Turning enemies into friends

Winston Churchill said that the definition of a fanatic was someone who can't change his mind, and won't change the topic. I must therefore change my view of John Baglow, also known as "Dr. Dawg". This week, he wrote what can only be called a concession speech for the defenders of Canada's human rights commissions. Here are some of my favourite excerpts:

The opponents of Human Rights Commissions are winning. I'll be accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy by stating the obvious, but it doesn't take a weatherman, etc., as we used to say...

Meanwhile, who is speaking up for Human Rights Commissions? A few left-wing bloggers--the usual suspects. Present and former Human Rights Commission officials...

What can we do about it?

First off, we need to be clear: the current operations of human rights commissions, all fourteen of them (one per province and territory, and the CHRC) leave a thing or two to be desired in terms of both procedures and outcomes. There is such a thing as a frivolous, vexatious complaint; there are also complaints offered up in perfectly good faith that simply will not stand. Clearly there must be a comprehensive screening process at the outset, one based upon law and jurisprudence, that weeds them out before the entire ponderous and costly apparatus of a tribunal is brought to bear.

That was (although Levant's fatuous histrionics nearly erased this fact from public consciousness) precisely what was going on at the Alberta Human Rights Commission. It would have been the work of a few minutes, requiring no more than a letter at most, if he hadn't tried to turn it into the Trial of the Century, prolonging his own alleged agony on endless video recordings and loving every minute of it. But meanwhile, Mark Steyn's unpleasant words in Maclean's magazine, while screened out in Ontario (the OHRC is being harshly criticized, though, for daring to refer to that unpleasantness at all), are being put on trial before both the BC Human Rights Commission Tribunal* and the CHRC.

And now, to top it all off, the Ontario Human Rights Commission is no longer going to screen complaints. They'll all go to a Tribunal. Every last one of 'em. Good grief. The anti-human-rights folks are going to have a field day with this one. I wonder how many hundreds or even thousands of bogus complaints scribbled on cocktail napkins by those busy bees are going to be submitted to the OHRC before someone in charge finally gets the message?

The problem is this. Human Rights Tribunals are supposed to offer recourse to the average citizen suffering discrimination--people who can't afford lawyers, court costs and powerful opponents with deep pockets. Like any other quasi-judicial tribunal, access is relatively easy, and proceedings are informal. That's as it should be. But the only way a system like this can work, practically speaking, is to keep it from getting clogged. And to prevent clogging, a fair and effective screening process is a must...

The second point is that respondents are currently required to foot their own bills, win, draw or lose. This is simply wrong. If a complaint is not upheld, reasonable costs should be awarded. The respondent has a right to be made whole, just as the complainant presently is when a complaint is upheld.

Rather than issuing defensive statements, officials, ex-officials and supporters of Human Rights Commissions should gracefully concede that the current system is in some need of adjustment. I don't want to debate whether or not hatred and discrimination should be tolerated in a free and democratic society. The answer to that one is obvious, at least to me. Instead, we should be discussing how the current system, at least in the short and medium terms, should be altered to conform to the popular sense of fairness and justice.

The debate, then, badly needs to be reframed. So far, we've let conservatives set the terms, and the damage is becoming more apparent by the day. We've been diverted by the disingenuous use of "free speech" issues, which is only the thin edge of the wedge. Human rights legislation and the bodies that enforce it are the real targets. We need, therefore, to cast a cold and impartial eye on the processes and procedures of the Commissions, face up to their shortcomings, and lobby for changes. And there's no time to lose.

There are parts of this analysis with which I disagree. And Baglow makes other weak points that I haven't excerpted, such as his odd statement that human rights commissions are the only remedy that the downtrodden have to fight discrimination. (Really? Was it through human rights commissions that suffragettes and Indians won the right to vote, Blacks won their civil rights and homosexuality was decriminalized? Or was it their unbridled free speech -- free speech that, by definition, offended the existing establishment? But I digress.)

What we have here is the conversion of an opponent into an ally. He doesn't speak as an ally; he is not ready to make that dramatic a repudiation of his past arguments. But besides making an objective assessment of the bleak political situation for the HRCs, and scoffing at their self-serving and ineffective attempts at PR damage control, Baglow actually proposes some constructive reforms.

He believes that HRCs are swamped with frivolous and vexatious claims, and that it's only getting worse. He laments the abusive one-sideness, where even successful respondents have to bear enormous legal costs. I couldn't have said it better myself. Baglow doesn't go as far as I would; he still clings to the notion that the state should be able to -- could be able to! -- regulate emotions, like hatred. And he doesn't fully come around on the issue of free speech. But so what? Those are only differences of degree. Baglow is now like me -- a reformer. The only question is when we'll each stop pushing for change. Baglow says he'll be satisfied with a procedural overhaul of the commissions, some grown-up supervision of their abusive processes, and full indemnity to innocent victims prosecuted without cause. Any MP who put forward such a bill in the House of Commons would be my hero, even if he was, like Baglow, an NDP socialist.

Baglow is correct in calling me a radical. Radical comes from the latin word for root, and I think that human rights commissions are a problem that should be pulled out by the roots. I'm personally paying a price because of the Alberta HRC's attempt to gag free speech, but I'm no less troubled by their abuses against others in every other field imaginable, from construction companies to restaurants to hair salons. I regard it as an indulgence of "idea people", like bloggers and other journalists, to merely care about freedom of expression, which is the lifeblood of our "profession", but not to sympathize equally with mere restaurateurs who are punished in their own metier. It's vanity that suggests that words, by which bloggers live, ought to be free, but hand washing rules, by which McDonald's lives, ought to be regulated by these abusive beasts. I'm for the total liberation of Canadians from HRCs, not just liberating the chattering classes. But I'll start where I can, and I'll call John Baglow a 75% friend, not a 25% enemy.

When even hard-core lefties like Baglow see the writing on the wall, and respond as constructively and pro-actively as they do, you know we're winning.

Now all we have to do is get Baglow's leader, Jack Layton, on board. I'll keep working on Stephen Harper and company. Can you feel the bi-partisan love?

ON FURTHER REFLECTION: I've thought a bit more about Baglow's conversion. I believe it's a good thing, for it leaves on the question: "how much reform do we need?" as opposed to: "do we need reform at all?" But it is clearly insufficient to leave section 13, the thought crime/pre-crime provision, in place at all. It's an immoral, vague, subjective law. And, with a 100% conviction rate, any indemnification of improperly charged respondents is irrelevant. As we've discussed before, it's impossible to be acquitted of a "pre-crime"; it's impossible to be acquitted if the test if whether your remarks, true or not, hurt someone's feelings. So Baglow's concession on weeding out "frivolous" complaints doesn't work there, either -- for everything is an offence under section 13.

Yet, my feeling remains: if one of the most die-hard supporters of the HRCs concedes not only political defeat, but moral defeat, and actually changes his mind and calls for reforms, why that's a great victory indeed. Let the new debate be what changes are necessary; very few outside of the HRC industry itself still argue against reform at all.