Kathy is insightful, funny and lucid speaking in London Ontario April 13th 2009 but most of all, deadly accurate. I hope everyone watches this entertaining and important speech. Not to take away anything from the other equally excellent speakers.
Human Rights Commissions: Useful or Obsolete? Part 1: Intro & Kathy Shaidle from josephinejosephine on Vimeo.
Below, part two. With Salim Mansur and Ezra Levant
Human Rights Commissions: Useful or Obsolete? Part 2: Salim Mansur and Ezra Levant from josephinejosephine on Vimeo.
Questions and answers:
Human Rights Commissions: Useful or Obsolete? Part 3: Audience Q&A from josephinejosephine on Vimeo.
Category Archives: Human Rights Commission
Northern Discomfort, Shame on Canada’s thought police
By Mark Hemingway National Review Online
It’s hard to describe Ezra Levant’s splendid new volume, Shakedown: How Our Government Is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights, as an enjoyable read — because the book is a chronicle of injustice, with outrage on every page.
On opening this slim volume, I was transported to early last year, when I first heard that Levant — formerly the publisher of the Canadian conservative magazine The Western Standard — was being hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for having the temerity to publish something a radical imam didn’t approve of.
As I began to read the facts of Levant’s case, I came to the sad realization that Canada no longer has freedom of speech. The “human rights” commissions (HRCs) all over Canada, staffed by bureaucrats and not following normal legal procedures, had originally been set up to deal with blatant cases of discrimination; they had morphed into star chambers weighing in on what the press could print, what pastors could say from the pulpit, whether certain Bible verses could be displayed publicly, and so on.
Later in the year, when National Review’s own Mark Steyn was ensnared by both Canada’s national and the British Columbia HRC for an article he published, I ended up covering Steyn’s case, as well as Canada’s kangaroo courts more broadly. (Steyn has written a foreword to Shakedown.) Every rock I turned over revealed the HRCs to be even more pernicious then they appeared, and they looked Orwellian to begin with. These commissions have the power to impose financial and legal penalties, and yet they don’t adhere to the most basic protections of due process found in a real court of law.
Fighting for free speech
The International Free Press Society is an organisation that has been set up in order to examine and report on countries and groups that seek to stifle free speech and the right of opinion around the world. Some are so afraid of the truth being exposed that a cyber attack was immediately launched against IFPS’s web site.
We’re trying to make the attackers’ strategy counterproductive by helping the
same information go viral on the internet. If thousands of websites post the
same material — including information on how one can purchase one of the
cartoons — their efforts will have been in vain.
International Free Press Society’s Mohammed Cartoon Fundraiser Succeeds Despite Cyber Attack
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, DC – April 13, 2009: Just one day after world media reported that the International Free Press Society (IFPS) was raising funds to support its free speech activities by selling prints of the most famous of the Danish Mohammed cartoons, the IFPS website suffered a massive cyber-attack. In the wake of the attack, which began at 6:30 am on Thursday, April 9, 2009, the IFPS created an alternate website which is now in place at http://internationalfreepresssociety.wordpress.com. The main site will be restored in the near future at http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org . Prints of the controversial cartoon can be ordered online at http://freepresssociety.blogspot.com .
Sales for the print of “Turban Bomb,” signed and numbered by the Danish artist Kurt Westergaard, continue uninterrupted and indeed, have exceeded expectations, as orders have been processed via more traditional means and email marketing was expand
The IFPS was founded in January, 2009 to defend individuals and organizations under assault for exercising their right to free speech. For taking on this mission, the IFPS is under ongoing cyber-attacks. This aggression only serves to underscore the urgency with which free people must come together to defend free speech. Continue Reading →
Ezra Levant on the Canadian HRC’s. This is a must watch.
You may want to skip forward to segment 5 if you want to see Ezra speak bluntly on the Canadian Human Rights Commissions and Richard Warman.
Some links for March 4 2009
Maybe now I should make this policy change official. When I started VTB one of the issues I wished to address is the dangerous and counter productive irrational leftist movement to combat ‘anthropogenic global warming’. A disingenuous goal if ever there was one, as if you question nine in ten supporters of it long enough ultimately they will come back at you with “Yes the science on it is a little shaky but I still support it as it makes people ‘think’ the right way about the environment.” A truly repugnant and Orwellian agenda. It’s OK for me to lie to you because you making your choices based on lies makes for a better world. And typically, these are the exact same people who virulently oppose religion of all stripes. Except Tibetan Buddhism. Because they know nothing about it.
