Ezra Levant: May 2008 Archives

Shirlene McGovern hasn't yet read the article she was hired to investigate

By Ezra Levant on May 31, 2008 1:13 PM | Permalink | |

In an earlier post, I pointed out how Shirlene McGovern, my Alberta Human Rights Commission interrogator, thought that the 12 Danish cartoons of Mohammed included three additional hoaxes, circulated by radical imams to whip up riots in the Muslim world. McGovern's written notes indicate that she had no clue that those three additional cartoons -- which depicted Mohammed as a pig, and having sex with a dog -- were fabrications made by Muslim agents provocateurs. The very first result in a Google search for "Danish cartoons" would have shown that was the case. Maybe one of the fifteen government bureaucrats working on my file might have tried that, but would have shown rather too much initiative.

But a keen-eyed correspondent reminded me of something even more startling: the very Western Standard article that the HRC is investigating reports that fact.

You can see a .pdf of the article, exactly as it ran, right here.

Here is a snapshot of the paragraph in which we point out the hoax cartoons:

Bloc MP: CHRC "must be carefully examined", "unpopular" opinions must be protected

By Ezra Levant on May 30, 2008 11:38 PM | Permalink | |

France Bonsant is the Bloc Quebecois MP from Compton-Stanstead. Her office recently replied on her behalf to an inquiry by a constituent about Keith Martin's private member's motion to abolish section 13, the thought crimes provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act. You can read the entire exchange here. Some excerpts (with my favourite parts bolded):

...The Bloc Québécois is also concerned about upholding basic rights, including freedom of speech, which is fundamental in a democracy.

The Bloc Québécois is well aware of the concerns raised following the complaints filed with various human rights commissions. In our opinion, these commissions should not become tools for condemning legitimate opinions even if they are unpopular.

...While we need not wait for a crisis to act, we must choose our course of action carefully. Before powers are removed from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that the full situation must be carefully examined and all the options weighed.

For instance, additional guidelines could be established regarding possible recourse before the Commission, by indicating cases that should be dismissed from the outset, to be sure not to eliminate recourse that could be very important in other cases.

As a result, the Bloc Québécois is not prepared to support motion M-446 at this time. We maintain that the issue should be more thoroughly examined in order to take an informed and appropriate approach.

It's not the full-throated call for reform that some other MPs have written, but I found it encouraging. It is not objectionable that an MP would wish to study a matter further before agreeing to abolish a particular law. While there is no easier excuse for non-action than a call for further study, I sense that this reply is genuine -- the debate about human rights commissions has largely been in the English language blogosphere and mainstream media. I don't regularly read the French language press, but I'm sure my Google alerts would be pinging if they were covering the subject. They haven't been.

In that context, it's like Bonsant and her Bloc colleagues are where the Anglo MPs were back in December -- the HRCs are barely on their political radar screen (I've written about two cases there: the Quebec HRC ordering a town council not to pray; and ordering a gay bar to allow straight women in. In other words, they're just as nutty out there.) I imagine that when a Montreal jihadi follows the example of Mohammed Elmasry and Syed Soharwardy, and hauls a Quebec critic of radical Islam before Quebec's HRC, the Bloc will more than catch up. In a way, Quebec's entire "reasonable accommodation" debate about radical Islam has been that province's parallel to English Canada's reaction to radical Islam in our HRCs. They're fed up.

I'm pleased that Bonsant -- and, if her letter is accurate, the Bloc Quebecois as a whole -- is interested in a review of the CHRC, with the spirit of freedom of speech in mind. That's exactly what Rick Dykstra has proposed to the Justice Committee. I don't expect the Bloc to take a leading role in that inquiry, but it's nice to know that, at worst, they'll come along for the ride.

Why not send a quick note of encouragement to Madame Bonsant, here.

Government to launch inquiry into CHRC "investigative techniques", section 13

By Ezra Levant on May 30, 2008 2:21 PM | Permalink | |

Jason Kenney, the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, was also instrumental in getting this issue onto the government's agenda.

Here's the text of it:

Whereas concerns have been raised regarding the investigative techniques of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (the "Commission") and the interpretation and application of section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act (the "Act"); and

Whereas the Commission operates independently and reports to Parliament;

Be it resolved that the Justice and Human Rights Committee examine and make recommendations with respect to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and in particular:

a) review the mandate and operations of the Commission;
b) review the Commission's application and interpretation of section 13 of the Act;
c) Solicit and consider oral submissions from the Chief Commissioner and oral or written submissions from other interested persons or organizations;
d) Submit a report, including any proposed amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act arising out of the results of the Committee's inquiry.

The government's proposed inquiry comes on top of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's announcement last month that she is investigating the corrupt and abusive conduct of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. And earlier this month, Ottawa police referred a criminal complaint about the CHRC to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who are now conducting a criminal investigation.

I don't think the CHRC is going to be a pleasant place to work for the next year or so -- longer if criminal charges are laid.

These official investigations are on top of the nearly-unanimous public outrage at the CHRC's behaviour, which has drawn criticism from across the ideological spectrum. Groups ranging from PEN Canada, to the Canadian Association of Journalists, to the former executive director of EGALE, to the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, to every newspaper in the country from right to left, have united in opposition to the CHRC.

This is not the end of our campaign, of course. As Winston Churchill said after the breakthrough British victory at El Alamein, "this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Back in January, I outlined a two-phase plan:

1. Denormalize the commissions; and

2. Press legislators to act.

It's time to emphasize point two, but we should still keep up on point one. Point one is the easy part; frankly, Canada's HRCs undo themselves on nearly a daily basis. Think about the wall of negative press that's coming their way on Monday, when the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal starts their show trial of Maclean's magazine. When the Government of Alberta tried to censor the press 70 years ago, the Edmonton Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for their resistance, and the government of the day got a black eye. Let's keep helping the HRCs to give themselves black eyes.

But let's really dig in on this Parliamentary inquiry now -- phase two.

From what I understand, the motion has not yet gone to a vote at the Justice Committee, because of other procedural wrangling that's been tying up the committee. The first step is for the committee to pass the resolution, and that requires a majority of votes.

The second step is to make sure that whoever is conducting the inquiry into the CHRC's misconduct conducts a wide-ranging investigation, looking into all aspects of the CHRC's corruption. Just off the top of my head, that includes everything from the CHRC's habits of posting bigoted comments online; to their illegal use of police search warrants; to their refusal to disclose records to respondents as required by law; to their corrupt investigative practises and their inherent conflicts of interest; to their clear anti-speech animus; not to mention the obvious issues of Internet hacking.

No doubt, Canada's grievance industry -- the race hustlers, the second-rate lawyers, everyone who makes a buck off the system -- will be at any inquiry in spades, arguing desperately, maybe even in tears, for the retention of their meal ticket. They have to be countered; this can't become another convention of complainers-for-hire like the Canadian Race Relations farce I attended. It's got to represent not only the aforementioned pro-free-speech groups, but plenty of "severely normal" people, too. I think witnesses ought to include Canadian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, to ask them what they think of the importance of freedom and the price we should pay to defend it.

The inquiry needs to do a lot of homework first, too -- lest it be bamboozled by the PR spin of the CHRC. Had I not read thousands of pages of transcripts and other documents, I wouldn't have known that Ian Fine was lying when I debated him last weekend in Edmonton. Fine might not even have known he was lying, if he was relying on his own staff to tell him the truth about their conduct. When you're going up against serial tricksters, you've got to be prepared.

But that comes later. For now, let's get this resolution through the Justice Committee. We can put together a briefing book for the MPs later, and even put together a raft of witnesses from whom the inquiry should hear. I think that should include everyone from Alan Borovoy to Marc Lemire. And I think Richard Warman himself should be subpoenaed to answer questions about his own online bigotry in the name of "human rights". I'm not sure his "I can't remember" shtick will go over as easily in Parliament as it did before the kangaroo courts. (Question: what is the penalty if a subpoenaed witness is found in contempt of Parliament?)

So let's get to work.

1. Write to Rick Dykstra giving him your support.

2. Write to Rob Nicholson, too. Though he was not the first to join the fray, he has done so. And, though many would have liked him to have moved faster, remember that governments -- especially a minority federal government, in continual jeopardy of an election -- move more slowly than the blogosphere does. All things considered, they're on track.

And though Nicholson's approach -- a Parliamentary inquiry -- may seem too deliberate for those of us who already know that the CHRC is a corrupt, abusive mess, an inquiry is the proper approach for a serious government that is contemplating wholesale changes to the CHRC. The i's must be dotted, and t's crossed. And, though such an inquiry will take months, I don't see it as a delay -- the opposite: I see it as a chance for the CHRC's worst actors to be subpoenaed, pinned down under oath, and grilled. That doesn't happen too often -- but when it does, amazing things happen, as the March 25th hearing proved. Imagine an inquiry conducted by someone who wasn't just a human rights industry patsy like those that stack the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals.

3. Write to the rest of the Justice Committee's members -- of all parties. The list of them can be found here. Encourage them to support the resolution for the inquiry. Remember, this is a non-partisan issue; plenty of Liberals have signed on to reforms, too. And I have just received an encouraging letter from the Bloc Quebecois that I'll post shortly.

4. And take a final moment to write to Jason Kenney and Keith Martin to thank them too. Kenney helped stick-handle this issue through the Conservative side of the aisle; and Martin helped give the issue important early momentum -- and non-partisan credentials -- through his own private member's motion.

We're winning.

Tory MP: repeal section 13, "weed out corruption", fight "tirelessly" for freedom

By Ezra Levant on May 29, 2008 11:40 PM | Permalink | |

John Cummins is the Conservative MP for the B.C. riding of Delta-Richmond East. On May 18, he received this letter from a constituent. Some excerpts:

I have always voted Conservative federally. Always... But, unless I see concrete evidence before the next election that the Conservative Government is taking concrete steps to rectify the many problems endemic to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, I will not be voting Conservative in the next election. I will be encouraging others to follow my lead.

...It takes a lot to get me out of my chair, and I have never written a letter to my MP or MLA before...

The [CHRC] is corrupt and it is a direct threat to our fundamental freedoms. I cannot think of a more deadly combination...

The Government's submissions in the Lemire case are a disgrace and an embarrassment... Please note that the right not to be offended is NOT enshrined in our Bill of Rights. It is more important than the current price of gas or whether our troops should be in or out of Aghanistan. In fact, when you think about it, it is why our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan...

It's really a great letter. Again, you can read the whole thing here.

Two days later, Cummins replied -- not just to his constituent, but with a forceful and principled letter to the Prime Minister's office, too. You can see a copy of that letter here. Its text (I've bolded some great lines):

Dear Prime Minister:

I am writing on behalf of [name redacted] who wrote (copy enclosed) regarding his concerns with the Canadian Human Rights Commission...

In his letter to me, [name] states, "the CHRC is corrupt and a direct threat to our fundamental freedoms." He states that he wants to see the corruption weeded out, Section 13(1) repealed and to see the CHRC returned to its original, limited mandate. You should know that I am in full support of [name]'s request regarding the CHRC. Canadian soldiers have given their lives fighting for the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. These rights should be passionately and tirelessly protected.

I am asking that you respond to [name]'s concerns as expressed in his letter to me.

Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.

Yours truly,

John Cummins, M.P.

Delta - Richmond East

Those are two great letters, by two Canadians who care very deeply about freedom.

Please take a moment to send Cummins an e-mail of encouragement. Just click here.

And if you haven't yet written to your own MP asking for his or her views on the CHRC, please do so now. You can find your MP's contact information here (by name) and here (by postal code). If you get a reply, please send it to me by e-mail. We're racking up quite a tally of MPs from both the Conservative and Liberal parties. I'm impressed with the bi-partisan nature of this campaign, which is exactly how it ought to be. Freedom of speech is bigger than partisan politics, and I'm glad our Parliamentarians understand that -- in fact, the word Parliament itself comes from the Old French word "to talk".

Human rights interrogator Shirlene McGovern: ignoramus or dhimmi?

By Ezra Levant on May 29, 2008 4:32 PM | Permalink | |

One of the items disclosed to me by the Alberta HRC is the list of questions that Shirlene McGovern, the human rights "officer" assigned to my case, asked Syed Soharwardy. Soharwardy is the bigoted Calgary imam who filed this hand-scrawled complaint against me (and then abandoned that complaint after a wall of public backlash. The identical Edmonton complaint against me continues to slouch forward.)

HRC question 10.JPG She talks about the "most offensive" Danish cartoon -- the one with "mohammed as animal/pig; sex with animal".

But no such cartoons were ever published by a Danish newspaper, nor by our magazine. Here are the original 12 cartoons exactly as published in Denmark: we chose eight of those.

What McGovern is referring to are three cartoons fabricated by Danish imams, designed to be as offensive as possible, in order to whip up ignorant Muslim mobs that might not get sufficiently excited about the actual Danish cartoons.

In other words, McGovern was duped by jihadist propaganda. Soharwardy must have smiled like a cat when he heard her regurgitate those lies as if they were truths.

Now there are two possible explanations for why McGovern asked that false question.

The first possible explanation is that she is ignorant. That's probably the case. One would have to show a degree of intellectual curiosity to see what the real cartoons looked like, rather than accepting jihadist propaganda at face value. That might include such advanced investigative tactics as a quick Google search.

But, really, why should a second-rate bureaucrat at a third-rate government agency be an expert in jihadi tactics? Human rights commissions have expertise in precisely nothing; Alberta's Workers Compensation Board is expert in rehabilitation; Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board is expert in oil and gas development; etc. Human rights commissions are filled with people whose uniting characteristic is their mediocrity. My favourite example at the Alberta HRC is one of their in-house lawyers, Arman Chak. Besides being a Muslim supremacist bigot, he's most famous for placing dead last in the Alberta Law Society elections, where every lawyer in the province gets a vote. That's the kind of talent pool the Alberta HRC recruits from.

Human rights commissions are home to such anti-experts as the Vancouver clown, Judy Parrack of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, who ruled that McDonald's couldn't force its employees to wash their hands, since "there was no evidence about the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing frequency," to quote her exactly.

These are the bureaucrats who propose to tell me what I can or can't write about Danish cartoons -- bureaucrats who don't even know what cartoons were published in Denmark, and lack even a child's curiosity to find out.

Not that any purported "expertise" gives any government agency the right to censor a free press. But the outright buffoonery of the HRC is just insult on top of injury.

I think it's likely that Shirlene McGovern was just lazy and ignorant.

But there's another possibility: that she actually knew her file, that she actually did a moment's research, that she actually tried to give value for dollar to Alberta taxpayers, and that she spent, oh, say, one percent of the amount of time studying the Danish cartoons as I did and our magazine did.

And that she knew about the fake cartoons.

And that she knew they were a radical Islamist hoax.

But that she still went along with the hoax, in her role as the HRC's house dhimmi.

It's the less likely of the two theories, but it's possible. The secular Government of Alberta has put 15 bureaucrats to work prosecuting an Islamic fatwa against me for 800 days. If the Alberta HRC is now part of the soft jihad against radical Islam's critics, why not take another step down that road?

For now, I'll go with the ignornace excuse. But if, at my trial, I see Shirlene McGovern in a burka, I'll know I've got my explanation wrong.

The complainants have responsibilities, too!

By Ezra Levant on May 29, 2008 3:40 PM | Permalink | |

There's a lot of little nuggets in the FOIP disclosure that I got from the Alberta HRC. Like a letter sent to the two complainants against me, Calgary imam Syed Soharwardy and Yasmeen Nizam of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. Did you know that complainants have responsibilities, too? Well, one responsibility:

maintain a current mailing address where you can be contacted.

So let's see. I have to retain my own legal counsel at my own expense, whether I win or lose; I have the stigma of a prosecution for 800 days and counting; I am to be "judged" by a panellist who is not a judge, and likely not even a lawyer, and who has no training in constitutional matters like freedom of speech of freedom of religion; I do not have the benefits that a criminal accused has, such as the "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof against me; I have fifteen government workers beavering away against me.

And the real bigots complaining against me, who have hijacked our secular state to prosecute their medieval fatwa? Why, they must keep a mailing address. Fair's fair!

UPDATE: I discovered another letter telling Yasmeen Nizam, of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities to keep her address up to date. I'm not sure if that responsibilitiy was posing a challenge to Nizam, or if the HRC staff were just really bored. This letter has that instruction WRITTEN IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS so perhaps there was some problem. I'd call that use of capital letters culturally insensitive on the part of the HRC -- it's like shouting at someone. I think that's discriminatory. Perhaps they can open another file and log another couple of hundred of hours on the taxpayers' dime.

But there is another line in this letter that made me chuckle:

you are expected to make every reasonable effort to minimize any losses you may be having as a result of what you are complaining about. Please keep a written record of everything you do to minimize your losses, or in other words, to improve your situation.

I can hardly wait for the hearing. I'd love to see Nizam's little grievance journal about the "losses" she continues to suffer because of some cartoons published two years ago. I can just imagine them now:

February 25th: I was driving down Whyte Avenue today and someone cut me off in traffic, and honked at me. Clearly an Islamophobe. Damn those Danish cartoons!

Fifteen Government of Alberta employees are working on my case

By Ezra Levant on May 29, 2008 1:44 PM | Permalink | |

UPDATE: E-mail link fixed.

I received the first, 200-page tranche of records from my Freedom of Information request to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, internal documents relating to their investigation and prosecution of me for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.

There are a lot of gaps in those documents that my lawyer will try to get them to fill in -- it's obvious they don't want to show me certain things. But even the edited pages they have sent over paint a fascinating picture -- sometimes troubling, sometimes hilarious. I've skimmed through them, and I plan to post some interesting nuggets over the next few days.

One thing that surprised me was just how many government bureaucrats are working on my file. I obviously knew a few -- like Shirlene McGovern, my interrogator and fellow YouTube TV star. But then I started counting: there were fourteen people working on my file, plus a pair of mysterious initials!

In alphabetical order, here are "my guys", as I have affectionately come to call them:

Gerard Dale
Nichole Daugherty
Heidi Draper
Jennifer Drover
Pardeep Gundara
Dave Haynes
Donna MacKinnon
Charlach Mackintosh
Shirlene McGovern
Michael McQuaid
Marie Riddle
Kathleen Samuel
Tara Tkachuk
Wendy Wong
“L.B.”

Friends, until I received this information, I thought the complaint was about me. How selfish I was! Me, me, me -- that was all I could talk about! I couldn't go a day without bitching about my nearly $100,000 legal fees; or complaining about the 800 days I've been under the stigma of this prosecution; or whining about "freedom this" or "due process that".

I see now that this is much bigger than me. It's about putting bread on the table for fifteen hungry families. In the Alberta economy (unemployment rate: 3.3%) if these government bureaucrats couldn't prosecute me for a living, they might actually have to venture out from their 30 hour a week public sector union jobs and do some respectable work. The complaints against me aren't just about the "human rights" of cartoon-a-phobic radical Muslims. It's about the human right of a lot of government employees to continue to suck on the public teat.

What about Shirlene "Muzzle" McGovern's new car? Who will buy Pardeep "Gag Order" Gundara his new cabin at the lake? And doesn't poor Jennifer "Dhimmi" Drover deserve a wild weekend with her girlfriends in Las Vegas?

As they acknowledged in their own annual report, complaints to Alberta’s HRC are down 15% over last year. Any real business that lost 15% of its customers in a single year would either lay off staff or risk going out of business. Neither of those are possibilities here, of course -- so increasingly insane "human rights" complaints are entertained, merely to keep the office looking busy.

I've written a lot about the corrupt Canadian Human Rights Commission. But Alberta's HRC is just as nutty. It answers not to the provincial justice minister, but to the province's "Culture and Community Spirit" ministry. That's funny and sad at the same time.

Why not show your community spirit and send a note to Lindsay Blackett, the freshman MLA elected just two months ago, who is now minister of this portfolio. His biography looks surprisingly normal for a politician -- he coaches sports, and before becoming a politician, he sold electronics. In other words, he doesn't come from the grievance industry. He's also Black, living in a very white neighbourhood of Calgary. Which means he knows Albertans aren't bigoted and in need of a human rights commission to tell them how to behave. Otherwise, how could he have won his riding so handily? And Blackett isn't beholden to any ethno-politics for his victory.

