B.C.'s quirk

I've been asked why the Canadian Islamic Congress has Faisal Joseph, a private CIC lawyer, representing them, rather than government lawyers and bureaucrats, such as the 15 Alberta government hacks prosecuting me over there.

The answer is that, in most (I think all) of the other 13 human rights commissions in Canada, the government has two halves to human rights commissions: the keystone cops side of the HRCs, and then the kangaroo courts on the other. In B.C., there is only the kangaroo courts side of the deal.

The keystone cops are the investigators (like Shirlene McGovern, my interrogatrix in Calgary) and prosecutors (like Giacomo "Serenity Now!" Vigna of the Canadian HRC); the kangaroo kourts are the tribunals, which hear the cases brought by the keystone cops.

Usually, the cops/prosecutors side is called the "commission", and the court side is called the "tribunal". The nomenclature is slightly different in every province; in Alberta, for example, both halves are called the "commission".

In B.C., there is no commission that drums up business, or that investigates complaints -- everything goes straight to the tribunal. To compensate, the tribunal does dismiss more cases, and occasionally even orders costs against complainants. And, there are no government lawyers prosecuting the cases.

Is that better than the other 13 HRCs? I'm not sure. On the one hand, there isn't a full-time team of hustlers, like the fifteen chasing after me, who are trying to stir up grievances and pick fights amongst the citizenry -- no Barbara Halls.

On the other hand, anyone can get straight to a hearing.

That's precisely why the Canadian Islamic Congress, with no roots in B.C., with a complainant from Ontario (Mohammed Elmasry) a lawyer from Ontario (Faisal Joseph) a chief witness from Ontario (Khurrum Awan) and a magazine based in Toronto (Maclean's) is being put on trial in Vancouver.

The CIC was forum shopping.

They went to the easiest HRC in Canada to get to a hearing. And the three panellists were just stupid enough to let them do it.