I no longer concern myself with global warming hysteria because anyone who still believes in it despite the last 8 years of climate data and the discovered falsification of facts in order to propagate this myth is clearly never going to accept the facts. They are anti corporate types who use the language of green to support a Marxist anti western agenda. They do not actually care about the ‘environment’. For an excellent essay on this read the co founder of Greenpeace, Patrick More. He states it very clearly as his reason for leaving Greenpeace altogether.
The threat we have to deal with, the one which will in fact ‘change our environment’ in every conceivable sense of the term is Islam. As Fjordman so eloquently writes extensively on, The Byzantines where an enlightened modern people with solid foundations in Greek thought as well, they were the Greeks. And as the degree of jihadi Muslims infiltrating western bureaucracies increases and the degree of submission of some of my favorite nations also grows, we clearly have decided to focus on the anti jihad. The stakes are higher than I can grasp. The degree to which the threat of the loss of all western values becomes more apparent to me each day. In the most excellent style of Mark Steyn, we at VTB try and understate the real case so that any skeptic who chooses to challenge these articles by doing honest research will discover our case is more serious than even we present it. This by the way, frightens we here at vladtepesblog as well.
The problem is two fold. The extent of jihadi preparations for violent actions against western targets, by far the lesser of the problem, compared to the extent to which Muslims who have a clear well understood and publicized agenda of global manifest destiny have infiltrated organizations typically thought of as protecting liberalism. Agencies such as the U.N. now co opted to an anti Semitic and pro sharia law agenda as we see by both Durban I and Durban II as well as the current binding resolution in front of the general assembly of the UN protecting Islam from criticism and of course, a large host of ‘Human Rights’ organizations which now actively work against any real human rights.
And on that note, some links:
Muslim girls in Norway beaten and abused for not wearing hijab all the time. Women’s groups anywhere on earth I hope are profoundly ashamed for their lack of attention on this and thousands of similar stories around the world today. All of us should of course, this isn’t a feminist issue so much as one of fundamental human rights but feminist groups who often live on Government grants seem more concerned about interpreting comments at the water cooler than they are about women being kept in London basement prisons for refusing to marry a first cousin from Pakistan. Often actually being murdered for it. Read Bruce Bawer’s ‘While Europe Slept’ for statistics on this.
Five Muslims convicted for murdering a British Teen. Of course the ‘funny’ thing about this article is how it sparked a debate on ‘knife control’ and not immigrant or Muslim control. Europe (with the notable exception of Denmark) refuses to admit that a grossly disproportionate amount of violent and politically driven crime is from Muslim immigrants who often state that the crimes they commit is for the spread of and glorification of Islam.
Muslims like to pretend their is no compulsion of religion in Islam. Something they say to ease our minds about our new Muslim overlords. I wonder how they would explain entire Bulgarian villages forced to convert to extremist Islam then?
Canada is right and truly fucked. How can one know a place is fucked? Because something as hideous as this happens in a Canadian high school, an indoctrination session by anti Semites disguised with a veneer of anti Israeli politics and they expressly forbade any adults to attend. No parents, No teachers, no recording whatsoever. The only way it could be more fucked than this, is if it did not get reported at all. Which I would wager is the case in Islamic nations. Like England.
As Baron Bodissey puts it so well at GOV…
by Baron Bodissey
Ever since the Mumbai terrorist attacks last November, India has asserted that Pakistani nationals inside Pakistan were part of the conspiracy to murder and wreak havoc among the population of Mumbai. Pakistan at first denied any connection, then acknowledged that there might be a few Pakistani “rogue elements” who conspired with the attackers. As the weeks wore on, deeper and deeper connections between Pakistan and the Mumbai terrorists were ferreted out and exposed in the Indian press.
