August 2008 Archives

Doublethink:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved using doublethink.

Thought One, August 28, 2008:

B'nai Brith Canada... has gone public with a human rights complaint against the organization that is before the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. The complaint alleges anti-Muslim comments were made during a B'nai Brith-sponsored conference...

Underscoring the deficiency of the human rights commission system is that the complainant was not herself present at the conference. B'nai Brith has not been given the right to learn the identity of the accuser or accusers who were allegedly present, despite the organization's request for such information.

"This frivolous complaint against B'nai Brith is still in play nearly five years later, with no resolution in sight," said Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President of B'nai Brith Canada. "The manner in which this case, as well as other recent human rights complaints have been handled, has exposed clear deficiencies in the system that must be addressed." 

David Matas, B'nai Brith Canada's Senior Legal Counsel and the author of the brief, stated: "We have been denied critical information in what amounts to a rumour-driven case against us, based entirely on hearsay. We have been refused the right to learn the identity of the accuser or accusers whose alleged claims form the basis of this complaint.  Adding insult to injury is that the Commission has recently appointed - almost five years into this process - an 'outside expert' whose name they refuse to divulge, thereby denying us the right to properly defend ourselves.

"The credibility of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission is at stake as this baseless complaint continues to drag. This is just one of a number of cases that have brought the entire human rights commission system into question."

Thought Two, August 28, 2008:

Hate propaganda does nothing to advance freedom of expession... section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act constitutes a reasonable limit on section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms...

Hate speech... only causes enduring harm to its victims and to Canadian society...

Hate resembles no other crime because it reaches beyond the immediate victim or the victim's own community, and causes damage to society itself....

Dr. Mock opined that from a psychological point of view, hate laws have three beneficial purposes. First, because of the deleterious effects of hate, these laws send the message that promoting hatred and contempt will not be tolerated. Second, they create a deterrent that prevents the promotion of hatred that can lead to murder and genocide. Third, they send a message that regardless of Canadians immutable characteristics, they will be protected and allowed to develop in full self esteem.

It's never a good thing when your country makes a list of places where freedom is being eroded. Thanks, human rights commissions!

Here's the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:

Freedom of speech is under attack. Let us count the ways.

The first and most obvious: Those who criticize militant Islamists — from novelist Salman Rushdie to Danish cartoonists to memoirist Ayaan Hirsi Ali — are routinely threatened with deadly violence. It would be black humor to say this is having a chilling effect.

The second is political correctness. On campuses and within Western governments it is increasingly taboo to label terrorists who slaughter in the name of Islam "Islamist terrorists." In Canada, "human rights commissions" attempt to enforce this taboo by putting such writers as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant on trial for the "crime" of expressing opinions that offend Islamic grievance groups — and also for quoting Islamists accurately and thereby casting them in an unfavorable light. If that’s not Orwellian, what is?...

 

As I mentioned in this blog post, I have been targeted again with a human rights complaint, this time before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The complaint,which you can see here, was filed by Rob "Fred Phelps" Wells, an anti-Catholic bigot in Edmonton who has made a habit of harrassing school children and little old ladies outside St. Joseph's Basilica. The fact that Wells is a CHRC complainant (he also filed complaints against Catholic Insight magazine and Rev. Stephen Boission) and not a target of a CHRC investigation shows the moral inversion at work at the CHRC. Then again, the CHRC is one of Canada's largest hate groups on the Internet, with its staff posting literally hundreds of anti-Semitic, anti-gay and anti-Black comments with impunity.

As per the notice from the CHRC, I filed my reply today. You can see it here in .pdf format. And here is the full text:

 

August 28, 2008

 

Natalie Dagenais

Canadian “Human Rights” Commission

344 Slater Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 1E1

 

Dear Natalie,

 

Re: Rob Wells v. Ezra Levant

 

I received your letter dated August 8, 2008. At first I wasn’t sure it was yours, because you didn’t write your name on it, and your signature was illegible.

 

I can understand your shyness. It has become an embarrassment to publicly admit to being a “human rights investigator” in Canada, because Canadians have caught on to what you really do: you don’t actually protect human rights, you violate them. At least you didn’t sign it as “Jadewarr”, or any of the other false names that your office uses when surfing the Internet in the guise of a neo-Nazi, spewing anti-Semitic and racist venom.

 

In Alberta, Shirlene McGovern, the human rights investigator who pursued an Islamic fatwa against me for publishing some cartoons, received such a backlash from the public that she actually quit my case. It is my hope that you have a revelation as to the odious nature of your work.

 

Come to think of it, if I worked for the CHRC, I’d use an alias, too.

 

As to the substance of your letter, I object to your Assessment Report because it is hypocritical, it demonstrates the corruption of the CHRC, and it is unfounded in law.

 

Hypocritical

 

It is hypocritical because the bullies at the CHRC have already found that the exact words at the center of this complaint are contrary to the section 13 “hate speech” provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act. In CHRC investigation number 2005-2462, you decided that a Christian pastor, Rev. Stephen Boissoin, had contravened the law by publishing the exact same words in an Alberta newspaper.

 

I republished the same words as Rev. Boissoin and yet you have recommended that the CHRC not proceed against me.

 

There is only one reason for this: the CHRC is anti-Christian, and thus you excuse in me what you condemned in Rev. Boissoin.

 

This is not the first indication of a deep-seated bigotry at the CHRC. You have mercilessly persecuted other Christians in Canada for merely expressing their faith, such as Fr. Alphonse de Valk of Catholic Insight magazine and Ron Gray and the Christian Heritage Party to name just two others.

 

I note that the CHRC has never once prosecuted a “hate speech” complaint against any non-Christian, though there is plenty of non-Christian bigotry in Canada. No Muslim extremist, no Tamil extremist, no Sikh extremist has ever been prosecuted, though those communities are wracked with internecine hates between radical and moderate camps, that sometimes spill over into violence. But you’d rather pick on a seventy-something Catholic priest for publishing a newsletter.

 

That’s why you’re letting me go – I’m not a weak, penniless Christian clergyman.

 

That’s hypocrisy, but it’s not surprising coming from an organization so sick that its staff perpetrate racist slurs through their own vile posts on the Internet. It is now public knowledge that staff at the CHRC, like Dean Steacy and Richard Warman, joined neo-Nazi groups and surfed the net in full racist drag. The fact that everyone from the Chief Commissioner on down hasn’t been fired for this scandal is amazing to me.

 

Corruption

 

One of the tenets of Canadian law – a real human right, not one of your counterfeit human rights such as the “right not to be offended” – is equal justice under law. That means that rich or poor, powerful or powerless, everybody is treated the same way before the law. It’s a legal tradition that dates all the way back to the Magna Carta signed by King John. I know he’s a dead white man, and Christian to boot, so the CHRC would regard him as the enemy. But Canada still follows those rules.

 

But not over at the CHRC. Your own staff commits heinous acts of online bigotry, publishing the worst filth imaginable. Richard Warman – your former staffer, currently your most active complainant, and the CHRC’s star witness whose expenses are paid for with tax dollars to this day – went online to write that gays are “sexual deviants” who are a “cancer” in society. He called for the creation of an Apartheid city in Canada to be called “Whiteville”. He called federal cabinet ministers, such as former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, “scum” because they’re Jewish. He made literally hundreds of similar posts. Yet every complaint to the CHRC about Warman’s own hatemongering has been rejected.

 

That’s a form of corruption – just like it’s corrupt that the CHRC refuses to comply with its statutory obligations to disclose records to respondents; it’s corrupt that the CHRC refuses to comply with access to information laws, despite an order by the Information Commissioner; it’s corrupt that your own little squad illegally solicits and receives police evidence obtained in criminal search warrants; it is corrupt that you release inaccurate transcripts of CHRT hearings, with embarrassing facts about the CHRC left out.

 

A few years ago, the CHRC underwent a confidential internal government audit. You received a failing grade when it came to ethics. You don’t even have a written ethics policy – let alone anyone to enforce that ethical code. The only question is why it took so long for the CHRC to fall under an RCMP investigation.

 

The Commission is rotten to the core. And you and your commissioners don’t give a damn about it. The CHRC even hired a crooked cop, Sandy Kozak, who was drummed out of a police force for corruption. She was too dirty for them, but just right for you. That’s the standard of ethics at the CHRC.

 

Incorrect law

 

My contempt for the CHRC and its political masters is deep. The thought that your crooked ex-cop colleague, Sandy Kozak, was the investigator examining the saintly Fr. de Valk, is a grotesque moral inversion.

 

But when it comes to your “reasoning” for acquitting me but convicting Rev. Boissoin, it is laughable.

 

In paragraph 31 of your letter, you try to distinguish my acquittal with Rev. Boissoin’s conviction by saying the context is different – and that for the CHRC to find material illegal, it must appear in vile forums, like neo-Nazi websites. I know you’re pretty familiar with those neo-Nazi websites, as half of your office has membership privileges. But Rev. Boissoin’s publication didn’t appear in any of your favourite neo-Nazi sites. It appeared on the pages of the Red Deer Advocate, a moderate and mainstream newspaper.

 

In paragraph 33, you state that my republication of Rev. Boissoin’s words were “more likely” to generate a debate, than to promote “hatred”. Again, that’s a fabrication: Rev. Boissoin’s column generated an enormous debate, both in the pages of the Red Deer Advocate and elsewhere. The debate is still going on, six years later.

 

But putting aside this factual falsehood, you falsely imply that hate speech jurisprudence grants an exemption for publications that create a debate. You just made that up, as a fig leaf to cover up your double-standard against Rev. Boissoin.

 

In paragraphs 14 and 33 of your letter, you distinguish my publication from Rev. Boissoin’s by asserting that mine had a “social purpose”. So did Rev. Boissoin’s – he was a Christian pastor promoting his social views in a public forum. Again the conclusion is hypocritical. But the point here is that you’re just making up an excuse. You’ve confected it out of thin air. Truth, fair comment and the defence of “reasonable journalism” have not been treated by the CHRC as defences to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

 

Why did you do it?

 

Why would you write such a letter? You did it because the Commission doesn’t want to proceed against me. You’d rather pick on poor Christians like Rev. Boissoin. Because you know that, unlike him, I’m going to expose you and the CHRC to be the inconsistent human rights violators that you are.

 

I object to your reasoning because it’s false. I deliberately republished a column that I knew had been condemned as “hate speech” by the Alberta human rights commission. You have made up excuses to let me go that no other target of the CHRC has been able to use as a defence for themselves. You are making a special exception for me, for political reasons. That is inappropriate and cowardly.

 

However, the truly odious parties here are the CHRC commissioners themselves, who condone and enable your actions and – in Jennifer Lynch’s case – publicly excuse your actions. You should all be fired.

 

Signed,

 

Ezra Levant

 

P.S. Stop sending your correspondence to my father.

I haven't spent a lot of money fighting against this complaint, and frankly I expect the CHRC will be too cowardly to proceed against me. If that's the case, my expenses to date on this one are probably less than $2,000 -- I simply had my lawyer, Tom Ross, review the letter from the CHRC and review and revise my reply. If you want to chip in, I'd be grateful. You can click the PayPal button below, or send a cheque by snail mail to Tom, payable to "McLennan Ross in Trust", and indicate that it's for my human rights complaints. Tom's address is:

McLennan Ross

1600 Stock Exchange Tower

300 - 5th Avenue SW

Calgary, AB T2P 3C4

Thank you.

