Canadian Human Rights Commission maintains its 100% conviction record

There has been quite an outpouring in the media and the blogosphere regarding the recent decision of adjudicator, Athanasios Hadjis, in the Marc Lemire neo-Nazi case before the Canadian Human Rights tribunal.

In a convoluted and probably quite appealable decision -- his decision was based on issues not within his jurisdiction -- Mr. Hadjis let Lemire off the hook with respect to financial penalties that could be applied to him under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

However, he did this after first finding Mr. Lemire “guilty” of violating Section 13(1) of the Act (the hate speech offense) in respect of one of the several charges that had been levied against him.

Commentators who have called this a landmark case seemed to have overlooked the point that the CHRC regime still maintains its 100% conviction record.

But, it is remarkable for two outcomes: yet another HRC insider has gone rogue and the serial complainer, Mr. Richard Warman, failed to collect any dough for his hurt feelings.

What needs to happen in this country is a grassroots push to make the repeal of Section 13(1) an election issue for both the Liberals and the Conservatives, since there don’t seem to be any other good election issues justifying all this media chattering about forcing yet another national election.

The Bull in the china shop

The Prime Minister of Canada has acknowledged that Section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act, unduly limiting free speech, is a problem, particularly in the manner in which public agencies have interpreted it. A parliamentary justice committee currently is examining the issue. Professor Richard Moon, delivering a report commissioned by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, one of the very public agencies that have been castigated for creating a problem with Section 13, has recommended abolishing the Section.

But, back in good old Ontario, Barbara “the Bull” Hall, the Ontario Human Rights Commissioner, has tabled a report to her agency recommending a new government speech body be set up to control all publications, including web content.

The National Post had an excellent editorial on this initiative yesterday. This observation was particularly apt:

"Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism," Ms. Hall has said previously. But because no one has god-like powers to discern accurately what is "fair" and "unbiased," then no one -- not even the chief commissioner -- is qualified to sit in judgment of which articles and opinions meet those criteria and which do not. Most people's interpretation of fair and unbiased reporting corresponds very closely with their own opinions on the subject at issue, and Barbara Hall is no different. She has been granted no special powers not given to other mortals to divine the truth; therefore, neither she nor any other pompous purveyor of social concern has the ability to judge which speech should be free and which not.

Read the rest here

Religion versus free speech versus the faithful versus free speech

Our good Islamic apologist, Haroon Siddiqui, has penned an ambiguous column in the Toronto Star about free speech versus religion. He says he is agnostic, not in the sense of a person who claims that he does not know whether God exists or not, but in the meaning that he is undecided about whether free speech trumps the sacred when it comes to religion; i.e., whether religion should be off-limits for critical analysis.

He lives in a secular state that nominally stands for free speech. He is most concerned with alleged Islamophobia, being cognizant that free speech advocates are very vocal and visible when it is Islamists that try to shut down free speech, but invisible when it is others attacking Islam.

In the normal course, one would expect this where the majority religion, as in this country, is Christian and the minority religion, by a long shot, is Islam. But he is right on the scales of fairness and justice, this is not right. What is sauce for the goose must also apply to the gander.

What is convoluting the problem, in my view, is that many people (and I think Mr. Siddiqui is one of them) fail to distinguish between a religion and the people who adhere to the religion. Islam is the religion and Muslims are the people who follow the religion.

In our society, you are perfectly free to be a Muslim (however you define Muslimism). Nobody is entitled to criticize you for your choice of belief system, and would be considered a bigot if they did so. But that is not the same as saying that your religion is exempt from scrutiny. I can say anything I like about Islam and you, as a Muslim, have nothing to complain about (at least in Canada). I don’t think that Muslims understand that because it is an axiom of Islam that the religion is beyond criticism.

Likewise, you can criticize religions such as Christianity and Judaism, but you cannot criticize Christians and Jews; i.e., the people who have chosen their paths of belief. This is the problem that the Khalid mosque experienced; it did not criticize Judaism, it attacked Jews.

This is a free country, and that is what it means – you can believe any nonsense that strikes your fancy. It doesn’t mean that the fancy that strikes you is beyond analysis and criticism.

Here is the difficulty: if you say a religion is nuts, then you are, by implication, however unintended, saying a person who believes the dogma of that religion is nuts. The belief system and its tenets are wrapped up in the psyche of the individual believer. They cannot distinguish between an intellectual dissection of their belief system and their own self-worth.

This is the underpinning of the problem with section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act. Muslims have taken the language that protects them from criticism and attempted to stop criticism of Islam. Neo-Nazis rain contempt on Jews, not on Judaism. Mark Steyn criticizes the political aspect of Islam and its political activists, not Muslims as a whole – there is a difference.

In a rational society dedicated to reason and skeptical argument it should be perfectly acceptable to question a belief system without personalizing it for those who accept it.

We seem to be a long way from being a rational society. But we should not make the mistake that is implicit in the resolutions of the United Nations to make the scrutiny of religion off-limits. I don’t how Mr. Siddiqui could be ambivalent about that.