Nova Scotia's HRC gets a well-deserved hometown smack-down

I've been focused on the Canadian Human Rights Commission, because they are by far the most abusive in the country, they're the biggest, and they're the one most likely to be brought to heel -- if the federal Conservatives can be convinced to do the right thing. Alberta's HRC is dangerous, too, because they have actually gone farther than the CHRC in terms of limiting freedom of religion and speech (see paragraph 357 here) and their cartoon suit against me, now grinding into its third year.

But there are fourteen different HRCs in Canada at the federal, provincial and territorial level. I don't think there is a sane one amongst the bunch.

Last week I wrote a bit about Nova Scotia's HRC, and their three-year hearing about whether an Arab man's "human right" to watch Al Jazeera trumped his condo board's rule -- and the man's own signed contract -- to forbid big satellite dishes on the building (by the way, the satellite remained up throughout the dispute).

Well, it wouldn't be seemly for a prairie boy like me to be taking on Halifax's human rights nannies all by myself! Here's the Halifax Chronicle-Herald's Paul Schneidereit, bringing some hometown scrutiny to the NS HRC. An excerpt:

[NS HRC CEO Michael] Noonan claimed it’s the media that say human rights commissions are out of control. Actually, two of the men responsible for helping create human rights commissions in the first place – Alan Borovoy, Canadian Civil Liberties Association general counsel, and Irwin Cotler, former federal Liberal justice minister – have both said the commissions have gone off the rails in their efforts to censor free speech.

Noonan also accused the media of taking an "extreme" example, like the human rights complaints against Maclean’s, and using it to "divert public attention from the dirty little secrets hiding under the carpet of Canada’s grand multicultural tapestry." Huh? If the Maclean’s case is so extreme, why did both the federal and B.C. human rights bodies decide the case was worth investigating? Is Ezra’s case also extreme? How many "extreme" cases should the media ignore before it’s OK, according to Noonan, to complain? The second part of his allegation, frankly, is bizarre. Is he implying the media have cried foul about free speech being squelched to cover up real discrimination elsewhere? If so, that’s insulting and offensive. But, hey, it’s a free country … I think.

Noonan’s claim freedom of speech is concentrated in the hands of a powerful media elite is demonstrably wrong. He and the Osgoode Hall students who objected to the Maclean’s piece had their opinions printed by this paper. The Internet is full of opinions on this topic, just a Google away. Noonan said Maclean’s is to blame for the complaint (didn’t he say it was "extreme?") as it wouldn’t run the dissenting views of the Canadian Islamic Congress. But Maclean’s side of the story is different. They say they refused to be dictated to on the response’s length or layout, or whether there’d be cover art.

Those defending human rights bodies just don’t get it.