By the way, dear reader -- and to my less dear daily visitors from the Canadian Human Rights Commission -- if you're wondering if I'm getting tired of fighting against these fascists, and if you're still wondering after the above letter, the answer is: hell no.

"This organization is not a registered non-profit organization.  Donations to this organization are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes."

 

 

 

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists, in Banff. I don't think I'd normally be invited to speak at such a gathering, but over the past three years I've talked about editorial cartoons almost every single day. Of course, it's not just the Danish cartoons that we republished in the Western Standard that were subject to human rights complaints; Bruce MacKinnon of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald is currently being hounded by the Nova Scotia HRC, for publishing this work, at left. (Here's more information about that cartoon, and its would-be censors.)

Cartoonists will naturally be targeted by political censors, as it is in the nature of an editorial cartoon, particularly a one-panel editorial cartoon, to communicate without the euphemisms of political correctness that can water down the meaning of, say, a 700-word Op-Ed. Radical Muslim Cheryfa Jamal, pictured in MacKinnon's cartoon, cannot be drawn without her one-woman prison, though an Op-Ed could omit her strikingly misogynist personal appearance. How could any honest cartoonist not draw her in the manner MacKinnon did?

But enough about Jamal. Here is a friendly report from Patrick Lamontagne, the outgoing president of the cartoonists and the host of the convention in Banff:

Ezra Levant turned out to be quite an interesting speaker, and not the reactionary grandstander I had incorrectly assumed he would be. I had the pleasure of dining with him before the speech, I found him to be a likable, well-informed individual with some excellent and frightening points. Turns out that Canadians looking down on the US for the freedoms they've given away to The Department of Homeland Security should take a long hard look at our own Human Rights Commissions. No qualifications, auditors, oversight committees or warrants necessary for these folks. All it takes is an accusation, and you're guilty until proven innocent. One step removed from Big Brother, and a short step at that.

I'm always pleased when I enter a room as a reactionary grandstander, and leave as a likeable, well-informed individual!

I'm just kidding -- Lamontagne and the entire group were incredibly kind and friendly, and seemed genuinely concerned by the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada. I sensed that some of them were not fully familiar with the story of the Danish cartoons, such as the fact that the Danish imams who went on their world-wide "hate Denmark" tour added in three vile cartoons of their own fabrication to stoke anti-Danish feelings. The wikipedia page is excellent, for those who'd like to know more.

I give a good number of speeches in a year, but I have never received as fitting a present as I did from the cartoonists: a caricature of me wearing a Danish cartoon-style turban! It was painted by Lamontagne himself, and I was truly astonished that he would put so much time and talent into a thank-you gift. And what a perfect gift! You can see a picture of it, above.

As I remarked earlier this summer, for the human rights commissions to take on editorial cartoonists is a strategically foolish decision. Cartoonists are the best-loved people at a newspaper, and certainly the ones whose editorial work is the best-read of all a newspaper's features. They're the last people in the world I'd want to tick off if I were up to no good, like the HRCs are. I hope my speech encouraged the cartoonists to fight back against censorship -- while they still can.

I've been asked to clarify whether or not I believe there ought to be any limits on free speech. I've done so several times before, and I'm happy to do it again. Of course there ought to be.

For example, I support the Criminal Code prohibitions against uttering death threats; fraud; forgery; engaging in a conspiracy to commit a crime; incitement to riot. I'm against the criminalization of blasphemy, which remains on the books but has fallen into disuse. I'm against the so-called "hate speech" provisions of the criminal code, the ones that were used to persecute David Ahenakew.

I also don't think that defamation ought to be a criminal offence, though it is. It belongs exclusively in civil law, as a tort to be prosecuted privately, at the expense and risk of private parties, not by the government. I believe in copyright law, trademarks and patents, each of which is a limitation on expression, and I believe in intellectual property in general, though I admit I'm as befuddled as anyone as to how those laws should adapt to the new technologies such as file sharing.

On defamation law, I've written recently about the new Supreme Court ruling, the most significant reform of the law in thirty years. It essentially ends the tort of defamation when the words complained about are a defendant's opinion, restricting defamation suits to cases where the defendant gets his facts wrong. A simple example of this difference would be: "he's a detestable idiot" vs. "he stole from the cash register". The first is an opinion; it's neither true nor false. The second is a fact; it's either true or false. The law now accepts almost any opinion as reasonable, including "outrageous" or "ridiculous" opinions. I tell prospective defamation plaintiffs that, unless their defamer has a material fact wrong, there's really no point in suing.

I am for those limits, and perhaps a few other, similar ones. But each of those limits has centuries of jurisprudence behind it, including centuries of defences. In defamation, for example, truth and fair comment are defences; not so in human rights "hate speech" cases. I've outlined the other important differences before, too.

Here are my comments on the limits of free speech, as told to my human rights interrogatrix, Shirlene McGovern, in January: 

John Baird

is the Conservative MP for Ottawa-West Nepean, and he's the Minister of the Environment. On August 6, he sent this letter to a constituent in response to a question about the corrupt and abusive practises of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. His letter was fairly bland -- as you can imagine, until the government as a whole and the Justice Minister in particular decides to formally tackle the CHRC, cabinet ministers in other portfolios must tread carefully. The letter mentions Rick Dykstra's motion before the Justice Committee to convene a full review of the CHRC's operations, and especially its pursuit of censorship.

Baird's letter is not much more than "boilerplate". But look at the hand-written note: "I share your strong concerns and will raise them directly with my colleagues + the PM"

 

I understand that the subject of the CHRC's bad behaviour has been bruited on at least three occasions in caucus, so I don't doubt that Baird will in fact raise his strong concerns. And I'm pleased: he is an influential cabinet minister, and one upon whom the PM relies to handle particularly delicate matters.

Helena Guergis is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Simcoe-Grey. She is also the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Secretary of State for Sport. On August 4, she wrote this letter to a constituent. I received it from two different contituents, so I sense she's receiving a lot of mail about it.

Her letter has the same ministerial blandness as Baird's, but she calls the CHRC "problematic".

I'd add these two to the list of supporters for reform, and I'd put Baird as a strong reformer.

Why not take a moment to send these two an e-mail of encouragement? You can e-mail Baird here, and Guergis here.

I haven't added them up in a while, but we must be close to 20 MPs from several parties.

Here's a column I wrote back in 1994 in Calgary's Jewish Free Press, entitled "Free speech is a Jew's best friend". I was a 22-year-old law student at the time.

It's held up pretty well over time. How ironic that both the Jewish Free Press and I have been hit with human rights complaints from the anti-Semite Syed Soharwardy.

In 1994, I had no idea where anti-Jewish censorship would come from; but I knew it would come one day, and it would come as a result of the precedents being set by Canada's Official Jews in their vengeful prosecutions of fringe anti-Semites.

Take a moment to read it, and tell me what you think.

This is a fascinating story in the National Post, written by Kevin Libin. It details a move within an American association of professors to move their annual convention to a city other than Toronto, for the sole reason that Canada's human rights commissions are incompatible with the freedom of expression necessary for academic discussions.

It's unclear whether or not this movement will succeed in moving the conference; a conference of that size is not easily cancelled and rescheduled. But no matter; the point is already made. Canada is no longer considered a free country by those who value unbridled discussions over nanny-state censorship. Some excerpts:

...Bradley Watson, professor of American and Western political thought at Pennsylvania's St. Vincent College, said he will present a petition calling for the American Political Science Association (APSA) to re-evaluate its selection of Toronto for its 2009 conference at this year's annual meeting, taking place over the Labour Day weekend in Boston.

His protest has garnered support from dozens of professors across the United States, including prominent scholars such as Princeton University legal philosopher Robert P. George and Harvard University's Harvey Mansfield.

...Mr. Watson said that professors signing the petition are concerned that recent human rights commission investigations into Maclean's and Western Standard magazines over articles concerning Islam, and the conviction of pastor Stephen Boisson, who was ordered by Alberta's human rights tribunal in May to cease publicizing criticisms of homosexuality, suggest that professors risk being chilled from discussing important academic subjects, or ending up in legal trouble. Mr. Watson said he plans to distribute hundreds of buttons to attendees at the Boston conference reading "Toronto 2009, Non!"

Several professors in the working group behind the protest "have written in areas that seem particularly disfavoured by the Canadian legal establishment," Mr. Watson said. "We are uncertain of the extent of the legal jeopardy that APSA members might place themselves in should they make public arguments in Canada, or post those arguments online, concerning hot-button issues like homosexuality, same-sex marriage, or the nature of the Islamist threat to Western civilization."

...In a statement issued on Thursday, the working group behind the protest said: "The nature of radical Islamism and the relationship of public morality and homosexual conduct are issues of vital public importance" and that "all political scientists have a professional interest in a full and open scholarly debate" on these topics. The group called it "unseemly" for APSA to "turn a blind eye to [Canadian] attacks on freedom of speech" and "unacceptable … to risk exposing its own members to them."

...APSA standards for selecting meeting sites include "protection of academic freedom, equitable access to opportunity, and a commitment to non-discrimination," but Mr. Watson said Canada does not satisfy that test. "Our belief is that most Americans--even APSA members--have no idea how precarious the rights of freedom of speech and conscience are in Canada," Mr. Watson said. Earlier this year, APSA reevaluated a decision to hold its 2012 meeting in New Orleans in light of complaints by some members that same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in Louisiana. The organization's council voted in June not to overturn the decision.

I love doing Rob Breakenridge's show on CHQR. He had me on the other night, talking about freedom of speech. I let 'er rip a bit. You can listen, here (big download).

Opening line: "I'm like flypaper... I seem to attract every fascist nutbar in the country".

What do you think the biggest threat to Canadian Jewry is in 2008?

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Maybe the Hezbollah or Hamas terrorist groups -- and their plans for operations against Jewish targets in Canada?

Maybe it's a political threat, like the Canadian Islamic Congress, led by the anti-Semite, Mohamed Elmasry. Or maybe the Canadian Arab Federation, which tried to blackball Bob Rae's candidacy for the leadership of the Liberals, because Rae's wife is Jewish.

Maybe it's not even a hostile threat, but just entropy -- Jews intermarrying and losing the faith; or the high cost of Jewish day schools.

Luckily, Canadian Jews have leadership that is bold and decisive in tackling the issues and problems that matter to Canadian Jewry.

And for Leo Adler of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the biggest threat to Canadian Jewry is an ageing hippie and former rock musician named Milton Kapner. As the name suggests, Kapner is Jewish. And he's American. According to a story in the Boston Globe, he's homeless, and lives in his Buick (click here and scroll down).

Kapner has gone a little nuts, so he calls himself Brother Nathanael. Check out that glove -- that's my favourite touch, along with the 220-volt beard.

Here's a clip of him doing his thing: 

 

Not everyone likes his dancing. Apparently, a ski resort kicked him out for being too weird. Here are some of the ski bums lamenting the departure of Kapner:

 

Gentle reader, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that Kapner might be crazy, but that I'm even crazier for saying that the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the great Nazi hunter, has made Kapner their top priority for their donors' money. Wiesenthal was instrumental in capturing top Nazis who escaped after the Second World War, like Adolf Eichmann. Surely the institution that bears his name hasn't gone so, uh, crazy as to think Kapner is a threat.

