Buzz

It's tough to gauge political momentum in Ottawa, especially from 3,000 kilometres away. But I think that the campaign to abolish section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the thought crimes section, is positively buzzing.

A lot of little things are happening at once, like vibrating molecules bumping up against each other. As Debbie Gyapong reports, Keith Martin has written to all the MPs on the Justice Committee, asking them not only to review section 13, but also the corruption at the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

(Here's a list of the Justice Committee's members. It's chaired by Art Hanger, the Conservative MP for Calgary Northeast. Why not take a moment to write to Hanger to encourage him to dig into the CHRC -- if I know Hanger, I don't think he'll need a lot of convincing. You can e-mail him here.)

At the same time, the mainstream media is fully engaged in the story of human rights commissions and their abuses. Reporters like Joseph Brean are now regularly tracking the story and weighing in from time to time (as in this newsy update, pegged to Mark Steyn's Toronto visit). And Peggy Wente continues her series on the subject with a devastating critique of Barbara Hall's latest adventure at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, on top of her last salvo about the CHRC's half-million dollar award to a sensitive wannabe mountie. Wente's column is read by a lot of folks who don't usually surf the conservative blogosphere.

Look for coverage to ramp up again in two weeks as Maclean's and Steyn head into trial at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. I predict front-page reporting in the National Post, the Globe and Mail and the Vancouver Sun, and editorials of thoughtful outrage from coast to coast.

Last week's new human rights complaint, filed against the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, will be an ongoing fountain of news stories and editorials, too. If there were still any doubters, this latest attack on the free press makes it clear that section 13 and its provincial equivalents are a menace to anyone with an opinion -- not just to "neo-Nazis" or "conservatives". The fact that this complaint, like the one against Steyn and me, was filed by a radical Muslim should also disabuse Canadians of some illusions. A crack in our national armour of liberty has been found, and the jihadists are focusing all of their attacks on it. Steyn has, of course, a must-read Maclean's article on this troubling trend. 

There has been an interesting crescendo of legal activity, too. Maclean's magazine came out, all guns blazing, telling the Canadian Islamic Congress that they will never "settle" the CIC's complaint against them. In other words, when Maclean's loses at the B.C. Tribunal in two weeks, they'll appeal to a real court. Maclean's is the kind of litigant with the resources to go all the way to the Supreme Court. It was very encouraging to see them exhibit the will to match.

The National Post, too, joined the legal fight this week. Like Maclean's, they could have chosen to pay some danegeld to extricate themselves from Richard Warman's lawsuit; instead, they decided to fight. That decision was clearly a principled one, since a $10,000 settlement offer would likely have been all that was needed to get a relieved Warman to discontinue the action against them. The Post will spend much more than $10,000 fighting. It's impressive to see a display of principle like that. (Though it is pragmatic, too, in the long run. If the Post were to get a reputation as a legal pushover, there would be a long line of shake-down artists lining up at their door).

All of these things are happening around the same time; all of them are jiggling and jostling the molecules in this complex story. 

But the chemical reaction really heated up when the Department of Justice released its outrageous legal brief in support of section 13. The kind of junk arguments in that memo -- that slavery and the Holocaust wouldn't have happened had there been hate speech laws; that the legal defences of truth and fair comment ought not to apply to "hate speech"; that Jews rely on hate speech laws for their self-esteem, etc. -- are the sort of thing one encounters all the time at human rights commissions. But what made this so stunning was that it was a memo written by two of the Justice Minister's own lawyers, Simon Fothergill and Alysia Davies, not some arms-length commission. These weren't CHRC nutbars. They were Rob Nicholson's own nutbars. And 50 pages really lets a guy and a gal express their nuttiness well.

That memo caused a buzz on my own website, spiking traffic, and not just from outraged readers (including appalled conservatives and Conservatives). Judging from my visitor statistics, plenty of folks in Parliament, the Justice Department, the Federal Court of Canada and various human rights commissions were very interested in the public reaction the memo got -- including that it got a public reaction at all. I understand that Blazing Catfur, who has done a particularly good job at rebutting the junk law in that memo, has received a spike in nervous visitors from both the Justice Department and the CHRC, too.

But the memo (which you can read here if you have the stomach) has caused a ruckus bigger than the blogosphere. I have had two reporters -- who haven't reported on HRCs before -- e-mail me to get background on the memo. One reporter -- to his credit! -- didn't even believe the memo was real, asking me for corroboration that it wasn't a "forged document". That's exactly how I reacted to so many of the insane details about the CHRC when I first encountered them: I simply didn't believe they were real. (I mean, if a Hollywood screenwriter came up with this, it would be rejected by test audiences with a "yeah, right!") 

I'm told that Nicholson's memo has been e-mailed around Parliament Hill, not just amongst reporters, but amongst government MPs and even cabinet ministers. It has moved the embarrassment from the confines of the CHRC -- which could always be disowned as an arms-length nuthouse -- into the bosom of one of the most important ministries in the Conservative government. Simon Fothergill and Alysia Davies work for Rob Nicholson; they spoke in his name.

Put yourself in Nicholson's shoes for a moment.

Three months ago, when this issue was starting to percolate into his political consciousness, he put out some talking points for Conservative MPs, the purpose of which was to throw the hot potato to someone else. That's standard operating procedure for any government, let alone a minority government: put out fires, don't start them. Here is some of his spin:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal are independent agencies that administer the Canadian Human Rights Act, according to procedures specified by the law, without interference from the government.

and

The Department of Justice continues to monitor the Commission and Tribunal to ensure that our human rights system remains effective.

But those talking points just don't work anymore -- it's not an "independent agency" that's in the mess, it's the Justice Minister, because of Fothergill and Davies.

And, when example after example of the CHRC's own corrupt processes are brought to your attention -- not just by the mere public, but by Keith Martin -- how do you still cling to this old talking point:

If asked about the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and its process: Refer letter writer to the CHRC’s website which has very detailed information pertaining to its mandate, discrimination and harassment, dispute resolution and much more.

No, I think the problem has spread from the CHRC into the Justice Department. I think it's becoming an embarrassment that can't be sloughed off on others. HRCs are becoming denormalized -- and if Nicholson doesn't do something about them on his watch, he risks having his own government become tainted by them. I think he'll act -- even if it takes some gentle encouragement from caucus, cabinet and even the Prime Minister. It was Stephen Harper himself who, in 1999, told B.C. Report magazine:

Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack o­n our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society… It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.

I think this campaign has momentum. And we haven't even heard from the Privacy Commissioner yet. I stand by my prediction that we will see real changes before the year is out.