Ezra Levant: February 2008 Archives

Mike Duffy says that, three years ago, Chuck Cadman led him to believe that he was voting to sustain the Liberals because it would be the best way to maximize his insurance benefits.

That sounds about right. Certainly, Cadman didn't vote with the Liberals out of conviction -- his raison d'etre was his opposition to the Young Offenders Act, a centrepiece of Liberal criminal justice policy.

Below is my column that I wrote at the time for the Calgary Sun. I didn't know what benefit Cadman could possibly get from the Liberals. But Duffy's private conversation with Cadman explains it -- he simply got to avoid an election, so his family did not have to go uninsured even for a five-week election campaign.

There has been a lot of talk these past days about ethics -- the Conservatives' ethics, the Liberals' ethics, even the media's ethics. But no-one has dared to question Cadman's own ethics. It's best not to speak ill of the dead, and Cadman was a good man who led a noble life, and suffered too much in too many ways. But his final political act, though it's unpleasant to mention it, was a betrayal of the principles he claimed to believe in, and all for a few weeks of extra insurance coverage. Of course Paul Martin blurbed the book.

I worked with Chuck Cadman for two years on Parliament Hill when he was first elected a Reform MP. As a politician, there are really only two things to know about the man: He was appalled by the soft Liberal approach to youth crime -- his son had been murdered, which is what spurred him to enter politics -- and he refused to learn Ottawa's vocabulary of B.S. and spin. He was blunt and honest and didn't practise the blacker political arts.

That second trait is why he lost his Conservative Party nomination to a local television personality last year, who bussed in hundreds of instant party members for the vote. And it's also why he won the general election anyways, beating that carpet-bagger and returning to Parliament as the only independent elected in 2004.

Tough on crime and plain spoken. Which is exactly not the Cadman we saw on TV voting to save the Liberals last week.

Sure, it looked like Cadman -- pony-tailed, chewing on gum as he voted, barely containing a smile as Liberals cheered for him. But nothing else clicked.

Why did Cadman, who has spent eight years scorching the Liberals on youth crime, suddenly save that same Liberal party and its policies -- instead of allowing the Conservatives a chance to implement the youth justice policy Cadman himself helped write?

But what about the other half of the man -- that no-baloney style? For weeks, Cadman had hummed and hawed over whether he'd vote for the Liberals.

He hinted and feinted, mugging for the cameras, talking about polls and feelings, sounding like a cross between a high school drama student overacting the part of Hamlet, and, well, a Liberal.

A Liberal named Tim Murphy, to be exact. Murphy is Paul Martin's chief of staff, the one caught on tape trying to get Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal to vote with the Liberals. Murphy told Grewal not to defect outright, like Belinda Stronach did, and not to make a fuss. He told Grewal not to admit to any deal. He told Grewal to explain a vote in support of the Liberals as something his "constituents" would have wanted, so as to avoid an election.

Those were the official excuses written by Murphy for Grewal. And they happened to be exactly what Cadman had been so unconvincingly muttering for a week.

Stronach admitted her treachery by crossing the floor -- she took the political hit for being a traitor, but she got her reward immediately by being appointed to cabinet.

Cadman followed Murphy's suggested talking points to Grewal -- don't cross the floor, stay calm, pretend it's about the voters back home -- as if voters in Surrey, B.C., don't desperately want to turf the Liberals.

But what else did Murphy say to Grewal? He said to wait -- further discussions would be held. Rewards could come later, once press scrutiny dies down a bit and the Liberals are no longer in such jeopardy.

I used to trust Cadman, when he was about a stricter young offenders act and straight talk. But now he's about supporting a criminal-coddling party and mouthing incredible pro-Liberal talking points.

I thought I could despise nothing more than Stronach's showy sell-out. Well, I can -- it's a man who doesn't have the honesty to admit to his party, his neighbours or the public that he sold out.

� 2005 Sun Media Corporation. All rights reserved.

Can the late Chuck Cadman do what Stephane Dion can't, and end the Liberals' annus horribilis? Liberal MP Garth Turner thinks so. He is even talking about bringing down the government. (But then Turner does that from time to time.)

Sometimes an oasis in a desert turns out to be a mirage, though. This passage in a news story caught my eye:

In an e-mail to The Canadian Press, Sandra Buckler said the tape - which the publisher of the book was selling for $500 a copy - is an excerpt of a longer interview between the prime minister and Zytaruk.

"We are deeply concerned that an edited excerpt of a taped conversation between Mr. Harper and the book's author is being bootlegged for five hundred bucks a pop by the author. We call on the author to provide Canadians with a complete, unedited audio copy of the author's conversation - from start to finish - with Mr. Harper."

Those facts should be ringing alarm bells. An edited clip of a longer tape? We've seen how that can end. And the $500 a pop cash grab for that clip should be a flashing light. We all have to make a living; that's part of book-selling hype. But for a journalist to sell audio clips for $500 seems a touch like, well, selling stereo equipment out of the back of a van. If there's nothing fishy here, why the hurry?

It was odd to hear the radio interview with author Tom Zytaruk -- he didn't have basic facts about his own allegations. He seemed wobbly and unprofessional and unbriefed; surprised, even. He looked the same on TV. And that was before I'd thought of the rest of the tape, or heard about the $500-a-pop, get-it-while-the-getting's-good action. I'd sure like to hear the rest of Zytaruk's tape -- not just of the rest of his conversation with Stephen Harper, but his conversation with Mrs. Cadman, the source of the rumour. For that is another piece that doesn't quite fit here: Dona Cadman is herself a candidate for Stephen Harper's Conservatives. Why would she run for a party that had tried to bribe her late husband?

Believe it or not, when I was working for Stockwell Day and the Canadian Alliance was descending into its civil war, it was Warren Kinsella who gave me a minute of good advice while we rode an elevator together. It was a simple rule: get all the facts -- all of them -- in front of you before you start communicating in the middle of a crisis.

That clearly applies to the Tories here -- it sounds like no-one in the party has yet had a calm, friendly talk with Mrs. and Ms. Cadman, to really get the facts. What exactly did Chuck say? When did he say it? Did Mrs. Cadman really read the draft of the book carefully? Is the draft she received the same as what was actually published? What is the nature of her deal with Zytaruk? How does he get paid? How does she feel about running as a Tory candidate? Who suggested that Paul Martin write the introduction to the book? Why? What editorial input did he or other Liberals have? Who decided to leak that sexy tid-bit to the press? Who made the decision to do so the day after the budget, when the Liberals were in the soup? Do the Cadmans have any e-mails or other communications from Zytaruk? Do they have an recordings of the interviews themselves? Did they say anything to reporters in the heat of the moment, out of pressure -- that is, did Zytaruk write something that wasn't true, and did a reporter surprise them with it, and did they agree with it just not to embarrass Zytaruk and the book, and themselves, and Chuck's memory? Just the facts.

But I think the Liberals, and their chorus in the mainstream media, don't have all the facts in front of them either -- facts about the tape, and Zytaruk's motivations, and the nature of the book -- a vanity biography, apparently commissioned by the family, and blurbed by Paul Martin -- and other things that seem a little out of place.

Given the success of recent Hail Mary passes by the Liberal opposition, big, small and just plain pervy, it wouldn't shock me if this silver bullet ended up blowing up in their faces, too. 

I can understand why the Liberals have embraced the Chuck Cadman allegations -- or, more accurately, third-hand allegations, three years after the fact, when the man in question is deceased. Anything to change the channel from their budget debacle. You've really got to listen to the fogginess of the allegations here to understand what we're dealing with. Add in the facts that:

• the two people at that meeting who are still alive categorically deny the allegations;
• the allegations were made public as the book's publisher was putting the book to market;
• for some reason, former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin was given a draft copy of the book;
• it's impossible to buy a million-dollar insurance policy for someone quickly dying of cancer;
• such an expenditure by the Conservatives could not be secretly approved;
• a cautious, calm hand like Tom Flanagan would not think a single vote was worth the near-million dollars such a policy would cost, given the imminence of the Liberals' defeat;
• nor would Flanagan think it would be a sound political risk to put such a bribe to a principled man like Cadman (or anyone); and
• to put it to him a few minutes before the vote they were trying to influence would be absurd and incredible.

Is there some way for us to measure the accuracy of the Liberal claims, other than by gut feel? Is there a way to see how carefully they measure facts, and how ethically they deploy them?

I think there is. Because, as part of their Question Period attack against the Tories yesterday, I came across this gem:

My first reaction was delight, to learn that I had, in fact, been a "former member of Parliament". My second response was embarrassment, because I don't think I showed up even for a single vote.

My third reaction was anger that I was accused of "suspicious activity" and being part of a plan to "flout election laws". That's pretty clear: Raymonde Folco is accusing me of taking part in an illegal act.

Except that it's not true. Not only was I never an MP, but I never received -- nor was I even offered -- any compensation for stepping aside as the Canadian Alliance candidate for Stephen Harper. Of course, I would have liked to have been compensated for my election expenses to that point, though that would hardly have counted as "suspicious" and certainly wouldn't have "flouted election laws". But my wishes didn't happen.

Being called a law-breaker is about the worst defamation you could say about someone, especially a lawyer like me. It's a complete fabrication, factually inaccurate and completely unfair. But, because it was uttered in the House of Commons, it is protected by "absolute privilege". Ms. Folco is immune to a lawsuit.

Today my lawyers fired off this letter to her. And, until she repeats her accusations outside of Parliament, the letter is all that can be done, legally. I'm relying on Ms. Folco's title as an "honourable member" of the House of Commons to correct the record voluntarily -- and to do so with the same conspicuousness with which she first blighted the record.

But given the zeal of the Liberals to trump up the Cadman claims into something real, I'm not holding my breath that they're going to admit to any factual errors or unethical charges right now amongst their barrage of accusations.

Here are three documents regarding the current state of the Alberta Human Rights Commission's prosecution of me for printing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed two years ago.

A few weeks ago, Syed Soharwardy said he was going to drop his complaint against me. He finally did so, as confirmed in this letter I received yesterday.

Basically, Soharwardy dinged Alberta taxpayers for close to $500,000 to prosecute his complaint, but when he started to feel the heat in public reaction -- he hated being called a censor and a fascist -- he walked away. In a real court of law, he'd be on the hook for everyone's time and money, as well as paying his own way. In this kangaroo court, he bears no costs at all -- the commission's expenses are foisted on Alberta taxpayers, and I'm left holding the bag on close to $100,000 in legal bills.

I'm not off the hook, of course. An identical complaint was filed by Soharwardy's friends at the Edmonton Muslim Council. So the case proceeds against me still.

But, as I mentioned before, I'm not going to let Soharwardy -- or the commission -- off the hook. It's contrary to our Canadian values of rule of law and natural justice to let some creep abuse the system for two years, and then all but admit it was all just an attempt to punish me politically.

I've written before that I intend to file a Statement of Claim -- in a real court -- against Soharwardy for the tort of abuse of process. I haven't yet decided whether to sue the Edmonton Muslim Council or even the commission itself (likely under a related tort, called abuse of office). The commission's response to my access to information request will help me decide.

Going on the offensive isn't just about recouping my enormous legal costs. It's about having real courts, following real Canadian laws, steeped in real Canadian values, teaching a moral lesson to those who would try to corrupt our Canadian system with Saudi values of censorship and intolerance of dissent. And, of course, pour encourager les autres.

Alberta is generally regarded as the freest province in Canada, but we have had our share of embarrassing episodes of censorship. In fact, about 70 years ago, the Edmonton Journal won a special Pulitzer Prize for fighting against the provincial government's Press Act. That unconstitutional bundle of laws required provincial newspapers to publish the government's "other side of the story" on demand. (Come to think of it, that's precisely what Mohamed Elmasry and the Canadian Islamic Congress are demanding from Maclean's magazine.) 

Today's Calgary Herald looks like it's on its way to another Pulitzer, for keeping the free speech fight alive -- proving true Thomas Jefferson's statement about refreshing the tree of liberty in each generation.

Columnist and radio host Rob Breakenridge points out the absurdity of these commissions, and how they have become their own worst enemy through their repeated abusive conduct. I'm glad he thinks so -- that's what I mean by "denormalizing" the commissions.

And the paper's unsigned editorial writes "clearly, something is wrong with Alberta law, if a body set up to decide if a person was denied a job because of race or sex, has been given a censor's powers." I think the paper is too generous to both the provincial Tory and Liberal leaders for their tepid promises to "review" the commission, but the Herald is right to flag this as a start. It often takes a while before a big boulder of change gets rolling, and the Herald will rightly be able to take much credit for any amendments that will come in the months or years ahead. 

When Warren Kinsella quit the National Post a few weeks ago (though, to be accurate, they were only printing him once a month by that point), he announced that the universe had balanced itself out, in that he had joined the Canadian Jewish Congress's legal committee. Having sat on my share of Jewish community volunteer committees over the years -- including one with Kinsella himself -- I can testify that they're not really the same thing as a paying column in a national newspaper. If there are 350,000 Jews in Canada, I'd estimate that there are about 350,000 volunteer positions to be filled.

But I underestimated Kinsella's impact. Today, the CJC has put out an urgent news release: somewhere in Toronto, a school desk was found to have some anti-Semitic graffiti scribbled on it. If finding a swastika scrawled on a bathroom wall was cause for an Orange Alert, this graffiti -- on a desk, people, a desk! -- is War Measures Act material.

It's embarrassing to see a once-great institution like the CJC be reduced to issuing red alerts over kids' graffiti. I'm not in favour of anti-Semitic graffiti, especially on Toronto campuses. That's vandalism, and it's also downright rude. But it says something about the CJC that while they're awfully brave at tackling anonymous graffiti, they don't dare criticize, say, the annual Israel Apartheid Week Jew-bashing festival on Toronto campuses. That would mean butting heads with their more, uh, spirited friends.

The "hate" problem in Canada isn't anonymous swastikas being secretly scrawled by rebellious kids, who likely don't even know what they're doing, other than it seems to annoy the grown-ups a lot. The "hate" problem in Canada is a growing body of Canadians who are importing alien values of violence and censorship to support their broader goals of jihad. According to a CBC poll, fully 12% of Canadian Muslims surveyed felt that the 2006 jihadist plot to murder the Prime Minister and bomb Toronto buildings was "justified". That's tens of thousands of people who haven't assimilated our western, liberal values.

A Canadian Jewish Congress that lived up to its name would give a damn about that. Instead, we've got ourselves a very expensive graffiti patrol. Oy vay.

Earlier this week I received a very moving letter from a soldier in Afghanistan. That letter, in turn, prompted this one:

----- Original Message -----

Dear Ezra,

My cousin, Cpl. Jordan Anderson was killed in [Afghanistan] last year.  When I read
the e-mail you posted today from another brave soldier, I could only think
of Jordan and how he too believed in protecting our freedoms and in his own
words: "making {Afghanistan} into somewhere I could visit one day".

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=b7ad0353-41b9-47a4-9fdb-b3e26a4749a4


I am embarrassed that this man is risking his life to protect the freedoms
that our grandfathers fought for, and back here in the comfort of our
suburbs, our politicians are allowing these kangaroo courts to destroy our
will to think for ourselves.  They should be renamed Sheep Rights
Commissions, because if they are allowed to continue, we will slowly be
transformed into a nation of sheep, willing to think and do only what our
intellectually superior bureaucrats and academics believe is right for us.

I will make it my mission to raise as much money for your fund as possible,
so that our men and women in Iraq can concentrate on their mission, and send
their absurdly hard earned paycheck back to their families.

I'm looking forward to watching you "fight like hell", although I strongly
suspect your adversary is a straw man, and will go away long before you
reach the courtroom steps.

Godspeed Mr. Levant.

[name deleted]

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3402280031

------------------------

It took me a long time to write back. I went on the Facebook group and learned about Jordan; I read some of the news clippings. But mainly I thought: how could my comfortable, safe "battle" here in Canada even be compared to real battles in a war zone? I was touched and sad and grateful all at the same time.

I wrote back, saying that we in Canada should take a moment to think about what Jordan and others like him face, on our behalf, every day. Jordan fought not only for his own freedom, but for the freedom of strangers half a world away.

His story, and his cousin's letter, are both tear-jerking and inspirational. It makes me want to redouble my own meagre efforts to live up to Jordan's enormous example. He paid the ultimate price for freedom; surely I can pay a more gentle price.

Jordan's cousin permitted me to publish his letter, and I do so with feelings of gratitude, inspiration and even love for a man who I only got to know after he made the supreme sacrifice.

One of the strangest things about Richard Warman’s threatened lawsuit against me is his complaint that I dare to call him litigious and a censor. It’s strange because it’s so obviously a fair comment, based on the facts of his track record. But the really weird part is that he doesn’t see the irony in it. I mean, demanding that I censor my comment that he’s a censor? Or threatening that he’ll sue me because I say he sues a lot? It’s absurd, and I wonder if there’s anyone in his circle of friends who will tap him on the shoulder and tell him that. I doubt it.

A reader of my blog sent me a copy of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s 2003 Annual Report, which has a staggering story of, well there’s no other way to say it, Warman’s “censorship” and “litigiousness”.

Scroll down to page 12 for the whole story. Here are some excerpts:

Richard Warman wrote the Kamloops library, which had included [David Icke’s] book in their collection, alleging that the book defamed him. He requested that the library pull the book, threatening to add the library as a defamation defendant if it refused. On the advice of legal counsel, the library removed the book from circulation.

The BCCLA took swift action, contacting Attorney General Geoff Plant and expressing concern about the chilling effect that this type of prior restraint could pose.

:::

Unfortunately, the story gets worse. The BC Library Association ran, essentially, a news story about the Kamloops situation on a portion of its website titled “Censorship in BC.” The Library Association reported on the content of the book and Mr. Warman’s threat of suit. This came to Mr. Warman’s attention and he again threatened to sue.

The Library Association refused to modify its website, rightly in our view, and Warman has now

filed a defamation action against it. The Library Association has retained counsel, pro bono, and

intends to vigorously fight the lawsuit, with the continued support of the BCCLA.

Gentle reader, can you even imagine a scenario that better fits the definition of censorship than that – demanding a library remove a book, and suing the librarians for even talking about it?  And all as “prior restraint” – that is, trying to ban a book before it’s even been assessed as defamatory by a court.

I’m grateful to the reader who sent me that BCCLA report – research tips are always welcome.  So I’ve thought of another research challenge for readers skilled at Google and the Wayback Machine and who have some time to help: Let's document every occasion that Warman has either filed a suit against someone or threatened to do so.

It will be useful to my case, because it will demonstrate just how censorious and litigious Warman really is, and that my comments about him were legally fair. I've got a ton of examples already, but I'm sure there are many more. Send me your research by e-mail, to ezra@ezralevant.com and be sure to include any relevant Internet links, or actual .pdf's or other copies of his threats and suits.

Thanks for your help!

The incomparable Margaret Wente has another report about the Ontario Human Rights Commission. This one is about a man called Paul Lane who lied on his job application -- he didn't disclose that he had a serious mental disorder when he applied for a high-stress position testing artillery software.

A couple of days after he started work, he asked his boss to monitor him for inappropriate behaviour, which he attributed to "emotional abuse" in previous jobs. Soon after that, he told her he had bipolar disorder and said he was susceptible to manic episodes that might require him to take as much as three months off work. Then he started having paranoid delusions and stopped functioning entirely.