But reader, you'd be wrong. Kapner's crazy, but he has an excuse: he's crazy. The Simon Wiesenthal Center and their brave leader, Leo Adler, are crazy for saying Kapner is a threat.

But Adler put out a proud press release declaring his great victory over Kapner -- making Kapner move his anti-Semitic, conspiracy theory website to a different Internet company.

So what do you think Kapner's reaction would be? I'm guessing: to dance and laugh. He's stared down death threats; I think he can handle a blowhard bagman like Adler.

  

Jewish donors to the Simon Wiesenthal Center? Well, depending on how much money they've flushed down Adler's toilet, I'm guessing they're laughing or crying.

hat tips to Five Feet of Fury and Blazing Cat Fur

After looking at the picture of the mentally wobbly "hatemonger" that the Simon Wiesenthal Center so bravely, uh, made change Internet Service Providers, I clicked around on the site, realjewnews.com.

I'm sorry, it's stark raving mad.

It's the online personification of its author, "Brother" Nathanael, pictured at left. Nathanael calls himself a "street evangelist". I think that's a nice way of saying, he's a bit homeless himself. Being anti-Semitic is just his particular expression of his madness.

He's cuckoo. His website is nutty like a Snickers bar. It's moon-bat time over there.

Which is precisely why Leo Adler and the Simon Wiesenthal Center took it on. That raving lunatic is no threat to them -- politically, legally, or in any other way.

So here's my question for Leo the cowardly lion: why are you focusing on the harmless nuts, while ignoring the real anti-Semites in Canada, like the Canadian Islamic Congress?

I'm not for laws against hate speech, and I'm not for banning websites. But if I was -- like Leo is -- why isn't he going after the likes of the Jew-hating Mohamed Elmasry?

The answer is as obvious as the question. Elmasry isn't a powerless nut. He's a powerful, well-funded nut, with a battery of lawyers and even a smidgeon of media credibility. And, just as important in the world of grievance-mongers, Elmasry is a visible minority immigrant Muslim, which makes his bigotry politically bulletproof in the new "human rights" law.

So, you go, Leo. Take on "Brother" Nathanael, and put out your masturbatory press releases. Send out a few more fundraising letters, telling Jews that you've made the world safer, by making Nutbar Nathanael, uh, switch ISPs.

Leave fighting Mohamed Elmasry to Mark Steyn, Maclean's and me. We've got it covered -- and we don't even need a government grant, or the favour of a government censor, to do it.

Take a look at this press release from the confused, impotent Simon Wiesenthal Center:

Rob Wells is the Fred Phelps of the gay rights lobby.

Phelps, as readers will know, is the former award-winning civil rights activist who just snapped about 25 years ago. Now he pickets funerals, holding up signs saying things like “God hates fags”.

Wells is pretty much the same, but without the noble past. And he switches Phelps’s routine around a little: he protests outside churches, for months on end, slandering Catholics. He actually dresses his vehicle with anti-Christian hate messages, equating Catholics with Nazis, and drives around looking for people to offend. I wouldn't be surprised if he does funerals, like Phelps does.

Come to think of it, Wells could use the same posters as Phelps, with just a little re-arranging: “Fags hate God”. But that’s probably not vile enough for Wells, the garbage-mouthed fool who thought the bumper sticker “F*CK HARPER” was the height of political eloquence.

The fact is, it’s Phelps and Wells who are the haters.

Which is why it’s such an honour that the latest human rights complaint filed against me is by Rob Wells.

You can read a copy of the complaint here, filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I received word of this complaint just last week.

It’s not Wells’s first time using the CHRC to prosecute his hatred for Christians. They’re a perfect fit for each other, Wells and the CHRC. Wells drives around town, uttering anti-Christian filth; the CHRC staff surf around the Internet, publishing racist and anti-gay filth. It’s surprising that the CHRC hasn’t hired Wells to be one of their online hatemongers – he could do what he loves, and get paid for it.

Wells is a favourite of the CHRC. He has used the CHRC to harass the Christian Heritage Party. And he was the complainant against Fr. Alphonse de Valk and Catholic Insight magazine, that drained them of $20,000 in legal fees. That complaint was dismissed by the CHRC when they started getting political heat over it, but Wells is now appealing that dismissal.

Between making little Catholic children cry at church and filing nuisance suits, where does the man find the time?

His complaint against me is rooted in my recent republication of Rev. Stephen Boissoin’s editorial column in the Red Deer Advocate several years ago. That was the column in which Rev. Boissoin expressed his Christian opposition to gay rights – and it resulted in a complaint filed against him at the Alberta HRC. After five grueling years of bureaucratic bullying, Rev. Boissoin was sentenced to a $7,000 fine, a lifetime ban against giving any public sermons that were “disparaging” to gay rights (he was also banned from sending private e-mails about the subject) and he was actually ordered to publicly renounce his religious beliefs on the subject. Seriously – read the sentence here for yourself if you can't believe it.

I republished Rev. Boissoin’s column in full, as a sign of my freedom and as an indication that I don’t grant the government the moral authority to tell me what I can or can’t say. I’m pleased to say that Canada’s leading gay lobby, EGALE, agrees exactly with my position. They know that Wells’s fascism is an embarrassment to their cause. And – more than an embarrassment – it endangers anyone who might be the target of an overweening state, like gays themselves were in the past.

Let’s walk through the letter I received from the CHRC.

The cover letter

The first page says that a CHRC investigator will recommend that the CHRC commissioners shouldn't proceed against me. The commissioners, who are political appointees, will make that decision at their next meeting.

What I find so delicious about this cover letter, though, is that it is not signed by any person – rather, by “Investigations Division”. I’ve never seen that before – it’s always the investigating officer’s name on the letter. Why the sudden coyness? Who could my secret admirer be?

The handwriting looks neat, even pretty, but deliberately illegible. Every other investigator’s report is signed by the particular officer. I’ve seen CHRC reports signed by Dean Steacy, John Chamberlin and Sandy Kozak (at left), but the name clearly isn’t one of those, though it looks like Kozak’s handwriting.

I think it’s Kozak – the corrupt ex-cop who was drummed out of the real police force. I could be wrong, though. It might be Jadewarr. (UPDATE: After looking at the two signatures next to each other, I think it's someone other than Kozak. Why the shyness? Like Kozak, is she, too, a discredited ex-cop?) (UPDATE2: A commenter points out that the signature is that of Natalie Dagenais, director of investigations; I've changed that below.)

The cover letter asks me to furnish my reply to Wells’s complaint in the next two weeks. I’ll be sure to post it to my blog when it’s done.

The investigator’s report

I love the top talent at the CHRC. Dagenais litters her report with factual errors. My favourite is the news that I founded the Western Standard magazine in 2002. A simple Google search would show that’s not true. That’s not an important error, of course. But it shows the generally second-rate quality of employees at the CHRC. That’s a rare point of agreement between me and Bernie “Burny” Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress: the CHRC is full of incompetent hacks who waste our tax dollars on nonsense like reviewing websites for whiny anti-Christian bigots who can dish it out, but can't take it. I suppose you don’t have to be a competent investigator, though, when you know in advance that you’re going to get a conviction – despite the second-rateness all around, the CHRC has never lost a section 13 hate speech case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. I hear Fidel Castro sent experts to learn from the CHRC how to improve Cuba's 99% conviction rate.

Most of the rest of the report is boilerplate bumf – where keystone cops like Dagenais pretend they’re lawyers who assess complaints through anything other than a Marxist prism.

I have more rights than Rev. Boissoin

Skim past those boring parts – the CHRC commissioners don’t read them, so why should you? Go to the good stuff. It starts at around page 7 of Kozak’s report, which is page 8 of the .pdf. Look at paragraph 20. Here we learn a new fact: Wells had complained to the CHRC about Rev. Boissoin, and the case against Rev. Boission was approved by the commissioners to move to the next stage: either a forced plea bargain (the CHRC calls it a conciliation) or the dreaded, 100% conviction rate tribunal.

Ignore for a moment the double jeopardy here – that Rev. Boissoin was prosecuted by the Alberta HRC, and then again by the CHRC, something that would never happen to, say, an accused murderer, but happened to an accused pastor. Look at what the CHRC’s investigator and political commissioners recommended: that Wells’s complaint against Rev. Boissoin be prosecuted by the CHRC.

Stop.

Think about that. The CHRC’s investigator has recommended that I be let go for the exact same act of hate speech that Rev. Boissoin committed – and he wasn’t let go.

Just in case the double standard wasn’t clear enough, as paragraph 21 notes, I even declared that I was willfully committing a hate crime.

How does the CHRC justify this double standard? In a single, vacuous sentence. See paragraph 28: “In [the Boissoin] complaint, the letter appeared in a different context”.

Boissoin’s column appeared in the Red Deer Advocate – a mild and mainstream newspaper, as part of a broader debate. It was the heartfelt view of a Christian pastor. I simply reprinted it as an act of defiance. Yet Boissoin was the one sent on for prosecution?

Paragraph 31 says I was let go because my publication of the column wasn’t in a “forum which espouses extreme views of hatred”. Right. Neither is the Red Deer Advocate.

Paragraph 32 indicates that I knew the column was a “hate crime”, and Rev. Boissoin didn’t. Right – so I willfully promoted “hatred”, as opposed to Rev. Boissoin.

But for sheer creative writing, look at paragraph 33: Dagenais invents a new test for section 13 hate speech cases. She says my publication was “more likely” to promote a debate than to promote hatred. Is that the new test? Something can promote hate, but if it also promotes debate, then it’s not hate speech? They’re making this stuff up as they go along, and it’s not hard to guess why: Rev. Boissoin was poor, powerless and easy prey for them. I’m a noisy troublemaker, and Rob Wells is forcing them to deal with me. Still, exactly the same excuse could be used for Rev. Boissoin – we know for a fact his column led to a great debate.

Let’s do it again, with gusto

I’m disgusted with Rob Wells – he’s just as despicable as Fred Phelps. But he’s just an individual bigot, and he's got the freedom to utter his filthy speech. What’s truly appalling, though, is how he’s turned the CHRC into his personal anti-Christian inquisition – going after the Christian Heritage Party, Rev. Boissoin and Fr. de Valk. Without the CHRC’s aid and comfort, Wells would still be driving around Edmonton in his hatemobile, a pitiful, angry, junior Fred Phelps. But, thanks to Jennifer Lynch and the rest of the team at the CHRC, the taxpayers of Canada and the laws of Canada have been hijacked, yet again.

So let me publish the same illegal words again. And let me do it for a different reason.

I’m not publishing these words as part of any “debate”. I am publishing them for the express purpose of promoting contempt – contempt for Rob Wells, and contempt for his gophers at the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

I’m publishing it to promote contempt for Jennifer Lynch, the chief commissioner of the CHRC who presides over an anti-Christian inquisition, and for all of the other commissioners – David Langtry, Robin Baird, Roch Fournier, Sandi Bell and Yvonne Boyer – who have joined forces with the real bigots of this country, people like Rob Wells, and even the corrupt thugs working at the commission who gaily join neo-Nazi groups like Stormfront, with the commissioners’ full approval.

