Tehran right now over this:

Q: How do you know a member of the HRC is lying?
A: his lips are moving.

More blatant UN-HRC hypocracy than usual

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Different rules for Israel

National Post  Published: Saturday, May 30, 2009

hrc_home

H/T Fred at GAR
If more proof were needed that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a feckless, biased, intellectually corrupt haven for dictators and Islamofascists, the evidence was clearly on display this week. The UNHRC voted to affirm Sri Lanka’s right, justifiably, to self-defence from terror attacks launched against its citizens and territory by the Tamil Tigers. Indeed, the council went further, “condemning all attacks that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) launched on the civilian population and its practice of using civilians as human shields.” Sri Lanka had every right to protect itself, the council concluded, even at the cost of an estimated 20,000 civilian Tamil lives since the beginning of May alone.

Why, then, when Israel seeks to do the same — protect its citizens and territory from rocket and terror attacks launched from Gaza — does the very same council accuse Israel of being a “genocidal empire?” No quarter is given for the way Hamas –every bit as much a terror organization as the LTTE — hides its rocket bases and ammunition caches in schools, apartments and hospitals and launches its attacks on Israel from behind innocent human targets so that if the Israel Defense Forces wish to retaliate it is impossible for them to do so without taking civilian lives.

We are not disagreeing with the UNHRC’s assessment of Sri Lanka’s actions. Even more than Hamas and its jihadi brothers-in-arms, the Tigers were enthusiastic suicide bombers, targeting shops, public squares and Sri Lankan government offices. So proficient had they become, the Black Tigers — the LTTE’s suicide squads — could calculate how many Sri Lankans would die in their initial blasts and how many more would be cut down by flying glass and debris. After nearly three decades of fighting and at least 70,000 deaths on both sides, we sympathize with the Colombo government’s desire to bring their civil war to an end, once and for all.

Our question is merely: Why such a double standard when it comes to Israel?

Following Israel’s offensive against Gaza earlier this year, members of the council accused the Jewish state of genocide. The UNHRC struck a investigative panel that examined only Israel’s role in the fighting; it ignored the many thousands of provocative rocket attacks launched by Gazans against civilian targets in Southern Israel over the past eight years. It was silent on Hamas’s repeated use of its own people as shields against Israeli counterattacks. What the council praises Sri Lanka for doing, it roundly criticized Israel for.

Council members Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China and others — all states with their own spotty records on human rights — voted for both the resolution condemning Israel and the one praising Sri Lanka. Cuba — that paragon of rights defence — even moved to stop EU amendments to the Sri Lankan resolution that would have at least called on Colombo to permit relief workers into the Tamil war zone and pressured both sides to end their violence.

Earlier this year, the UNHRC expressed its solidarity with the Palestinian people and denounced Israel as the “occupying power,” even though Israel had no troops in Gaza in the three years before the most recent incursion.

Accusing Israel of human rights violations, though, seems to be the foremost reason many countries seek seats on the council — that and using their positions to shield their own human rights records from scrutiny.

This week, many Arab member-states wanted the council to go further and accuse Israel of crimes against humanity for killing 600 to 900 Palestinian civilians. We suppose the fact that they were unsuccessful is some kind of ray of hope. Still, the even-more-blatant-than-usual bias of the council, as evidenced by their different approaches toward the very similar situations in Sri Lanka and Israel, shows that neither the council nor the greater UN can be trusted when it comes to the Middle East in particular and human rights in general.

Mark Steyn Ezra Levant and many amazing people gather in Ottawa

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Where to begin.

An amazing event happened in Canada’s capitol last night. Amazing for not just the obvious reason that it was an all star night of those few who fight for truly liberal values such as Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant and many others who fight bravely, not fearlessly but bravely (for those who fight fearlessly have no clue how bad things are for all of us) but because so many who did attend and are in positions to influence to some degrees Canadian policies so warmly embraced the views expressed.

This was not xenophobia. Those who attended this event included people like Fred Litwin, a man who runs Gay and Right, an exceptional blog defending liberal democratic values while promoting the rights of gay people to live free of fear of state and Islamic persecution as well as people from a very wide berth of humanity having in common the clear understanding of the threats to freedom of speech and freedom of the individual in today’s world.

This video taken directly from Deborah Gyapong:

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This was indeed speaking truth to power and I was truly astonished to see power embrace it. A bright spark in a sea of darkness.

I also had the opportunity to speak to Canada’s minister of Immigration Jason Kenny and was shocked by the combination of lucidity intellect and humility. Qualities which in a politician are historically rare.

james-mark-kathyMark Steyn and Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury and another fellow. Mark is in the middle. Rumor has it the other fellow is also a blogger.

Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn gave brilliant speeches a section of which you can see above in the short video of Mark’s

Canada has at this time I can say, and with a great deal of surprise, a government it can be exceptionally proud of. Sadly it is a minority. Fashion dictates politics and not reality and reality is seldom in fashion. But for the moment, and especially for one night, as a Canadian I felt a great sense of pride in my nation, its policies, and its policy makers. Who knows, at this rate we may see the end of Human Rights star chambers and the thuggery of the state against unfashionable opinions and speech.

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On the right, Fred Litwin who also started the group ‘Free Thinking Film Society’ which brings in to Theaters in Ottawa films which the new orthodoxy would never dare show. Films such as ‘Obsession’ Radical Islam’s war with the west, What Black men think, which got a standing ovation from a mostly black audience and a film about Che Guevera which showed him as the murderous thug he actually was no matter how good he looks on a T shirt.

For more on this amazing evening, commentary and photos please see Debora’s blog here.

Blazing Cat Fur exposes disturbing Liberal agenda for ‘Human Rights Commisions’

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Blazing Cat Fur has done some excellent journalism here and exposed something all Canadians need to know about. Please do take the time to click this link and check it thoroughly. There is too much at stake here to not be careful and analytical about it. Check the links and sources as well. Some quotes below:

Very ugly news has surfaced in the LPC policy discussion document which should guarantee that the Liberals never be allowed to govern again.

I’ve written about the CHRC’s latest efforts to implement “Social Condition” as a prohibited ground of discrimination in the CHRA here and here – it is a naked power grab which should be vigorously opposed.

What will “Social Condition” entail? Does the Sub-Prime Mortgage mess ring a bell: For instance, financial institutions may assume that all people who have low paying jobs are an unacceptable risk for a loan.

We were told during our consultations that complaints were filed with the Commission on behalf of single mothers denied mortgages because they were on welfare or could not meet minimum income requirements.

I’d say goodbye property rights but we don’t have any written in our charter.

Or, an employer may impose unnecessary job requirements that deny employment to capable people who have low literacy skills as a result of their social disadvantage.

Now with the proposed inclusion of “citizenship status” one can only assume the Liberals are cultivating brave new victim class voting blocks – Can you say Gitmo Inmates for Ignatieff?

BE IT RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the next government to ensure that:
• the mandate of the CHRC is expanded to include type of citizenship status and socio-economic class as a ground of discrimination

See page 26 in the policy document.