Like all employees, Mr. Lane had been hired on 90 days' probation.

On Day 8, the firm decided to cut its losses and cordially told him it was letting him go. Given the nature of its work, there was no way to reassign him.

:::

The tribunal awarded Mr. Lane $34,278.75 in lost wages, $10,000 for "reckless infliction of mental anguish" and $35,000 for "violation of his inherent right to be free from discrimination." It also ruled that the company must hire a consultant to provide all employees with human-rights training. The HRC trumpeted the verdict as a "landmark" decision for the rights of the mentally disabled.

Personally, I wouldn't wish bipolar disorder on my worst enemy.

But rights slice both ways. Mr. Lane applied for a job for which he clearly wasn't suited, and misstated facts to get it. Now he stands to collect nearly $80,000, and he was only on the job for eight days.

:::

These bodies are fast losing their legitimacy. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Most of my comments these past two months -- and most of the media's recent criticism -- have focused on the commissions' ambitions to regulate speech and thought. But the strength of Wente's report, and hers last week too, was that she focuses on the main work of the commissions. Many of the critics of the commissions' adventures into censorship still think that these commissions have other, important work to do. Wente proves that's simply not true. Her reports of absurdities aren't anomalies, they're random samples, par for the course. Keith Martin's private member's bill to delete the thought crime provisions is a good start. But these commissions shouldn't just be pruned -- they should be pulled out by the roots.

I came across this great blog post today. It makes several good points, but the best was to simply remind me about Canada's greatest fighter against neo-Nazism and Holocaust revisionism, Ken McVay. From his bio:

McVay often spent 18 to 20 hours a day typing, and soon found that he had somehow amassed over 3500 pages of information. As the flood of information increased, so did demands for the information; requests inundated McVay's electronic mailbox, and he soon found himself a defacto, full-time Holocaust researcher and librarian to the world of the Internet.

Today he has built one of the most extensive and thorough information sources about the Holocaust and the activities of racists and white supremacists in the world. McVay devotes countless hours to the maintenance and improvement of this massive collection, which now exceeds one million pages.

And here's what McVay had to say about censorship, when interviewed by a German newspaper:

Do you share the willingness to grant freedom of speech even to the enemies of freedom?

McVay: Yes, I do. What possible good comes, for instance, from forcing these Nazis underground? Will that make them stop hating? Has it ever stopped the hate? As a people, we must start taking responsibility for our behavior, and for our problems, rather than expecting "government" to do it for us. In short, we need to learn to carry our own baggage, and to face our social problems squarely.

So what does a real anti-Nazi hero look like? A modest volunteer who has quietly compiled 1 million pages of rebuttals to neo-Nazis around the world, or a self-important blowhard who, when he’s not congratulating himself for snapping photos of swastikas in locker rooms, is comparing his own tribulations to those of Jesus, Moses and Mohammed?

McVey ought to be careful, though. As a “free speecher”, he’ll be smeared as a crypto-Nazi soon enough.

Thanks, Old Jed!

UPDATE: In my comments, the singer-songwriter himself weighs in. I think he might have discovered a new human right! Hilarious:

Thanks for posting it, Ezra. Your clips on youtube are awesome, and I'm glad I can lend some moral support, if not hit the donate button quite yet.I know my singing isn't the greatest, but what the heck, maybe they can throw that in with the lawsuit."His satiric songs were not only libelous, but his off-key singing was offensive to the ears"

Syed Soharwardy, the radical Muslim imam who complained to the Calgary Police Service and the Alberta Human Rights Commission because I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, has disappeared lately. He was on a bit of P.R. campaign a few weeks ago, when his ghost-written Op-Eds appeared in several newspapers. I think he felt pretty good about his "make love, not jihad" campaign, until Licia Corbella gave him the smack-down of a lifetime. Then he wisely decided to just stop digging.

Looks like one of his press releases was republished on a lefty site today. Here's the response I wrote to his Herald column; Licia's dynamite column ran instead. I might as well post my reply now.

P.S.: Soharwardy claims he's dropped his complaint against me. Not according to the commission he hasn't.

Censorship and the Code of the East

        After wasting close to $500,000 of Alberta tax dollars – and costing me and the now-defunct Western Standard magazine the better part of $100,000 in legal fees – a Muslim preacher named Syed Soharwardy says he’s going to abandon the complaint he filed with Alberta’s “human rights commission” two years ago when we published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.

If this were a real court, Soharwardy wouldn’t be able to walk away from his mess without paying my costs – a judge would order it. And he wouldn’t be able to stick taxpayers with his bill – he’d have to pay his own way in a real lawsuit. Soharwardy’s embarrassing explanation of his flip-flop demonstrates one of the flaws of human rights commissions: they attract nuisance complaints that wouldn’t be tolerated by real courts.

And even if Soharwardy does follow through and drop his complaint – he hasn’t, yet – an identical complaint was filed by Soharwardy’s friends at the Edmonton Muslim Council. So the human rights commission will continue to grind away against me, as it has for two full years now.

So why is Soharwardy distancing himself from his mess? Soharwardy wrote in the Calgary Herald that he now believes in the “Code of the West”, where a “man’s word is his bond”. That’s great, though I have no idea what that has to do with his nuisance suit. But it’s a change from the Code of the East that Soharwardy advocated in the Herald a few years ago, when he said that the entire world should live under Sharia law – where the Koran would be our constitution, as it is in Saudi Arabia. No, thanks. Even women at Soharwardy’s own mosque don’t like that – they’ve filed their own human rights complaint againt Soharwardy, accusing him of mistreating them to the point of harassment. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ve seen a videotape of a meeting at his mosque; the women were seated at the back of the room, and whenever they tried to speak, Soharwardy shouted them down. That might fly in Saudi Arabia, but I don’t want women in Canada treated that way. Perhaps Soharwardy has a different Code of the West than I do.

Soharwardy says he has now reconciled himself to Canadian values, and has abandoned the illiberal views he brought with him from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And he says he’s eager to “sit down with [me] and discuss it”. Forgive me if I doubt the man’s sincerity – as recently as last month, he asked the Calgary Police Service to arrest me for hurting his feelings (they very politely told him that in Canada, the police don’t do that sort of thing). And a few weeks ago, Soharwardy’s lawyer threatened me with a lawsuit like the one he’s filed against the dissidents in his own mosque.

I’m not so sure I’m interested in meeting with a bully like that – someone whose website is overrun with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (and the weird claim that Spanish Conquistadors committed a “holocaust” by massacring the Muslims they discovered in South America). I’ll stick to more polite company.

Soharwardy told the Herald that “most Canadians” see my interrogation as a free speech issue; he didn’t say that he sees it that way. But he did concede that “Canadian society is mature enough” to handle looking at those cartoons. Well, that’s awfully big of him. I know Canadians were waiting for a madrassah-trained imam who’s popular on the Saudi lecture circuit to give us his approval that we’re “mature” enough to read what we want.

What’s really going on here is that Soharwardy is simply upset at the hostile P.R. he’s received since filing his complaint. All over the world – from CNN to the National Post to a thousand websites, people are calling Soharwardy as they see him: a censor, intolerant of others, using a secular government agency and public money to enforce an Islamic fatwa. I may be getting pummelled in human rights “court”, but Soharwardy is getting pummelled in the court of public opinion.
 

His column in the Herald was an exercise in damage control, trying to recast himself as a reasonable man who accepts our freedoms. But the very night his column was published, he told CBC’s The National why he really dropped the complaint against me: not because he has some epiphany about freedom, but because “people were looking at Ezra Levant as a martyr of freedom of his speech ... taking this into a different direction that I did not want.” Soharwardy started this human rights circus, but he never thought he’d come across as the clown.

Soharwardy might want to forget about all this, but I don’t. I’ve instructed my lawyers to sue him for the tort of “abuse of process”.

When the complainant in a two-year censorship exercise admits the whole thing was just an ill-considered lark, such a suit is not just about recouping my losses. It’s about holding a little tyrant, and the government agency he hijacked, to account, and having grown-ups -- that is, real judges in real courts -- tell them that what they’ve been doing is morally and legally wrong.

Soharwardy tried to get Saudi justice. Now I’m going to get some Canadian justice.

I sometimes get e-mails from Canadian Forces troops in Afghanistan, who are always thoughtful about the larger purpose of their mission. It's clear to me that they think and talk a lot about the moral importance of their mission. I believe they are true idealists. Of course they are: in a time of war, with a near-certainty of deployment to the front lines, it takes a very special and selfless person to volunteer to join the army.

If my correspondents are any indication, our troops truly believe in spreading our Canadian ideals of liberty, rule of law, democracy and peace. I don't think the media tells us about that heartening phenomenon enough, other than a few exceptional reporters like Christie Blatchford. (Here is one of her all-time best from Afghanistan.)

I received an e-mail yesterday from a soldier in Afghanistan. After I wrote back to thank him, he wrote to me again encouraging me to post it on my blog.

How does one repay such generosity? I'm not just talking about his financial generosity -- I'm talking about his generosity of spirit, his deeply-held belief in freedom and the personal sacrifices needed to sustain it.

He is far too kind to suggest that what I'm doing, from the warmth and safety of Canada, is in any way comparable to what he's doing, in real danger and discomfort, daily. I was stunned when I received his note. Here it is. Good God we're a lucky nation to have men and women like this. I don't deserve such praise. I hope as a nation we can live up to his standards.

----- Original Message -----
From: [deleted]
To: <mailto:ezra@ezralevant.com> ezra@ezralevant.com 
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 1:12 AM
Subject: Best of luck Ezra... Though you shouldn't need it.

Dear Mr. Levant;

I am a Canadian soldier currently deployed in Afghanistan.  Yet even here, I keep abreast of events back in Canada.  Upon learning of the possible upcoming lawsuit you may face for your stance against censorship and soft tyranny, I felt I had to somehow help out.

Therefore, today I have donated one thousand dollars to your defence fund.  As you may know, our Risk and Hardship allowance (and a portion of our pay) is non-taxable, so don't worry; even though I'm pretty much a middle-class Joe at the rank of Sergeant, that sum isn't going to cripple me financially.

The reason I decided to give you some of my Risk and Hardship allowance is because you too are faced with hardship and risk.  My brothers in arms and I are not the only ones trying to defend our freedoms and improve the lives of others.  I see these qualities in yourself as well. 

So, I've decided that some of the money that the federal government is paying me to defend people's freedom should be spread a little more evenly around to someone who's doing a job that is ultimately just as important as mine.

The Taliban want to take over Afghanistan not only because they seek power; for them, the control of the country is only a means to an end.  What they truly want is to control how Afghans think, act and speak.  Well, they're not the only ones.  It irks me that some of the same traits of our enemies are so common and banal back in Canada. 

So Ezra, thanks for being a sentinel on our home front.  We'll fight the bastards over here, you fight their ideological brethren back in Canada.  Also, best of luck in your defence; not that you'll need it, you seem to have a pretty solid case and the necessary skill to fend off your assailants.

If the plaintiffs see the writing on the wall, decide to withdraw their lawsuit and it turns out that you don't need the money, I ask that you give it to a registered charity of your choice.  If you prefer, it's also fine if you make a donation to a federal politician who's willing to stand up and defend our freedom of speech.

Sincerely,
 
[name deleted]
Sergeant
Joint Task Force Afghanistan

This morning I was on the country's biggest morning show, CTV's Canada AM, to talk about today's federal budget. Here's the clip of my conversation with Seamus O'Regan.

I'll be on CTV's Newsnet early this afternoon -- so I'll immediately be held to account for any errors in my morning predictions!

Paul Schneidereit has become a leading voice calling for reform of Canada's human rights commissions. Here is what must be at least his third column on the subject, in Halifax's leading daily paper. Schneidereit reminds us that it wasn't too long ago that the Supreme Court of Canada, in a razor-thin 4 to 3 decision, upheld the section 13 thought crimes provision of the human rights act, but with this proviso:

...[the majority of judges wrote that] there was "little danger that subjective opinion as to offensiveness will supplant the proper meaning." But exactly what the majority said would not happen, in fact has.

That's a keen observation; those who argue that section 13 is a constitutionally valid infringement on speech ignore how the human rights commissions have run wild with the narrow powers granted to them by a narrow decision of the court. It seems likely to me that if Mark Steyn's case or my case -- so clearly outside the small ambit granted by the court -- were to come before the court again, they'd put the commissions back in their place.

My case or Mark Steyn's might just come to that; with a 100% conviction rate at the federal HRC, it's doubtful that we'll be acquitted at the first instance. It is good to know that Schneidereit's views will be represented at any such appeal; he is the past president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, which promised to intervene legally should either of our cases go to a full-blown hearing.

Nina Grewal, the Conservative MP, has written a letter to a constituent saying she's for a "fundamental review" of the Canadian Human Rights Act in light of recent abuses of the "hate speech" section by the federal human rights commission. She refers specifically to Mark Steyn's case and my own. Hers is not a rip-snorting defence of free speech -- Grewal's style is always understated, even cautious -- but it's a good start:

There are, however, areas where reform may be required; specifically the willingness of commissions to consider questions relating to freedom of speech.  I am worried that by censoring one kind of expression, it will be easier to start censoring others.

Like Keith Martin, the Liberal MP who has proposed a private member's motion to delete the offensive section 13 of the law, Ms. Grewal is from British Columbia. I think there is a libertarian streak in that province, across all party lines.

Of course, being from B.C. isn't the only commonality Ms. Grewal has with Dr. Martin: both are visible minorities. Most Canadians, especially British Columbians, don't even notice such things anymore -- politics, business and life in general in B.C. is completely integrated. They were the first province to have a Sikh premier, for example; twenty years ago their Lieutenant-Governor was of Chinese ancestry; their current Lt-Gov. is Aboriginal.

The most frequent argument marshalled by the defenders of section 13 of the CHRA is not really an argument -- it's to make ad hominem attacks on anyone who supports free speech, claiming they're in league with white supremacists and neo-Nazis. That insult is getting more and more ridiculous all the time, given that the leading advocates for amending the law are visible minorities and Jews.

In 2006, I was hit with two identical human rights complaints because I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine. We were simply doing what news magazines do – publishing the news. But an anti-Semitic Calgary imam named Syed Soharwardy and the intolerant Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission that I “discriminated” against them, and demanded cash and an apology from me. Since then, their fatwa has been prosecuted by the Government of Alberta, using taxpayers’ dollars and government bureaucrats.

Instead of bowing my head in submission, I decided to fight back, publicizing the Alberta government’s January, 2008 interrogation of me in videos that have now been seen well over 500,000 times on YouTube.

Over the past month, the public’s reaction to seeing their government interrogate a journalist has snowballed into a national discussion about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the separation of mosque and state. What started out as an issue reserved to the blogosphere and talk radio has jumped into the mainstream media, and even into Parliament. To my delight, the Canadian public – across the political spectrum – has been overwhelmingly supportive of free speech and critical of these Orwellian commissions, and groups like the Canadian Association of Journalists and PEN Canada have recently weighed in, too, and very vigorously.

We’re winning in the court of public opinion – and I say “we”, because it was the blogosphere that moved this story from the “undernews” to where it is today.

Well, now I’m being threatened with a lawsuit because of our campaign for freedom.

Richard Warman

Just before the weekend, I received an e-mail from Richard Warman, the former investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, who quit the commission in 2004 to become the commission’s biggest customer. Approximately half of all complaints filed under the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s section 13 “idea crimes” provision have been filed by Warman. The CHRC has a 100% conviction rate under that section, and besides ordering the poor shleps Warman complains about to pay fines to the government, they’re often ordered to pay thousands of dollars to Warman himself, too, for his “hurt feelings”. Unlike the paycheque he got when he used to work there, the cash he gets from commission fines is tax free.

Warman and his friends at the CHRC aren’t hitting me with a human rights complaint – not yet, anyways. But he is threatening me with the most bizarre defamation lawsuit I think I’ve ever encountered.

Absurd complaints

It’s not the first threat I’ve received from him; back in December, when I mentioned him in passing in a National Post Op-Ed, Warman fired off another threatening letter to me. You’ve got to read it. I mean, really -- it included the complaint that I dared to call him “anti-racist”, rather than anti-racist. That’s right: the fact that I used quotation marks around those words was one of the reasons he was threatening to sue the National Post and me.

If that was Warman’s most petty complaint, his most ironic complaint was that I called him a censor who abused the legal system, and that if I didn’t immediately censor myself with a retraction and apology, he’d hit me with a lawsuit. That blissful lack of self-awareness would be cute if it wasn’t accompanied by a threat – sort of like when Warman encouraged some young rowdies to “take the piss out of… people who are so pompous and so full of themselves” by assaulting them with a cream pie. It was unsettling to watch a lawyer conspire in the commission of an assault.

As a publisher and columnist, I’ve seen dozens of letters threatening defamation lawsuits, and I didn’t think much of his December letter other than that it confirmed to me that Warman was indeed what his track record of human rights complaints would suggest: he truly is the most easily offended man in Canada.

Warman hires a lawyer

Well, Warman has just sent me another letter, quite similar to the first. This one was written by a Toronto lawyer. You can see it here. It’s ten pages long, but most of that is simply rehashing several of my own blog posts. The rest of it is a mix of vanity, self-righteousness, hyper-sensitivity and plain old inaccuracies. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s called politics, or the clash of ideas. But normally such self-congratulatory flatus is posted on a blog, not dressed up as a threatened lawsuit.

I’m a defamation lawyer myself, and if I had to sum up Canadian law in four words, it would be this: get your facts straight. If your facts are correct, you have the right to your opinions on those facts – even extreme or radical opinions. So Warman’s complaint isn’t really a threat of a lawsuit. It’s a letter to the editor.

And that’s the problem here. Warman is so used to operating in kangaroo courts – so used to human rights commissions that are run by non-lawyers, with arbitrary procedures, no fixed rules of evidence, no meaningful standards of guilt, where truth is not a defence and fair comment doesn’t exist – that he thinks he can take his Orwellian thinking out from the cloister of these star chambers into the real world. That’s my earlier point: I don’t think Warman even knows how ridiculous he looks.

The doctrine of fair comment

Warman may not share my opinion that he wastes taxpayers dollars, or acts as a censor, or that human rights commissions are a joke, etc. And his opinion might even be more reasonable than mine (it’s not). But it’s not unlawful for me to have my views. Not that my views are particularly radical – many of my exact words are echoed in the language used by PEN Canada, the CAJ, the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Noam Chomsky(!) and a dozen newspaper editorial boards across the country. That might hurt Warman’s feelings, but hurt feelings aren’t the test of defamation law.

Most everything in those blog posts was my political opinion. I did assert a few facts: I wrote that Warman encouraged some young ruffians to assault a man with a pie. That’s not a matter of fair comment, it’s either factually accurate or not. Gentle reader, click here and tell me whether that fact is true or not. I’m just not sure how Warman can deny that, but it will be interesting to watch him try.

The other factual assertion I made is that Warman himself planted anonymous posts on the Internet sites that he was stalking for a complaint. Again, it’s pretty tough for Warman to take issue with that, given that both he and commission staff admit under oath that’s how they operate.