Blackett is only two months on the job, so I doubt he's had a chance to become well-briefed on this file. I think it's time we sent him some correspondence to help bring him up to speed, don't you?

You can e-mail him here.

For 15 Government of Alberta employees, the human rights complaint I'm fighting isn't about me, and it certainly isn't about the law. It's about those 15 unionized grievance hustlers riding an 800-day gravy train, and not wanting the party -- at taxpayers' expense -- to end anytime soon.

Liberal MP: "many MPs" regard CHRC as a "threat to our democracy"

By Ezra Levant on May 28, 2008 12:59 AM | Permalink | |

Paul Szabo is the Liberal MP from Mississauga South. He is also one of the few Liberals who chairs a Parliamentary Committee -- namely, the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee. You can imagine that a man immersed in those topics is naturally sensitive to the corruption at the Canadian Human Rights Commission which touches upon all three elements of the committee's mandate.

It would not surprise me if the CHRC was subpoenaed to appear before this committee, in addition to the current RCMP and Privacy Commissioner investigations.

Szabo recently wrote a short but powerful letter to a constituent about the CHRC:

Keith [Martin] is a good friend and I will be supporting his initiative. Your assessment of the CHRC is also shared by many MPs.

Put him in the "good guys" side of the ledger! But you have to read the letter sent to Szabo to understand what he means by "your assessment" of the CHRC. Here's the constituent's assessment of the CHRC that Szabo says many MPs agree with:

I'm writing to convey my disgust at the conduct of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Everything about the agency, from their hundred percent conviction rating under section 13, to their illegal use of an innocent woman's computer, to the absolutely vicious hate messages their staff post on the internet is an affront do decency and Canadian values.

These servants of the Crown are circumscribing public discourse and I believe they are actually increasing the racial tension they are meant to be fighting.

I urge you to support your courageous colleague Keith Martin when his motion to eliminate section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Code comes to a vote.

The law does not allow for truth as a defence, since it hinges on what might happen in the future. It does not belong in Canada.

This is the only issue I will be voting on in the next election, and I will support the candidate that is most in favour of abolishing/limiting this threat to our democracy. I hope that is you.

That's an excellent summary of the situation. In addition, I think a powerful, to the point letter like that has a better chance than most to get noticed by an MP, and get a real -- not form letter -- answer.

I'd like to ask you, dear reader, to take a moment to send Szabo a letter of encouragement. I don't care if you're not a Liberal; this isn't a partisan issue. It's an issue that affects anyone who believes in free speech -- and Szabo obviously does. Please click here to send him your felicitations.

Richard Warman puts teenaged girl in danger, admits he just “doesn’t care”

By Ezra Levant on May 27, 2008 1:08 AM | Permalink | |

(See updates below.)

This is the fourth installment of my new blog feature called “Bigoted Canadian Human Rights Commission Comment of the Day”. But this one is more than just a bigoted post to a neo-Nazi website written by the CHRC’s star complainant and former employee, Richard Warman. It’s a bigoted post to a neo-Nazi website that put a 19-year-old girl’s life in danger.

Unlike some of Warman’s other targets, Elizabeth didn’t dig in and fight. She wasn’t committed to the neo-Nazi ideology – she had gone along with her boyfriend, and he was just an ex-boyfriend now, so her dalliance with his views was done, too. Elizabeth, unlike some of Warman’s other targets, really didn’t care much about the broader principles of censorship and free speech. She just wanted to go back to a normal life again.

She was just out of high school, and she wanted to get her life back on track.

So she did what the CHRC claims it wants people to do: she recanted. She changed her mind about the slogans she had been mindlessly repeating. In a “mediation” session with the government, she wrote a heart-felt letter, a scan of which you can see here. Here is the text of it; it’s really quite touching:

July 31, 2004

C/O Canadian Human Rights

Att’n Nancy LaLonde

Senior Complaints Analyst

I apologize for offending you or anyone else with the websites that I was associated with. I am no longer affiliated with those beliefs or the movement and haven’t been for awhile. I realize how wrong it was and completely removed myself from it… I was not raised to be that way. I was raised in a Christian family, and was taught to help others in need and love everyone regardless of race, religion or culture. My parents taught us we are all equal. I was led astray by an ex boyfriend and now realize the mistake I made in following him and being associated with him and his beliefs. That isn’t me. I was the girl in grade school who befriended the new girl when nobody wanted to play with her because she was black.

I was wrong in following that crowd and am sincerely sorry for anyone I may have hurt or offended through my actions. I am truly ashamed for having strayed so far from the good things I was taught. I am in the process of regaining my parents trust and this is a step in that direction. I hope you will accept my apology for my past misdoings.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Lampman

That’s a beautiful letter. It was a private letter, a letter sent to the CHRC as part of a compromise, whose rules guarantee that such letters are confidential. But as the RCMP and Privacy Commissioner’s investigations tell us, the CHRC just doesn’t give a damn about the privacy of mere citizens.

Formal section 13 “hate speech” charges against Elizabeth were dropped. But that didn’t satisfy Richard Warman. He had spent all that time undercover as a neo-Nazi, he managed to smoke out Elizabeth’s real identity, he managed to reel her in, like the skilled fisherman of Nazis he was, he had her on ice, heading into the CHRC’s anti-hate cannery. Another victory would be his – and perhaps some well-earned, tax free money for his “pain and suffering”.

And then… Elizabeth was let go! How unfair to him! He had fought with a prize swordfish for countless hours, and then someone threw her back out to sea! Elizabeth got away. Damn that Elizabeth! Damn her contrition! Warman had been robbed of his opportunity to do “maximum disruption” to her life.

But he wasn’t done yet. If Warman couldn’t get his pound of flesh from her using the CHRC, he could always do so using one of his many Nazi disguises. And so he did.

Elizabeth’s letter was sent to the CHRC and Warman – no-one else. And on October 22, 2004, Warman did what he often did: he pretended to be a Nazi called Axetogrind, and he published Elizabeth’s letter on the Vanguard News Network, the neo-Nazi website. Here’s what he wrote on that website:

PM Hale hasn't even finished his fight, but already we've seen many 'leader's' in the Church run for the exit. With friends like these...

www.onepeoplesproject.com/lampman.pdf

We should all keep our fingers crossed for PM Hale on the 15th.

Warman had leaked Elizabeth’s letter to an “anti-hate” website, which dutifully posted it for him to that link, above. (That link no longer works.)

Warman posed as an outraged neo-Nazi betrayed by Elizabeth, linking to the letter he pretended he had "discovered", telling his fellow VNN members that they should be outraged, too.

The very next neo-Nazi who commented on the website followed Warman’s suggestion. He wrote:

Talk about kissing Jew Boots!

Friends, that’s called spreading hatred. Not something that’s “likely” to spread hatred. It actually did spread it. Warman broke a confidence, broke the CHRC’s rules, broke his lawyer’s professional code of ethics, and broke section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

And he managed to get neo-Nazis denouncing Jews again.

(The rest of the post refers to Matthew Hale, a neo-Nazi leader who was sentenced to 40 years in an American jail for trying to arrange an assassination of a judge. Warman shows his support for Hale – “we should all keep our fingers crossed” for Hale’s legal appeal, clearly approving of Hale’s conduct. And while praising someone convicted for plotting a murder, he happens to reveal Elizabeth’s private disavowal of neo-Nazism.)

All of that is scandalous. But none of that is particularly remarkable at the CHRC, which has become a culture so rotten that they proudly hired a police officer thrown off her force for corruption.

If Warman couldn’t get his vengeance through the CHRC, perhaps he could get some of the neo-Nazis over at VNN to do his dirty work for him.

Was that a real risk? Could Elizabeth really get hurt? I don’t know; personally, I think that Warman and others who make their living fighting against “hate” have a vested interest in telling the rest of us that there is a lot of dangerous hate out there, so we’d better give them money and power to fight it. I’m skeptical. But Warman and the CHRC and the Canadian Jewish Congress tell us that these Internet neo-Nazis are a real danger – not just blowhards. If they really believe that, then Warman deliberately and knowingly put Elizabeth in jeopardy of violence.

A 19-year-old girl.

Nice.

Here’s what Warman had to say about it, under oath, before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. See page 992 of the transcript:

MS KULASZKA: …I want to put to Mr. Warman that someone in good faith wrote that letter and the next thing she knows you posted it all over the Internet on a site where she recants beliefs that probably many of these people believe in. Did it ever occur to you that this might lead to some problems for her? You're a person who is very concerned about your security. How about her security?

MR. WARMAN: You've asked a bit of a compound question, so the overall answer is no.

MS KULASZKA: You weren't concerned about her security?

MR. WARMAN: No. Again, you asked a compound question, so if you wish to break it down then I'll respond to it. But if you are just continuing with it as a global five-part question, then is answer is no...

MS KULASZKA: Did it ever occur to you that you could put her security in jeopardy?

MR. WARMAN: Sorry, can you refer me --

THE CHAIRPERSON: Page 12.

MR. WARMAN: No, I don't believe it's the type of letter that would do that.

MS KULASZKA: Then you don't believe the people who frequent this forum would ever do anything to jeopardize her security, correct?

MR. WARMAN: That's not what I said.

MS KULASZKA: The truth is, Mr. Warman, you didn't care, correct?

MR. WARMAN: If that's a real question and not a rhetorical, the answer is no.

There are other stunning parts of the transcript -- how the CHRC's lawyer, Giacomo "Serenity Now" Vigna, tries to shut down questioning about Elizabeth; how Tribunal chairman Athanasios Hadjis is, well, his usual biased, confused, lazy self. And there's Warman's convenient "forgetfulness" about who he leaked the letter to -- he couldn't recall. It really is worth a read.

Warman put a woman's life in jeopardy for kicks. She was no longer a "suspect" or an "accused" or a threat of any sort. The CHRC was done with her. But he wasn't. There was no purpose to his post other than raw, punitive vengeance.

That’s the hero of the Canadian Jewish Congress. That’s the ethical standard of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. That’s the man who continues to work at the Department of National Defence, as their director of “special grievances”.

Fire. Them. All.

UPDATE: As per the sensible advice of several commenters, I have altered the photo of Elizabeth. I also acknowledge, as I did in a previous post, that a letter like Elizabeth's loses its authenticity when it is written under coercion, which by definition includes any "mediation" with the state. That said, the letter did seem credible, and genuine. But that's not the point: the point is, Elizabeth was free to go, as far as the CHRC was concerned. That clearly frustrated Warman, who threw her to the wolves on VNN.

RCMP investigation of CHRC makes front page news in Washington, D.C.

By Ezra Levant on May 26, 2008 12:46 AM | Permalink | |

Ian Fine might be blase about the RCMP's investigation of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (and the Privacy Commissioner's investigation, and Richard Warman's bigoted Internet posts, and just about every other scandal over at Fine's bunker), but the CHRC's troubles are big enough news to make the front page of the Washington Times newspaper today.

Now all we need is a Canadian newspaper to cover the story, too! (Kudos to CTV's Mike Duffy for scooping the whole country on the RCMP investigation last week.)

You can read Washington Times story here, written by Canada's own Pete Vere. I like his lede sentence:

One of Canada's oldest institutions and one of Canada's newest innovations are locking horns.

The Canadian Mounties have been asked to investigate a criminal complaint against the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), popular Canadian blogger Ezra Levant reports.

The complaint comes in response to accusations that investigators with the commission had hijacked the Internet account of an unsuspecting third party in order to post Internet messages to neo-Nazi Web sites.

and this detail was a deft touch:

Ironically, the investigation comes at a time when the Mounties are appealing a Tribunal decision against them.

The Tribunal recently ordered the Mounties to pay $500,000 to Ali Tahmourpour, a police cadet who accused the Mounties of discrimination after being expelled from their training program. The Tribunal also ordered the Mounties to give Mr. Tahmourpour another chance to join.

I have to give a lot of credit to Canada's mainstream media for their excellent coverage of the CHRC's troubles so far. Not just Op-Ed columnists, but the growing roster of shoe-leather reporters who have written news stories on the file, including Joseph Brean and Kevin Libin at the National Post, Colin Perkel from Canadian Press and Charlie Gillis from Maclean's. Perhaps they already have stories in the works about the RCMP investigation.

The RCMP's mere physical presence at the recent execution of an Elections Canada search warrant at Conservative Party headquarters generated a week's worth of front page stories -- even though, in fact, it wasn't an RCMP raid, or a criminal matter, at all. By contrast CHRC actually is under criminal investigation, according to this letter -- and so far, only Duffy has talked about it (and, I think, radio hosts Rob Breakenridge and Tom Young).

I can think of a lot of questions I'd ask, if I were a reporter. Who in the CHRC has been interviewed by the RCMP? How many times? Is the CHRC cooperating? Where were the interviews held? Has the CHRC retained criminal lawyers or other outside counsel? Have any CHRC staff? When did the interviews happen? Are they still ongoing? What documents, if any, did the RCMP take? Did they take any computers or other equipment? Have they interviewed former staff, such as Richard Warman? Have they interviewed CHRC lawyers, such as Giacomo Vigna? Have the RCMP obtained a search warrant? Has it been executed?

Each of those questions could be asked in the context of the Privacy Commission investigation, too.

I wonder which will happen first: a political solution to the problem of the CHRC, or a legal/criminal solution. And I wonder which one the Conservative government would prefer.

Liberal MP: "alarmed" by infringement of Charter; supports Martin's motion

By Ezra Levant on May 25, 2008 11:24 PM | Permalink | |

Andrew Telegdi is the Liberal MP from Kitchener-Waterloo. He is the vice chair of Parliament's Citizenship and Immigration committee.

A partisan Conservative constituent wrote to him saying that the problem of Canada's abusive and corrupt human rights commissions was his single issue in the upcoming election campaign, and that he would vote for whichever candidate -- even the Green Party -- would reform the commissions. Here is a copy of that e-mail exchange. Some excerpts (I've put some of my favourite parts in bold):

...My reason for emailing today is to express my dismay over the revelations of wrongdoing and corruption by Human Rights Commissions both at the provincial and federal levels that Canadians have been witness to these past few months. I am disgusted and angered by what I have seen. This fiasco runs contrary to my values and spits in the face of all freedom loving Canadians.

We've seen dishonest and flagrantly illegal behavior on the part of Human Rights Commissions and their employees. That Richard Warman continues to be allowed to make Section 13 his own personal plaything destroys any notion of our country having a working justice system...

Please be advised this is the ONLY issue I'm voting on come the next election. My vote goes to the candidate/party that is doing the most to shut down these HRC boondoggles, or at the very least, repeal Section 13 of the human rights act. I am also willing to volunteer my time to support the candidate that best represents my values on this issue. I am a lifelong Conservative voter, but I'm willing to cross the floor on this issue...

To which Telegdi replied:

...like you, I am alarmed that these cases could potentially harm our principles of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and due process in law.

That is why I am supportive of my fellow Member of Parliament, Dr. Keith Martin's efforts with his Motion M-446.

...I agree with Dr. Martin that section, 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act is worded weakly and as such has enabled the commissions to move into an entirely different area of investigating, prosecuting and fining people who communicate anything that someone else takes offence to.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms defines us as Canadians and makes Canadians who came from all over the world equal before the law. We have the Charter to protect our human rights and civil liberties and the word and spirit of the Charter is a central guiding principle in drafting laws. That is why I support Dr. Martin's motion to repeal this section as it infringes on those rights that we as Canadians hold so dear.

There's a lot to be said for both letters. The long-time Conservative who wrote his e-mail certainly knew how to get Telegdi's attention. Telegdi has slowly but steadily increased his vote tally over the last several elections, but the offer of a vote -- and a campaign worker -- is a serious offer.

And Telegdi's response was spot on -- referring not only to the threat to free speech, but also to the CHRC's lack of due process.

I imagine that most of my readers are from the Conservative side of the aisle. But, as Keith Martin, the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada and so many others have demonstrated, this is a non-partisan issue. It's about our fundamental rights as Canadians. So with that in mind, I would invite you to send Telegdi a note of encouragement, even if you disagree with him on every other political issue. Click here to send him an e-mail.

We're building a rainbow coalition here, and it's coming along. Another Liberal joining our quorum is something to rejoice about -- there are still plenty of Liberal MPs who remember that their party's name comes from the latin word for freedom.

The human right to wear underwear to work

By Ezra Levant on May 25, 2008 4:46 PM | Permalink | |

I've been accused of being "negative" about human rights commissions.

So I'm tempted to say that I support this new ruling, from the human rights commission in the state of Kerala, in India:

Nearly 200 staff at a Hindu temple in southern India have won the right to wear underwear to work.

The human rights commission in Kerala state has ordered Sabarimala temple to withdraw a dress code that barred staff from wearing underwear.

Let it be known that I'm pro-underwear, especially at work. But, again, I've got to dissent. I just don't think it's the place of a government -- not in Canada, not in India -- to meddle in such petty disagreements. It's not a crime to ban underwear at work. If staff don't like it, they can get a job at a pro-underwear temple.

To me, property rights and contract law mean that you've got the right to be foolish, to be a dissenter, to do what nobody else in the country thinks you ought to be able to do, as long as you're not hurting anyone. I'd rather live in a country with an unabridgeable right to be a harmless nut than in a country with a legally entrenched "human right" to wear underwear to work.

CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day: gays are "sexual deviants" who are a "cancer"

By Ezra Levant on May 25, 2008 8:25 AM | Permalink | |

Richard Warman is the former Canadian Human Rights Commission "anti-hate" investigator who is also its most frequent complainant under its anti-hate provisions. In any other quasi-judicial commission or tribunal, that would be an unacceptable conflict of interest. Warman started filing his complaints with the CHRC while he still worked there. His co-workers would handle his complaints. Not surprisingly, he hasn't lost a case yet -- and he has been awarded tens of thousands of dollars in tax-free cash for his pain and suffering.

Mark Steyn summed it up well yesterday: Warman voluntarily joins neo-Nazi groups, is a prolific bigot on them, and then collects tens of thousands of dollars for his pain and suffering of having to endure neo-Nazi bigotry. And then he repeats the whole money-making process again, and again -- and he always wins.

(Question: what would happen if Warman sued himself? When I saw a case called Warman v. Warman, I thought that he just might have done so!)

As you can see, it's a typically nasty conversational thread; this one is discussing whether a particular neo-Nazi is white enought to be an Aryan. Warman doesn't think he's white enough. Here's what he says (NS stands for National Socialism, also known as Nazism):

Theres a reason it's called "White" Nationalism and why the founders of NS excluded sexual deviants that are a like a Cancer to our movement...

So gays are a deviant cancer?

Is this gutter the level to which our Canadian Human Rights Commission has fallen?

Is this rats nest of bigotry the organization that the Conservative Justice Minister has so ardently defended in his 50-page legal argument?

Warman uses the phrase "our movement" -- he's telling Stormfront members that he's a white supremacist neo-Nazi, too. He's telling them that they can take it from him, real neo-Nazis don't tolerate anyone who's not purely white. And then he brings up homosexuality, apropos of nothing. He just wants to show what a good bigot he is.

He doesn't just denounce homosexuality; he does so in a vile way. They're a "cancer". This is from Warman, who claims to be a member of EGALE, the gay rights lobby. Then again, Warman purports to support the Canadian Jewish Congress -- they certainly have hitched their wagon to him. That hasn't stopped Warman from posting anti-Semitic comments, either.

Just reading these transcripts makes me feel dirty; what kind of person would spend hundreds of hours surfing bigoted websites, and participating in them, writing hundreds of posts in drag as a neo-Nazi? That's not just politically scandalous for the CHRC, and a clear violation of the CHRC's own section 13 anti-hate law, it's also psychologically weird. What kind of person would do such a thing for work and in then for pleasure -- in his own words, for "fun"?