Mark Steyn at the Ontario Legislature
And yes we love you Wendy! Thanks for asking the best questions
Canada’s ‘human rights commissions’ seek more power
Here is a collection of links dealing with the new request by the quite literally fascist ‘Human Rights Commissions’ asking for power to criminalize blogs. It is of course craftily worded asking that web sites which are ‘news oriented’ come under their pervue and of course, they will selectively enforce against Islam critical sites if their history is any indicator (and it most certainly is Chrystal clear that this is their agenda) while ignoring any ‘news oriented site’ which attacks maliciously or otherwise out of fashion groups such as Jews Israelis and conservatives. The trend in the west is becoming clear enough that maybe a few people will fight back. Wouldn’t that be lovely.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and “media services” Web sites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.
The council would have the power to order the publication of its decisions and “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 reads.
Do not let any soothing wording fool you. Check the HRC history and its quite clear that they mean to destroy people who do not have the means to fight them and do not carry the ‘right’ opinions and with all the resources of the state behind them.
There have been countless abuses by these HRCs including investigators unlawfully pirating the Internet connections of unsuspecting citizens, investigators logging onto Internet forums and posting offensive content in order to bait people into committing “thought crimes” and there was even a case of an Alberta pastor “convicted” over a letter to the editor of a newspaper who was effectively ordered to renounce his personal religious faith.
Now, the Ontario Human Rights Commission is lobbying parliament to enact legislation forcing all media in Canada – news websites included – to join a “media watchdog council” that would have the power to review content (censor content) and order newspapers, magazines, television stations and even websites not to publish certain articles. This is being spearheaded by Barbara Hall – the failed former mayor of Toronto who is now head of the Ontario HRC and who, without benefit of a trial, condemned MacLean’s Magazine and Mark Steyn over their articles over which the HRC didn’t even have jurisdiction.
The quote above I believe is from this source: Mississauga Blogs:
And of course no post on Canadian Human Rights Commissions could be complete without a link to Ezra, Canada’s most powerful voice for free speech still actually living here.
Ezra puts it quite beautifully….
“In healthy democracies, the media is a watchdog over the government.
In the soft tyranny of Canada’s human rights commissions, the government is the watchdog over the media“
That is a quote for the ages. Which at current rates of the movement of history toward a new age of theological tyranny, is about 15 more years.
As a final note, the trial of Geert Wilders clearly is a test case not just for Freedom of speech in Holland or even Europe. But is a beach head for all who wish to remove this central freedom from us world wide. If you are looking for a charity, I would consider giving to Geert Wilders. His fight is ours. If he looses this one, the choices we may have on all things will be dramatically limited hereafter. Even our choices of charities.
Eeyore for VTB
Interview with Gregorious Nekshot
For those of you who do not know, Gregorious (a nom de plume) was arrested by no less than 10 policemen in Holland where they ransacked his apartment and took him to jail for the heinous crime of drawing cartoons lampooning Islam in the Netherlands. A fairly classic case of, ‘you call us intolerant, and we will lay the hammer down on you’. The video of his speech is currently the top post at Gates of Vienna and a full transcript of the speech is available on a Danish blog where the speech was held. You have to scroll down a bit for the English transcript. Well worth seeing and for that matter, reading as well.
Remember, this speech and these events such as we see with Geert Wilders, are tomorrows newspaper for the USA as much as they are last years news for Canada. Do not blow this off. Watch this interview. Gregorious is someone who actually ‘gets it’.
A small sample below…
Ladies and Gentlemen
In the Netherlands, satire is an old tradition. This tradition began seven centuries ago, in the thirteenth century, with the epic poem Reynaerd ‘the Fox’. The poem Reynaerd ‘the Fox’ ridiculed nobility and clergy – the highest civil and religious authorities of that era. The author must have been a wise man, he managed to keep his identity a secret. Monty Python’s movie Life of Brian pokes fun at Christianity. The movie stirred up anger and controversy in 1979. Nevertheless, the movie could be watched almost everywhere. The makers, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin received neither death sentences nor did the Public Prosecutor lift them from their beds and put them behind bars.
These two fairly random examples illustrate that in Western Europe, religion – in the cases mentioned Christianity – has been ridiculed for ages. First this was done anonymously or under pseudonym, later openly. In Western culture, rationalism, science, humanism and democracy, in a lengthy and painful process, created the separation between Church and State. Freedom of Speech became a constitutional right in many countries. Thus, ridiculing Christianity, without fear of losing one’s life, has been possible for quite some time.