Well, Warman has tried to deny it in the past. But that didn’t really work. Here is an interesting exchange before the tribunal: at first Warman denies that he posted anonymous, provocative comments to a website he took to the commission; then, when confronted with the fact of it, he sheepishly admits to that practice. If you’re bored, you can read this lengthy affidavit by the webmaster proving that the bigoted remarks about Sen. Anne Cools were made by Warman himself. Here’s a timeline of facts related to the Anne Cools remarks.

I started poking around a little bit about those disparaging comments about Sen. Anne Cools, because they’re obviously a source of embarrassment to Warman – he seems to have complained to the National Post when they attributed those words to him. The Post decided to cut bait and move on – they’ve been Canada’s best champions of free speech, so they deserve a little slack for not digging in. But, unless I’ve missed it, in at least two other legal actions – his defamation suit against Free Dominion, and his human rights complaint against Marc Lemire – Warman has conspicuously omitted any reference to their claims that he made the Anne Cools remarks. If those bigoted comments weren’t made by him, the assertion that they were would be defamatory, and would be the strongest part of those suits. I’ll bet you a dollar this subject doesn't find its way into any suit against me, either.

These folks just keep coming

Look: I didn’t want any of these fights. I just wanted to publish a magazine. Two years ago, when the first, absurd, hand-scrawled human rights complaint was filed against me, I tried hard to make it go away quickly and inexpensively, by writing this earnest reply. But neither Syed Soharwardy nor Shirlene McGovern would let me go that easily. Now, both of them are gone -- both quit. (But I'm not free; a new Alberta human rights officer is still prosecuting the Edmonton Muslim Council's version of the complaint against me.)

Now, after staying silent for months, Richard Warman wants to enter the fray. Not as a debater with arguments, but as a silencer, outlawing arguments. A man more certain of his case would rely on words, not lawsuits, to rebut me – and would take his lumps for his bad behavior, such as encouraging the physical assault on David Icke.

But Warman doesn’t appear to believe in debates. He believes in what he calls “maximum disruption” of his political adversaries. On page 8 of that speech, Warman can’t even bring himself to categorically rule out violence against his foes. He defines unacceptable violence as violence that is “indiscriminate” and “places the safety of other individuals at risk” – because such indiscriminate violence that hurts bystanders is morally “suspect” and “puts in jeopardy broader public support”. It’s tough to imagine true human rights activists like Martin Luther King or Mohandas Gandhi parsing acceptable and unacceptable violence that way. And it’s clear that the intended assault on David Icke slips through his loophole. Perhaps I should be glad Warman hit me with a lawyer’s letter, and not a pie in the face.

I’m going to fight like Hell

As a defamation lawyer, I know that Warman’s complaints are baseless. So, other than the nuisance and cost of defending the threatened suit – the “maximum disruption” that Warman promises – there’s nothing to fear. For me, at least.

But what about for Warman? Until now, he could beaver away on his human rights complaints while I railed harmlessly in the media. I had no impact on him, other than on his ego. But now he’s changed that. He’s threatened to lock himself into a formal legal process with me, in a real court, with real rules – not the loosey-goosey kangaroo court where he used to work.

Before, he could ignore me; now he has to answer my questions about his conduct under oath; if he sues, he will have to disclose documents touching on the many matters at hand – everything from e-mails to files on his hard drive. “No comment” and “that’s confidential” don’t work in an examination for discovery.

Warman as a surrogate for the commission

And though it seems likely that Richard Warman will be the sole plaintiff against me if he sues, in effect it’s as if section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act itself, the idea crimes section, is threatening to sue me, because Warman is such a dominant user of that section. If the political campaign to rescind section 13 succeeds, no-one will be affected as much as Warman. No wonder he’s so mad.

In that sense, it is as if the commission is threatening to sue me. And since my discussion of Warman’s unusual relationship with the commission is one of his complaints against me, they get dragged into this, indirectly. Before, they too could ignore me. If I'm sued, I'll have standing to apply to the court for subpoenas, both for internal commission documents and to compel the testimony of commission staff.

I must admit that I’m surprised Warman would do this. I had not yet received his threatening letter when I wrote this post last week, remarking on the wisdom of Warman for keeping a low profile. I think he’s so used to slam-dunks, he thinks this case will be the same. But this time will be different.

We’ve got a solid case in law – and unlike many of the poor shlubs Warman fights against, I’ve actually got lawyers, and I think the truth will come out. But that’s not really what the next year or two is going to be about.

Court of law and court of public opinion

Warman might think that this is another episode of him shooting fish in a barrel. But that’s probably what poor Shirlene McGovern thought, too – I was just another politically incorrect chump to rough up.

Dear reader, I don’t think I’m going to be like the easy pickings that Warman is used to fighting. While my top gun lawyers are taking care of business in the court of law, I’ll be working vigorously in the court of public opinion. I’ll ensure that every legal document, every piece of interesting testimony, every embarrassing admission I exact from Warman and the human rights commission will be shown to the whole world (subject to any legal restrictions). Unlike human rights commissions, where only the victim of the complaint is grilled, defamation lawsuits are two-way streets. It’s Warman who’s going to be famous. I’ll use every interlocutory application, every motion, every pleading and every day of the trial to shed light on the commission’s shenanigans. I wonder if Warman has thought through the idea of giving me a forum; I wonder what his friends at the commission will think when they start getting subpoenas; I wonder what advice Shirlene McGovern would offer them about engaging me in such a process.

What happens next

If it isn’t evident, let me tell you my goals. And please tell me if they are your goals, too:

Win in the court of law

Beating Warman’s threatened suit will be much more than a personal vindication. It will reaffirm to him – and to the country – that censorship of political views is not a Canadian value. When Warren Kinsella backed down from his threats to sue bloggers, it strengthened the blogosphere, and evaporated lingering fears people had about the self-described ass-kicker. This will be an order of magnitude greater: to have a judge dismiss the suit, with costs against Warman, will be a watershed in the battle against political correctness, censorship, and the abuse of human rights commissions.

Denormalize human rights commissions in the court of public opinion

There have been others who have fought (and are still fighting) the human rights commissions. But for various reasons they haven’t been able to effectively share their story with the public at large. The attention my case has received so far, combined with the absurdity of Warman’s suit, combined with, well, the fact that I’m not a white supremacist or neo-Nazi, will ensure that the excesses of the commissions are in the news every day for years, showing them to be the un-Canadian institutions they have become.

Make political change possible

It has been difficult to get the minority Conservative government in Ottawa to rein in the human rights commissions, despite near-universal public support, and even some encouraging bi-partisan comments. That’s because they perceive the risk of amending the act to be greater than the reward – they’re worried about being labeled as hostile to human rights in a looming election – as if free speech and due process weren’t human rights. But there is another political risk – the risk of inaction. Much of the dirty business that has  been exposed by Marc Lemire’s lawsuit against the human rights commission happened on the Liberal government’s watch. But if planting anonymous messages and other bad behavior by commission staff is continuing under the Conservative government – and I see no reason to believe it’s stopped – despite the calls for change, that’s a risk to the Conservatives, too. It's a possible scandal.

One of my explicit goals is to open the public’s eyes to the commission’s operations, to make it so evident to voters that these commissions aren’t just nuisances, they’re positively dangerous. My goal is to change the political calculus – make the safe, smart move to contain and eliminate the commissions, not to ignore them as is currently the case.

Keep myself financially whole

When I walked into my interrogation on January 11, I honestly didn’t know where I was going to get the money from to pay my lawyer – our magazine, now defunct, was no longer footing the bill. And though I was confident I could find some generous donors to cover that bill, I really didn’t know how much longer I could afford to fight. Thanks to the generosity and solidarity of the blogosphere, I was able to put aside any stress – even in the back of my mind, that I didn’t want to admit to – and focus on kicking the tar out of these commissions. I need to do the same here.

Other than cost, there is no obstacle to fighting Richard Warman’s threatened nuisance suit – and trying to bring down the whole damn human rights commission along with him. We’ll be fighting in a real court, not a kangaroo court; I’ve got the personal interest and motivation to follow this through, and I believe I have the ability to demonstrate to the public the problems with the commissions better than any of its other victims have been able to do. All I need is money.

Based on experience and observation, I estimate that fighting this threatened suit will cost $100,000 and fighting it like hell – that is, going on the offence, and taking the battle right into the heart of the commission itself – could cost more than $200,000. That sounds like a lot of money, but if that discredits the commissions so badly that they either abandon their section 13 witch hunts – or, more likely, that the federal government is finally embarrassed into action – then it’s worth it. I don’t know, but I’d guess that Maclean’s magazine itself will wind up spending close to that much merely defending itself and Mark Steyn in the three(!) human rights commissions it has been dragged into.

How you can help

I promise to fight this fight until the end. I’ve got the best lawyers and a great legal case. But I’ve got something much better than that now: I’ve got Richard Warman and the human rights commission locked into a process that will allow me to expose how they really operate. Imagine the questions I can ask; imagine the documents I can demand to see. I’ll give this my energy and time, but with a young family, I can’t give it my life savings.

If you think this is your battle too, and if you agree with me that crushing Warman's threatened lawsuit in a spectacular manner could change the law and make Canada more free, then please help. You can click on the PayPal button at the top of this website (and below), or if you prefer, you can send a contribution directly to my legal team, care of this address payable to "May Jensen Shawa Solomon LLP in Trust", and indicate that it's for my defence. If you’ve already contributed to my fight, please consider helping again – or telling a like-minded friend about this situation.

When I received Richard Warman’s legal threat, my first reaction was surprise, then amusement, then anger. But not now. Now I feel like I have been given an amazing opportunity. A duty, really: to do what our politicians so far won’t do. I want to do what it takes to shut these abusive commissions down, once and for all. Let me know if you'll help me fight.

More news from the front lines of important "human rights" work in Canada. The Ontario Human Rights Commission is grinding an Ontario restaurateur who asked a customer to stop smoking marijuana in his doorway.

Light up a cigarette in an Ontario restaurant, and you're breaking the law. Light up a marijuana joint, and the restaurateur is breaking the law if he tries to stop you. Here's an excerpt:

Kindos has already spent nearly $20,000 of his own cash, and estimates he could spend upwards of $150,000 more fighting an Ontario Human Rights Commission complaint launched by Steve Gibson, who is licensed to smoke marijuana by the feds to manage the chronic pain of a neck injury that has kept him out of work since 1989.

Fighting the case, which will be heard by the province's Human Rights Tribunal in May, could send Kindos' business into bankruptcy and is playing hell with his health, he said.

"If this thing goes to the tribunal, that's it, we're done. Our restaurant is done," he said. "We've already been told we can't win.

"I had a heart attack at 38. I've already had a quadruple bypass. The business pretty well killed my dad (who died of a heart attack at 48 in 1991) and now, with all this stuff going on, it's killing me ... I'm under so much stress right now."

:::

Even Canada's own Prince of Pot, Marc Emery, said common sense and reason are paramount in this issue to effectively balance everyone's rights.

"I don't see people with insulin bringing their syringes out in the middle of restaurants and giving themselves injections," Emery, who is facing a 10-year jail sentence at the U.S.'s behest for selling marijuana seeds, said from his home in B.C., noting that since Gibson was drinking alcohol at the time of the Burlington incident in 2005, he could have ingested the cannabis via an alcoholic tincture that would have been just as effective and more discreet.

"It's important, when you're a minority, to appear to be reasonable about your needs and requirements," he added. "Clearly, it's an imposition on businesses to have to monitor the quality of certain smokes outside their front door. That's unreasonable. When you're balancing your rights against the rights of others, there is a certain sense of reasonableness required."

Emery has it right. This isn't about the pro's or cons of medical marijuana. On the face of it, it's about common sense and politeness. But much more importantly, it's about private property, and the right of a restaurateur to run his business as he pleases -- not to have an unwelcome smoker, and his band of government "human rights officers" run and ruin his business for him.

Is this really what human rights commissions were built for?

Hat tip MB 

Jonathan Kay has another great Op-Ed on "hate speech" laws, and the obsolete, self-defeating logic of victimhood promoted by the Canadian Jewish Congress. Importantly, he shows the strong Jewish tradition in allowing free speech, even "hateful" free speech -- citing the great U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to sit on that court.

(Brandeis was not the first Jew to be nominated to the court -- that was Judah Benjamin who, on the eve of the Civil War, declined the nomination, preferring to sit as a Senator, an interesting statement on the relative importance of those branches of government 150 years ago. The fact that Benjamin would go on to serve in the cabinet of the Confederacy also helps to explain his decision.)

Kay laments the decline of Jewish intellectual vigor to the point where ethnic grievance mongers -- really, the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the Jewish world -- seek to define us as perpetual victims, rather than one of the most successful groups in Canada.

Here are my favourite three paragraphs:

...As the recent human-rights cases against MacLean's and the Western Standard show, there will always be complainants and commissars willing to expand the definition of prohibited speech to encompass legitimate discourse. Ironically, the censorship regime that well-meaning Jewish intellectuals helped put in place to fight anti-Semitism a generation ago is now being applied to prosecute the pundits blowing the whistle on the one truly genuine threat that Jews are facing worldwide: militant Islam. Thin-skinned types may find Levant and Mark Steyn over the top. But then, lots of people said the same thing about Near. Whether the threat is shariah or shakedowns, the marketplace of ideas needs its fearless mavericks. Just ask Samuel Shapiro. Better yet, ask Irshad Manji, Salim Mansur, Ujjal Dosanjh, Tarek Fatah, or any of the other identity-politics dissidents who've been labeled "malicious, scandalous and defamatory" by members of their own communities.

As far as Canadian Jews are concerned, there is another less obvious cost to putting the community's moral authority behind institutionalized censorship: It cements a collective self-identity based around victimhood. The message is: "We are so vulnerable, so incapable of arguing down the brain-dead lunatics who attack us with words, that we need state censors to act as our shield."

Though criminal prosecutions against anti-Semites are actually quite rare, the few that arise encourage the conceit of a community besieged by murderous hatred. This conceit, though useful in creating a shared sense of community solidarity, has served to distract Canadian Jews from the happy fact that anti-Semitism is completely extinct in our society's respectable mainstream. Canada is probably as close to a post-anti-Semitic society as has ever existed in any nation in Western history --including modern-day Israel. But you wouldn't know it from the lachrymose doom-speak emanating from the acronymed Jewish activist establishment.

There's just over a week left in Alberta's provincial election, and so far no single issue has lit up the campaign.

In today's Calgary Herald, editorial pages editor Licia Corbella suggests that Alberta's abusive human rights commission should become an election issue and takes the unusual step of calling for readers to contact Ed Stelmach, the premier, even giving out his contact information. Some excerpts:

The Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act is being used to stifle and trample our most fundamental human right. The human rights complaint brought against Ezra Levant, publisher of the now defunct Western Standard magazine, is proof positive of that.

For the past two years Levant has had the almost limitless power of the state grinding away against him, costing him about $100,000 for doing what he should have every right to do: publish news and images in a magazine. In this case, he published the now infamous Danish cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

:::

A Calgary imam and a Muslim group from Edmonton didn't like the cartoons, sought to have Levant first arrested and then, when that didn't work, they sicced the human rights commission on Levant to shut him up.

But Levant, to his credit, isn't the type to shut up or appease those who attack Canadian values, and so the threat to freedom of expression has become almost as big a news story as Britney Spears of late.

:::

The "provision" [Canadian Civil Liberties Association President Alan Borovoy was] talking about was enacted in 1996 when the Alberta government added the following section to its now inappropriately named human rights act: 3(1) No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that . . . (b) is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt." Borovoy says speech that denies people equality is already well covered by the act and hate speech is covered by the Criminal Code. Borovoy therefore has a solution to restore human rights to Alberta's human rights commission.

"I think the removal of this section is necessary, but it may well not be sufficient," he warned. "I think there's no substitute -- as with so many other things -- for a lot of vigilance at the citizen level." Vigilance at the citizen level? He means you and I doing our bit to stand on guard for the values of this country, not the values of Saudi Arabia or Syria.

It's time freedom of expression became an election issue and Albertans secured a promise from Stelmach to protect it. As his quote would indicate, he needs help understanding what needs to be done, so let's tell him. Call him and tell him you want Section 3(1)(b) removed from Alberta's human rights act. Tell him you want him to stand up for your most fundamental right.

You can call 780-427-2251 or toll free at 310-0000 and ask for the premier's office. Because of the election, his e-mail address is shut down. However, you can fax him at 780-427-1349. Or send a letter to: Premier Ed Stelmach, Executive Branch, 307 Legislature Building, 10800 97th Ave., Edmonton, AB T5K 2B7.

Democracy requires free speech. By practising both now, you'll help protect both for the future.

That's a pretty powerful call to action. I wonder how many calls and faxes the premier is getting -- but I also wonder if he even cares. Remember, the Alberta government took the unprecedented step of sending a lawyer to intervene against a Christian pastor in a recent human rights case, arguing that his freedom of religion and freedom of speech was trumped by an officious bystander's right not to be offended. See paragraph 222 in the ruling, where the Government of Alberta argued that:

or paragraph 240:

Those are deeply illiberal, un-Canadian ideas, and even more offensive in Alberta, historically the freest province. It's fair to say that if Stelmach doesn't repudiate those ideas, argued on behalf of his government, that he accepts them -- that he believes the right not to be offended trumps political and religious freedom, and that he believes any speech that is "discriminatory" (what does that even mean?) is "illegitimate".

Not that Stelmach has even thought much about these things; Licia refers to this audio clip of the premier giving an incoherent answer to a question about human rights commissions. But again, is his own answer any less coherent than the illiberal, illogical mush his lawyers presented to the human rights commission?

I must take a moment to mention the Alberta Liberals' principled and bold response to the same question. And my acquaintance with Wildrose Alliance leader Paul Hinman makes me believe that he shares that belief in freedom, though I can't find any comments from him or the party on the subject -- I think he ought to weigh in, at least as vigorously as the Liberals have.

The B.C. human rights tribunal has decided that it's a human right to skip work, and that a bus company that tries to get its slacker employees to show up for work violates that right.

Skim the ruling -- don't read it, you'll get too angry. According to an audit, B.C. Transit has an average absenteeism rate of 37 days a year. With some of the worse offenders -- see paragraph 189 for the woman who missed 118 days of work or paragraph 237 for the employee who missed 98% of work days -- the bus company tried such brutal tactics as asking meekly for a doctor's note.

The bus company was fined for such inhumanity.

These sorts of absurd judgments are a form of taxation on companies -- a hassle, a shakedown, in return for the privilege of doing business in Canada. It's awful, it's unfair, it's immoral -- but it's not going to bankrupt B.C. Transit, just as the case below didn't bankrupt Canada Post.

But now these same absurd commissions are directing their attentions to political thought and speech. And so they've gone from nuisances to dangers.

A real court has slapped down a kangaroo court. The Federal Court of Canada has thrown out a Canadan Human Rights Commission decision to award a nine-figure sum to Canada Post workers who were allegedly "discriminated against" based on sex -- based on a complaint made 25 years ago.

Besides throwing out the case on its merits, the judge had this to say about the sloppy procedures at the CHRC:

"The long hearing before the Tribunal is reminiscent of the trial in Charles Dickens' Bleak House over the Jarndyce Estate," Justice Kelen wrote.