I have contempt for them, and I wish to spread it to all of my fellow Canadians.

Jennifer Lynch: like most bullies, you are a coward who picks on penniless pastors like Rev. Boissoin. Why don't you come and get me?

Homosexual Agenda Wicked

 

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the "Moral Majority." Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term "morality."

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, "I'm just not sure where the truth lies," or "If they don't affect me then I don't care what they do," abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke's observation that, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It's time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don't allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It's time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Rev. Stephen Boissoin

Two months ago, the Canadian Human Rights Commission realized that it was losing the public relations battle badly. While they were still crushing their targets in their kangaroo courts, in the court of public opinion, their targets were becoming martyrs -- and the phrase "human rights commission" was turning into an Orwellian joke. More attention had been paid to the CHRC's corruption and abuses of process in the past six months than in the previous 30 years of its existence.

They were beset by investigations of all sorts. The RCMP was conducting a criminal investigation into their conduct, as was the Privacy Commissioner. And the Parliamentary Justice Committee has announced its intentions to review the CHRC, too.

So, without notifying Parliament, the CHRC pre-empted them, announcing their own Potemkin review -- by a hand-picked professor, who has been specifically restricted from commenting on the obscene CHRC conduct that has led to the RCMP and Privacy Commissioner's review. Here's the reaction from several MPs I spoke with: a combination of disgust that the CHRC -- their statutory creation -- would arrogate unto itself the right to review its own mandate; and a feeling of "who gives a damn? It's clearly a sham."

My own thoughts on the review, by University of Windsor professor Richard Moon, are similar. It's a joke for the CHRC to hand-pick its own critic; it's a joke that the critic is restricted from asking the most difficult questions; and it's anti-democratic and abusive of taxpayers that the CHRC, a bureaucracy that has been given marching orders by our elected Parliament, has decided that it will review its instructions from Parliament, and tell Parliament where they're wrong. I suppose such hubris is to be expected from the sort of people who regularly target -- and occasionally jail -- Canadians for having incorrect political opinions. How disgusting.

Finally, as Blazing Cat Fur has pointed out, Moon has a track record of supporting government intervention in the media. No doubt that's precisely why he was chosen for this review: he's a rare academic who supports the government choosing what can and can't be said, and by whom.

Nonetheless, I responded to Moon's invitation to submit my thoughts. I did so in the form of a series of questions. That's because I'm not really interested in trying to "convince" Moon -- or anyone else at the CHRC -- that censorship is wrong and freedom is right. I don't need to convince them, because those are my natural rights, and I don't need their permission. I think it's a moral mistake to even grant the CHRC and its contractors the legitimacy as arbiters of right and wrong.

Rather, my questions were a list of particular problems with the CHRC, problems that the CHRC has stonewalled any attempts to answer -- whether at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, or through access to information requests, or through media inquiries. They are a secretive, abusive, corrupt bunch -- and, even if Moon acts in good faith, I'm sure they won't answer those questions. Moon is meant as camouflage; a placebo; a distraction; a cover-up. He's certainly not meant to actually reveal the awful truth about the CHRC.

In that way, I think my questions are strong. If Moon actually does answer them -- great. We've learned more about the CHRC's internal rot. More likely, if Moon doesn't -- or can't, or won't -- answer them, we have conclusive proof of my thesis that Moon's exercise is nothing more than an expensive masquerade by the CHRC, desperate to show that they're accountable.

Enough preamble. Here are my questions to Moon. (I sent them in two e-mails to him; I combined their numbering below).

Dear Prof. Moon,

Further to your e-mail, below please find my submission to your review. It is in the form of a list of questions. Should you need any primary documents referred to in the questions, I would be happy to send them to you; most of them can be found on my blog.

There are many more questions in similar veins. I’m limiting my submission to these few, as I doubt that your report will – or will be allowed to – address them in a meaningful way.

I believe that your review is merely a political smokescreen, a placebo to pretend that the CHRC is accountable, when in fact it has hand-picked you, has limited the scope of your work, and has done so to pre-empt an RCMP investigation, a Privacy Commissioner investigation and a nascent Parliamentary review.

Frankly, I expect that few of my questions will be answered in your report. I hope that I'm wrong; but if not, I will surely pass on my list of questions to the Parliamentary review -- the one that the CHRC answers to, not the one that answers to the CHRC.

Yours truly,

Ezra Levant

Procedural details about your review

1. Other than the published terms of reference of your review, have you received any other instructions, in writing, verbally, or in any other form, from the CHRC or anyone else? If so, what are those instructions?

2. Have you been instructed that there are certain issues that you are not to discuss?

3. Have you had any interim meetings with Jennifer Lynch, or any other CHRC staff, or others, during which you have been asked about the status of your work, or been given feedback or direction on your work to date, or otherwise received instructions?

4. Have you received any instructions, advice or input from the CHRC’s public relations or government relations staff or contractors?

5. Will anyone see your report prior to its final publication? Will it be reviewed, edited or embargoed by the CHRC prior to its release? Will you release it, or will the CHRC?

6. Have you been granted access to CHRC records, including computer files, internal memoranda, meeting minutes or any other CHRC resources? Have you been granted authority to interview CHRC staff, or former staff? Did you do so?

7. What compensation will you receive for your review? Have you been promised any other future consideration?

Inappropriateness of the CHRC reviewing Parliament’s mandate

8. Under what authority is the CHRC reviewing the mandate given to it by Parliament? What statutory or regulatory provision authorizes the CHRC to second-guess its standing orders given to it by the elected legislature?

9. Who, if anyone, did the CHRC consult prior to its announcement of your review? Did it consult MPs? The PMO or PCO? The Justice Minister? Any public relations or government relations staff or contractors?

Other contemporaneous reviews

10. Were you instructed to avoid reviewing the matters currently being investigated by the RCMP and the Privacy Commissioner into the unauthorized access of a private citizen’s Internet account by CHRC staff?

11. What is the status of those investigations? What CHRC staff, former staff, contractors or former contractors have been interviewed?

12. Have any search warrants been issued relating to CHRC records or other property such as hard drives? Have the CHRC offices been searched? Has anything been seized?

13. Were the actions being investigated done in the course of CHRC duties? Who approved those actions?

14. Has the CHRC paid for criminal lawyers for those being investigated? Who has been investigated so far?

15. Has the CHRC made any offer of a settlement to Nelly Hechme?

CHRC investigative tactics that spread hate

16. What is the CHRC policy on impersonation and entrapment by CHRC investigators and other officers? Is there a policy? Who wrote it? Has it been promulgated to the staff?

17. What is the CHRC policy regarding CHRC staff committing section 13 hate speech offences while impersonating neo-Nazis or other bigots? Is there a policy? Who wrote it? Has it been promulgated to the staff?

18. Does the CHRC continue to use false personas?

CHRC lack of ethics code

19. In a recent internal governance audit, the CHRC received a failing grade for ethics, and was found not to have a code of ethics. Since that time, has the CHRC adopted an ethics code?

20. If so, what is it? How is that ethics code being implemented? What operational changes, if any, have resulted from that? What are the penalties, if any, for violating ethical norms?

21. What ethical standards, if any, does the CHRC use to screen candidates for employment? Is it appropriate that a former police officer who was drummed out of the force for corruption works as an investigator at the CHRC?

Improper investigation of political websites

22. The CHRC has admitted to investigating political websites, such as Free Dominion, even in the absence of any complaint. What political websites is the CHRC currently investigating?

23. What is the CHRC policy about investigating websites before a complaint is made? If that policy prohibits such investigations, has that policy been enforced, and have CHRC staff been disciplined or otherwise corrected?

24. Does the CHRC have any oversight committee, or even a single manager, who ensures that CHRC investigators do not engage in personal political vendettas?

CHRC improper use of police powers, evidence

25. The CHRC regularly asks Canadian police forces (and CSIS) for information and evidence to which the CHRC is not statutorily entitled, including evidence seized by police pursuant to criminal search warrants, where the CHRC's interest is not disclosed; access to the CPIC police database; and police and CSIS surveillance. What is the CHRC's policy regarding evidence acquired in this manner? Who drafted this policy?

26. Has this policy been approved by any judicial review? Has it been disclosed to the police departments' respective oversight bodies? Has it been disclosed to Parliament?

Richard Warman

27. Richard Warman was a CHRC employee from 2002 to 2004. While he was at the CHRC, he began filing section 13 hate speech complaints that were reviewed by his colleagues. He has continued to do so since he left. He has filed half of all complaints, and 12 out of 14 cases that have gone to the CHRT over the past five years have been Warman's complaints. The CHRC calls Warman as their witness in his own complaints, thus enabling them to pay his expenses for being a witness in his own complaints. Does Warman have any status with the CHRC whatsoever, other than as a complainant?

28. Does the CHRC have any policy regarding the conflict of interest of having current or former staffers file CHRC complaints?

29. Does Warman have any access to CHRC offices, e-mail accounts, computer files, passwords or Internet aliases such as Jadewarr? When was that access cut off?

30. What compensation does Warman continue to receive from the CHRC? Does he have any ongoing contracts with the CHRC? When he appears as a witness for the CHRC, does he receive any fee whatsoever, including a per diem payment? What are those payments? Do any other CHRC complainants receive them?

31. Warman’s use of false identities to entrap CHRC respondents has been criticized by the CHRT. What review, if any, has the CHRC done of Warman’s tactics? Have they made any policy changes in response to the CHRT’s criticisms?

32. Section 13 hate speech complaints filed against Warman for his bigoted posts have been rejected by the CHRC, despite an investigator’s assessment that Warman did in fact breach section 13. Why are CHRC staff and former staff exempt from section 13 hate speech investigations?

CHRC lack of respect for Charter values

33. Dean Steacy, the senior section 13 hate speech investigator for the CHRC testified that "freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value... It's not my job to give value to an American concept." Does Steacy's testimony represent the CHRC's view of freedom of speech?

34. If not, what is the CHRC's view of freedom of speech? Has that view been promulgated within the organization? Has Steacy been corrected in his view or disciplined? How?

35. If the CHRC has changed its view, or if Steacy’s view was a rogue view, have there been any changes to the way that Steacy and other section 13 hate speech staff operate?

36. Will the CHRC publicly state its new policy regarding freedom of speech to contradict the impression left by Steacy?

CHRC failure to comply with natural justice

37. The CHRC regularly refuses to comply with rules of natural justice, and even its own rules of procedure. On what legal basis does the CHRC redact its disclosure, contrary to its rules of procedure, as in the Lemire case? On what legal basis does the CHRC disclose documents after the hearings have begun, as in the Lemire case? At what level of the CHRC has this process been approved?

38. The Information Commissioner has recently ruled that the CHRC is in violation of its access to information obligations. What changes, if any, has the CHRC made to comply with the law?

39. In the recent Lemire hearing of March 25, 2008, the CHRC made a transcript of the hearing, but did not disclose it to the respondent, despite his requests – but sent it to journalists. Who approved this decision? Is it standard CHRC policy to withhold transcripts from respondents?

40. That transcript was found to have been inaccurate in a substantial manner that would have disadvantaged the respondent. Was that transcript edited at the instruction of the CHRC?

