Athanasios Hadjis, jet-setter

As per Michael Teper's comment, I poked around some of the expense reports on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's website.

My favourite -- no surprise -- is that of Athanasios Hadjis, their chief censor.

Allow me to draw your attention to two entries.

The first is a lunch that Hadjis had last fall with Heather MacNaughton of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. She was the chair of Mark Steyn's show trial last month in Vancouver. I can only imagine all the tips and tricks Hadjis -- who boasts a 100% conviction rate for "hate speech" -- was sharing with her.

But what's more telling is that Hadjis filled out the forms and submitted his expense request... for $11.

Nothing is too small or petty to bill to taxpayers. I bet that $11 reimbursement cost $100 in bureaucrat manpower to process. But the man is entitled to his entitlements.

If only all of Hadjis's bills were so trivial.

Last year alone, Hadjis dinged taxpayer more than $40,000 to travel around. That's a staggering sum -- about what many Canadians earn in a year's work. But it's also surprising how few trips it took for Hadjis to hit that mark.

I guess that sort of thing happens quickly when you rack up more than $3,200 for 24 hours in Saskatoon.

Gutting Canada's tradition of freedom of speech isn't just an ideological crusade. It's a huge industry, with plenty of perks. I wonder if Hadjis keeps all the frequent flyer points he racks up on our dime.

UPDATE: Some commenters point out that flying first class is sometimes done in business. Sure -- in some businesses it is. Most businesses are small businesses, who fly economy. But that's not the point: the point is to emphasize that there are a lot of collateral reasons why this censorship endures. It's an industry, and for hundreds of Canadians, it's what they do instead of real work. If Hadjis had to run his own law firm, instead of jaunt around the country censoring people, I doubt he'd fly first class on his own dime, or even on the dime of most clients. The CHRC/CHRT/HRC industry is a gravy train.