"Jarndyce v. Jarndyce concerned the fate of a large inheritance, which dragged on for many generations. The trial finally came to an end after legal costs had devoured the entire estate."

:::

"(The length of) this case offends the public conscience of what is reasonable and responsible," he said.

"Many of the original female complainants working as (clerks) at Canada Post in 1983 may be dead . . . The hearing lacked the discipline required of a court of law."

The judge is correct of course. But it misses the obvious point: the grinding, sloppy, slow, unregulated, arbitrary, costly, one-sided processes of the human rights commissions is not an accident, it's one of their central qualities. The process is the punishment. It's bad enough when that cost is passed on to all of us through our taxes (or, in this case, higher postage stamp costs). But in the case of individual defendants, the cost is crushing.

When the anti-Semitic imam who started the human rights case against me decided he was bored, he simply walked away -- leaving taxpayers with a $500,000 tab, and me with my legal bills (I'm not free yet; the Edmonton Muslim Council has filed an identical complaint against me, and that is still proceeding at the human rights commission).

That's not allowed in real courts, but it's how kangaroo courts operate. What an embarrassment to Canada.  

I don't think the Ontario Human Rights Commission should conduct an investigation into the alleged abuse of seniors at retirement homes. Such an investigation might be warranted, but the OHRC is hardly competent, fair, or speedy. It's not really a matter of discrimination, either. Either there is improper conduct or not; "ageism" isn't the point. It's a matter for the ministry of health; or a public trustee; or -- in an old fashioned world where people cared about their own families, rather than leaving them to the state -- the children of the seniors in question.

But the OHRC would surely not accept any of those reasons why it ought not to investigate. It's come up with its own reason: it's too busy with other pressing matters.

We all know what those highter priorites are: ensuring transsexuals aren't discriminated against by plastic surgeons.

h/t FFF

Hard on the heels of PEN Canada, the Canadian Association of Journalists issued a very clear statement today demanding amendments to human rights statutes, to stop their prosecution of thought crimes. I was going to excerpt from it, but it's all great -- I'll post the whole thing here:

CAJ urges changes to human rights laws

    OTTAWA, Feb. 22 /CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists is

calling on federal and provincial governments to amend human rights

legislation to stop a pattern of disturbing attacks on freedom of speech.

    Two recent cases spotlight the dangers of allowing state-backed agencies

to censor speech based on subjective perceptions of offensiveness - MacLean's

magazine, which is facing complaints in two provinces and nationally for an

article by syndicated columnist Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant, the former

publisher of the Western Standard who is now before the Alberta Human Rights

Commission for his decision to publish the Danish cartoons of the Islamic

prophet Muhammad.

    "Human rights commissions were never intended to act as a form of thought

police," said CAJ President Mary Agnes Welch. "But now they're being used to

chill freedom of expression on matters that are well beyond accepted Criminal

Code restrictions on free speech."

    The CAJ supports Liberal MP Keith Martin's private members motion to have

section 13(1) of federal human rights legislation, the clause dealing with

published material, repealed. Similar provincial legislation should also be

amended as required.

    "The lack of political leadership on this issue, apart from Mr. Martin

and a few others, is appalling," said Welch. "Even people who helped create

human rights commissions have said they were never meant to act as censors.

Since a number of commissions have accepted these complaints as worthy of

investigation, there clearly needs to be government direction to stop the

ongoing erosion of one of Canada's most fundamental rights."

    The CAJ believes that laws of libel and slander, hate speech and other

provisions found within the Criminal Code provide sufficient restrictions on

freedom of speech. Human rights commissions, which are not bound by the same

rules of evidence of the courts, have become last-ditch end-arounds for those

who want to silence commentary they disagree with.

    "Whether you agree with Steyn or Levant is immaterial. If they're

breaking no laws, they should have the right, in our democracy, to speak

freely," said Welch.

    The CAJ will be monitoring the investigations in these two cases and

plans to intervene if the process moves to the tribunal stage. The CAJ,

however, strongly urges the Canadian human rights commission, as well of those

of Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, to simply dismiss these complaints completely.

    The Canadian Association of Journalists is a professional organization

with some 1,500 members across Canada. The CAJ's primary role is to

provide-public interest advocacy and high quality professional development for

its members.

That's clear and forceful thinking; I've bolded a few of my favourite passages. I'm particularly impressed that the CAJ is promising to intervene on behalf of Steyn and me, should our cases go to a full tribunal hearing.

The CAJ has been good on this issue for a while; two years ago, they invited me to speak to their annual convention in Halifax about the Western Standard's decision to publish the cartoons. That showed courage in itself. The CAJ's past president, Paul Schneidereit, has written several great columns on the subject. And the new president, Mary Agnes Welch, is certainly no slouch either.

What a pleasant contrast the CAJ makes with the so-called Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, which is still hiding under their desks. They've made bold statements about press freedom in Tunisia, Guyana and Somalia, which is probably why they've been too busy to look out their own window.

PEN Canada has issued a statement calling not only for the immediate dismissal of the human rights complaints against Mark Steyn and me, but calling for an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act to excise the abusive Section 13 -- the thought crimes provision.

I would call PEN's statement a political landmark on par with the Globe and Mail's breakthrough editorial on the subject, and with Keith Martin's private member's motion.

Take a moment and look at PEN's roster of directors. Its honorary patron is John Ralston Saul; its past presidents include Margaret Atwood, June Callwood and even Haroon Siddiqui. For a month or more the movement to rein in the human rights commissions had support on main street; then it moved to Front Street; now it's positively taken over the Annex and Rosedale. This is the fanciest and politest of social circles in Canada, the most utterly fashionable and politically correct artistes in the country. John Ralston Saul, for crying out loud!

When PEN Canada is on side to amend the Human Rights Act, and every newspaper in the country, even the most timorous Justice Minister has no political reason to delay making such an amendment.

I have enjoyed reading the well-deserved shellacking that that Canadian Jewish Congress has received lately because of its illiberal, frankly un-Jewish, affinity towards censorship and the prosecution of thought crimes. And then there's the small matter of the CJC actually ignoring real Jewish issues like Jewish school funding, and condemning those who dare to mention such "outrageous" concerns.

And then I remembered a brief e-mail exchange that I had with Manuel Prutschi, the vice president of CJC, two years ago, right when the Western Standard was about to print the Danish cartoons as part of a news story.

Here is a letter in the Toronto Star from Ali Mallah of the Canadian Arab Federation, supporting human rights commissions and their arrogation of the powers of political censors. It's signed by the vice-president of the Canadian Arab Federation. Some excerpts:

...Genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda have served as painful reminders of the ramifications of hate speech and the need for effective laws to address it.

Furthermore, our hate-speech laws exist to protect the marginalized and multicultural communities of Canada... It was this provision that the Supreme Court of Canada cited in upholding the constitutionality of our hate-speech laws when they were challenged by Jim Keegstra, a schoolteacher charged for indoctrinating students with Jewish conspiracy theories.

Say, that wouldn't be the same Canadian Arab Federation that, at the last Liberal leadership convention, smeared Bob Rae because his wife was Jewish? Or the same Canadian Arab Federation that denounced Gerard Kennedy when he criticized the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah? The same Canadian Arab Federation that supports boycotts against Jewish businesses in Canada?

So a hater named Syed Soharwardy uses the Alberta Human Rights Commission to persecute the Western Standard;

A hater named Mohamed Elmasry uses the Ontario, B.C. and Canadian Human Rights Commissions to persecute Maclean's magazine;

And now the hateful Canadian Arab Federation weighs in to defend these commissions as necessary.

Anyone see a pattern here?

h/t Right Girl

I was on CTV again today for their partisans panel. Here's the clip.

Pundits don't like to admit that they're ever surprised, but I'll admit it: I'm surprised at how easily Stephane Dion's election bluff is called, time after time, by Stephen Harper. I don't know what Dion's breaking point is -- or if he even has one. Caving in on Afghanistan; the crime bill/Senate ultimatum; and now, it seems, the budget. Is there anything Dion wouldn't do to stave off an election?

I agree with what Jack Layton said a few weeks ago: it is as if the Liberal party is in a minority coalition with the Conservatives. Except that the Liberals don't get anything out of the deal, other than a few more months with Dion as the boss.

It's clear that Harper wants an election now anyways -- why not, especially if the U.S. economy is indeed going to slow down, and with Dion still fighting a rear guard battle against Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, and the Paul Martin/Jean Chretien fault line still tender.

Why not put increasingly ambitious bills to the House, each as a confidence motion, and dare Dion to trigger an election?

Gun control, the Wheat Board, tax cuts -- and how about a gentle amendment to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act?

The irony is that last bill wouldn't be controversial at all. Other than a lone Liberal lobbyist who hasn't been in the party's good graces for four years, and a fringe ethno-political special interest group, I don't think anyone in the country would even consider such an amendment controversial.

NOTE: See the update from Jonathan Kay at the end of this post.

In December, when I wrote this Op-Ed for the National Post about human rights commissions, I referred briefly to Richard Warman:

At the federal Canadian Human Rights Commission, for example, one single activist -- a lawyer named Richard Warman, who used to work at the commission himself -- has filed 26 complaints, nearly 50% of all complaints under that commission's "hate messages" section. He's turned it into a part-time job, winning tens of thousands of dollars in "awards" from people he's complained about in the past few years. Warman is a liberal activist, who likes to complain against Web sites he calls racist or homophobic. He's had the common sense to stick to suing small, oddball bloggers who can't fight back. But surely the CIC has observed Warman's winning streak, and will use his precedents to go after Maclean's.

:::

It's odd: Mohamed Elmasry, an apologist for Islamo-fascism, using the same tools as an "anti-racist" leftist like Richard Warman. At first glance, they may seem like opposites, but they're actually identical: Both are illiberal censors who have found a quirk in our legal system, and are using it to undermine our Western traditions of freedom.

Warman sent a letter to the National Post and me, demanding an apology and retraction, and for my Op-Ed to be removed from the website. His letter was ignored.

Since then, the blogosphere has positively lit up with stories of Warman and his abuse of Canada's human rights laws and commissions. To me, the most damning was Warman's planting of "evidence" of racism in websites that he pursues for racism. That's not even "entrapment" -- as if Warman was some sort of uncover policeman. It's planting evidence; it's framing someone. (Here are some questions I wrote about this unethical conduct).

But I really didn't have a feeling for who Warman was until I saw him in this embarrassing documentary about his campaign against a harmless conspiracy theorist named David Icke. The scene in the video where Warman is sitting around with some street urchins, gleefully plotting to "humiliate" Icke told me all I needed to know: Warman wasn't about human rights, or elevating society, or the best of the human spirit. He was about revenge and dirty tricks -- and about counselling street kids to commit an assault. How ironic: Warman and his chorus of one (okay, chorus of three) claim that unfettered free speech can soon lead to actual violence. But for their own cause, it's fine if Warman himself engages not only in hate speech, but conspires in an act of violence himself. That arbitrary sense of morality is a perfect fit with the arbitrary, lawless human rights commissions.

Yesterday I read Jonathan Kay's vigorous take-down of Warman on the National Post's website, before it was removed from the website for some reason. (See UPDATE 3 below).

I don't know why the column was taken off the website, or on whose instructions. Kay wasn't the first to point out Warman's bigoted posts -- Maclean's went to town on the subject a few weeks ago. And of course the Internet has been all over the story -- let alone a website dedicated to exposing the man.

I find it interesting that although Warman's friend Warren Kinsella has spat out countless half-cocked threats or predictions of defamation lawsuits in the past month (including in response to Kay's piece), Warman himself has been virtually silent. I don't think anyone takes Kinsella's lawsuit threats seriously anymore -- I sure don't -- but Warman has pretty much kept his head down.

I think that's because it's one thing to buffalo small, poor, legally under-represented cranks -- Warman's specialty -- but it's quite another to go after larger, richer, lawyered, mainstream defendants like Maclean's or the National Post. That, and the newly exposed facts about Warman's own conduct, and the new political and media scrutiny of Warman and the human rights commissions makes this a much tougher environment for him to operate in.

I don't know the story behind the Post taking down Kay's great column. There could be a lot of reasons behind it. I'm pretty sure being afraid of Richard Warman and his nuisance suits wasn't one of them.

In the meantime, the blogosphere's interest in the column, and its republication here, will ensure that Kay's thoughtful words are read by tens of thousands of people.

P.S. There are a few doctrines of defamation law that are quietly working away against Warman. First is the rule that to ignore an allegedly defamatory comment made by one person -- to let it lie for a period of time -- and then to sue another person for making the same comment, hurts a plaintiff's case. A plaintiff is not required to sue every single utterer of an alleged defamation in order to collect damages; but to leave the scathing, detailed Maclean's article alone for weeks or months would greatly weaken a lawsuit filed against the same words elsewhere, later. (Of course, because the Maclean's article, and Kay's column, contain true facts and reasonable comments, that would end the case there, before it even went to damages.)

Another doctrine is that of reputation. Canadian law presumes that plaintiffs have good reputations, and if a publication is found to be defamatory, damages are presumed. Again, a suit by Warman would be frustrated by the defences of truth and fair comment (and likely others, like consent and qualified privilege). But even if he did win, the blogospheric pile-on in the past two months has lowered Warman's reputation -- and fairly so, by exposing what he really does and says. (Again, for me, this video said it all.) That is, even if Warman could defeat the defences of truth and fair comment, his public reputation has taken a tumble already; his unsavoury antics have been exposed; and reasonable people would hold him in lower esteem. The fact that, despite Kinsella's desperate longings, Warman has not sued anyone for their comments about him tells me that Warman is coming to terms with his new, more, uh, "mixed" reputation -- or at least he knows his old tools of human rights complaints and lawsuits won't help him this time.

I don't think many folks are afraid of Warren Kinsella's threats anymore. My own experience at the National Post is that they don't cower before defamation demand letters -- no newspaper can do that for long, before word gets out that they're push-overs for nuisance suits. Other than those of us who are worried about being assaulted by his friends, is anyone still afraid of Richard Warman?

UPDATE: My friend Jonathan Kay writes:

Here's my interview. I mentioned that Shirlene McGovern, the "human rights officer" who interrogated me, has resigned from my case. The human rights commission advised my lawyer that McGovern quit because of the public backlash against the commission -- and against her in particular. In other words, she didn't like being called a censor in the blogosphere.

I'm not sympathetic. I believe that any government bureaucrat who makes a living interrogating citizens about their political beliefs ought to be held in public contempt. McGovern truly doesn't get it -- she thinks what she does for a living is perfectly bland, just like her.

As I wrote in the Globe last month, at my interrogation, McGovern wanted to make small talk and shake my hand. I upset her by not being complicit in my own prosecution.

In the future, I suggest that, if asked at cocktail parties, McGovern tell people she has a less disreputable job -- say, tax collector, or parking ticket issuer.

This is what denormalization means. Human rights commissions are bullies, even if their officer of the day is a spacey, middle-aged drone. Surely McGovern can find a less destructive career elsewhere in government or -- heaven forbid, in the private sector.

UPDATE: Here's the kind of coverage that drove Shirlene to quit.

At first glance, the subject of the Canadian Wheat Board is pretty far removed from the subject of Human Rights Commissions. But they are not too-distantly related. Both have to do with our personal freedom -- the freedom to say and think what we want, and the freedom to sell our goods and services to whom we want. And both sets of freedoms are being tread upon by an obsolete, thin-skinned bureaucracy with waning political cover.

I should acknowledge that I first read about these gaping price differences -- and Rod Flaman's comments -- on Kate's site.

You can read the Op-Ed here. Here are some excerpts:

Oil and gold aren't the only Canadian commodities trading at record highs. Prairie grains are, too, driven both by a hungry world and by new demands for bio-fuels. A bushel of prairie wheat has broken double-digits on the world market. That's like oil breaking the $100-a-barrel barrier. Times are good again.

Except that farmers who happen to live in Canada's Prairie provinces aren't allowed to sell their wheat at market prices. They're compelled by an obsolete law to sell their wheat to the federal government's Canadian Wheat Board, at fixed government prices. Right now, the CWB pays farmers just over $8 a bushel for Hard Red Spring, which sells across the border in Montana for $13.51 a bushel, more than a 60 per cent premium. Canadian farmers get $12 a bushel for Canada Western Amber Durum. In Montana, the same grain sells for a whopping $20.34. That's almost 70 per cent more.

Farmers who dare to truck their own grain across the border - or even across the street - to sell it themselves are arrested.

:::

The terms on which the CWB sells its wheat remain secret for "competitive reasons," but last year, the head of the Algerian Interprofessional Grain Board, a large CWB customer, let the cat out of the bag. In a newspaper interview, Mohamed Kacem boasted that "our country receives preferential prices, which save Algeria tens of dollars per tonne purchased." So it's really the Algerian Wheat Board, or the Chinese Wheat Board.

:::

When he led the National Citizens Coalition, Stephen Harper described the CWB as a "draconian wheat monopoly that for years has relied on force and fear to exist." Now that he's Prime Minister, he has the chance to end that board's monopoly, and let farmers finally reap the financial harvest they deserve.

...mentions our case in today's Slate magazine. He rightly mocks Syed Soharwardy and his grandly named Islamic Supreme Council. But Hitchens makes the bigger point: why shouldn't Soharwardy quit now? He's achieved his illiberal goal of both costing me time and money, and firing a shot across the bow of any other media outlet that would dare to publish the cartoons:

In Canada, only two minority papers reprinted the cartoons. The Western Standard, now online only, and the Jewish Free Press were promptly taken before a sort of scrofulous bureaucratic peoples' court describing itself as the Alberta Human Rights Commission. If you think that's a funny name, try the title of the complainant: the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. Who knows how long such a stupid "hate speech" case might have dragged on or how much public money and time it might have consumed, but last week the Islamic supremes decided to drop it. "I understand that most Canadians see this as an issue of freedom of speech," said Syed Soharwardy of the case that he had originated, adding "that principle is sacred and holy in our society." Soharwardy went on to say, rather condescendingly perhaps, that: "I believe Canadian society is mature enough not to absorb the messages that the cartoons sent. Only a very small fraction of Canadian media decided to publish those cartoons." Without the word not and without the sinister idea that Soharwardy's permission is required for anything, that first sentence would have been a perfectly good if banal statement. But with the addition of his remark about the "small fraction" and the concomitant satisfaction about the general reticence, we have no choice but to conclude that Soharwardy is satisfied on the whole with the level of frightened deference to be found north of the U.S. border. I mention this only because the level of frightened deference to be found south of that border is still far in excess of what any censor, or even self-censor, might dare to wish.

What a great riposte. I'll have to start calling the HRC's scrofulous, too.

I think I've read just about every editorial and Op-Ed in Canada about human rights commissions this past month, and I've been pleasantly surprised that every one of them, from the Toronto Star and Eye Weekly on the left, to the National Post and Calgary Herald on the right, have been critical of the commissions' abuses. So when an Op-Ed is published that supports the commissions, as in today's Montreal Gazette by "human rights lawyer" Pearl Eliadis, it's worth a look.

Let's look at it three ways: facts, arguments, and through the lens of "cui bono".