When large numbers of migrants with a different cultural and religious background came to Western Europe, things fundamentally changed. Poorly educated – and without exception raised under dictatorial regimes – a lot of immigrants with an Islamic background cannot agree to our separation between religion and politics, no matter how self-evident this separation appears to us.
Muslim doctor refuses lesbian patients. Human rights commissions face dilemma.
Well we know that the CHRC like Muslims as they hear every case brought to them by Muslims for ‘discrimination’ and we know that the CHRC likes sexual deviancy of all kinds as they destroyed a Canadian plastic surgeon for refusing to give a labiaplasty to man who had a sex change for reasons which actually had to do with the competency of the doctor. So what is the CHRC to do when lesbians take a muslim doctor to task? They must be in special session now on the verge of a melt down. The only solution will likely involve tens of millions of tax payer dollars. Really, check the story on the plastic surgeon. It’s in the too weird to be true category but typical of ‘human rights comissions’
Lesbians a mystery to city MD
Ginette (left) and Andrea Markowski have filed a human rights complaint against a Winnipeg doctor, saying she refused to take them as patients. (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)
A same-sex couple has filed a human rights complaint against a south Winnipeg doctor, claiming she refused to take them as patients and told them she doesn’t know how to treat lesbians.
Andrea and Ginette Markowski, who recently moved to Winnipeg from Yellowknife, were stunned last week when a family doctor at Lakewood Medical Centre suggested the couple look for another physician since homosexuality violates her religious beliefs.
Ezra Levant on Calgary marches and instigators.
Calgary anti-Semites Nagah Hage and Syed Soharwardy have been leading the pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah hate marches in the Jewish neighbourhood of Calgary. Neither Hage nor Soharwardy live anywhere nearby, of course; they truck in their foul-mouthed supporters — who fly the flag of the criminal organization, Hezbollah — to chant “death to the Jews”, and wave swastikas in the face of the local citizens.
The mob comes week after week.
At the last hate march, one of Hage’s followers declared — within earshot of a policeman — that he was ready to become a suicide “martyr” in Canada or anywhere else. Another one spat at a Jewish rabbi on the way to the next-door synagogue.
Soharwardy himself wrote a proud letter to the Calgary Herald, wishing that Hamas could see their rally. Soharwardy tends to say things like that. After the tsunami, Soharwardy claimed that Western aid agencies were actually kidnapping little Muslim children, not helping them.
Ezra Levant speaks brilliantly on the ‘new normal’ of anti semitism. read, spread.
I have copied this entire post from Ezra’s blog linked below. I think its a very important one and needs to be read by everyone. What he says here not only applies just to Canada but the evidence of it’s truth can be witnessed across Europe which is if not tomorrow’s newspaper for we in Canada it is next year’s newspaper. Clearly this process is taking place across the western world. Canada is behind the curve. This gives us a chance to actually see what has happened to other nations who employ the same strategy as we do and see it’s results. The question remains, do we have the collective wisdom to know the future and make new decisions? Or will we carry on with what momentum we have and imagine it won’t happen here cause we are somehow immune to the same forces at work.
Its worth a click to www.ezralevant.com and read up on his trials with the various bureaucratic institutions that ultimately protect hate groups in Canada if you are not already familiar with them.
Hamas and Hezbollah supporters return to Calgary’s Jewish neighbourhood
I don’t get it. Glenmore Landing is private property; with a word RioCan, the landlord, could demand that the pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah goons, who now gather there weekly, leave. That’s what mall security does when teens loiter on skateboards. How about foreign anti-Semitic provocateurs flying terrorist flags?
Here’s two photos from today. (Thanks to DS.)
I know for a fact that several merchants in the mall are appalled — not just by their lost business, but by the offensive display of anti-Semitism permitted by their landlord. I just don’t get it. The bigots said they’ll be back — I’m sure they will. And I’m sure there will be more anti-Semitic graffiti in the neighbourhood. Today’s graffiti was just a block away from the Jewish Centre, and a block and a half from the synagogue.
