Steyn's show trial big news in NYC

The New York Post, which has a credible claim to being New York's newspaper of record, has a column about Canada's abusive and corrupt human rights commissions, pegged to Mark Steyn's show trial. Here's Rich Lowry's column in full, properly entitled "Gagged in Canada". Some excerpts:

At its best, Western civilization has fostered freedom of speech and of thought. But Canada has a better idea...

The country is dotted with human-rights commissions. At first, they typically heard discrimination suits against businesses. But since that didn't create much work, the commissions branched out into policing "hate" speech. Initially, they targeted neo-Nazis; then religious figures who'd condemned homosexuality; and now Maclean's and Steyn.

The new rallying cry is, "If I hate what you say, I'll accuse you of hate." The Canadian Islamic Council got the Human Rights Tribunal in British Columbia and the national Canadian Human Rights Commission (where proceedings are still pending) to agree to hear its complaint. It had to like its odds.

The national commission has never found anyone innocent in 31 years. It is set up for classic Alice-in-Wonderland "verdict first, trial later" justice: Canada's Human Rights Act defines hate speech as speech "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt." That language is so capacious and vague that to be accused is tantamount to being found guilty.

Unlike in defamation law, truth is no defense, and there's no obligation to prove harm. One of the principal investigators of the Canadian Human Rights Commission was asked in a hearing what value he puts on freedom of speech in his work, and replied, "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value." Clearly...

It is the genius of Muslim grievance groups to leverage Western anti-discrimination laws to their advantage. In his Maclean's essay, Steyn noted how in much of the West, "the early 21st century's principal political dynamic" is whether something offends Muslims. Indeed - but in Canada, truth is no defense.