I'm not interested in being Warman's psychologist -- I have neither the training nor the stomach for that. Sigmund Freud could have written an entire book about a member of EGALE going online as a gay-hating neo-Nazi woman (Pogue Mahone claimed to be female). The mind boggles.

What I'm interested in is legal and political accountability. Warman spewed forth this bigoted venom while at the CHRC, and now that he is employed with the Department of National Defence. I wonder what Warman would do if, in his capacity as a DND "director of special grievances", he discovered that a soldier had been calling gays deviants and a cancer.

Would he drum such a bigot out of the army? Or would he whisper "hey, I'm that girl Pogue Mahone from Stormfront -- nice to meet a fellow gay-bashing white nationalist"?

By the way, this particular Warman post is the one that I read out several times at yesterday's debate. I put it to the CHRC's Ian Fine that this was the character of his former employee, still his current biggest customer/complainer. Not surprisingly, Fine sat in silence.

Fire. Them. All.

Debating the CHRC's Ian Fine: "there can't be enough laws against hate"

By Ezra Levant on May 24, 2008 11:33 PM | Permalink | |

I attended the Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Edmonton today, to speak on a panel about human rights commissions. Also on the panel was Keith Martin, the Liberal MP who has written a private member's motion to abolish the section 13 thought crimes provision, and Ian Fine, senior counsel at the CHRC.

The panel was moderated by Saleem Khan, who did an excellent job of keeping things orderly. (I admit that I was the only problem in that regard.)

The debate was taped by the public affairs cable channel, CPAC, but it obviously will be televised at a later date -- not live, as I had thought it might be. I'll let you know when it airs.

Martin went first, and he did a good job of outlining the problems with section 13. He spoke about how the issue came to his attention -- a student in his riding wrote to him and made a persuasive argument for reform. And he wrote about the encouraging support he's received from both Liberal and Conservative colleagues, though he did lament that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has tried to bring a cone of silence over the Tory caucus on the matter.

I went next; I think I tried to jam too much into my opening ten minutes, and I think I was too focussed on micro-details, such as the details of Richard Warman's anonymous, bigoted posts, and the details of the Internet hacking case that has led to the RCMP investigation into the CHRC. It was the wrong approach because, for many of the people in the room, this was the first time they had a briefing on the subject of HRCs and censorship. I should have stuck more with a big picture introduction to the matter -- the forest, rather than trees, or even individual leaves, which are better done on a blog.

Fine went next. In the main, his remarks were a bland, prepared statement. But then he said two things that I just couldn't sit still for: he denied that the CHRC had hacked into a private citizen's Internet account, and he claimed that anyone in the country could file a human rights complaint over hate speech.

Both of those assertions are untrue, and I interrupted his speech to say so.

I brought up the case of Andrew Guille. Guille had filed a complaint with the CHRC against a leftist group that posted bigoted remarks on its website. But because Guille's brother and sister were disliked by CHRC staff, and because the leftist group was favoured by CHRC staff, the complaint was rejected. Here's the internal CHRC document showing this corruption; and here are my comments on it.

That was perhaps too minor a point to bring up at a public event where most people weren't briefed on the basics, but it was impossible for me to sit still when the CHRC's senior lawyer just plain old lied. On reflection, it's possible that Fine didn't lie; perhaps he simply didn't know what his staff were up to. That's possible on the Guille matter, but surely not so on other instances of CHRC misconduct. (I challenged him at least a half-dozen times about Warman's bigoted posts, even reading out one particularly vile one several times. Fine sat in silence -- what could he say?)

But when I challenged Fine's denial that the CHRC hacked into Nelly Hechme's Internet account, he pushed back, denying not only the fact of it, but the fact that Bell Canada had testified to that effect on March 25th.

This was pure insanity, and I said so. I pointed out that Fine might like those facts not to exist -- and the CHRC certainly tried to keep those facts under wraps, attempting to ban media from that hearing, and then refusing to release a transcript of it. But both things did indeed happen over the CHRC's objections.

Fine dug in, saying there wasn't a shard of evidence; I said I had the transcript of Bell's sworn testimony right in front of me, and that while he could lie to the unbriefed audience, he couldn't lie to me. He challenged me to read that portion of the transcript, right then and there.

So I did. The details of the hacked account, as described by the Bell Canada security officer, Alain Monfette, under oath, are on page 5645 and 5646:

...the user then was connected at that time was identified as B1CJSW59, which is related to a phone number [phone number], which the account is under the name of Nelly Hechme, H-e-c-h-m-e, and the address of the account working -- in fact, the address where the phone number is working is [address], Ottawa, Ontario. The postal code is K1R 1C8. And the account was connected from, in fact, from December 7th, 2006 at 18:36:22 Eastern Time to December 8th, 2006 at 21:35:56 Eastern Time.

I read that out. I don't think five people in the room knew what the hell I was talking about. But, dear reader, should I really have stayed silent when Fine denied a critical fact about the CHRC's corruption?

I just don't understand the CHRC's approach of total denial. How can they deny what Bell Canada testified to under oath? How can they deny what is written in black and white on the transcript? It's one thing to deny that those facts meet the high burden of proof to be a criminal offence -- fair enough; that's for police, and then the courts, to decide. But to deny that any evidence exists, at all? If that were the case, then why would the Privacy Commissioner and the RCMP be investigating the CHRC in the first place?

I pressed Fine; at least he didn't deny that they were under investigation. He ended by promising that all of the investigations would amount to nothing. But merely wishing upon a star that one's troubles will go away is not the same as having a legal defence, or even some sort of counterspin. It was a weird performance by the CHRC's senior lawyer. I suppose he's had a stressful few weeks having his staff grilled by police and privacy officers; he just wants those mean men to stop asking him mean questions.

When Fine got back to his script, one of his most execrable arguments was that "the world" had limits on free speech, and the United Nations had limits on free speech, and that Canada should be in synch with the world -- and not the anomaly of the United States. This is similar to what Dean Steacy, the CHRC investigator, has argued: that "freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value."

Steacy made that fascist statement at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the one place outside of North Korea where it is an unremarkable thing to say; Fine tried to sound slightly less totalitarian, suggesting that we take our cues on freedom of speech from the UN's human rights leaders like Russia, China and Iran. I suppose that's a step up from Steacy's approach to not give it "any" value.

At another point in the debate, I tried to show the absurdity of banning any hateful words through a law that doesn't permit legal defences like truth, fair comment or even common sense. I pointed out that Fine himself had given an interview with the National Post in which he read out a bigoted remark, namely: "a n*gger will try to kill you just for a slice of pizza or a piece of chicken ... By Aryan standards, negroes are dangerous animals".

Fine read that to show the kind of hate the CHRC wants to fight. But that explanation, which is reasonable, is not a legal defence. I jokingly said to Fine that, since he uttered a comment that is "likely" to expose someone to "hatred or contempt", I should file a section 13 complaint against him. I said it unseriously -- I was pointing out the ridiculously arbitrary and overreaching nature of the law. But -- and I'll want to check this again on CPAC -- he actually looked ashen when I said it, as if he agreed with me that he had broken the law, and was ashamed of it.

I think in that moment, I glimpsed what made Ian Fine tick: he has drunk the anti-hate industry's Kool Aid without a drop of skepticism. I think he genuinely thought, just for a moment, that I was serious when I said he was a bad man for having said the word n*gger, even in the context of anti-racism. I think he's been immersed in a groupthink environment, with zealots, where diversity of opinion, let alone criticism, is non-existent. I think he genuinely believes that his little anti-hate squad is saving Canada from turning into an Arctic version of Rwanda.

I think that's why he froze up when I pressed him on Richard Warman's online bigotry -- it just didn't compute for him; it doesn't make sense in his unified theory of the world. I think it's why he's in denial about the hacking charges. I think it's why he was silent when I pointed out that, without Warman's serial complaints, section 13 would fall into disuse -- surely a sign that Canada is not beset with the problems for which he offers himself as the solution.

I think it's a bit of a cult over there, and for thirty years no-one has dared to question them -- and the past four months has been terrible.

I'm not the only one to call the CHRC's self-image and world view "bizarre" -- Joseph Brean of the National Post used that exact same word in his story about Fine's first attempt to explain the CHRC's behaviour. In that interview, as in today's debate, Fine simply asserts that his critics are armed with "misinformation". Mere assertions don't pass for arguments, though -- except, of course, in the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which has given Fine a 100% conviction rate. I think Fine's wiring overheats when he is presented with dissonant information.

There was a stunning moment at the end of the debate. It caused groans in the audience, and both Martin and I quickly jotted it down to make sure we got it right: one journalist in the audience asked Fine not just to give the "official" line, but to tell the crowd what he personally thought about section 13 and other censorship. His answer: "there can't be enough laws against hate."

If Ian Fine had his way, section 13 wouldn't be abolished. It wouldn't even be maintained. It would be expanded. He said he wouldn't rest until there was "no hate" left.

Wow -- legislating an end to hate. Why not legislate an end to war, hunger and broken hearts, while you're at it?

That's nutty utopianism. Which is fine for old Marxists in universities. But it doesn't work so well when it's married to the power of the state -- the power to exact large fines, to issue lifetime publication bans and gag orders, and to grind respondents through years of abusive hearings.

I pointed out that there were plenty of Ian Fines in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, and that in fact, as Mark Steyn has reminded us, there were 200 hate speech trials in the pre-Nazi era. They didn't stop hate -- they gave hate a forum. And when Adolf Hitler took over, they gave Hitler a turn-key law to point at his enemies, too.

I'm not sure if I'm being too hard on myself; after every debate, I think of things I should have said but didn't, or did say but shouldn't have. It was an honour to be asked to speak on such a panel, and a surprise to be able to face such a senior officer of the CHRC.

I'm not sure exactly how much the audience learned; I think they heard fragments, not a coherent story. But they're journalists; if anyone can figure it out, they can. But what I learned is that the CHRC simply doesn't know how to handle its new, hostile political environment. A month after Brean's story of their "bizarre" media strategy, they're still using that same playbook: deny any corruption, despite an RCMP investigation; claim that freedom of speech is un-Canadian; and lust for more power, more social engineering, and limitless "laws against hate".

Fine's speech must have received high-fives around the CHRC office when he rehearsed it. What it lacked in intellectual rigour, it more than made up for in unquestioning certainty, and a lust for power. That would have appealled to the CHRC. But I think the journalists in that room left with a sense of unease.

Edmonton and Vancouver

By Ezra Levant on May 23, 2008 11:41 PM | Permalink | |

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'll be attending the Canadian Association of Journalists' conference in Edmonton. You'll remember the CAJ as one of the first groups to come out guns blazing against section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the thought crimes provision.

The panel should be interesting -- I'll be appearing alongside Keith Martin, author of the private member's motion to scrap section 13. And Ian Fine, senior counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Commission itself. I have to give him credit for courage -- or is it gall? -- for agreeing to argue for censorship at a convention of journalists.

I understand the the public affairs cable channel, CPAC, will be televising the debate. I don't know if that will be live; it if is, we'll be on at 2 p.m. MT/4 p.m. ET. You might be able to find details here; I couldn't.

On Tuesday, I'll be speaking at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver. It's almost sold out, but there are still nine seats left as I write. You can sign up right online.

I've been committed to reforming the thought crimes provisions of Canada's HRC for a long time; it became a personal mission for me when the Western Standard and I were hit with such a complaint two years ago, for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. But it's really only been in the last week or so, when I discovered the true depth to which the CHRC had sunk -- when I saw the hundreds of bigoted comments they posted throughout the Internet -- that I realized the depth of their corruption, and the true scope of the problem.

Of course I will fight my own cases to their end. But after reading the bigoted grotesquery of the CHRC, and their calls for "dangerous" "action", I realize that I cannot stop until they are dismantled.

When one of the largest publishers of anti-Semitic, anti-Black and anti-gay propaganda in Canada is in fact an agency of the federal government, it's important that we not stop until the job is done.

CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day: Jewish youth group Hillel tears people down

By Ezra Levant on May 23, 2008 10:30 PM | Permalink | |

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has posted literally hundreds of bigoted comments on white supremacist websites, like Stormfront and Vanguard News Network. CHRC staff became members of these groups under codenames, and then spewed forth bigoted venom for years.

I know that's hard to believe. I would not have believed it four months ago myself.

The CHRC, through its various codenames -- Jadewarr, Axetogrind, Pogue Mahone, Lucy, etc., etc. -- was responsible for more hateful comments on the Internet than almost anyone else in the country. They did it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. And there is no evidence that they've stopped.

It's important that the public -- and Parliamentarians -- know about this corrupt, abusive, counterproductive behaviour, that also just happens to be against section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which the CHRC is supposed to uphold.

Today's CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day is one published by Richard Warman on May 31, 2004, on the neo-Nazi webite Vanguard News Network. Warman was an investigator at the CHRC, and he used the codename Axetogrind. If you still can't believe this, you can read him admitting under oath that he was Axetogrind in this transcript here, on page 434.

Warman's bigoted comments were made in a discussion about a new National Socialist -- i.e. Nazi -- political group, called NSM. WN stands for White Nationalist; I have no idea what the other racist acronyms stand for -- other Nazi splinter groups, I presume. Here's what Warman, the CHRC staffer, added to the conversation:

...if people spent half the time building fellow WNs up rather than tearing them down we'd be dangerous. Unless your goal is to tear people down in which case go join Hillel or something and go to town!

NSM/NA/WR/EURO/ESS/ whatever, lets quit beeyatching at each other. We'll invite you to our first meeting here in Canada and we'll work it out over a beer. Except we drink real beer so you can only have one!

Let's look at that line by line. Warman identifies himself as a White Nationalist, and encourages unity amongst all White Nationalists. He tells them to build each other up. He's giving neo-Nazis a pep talk. But not just for idle purposes; he tells them they can be dangerous if they get their act together. Warman is telling neo-Nazis who spend their time harmlessly prattling on the Internet that their ideal should be not just to bicker, but to be dangerous.

This is your Canadian Human Rights Commission at work.

But look at that next line: if fellow white supremacists' "goal is to tear people down" -- they should join Hillel.

What's Hillel? I was a member of Hillel when I was a student. I'm going to a Hillel fundraiser on Monday. Hillel is the name of the leading Jewish youth group on campuses in Canada and the U.S. It's a social club, a charitable club, a place to make Jewish friends. It's like a junior Rotary Club, but Jewish. To say that Hillel's goal it to tear people down is to say that being young and Jewish is to tear people down.

That's anti-Semitic.

The man who spewed this venom is the man to whom the Canadian Jewish Congress gave a human rights award last year. Did they know about Warman's smear against Jewish youth groups? Did they know that while he was calumniating against Jewish youth, he was encouraging neo-Nazis to get organized, and to become dangerous? That he was telling anti-Semites to stop just typing on their computers, and to unite, and to start organizing themselves into meetings -- and to import U.S. neo-Nazis up to Canada?

Richard Warman vomited this anti-Semitic bile while on the Canadian taxpayers' dime, while he was employed as a CHRC "anti-hate" investigator. To this day, he is the CHRC's chief complainant under their section 13 hate speech section. He's got a few cases on the go with them right now. What the hell is going on over there?

And what the hell is going on over at the Department of Defence, where Warman now works as an investigator? If a Jewish soldier files a grievance, does Warman recuse himself?

The RCMP's investigation into alleged criminal conduct at the CHRC is important, and scandalous, and should be enough to euthanize their anti-hate bureaucracy right there. But the CHRC's stream of hundreds of bigoted remarks -- remarks that violate their own legislation -- is a national disgrace.

Kenney: HRCs unaccountable, lack due process

By Ezra Levant on May 23, 2008 7:47 PM | Permalink | |

Earlier this month, Jason Kenney, the Conservative cabinet minister and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, called the Canadian Human Rights Commission "dangerous" and "illiberal".

Here is a new interview with Kenney, where he reflects on a recent Quebec HRC edict ordering local politicians to stop praying. Key line:

Freedom of religion is a foundational principle in Canada and communities, in my view, have every right to exercise it as they see fit....

Elected local politicians are accountable to their voters, not to some unaccountable commission with quasi-judicial powers that doesn’t even have due process.

Right on. Now he should pass a note to the Justice Minister to that effect, during their next cabinet meeting.

Free Dominion files its defence against Richard Warman's lawsuit

By Ezra Levant on May 23, 2008 12:22 AM | Permalink | |

Connie and Mark Fournier of Free Dominion have now filed their Statement of Defence against Richard Warman's defamation suit. You can see a copy of that defence here.

As readers will recall, Warman, the former Canadian Human Rights Commission "hate speech" investigator, has sued the Fourniers, as well as Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals, Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury, the National Post and its editor Jonathan Kay, and me for our criticims of his tactics, especially his habit of posting bigoted comments online, posing as a neo-Nazi. You can see Warman's lawsuit here, and my analysis of it here. The National Post and Kay have already filed their defence, which I posted and discussed here.

The Free Dominion defence is a fascinating read. It's obviously a document written for the court of law, but it's also a powerful weapon in the court of public opinion. It's quite readable -- not too leaden with legalese -- and it tells a hell of a story. As I predicted when Warman first sued us, we might well be the nominal defendants in this case, but it's Warman who's really going to be on trial.

I don't propose to go through the entire defence here; I really do recommend that you read it. But I will point out a few interesting facts.

Paragraphs 20 to 56 give details of Warman's conduct -- ranging from his habits of posting anti-Semitic material on the Internet, to his conspiracy to assault an opponent (captured on video, here). I knew much of it, but not all -- until I read paragraph 31, for example, I didn't know that Warman had praised Ernst Zundel. That's weird conduct for a Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator. I'll have to make that one of my CHRC Bigoted Comments of the Day.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the defence, though, deals with the notorious Anne Cools post. Here's a snapshot of that post, in its full Canadian Human Rights Commission glory:

Cools post1.JPG Paragraphs 57 to 77 of the Statement of Defence contain a lot of details about this bigoted post that I didn't know, or only knew about vaguely. I didn't know that Richard Warman and the CHRC had filed a section 13 "hate speech" complaint against Marc Lemire for this post, but when Lemire brought a motion naming Warman as the secret author of the post and asking the CHRC to have Warman listed as a co-defendant in the complaint, both Warman and the CHRC quickly amended their complaint to exclude the post.

The post is clearly hateful -- it's racist, misogynistic and anti-immigrant. Why on Earth would Warman and the CHRC suddenly omit this one post from their complaint, unless they had something to hide?

I didn't know that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal accepted affidavit evidence from Bernard Klatt, indicating that the Anne Cools post was written by Warman. I didn't know that Klatt was recognized as an expert by the Tribunal. I didn't know that Warman didn't even cross-examine Klatt, or bring expert evidence of his own to refute Klatt.

Even more fascinating is paragraph 65 of the defence. When Lemire subpoenaed the Internet records from Rogers Cable relating to the Anne Cools post,

Instead of supporting the motion, however, the plaintiff vigorously opposed it. The plaintiff's actions were inconsistent with a person who was innocent of writing the message.

And I didn't know that Warman and the CHRC brought a motion

to quash the subpoena to Rogers Cable and for an order that Lemire be prevented from leading any evidence through a Rogers representative, Bernart Klatt, or any other witness

about the Anne Cools post. That's just bizarre. Wouldn't Warman and the CHRC be curious to know who wrote that? Wasn't Lemire -- at his own expense -- doing the CHRC's work for them, hunting the bigoted person who wrote it? As Hamlet's mother would say, "the lady doth protest too much, methinks".

In the end, the Rogers subpoena came too late -- Rogers had deleted their old archives. Until that point, Warman had been actively engaged in the hearings against Lemire. When it was revealed that Rogers didn't have the files, Warman stood up, and left the hearing, never to return again.

Paragraphs 115 to 118 are interesting -- they claim that message boards, which is really what Free Dominion is all about -- are different than normal media, and thus defamation law should be applied to them differently, especially given the interactive nature of such sites, where rebuttals and corrections are made immediately. At paragraph 122, the defendants make the good point that Warman -- who, given his experience as a Stormfront member -- is a very experienced user of online chat groups, and thus could have simply posted a rebuttal on Free Dominion at any time, but chose not to do so.