I bet there will be a swastika spray-painted on the synagogue within a month.
That’s what James Q. Wilson calls the “broken windows theory“. The anti-Semites at the hate march — most of them just off the plane from countries where freedom of assembly doesn’t exist, and if you dared to protest outside a government office, you’d be tortured — are testing what they can get away with. What’s acceptable in Calgary? What’s acceptable to Calgary’s Jews? To Calgary’s Gentiles? To the RioCan landlords? To the Prime Minister himself?
You can already see an escalation.
At their first hate march, the Hezbollah flag was only unfurled near the end, as a specific taunt to a Jewish rabbi.
The police did nothing, though Hezbollah is listed in the Criminal Code as an illegal terrorist organization.
The bigots are learning. I bet the terrorist sympathizer who showed the flag last time was pretty nervous about it. But now he knows that’s the new normal. And so, at this rally, the Hezbollah flag was flown for almost the entire event. Here are some pictures from today:
I imagine that, the first time the S.A. stormtroopers marched in Germany 80 years ago, they were the ones who were afraid — afraid of public excoriation, afraid of vigilantism in response, afraid of police. But once they realized they could get away with it, once they gathered momentum, once the community indicated that it would do nothing to enforce their behavioural standards, it was the community that became afraid.
Some statistics: there were about 150 Hamas supporters this time, and very few women and children. Almost all men now. There were about 20 counter-demonstrators, some with modest placards — and a small Israeli flag.
Again — as last time — the police told the pro-Israel counter-protesters that they risked being arrested for “inciting public disorder” if their tiny Jewish flag caused a conflagration. Did you get that? If the peaceful display of a Star of David “incited” the Hamas supporters to act violently, it would be the Israel supporters who would be charged. I wonder how much longer — months? years? — until police are telling people that wearing “provocative” Christian crosses is cause for arrest, too.
National Post: The leftist threat continues unabated in Canada.
Do not underestimate the importance of this. Incrementalism is how governments go from putting a toe over the line to driving armored personnel carriers over it. The smoking bans which now include outdoor patios which have more than a 25% permanent cover started out as illegal segerated sections of restaurants for the health and well being of non smokers. No one minded as it seemed a not unreasonable concession to make. Once that precedent had been made there was no way to stop regional or provincial governments from implementing anything they wanted in the name of public health no matter how many of their own rules or laws they had to ignore or more accurately, run roughshod over to do achieve them. The proceedings described below are also reminicent of the Human Rights commissions in Canada. Do not think the story below a trivial one. It speaks to the heart of totalitarianism. Legal government backed bodies which are hard to understand and each one only affects a small percentage of us, but all of us fall under one or another of these agencies.
Read the whole article. Be careful what you talk about at the local pub. You may have to testify about it later.
Ivison: Ontario is becoming an increasingly Orwellian province
It seems positively Orwellian that a private conversation in a bar can be taken down surreptitiously by a third party and used as evidence in a quasi-judicial hearing — but that is the reality of life in a province that is under increasingly intrusive surveillance.
Readers with long memories may remember that a group of journalists was booted unceremoniously from the popular downtown Ottawa watering hole D’Arcy McGee’s on a quiet Monday night last February. There was no warning, no incident — just no more beer.
It turned out a liquor inspector working for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario had satisfied himself that the revellers were intoxicated and told the bar’s manager that he was filing a report that would put D’Arcy’s liquor license in jeopardy — hence the beer yanked from the hot, clammy hand of one of my bemused colleagues.
The report was filed in the fall and D’Arcy’s decided to contest its findings. As the bar’s manager, Kevin Ferby, told me at the time, he felt the inspector was “overzealous” and had “overreacted”. “The law is there to protect extremes and there were no extremes here,” he said.
I was called as a witness this week at a hearing in front of two members of the board of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission — and the experience was surreal. The AGCO is a unique organization, in that it decides who gets a liquor license, then enforces their operation through liquor inspectors. If the organization decides to proceed with charges, the AGCO appoints legal counsel and the case is heard by two AGCO board members. Theoretically, each stage of the process is independent of the other, though defendents say the cards are often stacked against them.