Facts

Eliadis's Op-Ed is littered with factual errors. Small, sloppy ones, like calling the Danish cartoons "Dutch" or calling Keith Martin's private member's motion a private member's bill. And bigger ones, like Eliadis's bizarre claim that these commissions "have no power to make orders, except to dismiss a complaint." That is incorrect, of course -- here are eleven huge pages of orders by Alberta's human rights commission; the federal commission has a 100% conviction rate under section 13. That's a gross error, and it doesn't even make any sense. If a commission could only dismiss complaints -- if it could do nothing else -- then it would be powerless, like a government-funded Oprah Winfrey show. I doubt I'd have spent any time on the problem, or hired a lawyer -- and I doubt Dr. Stubbs would, either. It's precisely because these commissions have the power to make orders -- fines, and forced apologies -- that they are so terrifying. I think Eliadis is playing silly bugger here; in most provinces, a wing of the human rights commission called a "tribunal" issues the orders, not the actual "commission" itself. If that's her point, it's a trick, not an argument.

Eliadis writes that "Inciting hatred or contempt is very serious business, even on the non-criminal side. It takes objective proof, and there must be evidence." But even a basic reading of section 13 or its provincial analogues shows that's not the case. There need not be any proof that incitement of hate happened -- only that it might happen, a "pre-crime" for which no evidence is possible. Look at paragraph 350 of this recent Alberta HRC decision, which convicted a Christian pastor because "there is a circumstantial connection between the hate speech of Mr. Boissoin and the CCC and the beating of a gay teenager in Red Deer less than two weeks following the publication of Mr. Boissoin’s letter."

No proof or evidence, just a coincidence.

Eliadis makes another statement that can only be called factually inaccurate: "If these longstanding laws were truly a threat, they would surely have diminished freedom of speech in Canada by now. Instead, after three decades, Canadians enjoy the highest levels of free speech in the world." I don't think it's a matter of opinion that Canada has less freedom of speech than the U.S., with its First Amendment. The Skokie case is a perfect example of how Americans have more freedom of speech (and assembly) than we do.

Arguments

Eliadis's factual errors show a weak grasp of human rights law in Canada. But her analysis is even worse. Most telling is her line: "Are Levant and Steyn hatemongerers? Maybe not. But no one has decided that."

Putting aside her made-up word hatemongerer (at least she didn't call us hatemongererers), Eliadis demonstrates the thinking of the HRC's: everyone is guilty until proven, uh, guilty. I am not a hatemonger, or a hatemongerer. But Eliadis won't grant me that. And why should she? With a 100% conviction rate, I'll be guilty soon enough.

Eliadis claims "the complaints against Maclean's magazine ask for the right to more, not less, information by demanding publication of the "other side" of the story." There is no "right to more information", just as there is no "right to not be offended". What the Canadian Islamic Congress is demanding is to have the government expropriate Maclean's magazine for the CIC's own propaganda purposes -- violating Maclean's rights to freedom of speech and their property rights, too. It's another example of human rights commissions acting as a sword, not a shield; acting to limit human rights, not protect them.

My favourite line is Eliadis's statement that being hauled before the commission, having my time wasted and racking up tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills has "revived" my career. But I am a former publisher, and now a lawyer in private practise and an author. Being a defendant in a court case is not my "career". It would likely sink me, financially, without the financial assistance I've received from donors.

Cui bono? Eliadis's true motivation

But by describing human rights commission tangles as some sort of career, Eliadis hints at her true motivation: human rights commissions are her career. Like Richard Warman and the two transsexuals in Margaret Wente's column, Eliadis isn't just a supporter of human rights commissions; she profits by them, too. She's a former director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, running workshops for them and even travelling the country for them, a conflict of interest she didn't disclose in her column.

But my main reaction to learning what the Gazette didn't tell us -- that she used to be an OHRC director -- was pity, pity for the poor shleps upon whom she wreaked her foolishness and ignorance of the law. What's even scarier is that Eliadis exports her "expertise" to places like Rwanda and Iraq -- as if those countries need more tyrannies.

I've given too much thought to Eliadis's column -- certainly more time than she gave it herself. But I actually find it very encouraging. If this is the best that the human rights industry -- the hangers-on, the litigators-of-fortune, the professional complaining class -- can come up with in terms of facts and arguments, then they're even more brittle than we thought.

And the fact that the first (and so far, only) Op-Ed in a newspaper of record that defends these commissions comes not from an ordinary citizen, or even an independent academic or thinker, but from someone whose entire career is dependent on the perpetuation of these commissions and their culture of grievance, blame and pseudo-legal psychobabble, is encouraging, too, from a political point of view. No-one will lament the demise of the commissions, other than the those with a direct professional benefit from them (they're called rent-seekers by economists). If Pearl Eliadis is the best they've got, they're in deep trouble. That should be encouraging to any risk-averse politician out there.

P.S. When I was reading about Eliadis, I came across two different opinions she's written on the conflict between religion and equal rights for women.

In this one, she applauds the Supreme Court of Canada for trumping Orthodox Jewish custom, and enforcing the equality of men and women under law. But in this one, she condemns the Quebec status of women committee for daring to assert that the equality of men and women should trump Islamist customs, such as the hijab.

Let's be honest here: there is no such thing as "human rights law". Anyone whose views are so malleable with regards to human rights, depending on the religion she's discussing, isn't some keeper of the law. She's a political activist who found it easier to work as an unelected bureaucrat, than to seek public support for her ideology in an election. In this case, she's just a political dhimmi, a modern version of Lenin's useful idiot, putting forward an apologia for sharia law, but masquerading it as some sort of jurisprudence.  

First, Robina Butt complained about financial corruption at Syed Soharwardy's Al-Madinah mosque.

Then Robina Butt claimed Syed Soharwardy made physical threats against her.

Then Robina Butt's home was invaded, and she was beaten.

Her attackers shouted ""We come from Al-Madinah; if you ever talk anything about Al-Madinah . . . this is the first instalment."

This is Robina Butt now.

I've personally experienced three styles of Syed Soharwardy's aggression since I published the Danish cartoons two years ago. First, Soharwardy tried to have the Calgary Police Service arrest me; when that didn't work, he took me to the Alberta Human Rights Commission; when that didn't get me to submit -- in fact, when I fought back, and it backfired on him -- Soharwardy went into P.R. mode. That hasn't gone too well, either. Here's Licia Corbella's report on Soharwardy's "make love not jihad" visit to the Calgary Herald:

The founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC) asked for a meeting with the Herald's editorial board via an e-mail, arguing that Levant was "attempting to paint me as a hate-mongering, anti-Semitic, Wahabi radical who wants to see Canada governed under sharia law. Nothing could be further from the truth."

While preparing for the meeting, a quick search on Canwest's library system showed a Jan. 17, 2004, column written by the cleric.

In it, he wrote: "Sharia cannot be customized for specific countries. These universal, divine laws are for all people of all countries for all times."

In the same column he also boasts: "I am one of the founding members of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice. The mandate of the institute is to resolve disputes within existing Canadian laws by using the principles of conflict resolution from Islamic Law, or sharia."

:::

But in our meeting, Soharwardy denied his own column. "I never asked to bring sharia in Canada," he now insists.

As for the allegation he's anti-Semitic, in 2000 he wrote in his newsletter: "Presently, what Israeli forces are doing to Palestinians is worse than the Holocaust of World War II." Comparing Israel's attempts to defend itself to the carting of millions of Jews in cattle cars to gas chambers is obscene.

:::

Some of Soharwardy's most vile words came after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 280,000 people.

While Christians from around the world were emptying their wallets to help the victims of this natural disaster, Muslim leaders were blaming the disaster on immoral Christian tourists in their countries.

Soharwardy seemingly got swept up in the wave of anti-Christian rhetoric and sent out a news release accusing Christians of kidnapping Muslim orphans in Indonesia. Again, he denied his own written words.

:::

But here's what his Jan. 23, 2005, news release actually said: "ISCC . . . strongly condemns the exploitation of tsunami victims by the Christian missionaries. There have been several reports that the Christian missionaries are kidnapping Muslim children in Indonesia. . . . It is now proven that the Christian missionaries do not help people on humanitarian grounds. They help people in order to exploit their needs and convert them to Christianity."

:::

To us, he said he lodged his complaint with the AHRC because he felt Muslim "youth were getting alienated" not because the cartoons subjected him to hatred.

:::

To the CBC's The National on Wednesday, however, Soharwardy gave a different reason for dropping his complaint against Levant, who has spent two years and $100,000 in legal fees fighting this Orwellian battle: "People were looking at Ezra Levant as a martyr of freedom of his speech . . . taking this into a different direction that I did not want."

That's a pretty blistering column. But the Calgary Herald should be careful. Soharwardy doesn't take kindly to criticism.

I think I've parried his thrusts pretty well -- including laughing off this threat from Soharwardy's lawyer. But other critics of Soharwardy haven't fared so well.

When members of Soharwardy's own mosque started asking legitimate questions about his management of their mosque and its funds (see here, here and here), his response was to slap them with a $5-million lawsuit. Here's his Statement of Claim, and their Statement of Defence. It's a fascinating exchange, and it's being going on under the radar, so far. I don't have a strong opinion about things, other than an acquired skepticism for anything Soharwardy utters. I do know that Soharwardy's grandly-named Islamic Supreme Council hasn't filed its corporate returns, and is at risk of being struck from the corporate registry. And I also know that he hasn't filed his mosque's charitable filings in Ottawa, either.

Both of these could simply be the result of Soharwardy's absent-mindedness. Or it could be, as his critics claim, because he has taken a decidedly third-world approach to financial accountability -- pocketing the money, or using it, as alleged, for inappropriate real estate adventures. I wonder if the matter will get to trial -- something tells me that Soharwardy will fold in examinations for discovery when he has to cough up his documents. That will be fascinating.

But all of this is the Western way of looking at things; and we are dealing with a decidedly Eastern man in Soharwardy, a man who believes the Koran ought to be our constitution, like it is in Saudi Arabia, his source of rich speaking gigs, a country that is about to execute a woman accused of being a witch.

I've got a video of a recent meeting at Soharwardy's mosque where the dissidents confronted him about the finances; that gathering devolved into a light scuffle, and the few women who dared to challenge Soharwardy -- from where they were placed at the back of the room, of course -- were shouted down. I'll try to marshall my video editing skills, and upload some of the more telling clips.

Late last year, these same dissident women accused Soharwardy of threatening them with physical violence, and contacted the police. Well, their fears have come true: according to the Calgary Herald, one of the women was attacked in her home: 

Const. Paban Dhaliwal said a man and a woman knocked on the door of Butt's home, and when questioned, identified themselves as members of the press.

When Butt opened the door, the couple forced their way into the home, pushing Butt against the wall a number of times and producing a weapon...

He said the woman was fully covered in a dark burka and was wearing black gloves. The male suspect is described as of East Indian descent, about 45 years old with a short moustache, five feet nine with a slim build and wearing blue jeans, a light shirt and black jacket.

Butt's husband, Najeeb, said his wife was badly shaken by the attack, suffering a number of cuts to her hand as well as bumps and bruises...

Robina Butt and two other Calgary women filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in late December against Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

The complaint alleges they were subjected to abusive language and threats during a Nov. 11 meeting at the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre, where Soharwardy also serves as imam.

Soharwardy has denied all allegations in the human rights complaint.

Butt said he's convinced Wednesday's attack was not random.

Butt said the male attacker told his wife, "We come from Al-Madinah; if you ever talk anything about Al-Madinah . . . this is the first instalment."

When contacted by the Herald on Thursday evening, Soharwardy said no one from the Al-Madinah Centre would be involved in such a violent incident.

"We are law-abiding people. We had nothing to do with this. I condemn this attack absolutely, and I urge the police to do everything to find the people who were involved in this and bring them to justice."

Soharwardy "condemns this attack". He condemns a lot of attacks, when asked by the mainstream press -- here's his "condemnation" of 9/11. And when Soharwardy says he wants to "bring them to justice", you've got to wonder if he's talking about Canadian justice or that famous Saudi justice, where victims of crime receive punishments.

I don't know what happened to the money at Soharwardy's mosque. And I don't know who it was who attacked Soharwardy's critics. What I do know is that people who criticize Syed Soharwardy have bad things happen to them. This story isn't done yet, though Soharwardy would love it to be so.

Some people think the only reform necessary to Canada's human rights commissions is to remove the "thought crime" provisions that have ensnared the likes of Mark Steyn and me. Some people think that the rest of the work of these commissions is important for the truly downtrodden in our society.

They have no idea what they're talking about.

I've already written about two absurd cases in Alberta that have nothing to do with "hate messages" -- the restaurant that was convicted and fined $4,900 for daring to fire a kitchen manager who contracted Hepatitis; and the hair salon that was taken to a hearing because a male student was called "a loser" by the girls (the salon was eventually "acquitted" -- and like me, forced to bear thouands of dollars in legal bills, and hundreds of hours of time).

The Globe's Margaret Wente sat in on an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal Hearing and has news of an even more pressing violation of human rights that must be remedied by the government!

First up on the witness stand was Michelle Boyce.... . Although raised male, she said she'd always thought of herself as a woman (despite the fact that in her 20s, she had married and fathered two children in the customary way).

In 2001, she had sex-change surgery in Wisconsin... But the surgery wasn't perfect. One side of her new labia was bigger than the other, and she had a flap of skin that made sex painful. "I was having some issues I wanted resolved with my genitals." Then she read an article about Dr. Stubbs and labiaplasty. "It was exactly what I was looking for," she said. "And it quoted a good price." It wasn't until she was in the examining room that she bothered to mention she was a post-operative transsexual. At that point Dr. Stubbs (rudely, she says) ended the consultation and invited her to leave. "I chased him down the hall and grabbed his arm and said 'You can't do that.' But he walked away." Shattered by his rude dismissiveness, she bawled her eyes out on the front steps, then lodged a complaint with the human rights commission that very same day..

:::

The complainants get a free lawyer from the human-rights tribunal to argue their case, but the respondent is on the hook for his own legal bill.

Dr. Stubbs's medical insurance fund is picking up the tab for his lawyer, who's probably billing $500 an hour.

During the lunch break, I had a sandwich with Michelle. Her gestures were feminine. But up close, she looked more like a guy than a girl.

She had a man's big hands, big teeth, broad-bridged nose, and coarse facial skin. She told me she'd be happy to settle for $30,000 or $40,000.

Her friend, Jenn Finnan, is the other complainant in the case.

Ms. Finnan had been undergoing hormone treatment prior to sex-change surgery, and wanted Dr. Stubbs to augment her breasts so they wouldn't be going up and down all the time. Jenn, who's 45, doesn't look or sound like a guy at all. She looks like a tall, cheery, middle-aged, overweight woman with thinning blond hair. I liked them both, even though I thought their sense of outrage and entitlement - fuelled for years by the administrative apparatus of the human rights commission - was absurd.

Dr. Stubbs's defence is straightforward. He had no surgical experience with transsexuals. The chest structure and post-operative genitals of transsexuals are not the same as those of biological women, and thus, the complainants' transsexual status was medically relevant.

Finally, like any doctor who performs elective surgery for a fee, he has the right (and duty) to decide who is and isn't eligible for his services.

:::

Over lunch, Michelle told me that the demeaning treatment by Dr. Stubbs "had a profound effect on the rest of my life." After that, she became a full-time activist. Today she has a government-funded job investigating the health status of the transsexual population.

She and Jenn also have a small business that's hired by big companies to do diversity awareness training, especially around transgender issues. Business is good. They get a lot of work courtesy of human rights commissions.

Calling these commissions "kangaroo courts" is an insult to kangaroos. I predict that Dr. Stubbs will lose. The case isn't about real human rights, it's about these two freakish plaintiffs' rights to be "affirmed" by him, and if not by him, then by this bizarre government agency. And, like Richard Warman, they seem to have a pretty cozy relationship with the commission to begin with.

Wente says she thinks this is a slam dunk for the doctor. But I think that's because Wente is still in a state of shock from experiencing a commission's "work" for the first time. Look around on the commission's website, and you'll see these two transexuals' cases are spot-on with the "law" of Ontario. I can't quickly find Ontario's recent HRC decisions; they seem to be about three years behind on uploading the judgements. But the case of the angry transsexuals suing the ambushed plastic surgeon for hurt feelings is pretty much just a "day in the life" of these commissions.

We have to continue to denormalize them, which is pretty easy -- just let the world know what they're doing. 

Today's Calgary Herald:

Soharwardy told the Herald editorial board Tuesday, "I think freedom of speech is one of the most important benefits of living in Canada, and we should protect it. I think the mandate of the Alberta Human Rights Commission should be limited -- Section 3 (1) (that makes it an offence to publish something likely to expose a person or class of persons to hatred or contempt) should be gone."

Well, well.

There could be an element of enlightened self-interest of course, Soharwardy having made a few borderline statements himself. To compare Palestinian people's travails to the Holocaust, or to characterize Christian relief efforts after a tsunami hit Indonesia as kidnapping Muslim children, is to drink deeply from free speech's well. Those who do so, should by no means try to keep others from the water.

It does leave one bit of unfinished business, though.

Even if Levant feels he has won the argument -- he has, in our view -- it has cost him a lot of money to do it. (Human rights complaints are free to the complainant, but defendants are obliged to fund their own counsel.) As he has remarked, the process is as much the punishment as the ruling.

No less of a chill to the free expression of opinion is the possibility that even if the case is later dropped, it might still be costly to prepare for a defence that will ultimately not be required.

Striking Section 3 (1) from the act should be a priority for the provincial government, whose creature the legislation is. Until that is done, it seems elementary justice that defendants should expect their costs to be met, if the case fails to proceed -- or, if they are exonerated.

In a web-only column in the Globe and Mail, Syed Soharwardy tries to put a noble face on his decision to cut and run from the human rights commission -- leaving Alberta taxpayers with a $500,000 tab, and me with my legal bills. (By the way, Soharwardy's friends at the Edmonton Muslim Council filed an identical complaint against me, so the human rights commission will continue to grind on against me even if he does abandon his complaint, which he has not done yet.)

Read Soharwardy's column (okay, let's be honest, the author of his hand-scrawled, typo-ridden, child's logic complaint, and the author of Globe and Mail column are not the same person) and answer this quiz:

1. In his Globe article, Soharwardy says he filed the complaint because he was concerned about Muslim youth intergrating into Canada. Can you find any mention of that in his complaint? Actually, his main complaint wasn't even that I published the cartoons -- it was that I dared defend my right to do so.

2. In the Globe, Soharwardy says he'd like to sit down with me and have a good talk. Can you find that liberal spirit in this letter he sent to me a few weeks ago?

3. In the Globe, Soharwardy says he's a pretty mainstream guy who abhors anti-Semitism. Check out this page and this page from Soharwardy's website archives. Which part is mainstream, and which part abhors anti-Semitism?

Soharwardy has spent two years trying to have the Calgary Police Service arrest me, and the human rights commissions condemn me. What's happened instead is that he himself has been exposed as a tin-pot fascist -- and he's rekindled a national rededication to the idea of freedom of speech and the separation of mosque and state. That's why he's changed course, and is opting for a PR strategy. I know it's not a halal metaphor, but you just can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Most bloggers merely comment on the news that others report; but Debbie Gyapong does shoe leather reporting herself. She has this important scoop about Keith Martin's private member's motion to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to remove the "hate messages" section:

I interviewed Keith Martin again today. He said support within the Liberal caucus for his motion is "huge."