The whole thing is a really interesting read, and accessible to non-lawyers. I encourage you to look through it.

Four of the seven defendants in this lawsuit have now filed their defences (the National Post and Kay filed a joint defence). Kate, Kathy and me will file ours shortly, though there may be a preliminary motion first.

I'll have more to say about the legal team assembled to fight against Warman's nuisance suit later -- it's pretty exciting. But for now let me point out paragraph 24 of the defence, where it is noted that in all but two of Warman's human rights complaints, the respondents were unrepresented by counsel. In those cases where respondents had counsel -- including Lemire's case -- it's pretty clear that the counsel were severely outgunned. And, of course, the respondents have to pay for their own lawyers; Warman's cases are all prosecuted using government lawyers at taxpayers' expense.

It's been pretty much the same with Warman's defamation nuisance suits, too -- typically turkey shoots against penniless shmoes who can't afford lawyers.

I don't think Warman has ever faced a defamation defence as well-written and comprehensive as this one. I don't think he's ever gone up against lawyers as experienced in defamation as the Post's lawyers. And when all the other defences are in, I'll talk a bit more about the rest of the legal team.

After years of one-sided bullying, a group of people are saying: "stop!" -- something no-one has ever really told Warman before. I think we're going to win.

We do need your help, though. Except for the Post, the rest of us have to dip into our own pockets to fend off this nuisance suit. If you want to help us fight back, please do. Each of us has PayPal buttons for our legal defences. Here's Connie and Mark's; here's Kate's; here's Kathy's, and mine is below. I know I speak for all of us when I say that if you can help us with our lawyers' bills, we'll keep our end of the bargain and fight like hell!

Thanks.

"This organization is not a registered non-profit organization. Donations to this organization are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes."

UPDATE: My co-defendant, Kathy Shaidle, examines paragraph 42, which I shouldn't have skipped:

42. Under the false identity "Axetogrind," the plaintiff [Richard Warman] posted in 2004 a copy of a confidential letter sent to the CHRC by a young woman, Elizabeth Lampman in settlement of a complaint the plaintiff made against her and in which she expressed her shame and denounced her previous beliefs. The plaintiff posted the letter on the neo-Nazi VNN with the preface "With friends like these..." He did so without any regard for her safety or consequences she might suffer.

Stop to think about that for a moment. If I understand that right, a young woman does the right thing -- she recants her bigoted views and apologizes. (That she does so under the duress of a government prosecution, rather than through a debate, gives it the feeling of a jail-house confession; that's the nature of government censorship.) But it's an incredible story: someone shows contrition and humility, and grasps for enlightenment. She does so in a confidential letter.

Warman takes that letter, and uses it against her, in his online persona of a neo-Nazi.

If Warman and the CHRC really think that neo-Nazi websites are inhabited by people who are dangerous -- people who are violent, not just people who talk tough -- then Warman deliberately placed this woman's safety in jeopardy. Why?

Was it because he was denied the thrill of crushing her, as he had done with so many others, in a full hearing? Was it because he was denied his payday of tax-free money from a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal order? Or was it simply his cruel streak, the streak that manifested itself when he counselled a physical assault on his nemesis, David Icke, the same streak he exhibited when he bragged about hauling his enemies before the CHRC just for "fun"?

That is astounding conduct. It is so deeply malicious, so deeply unethical, so deeply corrupt, it can only be called evil. There is no bona fide collateral purpose to it; there couldn't be; Lampman had already surrendered. It was sheer malice.

This is the man who claims his reputation was undone by us. To which I'd say: what reputation?

Vancouver tickets going fast

By Ezra Levant on May 22, 2008 5:47 PM | Permalink | |

Mark Steyn's Fraser Institute speech this coming Monday night is completely sold out -- impressive at $500/ticket!

I'm giving a lunch-time talk at the institute the next day. According to the event's website, there are still 17 tickets left. I think tickets are $35 each and include lunch. Come by and say hello!

The Canadian Human Rights Commission's Bigoted Comment of the Day

By Ezra Levant on May 21, 2008 9:43 PM | Permalink | |

I've been trying to post some good news every day. Lately that has taken the form of letters from MPs speaking out against the Canadian Human Rights Commission's corrupt and abusive practises.

But it's not enough to know who the good guys are. We need to know who the bad guys are -- and why we must take the public's trust and power away from them. Or, as I like to say, Fire. Them. All.

So starting today, I'm going to post a daily anti-Semitic, anti-gay or anti-Black remark published by CHRC staff as part of their bizarre "anti-hate" campaign. You read that right: the CHRC, in its official, tax-funded work against "hate", actually spreads hate.

I don't want my site to turn into some white supremacist blog, like Stormfront -- the site to which several CHRC staff signed up as members. But I think it's important to shine a light on just what they're doing over there at the CHRC.

I decided to have this "CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day" feature after thinking some more about my recent interview with Mike Duffy.

The news peg for that TV appearance was the RCMP's investigation of the CHRC for allegedly committing the crime of hacking into a private citizen's Internet account. (That's contrary to the Criminal Code's section 184, "interception of communications"; section 326, "theft of telecommunication service"; section 342, "unauthorized use of computer"; and section 430, "mischief in relation to data".)

But watching the CTV clip again, it became clear to me that the non-criminal conduct -- the CHRC making bigoted Internet posts -- was equally flabbergasting, not only to Duffy, but to the partisan panellists that were asked about it in the TV segment after mine. None of the panellists wanted to talk about the RCMP investigation -- that's fine -- but they all seemed genuinely shocked at hearing about the CHRC's bigotry; Liberal Don Boudria called them "alleged improprieties", but improprieties nonetheless.

But those improprieties are not just "alleged". They are admitted to, under oath, by the CHRC.

Richard Warman, the former CHRC "anti-hate" investigator, admitted under oath to using several codenames for his bigoted posts, including codenames "Pogue Mahone", "Axetogrind" and "Lucy". And Dean Steacy, who still works at the CHRC, said that he, Warman, and others used "Jadewarr".

Here's a written confession by Steacy to using "Jadewarr". And here's a transcript of Warman, under oath, admitting (after first "forgetting") that he used codename "Lucy". And here's Warman's admission that he used the codename "Pogue Mahone". Et cetera. Warman even says that he's been to Stormfront and other anti-Semitic websites so often, he even "forgets" some of the many codenames he uses. There could be a dozen.

So, without further ado, here's today's CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day. Again it's not "alleged". It's admitted to. And it's not even what the RCMP is investigating.

Let's start this new series off with a post on Stormfront from May, 2004. Stormfront calls itself a "white nationalist" website. Right at the top, you can see an ad for a radio show by former KKK leader David Duke. This particular conversational thread was called "Moving back to Europe".

One member named "Kitten" wrote "ZOG agenda is world wide. There is no escape for White race." ZOG, for the uninitiated, is neo-Nazi shorthand for Zionist Occupational Government, and it's what racist conspiracy theorists think about the world's governments -- that they're illegitimate occupiers, answering to Jews.

Another member, named "exterminance", waxed lyrical about the beauty and meaning of the swastika -- the "symbol of the Aryan race".

Then Stormfront member Pogue Mahone joined in. You'll recall, that's CHRC staffer Richard Warman. (For Boudria: here's Warman admitting it.)

Warman's comment first repeated a bigoted rant by a racist named Louis:

Most of the immigrant problem in Canada is basically centered in our large cities. The rural communities are still predominantly White.

I think Canadians planning to move to Europe, to escape the "mud-flood", should probably visit there first. From what I have heard, conditions there are ten times worse than here.

The NWO agenda has affected every White nation.

By the way, NWO means New World Order. Warman replied:

I think Louis has hit the nail on the head. but why couldn't we get Whiteville off the ground? I think it was a good idea and held somepromise for those of us who want to be among our own kind - but isnt Alberta too cold in the winter???

Did you get that? The conversation is about visible minorities. A Stormfront member calls them a "mud flood", and laments the disappearance of "White nation".

Warman agrees, and goes further -- calling for a whites-only city, which he names Whiteville. He suggests transforming Louis's comments from passive racist complaining into action. He thinks it would be a good idea for "those of us" who don't like minorities. And that leads to a whole stream of comments discussing the merits of creating an Apartheid city in Canada. The site was racist before Warman's post. But he helped shape their discussion, he focussed it, he encouraged it, he added to it, and he suggested action, not mere words.

In other words, he spread hate.

You can read the whole thing right here.

That's just one post. As you can see right under the name Pogue Mahone, by May of 2004 Warman had already made 93 comments on the Stormfront website -- using this alias alone. I'll be posting the CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day for quite a while.

EPILOGUE: Do you think I should call it the CHRC Bigoted Comment of the Day? Or should I call it the CHRC/Canadian Jewish Congress Bigoted Comment of the Day? Because last year, the CJC gave Richard Warman their Saul Hayes Human Rights Award. You can see a photo right here. The caption notes the award was bestowed in Ottawa. Alas, the utopia of Whiteville has yet to be built.

Gov't MP: "fundamental review by Parliament is needed"

By Ezra Levant on May 21, 2008 7:27 PM | Permalink | |

Nina Grewal is the Conservative MP from Fleetwood-Port Kells, in British Columbia. She sits on Parliament's Status of Women committee and Citizenship and Immigration Committee.

As I noted in February, she sent a letter to a constituent calling for a fundamental review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I now have a .pdf of a similar letter sent at around the same time, and I attach it here. My favourite lines are:

Like you, I am troubled by the decisions of the commissions in these cases and worry over the possible consequences for freedom of speech in Canada...

...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.

I feel it may be appropriate at this time for the Minister of Justice to undertake a broad review of the Canadian Human Rights Act including those sections of the Act dealing with the Human Rights Commission. A fundamental review by Parliament is needed...

Grewal was about three months ahead of the curve on this issue. It would be interesting to see if her views have in fact become even stronger, given the revelations of the past few months, culminating in the RCMP's investigation of the CHRC. (Imagine the headache the government would have saved itself had it actually convened the Parliamentary review Grewal called for back in February.)

If you have a moment, why not send her a quick note of encouragement.

Gov't MP: HRCs "overstepped their original mandates", "must be curtailed"

By Ezra Levant on May 21, 2008 7:00 PM | Permalink | |

James Rajotte is the Conservative MP from Edmonton Southwest. He is also the chair of Parliament's Industry Committee.

Rajotte has criticized the Canadian Human Rights Commission before, but in recent correspondence he has provided more details to his criticisms. I suspect that, like many MPs, the issue has grown larger on his political radar screen.

Here is a letter he sent to a constituent yesterday (I have deleted the name for privacy reasons). Let me excerpt at length, with some of my favourite parts in bold:

...human rights commissions operating at various levels of society are in need of major reform. In particular, the authority of these bodies to challenge the right of freedom of expression on grounds of offensiveness, without evidence, must be curtailed. Recent complaints lodged against Mark Steyn of MacLean’s Magazine and Ezra Levant of the Western Standard Magazine are indicative of the baseless nature of many complaints lodged under the authority and legislative mandates of these commissions.

Freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental freedoms in Canada, and it should not be eroded be special interests or legalistic wrangling. A motion recently put forth in the House of Commons by MP Keith Martin, M-446, will be an important first step in making the needed changes to human rights law in Canada...

This section allows complaints to be filed before unelected officials without any evidence, and it forces defendants to mount a legal defence on the basis of the perception of discrimination. Similar provisions exist within Canada’s Criminal Code for the protection of human rights, yet the Criminal Code stipulates that the burden of evidence must fall on the plaintiff and due process must be accorded.

In my opinion, these human rights commissions have overstepped their original mandates in recent cases, and as such I will support motion M-446 when it comes up for debate in the House of Commons. The human rights protections legislated in the Criminal Code are effective and fair, while Section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act allows the erosion of Canadians’ freedom of expression. This very freedom is an integral part of Canada’s national identity and motion M-446 will ensure that it is protected from unfounded attacks in the future.

There's a lot of really good stuff in there, that you just don't hear too often: freedom is an integral part of our national identity; special interests and lawyers have abused the system. I like Rajotte's description of Keith Martin's bill as merely a "first step" -- that implies that more reforms are needed. I agree!

Rajotte has a reputation as a thoughtful MP, not one prone to rash comments or actions. He has also been close to Stephen Harper since before Harper was the leader. For an MP with Rajotte's gravitas to dig in so deeply on this file is a sign of where the center of the Tory caucus likely lies. The details of his letter, too -- his point that we already have criminal code provisions; his point that in HRCs, respondents have unfair processes and high costs -- shows that he has paid a lot of attention to this file, especially for a man whose official portfolio is completely unrelated.

Please take a moment to give Rajotte your encouragement, by clicking here. And, if you haven't done so already, find your MP here (or here, by postal code) and send him or her a note, too.

National Post and the Charles Adler Show

By Ezra Levant on May 21, 2008 10:38 AM | Permalink | |

I wrote an Op-Ed for yesterday's National Post about the outbreak of a severe strain of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease in China, and how China refuses to permit Taiwan to join the World Health Organization, even as an observer. Here's the whole item, and here are some excerpts:

The Beijing Olympic games begin on August 8, which means there's still enough time for all 10 Biblical plagues to be wreaked on China.

So far, we've seen riots in Tibet, an earthquake in Sichuan and now the risk of massive floods after dams cracked during the earthquake. And then there's news that China's ageing nuclear weapons facilities were damaged, too.

But perhaps the biggest potential threat is a severe form of "hand-foot-mouth disease" (HFMD) spread by a virus known as E-71. In the past month, 43 children across China have died and close to 30,000 have fallen ill. Like other recent epidemics in China, such as bird flu and SARS, Communist officials denied for weeks that HFMD was out of control and the Chinese media, which are controlled by the government, are probably still downplaying the true scope of the problem. It's unsettling but not surprising to read in Xinhua, the state news agency, about the government's plan to stop the epidemic with "a recipe involving a number of Chinese herbs."

But there is an Asian country with great expertise at fighting HFMD. In 1998, Taiwan had an outbreak that claimed 78 people, and smaller outbeaks in 2000 and 2001. And unlike China, Taiwan has a first-world economy with a Western standard of health care.

Too bad China won't let Taiwan help...

The Vatican is an observer at the WHO. So is the PLO. Even Puerto Rico, a U. S. territory, is an associate member. But not Taiwan...

Again, take this week's WHO meeting in Geneva. China's veto of Taiwanese medical observers was expected. But China went further, banning not just Taiwanese doctors, but denying press credentials to reporters from Taiwan. China is now effectively exporting its policies of media censorship.

The payoff for giving the Olympics to a sweltering, overcrowded, smoggy city was supposed to be that China would try to put its best foot forward, and liberalize itself like most other leading powers. No such thing has happened; China has in fact dragged our standards down, at least at the WHO. And in the meantime, tens of thousands of Chinese children are paying the price.

Charles Adler also had me on his national radio show to talk about it. You can listen to that discussion here -- just click on May 20th, at 2 p.m. MT. I came on at about 7 minutes into the hour.

CTV's Mike Duffy Live

By Ezra Levant on May 21, 2008 1:25 AM | Permalink | |

I was invited on CTV's Mike Duffy Live today to talk about the RCMP's investigation of the Canadian Human Rights Commission's conduct. You can see the clip here.

Watching that clip, I'm reminded of how insane the facts are here, and how just a few months ago I would have written off anyone describing such malfeasance as some sort of conspiracy theorist or other nutbar.

I think, in fact, that is going to be the CHRC's spin here: not to try to explain themselves (how do you explain hacking into a private citizen's Internet account? How do you explain strutting around the Internet, pretending to be a Nazi, spewing anti-Semitic, anti-Black and anti-gay venom?) but to just deny everything, and hope the charges against them sound too surreal to be believed.

That's the first possible theory to explain the CHRC spin doctor's comments in the clip before me: the CHRC is just going to brazen it out. It wouldn't be the first time they've lied to the public -- or under oath, for that matter.

The only other explanation I can think of that squares the CHRC's flat denial with the incontrovertible facts here is that the CHRC is going to argue that they, as an organization, didn't do anything wrong, and didn't approve of anyone doing anything wrong -- and that any bad behaviour was the act of a rogue individual.

If that's their strategy, I just don't think it will work -- as we learned from the March 25th hearing, CHRC management knew all about Jadewarr and other abusive practises. They never did anything to stop it -- and it's a touch late, now that the RCMP are calling.

RCMP launches investigation into CHRC tactics

By Ezra Levant on May 20, 2008 12:32 AM | Permalink | |

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have begun an investigation into alleged criminal conduct by members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The conduct in question was revealed at an extraordinary hearing on March 25th, a hearing the CHRC desperately tried to keep closed to the press.

An officer of Bell Canada, appearing under a subpoena, testified that the CHRC had hacked into a private citizen's Internet account, to cover their electronic tracks as they surfed anti-Semitic websites under the alias "Jadewarr". You can read the transcript of the hearing here -- a transcript the CHRC did not release to the public.

The victim of the CHRC's illegal hacking, Nelly Hechme, told reporters that she was "completely shocked" by the CHRC's conduct. Canada's Privacy Commissioner, who has jurisdiction over the CHRC, is now investigating the matter.

But not even the CHRC's most passionate critics could have imagined that the Mounties would be investigating the CHRC.

According to this letter written two weeks ago by the Ottawa Police Service, a criminal complaint filed against the CHRC by Marc Lemire has now been referred to the RCMP's Integrated Technological Crime Unit. Here is the key excerpt from that letter:

After a full consideration of all aspects of the matter, it is our opinion that this matter falls within the jurisdiction of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We have discussed this matter with the RCMP and the matter has been assigned to Cpl Stephane Turgeon.

I expect that the RCMP will be in touch with you...

So what happens now?

Can the Conservative government really keep using its old talking points, including these two, to avoid dealing with the issue?

· The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal are independent agencies that administer the Canadian Human Rights Act, according to procedures specified by the law, without interference from the government.

· The Department of Justice continues to monitor the Commission and Tribunal to ensure that our human rights system remains effective.

Just how bad does it have to get before the government stops saying that the CHRC follows "procedures specified by the law"? We've got the Privacy Commissioner and the RCMP investigating now. What does it take to get the government's attention -- a NATO airstrike?

And how about the claim that the government is "monitoring" the CHRC to ensure that it "remains effective". Effective at what? Hacking Internet accounts? Shredding their records and deleting their hard drives? Staying out of jail? What exactly about the CHRC's conduct could be called "effective"?

Question: when the RCMP investigates CHRC staff, will the CHRC pay for their criminal lawyers? If so, is that an indication that those CHRC staff hacked the website in the course of their duties?

Until two weeks ago, the Conservative government had plausible deniability about the CHRC's corruption. But not any longer. The Justice Department's 50-page defence of the CHRC's prosecutions under section 13 moved the government from "neutral" into the "pro-CHRC" camp. That was bad policy. And now an RCMP investigation means the government has to do much more than just defend a bad law -- it means it has to defend a scandal. That's bad politics.

The Conservatives have had an excuse for not cleaning up the CHRC's stables: for six months, they've been preparing for an imminent election. Now that Stephane Dion has all but acknowledged that won't happen at least until the fall, it's time for the Conservatives to act, and to act swiftly.

I've got a three-word action plan when it comes to the CHRC: Fire. Them. All.

Good news from the prairies

By Ezra Levant on May 19, 2008 2:29 PM | Permalink | |

Saskatchewan has announced that it will follow Alberta's lead, and begin electing its senators. That's heartening to Westeners who have felt that the construction of Confederation -- effectively a unicameral system dominated by Ontario and Quebec -- was to our disadvantage.

It wouldn't shock me if B.C. made the same decision soon. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell has been a Blue Liberal, and has shown an interest in democratic reform on the provincial level. Add to that the fact that half of B.C.'s six senate seats are now vacant -- and Stephen Harper has frozen appointments of non-elected senators -- and you've got a lot of positive reasons for B.C. to make it a Western trifecta.