41. The CHRC regularly calls for publication bans; withholds evidence; and has even applied for a respondent to be physically barred from the hearing room during parts of his own hearing. In one case, the identity of a complainant was withheld from the respondent by the CHRC. Who approves these abusive legal tactics? Is there a CHRC legal procedural manual?

42. 91% of the CHRC's section 13 hate speech targets are too poor to hire lawyers. Why is it acceptable to the CHRC to prosecute people who are unrepresented by competent counsel, without providing them with legal aid?

Improper political influence

43. The B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress, two groups that are parties or intervenors in support of CHRC complaints, are registered lobbyist targeting the CHRT. What was the CHRC’s involvement with this lobbying? Is it appropriate for parties before the CHRT to lobby the CHRT ex parte? Are there any other quasi-judicial tribunals in which such explicit attempts to influence decision-making are considered legal?

44. The CHRC has never prosecuted a section 13 hate speech complaint against a Canadian from a minority background -- 100% have been white. This is odd, given that there is evident "hate speech" within various ethnic minorities in Canada including, just to name a few, from Tamil, Sikh, Muslim and other immigrant communities, including amongst those communities, between radical and moderate elements. Does the CHRC have a policy to only prosecute white hate speech cases? If not, why have no other prosecutions been made?

CHRC bullying of its critics

45. In response to my criticism of the CHRC’s conduct, I have been sued in civil court by a CHRC lawyer, Giacomo Vigna, specifically for criticizing his work as a CHRC lawyer. Vigna has threatened me with a second lawsuit. He has also filed seven law society complaints against me -- all for my criticism of his conduct with the CHRC, or of the CHRC in general. Does the CHRC have a policy regarding lawsuits by staff against CHRC critics?

46. Were CHRC managers or staff aware of Vigna's lawsuit before it was filed? If so, what feedback was Vigna given as to the appropriateness of a lawsuit being filed against a political critic of the CHRC?

Those are my submissions.

Moon wrote back to me right away, with the following reply:

Mr. Levant: My instructions from the CHRC are contained  in the mandate that is posted on the CHRC website.  No one connected with the CHRC has asked me to do anything more or less than that. I can assure you that this will be an independent report. You may agree or disagree with my recommendations but they will be my recommendations.

I've been gone a week during the sleepiest days of summer, but I remain impressed with the amount of news that human rights commissions continue to generate because of their bad behaviour.

Here's a story from Australia -- it uses Canada's human rights commissions as a case study of how HRCs can actually become abusers of rights. It should be embarrassing to Canadians that we are held up of an international example of how not to do civil rights.

Here's an excellent American summary of my own case, on the popular FrontPage Magazine website.

Stories like those, in media like those, are incredibly important. I haven't blogged a word in a week, but links from those sites have kept my blog traffic at about 3,000 visitors a day. I mention that as evidence that freedom loving people are just plain interested in our awful laboratory experiment with censorship in Canada.

Here's a surprising story in the Canadian Jewish News, typically a mouthpiece for the pro-censorship Canadian Jewish Congress. It's surprising, because it's uncharacteristically even-handed on the subject of HRC censorship, and gives me almost as much ink as it gives the Official Jews who typically support censorship. I'd say that's a small sign of progress.

By far my favourite story, of course, was this one by Joseph Brean in the National Post the other day. Not just because hard news reports about HRCs are very valuable -- I'd trade one news story about HRCs for five opinion columns, in terms of their effectiveness at denormalizing these abusive commissions -- but because this news story is one of the first signs of the anti-HRC backlash spreading.

In this case, Ontario Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod, pushed for committee hearings to examine the provincial government's nominees for the $160,000/year job of human rights tribunal members. Those are the kangaroo judges that preside over these lawless courts. Needless to say, the combination of such a payday and the nearly unlimited political power that comes with them has attracted quite a field of would-be commissars.

The Post tells the story of one of them: Alan Whyte, a labour lawyer who now wants to stretch his legs in the field of government censorship of news reports. That's right: under questioning from MacLeod, he admits he wants to take on news reports -- news, not opinion; the mere reportage of what goes on in the world -- and to censor stories that don't fit his ideological perspective. (Perhaps Whyte would have liked to have censored the very story that broke that news.) Here are some excerpts from the Post's report:

A candidate for one of the top jobs at the new Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario told a government committee yesterday he thinks print journalism should be subject to racial discrimination complaints.

Dear readers,

I'm going to take a week off, but I'll return on Wednesday, August 20th. Please check back then.

I'll have some interesting news: two different federal cabinet ministers supporting reforms to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and -- you won't believe this -- a new human rights complaint against me. For publishing this blog! Gentle reader, did you know that you are participating in a hate crime just by reading this!?

Perhaps the government should issue each of us a hate crime whistle. Whenever we see or hear something that offends, just blow, blow, blow on that whistle and shout "Hate crime! Stop hate criming me!" Besides being useful for when you're sitting at home, surfing the Internet on your own, where blowing the hate crime whistle could give private reassurance of one's own moral righteousness, it could come in handy in public places, too. Like movie theatres, and especially libraries, where I understand there exist many offensive ideas.

See you next week. In the meantime, Guy Earle, the comedian who must stand trial in Vancouver for uttering a politically incorrect retort to two drunk hecklers at a comedy show, sent me a link to video clips from his recent Toronto show to raise funds for his legal defence. Here's a clip featuring Earle:

 

• Free Mark Steyn has been on fire lately. If you like reading about real civil rights vs. fake "human rights" of the human rights commissions, check out Binky's page, here.
• The Globe and Mail's news pages have been very light on the HRC issue, but their editorial line has been excellent. As it is again, in the wake of the dismissal of the cartoon complaint against me. Read it here; the comments are generally good, too. I like the fact that they realize it's not enough for the high profile cases like mine to be acquitted -- for that just victimizes those who don't know how to be noisy. (And those who can't afford lawyers. Fact: 91% of section 13 hate speech targets at the Canadian Human Rights Commission are too poor to hire lawyers.) The Globe calls for a repeal of the hate speech laws. Good for them.
• Columnist Naomi Lakritz embarrassed herself last week with her support for government censorship. But Lakritz's saner colleagues at the Calgary Herald have redeemed that newspaper's reputation. I refer in particular to Nigel Hannaford and Mark Milke. (I haven't seen the paper today, so I don't know if there are more.) And then there's the incomparable George Jonas, in the Post, here.
• The Canadian Association of Journalists, which has been excellent in the fight against HRCs (they even offered to intervene in my hearing) has issued this press release. I like how they call HRCs "language nannies."
• I got some interesting comments in response to my debate (argument? shouting match?) with Syed Soharwardy. My favourite was a suggested retort to Soharwardy's threat to me that I'd "pay" very soon: "like Robina Butt did?" Butt, of course, was beaten to a pulp in a home invasion, and her attackers told her not to criticize Soharwardy's mosque again. That would have been a delicious come-back, but in fact I couldn't even hear Soharwardy make the threat, there was so much cross-talk and general excitement. That said, I'm going to make sure my doors are locked extra-tight, and my fire alarms work!

I know, that's a lame headline. Come up with a better one if you can in the comments section.

But what else can you say about a newspaper columnist who actually supports government censorship of the media? I'm referring to the pitiful Naomi Lakritz, who beclowned herself in yesterday's Calgary Herald. Here is her grotesque column. Let me fisk it, briefly:

The Alberta Human Rights Commission has thrown out the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities' complaint against Ezra Levant. Now, maybe the clamour about what an egregious affront to democracy human rights commissions present will die down.

Lakritz thinks this is about me. It's not. It's about a threat to Canada's fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, the press and religion. I just happened to be noisier than most targets of the HRC.

First, it's hard to believe Levant wonders why it took 900 days for the commission to toss out the complaint about his Western Standard's publication of the Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.

That's a really weird insinuation that I was the one who dragged things out. It's more than weird -- it's demonstrably false. Had Lakritz called me, or used something called "Google" on the Inter-nets, she would have come across my responses to the two complaints, and seen the dates on them. I filed each within 30 days of receiving the complaints. That leaves 870 days of abusive process by the government.

Only Levant himself can answer whether he did his part to expedite matters by responding promptly in his dealings with the commission. The process involves much give and take -- answering the initial complaint, navigating the conciliation period and going into the investigation part when settlement issues are debated.

Again, a phone call or Google would have revealed that there was no attempt at reconciliation. Is this really Lakritz's best argument? To challenge my honesty -- to blame the victim? It's a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy.

I'm willing to give Levant the benefit of the doubt and assume that the dragging out of the process was due to the slow pace of bureaucracy. However, as a lawyer yourself, Ezra, you must be familiar with the often excruciating length of judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings; if not, may I refer you to case law precedent for lengthiness -- Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce in Charles Dickens' Bleak House?

Bleak House is a novel -- a work of fiction. So is the story of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. It's odd that Lakritz uses that exaggerated fictional tid-bit from Industrial Revolution England as her benchmark for Canadian justice. I wonder if she'd say the same thing about a criminal accused. But, even accepting her strange analogy, Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce was a private lawsuit, in a real court, between two parties haggling over a family fortune, where both parties and their lawyers chose to fight incessantly. It was a morality tale about litigiousness. How does that apply when one party -- me -- wants to get out of a lawsuit, but the other party -- the government, with its unlimited resources -- refuses to even communicate for months at a time? In a real court, I could have applied for a summary dismissal; at worst, I could have applied for case management, where a real judge would have ordered the other side to comply with a schedule. None of those are open to targets of HRCs.  

University of Calgary law professor Kathleen Mahoney is absolutely right when she says the outcome of Levant's case demonstrates the process works. It does, indeed, and without such institutions as human rights commissions, where would people go for redress? In other countries, when people feel their racial or religious identity is under attack, they take up arms. Here, we have a civilized outlet for making such complaints -- the human rights commission.

Kathleen Mahoney is a left-wing kook. And she's a thin-skinned liberal fascist in her own right. Here's a story in the Globe and Mail about her own human rights complaint filed against Alberta Report, for daring to suggest that some Aboriginal kids benefited from residential schools. 

Opponents of human rights commissions seem to labour under the impression that when a complaint is filed, a panel of dictatorial (and, of course, left-leaning) folks hears it and hands down a ruling. Not so. According to the commission's website, more than 50 per cent of cases are resolved through conciliation.

Yes, I was offered conciliation. The offer sounded like this: "pay cash to the radical Muslims, and give them a page in your magazine, unedited. Then we'll let you go." Most people take it -- they don't have the time or money to fight these bastards for 900 days.

There are checks and balances built into the process all along the way -- including the commission's authority to reject the initial complaint if it does not fall under the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act. Then comes the conciliation process, which tries to find a middle ground to make both sides happy.

What exactly is the "middle ground" when it comes to freedom of the press. In February 2006, Kevin Libin was the Western Standard's editor, and I was its publisher. So either we decided what went in the magazine, or these radical Muslims decided what went in the magazine. How do you split the difference on that? Either the magazine was ours, or it was theirs, courtesy of a thieving state. I'm not quite sure how to compromise. If Lakritz ever gets hit with an HRC complaint for her column, it will be interesting to watch her compromise. Would she pay cash? Whose money? Hers, or would she bravely offer the Herald's? Would she offer her column, unedited, to a critic, if it would get her out of trouble with the government? And would the Herald go along with that?