Stephane Dion has not talked to him about it, or asked him to withdraw it. Only a couple of Liberal members raised concerns, but no one has asked him to remove the motion.

"There is enormous support within caucus and across party lines," he said.

This is an important scoop because it directly contradicts the spin coming from Warren Kinsella, and his one remaining contact on Parliament Hill, Joan Bryden.

Two weeks ago, Bryden wrote that:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's office disavowed the motion and suggested Martin will be asked to withdraw it.

That sentence struck me as odd at the time, because unlike other comments from Dion's office, this one wasn't an actual quote, though it was the most bellicose. I might have been more trusting of Bryden, had it not been for the over-the-top cheering her "report" received, in advance of publication, from Warren Kinsella.

Bryden's "news report" was appalling for other reasons, mainly that it was really an editorial, using bizarre guilt by association to smear Martin as a white supremacist.

I know that Bryden's hit piece was demoralizing to those who support Martin's motion. Now we know the truth: Dion, like most Liberals, ignored Kinsella's hyperventilations about Martin, and let the MP use a private member's motion the way it was meant to be used, to put forward an idea that wasn't on the party's official agenda.

It's a shame that Gyapong's correction won't get a drop of ink in the MSM to counteract the misleading spin in Kinsella's Bryden's CP story. And I won't hold my breath that Bryden herself will correct the record. Ten years ago, that would be the end of it. But today, the blogosphere can correct the record by linking en masse to Debbie's post.  

Today I was invited on CTV's Mike Duffy Live as a Conservative on their partisans panel. Mike saved the last thirty seconds to ask my about the human rights case. Here's the clip.

Ed Stelmach, the temporary premier of Alberta, was asked on the campaign trail about the Alberta Human Rights Commission's two-year persecution of me for publishing the Danish cartoons. Here's what he said:

"We have in the Province of Alberta a system where the Alberta Human Rights Commission, um, hears, ah, different cases that come forward, uh, under the Charter, and protection of human rights. I know that, ah, this is an issue that came as a result of some comments made, uh, and cartoons I believe with respect to the Muslim faith.  Uh, and, uh, it's--it's most unfortunate because Alberta is a mosaic of many cultures, and, uh, our goal is here to, of course,  the additional resources we put in to arts and culture that we bring -- uh, just better understanding the various cultures in the Province of Alberta that we can live together in peace."

Does anyone know what that means -- other than the man politically responsible for the Alberta Human Rights Commission hasn't got a clue?

His statement was one part free association, one part drivel, two parts political correctness and five or six empty cliches, all delivered with the hestitation of a deer caught in the headlights.

The only thing I've heard that comes close to it was about ten years ago when Liberal cabinet minister Andy Scott met reporters in what became known as the "stunned scrum", spinning into incoherence so spectacularly that a reporter, I think it was Julie Van Dusen, asked him "did you get hit in the head with a brick?" (If I recall, Scott actually answered).

I hope to get a copy of the audio or video clip of Stelmach's comment, and I'll post it, so you can hear it in what can only be called broken English. I'm not just embarrassed as a lifelong conservative, I'm embarrassed as an Albertan.

CBC's The National finally did a news item on the human rights complaint. It was a good enough news report, though I couldn't help but wonder if the CBC would have waited so long to do a story, and given it such perfunctory coverage, if it had been one of their own producers who had been summoned before a government investigator. But it was fair enough, and the quote from Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association was excellent.

What stuck in my mind, though, and still makes me shake my head, is that the CBC "pixellated" an image of one of the cartoons when they flashed a shot of a Danish newspaper. In a story about freedom of speech -- pegged not just to my own human rights interrogation, but to death threats against a Danish cartoonist -- the CBC opted for self-censorship.

The CBC will show just about anything -- nudity, swearing, extreme violence -- and not just late at night. The documentaries on the Passionate Eye fall into two broad categories: anti-American or anti-capitalist screeds, or soft porn. I can't remember the last time I heard a curse word "beeped" out. Photos of Abu Ghraib? Shown daily for two years.

And when it comes to any possible offence taken by other religions, the CBC makes sure you see exactly what the fuss is all about. Here's a story about Catholic complaints of blasphemy, complete with helpful photo; here's one about a Greek case of anti-Christian blasphemy, with photo.

Anyone who watches the CBC's R-rated treatment of other religions, and other taboo subjects, just has to laugh at the official explanation for not showing the Muslim cartoons:

At the CBC, we decided not to show the original cartoons in our extensive coverage of the controversy. We felt that we could easily describe the drawings in simple and clear English without actually showing them. This was intended, without embarrassment, as an act of respect not only for Islam but for all religions.

"Could easily describe the drawings?" But they didn't describe them, did they -- not in this story or any others that I have seen on the CBC. To describe them would be to describe banality itself; out of the 12 original cartoons, only a few had any political flavour at all, none of which exceeded the spiciness of what appears daily on every editorial page in Canada. And that's part of the point of pixellating them -- to make them seem more offensive than they are, to indirectly justify or excuse the violence "caused" by the cartoons.

But I suppose I shouldn't pick on the CBC -- CTV and Global also bravely declined to show the cartoons, and neither have done a news report on my case (though I've been interviewed by Mike Duffy; and Rex Murphy did a great CBC commentary on the human rights commissions a month ago).

A word about the actual content of the clip. My favourite part was when Syed Soharwardy explained that he quit his complaint when:

"people were looking at Ezra Levant as a martyr of the freedom of his speech" ... "taking this into a different direction that I did not want."

Well then! I'm sorry to have been so uncooperative, by saying things that he "did not want" me to say, such as that I (and he) live in Canada, not Saudi Arabia.

Time to take one more look at Soharwardy's complaint. Look at section F. It's not even about the fact that I published the cartoons -- it's that I dared to try to defend that decision. It wasn't the deed that bothered him the most, it was my unwillingness to back down. The bulk of the complaint is about me daring to speak my mind. He complains that I:

• am "constantly advocating hatemongering cartoons in the media";
• "called [Soharwardy] 'radical'";
• "said that the hateful cartoons are justified to be published".

In other words, it's not just that I published them. It's that I didn't submit to Soharwardy. I kept talking about my freedom. He's still complaining about that, even now.

Sort of puts a lie to his official excuse for dropping the complaint -- that he has now reconciled himself to free speech. 

Today Syed Soharwardy told the Calgary Herald editorial board that he is withdrawing his human rights complaint against me that he filed two years ago when I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. (Seriously, if you haven't done so, you've really got to look at his hand-scrawled complaint here. I know dyslexic ten-year-olds with ADD who are more coherent.)

If he's really withdrawing the complaint, this is the first I've heard about it; and when I spoke with my lawyer this afternoon, the complaint was still proceeding against me.

It might be a lie -- it wouldn't be Soharwardy's first, but then again, lying to an infidel newspaper isn't immoral to someone like Soharwardy. It's called taqqiyah.

But even if Soharwardy withdraws his complaint against me, an identical complaint filed by the Edmonton Muslim Council still proceeds.

So why would Soharwardy do this -- and why now?

The answer lies in another Arabic word: hudna. A hudna isn't a peace treaty. It's a temporary truce called by a Muslim warrior who's losing in battle. It's pretty easy to understand how hudnas work by watching Israel fight Hamas and Hezbollah. Those two terrorist groups lob rockets and send suicide bombers into Israel for months; then, every once in a while, Israel deploys its military and flattens Hamas and Hezbollah, who then call for a hudna. The UN intervenes, saving Hamas and Hezbollah to fight another day. That's a hudna: a tactical truce for a strategic advantage.

Soharwardy wants a hudna because he's losing badly. Not financially: he hasn't spent a penny to further the complaint against me -- that has been done courtesy of Ed Stelmach's government and the taxpayers of Alberta, to the tune of $500,000, I'd guess. Nor has Soharwardy had to spend hundreds of hours battling against me at the commission -- Alberta government employees do that for him. It's because over the past two years -- and the past month in particular -- Soharwardy has become known for what he is: an Islamofascist imam, who's trying to bring Saudi values to Canada. Though I'm being pummelled in a kangaroo court, he's being pummelled in the court of public opinion. He didn't expect it, and he hates it.

He hates that hundreds of bloggers ridicule him. He hates that my video clips, in which I describe his illiberal nature, have been viewed almost 500,000 times. He hates that his own enemies within his mosque have taken advantage of this media coverage to shine a light of scrutiny on the way he runs his mosque - from his financial irregularities, to his abusive treatment of women. These documents here, here, here and here, first published on my blog, have been viewed thousands of times and led to a series of newspaper items in the Calgary Herald and even the Washington Times. Soharwardy is embarrassed -- as well he should be. He is no longer polite company. Now he's known as a censor, a fascist, a sexist. He's un-Canadian. And if the complaint against me goes to a tribunal, he'll go through this again on a larger scale.

But can someone abuse a government process like he has, for two years, and then simply walk away with impunity? I've spent the better part of $100,000 defending against this thug -- but because he's losing face, he thinks he can pretend he never did what he did.

Soharwardy claims that he's seen the light and realized that he was misguided -- that he should never have tried to censor me. Really? Last month he was cheering on commission's interrogation of me; two weeks ago, he was sending me more legal threats. The only epiphany he's had was that in the circus he started, he's coming across as the clown -- an angry, anti-Semitic clown who shouts down women at his own mosque.

I understand that Soharwardy has an Op-Ed in tomorrow's Herald in which he effectively admits his complaint was motivated by Saudi-style censorship, not any Canadian belief in human rights. In other words, he admits what I've alleged all along: he was hijacking a secular "human rights" commission for his radical Islamo-fascist agenda. But now he wants us all to pretend he didn't.

Well, back in the land of real laws and real rules of court, there's a tort called "abuse of process", and Soharwardy has just admitted to it.

For two years, this corrupt, radical imam has hunted me using the resources of the taxpayers of Alberta for the "thought crime" of publishing a cartoon he didn't like. I had a preliminary discussion with my lawyer today. My aim is to file an abuse of process claim in the Court of Queen's Bench within the month. Whether or not I sue the commission itself, and its inquisitor Shirlene McGovern, is something I haven't discussed yet with my lawyers.

When the chief complainant in a two-year censorship exercise admits the whole thing was improper, an abuse of process suit is not just about recouping my losses. It's about holding a little fascist, and the government agency he hijacked, to account, and having grown-ups -- that is, real judges in real courts -- tell them that what they've been doing is morally and legally wrong.

For readers tuning in for the first time, here's a quick summary of what's going on.

1. Two years ago, the now-defunct Western Standard magazine reprinted the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. I was the publisher.

2. In response, a radical Muslim imam named Syed Soharwardy asked the Calgary Police Service to arrest me. They didn't, of course. So Soharwardy complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, a government agency. Here's his hand-scrawled complaint; here's my reply. For two years, using government lawyers and taxpayers money, they have been pursuing me, infringing on my natural rights of free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

3. On January 11th, a government "human rights officer" interrogated me for 90 minutes. Instead of bowing my head, I used the opportunity to challenge the moral and legal basis of the complaint, and the human rights commission itself.

4. I recorded the interrogation and posted video clips to YouTube. In a single week, they were viewed nearly 400,000 times and were at one point the fifth most watched videos on all of YouTube. After several weeks of being ignored by the mainstream media, the story finally jumped from the blogosphere to Canada's newspapers. I'm pleased that the support from pundits has come not just from the right, but from the enlightened left.

5. I've got some ideas of what people can do.

6. The blog posts below expand on various details of the case. If you are interested in the videos, they are all posted below, with commentary. Here are three of the more popular clips:

my opening statement:

me being asked about possible thoughtcrimes:

and a slip of the tongue by my interrogator.

Warren Kinsella claims to be appalled that Kate McMillan profaned the Holocaust in her prank against him. Fair enough. But would Kinsella's high dudgeon sound a little more credible if he had not, just last month, used Holocaust analogies and imagery himself in a cheap shot at a fellow Liberal?

That's what makes Kinsella's emotional reaction seem so incredible, as if it were just a... war-room tactic. Hardly a week goes by when Kinsella doesn't accuse some conservative blogger of being a Nazi. If, say, Jay Currie is no better than a Nazi, then the Nazis are no worse than Jay Currie.

Who is really profaning the Holocaust here -- for fame and profit?

I don't know if Rush Limbaugh coined the phrase, but he certaintly popularized it: "a bigot is anyone who is winning an argument with a liberal". With folks like Kinsella, it seems, "a Nazi is anyone who disagrees with him." That certainly profanes the Holocaust.

It's also dangerous legal ground for Kinsella. I'm not going to give him legal advice, but I will draw readers' attention to the interesting case of Pressler v. Lethbridge out of B.C. a few years back, upheld on appeal.

The Presslers were racists, no doubt about it. But David Lethbridge and his local rag-tag group of "anti-racists" (I was surprised Richard Warman's name didn't come up) started hounding the couple. (See paragraph 143 for an example of their "political action".) Lethbridge and company whipped things up enough until the Presslers were called Nazis on TV. Then they sued. And they won close to $100,000, an amount increased on appeal.

The Presslers were openly racist and anti-Semitic. But they weren't Nazis, members of the Nazi Party, supporters of the Nazis or of certain core ideas closely associated with Naziism, such as violence. That was an important enough distinction for the judge to find for the Presslers, and hand them a pretty substantial award.

The Union of Bloggers that I'm proposing is a purely defensive organization -- it will only defend against lawsuits, not commence them. But if I was a blogger or anyone else called a Nazi by Kinsella or Warman simply because I had conservative or even rude (or even racist) opinions, I'd be tempted to put those accusers to the test to prove it in defamation court.

Not just for the moral victory of a win in court, and the financial compensation that comes with it. But to make the point Kinsella pretends to make: if we really don't want to profane the memory of the Holocaust, we ought not to call just anyone we argue with a "Nazi". 

Last week I mentioned that Mike Duffy interviewed Mark Steyn on CTV. Looks like that video clip is available on the Internet now, here.

NDP MP Wayne Marston supports section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the provision that is being used to enforce "thought crime" charges against Maclean's magazine and Mark Steyn. Marston said that removing that thought crime provision would "gut" human rights in Canada.

But now Noam Chomsky himself -- excuse me, Himself -- has denounced section 13:

There should be a very heavy burden of proof on any effort to restrict freedom of speech. I strongly oppose the measures you describe. I do not think the burden of proof is even approached, let alone met.

Chomsky is to the hard left what Milton Friedman was to the right: as close to a political prophet as they get.

What will the NDP do?

I've been asked by concerned friends whether I think Kate McMillan's prank is anti-Semitic. In my opinion, it's not. Even the target of the prank, Warren Kinsella, doesn't go that far -- he calls it "appalling" and a "disgrace". No doubt many will find it so; but it's difficult to take such outrage at face value from a master prankster himself. Kinsella does question Kate's support for Israel, which is a pretty big stretch, and it's demolished by a quick glance at Kate's years of pro-Israel, anti-jihadist blogging -- frankly a better track record than Kinsella has.

Some quick background: Warren Kinsella received an e-mail appearing to be from eitan@terleski7.com along with a photo of an arm with a number tattooed on it. The e-mail message didn't describe the photo, but Kinsella naturally assumed it was a Holocaust survivor's tattoo. Kinsella posted the picture and the message, saying he was honoured to receive it.

In fact, the e-mail address was a spoof; it was sent by Kate sent by Kate's friend, Richard Evans. The tattoo number was her motorcycle's serial number.

Is that, as Kinsella says on his blog, Kate calling the Holocaust itself a joke? No; there is nothing pejorative about Kate's e-mail, other than she used an image that is considered by polite company to be out-of-bounds for humour or pranks. Her e-mail wasn't a comment on the Holocaust; it used a reference to the Holocaust as a surefire way to set up Kinsella, whose hagiographic depictions of himself as a modern-day Nazi-hunter make one reach for insulin. The point of the prank might not be immediately obvious to those who haven't followed the long-simmering Kinsella-Kate feud. But it's offensive only in the sense that The Producers is.

It would probably make anyone uncomfortable to see The Producers (or other Holocaust-themed humour) in the company of Holocaust survivors; I would not want to laugh at the jokes for fear of being insensitive. Kate's prank was less funny than those instances, and the instrument of the prank -- a faked photo of a tattooed arm -- was less tasteful. 

So where was the humour in it? Much of it was insider jokes: the spoofed e-mail address Kate chose; the name she gave to the photo file. But the broader humour of it -- a "roast" would be a better description -- is easy to spot: Kinsella himself likes to send anonymous and tasteless e-mails around; Kinsella's good friend and fellow "human rights activist" Richard Warman even plants outrageously offensive comments on the Internet, and then complains about them -- something that casts doubt on every instance of "hate" that Warman and Kinsella "find" that hasn't been verified independently.

Kinsella is a Simon Wiesenthal in his own mind; receiving such a flattering, if cryptic, e-mail appealled to his self-image as an underrecognized hero.

I think that's an interesting difference here. Both Kate and Kinsella regard themselves as friends of the Jews; both campaign against what they regard as hatred. But though he's the bigger talker, Kinsella limits himself to snipe hunts against harmless, politically incorrect cranks. Kate would rather die before calling herself a "human rights activist", but arguably her defence of Israel and Western liberal values would give her more right to that title than Kinsella.

Kate's prank was not an eloquent witticism. It was a blunt demonstration of Kinsella's lack of Internet street smarts, and of the double standard he himself holds when it comes to insensitive comments. (And that's another difference: Kate's e-mail "entrapped" Kinsella; Warman's e-mails aren't as subtle -- he doesn't entrap people into uttering racist remarks, he outright plants those racist remarks himself.)

Kate's is not a prank I would have done. I've been to Yad Vashem too often to be irreverent about tattoos on Holocaust survivors. I'll grant Kinsella that it was humour in questionable taste. But it's not anti-Semitic.

Glenn Reynolds is a professor of law in Knoxville, Tennessee but he's better known as the blogger Instapundit. Here's an interesting essay he wrote about why so few bloggers have been sued in defamation.

Of course, he writes from the American perspective, and their defamation law is more tilted towards defendants (including bloggers) than ours. But his biggest argument is the same: most bloggers analyze and comment on facts, they don't do primary factual reporting. And, in Canadian law too, if your facts are accurate you have a wide berth to engage in commentary. Even fringe or extremist views can be protected as "fair comment" in Canada, if the underlying facts are accurate.

I have had some bloggers ask that I post a summary of defamation law like this one. I do so because I think defamation law is so fascinating -- a delicate balance between the right of someone to protect his reputation, the right of critics to express themselves, and the right of the public to know things in their interest. You can see that three-way balancing act in that primer.

But I am always loathe to publish such summary, for fear that bloggers might be tempted to do a little home-made defamation law, Lionel Hutz-style, rather than get real legal advice. It is my observation that the biggest defamation law errors made by Canadian bloggers is not that they defame people too easily, but that they do the opposite -- they are too quick to concede that they have defamed someone, and apologize too easily.