It gets worse — unlike a criminal court, where the prosecution has to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, to a high evidentiary standard, at an AGCO hearing, the burden of proof is much lower — on the balance of probability — as is an evidentiary standard that allows the use of hearsay.
In the D’Arcy’s case, the prosecuting lawyer cited the Post article, in which I had described members of our band as being “moist and garrulous” , if not quite “tired and emotional”, as an admission that we were all intoxicated — which is an offence under the Liquor License Act. I conceded that we were in high spirits but rejected the notion of intoxication, which according to the Ministry of Government Services’ own server training program means the customer is speaking too loudly, slurring, sweating and losing balance.
“You had to repeat yourself several times, did you not?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes but that happens all the time. You might have noticed I have the hint of an accent,” I replied, in my strongest west Scotland brogue.
By this time things had proceeded from farce, as the lawyer flailed away in her attempts to make me admit we were all full of loudmouth soup, or something more sinister.
“As regards the subject of your conversation, is it possible the conversation was of a sexual nature?” the lawyer asked.
National Post: On Christmas and political correctness.
Nothing in this any reader here doesn’t already know. But its nice to see in print and it’s well said. Thank you Lorne and the National Post of Canada.
Christmas
href=”http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/12/23/lorne-gunter-chipping-away-at-christmas.aspx” target=”_blank”>Posted: December 23, 2008, 6:00 PM by Kelly McParland
Lorne Gunter, Full Comment
Every year at about this time, there is a new batch of news stories detailing how the forces of political correctness and atheism are attempting to stamp out all public references to Christmas.
The same people behind turning your neighbourhood school’s Christmas concert into a Winter Family Festival would be appalled by the arrogance of any small band of Christians seeking to expunge all references to Diwali — the Hindu festival of lights — from public institutions in New Delhi or public mentions of Ramadan in Riyadh. Still, they cannot see the arrogance of their own attempts to impose minority secularist beliefs on the mainstream culture in Toronto or Regina or Halifax.
Typically, they explain away their actions as efforts to protect non-Christians from being offended by overt references to a distinctly Christian festival. But whether or not they will admit it, their campaigns are nearly always selfish attempts to shield themselves from messages and symbols they dislike. The feelings of non-Christians are typically nothing more than a cover. Continue Reading →
WOOHOO! Section 13 of the human rights act on the docket for chopping!
From Ezra Levants excellent blog:
The Conservative Party’s convention kicks off tonight in Winnipeg. Tomorrow’s schedule includes policy debates. One of the proposed resolutions, P-203, proposed by two B.C. riding associations, calls for section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the “hate speech” provision, to be repealed. The exact wording of the resolution is:
The Conservative Party supports legislation to remove authority from the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal to regulate, receive, investigate or adjudicate complaints related to Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
It’s similar to the private member’s motion proposed earlier this year by Liberal MP Keith Martin, which reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be deleted from the Act.
By comparison, the resolution proposed by Conservative MP Rick Dykstra to Parliament’s Justice Committee was less resolved (it did not call for the abolition, but rather the “review” of s. 13) but it was broader, including the CHRC’s conduct (such as its employees memberships in neo-Nazi organizations). Dykstra’s wording was:
Whereas concerns have been raised regarding the investigative techniques of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (the “Commission”) and the interpretation and application of section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act (the “Act”); and
Whereas the Commission operates independently and reports to Parliament;
Be it resolved that the Justice and Human Rights Committee examine and make recommendations with respect to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and in particular:
a) review the mandate and operations of the Commission;
b) review the Commission’s application and interpretation of section 13 of the Act;
c) Solicit and consider oral submissions from the Chief Commissioner and oral or written submissions from other interested persons or organizations;
d) Submit a report, including any proposed amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act arising out of the results of the Committee’s inquiry.
I’m not an expert in Parliamentary procedure, so I’ll have to check to see if Martin’s motion and Dykstra’s resolution died when last month’s election was called.
In any event, resolution P-203 is welcome. I hope it passes — and I think it will, as many Conservative “grass-tops” activists have been following this matter closely. Even if it doesn’t pass, however, the mere official discussion of it is a welcome sign that the issue “has arrived” on the national political agenda. (By the way, I’m not pessimistic; I just don’t have enough knowledge about who will be there voting, what efforts the two riding associations have taken to promote their resolution, etc., and I regret that unbreakable commitments in Calgary mean I can’t attend tomorrow’s session to see for myself!)
