Mark Steyn in Maclean's magazine

In the new issue of Maclean's magazine, Mark Steyn writes a virtuoso analysis of Canada's "human rights" commissions. Here are a few passages from it:

In the three decades of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's existence, not a single "defendant" has been "acquitted."

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In its entire history, over half of all cases have been brought by a sole "complainant," one Richard Warman. Indeed, Mr. Warman has been a plaintiff on every single Section XIII case before the federal "human rights" star chamber since 2002 — and he's won every one. That would suggest that no man in any free society anywhere on the planet has been so comprehensively deprived of his human rights. Well, no. Mr. Warman doesn't have to demonstrate that he's been deprived of his human rights, only that it's "likely" (i.e. "highly un-") that someone somewhere will be deprived of some right sometime. Who is Richard Warman? What's his story? Well, he's a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission: an investigator.

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The American website Pundita has a sharp analysis of Section XIII, comparing it to Philip K. Dick's sci-fi novel The Minority Report, set in a world in which citizens can be sentenced for "pre-crime" — for criminal acts which have not occurred but are "likely" to. Who needs futuristic novels when we're living it here and now in one of the oldest constitutional democracies on the planet? What kind of countries have tribunals with 100 per cent conviction rates that replace the presumption of innocence with the presumption of guilt and in which truth is not only no defence but compelling evidence of that guilt?