August 2008 Archives
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.
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."
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:
1600 Stock Exchange Tower
300 - 5th Avenue SW
Calgary, AB T2P 3C4
"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.
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.
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?