Electing 18 Western senators out of 105 won't make a big difference, at first. But it will create an interesting dynamic in the Senate, where 18 politically legitimate legislators push up against a mass of patronage appointees. It will even look interesting, for the average age of elected senators will likely be 20 years younger than the appointees who currently occupy the upper chamber.

I believe that senate elections are only the first step to meaningful senate reform; the number of senators for each province will have to be adjusted, either in our constitution, or otherwise -- such as by leaving some provinces' excess seats permanently unfilled. But either way, the logjam must first be broken. Brad Wall's bold Sask Party is helping to do that.

Not everything in the world comes back to human rights commissions, but there is a connection here. Some months ago I mused about where legislative change might come, amongst Canada's 14 HRCs. Besides the federal Conservatives, I listed Wall's Sask Party. Not only are they conservatives with little patience for the politically correct madness of the HRCs, but Saskatchewan's HRC has been particularly abusive of its powers, especially in regards to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Perhaps that combination -- a bold new government with lots of political capital to spend, plus a particularly abnormal HRC -- means they'll beat the federal Conservatives to the punch, and be the first jurisdiction to rein these beasts in.

The fact that Saskatchewan's new Justice Minister, Don Morgan, was an enthusiastic subscriber to the Western Standard might just help, too!

HRCs are chipping away at our international reputation

By Ezra Levant on May 19, 2008 2:02 AM | Permalink | |

Here is an Op-Ed in the Jerusalem Post. It's about Barack Obama. But the writer makes a small point in passing:

Free speech is better protected in the US today than in Europe or Canada, where various human rights councils have stifled free political speech in the name of "cultural sensitivity."

It's just a quick comment, almost a throw-away line. And that's the point. To foreign observers, it's no longer controversial or shocking to note how our human rights commissions (the writer calls them councils) have eroded our freedoms. It's something to note in passing. It's conventional wisdom now. It's part of Canada's identity of being less-than-free. It's the new, embarrassing normal.

We've got to change that.

h/t

My cousin Vinny

By Ezra Levant on May 18, 2008 5:08 PM | Permalink | |

I'd compare Giacomo Vigna to Joe Pesci's character in My Cousin Vinny, but that's not fair. Because in the end, Vinny won his trial, he won the respect of the opposing lawyers and he impressed the tough-as-nails judge himself.

Tory MP: HRC cases "scurrilous"; supports Keith Martin's bill

By Ezra Levant on May 18, 2008 3:53 PM | Permalink | |

Bruce Stanton (pictured here) is the freshman Conservative MP from the Ontario riding of Simcoe North. His constituent, David Tracey, wrote a series of letters to him, starting back in January. David didn't get a substantive reply, but he kept at it, again and again, until he finally announced he was withdrawing his support for Stanton.

That got Stanton's attention!

Here is a copy of their e-mail exchange. My favourite part, needless to say, is where Stanton calls the human rights charges against Mark Steyn and I "scurrilous cases". I agree! He ends his letter to David with an encouraging word: "I support Keith Martin's Bill".

But Stanton makes a factual error: he says that the cases against Steyn and me have been brought in provincial jurisdictions, and thus Stanton (and the federal Conservative government) cannot do anything about it.

But, in fact, the complaint against Mark Steyn was filed in no fewer than three jurisdictions (thus inventing a new abuse of process that I will dub "triple jeopardy"). One of those jurisdictions is indeed the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a creature of and subject to the federal Parliament. You can see a copy of that federal complaint here.

Look, it's easy to lose track of all the human rights shenanigans -- there's so much baloney out there, even Richard Warman, Canada's complainer-in-chief, can't seem to remember all the details of his own cases. I'm not upset that Stanton has mixed up his BCHRT with his OHRC and his CHRC. But now that he knows Steyn's "scurrilous case" has in fact been seized by the CHRC, I look forward to him doing something about it!

Of course, the real solution is not for Stanton to meddle in any particular case, whether or not it's scurrilous. The real solution is for the abusive, corrupt law itself to be dealt with -- and Stanton should do that whether or not Steyn's case proceeds. Right now, the Conservative government is not neutral on the matter: Rob Nicholson's 50-page defence of the section 13 thought crime provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act has made this a very live and very current issue for the government, and that brief doesn't mention Steyn.

That's the point here, folks. We're not just upset about political censorship because Steyn and me and other conservatives have been charged under those laws. We're upset about those laws no matter who is charged under them, because we don't believe that political censorship, by the government, is appropriate in a country whose anthem contains the words "the True North, strong and free."

I'm putting Stanton down on our side of the ledger. Anyone who supports Keith Martin's bill, and calls the cases against Steyn and me "scurrilous" is on our team. But I sent a note back to David, encouraging him to point out to Stanton that he needs to do more than just point fingers at abusive provincial HRCs -- the federal Conservative government runs the most abusive HRC of all.

Please take 30 seconds to write a note to Stanton, here. Tell him he's on the right track, but he needs to bone up on the CHRC's own scurrilous conduct, too.

Conservative Party fundraiser: "I agree with you"

By Ezra Levant on May 18, 2008 2:07 AM | Permalink | |

I received an e-mail from a conservative activist whose name would be known to many readers of this blog. The activist asked me to share this story, but not to disclose other identifying details. I thought it was interesting:

I got a phone call from a Conservative fundraiser today, asking me if I still supported the party. I said yes. The fundraiser said there may be an election as early as June 16 and asked would I consider giving again to help them win a majority government?

I said that I would be giving all the money that I would normally give to the Conservatives to the bloggers and others that are being crushed by human rights commissions. I said I was disappointed with the Tory government's not standing up against the way human rights commissions are crushing our fundamental freedoms. I mentioned the Justice Department brief that showed government support for the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

I said I would not be giving any more money to the party until it took a stand. I said I knew Stephen Harper and his party had their hearts in the right place but they had to act.

Well, to my shock, the fundraiser said, "I agree with you."

The fundraiser also said, "You are not the only one."

Other Conservative donors are telling the Tories they won't give them any money until they act on this.

According to the latest filings with Elections Canada, the Conservatives raised over $5 million in the first three months of 2008, compared to less than $900,000 for the Liberals. (Interestingly, the NDP were second, with $1.1 million.) A boycott of donations, such as the one mentioned above, and in the cases of Ward Benedict and Sean McCormick, below, is not going to bring the party to its knees. But it will certainly get the party's attention, which is the point.

The Conservatives -- indeed, all parties -- don't just use their fundraising calls and letters to raise money. They also use them as an opportunity to communicate with members and supporters, to take the pulse of their base. The kind of anger that would cause life-long supporters and donors to threaten to cut off the Tories is something that certainly will be fed back to the Parliamentary caucus. The subject has obviously come up often enough that the particular fundraiser in this case had encountered it before.

I think this is a sign that the Conservatives have finally been seized with this issue. They didn't really want to be; until now, they were happy to let Keith Martin, a Liberal, be the leader, and for the conservative blogosphere to thump the tub, and for pundits to weigh in. But when the Conservative government issued its 50-page defence of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and its prosecution of section 13 thought crimes, it was no longer a neutral observer -- it became part of the problem.

Keep at it -- I think we're coming close to the tipping point. And with a spring election all but called off, the government has some time to fix the problem, and to redeem itself.

P.S. Another long-time party activist sent me copies of his simple but powerful letters to the chair of the

By the way, in case it's unclear, I think the Conservative government is going to do the right thing here. I think they just need to know how important this issue is. That was always part of the plan, remember: denormalize the HRCs to build public pressure, to make it possible for political action -- in that order. It's been a nutty six months for the government -- they truly thought they were going to the polls on three occasions. Bringing up a new, uncharted issue like reforming or abolishing HRCs just didn't fit with the election script. I think that Stephane Dion's serial surrenders, combined with the growth of the issue, spiked by the Nicholson memo, means things are about to reach a critical mass.

Parliamentary Secretary: we "are in agreement with you" about CHRC

By Ezra Levant on May 18, 2008 1:13 AM | Permalink | |

Russ Hiebert is the Conservative Member of Parliament from the gorgeous riding of South Surrey -- White Rock -- Cloverdale. He's also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Western Economic Diversification.

On May 12, Ward Benedict, one of Hiebert's constituents, wrote this e-mail to him, the Justice Minister and the Prime Minister:

Dear Sirs:

http://ezralevant.com/2008/05/justice-minister-rob-nicholson.html

After reading Mr. Ezra Levants disection of MP Nicholsons Ministries just released legal brief, I am writing to let you know that until the Conservatives step in and get actively involved in eliminating Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights act, I will not be contributing another dollar to the CPC.

I understand that it is a sensitive issue that could easily be spun by the media to reflect poorly on the CPC, but if maintaining the status quo to avoid getting bloodied up a bit is your solution, then we might as well have a Liberal government in power.

When the Conservative Party takes solid and corrective positions on issues like this, I am encouraged and happy to fund the Party. (and have contributed significantly in the past

As I wrote to Mr. Gerstein earlier, I will be sending any dollars I would normally send to the CPC, to Mr. Ezra Levant, Kathy Shaidle and Kate McMillan to assist them with the legal fees they will have to incur to fight the free speech battles they are involved in as a result of bad law and a corrupt CHRC.

For shame sirs, for shame.

Sincerely,

Ward Benedict

To which Hiebert's constituency assistant replied:

Mr. Benedict,

Thank you for your comments. We have discussed this issue many times with Mr. Hiebert and are in agreement with you regarding your opinion on the Human Rights Commission.

I am happy to record your comments, but am not able to comment further on it at this time.

Kathy Jary

Constituency Assistant for RUSS HIEBERT, MP

On the one hand, I'm a little bit disappointed that the letter was signed by Hiebert's assistant, rather than Hiebert himself. On the other hand, the reply was apparently e-mailed back within eighteen minutes. I'll take that as an indication of the office's enthusiasm on the subject.

I'm slightly confused by the letter: it agrees with Ward's tough talk, but declines to comment further. OK; perhaps, as a Parliamentary Secretary for an unrelated ministry, Hiebert knows he ought to refrain from policy freelancing in someone else's portfolio. But if he agrees with Ward's tough talk, that's a pretty serious rebuke of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

I'm glad Hiebert is on board, and it's not too surprising -- he's an exceedingly bright MP who thinks a lot about policy. The fact that he's a lawyer means he's likely very sensitive to the corruption and breaches of natural justice that are rampant at the CHRC. Hiebert is also a member of Parliament's Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee. It would not surprise me one bit if the CHRC's abominable approach to all three of those subjects found itself hauled before Hiebert's committee. In fact, I'd bet on it.

I look forward to Hiebert adding more substantively to his assistant's reply on his behalf. But I accept her comments as the plain truth: I'm sure that Hiebert and his staff have indeed discussed the matter "many times", and that they are "in agreement" with Ward's view that the CHRC is a national shame.

Friends, take a moment to send Hiebert an e-mail of encouragement -- just click here. And, if you have any similar correspondence with your MP that you'd like to share, please e-mail it to me, or if it's via snail mail, please send it to me as a scanned .pdf, or a fax.

Conservative MP: I have "grave concerns with these troubling actions"

By Ezra Levant on May 17, 2008 12:36 AM | Permalink | |

Kevin Sorenson is the Conservative Member of Parliament from Crowfoot, Alberta.

What's Crowfoot like? Well, in the 2004 election, Sorenson received 80% of the vote in his riding. In 2006, that moved up to 82.5% when that NDP family up and left. Without checking Elections Canada, I'm guessing the remaining 17.5% of votes were write-ins for an Alberta independence party of some stripe.

I remember speaking at a Reform Party BBQ there, back in 1998, at Big Knife Provincial Park. I can testify that there were no tofu hotdogs on the grill.

I have received an exchange of correspondence between Sean McCormick, a constituent of Crowfoot, and Sorenson. Sean's letter is a good, old-fashioned broadside. He told me he's a little sheepish about the tone he used but, if I know Crowfoot, Sean's letter is probably the most liberal and wishy-washy thing that Sorenson's office has received in years.

I was going to just excerpt from the exchange (which was also copied to Rob Nicholson and Stephen Harper) but I really don't want to leave out a single word of Sean's missive:

Dear Sirs,

As a voter living in the Crowfoot riding in Alberta, I am writing to express my dismay over the revelations of wrongdoing and corruption by Human Rights Commissions both at the provincial and federal levels that Canadians have been witness to these past few months. I am disgusted and angered by what I have seen. This fiasco runs contrary to my values and spits in the face of my grandfather, a war veteran who served this country in WWII.

This is the ONLY issue I'm voting on come the next election. My vote goes to the candidate/party that is doing the most to shut down these HRC boondoggles, or at the very least, repeal Section 13 of the human rights act. I am also willing to volunteer my time and put my money (the maximum contribution allowed by law) behind the candidate that best represents my values on this issue. I normally vote along conservative lines, but I'm willing to cross the floor on this issue, even if that means voting for one of those granola-crunching Green Party freaks.

So far the Liberals are in the lead for getting my vote thanks to the efforts of Dr. Keith Martin. If you want my vote and support back, you know what you have to do.

Sincerely,

Sean McCormick

The bulk of Sorenson's reply is the form letter authored by Rob Nicholson's office back in February -- a big dose of blandness designed to lull and numb. But buried amongst that politically correct hay was Sorenson's own sharp little needle:

I want you to know that I also have grave concerns with these troubling actions of the Commission, and look forward to receiving a copy of the response you receive from Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson.

Nice. I know that response will not satisfy most red-blooded Crowfoot voters. But it's good enough for me, for now. Sorenson is the chair of Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee; that's not quite a cabinet position, but it's a high enough rank that he knows he has to be careful about mowing the Justice Minister's lawn.

I'd put Sorenson down pretty firmly on our side of the ledger. He doesn't just have concerns, he has "grave concerns"; he calls the CHRC's actions "troubling"; and he claims he's "looking forward" to Nicholson's reply. I'm sure he is, actually -- he's obviously not satisfied with Nicholson's three-month-old talking points that are obsolete to the point of being insulting.

I'm not sure that Sorenson has gone far enough to win Sean's vote -- and donation. I'd say Keith Martin's private member's motion puts the Liberals in the lead. I'm pretty sure Sorenson isn't going to lose Crowfoot over this issue. But I'm equally sure that Sean speaks for about 82.5% of his neighbours. Probably more.

P.S. Gentle reader, why don't you take literally 30 seconds out of your busy day to write an encouraging letter to Sorenson? Just click here for his e-mail address.

P.P.S. If you haven't yet written an e-mail to your MP, why not? It's pretty easy, as Sean shows. You can find your MP's e-mail address very quickly: here, if you know your riding's name or MP's name, or here, if you just know your postal code. Send me the exchange, and I'll post it. If you get a snail-mail letter, please send it to me in .pdf format, or e-mail me a note and I'll tell you how to fax it to me.

Athanasios Hadjis: "I'm lazy"

By Ezra Levant on May 16, 2008 5:31 PM | Permalink | |

As I reported two weeks ago, the Canadian Constitution Foundation applied for intervenor status in Marc Lemire's constitutional challenge to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the thought crimes section.

It was a breakthrough: a highly-regarded, mainstream civil rights organization weighing in on behalf of Lemire. The CCF is a registered charity, with a sterling record of defending minority rights, ranging from Japanese-Canadian fishermen to a Nisga'a chief. Not only is the CCF comprised of true constitutional experts -- it even has Eugene Meehan, the former president of the Canadian Bar Association on its board of advisors -- but it is politically mainstream. It can't be sloughed off as some neo-Nazi front -- the opposite, in fact.

No wonder their application for intervenor status was summarily rejected.

Today, Athanasios Hadjis, the chair of the tribunal hearing the matter, threw out the CCF's request to join in as an intervenor. Hadjis's brief ruling is a repulsive blend of arrogance, laziness and prejudice. Let's be honest: Hadjis is bored, and doesn't want to waste time going through the motions of a fair hearing, and the CCF means he potentially has hours of extra reading to do.

Throughout the March 25th hearing, Hadjis repeatedly sighed "we're done" -- even when the lawyers of the case weren't done. I wasn't there, so I don't know how many times Hadjis looked at the clock, but I'm sure it was in the dozens. But can you really blame Hadjis? The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has a 100% conviction rate for section 13 thought crimes. They're just going through the motions anyways. Can't they just hurry up, so he can declare Lemire guilty?

Hadjis's ruling is laughable, and the CCF should immediately appeal it to the Federal Court. Take paragraph 6:

The administration of this case has been to say the least, unwieldy and challenging.

Hadjis is right. He has run a mockery of a hearing. A dozen examples of his incompetence come to mind, ranging from the withholding of transcripts from the respondent, to Hadjis's continuing refusal to compel the prosecutors at the Canadian Human Rights Commission to hand over their document disclosure. The trial is done, and the respondent has yet to see the full case against him.

(Question: when does serial incompetence become corruption? Answer: when the respondent's rights are violated, and Hadjis doesn't give a damn. That was long ago.)

You've got to admire Hadjis's use of the passive tense: "this case has been... unwieldly". Yes, that's like writing "mistakes were made" -- it's wonderfully vague. It was Hadjis's job to make the hearings work. He failed. I'm not quite sure why the respondent should pay for that by having a prospective ally denied.

Or look at Hadjis's excuse in paragraph 8:

...interested party status will not be granted if it does not add significantly to the legal positions of the parties representing a similar viewpoint.

Oh, really? Is there really a difference amongst the positions taken by three of the intervenors against Lemire -- the Canadian Jewish Congress, the B'nai Brith and the Simon Wiesenthal Center? They're so cookie-cutter, they even file joint affidavits -- as in this affidavit, that denigrates Canadian Jews as being psychologically insecure. Yet all three of them received Hadjis's approval. That couldn't be because they're all on the side of the prosecution, is it?

Or: is it because, before Hadjis received his patronage appointment, he was vice-president of Canada's Hellenic Congress, and he formed a coalition with the Canadian Jewish Congress? Did he approve the CJC's application because they were old friends, but the CCF wasn't?

Also in paragraph 8 is this line:

If the CCF has any specific arguments that if feels may be relevant to the constitutional issue, nothing prevents it from sharing them with the Respondent and any of the existing interveners so that they may be put before the Tribunal by these participants' more than able counsel and agents.

Oh, really? So the CCF can sit in the gallery, and pass notes to Lemire's lawyer during the breaks? That's awfully sporting. But let's look frankly at the last six words there: "more than able counsel and agents". The fact is, arrayed against Lemire are not only the entire resources of the federal Justice Department, but the eight-figure budget of the CHRC with a 170-person staff; and the other intervenors against him -- including two lawyers from the enormous firm Blake Cassels & Graydon.

On the other team we have Barbara Kulaszka, a sole practitioner, representing Lemire himself; Paul Fromm, a non-lawyer; and occasional participation from Victoria lawyer Doug Christie. All are working essentially pro bono -- they couldn't even afford to pay for transcripts.

It's impressive how well that rag-tag team has done in the face of such overwhelming odds. But I don't think that a neutral observer would say that Lemire's team is "more than able" to match the force against them.

Pound for pound, it just hasn't been a fair fight. Which is exactly why Hadjis doesn't want the legal eagles from the CCF -- or anyone else, like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association -- coming in. Not just because, with the likes of Eugene Meehan on board, the CHRC's case would be torn to ribbons. But also because Eugene Meehan and the others at the CCF have a perfect reputation politically. Unlike Fromm, Christie and Kulaszka, they aren't outside the political mainstream. Hadjis wants to keep Lemire marginalized, both legally and politically.

The most telling line in Hadjis's phone-it-in ruling -- issued on a Friday, to minimize media scrutiny -- is the last line:

I note that none of the participants has objected to the proposed intervention of the CCF...

So let's get this straight. No-one other than Hadjis thinks it's a problem having the CCF there. No-one else thinks it will be too much of a hassle; no-one else thinks the case will be inordinately delayed or prejudiced; no-one else is arguing that the CCF is redundant.