If that fails, an investigator either throws the complaint out or approves it to proceed. Even then, it doesn't go straight to a hearing in front of the fearsome lineup of supposed lefties. Instead, "the parties are typically invited to discuss settlement," says the commission.

If settlement is out of reach, a panel is appointed to hear the matter. However, only five per cent of cases go before a panel; the other 95 per cent end at some earlier stage.

That's true. We never hear about the 95% of people who give up before going to a hearing. For every one of me and Rev. Stephen Boissoin, there are twenty victims we never hear about. 

The case against Levant never made it to a hearing. The conciliation process broke down, and the complaint went to an investigator, who decided it didn't merit proceeding, based on, according to the commission, "how the act and legal precedents apply." The Edmonton Muslim group has the right to appeal the ruling, however.

The commission is not the kangaroo court its detractors would like everyone to think it is. Under the act, it upheld Levant's freedom to publish the cartoons, although investigator Pardeep Gundara reserved the right to exercise freedom of speech to declare that "the cartoons remain offensive." They are offensive, and that is why the Herald chose not to publish them at the time. But it doesn't mean Levant had no right to publish them, and that's the distinction Gundara makes.

Pardeep Gundara did not exercise his freedom of speech. He was not acting as an individual, writing a letter to the editor or calling a talk show. He was not even just a spokesman for the Government of Alberta. He was a decision-maker, using the awesome powers granted to the government under the statute.

Lakritz calls the cartoons "offensive". Perhaps they are to her -- a submissive dhimmi, and worse, a Jewish dhimmi. But look at the cartoons (I wonder if Lakritz herself even has). A few of them are politically controversial. But most aren't. Some made fun of the Danish newspaper itself -- including this one, at left, in which the "Mohammed" involved was a young Danish student named Mohammed.

Another was a picture of a man in the desert, at left. Why did the Danish paper publish that one? Because the whole point was to discuss the fact that Danish cartoonist were afraid to illustrate a children's Koran, lest they be killed by radical Muslims. So this was a picture suitable for a child's Koran. Offensive? Only if you're a perpetually aggrieved whiner. 

Mahoney is right on again when she says: "We have to balance freedom of expression with other people's freedom from speech. Otherwise, we'd have absolutism running roughshod over other people's freedoms." It's the old adage about how one person's rights end where someone else's begin.

Say what? "Freedom from speech"? Is a little word trick really a substitute for an argument? Freedom from speech? I guess that means the freedom to turn the channel, or not read a magazine, or not listen to someone. Freedom "from" speech is really the freedom just to ignore someone. We all have that, naturally. What Mahoney and Lakritz are talking about isn't freedom from anything. It's power -- the power to silence their opponents. Mahoney wanted to censor the Alberta Report, because she disagreed with it. Lakritz wants to censor -- well, other than me, I don't know her enemies list, yet. Mahoney and Lakritz had better hope that no government has them on their to-censor list. Because once the precedent is set, anyone is vulnerable. You'd think purported defenders of the underdogs would know that.

The Levant case was not about name-calling, of course. But looking at the bigger picture, people in general cannot go around spewing racist or homophobic epithets at others, without some place those targeted can seek redress. Otherwise, it's just carte blanche for bigots, and the victims have to put up or shut up, since the only alternative is to go to court, the costs of which are prohibitive for most people.

What kind of person, when offended, runs to court? Or to the human rights commission? Again, a perpetual whiner. Lakritz and Mahoney could start a secular church: Our Sisters of the Perpetual Whining. There are other alternative when you're offended: Ignore the offender; offend him back; turn the channel; write a letter to the editor; call a talk show; start a political campaign; complain to your friends and neighbours; etc. What kind of nut-bar thinks that the government should get into the "he offended me!" business? Are we still in grade school here? 

A society in which some people can be harassed by others into feeling like second-class citizens, without any recourse for them but to grin and bear it, is not one any democracy should espouse as desirable for its citizens to live in.

This is my favourite line in Lakritz's whole piece, because it perfectly sums up her idea of what human rights commissions are about. Actually, we agree on this one. Human rights commissions aren't about real human rights. They're not about people kicked out of apartments for being black, or fired for being gay, or any real acts of discrimination. They're about the fake "right" not to be offended.

Lakritz probably thought she was pretty clever. She cast doubt on my honesty (but foolishly; in a way that I could immediately disprove, thus showing her own mendacity); she parroted Kook Mahoney's "freedom from speech" line, thinking that was quite clever, but really revealing her shallowness; and she came right out and admitted that she wants someone to be the feelings police.

I've heard it all before. But usually it comes from someone who sucks on the teat of the HRC industry. I've just never heard it from a newspaper columnist before. It's even weirder, coming from a columnist at the Herald -- which has been one of the most pro-freedom newspapers in the country.

So that's my long reply. Here's a shorter version, that the Herald ran today:

Naomi Lakritz's support of the Alberta Human Rights Commission's investigation of me after I published the Danish Muhammad cartoons is an embarrassing thing for a journalist to have written.

I just hope she never has to deal with such a complaint herself. She too would have 15 bureaucrats going over her work for 900 days, with the statutory power to enter her office, seize papers and copy her hard drive, all without a search warrant. Even real police can't do that.

I wonder how she would feel about a 90-minute interrogation by a government bureaucrat questioning her column. Does she think it's OK for the government to grill her about her "political intentions" -- a question I was asked?

Lakritz says "it's hard to believe" I don't know why my investigation took 900 days, implying I was part of the problem. As phoning me would have revealed, I filed my response to the complaints within 30 days. Lakritz makes other excuses for the government's sloth, including her fantasy they were "navigating the conciliation period and going into the investigation part when settlement issues are debated." Again, I could have told her we skipped the "conciliation" and "settlement" stages -- I wasn't interested in compromising my freedom of speech.

(I should note, though, that the HRC did offer me a plea bargain: If I paid the complainants cash and gave them a page in our magazine for their propaganda, I'd be let go.)

Lakritz approvingly quotes leftist professor Kathleen Mahoney, who says we must enforce "freedom from speech." That's intellectual junk; no one has to endure another's speech. We switch channels, don't buy a magazine or just walk away if we don't want to listen. Mahoney and Lakritz talk about "freedom from speech," but this really means "power to silence."

There's no right not to be offended, and no right to silence those with whom you disagree. At least not in Canada. Yet, that's exactly what HRCs do.

Naomi Lakritz and Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star: the two lonely journalists in Canada who support human rights commissions acting as media censors. What a pair: an atheist Jewish feminist dhimmi, and an apologist for radical Islam. Meet your new leftist coalition.

See update, underneath the photo, below.

I haven't written about Syed Soharwardy in a while. He is the Pakistani-born radical imam who filed the first human rights complaint against me and the Western Standard after we published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in 2006. (He abandoned his complaint this spring; the other members of his Saudi values coalition, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities, filed a copycat complaint which was just dismissed.)

As long-time readers will know, Soharwardy is a disreputable character. As the Calgary Herald ably outlined, Soharwardy has:

• said that the Jews of Israel are worse than the Nazis;
• said that Western aid agencies helping out Asian tsunami victims were actually kidnapping Muslim children and converting them to Christianity; and
• called for sharia law to be applied in Canada.

As well, Soharwardy is currently locked in a bitter battle with half of his forty congregants in Calgary. They're accusing him of pocketing their money; he's sued them in return; and three women from his mosque have filed human rights complaints against Soharwardy himself, for how he treats them. I've seen a video of his mosque; he makes the women sit at the back, and he shouts them down when they try to speak. He's a Saudi-style bigot.

By the way, two of the women who have criticized Soharwardy have suffered violent incidents. One had her house torched; the other had a home invasion attack that left her hospitalized. According to police, the perpetrators warned the household to stop criticizing Soharwardy's mosque. Click here to learn more about the Pakistani-style violence that befalls his critics.

Enough background. Here's the news. Yesterday morning, I was scheduled to appear on John Oakley's popular radio show in Toronto. Then the producer called me back and said that Soharwardy would be joining the call, too. I couldn't believe it! On the day that the human rights commission had rejected the complaints against our magazine as improper, on the day that taxpayers were stuck with a $500,000 tab for his wild goose chase, Soharwardy was actually looking for attention? You'd think that he'd be hiding from the press -- and from Alberta taxpayers.

When the interview started, Soharwardy wasn't there -- I assumed he had come to his senses, and turned off his phone. But he joined us shortly.

I asked him if he was going to repay taxpayers the $500,000 he owed them.

No answer.

So I asked him again.

No answer.

So I asked him if he'd pay even a token sum: $10,000. No answer.

I think, at that point, he started to realize it was pretty stupid of him to have called.

Soharwardy tried to criticize the Alberta HRC -- the very people who had obeyed his fatwa, and prosecuted me for 900 days. He trashed them as incompetent. He said the dismissal was a good thing. All this from the very fool who started the whole saga!

I think Soharwardy might have thought that, on the day the Edmonton complaint against me was dropped, he might commiserate, and we'd be friends. I have no idea what goes on in his head.

But I thought I'd mention a few things on air about Soharwardy, since we were chatting anyways. Like the fact that on one of his websites, he links, with approval, to an essay written by a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. I've saved the page here, because Soharwardy has a tendency to delete pages that embarrass him. Qaradawi is banned from many western countries, including the U.K., because of his exhortations to murder Jews. He's Soharwardy's hero.

The debate degenerated pretty quickly. That's the second time Soharwardy and I have spoken; the first was the day the cartoons rolled off the press back in 2006. He didn't like how that debate went, either, and promptly asked the Calgary police to arrest me. They didn't, so he filed his human rights complaint. I have no idea what he's going to do now, after yesterday's brutal debate.

But he did give me a warning: I'll "soon pay", he shouted, with half of Toronto as his witness, his voice rising to a girlish trill.

Normally, I'd laugh at that old fart. But, given that two of Soharwardy's critics at his mosque have been violently attacked, maybe I should take Soharwardy's threat seriously. What did he mean by I'll "soon pay"?

You can hear the entire debate here (scroll down to Soharwardy's name).

And, just for context, he's a picture of Robina Butt, one of Soharwardy's critics at the mosque, the Al Madinah center. This is what she looked like after she was attacked by someone shouting "we come from Al-Madinah; if you ever talk anything about Al-Madinah . . . this is the first instalment."

UPDATE: A commenter reminds me of what I'd forgotten: the Canadian Jewish Congress is an ally of this Muslim Brotherhood-loving creep. Check out this exchange of e-mails I had with the CJC in 2006, when they told me not to publish the Danish cartoons of Mohammed (scroll all the way down). Look at their reasoning: they had received praise from various Islamists, and that was more important to them than freedom.

Note -- what a laugh! -- that the CJC counted Soharwardy twice: first, as the grand poobah of the "Islamic Supreme Council of Canada", and once with "Muslims Against Terrorism". They're both his front groups (as is the "World Sufi Mission").

I'm sure that Soharwardy's next front will be the Intergalactic Confederation of Muslims. Methinks the little man is using big, big names to make up for, uh, a shortcoming elsewhere. But he's the CJC's new buddy, so they'll ask no questions.

Here's CTV's report and video of the story about my acquittal, with an interview from a few members of Edmonton's Saudi values coalition, who seem to want to appeal the HRC's dismissal of their complaint.

