Alberta's HRC: breeding the next generation of complainers

Let's start with this one, called "Maria's story". I can tell you right now, having read every ruling issued by the Alberta HRC is recent years, that there is no "Maria", and there is no "Maria's story". There has never been a ruling about a woman whose parents came to Canada from Mexico, who was upset about Mexican jokes that aren't funny.

It's a fabrication. That's called propaganda -- telling new Latino immigrants that they're coming to a bigoted province, where Mexicans are treated poorly.

But let's look at "Maria's story". A co-worker "tells jokes about Mexicans. I don't think the jokes are funny. She doesn't tell jokes about other people."

According to the government, "that is discrimination", and thus illegal.

Let's unpack that a bit. She only told jokes about Mexicans. If she told jokes about other groups, too, would that then be OK? "Maria" says the jokes aren't funny -- at least she thinks they're not. If they were funny, would that be legal? Is there a government joke-tester, a 1-800 number we can call to see if a joke is funny or not?

I was born and raised in Alberta, and I've never heard a Mexican joke in my whole life, except for once on the David Letterman show, if I recall. It went something like, "Dan Quayle is so dumb, he thinks Taco Bell is the Mexican phone company." That's sort of funny. Is that illegal?

What if the Mexican joke-teller is Mexican herself? Is that OK? Sort of like Chris Rock using the word n*gger?

"Maria" doesn't think the jokes are funny; but instead of saying so to her co-worker, she apparently called the government's snitch-line. OK. So you can't make fun of Mexico. Can we make fun of other countries? How about the U.S.? Can we make fun of the U.S.? Or is it just Mexico that has special status? How about Saudi Arabia? I make fun of Saudi Arabia all the time. Is that illegal? Or how about Canada -- whose human rights commissions I compare to Saudi-style justice. Is that illegal? What's the 1-800 number I can call to check if they're funny? The pamphlet doesn't say.

Then there's "Kau's story". He says he didn't get a job because he's from China. Again, there is no "Kau", and there is no "Kau's story". You can check for yourself, here. It's anti-Alberta propaganda. I bet it was written by an expensive ad agency, probably in Toronto, by copywriters who have never set foot here. It's a lie.

Alberta's job market is so tight, the idea that someone wouldn't be hired because of their ethnic origin is laughable -- this is a province where 7-11's give $1,000 retention bonuses for staff who stay on for three months. And the propaganda story is foolish to begin with: would a racist employer even grant an interview to someone named "Kau"? Would a racist employer really need to ask someone who looked like "Kau" what country he's from? Is the Chinese accent so rare and mysterious that a racist employer would have to ask where it's from? This piece of propaganda doesn't just imply that Albertans are racist. It implies that we're stupid as a bag of hammers.

But look at the fake facts as they are: a would-be employee has a brief interview and isn't hired. But because someone asked where he was from, that's proof positive that it was illegal discrimination.

That's the kind of weak, unsubstantiated, paranoid complaints the government is hunting for. Some angry would-be employee who has no proof of racism, other than he wasn't hired.

Hey, someone honked at me the other day in traffic. Maybe I should complaint to the government about anti-Semitism. What else could it be?

Lucky for us, Canada's Chinese community is one of the least grievance-oriented in Canada. You just don't see race hustlers in the Chinese-Canadian community. I know that I'm stereotyping them, and thus opening myself up to another human rights complaint. Other than Mormons, I can't think of a more self-reliant, hard-working bunch. (OK, that's two complaints.) Of course, the Government of Alberta wants to change that, because they need more whiners.

This is my favourite story of them all. Someone had an impolite waitress. Racism! Blow your hate crime whistle!

Again, there is no "Angela", and "Angela's story" is another anti-Alberta fabrication -- at least in terms of cases at the HRC. But I don't doubt that, every day, thousands of Albertans face the terrible discrimination that "Angela" allegedly faced: impolite service staff.

Again, it's tough to find waiters in a hot economy where 18-year-olds can make $80,000+ driving a truck in Ft. McMurray. One of my favourite Tim Hortons has shut down its drive-through for lack of staff. I'm constantly startled by the crazy tattoos, piercings and hairstyles that are now accepted -- happily! -- by retailers desperate to get someone, anyone, to work for $15/hour.

In other words, getting impolite waitresses isn't rare. It's just another challenge of a booming economy.

So what advice does Premier Ed "Ed" Stelmach offer? Leave a smaller tip? Complain to the manager? Grumble to yourself, and vow never to return to the same restaurant again?

No -- because that wouldn't gin up work for race-hustling bureaucrats. Cry racism, and loose the dogs of the human rights commissions. That ought to help race relations.

Here's another fake complaint about "Evelyn". Again, "Evelyn" doesn't exist, and there has never been an HRC ruling about someone complaining about... about what, actually? That co-workers make jokes about sweetgrass in the office?

This sounds like another case for that 1-800 joke line. Unlike "Maria", "Evelyn" doesn't say that the jokes aren't funny. She just says they're harassing. I wonder if there's a different rule for un-funny jokes than for funny ones.

If someone wanted to bring sweetgrass into the office -- you know, mix a little church and work -- you might expect the subject to come up in conversation. One way to deal with differences is through humour -- i.e. jokes. That's human nature.

A normal response might be some self-awareness -- the realization that bringing some sweetgrass to work is a little bit weird; an analogy might be a Catholic employee setting up a shrine in her office, or a Buddhist setting up a little gong. Whatever. (Two more complaints against me?) If you're going to turn your office into a little temple, get ready for some comments.

If you don't like the comments, ignore them; or talk to your co-workers; or talk to your boss. But, again, such grown-up solutions don't help generate more work for the grievance-mongers in the Alberta government. "That is discrimination", they say -- so please, please, please call us, because we need the work!

How do you feel about the message here? How do you feel about the government trying to illegalize the tiny skirmishes of everyday life in a multicultural society? How do you feel about the government asking newcomers to constantly hunt for a reason to be bitter, a reason to sue, a reason to cry racism, rather than to work things out like grown-ups, like people have been working things out in Alberta for more than a century?

Alberta has always had a mix of races and religions. Aboriginals were here first; cowboys -- including Black cowboys like John Weir -- were here shortly thereafter. Hundreds of thousands of Eastern European farmers came next. The Chinese built the railway. Everyone managed to get along famously -- just ask Peter Lougheed, who has more Indian blood in him than Louis Riel had.

We got along the same way we get along today: by being optimists; by being a meritocracy; by treating each other with tolerance. We managed pretty well for more than a century before the hucksters and hustlers of the HRC came along.

Do you really think we need to tell newcomers to file human rights complaints when they get poor service at a restaurant? Or when someone tells a joke that "isn't funny"?

Why don't you tell Ed "Ed" Stelmach what you think, by clicking here, and his minister in charge of this HRC propaganda, Lindsay Blackett, by clicking here.

Do you like how Albertans are being described to newcomers -- as a bunch of stupid bigots? And do you like the instructions given to 60,000 of those newcomers, in the guise of "learning to read English" -- a propanganda tract telling them to sue their neighbours?