Richard Warman, the nominal complainant himself, doesn't object.

It's lazy-bones Hadjis, who frets again about his own management skills.

I'd call for Hadjis to be impeached as a judge but, of course, he's not a judge. He's chief kangaroo in a kangaroo court.

He's already made up his mind. Lemire is guilty. Why waste time.

Fire. Them. All.

UPDATE: I see that Hadjis has released other rulings today, including this one, denying Lemire full disclosure of the case against him, including the disclosure specifically required under Rule 6 of the tribunal's own rules.

This is the problem of trying to fight a rogue, corrupt organization like the CHRC/CHRT from within. It's impossible, when the other side not only controls the rules, but changes those rules if you somehow manage to win under them.

An appeal to a real court is a possible remedy, but Canadian courts generally defer to administrative tribunals, even if they're wrong. I believe that a court challenge is necessary, and might even win; but I believe that the better strategy is the one that we've been following to date: denormalize the HRCs in public, and make it possible for legislators to reform or abolish them. There's no point playing a rigged game. When men like Hadjis themselves are the problem, it's unreasonable to think that men like Hadjis will fix the problem.

It's up to Rob Nicholson, Jason Kenney and even Stephen Harper to fix the problem.

h/t BCF

Come for Steyn, stay for Levant!

By Ezra Levant on May 16, 2008 3:01 PM | Permalink | |

I had planned my pilgrimage to the Fraser Institute for the occasion of Mark Steyn's speech on May 26. I'm looking forward to it. Mark's speeches are always a rare mix of information, inspiration and plain old entertainment. It will be interesting to hear his thoughts on the eve of his show trial at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, scheduled for the following week.

I'm flattered that the Fraser Institute has asked me to give a talk the next day, too. I hope to see you at Mark's speech, and at mine the next day.

A question a child might ask

By Ezra Levant on May 16, 2008 2:03 AM | Permalink | |

The legal arguments at left are excerpted from the complaint against me and the Western Standard, filed with the Alberta human rights commission. It is a fatwa, written by a proud graduate of Pakistan's radical madrassahs, who has grown up to become a lecturer on the Saudi anti-Semitic circuit.

Why do Canada's human rights commissions respect the Koran but ban a prayer from the Bible?

Buzz

By Ezra Levant on May 16, 2008 12:34 AM | Permalink | |

It's tough to gauge political momentum in Ottawa, especially from 3,000 kilometres away. But I think that the campaign to abolish section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the thought crimes section, is positively buzzing.

A lot of little things are happening at once, like vibrating molecules bumping up against each other. As Debbie Gyapong reports, Keith Martin has written to all the MPs on the Justice Committee, asking them not only to review section 13, but also the corruption at the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

(Here's a list of the Justice Committee's members. It's chaired by Art Hanger, the Conservative MP for Calgary Northeast. Why not take a moment to write to Hanger to encourage him to dig into the CHRC -- if I know Hanger, I don't think he'll need a lot of convincing. You can e-mail him here.)

At the same time, the mainstream media is fully engaged in the story of human rights commissions and their abuses. Reporters like Joseph Brean are now regularly tracking the story and weighing in from time to time (as in this newsy update, pegged to Mark Steyn's Toronto visit). And Peggy Wente continues her series on the subject with a devastating critique of Barbara Hall's latest adventure at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, on top of her last salvo about the CHRC's half-million dollar award to a sensitive wannabe mountie. Wente's column is read by a lot of folks who don't usually surf the conservative blogosphere.

Look for coverage to ramp up again in two weeks as Maclean's and Steyn head into trial at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. I predict front-page reporting in the National Post, the Globe and Mail and the Vancouver Sun, and editorials of thoughtful outrage from coast to coast.

Last week's new human rights complaint, filed against the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, will be an ongoing fountain of news stories and editorials, too. If there were still any doubters, this latest attack on the free press makes it clear that section 13 and its provincial equivalents are a menace to anyone with an opinion -- not just to "neo-Nazis" or "conservatives". The fact that this complaint, like the one against Steyn and me, was filed by a radical Muslim should also disabuse Canadians of some illusions. A crack in our national armour of liberty has been found, and the jihadists are focusing all of their attacks on it. Steyn has, of course, a must-read Maclean's article on this troubling trend.

There has been an interesting crescendo of legal activity, too. Maclean's magazine came out, all guns blazing, telling the Canadian Islamic Congress that they will never "settle" the CIC's complaint against them. In other words, when Maclean's loses at the B.C. Tribunal in two weeks, they'll appeal to a real court. Maclean's is the kind of litigant with the resources to go all the way to the Supreme Court. It was very encouraging to see them exhibit the will to match.

The National Post, too, joined the legal fight this week. Like Maclean's, they could have chosen to pay some danegeld to extricate themselves from Richard Warman's lawsuit; instead, they decided to fight. That decision was clearly a principled one, since a $10,000 settlement offer would likely have been all that was needed to get a relieved Warman to discontinue the action against them. The Post will spend much more than $10,000 fighting. It's impressive to see a display of principle like that. (Though it is pragmatic, too, in the long run. If the Post were to get a reputation as a legal pushover, there would be a long line of shake-down artists lining up at their door).

All of these things are happening around the same time; all of them are jiggling and jostling the molecules in this complex story.

But the chemical reaction really heated up when the Department of Justice released its outrageous legal brief in support of section 13. The kind of junk arguments in that memo -- that slavery and the Holocaust wouldn't have happened had there been hate speech laws; that the legal defences of truth and fair comment ought not to apply to "hate speech"; that Jews rely on hate speech laws for their self-esteem, etc. -- are the sort of thing one encounters all the time at human rights commissions. But what made this so stunning was that it was a memo written by two of the Justice Minister's own lawyers, Simon Fothergill and Alysia Davies, not some arms-length commission. These weren't CHRC nutbars. They were Rob Nicholson's own nutbars. And 50 pages really lets a guy and a gal express their nuttiness well.

That memo caused a buzz on my own website, spiking traffic, and not just from outraged readers (including appalled conservatives and Conservatives). Judging from my visitor statistics, plenty of folks in Parliament, the Justice Department, the Federal Court of Canada and various human rights commissions were very interested in the public reaction the memo got -- including that it got a public reaction at all. I understand that Blazing Catfur, who has done a particularly good job at rebutting the junk law in that memo, has received a spike in nervous visitors from both the Justice Department and the CHRC, too.

But the memo (which you can read here if you have the stomach) has caused a ruckus bigger than the blogosphere. I have had two reporters -- who haven't reported on HRCs before -- e-mail me to get background on the memo. One reporter -- to his credit! -- didn't even believe the memo was real, asking me for corroboration that it wasn't a "forged document". That's exactly how I reacted to so many of the insane details about the CHRC when I first encountered them: I simply didn't believe they were real. (I mean, if a Hollywood screenwriter came up with this, it would be rejected by test audiences with a "yeah, right!")

I'm told that Nicholson's memo has been e-mailed around Parliament Hill, not just amongst reporters, but amongst government MPs and even cabinet ministers. It has moved the embarrassment from the confines of the CHRC -- which could always be disowned as an arms-length nuthouse -- into the bosom of one of the most important ministries in the Conservative government. Simon Fothergill and Alysia Davies work for Rob Nicholson; they spoke in his name.

Put yourself in Nicholson's shoes for a moment.

Three months ago, when this issue was starting to percolate into his political consciousness, he put out some talking points for Conservative MPs, the purpose of which was to throw the hot potato to someone else. That's standard operating procedure for any government, let alone a minority government: put out fires, don't start them. Here is some of his spin:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal are independent agencies that administer the Canadian Human Rights Act, according to procedures specified by the law, without interference from the government.

and

The Department of Justice continues to monitor the Commission and Tribunal to ensure that our human rights system remains effective.

But those talking points just don't work anymore -- it's not an "independent agency" that's in the mess, it's the Justice Minister, because of Fothergill and Davies.

And, when example after example of the CHRC's own corrupt processes are brought to your attention -- not just by the mere public, but by Keith Martin -- how do you still cling to this old talking point:

If asked about the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and its process: Refer letter writer to the CHRC’s website which has very detailed information pertaining to its mandate, discrimination and harassment, dispute resolution and much more.

No, I think the problem has spread from the CHRC into the Justice Department. I think it's becoming an embarrassment that can't be sloughed off on others. HRCs are becoming denormalized -- and if Nicholson doesn't do something about them on his watch, he risks having his own government become tainted by them. I think he'll act -- even if it takes some gentle encouragement from caucus, cabinet and even the Prime Minister. It was Stephen Harper himself who, in 1999, told B.C. Report magazine:

Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society… It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.

I think this campaign has momentum. And we haven't even heard from the Privacy Commissioner yet. I stand by my prediction that we will see real changes before the year is out.

Another CBC honcho moves to Al Jazeera

By Ezra Levant on May 14, 2008 12:25 PM | Permalink | |

When I received word that Tony Burman, the former head of CBC News, was moving over to Al Jazeera, I thought it was a spoof. Alas, I'm wrong.

Burman follows Avi Lewis to the jihadist propaganda arm.

I wonder how much back-pay they'll get?

How would we know if the Alberta HRC went on strike?

By Ezra Levant on May 14, 2008 10:53 AM | Permalink | |

On February 13, 2006, the Western Standard magazine, of which I was the publisher, printed eight of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, to illustrate a news story on the subject.

On February 15, 2006, an anti-Semitic imam named Syed Soharwardy filed a "human rights" complaint against the magazine and me, with the government of Alberta's human rights commission. You can see that semi-literate, hand-scrawled fatwa here.

On March 30, 2006, I filed a written response to the complaint, assuming there was someone with enough sense at the HRC to throw out Soharwardy's complaint as a nuisance suit. I was wrong.

On January 11, 2008, some 600 days later, the HRC summoned me to an interrogation at the hands of their "human rights officer", Shirlene McGovern.

That was four months ago.

So we're at more than 800 days since the HRC first received Soharwardy's complaint.

So you can imagine my amusement today when my lawyer told me that the HRC asked him for a copy of my videotape of that interrogation.

Uh, what have they been doing these past four months? Did Officer McGovern not take notes?

Have they not seen the YouTube clips I uploaded to the Internet? 565,000 other people did. But not our intrepid bureaucrats. They're no so good with this Inter-nets thing. So I'll send it to them on a CD. Though a VHS would probably be better for them. Or maybe a Betamax.

As the Alberta HRC boasts in its annual report, its case load of complaints has actually fallen by 15% in the past year. Albertans just aren't bigoted enough for them, it seems. But it takes the HRC 7% longer to dispose of complaints -- up from 382 days to 410 days. That's a net productivity decline of 22% in a year. And their goal for next year: 435 days. Yes, the Alberta HRC actually wants to be less "efficient".

(Imagine if the HRC was actually being used for its original purposes of helping people, say, kicked out of an apartment in wintertime because of their race. What good would "help" a year later do? But the HRCs long ago stopped pretending to be shields to protect people -- now they're swords to attack people for the crime of political correctness.)

So the average case takes 410 days. I'm at 800 days and running -- and my formal hearing hasn't even been scheduled. The only way I know my interrogators are still alive is that they called my lawyers to get a copy of my videos.

(Could you imagine if a real police officer grilled a criminal suspect for 90 minutes, and then four months later sheepishly called up the suspect and asked sweetly for a copy of that suspect's notes on the interrogation? Imagine the peals of laughter!)

OK, you lazy, unprofessional, incompetent, corrupt, jihadist slackers. I'll send you a video of my own interrogation -- and a bill for it. And I won't even take 800 days to do it.

"Tsesis' thesis torn to pieces"

By Ezra Levant on May 13, 2008 10:14 PM | Permalink | |

Here is professor Alexander Tsesis.

He is the American professor on whom Canada's Conservative government relied so heavily in their 50-page legal brief in support of censorship.

You'd think that the Canadian government would be able to find a Canadian to make the arguments that Tsesis made, but it's hard to find someone who will shovel so much complete drivel with a straight face. I mean, how often do you come across this, written stone-cold sober:

black people would not have been the main victims of slavery in the antebellum American south without the support of extensive mass mythology about their alleged inferior qualities.

and:

[Hitler fomented] a mass delusion that Jews were responsible for bad times, and as a result, a Holocaust could be perpetrated against them without general opposition.

So Blacks were enslaved and Jews were murdered not because their real rights were destroyed by governments, but because of "mythology" and "delusion".

As I noted in my earlier post on this subject, it's no surprise that the only other political client that this moonbat has is Sen. Ted Kennedy. I wonder if Tsesis got that gig by writing a scholarly article that Mary Jo Kopechne died because those murderers at Oldsmobile didn't equip their cars with SCUBA gear.

It's not weird for Kennedy to hire an obscure leftist American professor -- birds of a feather, etc. But it's weird for the Canadian government to do so. They even repeatedly call him "Dr." Tsesis, though his c.v. reveals no basis for such a title. Maybe the team at the Department of Justice just wanted to hire someone who got his law degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology, just for the novelty of it.

So that's the Conservative government's expert.

By contrast, here is professor Anuj Desai.

Take a look at Desai's biography.

Desai doesn't have a contract with Sen. Kennedy to recommend him. But he does have a math degree from Harvard, an International Affairs degree from Columbia and a law degree from UC-Berkeley, where he was editor of the California Law Review. He clerked for two courts in Washington, D.C., and has worked or lectured in Taiwan, South Africa and Holland -- not to mention at the U.S. State Department.

For some reason, he couldn't find time to do what Tsesis brags about in his resume: writing the memorable A Snapshot into the life of a hobo, published in Xpressions. But not all of us are destined to soar with the eagles.

Why do I mention all of this? Because Blazing Catfur actually did some digging into Tsesis' scholarly reputation in America, and found it to be, uh, mixed.

The man the Conservative government loves so much that they gave him an honourary doctorate is considered to be a buffoon in his home country.

I'm not going to duplicate the excellent work that Blazing has done, which you can read here. Blazing wrote to Desai, who has torn Tsesis' work to shreds (or, as Blazing put it, New York Post style, "Tsesis' thesis torn to pieces"). I'll let you read it from Blazing directly. Maybe the first, very polite sentence from Desai's reply will tempt you to read the rest:

Dear Sir/Madam

I'm not aware of anyone else who has directly addressed Tsesis, in part because, as you imply, he is not particularly well-known here in the U.S...

Go read the rest!

By the way, despite (actually, because of) the appropriately negative reception the Department of Justice's memo has received, I believe that we're winning this battle. In fact, the timing of the 50-page obscenity was perfect -- they had been working on it for more than a year; their filing of it now only serves to raise the temperature on the issue. In effect, it's a challenge to Rob Nicholson and the Conservatives by their bureaucrats: Who's the boss? I hear that's the Prime Minister's favourite thing to hear from leftist 'crats. We'll see.

Look, I know the concept of "the worse, the better" is dark. But that legal brief was the lawyerly equivalent of Barbara Hall's outburst -- a provocative, embarrassing, self-destrutive act from the other side of this debate. Legal briefs like that were going to be filed anyways; a hundred examples of this sort of thing has been happening for decades without anyone paying attention. Now we're paying attention.

Look at the reaction to it: I've received over 100 comments in a day to my post on the subject, precisely because it's so outrageous. And I imagine that the Conservative caucus -- and Nicholson and Harper -- have heard from 100 people, too.

The public pressure is building. I can't even keep up with all of the Op-Eds, news stories and radio interviews on the subject these days -- you've got to go to Free Mark Steyn to read it all. This is part of the denormalization.

The legislative reform will follow, as surely as politicians love votes.

I'll repeat my earlier prediction: I believe we'll see the first concrete steps towards reform before the end of 2008.

And, if I may daydream a bit, I predict that, in the future, it won't be the guilty white liberal Marxist "Dr." Tsesis who is hired by Canadian DoJ lawyers. It will be Professor Desai, a man of high scholarly achievement who, like Keith Martin, just happens to be more of a minority than Richard Warman, Dean Steacy, Barbara Hall, Alexander Tsesis or any of the other human rights hucksters out there who claim to speak for minorities.

The National Post: Warman lawsuit "entirely unfounded"

By Ezra Levant on May 13, 2008 5:33 PM | Permalink | |

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have been sued by Canada's most litigious human rights complainant, Richard Warman. Warman has sued me and some of Canada's other leading bloggers -- Kathy Shaidle, Kate McMillan and Connie and Mark Fournier of Free Dominion -- for criticizing his conduct as Canada's chief user of Canada's section 13 thought crimes provision. In particular, we've been sued for discussing his habit of going online under a pseudonym, and posting bigoted remarks -- strange conduct for a human rights investigator indeed.

Here's a copy of Warman's suit, and my comments on it at the time.

Besides suing me and my fellow bloggers, Warman sued the National Post and its comment editor, Jonathan Kay. Kay had written a short blog item about one of Warman's online rants in which Warman called Sen. Anne Cools some outrageously racist and sexist epithets. Warman claimed he didn't write that particular screed -- though he's lied under oath about similar misdeeds before. Kay and the Post took Warman's denial at face value, and immediately pulled the blog entry. In addition, they published an apology both online and in the newspaper's print edition -- though the article only appeared on their blog.

In other words, the Post and Kay did just about everything possible to mitigate any damages alleged by Warman -- they even contacted other bloggers who had copied their original blog entry, and asked them to take it down. I've never heard of anyone going that far before.

Warman sued them nonetheless.

I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now. What did he think he'd get from them? Another apology? He's already got two. Or did he think that, because the Post settled so quickly once before, they'd settle again quickly, but this time with money? It just doesn't make sense to sue one of the biggest media companies in the country over such a trifle -- especially since they made Warman whole so quickly. Warman's speciality has been suing poor defendants without lawyers, or getting the Canadian Human Rights Commission to do so for him. It's just not his modus operandi to take on someone his own size -- or 1,000 times bigger.

Well, now the National Post and Jonathan Kay have filed their Statement of Defence. You can see it here. (The other defendants, including me, will be filing our defences shortly.)

The Post/Kay defence naturally is different than mine and the other defendants' will be. The Post and Kay are not standing by the substance of their blog post -- they already conceded that without a fight. Now they're fighting Warman on his decision to sue them nonetheless.

Their defence claims that Warman's reputation hasn't suffered at all, and if it did, their apologies have made up for that -- apologies that the Post notes were approved by Warman's lawyer. The Post takes on Warman in his essence: a hyper-litigious, thin-skinned complainer-of-fortune. Look at paragraph 22 of their defence:

the damages or loss claimed are excessive, exaggerated, remote, unrecognized at law, unmitigated by the Plaintiff, and unconnected with any alleged act or omission on its part, and puts the Plaintiff to strict proof thereof.

In other words, the Post is calling Warman's bluff. Normally, damages are presumed, but not when an Ontario newspaper makes an apology immediately, as the Post did. Warman will now have to demonstrate, specifically, how he was damaged by the Post, and how he's owed big bucks for it. And, if he doesn't, the Post demands "costs on a solicitor-client basis" -- in other words, every single cent of their legal bills back.

It's an elegant defence -- short and sweet. I'm pleased. Sometimes big companies find it easier and simpler to just cut a four- or five-figure cheque to get rid of a nuisance suit like this. But it's clear Warman pushed them too far; he already negotiated for two apologies and got them. The Post can sense that paying more danegeld to Warman doesn't make sense.

They're done apologizing. They didn't want a fight; they did everything reasonable to avoid one, even swallowing their pride and accepting Warman's incredible denials at face value. But now that Warman's suing, they're fighting back.

Warman added the Post to his suit because he thought they'd be a soft touch with deep pockets. But now they're coming at him for full costs. I think they'll get it, too,

Rob Breakridge's "The World Tonight"

By Ezra Levant on May 13, 2008 5:29 PM | Permalink | |

Rob Breakenridge had me on his radio show, "The World Tonight", last night. We talked about the human rights commissions in general, and the Conservative government's 50-page support of the section 13 thought crimes provision.

I talked a bit about the "nutty professor" that the government quoted at length to justify their case.

