Close encounters on Parliament Hill

Not quite. She introduced herself to me: she was Jennifer Lynch, the Chief Commissar of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

I was surprised -- she looks nothing like her publicity photo, which must have been taken way back when she was a leftist activist working for Joe Clark. That was when she was making a name for herself as an anti-Alberta bigot.

I wasn't particularly surprised to bump into Lynch. It's Ottawa after all, and she's furiously lobbying MPs to keep the censorship provision in the Canadian Human Rights Act -- and to keep her job. I was just surprised to bump into her in Canada. Other than the foreign affairs minister and the international trade minister, I doubt there's many people in Ottawa who rack up bigger travel expenses on the public dime than Lynch does. I mean, just to pick one of her countless junkets at random, here is the expense report from one of her jaunts to Vienna -- she stuck taxpayers with an $8,200 tab to go to a 15th anniversary party, commemorating... another junket.

I just said the first thing that came to mind: "I'm surprised to see you in Canada, not jet-setting to Europe or Africa," and we both entered the elevator, along with Dick Harris, MP and Alykhan Velshi, Jason Kenney's Director of Communications.

"I'm in town with Mark Steyn," I said, to fill the awkward silence.

"I know," she said.

"There's going to be a lot of hate speech tonight!" I joked. Well, I thought it was a joke. But I think Commissar Lynch was already mentally assigning the case to one of her enforcers. Maybe it would be Sandy Kozak.

Lynch was quiet now. But I was warming to my theme: "I think I'm going to file a hate speech complaint against myself," I told her. "Who do you think would win that one?"

In an act of mercy, the elevator opened, and Commissar Lynch walked out, rictus grin still in place.