The complainants have responsibilities, too!

There's a lot of little nuggets in the FOIP disclosure that I got from the Alberta HRC. Like a letter sent to the two complainants against me, Calgary imam Syed Soharwardy and Yasmeen Nizam of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. Did you know that complainants have responsibilities, too? Well, one responsibility:

maintain a current mailing address where you can be contacted.

So let's see. I have to retain my own legal counsel at my own expense, whether I win or lose; I have the stigma of a prosecution for 800 days and counting; I am to be "judged" by a panellist who is not a judge, and likely not even a lawyer, and who has no training in constitutional matters like freedom of speech of freedom of religion; I do not have the benefits that a criminal accused has, such as the "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof against me; I have fifteen government workers beavering away against me.

And the real bigots complaining against me, who have hijacked our secular state to prosecute their medieval fatwa? Why, they must keep a mailing address. Fair's fair!

UPDATE: I discovered another letter telling Yasmeen Nizam, of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities to keep her address up to date. I'm not sure if that responsibilitiy was posing a challenge to Nizam, or if the HRC staff were just really bored. This letter has that instruction WRITTEN IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS so perhaps there was some problem. I'd call that use of capital letters culturally insensitive on the part of the HRC -- it's like shouting at someone. I think that's discriminatory. Perhaps they can open another file and log another couple of hundred of hours on the taxpayers' dime.

But there is another line in this letter that made me chuckle:

you are expected to make every reasonable effort to minimize any losses you may be having as a result of what you are complaining about. Please keep a written record of everything you do to minimize your losses, or in other words, to improve your situation.

I can hardly wait for the hearing. I'd love to see Nizam's little grievance journal about the "losses" she continues to suffer because of some cartoons published two years ago. I can just imagine them now:

February 25th: I was driving down Whyte Avenue today and someone cut me off in traffic, and honked at me. Clearly an Islamophobe. Damn those Danish cartoons!