Krista "Koresh" Daley of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission

The Sheldon Chumir Foundation has uploaded some video clips from their November 1st conference in Halifax on the media's "right to offend". Here is a clip of me on a good rant. (I didn't get to 90% of my prepared talk -- I had to parcel that out during the Q&A session that followed!)

I had just heard Krista Daley, the chief commissar of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, tell us about how her organization was going to usher in a "near-utopia", and that until that Eden was achieved, our freedoms would have to be circumscribed.

Really. She said utopia. What a nut-bar.

So here's my opening rant. That's what the whole Koresh thing was about:

By coincidence, Daley had given a speech just a day or two earlier at another freedom of speech conference in Halifax, too. Two journalists who attended that event told me a shocking thing that I have been meaning to write about.

As I've written before, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald has been hit with a human rights complaint by a radical Muslim imam, because they published a cartoon. (Sound familiar?) Here's the cartoon, which I publish partly for your information, and partly to irritate Koresh, her imam puppet-master and her fellow HRC censors:

Anyway, by the time Daley was speaking at these conferences, the complaint against the newspaper was already six months old -- and the newspaper had no idea what the status of its case was.

That's part of the water torture that HRCs use as a form of punishment -- the process itself is abusive, and designed to be costly, slow and demoralizing. HRCs are lawless, rogue courts, with no procedures. Victims like the Chronicle-Herald are kept in the dark, denied disclosure, denied a speedy trial, denied all information -- in short, denied natural justice.

The newspaper had no idea what the status of the case against it was.

But two journalists at the Chumir event, who had also been at the previous event, told me this stunning fact: Daley had, casually, in a break at the conference, told them not to worry, the complaint was going to be dismissed.

Just stop for a moment and think about that.

A legal entity (the Chronicle-Herald) and a legal person (Bruce MacKinnon) were both ensnared in a legal process that threatened their liberty, pocketbook and reputation. Lawyers were hired, money was spent, time was wasted and -- perhaps worse than all of that -- the newspaper and MacKinnon were publicly smeared as bigots for six full months.

And -- like in most HRCs -- there was no way they could apply to a real judge for a "summary dismissal" -- to throw out just a nuisance suit. They were trapped in it.

But, over a coffee break, the chief kangaroo of the HRC casually, informally, just-making-chit-chat, told two non-parties that the charges against the Chronicle-Herald and MacKinnon would be dropped.

That's not justice. That's an out-of-control, lawless, rogue gossip, who no doubt uttered that acquittal as if it were some whimsical gift from a monarch to her lucky subjects.

It certainly wasn't law

Real judges don't decide cases over coffee with non-parties.

Real judges don't substitute chatty gossip for legal rulings.

Real judges follow rules. Real judges respect confidentiality; respect legal standing; understand that the power they wield is not their own, but power entrusted in a civic office with strict rules.

It's not just Daley's bizarre utopian mission that is Koresh-like. So is her self-image, her belief that she personally decides what is or isn't just, and she'll do it over coffee, in a gossipy chat with strangers just as soon as she'll do it in a courtroom with the parties present.

If Krista Daley were a real judge, she'd be hauled before the judicial council for discipline.

But she's not a real judge. She has no rules -- so she can't break them.

She'll violate every norm of justice in the pursuit of her utopia.

What an embarrassment to Nova Scotia.

Fire. Them. All.