Peter Worthington is all around us

Peter Worthington is an awesome man. I had the pleasure of spending a few days in his company a couple of years ago in Chicago, during Conrad Black's trial. As you might expect from such an effective journalist, he's also a great storyteller, and each morning before the court room opened, he held court in the waiting area, as all of the other journalists listened to his stories ranging from the early days of the Toronto Sun to his international scoops (he was once the only journalist on site to cover the outbreak of a minor war).

I like to read his columns to see how writing is done by a pro. So imagine my delight when he wrote about the Canadian Human Rights Commission's cover-ups, keying off of my column in the National Post that exposed their staff's memberships in neo-Nazi groups like Stormfront.

I'm a little late in mentioning it, but here it is. Some excerpts:

In a column in the National Post Ezra Levant, who has been battling Alberta human rights zealots, identified seven individuals who work for the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) who also joined neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, or white hate groups.

It's not that these individuals are Nazi sympathizers or racists who've infiltrated the hallowed halls of human rights activists. They aren't. What they are, are provocateurs, using the Internet to join suspect hate groups in order to collect evidence against them.

In other words, it's a form of entrapment.

Intelligence agents joining (penetrating) a group to assess possible treason or subversion, is vastly different from enticing, provoking or encouraging a racist reaction by pretending to be more extreme than the extremists -- which is what CHRC provocateurs do.

...CHRC investigators likely see themselves as crusaders, exposing suspect or dangerous organizations and gathering evidence to protect society. Hardly.

Canadian democracy is not threatened by white supremacists or anti-Semites.

Democratic countries generally show repugnance toward extremism.

One gets the feeling the CRHC sets up targets to knock down, thereby justifying its existence. For more details on CRHC mischief, try going to the blog ezralevant.com, or other sites giving details about provocateurs pretending to be racists in hopes of catching racists. Try RichardWarman.com or Google Dean Steacy, and see for yourself.

Short of disbanding the CRHC, Section 13 of the Human Rights Act must be scotched. It "empowers the Commission to deal with complaints regarding the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet ... any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination."

That's pretty broad, especially when the Criminal Code already allows for legal action in many cases where human rights vigilantes seem intent on waging vendettas.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should rein in the human rights bureaucracy that too often offends the very essence of due process and democracy.

He's not mincing any words, and he's just a flabbergasted as I am about the CHRC's bad behaviour, and how this government tolerates the enabler-in-chief, Jennifer Lynch. He's clearly done his research, too, referring to Dean Steacy, the CHRC investigator who declared under oath that he gives freedom of speech "no value", as it's an "American concept". Worthington also mentions the website www.RichardWarman.com, which contains a wealth of primary documents about Warman's campaign of "maximum disruption". That's tough stuff!

I'm late in mentioning Worthington's column, but let me point this out: in addition to running in the major Sun newspapers across Canada, that powerful article has appeared in the Northern News, the Peterborough Examiner, the Pembroke Daily Observer, the Sault Star, the St. Catharines Standard, Northumberland Today, the Barrie Examiner, the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, the Belleville Intelligencer, the Kingston Whig-Standard, the Brantford Expositor, the Owen Sound Sun-Times, the Brockville Recorder and Times and the delightfully named North Bay Nugget.

That's a lot of people in a lot of places reading about Jennifer Lynch's cover-up about the Nazi memberships of CHRC staff.

I'm guessing that Peter has earned himself a special place in Lynch's 1,200-page enemies list.

But I'm guessing that, over the course of his career, he's stared down much tougher bullies than her.