I was not involved with the Conservative Party’s policy process this year, but in the past, literally hundreds of resolutions were sent up the chain of command to the party where the best, or most interesting, or most timely resolutions were selected for debate (obviously, hundreds of resolutions cannot be debated in one day). That in itself is a good indication that the party is interested in having a real discussion about this issue, and in public.
Support for P-203 would be important, as it is a good barometer of what the party’s grass-tops are thinking. We have other evidence that the party is listening to the members on this issue; just before the election, the party sent out a letter to members that contained a one-line survey question about the subject. I’m told that the results were overwhelmingly supportive of reform, and that the response rate to the questionnaire was very high.
These things are important. They go to the “normalization” of reform and the “denormalization” of the CHRC. That’s why the firestorm of protest against the CHRC laying a wreath on Remembrance Day was so encouraging: it was a signal that the CHRC is being watched and tracked by an army of hundreds (thousands?) of informed critics, and that it cannot conduct itself with impunity, as it has in the past.
I’m proud of the grassroots party members who have seized this cause. But I’m also hopeful that some Liberal grassroots will do the same thing in their party’s convention in Vancouver next spring. That’s because it’s important to me that freedom of speech, and repeal of section 13, are not characterized as partisan issues. In other words, while I would hope that every Conservative would support the repeal of s. 13, I would hope that Liberals and NDPers don’t oppose it merely to be different. I don’t want it to become a partisan wedge issue. In fact, true progressives should reflect on the fact that people who are powerless often have no other tool except for free speech — offensive free speech, that deliberately upsets the status quo — to get reforms. The cases of women’s suffrage, black civil rights and the decriminalization of homosexuality come to mind.
Luckily, it was Martin the Liberal MP who really got the ball rolling with his private member’s motion, and other Liberal MPs have chimed in with support, as have many traditionally non-Conservative organizations, ranging from PEN Canada to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to the Toronto Star.
I put all of the above in the category of “denormalizing” the HRCs — building a demand for political change.
Here’s the thing: I think that 90% of the people in that convention hall would be opposed to the CHRC for reasons of principle. The only question is: are they convinced that repealing section 13 would be a political winner? That is, are they worried that doing the right thing would hurt them politically?
That’s where the debate is at in the Conservative government, in my assessment. A majority of Conservative MPs know that repealing section 13 the CHRC is the right thing to do, and a good number believe in more dramatic reforms to the corrupt CHRC altogether. But are they convinced that this won’t be a losing battle?
That’s what tomorrow’s test is about. Do Conservative grass-tops activists feel that it’s politically safe yet?
I hope so. In fact, I hope it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the real political risk to the Conservative Party (and government) is leaving the CHRC to fester.
Every newspaper in the country has condemned section 13, including liberal newspapers like the Toronto Star, Eye Weekly, the Montreal Gazette, etc. Even the CBC has mocked it, from Rex Murphy to Rick Mercer to even Neil Macdonald. EGALE, the gay rights lobby, has condemned section 13, for crying out loud.
In fact, it could be said that standing up for freedom of expression is a bridge of common ground to the very artistic/intellectual community that reacted so negatively to the Conservatives’ arts policies. It’s something both libertarians and social conservatives can agree on.
Those are reasons why repealing section 13 won’t hurt. But not repealing it, and reining in the CHRC, could be much more painful.
How long do the Conservatives think they can remain unscathed by the CHRC’s corruption? So far, few in the mainstream media have covered the RCMP and Privacy Commissioner’s investigations into their conduct. No cabinet minister would be allowed to run such a dangerous shop — why should Joe Clark’s former chief of staff, CHRC chief commissioner Jennifer Lynch, get away with such sloppy and dangerous management?
And, for a party worried about being tainted as intolerant, how much longer will the Conservatives abide the CHRC’s practice, in section 13 cases, of joining neo-Nazi organizations, publishing hundreds of bigoted remarks on the taxpayers’ dime?
I submit that leaving the CHRC and section 13 unreformed is the real political risk. You’d think that anything involving neo-Nazis would be shut down immediately by this government, before it blows up in their face.