My quotes were OK, but if I were hoping to convince even more viewers of the rectitude of my case, I'd have completely cut myself out of the segment, and used that extra time to have CTV go through every radical at that mosque, asking them to vomit forth their illiberal, often unintelligible opinions about the cartoons, censorship and bringing a little of the ol' Saudi to the new country. Nothing would discredit their case faster.

If I was a Canadian Muslim, I would weep at being "represented" by such buffoons.

The only more disreputable spokesman possible would have been a radical Islamic supremacist who also works for the Alberta Human Rights Commission. But apparently Arman Chak was busy.

I haven't seen any public report about it yet, but a journalist at CTV told me that the radical Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities, part of the Saudi values coalition that hauled me to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, has threatened to appeal my acquittal on "hate speech" charges for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in 2006.

I think it's probably just tough talk on their part -- it reminds me of an Arab friend of mine who told me that, as a conscript in the Egyptian army, he was taught that their disastrous defeat in the 1967 Six Day War was actually a great victory over Israel. That's the radical Muslim way -- rechristen (can I say that?) defeats as great victories. Anything to save face, anything to avoid dealing with dissonant reality.

But the HRC's decision actually was a victory for them, in everything but name. They punished a troublesome Jew for three years -- and had Gentile taxpayers foot the bill. That's got to be a 90% victory over there at the Edmonton Council for Muslim Communities.

Speaking of the HRC, I'm told by a journalist at the CBC that the government is disputing my $500,000 figure for the cost of prosecuting me. I based that estimate on the time the investigation took (900 days); the number of staff on the file (15 that I know of) and the amount of dealings that the HRC forced me and my lawyer to go through (an enormous amount of hoop-jumping). I have received 200 pages of disclosure from the HRC in my access to information requests. One of the purposes is to find out exactly how much those sloths spent prosecuting me. No surprise -- they have refused to turn over hundreds of documents, including all e-mails about me and my case.

Gee -- they wouldn't be hiding anything, would they? What on Earth could they have written about me and my case that would make them refuse to comply with Alberta's freedom of information and privacy laws?

I've appealed their attempt to stonewall me, and they've referred the matter to an adjudicator. Surprise! She used to work at the human rights commission herself. Surprise! When my lawyer and I objected to that, we were overruled.

I bet that when all the documents finally come out, we'll see that this group of useful idiots spent closer to a million dollars prosecuting me. And if the Saudi values coalition wins their appeal, it will be much, much more money. But not Saudi money -- Alberta taxpayers' money.

My lawyers have just received a copy of a letter from the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissing the complaint of “discrimination” filed against me by the radical Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. They had complained that by publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard in February 2006, I had engaged in an illegal act.

Their complaint was identical to the one filed earlier by an anti-Semitic imam named Syed Soharwardy. Soharwardy abandoned his complaint this spring. You can see Soharwardy’s complaint here; it named both me and the magazine. The Edmonton complaint named just the magazine. My initial legal response is here.

The two complaints cost Alberta taxpayers in excess of $500,000 and, according to access to information documents, involved no fewer than 15 government bureaucrats. What a scam – on the part of the complainants, who were able to wage “lawfare” against an infidel without paying a cent; and on the part of the HRC, as a make-work project.

Fire. Them. All.

You can see the Notice of Dismissal here.

You can see my press release on the subject here.

I’ll have an Op-Ed in the National Post, and it should be available here.

Is this a victory? I suppose, in a narrow technical sense, it is. I’m off the hook now for both of the HRC complaints. That’s two legal battles done – though I’m still up to my eyeballs fighting defamation suits and other legal actions that the human rights industry piled on top of these complaints.

But I’ve read the dismissal letter three times now, and each time it makes me more angry. Because I haven’t been given my freedom of the press. I’ve simply had the government censor approve what I said. That’s a completely different thing.

Pardeep Gundara – a second-rate bureaucrat, a nobody – had to give me his approval for me to be allowed to go back to my business. For 900 days I was in the dock, waiting for this literary giant to pronounce his judgment on me. And I found favour in his eyes – but barely.

Sorry. I don’t give a damn what Gundara or the HRC says. Getting his approval is not a success. I won't legitimize his arrogant "authority" by saying "thank you, master". I'll say: "who the hell are you? Besides a busy-body bureaucrat?"

Look at his rationale for acquitting me: because the Western Standard met Gundara’s home-made tests of reasonableness. We published the cartoons in “context”; we published letters that “criticized” them; and my favourite, the cartoons weren’t “simply stuck in the middle” of the magazine. Gundara must have thought for ten whole minutes to come up with that list of journalistic do’s and don’t’s. And – phew! – he likes me. He really likes me!

Sorry again, I don’t give a damn if he likes me. In fact, it rather creeps me out that a whole squad of teat-sucking bureaucrats spent 900 days inspecting me and the Western Standard. I positively want to offend them. In fact, that’s pretty much the only test of my freedom: can I do exactly what Gundara says I shouldn’t? I’m not interested in publishing recipes or sports scores. I’m interested in bothering the hell out of government.

I will have more to say about this in the days ahead. But for now, let me try to put this in perspective.

1.     I’m obviously glad to be acquitted – though, with a dozen other legal actions filed or pending against me by the same group of people, I’m not exactly free.

2.     Two months ago, Rev. Stephen Boissoin was given an outrageous sentence by the Alberta HRC for doing the same thing I did. Rev. Boissoin even met Gundara’s goofy tests. Why was I acquitted and Rev. Boissoin convicted, sentenced and humiliated? Because I’m a pain in the neck to the HRCs, and I have been embarrassing them ever since I YouTubed their interrogation of me. They wanted to avoid the PR disaster of a trial. Rev. Boissoin is more their style: a quiet man they can beat up with impunity.

3.     I suppose an optimist would say this is a sign of progress: the HRCs are now vulnerable enough to public opinion that they thought they’d throw me back in the ocean – like the Canadian Human Rights Commission recently did with Mark Steyn and Fr. Alphonse de Valk. They’re in damage control mode. That should give us encouragement.

4.     But we shouldn’t be too giddy. Because look closely at what Gundara has said. He didn’t say I was free. He said I merely met his censorship standards, so I may go. Those are two completely different things.

5.     Let me close this blog post by thanking you, my readers and legal defence fund supporters, for helping to carry me through to see this day. I’m not done fighting; I still have the other nuisance suits coming at me. And I intend to keep writing and talking about these abuses of process until all of us are free from these menaces – not just the squeaky wheels, like me.

I've been keeping up with my legal bills pretty well, but I still owe McLennan Ross about $10,000 for their work.

If you're able to help chip in, please do.

 

"This organization is not a registered non-profit organization.  Donations to this organization are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes."

 

 

 

If you prefer snail mail, please send cheques marked to "McLennan Ross in Trust", care of one of my lawyers, Tom Ross, at:

McLennan Ross

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300 - 5th Avenue SW

Calgary, AB T2P 3C4

Thank you!

Brad Trost is the Conservative MP for Saskatoon-Humboldt. A proud constituent of his sent me a copy of his column, written earlier this summer, on the subject of human rights commissions.

Is it by far the strongest criticism of the HRCs that I have heard from anyone in Parliament to date. You can see it on his website here (scroll down) or the extended version in .pdf format here.

It is a scorching criticism, but it doesn't fall into hyperbole; it is very well researched and thoughtfully considered. I have to say, I was beaming when I read it. This guy gets it. Not just the philosophical and legal problems with the HRCs, but the political reality, too: nobody supports these kangaroo courts except for people who have a vested interest in them -- the human rights industry. That's true just as much for downtown Toronto and Vancouver as it is for Saskatoon, I can report.

I encourage you to read the whole thing. But I'll excerpt a few lines:

Over the past few months, I have been following reports about Canada’s federal and provincial human rights commissions and the suppression of free speech. The most troubling stories concern the manner in which human rights commission staff conduct investigations and run their “hearings.”

The fact that the RCMP and the Privacy Commissioner have each launched investigations into the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) should be a real eye-opener for Canadians.

...I am a believer in inalienable human rights. I believe that inalienable rights like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, along with the rule of law, are fundamental to western democracies.

...I believe that Canada’s Human Rights Commissions (originally established to protect those seeking housing or employment from discrimination) have morphed into kangaroo courts that selectively oppress Canadians who hold small “c” conservative political or religious views.

...As a Member of Parliament and a citizen of this great country, I am deeply concerned about the erosion of our fundamental rights by these quasi-judicial human rights commissions.

I am not sure if all of Canada’s human rights commissions should be scrapped, or if a major overhaul of the system, including legislative review would suffice. I am certain, however, that our collection of human rights commissions have very little to do with human rights.

Bravo. Why not take just a moment to send Trost a note of encouragement for his bold stand. You can reach him by e-mail, here.

Robert Jago's monthly ranking of Canadian political blogs is out, with a clarified ranking methodology and a few new sites added to the pool.

I'm number six, slightly down from last month. I can't say I perfectly understand the new rules, because my "Alexa" traffic ranking -- I'm the 165,281st most popular site in the world! -- seems to be the highest on the list. I'll have to figure out how to increase my Google page rank, too (I assume that measures number of searches, not traffic).

Michael Geist's blog is the new top site. It's a beautifully laid out page, with very smart commentary. I wouldn't call it a political blog so much, but it does cover policy issues, mainly those revolving around intellectual property ideas and the Internet.

What's amazing to me is that, despite being on a break for more than a month, Mark Steyn's site is still the third most popular according to Jago's rankings. That's reader loyalty -- I think it's thousands of people like me checking every day to see when he comes back!

I like these monthly rankings, because it's a satisfying affirmation that my blog's main focus -- freedom of speech, the separation of mosque and state, and the useful idiots in the human rights commissions -- is shared by many other people. I also find it gratifying that most of the blogs on the list, especially near the top, are from a similar philosophy.

Welcome to listeners of The Mancow Show!

Dean Skoreyko has filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal against Kenneth Hotz and Showcase TV for their televised stunt of flying a plane past Toronto pulling a giant banner reading "Jesus sucks", pictured at left.

The stunt was part of a television contest to see who could be the most offensive. Hotz claims he originally wanted to have a banner saying "Heil Hitler" or "Guys are stupid", but the airplane banner company refused, saying those messages were too offensive. Apparently "Jesus sucks" isn't.

The whole joke rather imploded on itself. It wasn't funny, but it wasn't even daring -- saying "Jesus sucks" is about as banal as it comes, especially in pop culture or "the arts". I mean, after Piss Christ or even the Da Vinci Code, is a two-word childish insult really that edgy? I thought Charles Lewis had a good treatment of the failed stunt, but he downplayed the timidity of taking on Jesus. Heil Hitler would have been edgier -- and perhaps even funny, coming from Hotz, a Jew himself. But that would likely have meant a tearful phone call from his mother, and Hotz isn't quite that brave. A human rights complaint or three might have emanated from that, too, not to mention trouble from the CRTC for airing same. So Jesus sucks it had to be.

"Mohammed sucks" wouldn't be funny, but it would have truly shown guts -- both as a political statement and as an act of personal courage -- it was precisely the sort of thing that got Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh murdered, and van Gogh was more nuanced.