Gentle reader, don't think that I positively want Lionel Hutz Warren Kinsella to sue me or any other blogger. The opposite: it's important to demonstrate that, when his bluff is called, Kinsella runs away from a fight. That's important because defamation suits have not been used to intimidate Canadian bloggers; the empty threat of defamation suits did that. And there's no bigger empty suit than Kinsella. That's the teaching moment here: the only place where Kinsella "Kicks Ass" these days is in his lovingly-written autobiographies.

Tonight, Kinsella sent me an e-mail saying that if I repeated the claims I made about him last month, he'd sue. As any blogger knows, when you edit a blog post, it writes over the original, so I don't have the exact words that I used the first time. So I republished the nub of my post again. Instead of suing, he backed away -- saying his wife told him to do so, and that I was avoiding a "big fat libel action" by not using his "Libel Notice" as a crib sheet. (Here's a quiz for our non-lawyer readers: can you name at least two ways in which Lionel Hutz's e-mail to me fails to meet the legal requirements of a real Libel Notice?)

Anyway, let me go through the boring motions one more time of proving that there's not a lot of ass-kicking left in the author of Kicking Ass. He says he's not suing me because I'm not repeating the words in his purported Libel Notice. So let me cut and paste those words right now:

"You claim that the National Post has removed columns I have written for them because they are untrue."

I stand by that.

"Your claim that the newspaper is "fed up" with my "erosion" of their credibility."

I stand by that.

"Your claim that I have used my position to advance the interests of my clients."

I remember I didn't phrase it that way; I wrote that he wrote boring items about his clients. (I don't think he actually advanced their interests.)

This isn't about being mean to Kinsella. I confess, I actually have a soft spot for him and, weirdly, I think he does for me, too. This is about proving to all the bloggers that Kinsella has threatened over the years -- Jay Currie, Kathy Shaidle, Mike Brock, Mark Steyn, Blazing Catfur, etc., etc., etc., that if your facts are right, you just don't have to be scared anymore.

P.S. I think this is the second time in a week that Kinsella said he's done writing about me. Do you think he means it this time? Will his wife prevail upon him? I don't think he can go cold turkey!

P.P.S. By my calculation, it's been a week, and his prediction about the Conservatives "repudiating" my statements on free speech haven't borne out. We knew Kinsella has, uh, fallen out of touch with the Liberals lately, and he's obviously missing some important memos from the Post. But is he out of touch with the Tories, too? (At least he has the NDP.)

UPDATE: Here's Joan Tintor's story. 

UPDATE 2: I've had a journalist ask for other examples of bloggers being threatened in the past. If you want to tell your story, e-mail me and I'll pass them on.

I had a little bit of fun in my last post about Warren Kinsella's Lionel Hutz-like legal skills -- how he didn't know that lawyers in Canada can practise in any province; how he didn't think Ontario clients could have an Alberta lawyer; how he didn't think I could use a law firm as an agency for service, etc. I didn't just report that stuff for fun -- I did it to show that Warren Kinsella, despite describing himself as an "Ass-Kicker", is all hat and no cattle. Bloggers don't have to be scared of his threats anymore.

So I was not surprised to read Kinsella's blog post today -- poking fun at the new Union of Bloggers, but not mentioning a word about his legal threat against Blazing Catfur. That's what I predict most victories will look like for the Union of Bloggers: blowhards just going away once they realize they're facing a fight.

But Kinsella wrote something weird: he claimed that I had recently taken down a blog post of my own because I received a legal demand from him to do so. Huh?

I sent a note to Kinsella today, asking him to re-send that legal demand to me, because I hadn't seen it. (He really should read a book about service of legal documents.) Here's what he wrote back. It looks like the great barrister tried to send me a demand letter, but sent it to my evil twin, who has an e-mail address spelled "ezrra". D'oh!

Kinsella is right on one thing: I did take down a post a few weeks ago that was a little too jubilant at a setback he had at the National Post. Kinsella says I took down the post because of his demand letter and that it's bad form for the Shop Steward of the Union of Bloggers to have surrendered so quickly. I'd agree, if it were true -- but, as I wrote, I took down my post because it embarrassed the manager who had to rein Kinsella in.

I thought I was being a mensch about it. Instead, Kinsella is trying to use that as an indication that the Union of Bloggers isn't serious. I don't think too many people believe Kinsella these days, but it is important that there be no shadow of doubt: the Union of Bloggers doesn't buckle to politically-motivated, baseless threats. It's just so important that there be no question about it. So I've simply got to put that blog post back up -- even if it causes some discomfort to Kinsella's bosses at the Post.

I didn't save the original entry, but I can sum it up thusly:

Because of concerns about the accuracy of some of Kinsella's writing, he is not longer allowed to write about me in the Post. Kinsella has had one entire rant pulled, and two others redacted, to comply with this. (I didn't request this ban, by the way -- I sort of like sparring with the guy and pointing out his errors, but the Post has better things to do.)

I don't remember everything else I wrote, but I stand by it, including my assertion that Kinsella has written about his clients. I'll keep you posted if Hutz fires back -- assuming he can spell my e-mail address correctly.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the need for Canadian bloggers to form a mutual aid society to protect themselves from unwarranted attacks on their freedoms.

I have recently experienced one form of those attacks -- an out-of-control government "human rights commission" grinding me through a punitive, costly and arbitrary process for two years because I published cartoons that allegedly hurt someone's feelings. And I've observed the other form, much more frequently: in the past few weeks alone, I've seen 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 baseless threats of defamation against Canadian bloggers (plus 6, 7 against me), none of which have real merit, but all of which are designed to frighten bloggers (usually conservatives) into censoring themselves.

The common thread amongst all of these threats is that they're not legitimate legal actions to remedy a real tort committed by bloggers. The blog posts in question all contain true facts and fair comments; no real defamation action lies against any of them. These threats are intimidation tactics -- bullying -- dressed up in legal robes.

And, unfortunately, they often work. Not because bloggers make a thoughtful decision, with competent legal advice, that they ought to retract a truly false and defamatory statement, but because bloggers make a panicked decision, without legal advice, in fear of the cost and hassle of a lawsuit, and in the hopes of appeasing the threatener. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about this sort of thing.

When I mused about a mutual aid society for bloggers, I immediately received several requests for help. Even though I haven't set up the structure for the Union of Bloggers yet, I've accepted two of them, and I have permission to write about one of them: It's Warren Kinsella's absurd threat against a blogger named Blazing Catfur.

What did Blazing Catfur do? He engaged in satire, which is the deadliest weapon against humourless censors. He demonstrated the foolishness of Kinsella's logic that:

• Dr. Keith Martin -- a Liberal MP, human rights activist, and visible minority -- wants to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act;
• Some white supremacists want to amend the CHRA too;
• Therefore Martin's idea is tainted by association. 

I thought Blazing Catfur's satirical deployment of that absurd guilt by association logic was far more powerful than any stern criticism. And I think Kinsella did, too, or else he wouldn't have threatened a lawsuit against Blazing Catfur and another blogger, Mike Brock, who engaged in a similar satire.

So the Union of Bloggers -- before we're formally incorporated -- has a case.

But that's not the most interesting part of the story.

I contacted Kinsella to advise him that I was legal counsel for Blazing Catfur. I didn't expect what came next.

First, Kinsella demanded to know if I was licensed to practise law in Ontario. I thought it was a trick question: all Canadian lawyers now have the right to practise law across the country. I thought Kinsella was just joking around, but he wasn't -- he genuinely didn't know that, and he told me he was going to immediately (it was Sunday night, if I recall) write a letter to the Law Society to put a stop to my shenanigans!

Interprovincial mobility is probably the single largest change to the practise of Canadian law since law firms were allowed to advertise; the fact that Kinsella didn't know that -- and even doubted me when I gently broke the news to him -- was stunning. I'm guessing the guy doesn't do a lot of law, though he talks a good game to bloggers.

The next item of weirdness came quickly: I gave Kinsella my address for service of his legal documents -- where he should send all future correspondence and any lawsuits. I use a great old Alberta firm called McLennan Ross as my agents, and I gave their contact info to Kinsella. Again, all standard practise. But this, too, seemed to freak Kinsella out -- he modestly demanded that Blazing Catfur be represented by an Ontario lawyer (perhaps a lawyer of his own choosing?) And, war-room-style, he fired off another angry e-mail to McLennan Ross's partners. (My lawyers and I had a good laugh about it, but McLennan Ross -- all class -- wrote back politely.)

And then Kinsella demanded to know the identity of Blazing Catfur. And when I confessed that I didn't know it, he made another legal boo-boo -- claiming that meant he wasn't obligated by the notice provisions of Ontario's libel laws.

I thanked Warren for his time, and recommended that he hire a real libel lawyer to help him out. Kinsella's Lionel Hutz-like ignorance about legal mobility, agents for service and libel notice wouldn't be caught by a non-lawyer blogger, who might believe Kinsella's PR about being a legal jedi. But I admit I was stunned -- maybe I, myself had actually bought the hype that Kinsella was a tough customer. I felt like I was dealing with an articling student of the calibre of Khurrum Awan, or Jason Cherniak. (What is it with all of these Liberal lawyers anyways?)

It's been a week, and I haven't received any libel notice, or even a demand letter, from Kinsella or his lawyers about Blazing Catfur. Maybe it's still coming. Or maybe Kinsella's lawyer is slowly going over with him, uh -- how do you say it? -- the law. Just because someone hurts your feelings, doesn't mean you have a human rights case. And just because someone makes fun of you, doesn't mean you have a defamation case.

I mention all of this because it goes to the heart of the Union of Bloggers. Part of the idea of the mutual aid society is that if a Kinsella were actually to launch a defamation action and fight all the way, there would be a group with the legal, financial and political resources to be there all the way. But the bigger idea is that bloggers no longer live in fear of baseless lawsuits, and engage in self-censorship or -- worse -- issue grovelling apologies for doing nothing wrong other than hurting someone's political feelings. That's what really happens -- bloggers give up without a fight, because they're scared. I'm here to say there's nothing to be scared of.

That's Kinsella: all talk, no action. Lots of bullying when it comes to non-lawyers. Lots of self-congratulatory spin. But the first time a blogger -- the hilariously named Blazing Catfur -- lawyers up, Kinsella falls apart. I've never had a lawyer try harder to bump me from a case before its even began. I'd take that as a compliment, but I get the feeling Kinsella would try to bump any real lawyer off the case -- he's not used to a level playing field.

Of course, I hope Kinsella simply forgets his threat against Blazing Catfur. But if he did decide to double down, it would be a great case for the Union of Bloggers: the facts and the law are on our side, and Kinsella is hyper-sensitive to embarrassment. I have to admit, I'd enjoy beating him, and I'm sure Blazing Catfur would, too.

That's it for now. I'll keep you posted on Kinsella's next move, if there is one other than quietly backing down. That's not his style; but neither is he accustomed to dealing with a blogger who actually fights back.

As to the details of the Union of Bloggers, I hope to have those finalized this month, ranging from the monthly dues payment (I'm guessing $1/month per blogger) to the rules of engagement. In the meantime, I'm taking Blazing Catfur's case pro bono -- but if folks feel like chipping in, they can hit the PayPal button on the Union of Bloggers site.

I don't know about you, but I feel like the blogosphere is freer already.

Wednesday's strong column in the National Post by Laura Rosen Cohen about the Canadian Jewish Congress -- and their pathological obsession with censorship of thought crimes -- elicited this response from the CJC's figurehead presidents. It can only be called embarrassing.

The most odious line in the CJC's reply is this:

Ms. Cohen’s listing of tuition, camp and synagogue fees among the community’s top priorities is as outrageous as it is false and plays into the hands of those who would stereotype our community.

But those are huge issues in the community. Perhaps not for every single Jew; but in terms of Jewish communal life and Jewish continuity, access to Jewish schools is very important -- and, thanks to the Liberal government in Ontario, most Jews in Canada pay twice for schooling: once to the public system they don't use, through their taxes, and then again directly to private Jewish day schools. It's just plain weird for the CJC to call that concern "outrageous". And that it "would stereotype our community"? So Jews can't complain that they pay double for schooling, because the CJC is worried that Jews will look cheap? And these are the community's advocates?

I wonder if Bulka and Abitbol, who signed the CJC's Op-Ed, actually read it. Because two smart men like that probably wouldn't have actually said the following:

Issues such as securing the release of Israel’s kidnapped soldiers are beyond the mandate of CJC, but our community is blessed with other organizations that have worked assiduously on such matters.

And what to make of Cohen’s egregious criticism of CJC’s advocacy on Darfur, on the basis that the territory is bereft of Jews?

So advocating for the release of kidnapped Jews is "beyond the mandate of CJC", but not the CJC's odd focus on Darfur, Sudan?

Cohen's critique hurt the CJC's reputation. But the CJC's own response hurt themselves far more.

UPDATE: Here's Jonathan Kay's evisceration of Warren Kinsella's obsession with fighting against Canada's half-dozen or so neo-Nazis. But every word Kay writes can be applied to the CJC. Moreso; Kinsella only speaks for himself and does so with his own resources. The CJC does the same thing, but claims to do so in the name of all Canadian Jews, and uses community money to do it.

Mark Steyn was interviewed on CTV's Mike Duffy Live today (the video clip hasn't shown up here yet; if I find it, I'll link to it). I hope it portends more appearances by Steyn on Canadian TV.

Needless to say, Steyn made his points vigorously. But the surprise came from Duffy himself: he reminded viewers that the Canadian Human Rights Act does not apply to Canadian Indians. Right now, section 67 of the CHRA explicitly exempts Indian reserves from the application of the law.

This has been a long-time grievance of Aboriginal women, not because they have a hankering to file complaints about "hurt feelings" under the (recently-added) "hate speech" provisions of the Act, but because there has historically existed on many Indian reserves significant, real discrimination -- such as the wholesale disenfranchisement of women who marry non-Indians, cutting them off from government funds and other rights as band members. Unlike for the rest of us who live in a free society, the libertarian solution to discrimination -- simply move on to another restaurant, apartment, job, etc. -- doesn't work when the entire economy, and all property, are owned communally and are apportioned by fiat by chiefs and councils. That's how it works under Canada's Indian Act.

And guess what? Just last week, Liberal MPs tried to delay a Conservative initiative to extend the Canadian Human Rights Act to Indian reserves. Liberal Anita Neville showed the soft bigotry of low expectations, arguing that Indians just aren't culturally ready for the kind of laws that apply to the rest of us.

Ms. Neville said there's "a real ideological divide" over the issue of individual versus collective rights in the repeal legislation. "There doesn't seem to be, on the part of the government, a willingness to respect the tradition of collective rights for First Nations on reserve."

So, in the same week that we have Stephane Dion demanding that his MP, Keith Martin, rescind his private member's motion to remove the "hate messages" provision of the CHRA, Dion's MPs are blocking the entire CHRA from applying to hundreds of thousands of Canadian Aboriginals.

So which is it? Is the Canadian Human Rights Act so sacrosanct that not even a single section can be amended? Or is the Act so unimportant that Canadian Aboriginals can be denied all of its provisions for years to come? Mike Duffy pointed out this contradiction today; I wonder if any other journalists will follow up.

Dr. Martin's motion is timely, even if it won't come to a vote in the foreseeable future. It arrives amid the gross overreaching of human-rights commissions in hearing two high-profile cases involving journalists Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, both of which are best viewed as nuisance complaints. But even those whose views are indisputably, irredeemably offensive - the white supremacists who have praised Dr. Martin's motion, or anti-Semitic former aboriginal leader David Ahenakew - should not be muzzled by well-meaning government agencies.

:::

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has asked Dr. Martin to voluntarily withdraw it. He should do no such thing. Even if his motion is doomed, it is encouraging to see at least one of this country's elected representatives stand up for a key tenet of democracy.

Laura Rosen Cohen asks some of the questions I've been asking for a while: what's wrong with the Canadian Jewish Congress?

...a cursory glance of the CJC website reveals a public relations agenda of dubious or even nonexistent significance to the average Canadian Jew. There are a number of press releases and commentaries on Darfur (which, last time I checked, was Jew-free), a little bit about Jewish art looted by the Nazis and very solemn commentaries noting which local dignitaries attended recent Holocaust memorial ceremonies.

There is also a lot of repetitive bleating about the evils of "hate speech." It seems that if one really wants to get noticed by the organized, "democratically elected" representatives of Canadian Jewry, one needs only to yell "kike" in a crowded room somewhere in Canada.

She hit a lot of great points, but she was restrained enough not to mention the CJC's greatest embarrassment -- that they continue to countenance the conduct of Richard Warman.

The Post also has this editorial, supporting Keith Martin's private member's motion, and properly shaming Stephane Dion for opposing it.

It is nonsense to suggest that reining in human rights legislation, and leaving the policing of hate speech up to the actual police, would be some sort of treason to the legacy of Trudeauvian liberalism. Keith Martin should not be made to feel that he is committing sacrilege by treating permanent Charter values as more important than a particular federal statute. Indeed, he should be celebrated for doing it, and not just by Liberals.

Good stuff from the Post!

I started dabbling on this blog last month, and then it became a daily exercise when my human rights interrogation happened. Today I checked my blog statistics on statcounter.com: in the past month, I've had 152,000 "unique visitors" of whom 49,000 are "returning visitors". According to Haloscan.com, I've had more than 1,500 comments. And then there's the YouTube videos, 471,000 views amongst them.

Thanks to all of your for your interest, your good advice, your moral support -- and for helping out with my legal bills, too. That allowed me to face this fight with the confidence that I would not be financially punished by the process itself, which is one of the more malicious attributes of human rights commissions.

Hardly a day goes by when the Canadian Jewish Congress doesn't put out a press release hectoring the government to enforce some form of state censorship against its political enemy of the day. Here's a list of all of their news releases for 2008 so far: a third have been about thought crimes.

Is this really what the Canadian Jewish Congress is about? I remember attending Jewish day school and being taught that the Jewish way was argument and debate and analysis and persuasion, and that it was our historical enemies who had resorted to violence over reason. The Jewish Talmud is one big debate between scholars Hillel and Shammai. To this day, in Jewish theological seminaries, students study in pairs, including for the specific reasons that they are to engage and challenge each other. There's even a cliche: "two Jews, three opinions". What happened to that tradition?

Is it a lack of confidence in our own skills to debate the Ahenakews and Zundels and Ickes of the world? Or is it a contempt for the intelligence of Gentiles, thinking they'll be fooled into turning against us? Is it just laziness? Or is it the intoxicating power of the tyrant -- the thrill of punishing one's enemies, and not having to debate or refute them?

Whatever the explanation, it's bloody embarrassing when the self-appointed spokesmen of the People of the Book now ban books. 

If I'm reading the Parliamentary index correctly, NDP freshman MP Wayne Marston had only been allowed to ask one couplet of questions in this entire Parliamentary session, until his single question today to Jason Kenney.

According to Parliament's Blues -- the draft Hansard -- this was the zinger he'd been waiting two months to deliver:

Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP): "Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) deserves an opportunity to respond to allegations made recently by Ezra Levant, who is head over heels for the Liberal motion that would gut the Canadian Human Rights Act. Mr. Levant says the Secretary of State supports his view that 'these commissions are violating human rights, not protecting them.'