I’ll write more about this later. But for now, I’d simply encourage the party’s grass-tops activists gathered in Winnipeg, to support freedom of speech and freedom of religion, by voting for P-203.
Toronto Star: Mosque slurs jews and infidels while demanding special rights for itself
John Goddard
A mosque asking that Canadian workplaces respect a strict Muslim dress code is at the same time disseminating slurs against Jews and Western societies, and warning members against social integration.
The Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque near Kipling Ave. and Rexdale Blvd. serves as the religious authority for eight Somali women complaining to the Canadian Human Rights Commission that UPS Canada Ltd. violated their religious rights at a sorting plant. The mosque, founded in 1990 and serving upwards of 10,000 people, preaches strict adherence to sharia, or Islamic law, and no compromise with the West.
Teachings on the mosque’s website, khalidmosque.com, refer to non-Muslim Westerners as “wicked,” “corrupt” and “our clear enemies.”
Sometimes Jews are singled out.
“Is it permissible for women to wear high-heeled shoes?” begins one posting in question-and-answer format. “That is not permissible,” comes the reply. “It involves resembling the Disbelieving Women or the wicked women. It has its origin among the Jewish women.”
Modern pastimes are condemned.
“What is the ruling on subscribing to sports channels?” another question begins. “Watching some of the female spectators, when the camera focuses on them time after time” stirs “evil inclinations,” the lesson reads. “Some (players) may not even believe in Allaah.”
Mosque leaders refused repeated requests for an interview.
A disclaimer on the website says questions and answers do not necessarily reflect the mosque’s views. But the About Us page says: “All questions and answers on this site (are) prepared, approved and supervised by (the mosque’s imam) Bashir Yusuf Shiil.”
The mosque’s stand on the UPS case also appears contradictory.
In September, a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal heard two weeks of testimony from eight mosque members alleging “Islamophobia” at the company’s west Toronto plant. Three final days of testimony are scheduled for next week.
The eight women, who lost their jobs at UPS, say Islam dictates that they wear a full-length skirt for modesty. The courier company insists that any skirt be knee-length for safety, as workers climb ladders up to 6 metres high.
Under their skirt, the women wear full-length trousers but say they do not want the lower part showing in case the shape of the calf can be discerned.
The complaint originally centred on the company’s use of temporary workers and uneven enforcement of its safety rules.
But the key question remains: Is UPS insisting on shorter hems for safety or is it violating religious rights by denying the women permanent jobs unless they conform?
So far, no Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque representative has attended the sessions, but the women cited the mosque as their place of worship and religious authority, and tabled a letter from its administration. “This is to certify that the religion of Islam requires all Muslim women to cover her entire body inclusive of the legs, arms, head, ears and neck,” the letter reads. “As such, (the women) would not be able to wear pants as an outfit.”
On the other hand, the mosque’s website teachings forbid women to work outside the home in the first place. “It is known that when women go to work in the workplaces of men, this leads to mixing with men,” one such posting says.
“This is a very dangerous matter,” it reads. “It is in clear opposition to the texts of the Shariah that order the women to remain in their houses and to fulfill the type of work that is particular for her …
“We ask Allah to protect our land and the lands of all Muslims from the plots and machinations of their enemies.”
Two of the women making the complaint – Dales Yusuf, 46, and Nadifo Yusuf (no relation), 36 – said in an interview that they live in Canada now, and are free to pick and choose from Islamic law.
“We must work,” said Dales Yusuf. “I’m a single parent raising my kids.” Jacquie Chic, a lawyer with the Workers’ Action Centre representing the women at the hearings, said neither she nor her clients were aware of the mosque’s posted teachings. “I, the Workers’ Centre and these women are concerned enormously about any expression of anti-Semitism or any other form of racism,” she said.
Questions to the mosque about its teachings were met with evasiveness over three weeks.
Mosque chairman Osman Mohamed three times agreed to an interview and three times cancelled at last minute. Imam Shiil was said to be in Saudi Arabia and unreachable. Mosque administrator Abukar Mohamed confused matters further by appearing to agree with UPS, saying: “The Quran says women must be covered – it doesn’t give you the specific clothes. But I am not a religious authority.”