You can listen to it here.

P.S. Here's Rob's column on the Halifax cartoon complaint.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson finally weighs in on section 13

By Ezra Levant on May 12, 2008 12:53 AM | Permalink | |

Finally, Rob Nicholson, the Conservative government's Justice Minister, has weighed in on section 13, the thought crimes provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

He's in favour of section 13.

Here's a 50-page legal brief (3 MB file) his department filed, against Marc Lemire's constitutional challenge to that section.

I would sum it up as follows:

1. The Conservative government believes that the constitutionality of section 13 has already been approved by the Supreme Court, and so it shouldn't be questioned again; and

2. In any event, section 13 is a reasonable limit on free speech.

My two general responses would be:

1. In the 18 years since the constitutionality of section 13 was examined in 1990, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has taken a more and more abusive approach to its application, exceeding the narrow permission granted by the Supreme Court eighteen years ago.

2. The government's arguments that hate speech is the precursor to violence -- and that laws banning speech are necessary to prevent violence -- are absurd. They're logically false and they're historically false.

Read some of the junk history in the brief. Like paragraph 56, in which the government argues:

The triumphs of Fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany through audaciously false propaganda have shown us how fragile tolerant, liberal societies can be.

Take a moment to absorb that sentence, and then think for yourself.

Nazism in Germany was odious not because of its "audaciously false propaganda", but because it murdered people by the millions. It's not the propaganda that killed the Jews; it was the fact that their property rights, their rights to self-defence, their economic rights, their mobility rights, their rights to life and liberty were taken away.

But look at the second half of that sentence: tolerant, liberal societies can be fragile. First, the Weimar Republic had within it the legal and constitutional seeds of Nazism, that Hitler exploited -- anti-hate speech laws being amongst them, and weak constitutional protections of real rights, too. But more importantly, what is the government's implication here? That tolerant, liberal societies are not strong? That, instead, we need the stern hand of a state political censor? Isn't that exactly the opposite of the lessons of Nazism?

It gets even more muddled. Look at paragraph 58:

...history teems with examples of times when lies, distortions and propaganda empowered groups like the Nazis to repress speech...

Read that again. The government is arguing that we should limit speech because we've seen how the Nazis could limit speech. Huh?

It wasn't propaganda that repressed speech. It was laws against speech that repressed speech. And those laws were passed by the Weimar Republic. But putting that aside, what exactly is the argument here? That we'd better ban speech first, before the Nazis do?

Paragraph 60 takes the cake. It's a list of examples of "violence" that the government says was granted "social acceptance" because of free speech. Black slavery in America is included in that list.

But slavery existed not because of White propaganda, but because Blacks were not given their rights. To focus on the propaganda isn't just ridiculous, it ignores what the real problem was: a lack of civil rights for Blacks. All the propaganda in the world couldn't enslave Blacks; free Blacks in the northern states weren't spared hate speech, just as Blacks everywhere in America today aren't, either. But besides being an offensive nuisance, hate speech can't enslave Blacks. In fact, the opposite point is the lesson of slavery: abolition came about precisely because of free speech, first in the UK and then in America. As Abraham Lincoln supposedly said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."

Read paragraph 61 of the government's brief:

black people would not have been the main victims of slavery in the antebellum American south without the support of extensive mass mythology about their alleged inferior qualities.

Really? Is that all it took to enslave Blacks -- "mass mythology"? And without that, they would have been free? The same crock is served up in paragraph 62: Hitler fomented "a mass delusion that Jews were responsible for bad times, and as a result, a Holocaust could be perpetrated against them without general opposition."

Is that what happened? Hitler hypnotized Germany -- put them in some trance, some "mass delusion"? Just like the U.S. South was all living in some "mass mythology"?

If so, then why did Hitler have to pass the Nuremberg Laws? Why did he have to strip Jews of their real rights, if all it took to implement the Final Solution was some propaganda? Even medieval slave traders couldn't act without legal sanction -- the Vatican had to pass edicts in 1452 and 1455, etc., authorizing the enslavement of certain races. Even in the dark ages, men had natural rights that couldn't be taken away except for by government intervention. It's that government intervention that kills people, not the free speech of private citizens.

So who is this nut the government keeps quoting?

His name is Alexander Tsesis, a professor at a middling U.S. law school. Tsesis has two political clients: the Canadian Justice Department, and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachussets, tied with Barack Obama as the most left-wing senator in America. Tsesis is a left wing kook -- but the Canadian government hangs on his every word.

When the government lawyers do their own reasoning, they're even fuzzier. Try to make sense of paragraph 109:

Propaganda against different religions and cultural groups encroaches on the freedom of Canada's diverse peoples to entertain their own beliefs, declare them openly without fear of "hindrance or reprisal" and to manifest them in practice.

What does that mean? That because someone says something mean about Scientologists, Scientologists are any less free to "entertain their own beliefs"? How exactly is one man's propaganda a "hindrance" to another person's faith? And how did the word "reprisal" sneak in there? We're talking about propaganda here -- mere words. We all agree that violence or other infringements on real rights should be illegal. So why is that in there, other than to scare people who don't know the difference between words and actions?

How about paragraph 113, where the government argues that censorship protects the "self-worth" of "the Jewish community". Really? Is that all it takes to give Jews self-esteem? And is giving Jews -- or anyone else -- self esteem the job of the government? And does that important goal trump someone else's freedom of speech?

Now let me state the obvious: the decision by the Justice Department to intervene was made before Rob Nicholson was the minister -- even before the Conservatives were the government. It was made when Irwin Cotler, the Liberal, was minister, if I'm not mistaken. Ever since then, federal lawyers have been beavering away in support of section 13, along with other tax-paid lawyers from the CHRC (and the gaggle of Jewish censors from the Canadian Jewish Congress, B'nai Brith and the Simon Wiesenthal Center).

Putting aside politics, if a previous Justice Minister instructed his lawyers to intervene in support of censorship, it's those lawyers' duty to do so until their instructions change. And, since the Conservatives have not yet changed course on section 13 -- or any other aspect of the Canadian Human Rights Commission -- it should not be surprising that Justice Department lawyers are still serving up the kind of junk history and psychobabble that is evident in this memorandum.

There are probably hundreds of cases in the bowels of the Justice Department that are ongoing from previous administrations. Most of them are likely non-partisan matters. But not this one -- this is intensely ideological.

It is the worst of politically correct, historically inaccurate, junk sociology, dressed up as a legal brief. It's the kind of stuff that radical law professors love. And it's precisely the kind of thing that Stephen Harper has been good at rooting out -- such as the awful Court Challenges Program.

I simply don't believe that a single member of the Conservative government, let alone the Justice Minister or the Prime Minister, would agree with, or even understand, the following passage (from paragraph 116):

"on a macro level, the general tone of society can affect the mind", and can lead to incivility and the "breakdown of community protection"

I don't even think the lawyers who drafted the brief even know what the hell that means. But they're just following old instructions, and they'll continue to do so until someone in the Conservative government yells "stop!"

I'd like to invite readers -- and fellow bloggers -- to go through the memo in detail. Give it a good fisking. Don't be intimidated by all the legalese; focus on the arguments, the logic, the history, the psychobabble, the plain old unintelligible political correctness of it.

And, if you happen to be a Conservative Member of Parliament, ask yourself: does this legal brief speak for the government? And, if you happen to be the Conservative Justice Minister, what are you going to do about it?

¡Hola, Señor Nicholson! Time to call your office.

By Ezra Levant on May 10, 2008 11:46 PM | Permalink | |

Marc Lemire has been on trial at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal since January, 2007. The original complaint against him by the Canadian Human Rights Commission was filed years before that. All that's left are final arguments.

But the CHRC only agreed to give full disclosure of its case against Lemire -- yesterday. I understand that approximately 400 pages were handed over, but more has still not arrived. (The CHRC, with an eight-figure budget, sends their disclosure by regular mail.)

In other words, now that the trial is done, Lemire is finally being shown the case that he has to answer. And that's if you believe that the CHRC has in fact decided to reveal all of their records. They've lied before -- lying, in fact, is at the core of their investigative techniques.

And then there's the CHRC's previous admission that their investigators don't even take notes of their work. That comes in handy, when they need to forget their conduct -- as complainant/investigator Richard Warman did, 157 times in the Lemire case alone.

In real courts, disclosure happens long before a trial. In civil cases, parties have to swear an affidavit of records, in which they list and hand over every relevant document that isn't protected by lawyer-client privilege. There is no such thing as confidentiality when it comes to disclosure. Confidentiality doesn't trump the other side's right to know relevant information.

In criminal trials, disclosure is even more important. Every scrap of paper that the police have is disclosed to the accused -- right on down to police officers' hand-written notebooks. There is a special duty for police to hand over exculpatory documents -- anything that favours the accused.

This is pretty basic stuff -- it's part of the right to know the case against you, and it's a core principle in what's called "natural justice".

It's insane that the CHRC is only now giving disclosure to Lemire -- after more than 26 days of hearings without it.

In a civil suit, this would be grounds for dramatic remedies, ranging from having the lawsuit struck out, to significant cost awards -- and it would result in serious sanctions to the lawyers involved if they were in on the cover-up. In a criminal case it would, at least, result in a mistrial if not an outright acquittal.

But it gets worse.

Read the letter written yesterday by the CHRC's lawyer, Margot Blight, describing their after-the-fact document disclosure. In it, she says:

The disclosure materials which were disclosed in a less-redacted form yesterday, were re-redacted taking into account the following principles:

1. Names of individuals employed by the Commission at an below the level of Manager are to be redacted...

2. With respect to individuals outside the Commission and as a general rule, information identifying an individual's name and coordinates is to be redacted...

The CHRC is deciding -- unilaterally -- that they simply won't give Lemire information that they don't want to give him. They won't give names of their investigators. And they won't give names of outside staff at all -- no matter how deeply involved they were in the case against Lemire.

Blight's first point would be like a bus company sued in a traffic accident simply choosing not to tell crash victims the identity of the bus driver. Her second point would be like the police department contracting out some of its crime lab work -- and using that as an excuse to hide the details of any contractual staff involved in the investigation.

That's just not how it works in a first world country like Canada. In real life, the courts determine what is or isn't relevant -- one party doesn't, and certainly not the prosecuting party, which the CHRC is here. For the CHRC to unilaterally decide that they're not going to disclose who did what is outrageous. Their clownish amateurism -- re-redacting what was un-redacted -- is laughable, but less important than the substance here: they're breaking the law.

My favourite line in Blight's letter is:

It is anticipated that... more clues will remain which will indicate to the reader the nature of contact information which has been redacted.

Clues, eh? The CHRC is willing to give the accused some clues about the case against him? Well, that's mighty sporting of them! They'll give the poor chump some tantalizing clues -- maybe disclose the documents in invisible ink! I think I read about that procedure in law school -- Kangaroo Courts 101.

The ancient principle of natural justice applies to all courts -- and to quasi-judicial tribunals like the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, too. This latest CHRC gimmick clearly violates natural justice, and a few items in the Charter of Rights section on legal rights, too. But it also violates the CHRT's disclosure rules that require the CHRC to:

list of all documents in the party’s possession, for which no privilege is claimed, that relate to a fact, issue, or form of relief sought in the case, including those facts, issues and forms of relief identified by other parties under this rule...

and

Where a party has identified a document under 6(1)(d), it shall provide a copy of the document to all other parties.

Let's recap:

After 26 days of hearings -- with no more witnesses or cross-examinations left, only final arguments -- the CHRC is only now disclosing its case against Lemire.
They're still blacking out whatever information they want to do -- in violation of the Tribunal's own disclosure rules.
And they still haven't handed over everything they said they would -- and that's assuming they're not hiding more documents. Until I posted it on this website yesterday, they hadn't given Lemire a copy of their transcript from the crucial March 25th tribunal hearing.

I can't say it any better than the headline in the Vancouver Province did: I'll take Mexican "justice" any day over human rights grillings in Canada

¡'Hola, Señor Nicholson! Time to call your office.

A debate on free speech: Keith Martin, Ian Fine and me

By Ezra Levant on May 10, 2008 10:47 PM | Permalink | |

Two years ago the Canadian Association of Journalists hosted a debate between me and Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress. The topic was the Danish cartoons, but it turned into much more than that. (Here's the column I wrote afterwards.)

I'm delighted to report that the CAJ will be hosting another panel two weeks from now about human rights commissions and their impact on the free press. I'll be on the panel, as will Ian Fine, senior general counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and Keith Martin, author of the private member's motion to abolish the section 13 thought crimes provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

I think it's going to be a great panel, and I can't think of a better audience -- working journalists who truly care about their craft.

I'm sure the debate will be newsworthy, and you can be sure I'll blog about it afterwards.

An international embarrassment

By Ezra Levant on May 10, 2008 10:17 AM | Permalink | |

The Seattle Times weeps for their northern neighbours:

We do not envy the Canadians. They have entrusted to their government a power Americans never would, and they follow it into foolishness...

British Columbia now bans all words and images "likely to expose a person ... to hatred or contempt" because of race, religion, age, disability, sex, marital status or sexual orientation." This sounds like a libel law for groups, except that libel is a misstatement of fact that damages an individual reputation. In the United States, for a public figure to be libeled, the false statement has to be made maliciously or recklessly.

The Canadian idea of hate speech is less specific and more dangerous. Hate is like obscenity, about which Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, "I know it when I see it." The difference is that a ban on obscenity does not touch political discourse, and a ban on hate does.

It also sets up government for open ridicule. Steyn is gleefully marketing his book as a "Canadian hate crime" and daring the tribunal to pronounce him bad.

Racial harmony in Canada would have been safer had the question never become official.

Lee Richardson, freedom fighter!

By Ezra Levant on May 10, 2008 9:56 AM | Permalink | |

I'm delighted to report that another government MP has publicly declared himself for freedom of speech, and against section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act -- the thought crimes section.

Lee Richardson, the MP for Calgary Centre, has written a short but sweet letter on the subject, which you can see here. The key lines:

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right... I support removing section 13.1 of the Human Rights Act and will vote in favour of [Keith Martin's] motion when the opportunity arises.

Good for him!

Folks, take a moment to send Richardson your support and thanks. Click here to e-mail him. And while you're at it, click here to e-mail Rob Nicholson, the Justice Minister, to tell him to get off the pot. And send the same note to the Prime Minister, while you're at it.

Such notes are not in vain; while you are likely to get a standard-form reply, especially from the PM, each week the correspondence unit tallies up the number of letters on each topic. As I've written before, human rights commissions have been on their Top Ten list for months now -- sometimes in the top two. It's one way that politicians use to measure the size of an issue.

So here are those e-mail addresses again:

Thank Lee Richardson.

And pester Rob Nicholson and Stephen Harper!

h/t Don Sharpe

ADDENDUM: A few days ago I wrote a blog entry about Canadian Jews who dissent from the Canadian Jewish Congress's "official" position that section 13 and political censorship represent the will of the Jewish community. I asked for more examples of Jews for free speech. Fred Litwin, the author of the always provocative "Gay and Right" website, is on the list of freedom-loving Jews, too. So are the Post's Barbara Kay and Laura Rosen Cohen.

In fact, other than the Official Jews who make their living off human rights commissions, it's hard to find Canadian Jews who support censorship. I've been a Canadian Jew for, well, 36 years, and my views have never been canvassed by the CJC on this subject (or any other political issue, for that matter, including their inappropriate and ultimately humiliating support for the 1992 Charlottetown Accord). The next time the CJC, B'nai Brith or the Simon Wiesenthal Center claim in an affidavit that they speak for anyone but themselves, they should be cross-examined on that, and their bluff called. What evidence, other than their own hubris, do they have? Any surveys or plebiscites? We all know they have none, but it would be nice to get them to admit it under oath.

I accuse the Canadian Human Rights Commission of corruption

By Ezra Levant on May 9, 2008 6:21 PM | Permalink | |

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is a corrupt organization. I've given my factual basis for that bold statement before -- such as their substitution of personal biases for standard procedures; such as Richard Warman's improper interference with investigations; such as the CHRC's own violation of section 13; and such as the stunning revelation that the CHRC hacked a private citizen's Internet account to cover their tracks as they went online to white supremacist websites.

Today I have more evidence of their corruption.

As I noted in March, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing into the abusive and corrupt investigatory practices of the CHRC was not transcribed by a court reporter -- unlike every single other day in the Warman v. Lemire case. The one day when the CHRC was on the defensive was the one day that the respondent -- and any interested members of the public or reporters -- had to make do with their own notes. The Tribunal made an audio recording of the hearing, which is next to useless in terms of searching for key words, skimming pages, etc.

Imagine my surprise when, today, I received a copy of a beautifully-transcribed court report of the March 25th hearing. I received it -- but Marc Lemire and his lawyer have not.

I got it from a reporter who had received it from the CHRC itself. How did he get it? Did he make an Access to Information request? Did he pull a Jadewarr, and hack into the CHRC's computer and steal it?

No. He got it because a CHRC spin doctor called him up, and tried to spin his newspaper that the CHRC wasn't all that bad. He tried to show how the CHRC really hadn't gone online under a pseudonym to post bigoted comments -- even though the CHRC has admitted to doing so a half dozen times, under oath. The CHRC spin doctor used the transcript as "proof".

I have no problem with the CHRC engaging in desperate spin attempts. I love it, in fact -- the more they open their mouths, the more discredited they are, and in ways that their critics, like me, could never achieve. Again, I refer to Barbara Hall, who I'd put on a national speaking tour if I could.

No, I think the CHRC should do more spinning. I love that they're trying to brazen it out -- to tell reporters not to believe their lying eyes and ears, to have them ignore subpoenaed evidence from Internet companies, to have them ignore the Privacy Commissioner's looming investigation -- and to believe the desperate, desperate CHRC.

I love it.

But isn't there something corrupt about the CHRC having a transcript of the hearing, not disclosing it to the respondent, but using it against the respondent with reporters who have no formal standing in the case?

While the respondent has to hand-transcribe the audio recording of that hearing -- or pay out of his own pocket for someone to do so -- the CHRC has a transcribed version. But they don't turn it over. They try to use it as a PR weapon. (Good luck with that.)

If you're having trouble grasping the corruption and abuse of process here, imagine a criminal matter. An accused criminal -- let's make it murder -- is on trial. He alleges that he's been framed by the police. On that one day, the court reporter is given the day off -- the one day where police tactics are scrutinized and shown to be corrupt.

The police make a transcript, but don't give it to the accused -- who is thereby impaired in his ability to mount a defence. His ability to file an appeal if he's convicted -- by pointing out police corruption -- is undermined. The police don't given him a copy -- but they give it to reporters, on the sly, while they trash talk the accused.

Any criminal prosecutor would be disciplined for such unethical practices; the case itself would be jeopardized because the fairness of the trial would be in question. It's not about whether the accused is guilty or not; it's bigger than that; it's about whether or not we, as a society, believe that justice should be done and should be seen to be done. It's about whether or not the prosecution has the necessary standards of morality that should come with their awesome powers. It's not even for the accused murderer that we have these rules. It's for ourselves.

It's about whether we believe that, in Canadian justice, the ends justify the means.

It's about whether or not we can trust the people who have been given such police powers, and who want more.

In the case of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the answer is no. We can't trust them.

They were corrupt, they are corrupt, and they will continue to be corrupt until some adult supervision is brought to bear on them. I'm talking to you, Rob Nicholson.

If a real police force or prosecution was caught in the unethical conduct of the CHRC, the cops and lawyers involved would be taken off the file, and Internal Affairs would be brought in to clean things up. But there is no Internal Affairs office at the CHRC.

There is no oversight.

Fire. Them. All.

How will we know when we've won?

