Edmonton and Vancouver

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'll be attending the Canadian Association of Journalists' conference in Edmonton. You'll remember the CAJ as one of the first groups to come out guns blazing against section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the thought crimes provision.

The panel should be interesting -- I'll be appearing alongside Keith Martin, author of the private member's motion to scrap section 13. And Ian Fine, senior counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Commission itself. I have to give him credit for courage -- or is it gall? -- for agreeing to argue for censorship at a convention of journalists.

I understand the the public affairs cable channel, CPAC, will be televising the debate. I don't know if that will be live; it if is, we'll be on at 2 p.m. MT/4 p.m. ET. You might be able to find details here; I couldn't.

On Tuesday, I'll be speaking at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver. It's almost sold out, but there are still nine seats left as I write. You can sign up right online.

I've been committed to reforming the thought crimes provisions of Canada's HRC for a long time; it became a personal mission for me when the Western Standard and I were hit with such a complaint two years ago, for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. But it's really only been in the last week or so, when I discovered the true depth to which the CHRC had sunk -- when I saw the hundreds of bigoted comments they posted throughout the Internet -- that I realized the depth of their corruption, and the true scope of the problem.

Of course I will fight my own cases to their end. But after reading the bigoted grotesquery of the CHRC, and their calls for "dangerous" "action", I realize that I cannot stop until they are dismantled.

When one of the largest publishers of anti-Semitic, anti-Black and anti-gay propaganda in Canada is in fact an agency of the federal government, it's important that we not stop until the job is done.