Christians have turned the other cheek to this kind of things since, well, Jesus's time. He put up with rather more execration than a two-word insult. But Skoreyko is making an important point: if Canada's human rights industry will protect every other group from hurt feelings -- gays, Muslims, blacks, etc. -- will it also protect Christians, from such a clear and explicit attempt to offend them?

Hotz precisely meets the test of Canada's hate speech laws: what he did was "likely to expose a person to hatred or contempt". That's the wording in the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Alberta code, the B.C. code and other provincial HRCs. If Hotz was a skinhead, and the banner said "Jews suck", he'd already have had a human rights officer at his door, and probably a policeman, too.

I don't know Skorekyo, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually believe that he can get "justice" from the BCHRT. I don't think he wants it. I think he wants the opposite: he wants his case to be thrown out, so that he can prove what we all know to be true. In Canada's human rights industry, only certain political and religious views are protected from hurt feelings -- and Christians aren't one of them.

I have refrained from filing human rights complaints against my own antagonists, though they meet the test of bigots. Syed Soharwardy, the radical imam who first filed an HRC complaint against me, is an anti-Semite who also accuses Christian aid workers of kidnapping Muslim babies; he treats women at his mosque like they're back in Saudi Arabia; his website features quotations from terrorist leaders. He's a walking, talking human rights violation.

Same thing goes for Maclean's magazine's complainant, Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress, who has said every adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist murder. He's an anti-Semitic bigot, crying out for an HRC complaint. Et cetera.

But to use HRCs merely to settle political scores is dangerous to everyone, because it strengthens the power of the state to censor political and religious ideas. That's the foolish mistake that the Official Jews of Canada have made for thirty years -- thinking that only their own enemies will be on the receiving side of that pain. Better late than never, the B'nai Brith has started to realize that the precedents they helped make are now being used by the Soharwardys and the Elmasrys of the world, against Jews and Zionists.

That's why I haven't done what Skoreyko has done, and I don't recommend it. But I rather think he knows his complaint will be dismissed -- and so it won't add to the already overwhelming weight of precedents in HRCs to censor political and religious views in the name of hurt feelings. I think Skoreyko is counting on the opposite happening: for his case to be dismissed summarily, without even a hearing -- as proof that the HRCs are biased and arbitrary, and that they believe in the Animal Farm credo that all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I think the battle for freedom of speech is going pretty well, even though it's summertime.

Human rights commissions are being ridiculed on an almost daily basis in the media; their coalition is starting to fracture under the stress, as evidenced by the defection of the B'nai Brith; and the "lawfare" being waged against me and other critics of the HRCs hasn't worked, largely because of the broad public support expressed through the Internet (thank you, again). As the Canadian Human Rights Commission's stunned chief commissioner, Jennifer Lynch, admitted in June, her industry just didn't expect the "velocity" of criticism that her abusive, corrupt, censorious tactics had generated.

She may have been surprised by that criticism, but she's certainly done nothing to rein in her corrupt commission that has caused the criticism. Question: who do you think came up with the idea for a CHRC staff lawyer to sue me into silence? Lynch or Giacomo Vigna himself? I think Vigna sued me on his own, but that Lynch is totally supportive. She'd love to shut me and the rest of her critics up -- censorship is the CHRC way.

It's also foolish, because not only does it draw attention to the CHRC's problems and my criticisms of them, it also demonstrates the problem in action: the abusive politicization of our HRCs. And it also shows the HRCs tendency to attack their critics personally, rather than reply to them.

I visited Maclean's website today, and discovered that the most popular blog post on the site was one by Luiza Ch. Savage, about the surprise she felt when she encountered bitter and personal attacks about me, rather than intellectual rebuttals, from some of her intellectual friends when she broached the subject of my travails, in preparation for her large story on the subject, which you can read here.

In other words, instead of discussing the issues of censorship, multiculturalism, Islam, pluralism, international law, etc., some of her friends went on an anti-Ezra tirade. Here's her blog entry on the subject.

What's so funny about her blog is that a handful of leftist apologists for HRCs set out to... well, I'm not sure what, but they certainly proved her point. Many of responses to her blog post, 284 of them right now, are about my innate evilness, or whatever. (Granted, most of them are written by the same half-dozen kool-aid drinkers, many of them anonymously -- which leads one immediately to suspect a Richard Warman-style fake Internet persona at work either directly from the CHRC, or from one of their surrogates.)

Savage's whole point was that the story was bigger than me, or any other person, including Mark Steyn. It was about the Canadian, and in fact international, trend towards censorship, particularly censorship of ideas critical of Islam. People who couldn't get over their partisan or personal antipathy towards me were missing the point.

And they proved her right by not getting the point even as they discussed her point.

I know what's going on. The Internet commenters are likely CHRC trolls -- just like their other Internet aliases, like "Jadewarr". But the smart folks Savage referred to initially are probably sophisticated thinkers who are genuinely perplexed by the conflict between their politically correct, liberal values and applying those values to a scenario where the oppressors are foreign, Muslim, visible minorities, and the oppressed person (well, they're trying to oppress me!) is a white male (Jewish doesn't count as a minority when compared to Muslims. It does when compared to WASPs. I didn't make up the rules of politically correct poker, I just know which poker hands beat which).

In other words, Western liberals find it easy to stand up to censorship and theocracy when they come in the form of old white Catholic priests, and the targets are secular hipsters. (I actually can't think of any real-life examples of that, but that's at least how religious censorship is presented on TV shows like Law and Order.) Liberal circuits overload when the theocratic misogynistic bigots are Islamic fascists.

I agree with Savage, though: Western liberal intellectuals should ignore me and my real or imagined flaws, and focus on the principles and precedents. They shouldn't repeat the mistake that Canada has been making for thirty years, ignoring political censorship because it's generally been racists who have been censored by the HRCs. Those cases set the precedents for my current problems. And if the liberals don't fight the fight now, I'll become just another precedent that will eventually be used to go after them, too.

Real liberals get that -- folks like Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and even the folks at EGALE. If only our intellectuals had such smarts.

This is a half-siren post. Thanks to RR for providing me with the image!

Giacomo Vigna is a failed politician. He has run for public office three times. His last adventure with the unwashed masses was in Ottawa, where he ran for city council. He spent $17,600 and came in fourth, with just 582 votes. That's $30/vote, and he still got creamed.

Vigna is now betting his money on Michael Ignatieff, to whom he gave $1,000. I'm guessing that's as good as lost, too.

Vigna is best known, however, for his antics before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. He appeared before that tribunal as the Canadian Human Rights Commission's lawyer, prosecuting section 13 hate speech cases, such as the Warman v. Beaumont and Warman v. Lemire hearings.

It was in the Lemire hearing that Vigna had -- how can I put this gently? -- a bad day. You can read for yourself, from the court transcripts of that day, starting at page 4867 here:

MR. VIGNA: Sorry. Mr. Chair, I don't have the flu but I don't feel in a serene state of mind to proceed with the file today. I don't feel very well. I feel dizzy, I feel anxiety, and I am not in a serene state of mind to proceed with this file today.  

I have a lot of things worrying me right now and I don't want to elaborate, but my colleague said, Mr. Fine, there are some certain incidents that have occurred which I don't feel at liberty to elaborate right now, which have had an impact on my ability to proceed in a professional way on this file, at least for today, because I wouldn't be rendering the Commission a just service by proceeding in this condition.  

I am not dying, Mr. Chair, I don't have the flu, but I am not mentally capable of proceeding under these circumstances.

THE CHAIRPERSON: But the witness is here?

MR. VIGNA: The witness is here. It's not the question of the witness. The witness is here. I thought until this morning that I would proceed, but I really don't feel primarily mentally able to proceed, and physically too.

...MR. CHRISTIE: I have heard two explanations which are as frivolous as any I have ever heard in justifying an adjournment of a whole proceeding… To say I am not feeling well, but sit here and talk about it, is inconsistent. There is no medical certificate, and I heard very faintly Mr. Vigna say I'm not physically sick, I don't have a serene state of mind. Very few of us in the difficulties we face always have a serene state of mind. I don't know what that means.

This is not a case of a nervous breakdown or a mental state justifying a psychiatric examination. I am certain of that. To say I don't feel like doing it today is insulting... 

MR. VIGNA: Mr. Chair, I will provide a medical certificate.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Please sit down, Mr. Vigna.

MR. VIGNA: I feel insulted by that comment.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Please sit down.

Not good. Vigna gave his professional promise -- called a lawyer's undertaking -- to give the tribunal a copy of his doctor's note. The CHRC -- besides having to pick up the tab for all of the other lawyers who flew to the hearing -- replaced Vigna, also at great cost.

Vigna was a government lawyer, prosecuting a political lawsuit. And his lack of "serenity" cost taxpayers countless thousands of dollars. I would think it's a textbook case of the public interest.

Vigna sued me, with this 86-page monstrosity of a lawsuit -- written in French. (Here is a smaller translation of it.) That's a hoot in itself, because Vigna is fluent in English, I speak English, and the words he's suing me about are in English, too. But it's just his own lame attempt at "maximum disruption". He lacks the "grand vision" of Richard Warman, who schemes with street hoodlums to throw pies in the face of his opponents. Vigna just punishes me with the language of love!

Here's my statement of defence, filed and served today. It has some similarities to my defence in the Warman matter, but obviously the meat of it is different. I'll keep you posted on what happens next -- and in what language.

I should warn Vigna, though: I know Yiddish, and I'm not afraid to raise the stakes in this battle of the mother tongues!

Moral of the story: if you don't want to be called a schlemiel, don't act like a schlemiel. What a goyishe cop.

Folks, this is the second enormous expense I've incurred in a week, the first being the defence in the Warman nuisance suit. If you agree with me that Vigna's mishugenah behaviour was fair game for criticism, and if you hate the fact that, like Warman, Kinsella, Syed Soharwardy and the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities, Vigna is resorting to "lawfare" to fight his political battles, in an attempt to bankrupt me, then please consider chipping in. I'd appreciate the help. The lawsuit isn't fair, and I think I'll win. But that's probably $50,000 down the road -- and Vigna et al. are hoping I won't be able to survive that long. Please help me prove him wrong.

I remain grateful to you and the many supporters who have helped me survive so far. I promise to keep fighting.

"This organization is not a registered non-profit organization.  Donations to this organization are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes."

 

 

 

P.S. I've been asked if there is a way to contribute to my legal defence fund by snail mail, instead of by PayPal. There is -- thank you. Please send cheques marked to "May Jensen Shawa & Solomon in Trust", care of one of my lawyers, Robert Hawkes, at:

May Jensen Shawa Solomon LLP
The Lancaster Building
800, 304 - 8 Avenue SW
Calgary, Alberta T2P 1C2

Thank you!

Why did the Canadian Jewish Congress build up the Canadian Nazi Party in the 1960s -- organizationally, financially and in the media, such as the Maclean's blockbuster?

It was a pretext for the addition of "hate" laws to the criminal code. In 1965 the Cohen Committee on "hate" called for political change; immediately thereafter the CJC went to work propping up the laughable "threat" of a 24-year-old Nazi "leader"; within four years, Parliament had added sections 318-320, the criminal hate speech provisions. Within a decade, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and its more expansive section 13 hate speech provisions were added.

I'm still scratching my head. All that effort to invent fake enemies, when Jews have never been short of real ones.