Back to blogging

My six-week leave of absence is over, and I'm happy to return to blogging. I missed it a lot -- especially when fascinating or frustrating news presented itself.

I was working as a volunteer at the Conservative Party's election headquarters in Ottawa. It was an exciting and challenging experience working with a national-calibre team in a hotly-contested race with five parties -- and a global financial meltdown right in the middle of things. I enjoyed it and I even got used to going into the office at 6 a.m. Here at ezralevant.com we keep more civilized hours!

As loyal readers of this site know, although I am a conservative and a long-time supporter of the Conserative Party, my animating cause -- the abolition of Canada's corrupt and abusive human rights commissions, especially their Maoist "hate speech" provisions by which they attack dissident political opinions -- is a non-partisan one, and it ought to be.

Two of Parliament's key freedom of speech activists have been re-elected. Conservative Rick Dykstra of St. Catharines was re-elected handily, and Liberal Keith Martin of Esquimalt Juan de Fuca squeaked back in, by a margin of less than 100 votes. Dykstra is the MP who proposed a resolution before Parliament's Justice Committee to have a full-bore review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, its operations and its censorship provisions in particular. Martin is the MP who really got the ball rolling early in the year, with his private member's motion to repeal that provision altogether. Of course, many other MPs made very encouraging public statements about reforming the commissions, such as Jason Kenney who chaired the "war room" in which I worked this past month.

When I was working on the campaign, needless to say, I met a great number of MPs, cabinet ministers, senior staff and reporters. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of senior people in the Canadian political establishment who, on their own, brought up the subject of HRCs with me. It was very encouraging -- over the next few days I'll tell a few anecdotes about that, while respecting the privacy of those conversations where applicable.

Of course, the past month hasn't just been about the election campaign. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal chose a characteristically cowardly moment to issue their "ruling" in their trial of Mark Steyn and Maclean's -- the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, preceding the election. I don't blame them -- as the Vancouver Sun's Ian Mulgrew opined during the trial this June, the BCHRT murdered its own reputation, not Steyn's. I'll give you my thoughts on their execrable ruling later.

Over the past six weeks, I haven't received any new human rights complaints -- at least, none that I know of. As I discovered in August, human rights commissions no longer even tell me when I've been hit with a complaint. Welcome to justice, kangaroo-style.

I have, however, been hit with another defamation lawsuit by a human rights industry apologist, that landed right in the middle of the election campaign. I'll tell you about that, too. I've lost track, but I think I'm up to 20 lawsuits, human rights complaints, law society complaints and other nuisances at the hands of the human rights bullies, all in an attempt to use "lawfare" to stop me from criticizing their corruption and abuse. Thanks to the support of my readers, I've been able to laugh off their SLAPP suits, and keep on marching. Their strategy might have worked before the age of the Internet. Now, the abusive litigation of the HRCs and their courtiers is not only no longer intimidating, it is ridiculous and embarrassing to themselves. It is the perfect illustration of their bullying instincts being foiled by technology and an army of grassroots activists. And it has confirmed my thesis: these are political warriors, dispatching their political enemies, not meting out anything remotely close to "justice".

The fascinating CHRC case of Warman v. Lemire also concluded its hearings. That's the case that really exposed the corruption within the HRCs, including their practice of sending government employees online, in the guise of anti-Semitic bigots, to spread hatred on the government dime. I still can't believe that preceding sentence is true in a country lik Canada, and I didn't believe it until I started reading transcripts of human rights hearings where the CHRC admitted happily to their bigoted tactics. It was the Lemire case -- and his decision to fight back -- that has led to no fewer than four investigations of the CHRC, including one by the RCMP.

Finally, I'll have some news about my book on HRCs. McClelland and Stewart, Canada's most prestigious publisher, has commissioned me to write about my fight -- and the rot in HRCs in general. I'll tell you more about that project, when the book will be ready, and how you can get a copy.

I've got some more work to do today, but I hope to get back into regular posting right away -- my goal will be a meaty post at least once a day.

I'll make my first one about my assessment of the renewed Conservative government, and what it means for Canadians who care about freedom of speech and the right to dissent from politically correct orthodoxy.

In the months ahead, I think I'll broaden the subject matter of my posts to other subjects beyond human rights commissions. But it will remain my key focus, until we've fixed the problem. And I believe we will -- we're half way there.

P.S. Tomorrow I'm giving a speech for the Fraser Institute in Calgary about HRCs. I'm not sure if there are any tickets left, but you can check with them here.

I have a few more HRC-related speeches coming up in Halifax and Ottawa that I'll let you know about, too.