"Knowing their shared history and personal relationship, I thought it best to clarify the Conservative position on this illogical Liberal motion. Can the Secretary of State clearly state today all Conservative MPs will vote against the motion and that he personally condemns the motion in the strongest possible terms?"

Come on. That's the best Marston, and the entire NDP Question Period staff, can come up with -- a question originally written for the Liberals, but rejected by them as too lame? Surely someone should have told poor Marston that he was just lobbing a softball to Kenney, that he would hit out of the park: 

Hon. Jason Kenney (Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity), CPC): "Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely on the public record defending freedom of speech because this government and this party believe in our constitutionally entrenched and protected rights to freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press and we will always defend those freedoms, those ancient freedoms."

Didn't NDP Research tell Marston that Kenney has been all over this issue, from his press scrum late last year, to his tough rebuke to one of the commission's abusers? Did the NDP staffers really think that Kenney would abandon his principled campaign because of the, uh, sheer power of Marston's charisma?

Listen. I know it's tough asking questions in QP. It's not called Answer Period, for a reason. But the key to a good question is not having some weird, inside-baseball, hard-to-understand allusion that nobody understands. The key is lobbing something so surprising that it catches the minister off guard; or so embarrassing that even if the minister ignores it, reporters genuinely want to follow up. Marston's question failed those tests -- and so it has become news only for Kenney's blazing answer.

If the NDP can recycle QP questions written for but rejected by the Liberals, perhaps they'd consider these questions written by an old Reformer. The Bloc is welcome to them, too. They meet the test of surprising and embarrassing news much more than Marston's clunker:

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Justice Minister. One of his staff, Dean Steacy of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, has admitted under oath that, as part of his job, he joined a neo-Nazi website called the "Stormfront", and posted racist remarks there. Can the Minister please explain why taxpayers' dollars are paying someone in his department to join neo-Nazi groups to spread bigotry?

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us: was this a rogue act by a single hate-monger who infiltrated the human rights commission? Or did others at the commission approve of this race-baiting strategy, too? Did the minister himself know? Or did he turn a blind eye to state-sponsored bigotry in his own department?  

Mr. Speaker, it's not just Dean Steacy who spreads hate in the name of human rights, using taxpayers' money. Richard Warman does it, too. He used to work for the CHRC, but then he left to work with them, filing dozens of complaints at the CHRC about hateful words. But now it turns out that Warman himself writes many of those hateful words, including calling Senator Anne Cools a "n*gger" and a "c*nt", and then complaining about it. Will the Minister immediately intervene to stay all of Richard Warman's complaints, and launch an internal investigation to see whether the evidence he planted was done with the collusion of his old friends at the CHRC?

Mr. Speaker, given the confession of the Minister's employee, Dean Steacy, that the CHRC plants racist evidence that the CHRC then uses to investigate and convict others, and given the proof that the CHRC's most prolific complainant has planted racist, sexist remarks, will the Minister launch an independent review of all so-called "hate message" cases that the CHRC has ever conducted to see if they were all corrupted by planted evidence?

Maybe Jack Layton will allow Marston up in QP again some time this Spring. Until then, he'll have plenty of time to practise in the mirror. 

Earlier today I posted the Globe and Mail's editorial on human rights commissions without much comment. But it deserves significant notice; in a way it is as momentous a political landmark as Keith Martin's private member's motion.

It's one thing for conservative op-ed columnists to criticize the abusive human rights commissions or for the editorial boards of classical liberal or conservative newspapers like the National Post or the Calgary Herald to do the same. Of course those are important. But the editorial column of the Globe and Mail is arguably the least radical piece of opinion real estate in Canadian journalism. The Globe and Mail is the weathervane of the Toronto moderate establishment; when human rights commissions are denounced by them, it's conventional wisdom. The editorial is a landmark; if any Member of Parliament doubted that it was politically safe to -- in the Globe's words -- "rein them in before further damage is done to Canadians' right to free expression", they can point to the Globe's blessing: "a change in their mandates is much needed."

I also notice that the Jewish Tribune, the official newspaper of the B'nai Brith, has reprinted a scathing criticism of human rights commissions (see page 4), written by the Mackenzie Institute's John Thompson.

This is an impressive turn for the B'nai Brith, which has in the past dabbled discreditably in the human rights complaints business. What a smart contrast they make with the Canadian Jewish Congress, which just can't help itself from barrelling down the road of these commissions when the rest of the world is distancing themselves from them. The latest embarrassment from the CJC is their demand that the Ahenakew case be appealled to the Supreme Court. That's not a human rights commission case, but it is a clear case of politically bullying a harmless old coot -- and turning him into a celebrity in the meantime. Talk about doubling down on a losing hand. No wonder the CJC is increasingly finding itself politically marginalized.

...has a large editorial on the subject. Here are some excerpts:

Neither Maclean's nor the Western Standard published materials that incited violence or other injustices against Muslims. They did not violate anyone's human rights. Recognizing this, the commissions should have immediately identified the cases brought to them as nuisance complaints and dismissed them. That they have not done so suggests a change in their mandates is much needed.

Reforms of human-rights commissions, notably in Ontario, are currently aimed only at making the complaints process more efficient and eliminating backlogs. More useful would be to change the language of human-rights legislation to remove such clauses as Alberta's protection against publication of material "likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt" - a protection that, based on Mr.

Levant's case, commissions are far too zealous in providing. (Liberal MP Keith Martin has talked of introducing a private member's bill to make a similar change to the Canadian Human Rights Act.)

:::

It's time to rein them in before further damage is done to Canadians' right to free expression.

Let's do a reality check of the last three weeks in the battle to regain our ancient civil right of free speech from the misnamed human rights commissions. The fight has been going on longer than that, of course, but three weeks ago is when things sped up, when I uploaded the videos of my interrogation at the hands of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. According to YouTube, those videos have been collectively viewed 464,000 times since then. (Fun statistic: that's more than the number of people in North America who watched Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs in its first three weeks; and it was pulled from theatres after 84 days and just 1 million views.)

What are some of the other ways to measure this battle?

1. Between 5,000 and 10,000 blog entries have been written on the subject. I haven't read them all, but my estimate is that 95% of them are opposed to the abusive forays into political censorship. Even most of my personal or political critics concede that these commissions are out of control.

2. A critical mass of mainstream commentators has weighed in, too, in newspaper Op-Eds and even in unsigned editorials, which reflect the "official" view of the newspaper. The left-leaning Toronto Star, Edmonton Journal and Eye Weekly were just as opposed to these commissions as were the more conservative National Post and Calgary Herald. From the Montreal Gazette to the Halifax Chronicle-Herald to the Globe and Mail and even the CBC, these commissions have had the worst PR-pummelling in their existence. I won't link to them all; you can probably find 50 of them here. They have been unanimous in opposing these commissions. I cannot recall another issue, let alone one supposedly as "divisive" as this, that has actually been so unanimous. It makes sense; the entire political spectrum is uniting against an illiberal force that seeks to destroy the concept of a political spectrum.

3. Senior human rights activists, too, have come on side. Alan Borovoy, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and many more junior civil libertarians, have come out against the commissions' excesses. That takes more courage than mere punditry; Borovoy and his colleagues actually created these commissions. To disown their creations now as Frankensteins involves a degree of self-criticism that isn't easy, and they have done so publicly and repeatedly.

4. Jason Kenney, the cabinet minister in charge of domestic human rights issues, has spoken out several times on this subject. I know, from personal contact, that many other government MPs and cabinet ministers -- and even staffers in the PMO -- share Kenney's view that these commissions are violating human rights, not protecting them.

5. Keith Martin, a Liberal MP with a strong human rights record (and a visible minority, to boot) has introduced a private member's motion decrying the section 13 "thought crimes" provision of the Act. It's not a bill that will amend it; the motion is merely symbolic. And it might not even get to a vote on the floor of the House of Commons. But the fact that such a progressive MP feels it important to register such a symbol of protest -- and that he refused to capitulate in the face of the first whiff of journalistic scrutiny -- is a sign that the aforementioned political and media achievements have not gone unnoticed by our legislators.

The first part of my suggested "fight back plan" is succeeding: human rights commissions are becoming "denormalized". They're not acceptable; they can't escape scrutiny merely because their names sound liberal. The word is getting out that they are quite illiberal, and their name is an Orwellian trick.

All of the foregoing is an amazing achievement in just three weeks. And, even if the next part of the fight-back plan -- the real political action -- were to go no further than Martin's motion, I believe that things have already changed:

1. Human rights commissions, like all bureaucratic organizations, are risk-averse, and will be more cautious about pursuing thought crime charges in the future, now that the country has been primed on the matter. In fact, it would not surprise me if the commissions swallowed their pride and acquitted Steyn and me, simply as an act of self-preservation. They've had the tar kicked out of them for three weeks for merely interrogating me. What would happen if they tried to interrogate Steyn, one of the most articulate communicators around? And what if they proceeded to a hearing against either of us -- and to an actual punishment? That's when the Keith Martins of the world would move from motions to bills.

2. Richard Warman has been outed as a serial abuser of human rights commissions, and an abuser of human rights himself. I think he will find it more difficult to ply his litigation of fortune, both because of external scrutiny and a new fear of political accountability within the CHRC.

3. This has been a "teaching moment" about freedom and human rights in Canada. It's reminded people that our freedoms are constantly being eroded, and that it behooves us -- especially those of us in the ideas business -- to be on guard. It was a lesson in the difference between real rights and made-up rights (e.g. the "right to not be offended"). I think it also gave many journalists in the MSM an opportunity to reassert their independence in the wake of their general failure to do so two years ago in the thick of the actual cartoon kerfuffle, when too many editors and producers censored themselves simply to avoid the hassle. That was an enormous setback for freedom; in that case, it was in the face of violent threats. Perhaps the new MSM boldness is because the threat is from bureaucrats, not terrorists.

That's a list of some of the successes to date. On the other side of the ledger we have... a Liberal lobbyist, on the outs with half of his own party, who knows only one tool: personal attacks. I don't mind being on the receiving end myself, but I'm less sure it will be persuasive in the Liberal caucus. I'm guessing that if Kinsella could get his phone calls returned by the OLO, he wouldn't need to resort to writing "public letters" on his blog, and trying to smear his own party's MP's. Kinsella might be able to spin a sympathetic reporter from time to time, but that's hardly an antidote to the denormalization of the commissions that has already occured. And look at his spin: he doesn't defend the commissions; he even acknowledges the cases against Steyn and me are bogus. All he's done is what he always does: a Michael Moore-ish stunt, trying to equate brown-skinned Keith Martin to white supremacists. Is that really the best he's got?

Let's see what the week ahead holds. Let's see if Kinsella's public abuse persuades his Liberal colleagues of anything. I doubt it will.

I'll end this long-winded post now. Tomorrow I'll give you my assessment of what the Tories are thinking.  

I called it "huge news" when Keith Martin, the British Columbia MP, moved a private member's motion to rescind section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act -- that's the thought crime provision that has snared Mark Steyn. Martin's move was big because it meant the issue had leapt from the "undernews" of the blogosphere into the House of Commons, skipping the middle step of the mainstream media altogether. That's interesting in itself.

Moment of truth for Conservatives

Martin's little snowball has started to roll and is growing, generating reaction from those who have heretofore been able to ignore the issue. I believe it will not be long before the Conservative government itself will be asked for its opinion on the subject. That will be a moment of truth for the party's conservative base. Will the PMO decide that this is an issue, like cancelling the court challenges program, that will offend all the right people and impress all the right people?

What's the guts of human rights?

Martin's motion sent Warren Kinsella into apoplexy. Kinsella railed that the motion would "gut" and "dismantle" human rights law in Canada. That's a telling statement: does Kinsella really think that regulating political speech and thought is truly the guts of human rights law? Isn't protecting people from real discrimination based on race, sex, religion, etc., supposed to be the guts of human rights law? The political censorship provisions Martin is targeting were only added recently -- a late addition, since the era of the Internet. To Kinsella, that really is the heart of the law, because it's the part most susceptible to political abuse, Richard Warman-style; war-room style; Liberal-style.

The MSM shows its colours

Joan Bryden, Canadian Press's house Liberal, followed Kinsella's memo to the letter. She wrote that wire service's first story on the subject -- not about my interrogation, or about Maclean's, or the YouTube/undernews phenomenon, etc. Her focus was the reddest red herring Kinsella she could find: that, besides 5,000 blogs, dozens of columnists across the political spectrum and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association support Martin's amendment, a no-name white supremacist does too.

"The cases of Levant and Maclean's writer Mark Steyn have sparked much furious debate," wrote Bryden. Well, not enough of a debate for her to write about, though as a journalist her trade depends on freedom of speech. But when she could smear Martin's initiative by a tenuous association, well, that's a newspeg and a headline.

What will the Liberals do?

Bryden quotes a spokesman from Stephane Dion's office as saying the obvious. "This is not the position of the Liberal Party of Canada or the Liberal caucus or Mr. Dion," said spokeswoman Leslie Swartman. Of course not; it was a private member's motion. 

But then Swartman went further: "We support the Canadian Human Rights Act and will not entertain changes to it such as this." That may or may not be true; I doubt the Liberal caucus or shadow cabinet has considered the matter. But even if it's true, it could also be said of 95% of private members' business. Bryden herself opines that Swartman's comments "suggested Martin will be asked to withdraw it."

That could be the suggestion. Or it could be Kinsella's Bryden's own troublemaking spin. Martin is clearly digging in -- he's seen the blogs and the wall-to-wall editorials on the one side and, uh, Kinsella on the other side, and he's done the political math. What will Stephane Dion's math be? Will he really risk losing yet another member of his caucus over a private member's motion, something designed to allow MPs to vent ideas outside the lines of their party? Kinsella wants a fight, for his own purposes. Does Dion? Does he want another mini civil war in the Liberal Party to fill the news for a week, as it did so devastatingly last November? And what will he do if other Liberals vote for Martin's motion? Kinsella's a "Kick-Ass" bomb-thrower. But does he know how to hold together a party, demoralized by opposition status, still split along leadership faultlines? Uh, no.

What now?

Kinsella's excitement has sped things up. Bryden managed to find someone else to quote before MPs deserted for the weekend: a freshmen NDP MP says he's against the motion. Over the weekend, other MPs and staff will probably chew over the subject, and maybe even do some fact-finding on their own -- and these days, that usually means using Google. It's my guess that by Monday, there will be a lot more MPs with opinions on Martin's motion, and they, too, might see the incredibly disproportionate support for his amendment, across the ideological spectrum. I predict -- though it is a prediction fused with hope -- that next week MPs and even cabinet ministers weigh in on the subject, and that Martin's little private member's motion turns into something much bigger: the first honest, open debate on the Canadian Human Righs Act, well, ever.

Note that, other than Jason Kenney's skirmishing, no Conservatives have commented publicly on this matter. I think that must end next week, if only because the MSM now smells a partisan (or at least intra-Liberal) fight. Thanks to Martin, Kinsella and Bryden, the issue is now firmly associated with a visible minority Liberal MP whose human rights credentials are impeccable. What a perfect political setting for the Conservatives to enter the fray -- calmly, thoughtfully, as followers of Martin and not radical leaders, in a bi-partisan display of their true commitment to human rights: the fundamental human rights of freedom of thought, expression, religion and the press. Next week will be interesting.  

The National Post has an editorial about Alberta's human rights commission, and suggests that reining in the commission's abusive powers ought to be a campaign issue in the imminent provincial election.

I have focused my hopes for political reform of these commissions on the federal level, for two reasons: there is a sympathetic Conservative government in power, and the egregious complaint against Mark Steyn is before the federal HRC. I think that Saskatchewan might be another jurisdiction ripe for change, given their new government, and their HRC's outrageous rulings.

Alberta, I thought, was a hopeless cause -- Ed Stelmach's government is conservative in name only and, unlike Ralph Klein who was comfortable being a politically incorrect, ordinary guy, Stelmach is nervous, hyper-scripted and politically correct. More to the point, the Tory government actively uses the human rights commission; they specifically sent a lawyer from the Attorney General to intervene in a recent case against a Christian pastor, arguing that freedom of speech and freedom of religion take a back seat behind the "right to not be offended". The HRC followed the government's marching orders, and convicted the pastor. Here are some stunning excerpts from the Tory intervention in that hearing:

And, as Barry Cooper, at witness at that hearing, wrote:

Incidentally, the government lawyer at the Boissoin-Lund panel asked me one of the strangest questions I have ever answered in many cross-examinations as a so-called expert witness. "How," he asked, would I "distinguish" Boissoin's letter to the Red Deer Advocate from Hitler's Mein Kampf? I resisted the temptation to give the reply that came immediately to mind and provided a more or less civil answer.

These are staggeringly awful comments from the government of Alberta. Would such a government really take the Post's advice, and rein in the province's HRC?

I doubt it; Stelmach has underwhelmed me since he became Tory leader a year ago for a host of reasons. But it's never too late to realize and correct a mistake, as Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association himself has done. Stelmach probably would shore up his weak right flank by scotching the provincial HRC. Despite support from the left and the right in the province, I just doubt he's got the courage or vision to do it. I hope I'm wrong. 

********

P.S. The National Post has covered this story more than any other media outlet in Canada, with a half-dozen op-eds, two or three unsigned editorials and, as far as I've seen, the only serious news report on the subject in the country. It's a testament not only to the classical liberal values of the newspaper's staff, but also the love for the law of its chairman, David Asper. The first time I ever encountered David was at the funeral of his father, the great Izzy Asper. All three children gave touching eulogies but David's was the most striking. With both then-prime minister Jean Chretien and imminent-prime minister Paul Martin sitting just a few feet in front of him, David described how Izzy had encouraged him to learn the law and to use it to "fight the eternal fight against the tyranny of the state". I couldn't believe my ears; it was one of the most libertarian things I had ever heard, and to hear it spoken at a funeral was only unsurprising in that it really was one of Izzy's credos. Some public figures believe those ideas privately, but I can count on one hand those who would say such a thing to the gathered political elite of the country. The Post has changed since I left it in 2001, but it's still a great newspaper, and the salutary changes that it has wrought to both the political and media landscape of Canada are incalculable.

I write this because I'm impressed that they're still covering this story, and calling for constructive change. And also to acknowledge that their gentle chiding -- that I've been "increasingly strident and aggressive" in my campaign against the HRCs -- is the good faith advice of an ally, not an ad hominem attack by a malicious opponent who has collateral purposes. It's good advice, too: the best way to fight a heavy fight is to retain a sense of humour, and that goes doubly so when battling congenitally humourless government bureaucrats. That's one of the reasons why Mark Steyn has been so successful in his HRC battle in the court of public opinion: there is no more powerful a political critique than one that makes people laugh at the ridiculousness of your opponents. That's Steyn's specialty; I've tried in the main to stay a "happy warrior", too. One of the tragedies of being caught in the Kafkaesque web of "human rights law" is that it can turn a good-humoured man sour; I believe that's what has happened over the years to many of the opponents of these HRCs, Doug Christie being one of them.

But a fight like this can't be won with milk alone; there is a proper use for gall and bile, and checking the illiberal and malicious nature of the HRC's busiest complainants is one such use. Rough men like Mohamed Elmasry, Syed Soharwardy and Richard Warman have succeeded in part because the rest of us have been so careful to be gentle and nice while they've been naughty.