By Ezra Levant on May 9, 2008 12:36 PM | Permalink | |

I read Mark Steyn's thoughtful discussion of some of the recent events he's been to, especially his book-signing at the Chapters-Indigo flagship store, hosted by Heather Reisman, and his appearance on CBC's The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos. Reisman can be fairly described as liberal (she was, in fact, once the VP of the federal Liberal Party) and Stroumboulopoulos is further left, especially on Steyn's issues of the war on terror and the role of the United States. Here are some of Steyn's key points:

Let's take Strombo first... I doubt anyone in the studio audience had a clue who I was before I walked out but they were a friendly crowd and, more to the point, they're part of that big uncommitted general population you need to reach if you're going to make a craven political class think the restoration of free speech is an issue worth picking up on. ...He certainly didn't have to have me as his guest, and I was very glad he did.

As for Heather Reisman, she's the president of Canada's biggest bookstore chain. There are gazillions of books released every week, and she selects a mere handful of the authors to be that month's selected interviewees...

Yes, back when the hardback of America Alone came out, her buyer bungled the initial order. But, as soon as Heather herself found out, she called me personally from overseas and then called my publisher. By then, of course, I was having too much fun mocking her in Maclean's, The National Post, SteynOnline and sundry other places, to the point where my own publisher told me I ought to ease up on her. She never took it personally, and the clearest evidence of that was her willingness to host Wednesday's event.

...as to the tone of the questions, get used to it. This is where mainstream influential Canadians are. Heather's beliefs are no different from those of most other corporate players. ...I didn't take Heather's questions as idiotic: I thought they were an understandable attempt by a mainstream figure to square my argument with liberal values. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Bottom line: She did me a good turn in hosting me. So did Strombo. To have someone making the case against the "human rights" enforcers and for freedom of speech in these venues helps "normalize" (Ezra Levant again) what to many Canadians are dissident ideas. On these issues, there are enough real enemies out there, not to mention innumerable hyperpartisan halfwits. Don't unnecessarily conscript others to the list.

Steyn's post is a good opportunity to ask: what will victory look like? How will we know when we've won?

There is a very concrete measurement that we can look to: the abolition of the section 13 thought crimes provision of the Canadan Human Rights Act, and its provincial analogs, such as the one I've been charged under in Alberta. Optimists might say that the true measure of success would be the abolition of human rights commissions altogether, to remove these rogue, kangaroo courts not just from political censorship, but all of their other mucking about, from McDonald's to the Mounties.

But you can't get from zero to a hundred miles an hour immediately. As I've said before (and as Steyn was kind enough to reference), to achieve an environment that is propitious for legislative reforms, one must first build a public demand for change. And that starts with introducing the mass of Canadian voters to human rights commissions, and introducing them in a manner that demonstrates the abnormalcy of these commissions -- how they fly in the face of our instinctive Canadian notions of justice, fair play, freedoms, pluralism, etc.

It's one thing to build "momentum" in the conservative blogosphere -- and I'm not for a moment minimizing that. It was the conservative blogosphere that did the spadework on this issue, and that kept the story alive for months until the mainstream media (and a few farsighted politicians) picked it up. And -- as Kathy, Kate, Connie & Mark and I can tell you, it's been the blogosphere that has paid our mounting legal bills as we fend off these human rights SLAPP suits.

But the conservative blogosphere, and even the blogosphere as a whole, is not yet politically large enough to move politicians to act. We are the people with our volume knobs turned up to ten on political matters, especially those relating to freedom of speech. Most "severely normal" people don't follow politics as closely as we do. Steyn is a hero to all of us, but even he is not known to the average Canadian. As I've noted before, more Canadians get their politics from Rick Mercer than from any newspaper in Canada.

Which goes to Steyn's main point. We can have quarrels with the Reismans and Stroumboulopouloses of the world (I still remember, with great frustration, how Chapter-Indigo pulled the Western Standard's cartoon issue off of their shelves -- and during Freedom to Read Week, no less.) But a 10% enemy is still a 90% friend. If that's being too generous, then: a 49% enemy is still a 51% friend, when it comes to building a coalition for reform. If we're ever going to persuade politicians that this is a worthwhile issue for them to spend their political capital on, we need to reach out to the folks who watch The Hour, not just the folks who watch Glenn Beck.

This is what coalition building is about. It's different than the business of writing opinion editorials. Op-Ed writers can afford to be purists, because they're not trying to win any votes. And we need purists, to keep pushing the boundaries, to move the goalposts. Free speech purists -- and I'm pretty close to one myself -- have an important role to play. Ideas matter.

But translating ideas into political action is a different art. Conservatives may disagree with Stroumboulopoulos on almost everything he says or does -- I sure do. And I'm not quite sure that he's fully on side with the freedom of speech/human rights commission issues here (though, like most Canadians, I don't think he's even delved too deeply into them). But so what: he put Steyn, the turbo-conservative, in front of a huge audience of normal people, and let him have his say. As Steyn noted, Strouboulopoulos helped "normalize" what has been an outlying opinion for a long time.

Philosophical purists will always be disappointed with politicians. But we've already won the philosophical argument. Now let's do our best to build public demand for change -- as much change as we can muster.

That process started in the conservative blogosphere, God bless it. And it moved into mainstream political punditry. Now Steyn is starting to move it where it has never gone before -- into liberal and left-wing forums. That's amazing; it's a milestone of success in itself; and it's part of the journey on the road to legislative changes.

We need to make a coalition if we're going to win, especially in a country that tilts to the left, as Canada does. We need not agree with our new allies on every issue. But we'd be politically foolish to turn down the friendly access of Reisman and Stroumboulopoulos -- or the outright support of traditional liberals like PEN Canada or even EGALE.

Israel's ambassador: Canada's HRCs "very worrying"

By Ezra Levant on May 8, 2008 8:04 PM | Permalink | |

I was watching Mike Duffy's interview with Alan Baker, the Israeli ambassador to Canada. The occasion was the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, but the subject quickly moved to the malign influence of Muslim radicals in Canadian politics, such as the rowdy, even violent, reception that often greets Israelis, especially on Canadian campuses. As Amb. Baker said, it's positively unCanadian.

Duffy asked him if it was part of the same bullying that Mark Steyn and I face through human rights commissions.

Amb. Baker's answer: "Absolutely. It's very worrying". That comment is at about 4:30 into the clip.

As Jonathan Kay pointed out today, the "official Jews" at the Canadian Jewish Congress are out of touch with many, if not most, real Canadian Jews. Now we know the CJC's censors are out of synch with the values of Israel itself.

Farber: HRCs lack competence, are "dumping grounds" for political hacks

By Ezra Levant on May 8, 2008 6:10 PM | Permalink | |

What a fascinating report from Jonathan Kay of the National Post. He describes an editorial board meeting with the Canadian Jewish Congress, which had requested the meeting to try to talk the Post out of their belief in freedom of speech.

The most interesting part of Kay's report, is near the end:

To my surprise, members of the CJC delegation acknowledged that the folks who staff these commissions are sometimes lacking in competence, and thus — as I have argued — give the adjudication of human rights a bad odour in some instances. (I won't name names here, because the CJC clearly sees these commissions as allies, and I don't want to embarrass anyone.)

...One of the visitors — who shall remain unnamed — went further, suggesting that some human-rights commissions had become dumping grounds for political hacks without the skills to make it in truly merit-based jobs. He had the air of a man whose dream was being stifled by bad execution.

Good lord. The CJC said this to reporters? I'm surprised that Kay, a reader's editor, a newsman's newsman, hasn't outed the CJC staffer who said such things. Was it an off-the-record meeting?

I'm guessing it was the CJC's anti-hate tub-thumper, Bernie Farber. Sylvain Abitbol, an exquisitely elegant Sephardic Jew, is far too dignified to engage in that sort of trash talk. And I'm guessing that, as a lawyer, Mark Freiman had more self-control.

By the process of elimination, I'm guessing it's Farber. I don't think there's too many other people in the Jewish community about whom it could be said that human rights commissions form the substance of their "dreams". (If it wasn't Farber, I'd be happy to print a correction with the name of the CJC rep who did make this stunning statement).

If I was one of the HRC staff on Farber's speed dial, I'd be wondering "is he talking about me? Why won't he say that to my face? If he has a problem with our HRC's competence, why is he bitching to the Post, our sworn enemy?"

I wonder how that admission will affect the CJC's case before the Canadian Human Rights Commission right now. The CJC is an intervenor. If they're conceding that the CHRC is incompetent, isn't that legally relevant? Has that incompetence affected their investigation and prosecution of the CJC's own case? (It obviously has, but it's amazing to hear it from the CJC.)

And what about that second insult -- that HRCs have becoming "dumping grounds for political hacks without the skills to make it in truly merit-based jobs". That's astounding.

Well, let's make a list of such "political hacks", to see who Farber could have been talking about. The biggest name, of course, is Barbara Hall, the boss of the Ontario HRC, who was defeated as Toronto's mayor. The shoe fits her. But Farber didn't just say "political hack", he said "political hacks" -- plural. Who else does he mean?

I don't think Farber has as much experience with other provinces' HRCs -- he prefers the CHRC because of their national reach, and their censorship of the Internet. So who over there could be one of Farber's unemployable political hacks?

Did he mean Giacomo Vigna, who ran a failed campaign for public office? Or did he mean one of the official commissioners of the CHRC?

I don't know. If I was Hall, Vigna, or anyone else who might be properly called a political hack, I'd send Farber an e-mail to make sure he wasn't talking about me.

UPDATE: I'm reminded by someone who was at the meeting that there were several more people in attendance than those named by Kay. Fair enough: like I say, if it wasn't Farber, he can e-mail me the name of the person who said it, and I'll edit this post accordingly. But the shocking words were said, whether by Farber or one of his minions. Those words -- stunning, damaging, but honest! -- were the official view of the CJC. And even if Farber didn't say it -- and he hasn't challenged my deductions yet -- then he tacitly approved it by letting the statement stand. There really is no escape clause here, is there?

UPDATE 2: In the comments (click above) Jonathan Kay himself provides more information about who said what. If the defamer of HRCs wasn't Farber -- though Kay doesn't say that -- the fact remains it was a member of the CJC's senior leadership delegation to the editorial board meeting. It was a slur against the HRCs -- again, a slur I agree with, for it's so abundantly clear that Canada's HRCs are incompetent, and staffed by political hacks -- and it wasn't rebutted or disowned by anyone else in the meeting. In a way, it's even more powerful not knowing, with 100% certainty, which CJC leader it was. The cloud hangs over all of them -- and appropriately so, given that none of them disowned the comments. It's always slightly uncomfortable watching a lovers' quarrel played out in public, but when it comes to this CHRC/CJC fight, I hope it gets noisier and ruder.

The Battle of Khartoon comes to Halifax

By Ezra Levant on May 8, 2008 4:12 PM | Permalink | |

Nova Scotia's leading newspaper, the Chronicle Herald, is being hauled before that province's human rights commissions for -- you'll never guess -- publishing a cartoon. Here it is:

According to news reports,

The cartoon, published April 18 in the Chronicle Herald newspaper, depicts a woman in a burka holding a sign that reads, "I want millions," and she says, "I can put it towards my husband's next training camp."

The cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon is a reference to Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a woman from Nova Scotia whose husband was arrested in 2006 in an anti-terrorism raid. Qayyum Abdul Jamal was released from jail after charges against him were stayed on April 15...

Dan Leger, the Herald's director of news content, said the cartoon does not take aim at all Muslims.

"The whole purpose of that cartoon was to comment on the outrageous demands of this individual for compensation long before any hearing into her case had ever been held," he said.

In an interview with the Herald before the cartoon ran, Jamal said she wanted to sue the federal government for what her family has gone through and told the reporter, "I want millions," Leger noted.

"[MacKinnon] depicted her exactly the way she looks and used her own words, and that's the genius of cartooning that you're able to do that," he said.

The Chronicle Herald hasn't just been taken to the NSHRC -- you'll recall that nut house from this previous post -- but they've actually been contacted by real police, too.

Leger said he first heard of the Islamic group's concerns when the newspaper was contacted by police.

I'm sure the Chronicle Herald will have a lot to say on this matter themselves -- they've been one of the newspapers leading the charge against the "thought crimes" provisions of human rights acts. Here are my first-blush reactions.

This was a cartoon that commented on a particular Muslim radical, who had issued particular political demands ("millions of dollars"). This is just the latest example of radical Islam attempting to criminalize criticism as "religious discrimination". The Chronicle Herald was clearly engaging in political commentary. Radical Islamists, and their useful idiots in Canada's human rights commissions, will do anything to silence their political critics.
It's embarrassing enough that rogue human rights commissions are taking on such clearly legitimate expressions of political opinion. But what is the excuse for real police calling the newspaper? When Calgary's resident jihadist, Syed Soharwardy, tried to get the police to arrest me for opposing radical Islam, they politely refused. They didn't even contact me -- they knew a nuisance complaint when they saw one. Why are Halifax police allowing their good offices to be abused? Don't they know the inappropriate chilling effect that will have on the media? Or is that their point?
Look at the identity of the official complainant here. It's not Mrs. Jamal, the money-grubbing wife of the accused terrorist. It's Ziaullah Khan, of Halifax's "Centre for Islamic Development". Here's Khan's angry rant about the honour killing of Aqsa Parvez, whose father killed her for, amongst other sins, not wearing a hijab. Khan doesn't focus his fury on Parvez's father, but on the "hatemongers" in the media for covering the horrible story. I'm surprised he didn't file a human rights commission back then.
Why is it that Khan, whose job description is the promotion of Islam in Halifax, has allied himself with the Jamals? It's because, regrettably, too many imams in too many mosques in North America are radical themselves, and even if they don't preach terrorism, they excuse it, or in this case, sympathize with the accused terrorist. If only the Khan's of this world were as eager and angry to speak out against Muslim terrorism, instead of media coverage, or Canadian counter-terrorism efforts.
But why has Mrs. Jamal herself not yet filed a defamation suit against the newspaper? Khan called the cartoon "libellous". If so, Mrs. Jamal could sue. But then she'd have to pay for her own lawyers -- not have the clowns at the human rights commission pay for them. And the Chronicle Herald would have centuries-old common law defences, such as truth and fair comment. Moreover, they'd be able to cross-examine Mrs. Jamal at length, not only about her demands for "millions of dollars", but about her knowledge of her husband's activities. No, better to stick with kangaroo courts and made-up "human rights", than to go to real courts.
Is it a coincidence that the Chronicle Herald, one of Canada's smartest critics of HRCs, has been targetted by one? Maybe. Or maybe their CEO, the mawkish Michael Noonan, is still smarting over the paper's amazing smackdown of him, and thought he'd mete out a little kangaroo court justice.
I hate the fact that the Chronicle Herald will now have to spend thousands of dollars fighting against this unholy alliance between fascist Islamist censors and weepy politically correct HRC bureaucrats. But, other than that unfortunate side-effect, I'm actually glad for this, in a dark, "the worse, the better" kind of way. The more people hear about these abusive HRCs, the more they realize the threat to our freedoms they have become, the more they realize that everyone is vulnerable -- not just conservatives like me and Mark Steyn, but anyone who dares to have an opinion -- the more there will be a demand for reform or abolition of these commissions. As with the offensive Barbara Hall of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, I hope that Khan's repugnant voice is heard again and again and again, for he discredits his cause more than any of his critics could.

UPDATE, via Robert: Here's some background on the lovely Mrs. Jamal herself.

Kinsella the cowardly lion

By Ezra Levant on May 8, 2008 1:40 PM | Permalink | |

I love public debates.

Two years ago, right after the Western Standard published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, I was invited by the Canadian Association of Journalists to debate against Mohamed Elmasry, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. Elmasry's debating style was strange: he rambled from denouncing "zhoos" for controlling the media, to bragging about how Canada should be grateful to him since he is personally responsible for developing Research In Motion's BlackBerry. In other words, he's an egocentric conspiracy theorist with a big dose of Jew hatred. Here's a column I wrote about Elmasry shortly after that debate.

Once, I even debated Syed Soharwardy, the anti-Semitic imam who filed a human rights complaint against me for publishing the cartoons. Soharwardy was so upset by that debate that he went to the Calgary Police Service afterwards to try to get them to arrest me!

But for sheer cheekiness, one of my favourite debates was back in 2005 when I debated against Joe Volpe, then a federal cabinet minister.

We had just run a hilarious cover story called The Libranos, about how the corrupt federal Liberals were stealing money in the manner of a criminal organization. Here's the cover of that issue.

I don't think the video clip is still available on CTV's website, but here are some contemporaneous reviews by viewers. But the point is: it didn't matter that I shellacked Volpe. Because merely by having him agree to debate me on live, national TV, I had won.

Imagine that: a senior government cabinet minister, deigning to debate a small magazine publisher about... the magazine. How could I lose? How could I not come across as bigger than I was, and him smaller than he was? By participating, he granted our little magazine much more credibility and authority than we had. Forget about the fact that he flashed his temper, and sounded ridiculous (I think he called me, a Jew, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, or something like that.) Even if he would have "won" the debate ("no, we're not crooks like the Sopranos") he looked ridiculous.

I loved it!

Which brings me to the curious case of Warren Kinsella (who himself had a significant enough role in the Libranos drama to be mentioned many times by name in the Gomery report, and cited for "highly inappropriate" interference in how public funds were spent).

Over the past few days, Kinsella has been even more excitable and desperate than normal. He has been demanding that Mark Steyn debate him at a June 3rd event sponsored by the Public Policy Forum in Ottawa.

I can understand why: like me debating against Joe Volpe, Kinsella debating against Steyn would be a coup for Kinsella. Steyn is the big dog in Canadian media -- both through his column in Maclean's, but also on the blogosphere, where he has more traffic than any other political blogger in the country. (Kinsella ranks 21st, and is falling). Kinsella used to be interesting when he had access to the federal Liberal Party. That hasn't been the case since Jean Chretien left, and it has stripped Kinsella of his strongest suit. Kinsella is occasionally funny, but more usually over the top. His schtick worked when he was affiliated with the prime minister of the day, no matter how tenuously. That's just gone now. Of course Kinsella would like to debate Steyn. And I would like to debate Stephane Dion on national TV, too, but it's not going to happen.

Kinsella has taunted Steyn:

C'mon Mark! You're not afraid to debate little old me, are you?

and

we can safely regard Mark Steyn as a chickenshit.

and

Your hero shouldn't be afraid, then, right? The Public Policy Forum will sponsor it, next month in Ottawa. I'll agree to any format your hero desires.

The great man couldn't possibly be intimidated by someone committing career suicide, could he?

I look forward to his response. He certainly lurks on my site enough, so I know he's read my offer

and, my favourite:

Let's go, tough guy.

It's all very compelling theatre, except for one thing: Kinsella was invited by the Public Policy Forum to debate me, and he refused, saying he'd debate anyone but me!

Last month, the PPF invited me to the debate, and I accepted. But then Kinsella backed down, claiming that his lawyer said he couldn't. According to the PPF's organizer:

Mr. Kinsella's lawyer... weighed in with a list of people and issues where there were potential problems.

You're damned right I'd be a potential problem -- I'd cream Kinsella in a debate!

There are no lawsuits between Kinsella and me -- though he's blustered and bluffed enough, you'd think that he'd have filed one by now.

He's not suing me, and I'm not suing him. Unless Kinsella was planning to defame me, there's no "potential problem" -- and even then, I'm sure I'd let him go, because his rage-aholic rants discredit himself more than anyone else.

So why does Kinsella need a lawyer to tell him not to debate me? I don't think there's a legal reason. I think Kinsella is scared. As Kinsella would say, C'mon Warren! You're not afraid to debate little old me, are you?

The PPF isn't a for-profit group; frankly, they couldn't pay my regular speaking fee -- I told them whatever they could chip in was fine. But I thought it would be a great debate in front of thoughtful people. I'm in the centre of the human rights maelstrom and Kinsella, well, he's one of the only people who are willing to make the case for political censorship. Let's argue.

But, Kinsella backed out -- blaming his lawyer. (At least it's better than his excuse he offered for not following through on his lawsuit against me -- blaming his wife!)

I was a little bit surprised that the PPF didn't tell Kinsella to buzz off. Kinsella was very rude and low-class -- like demanding that the host of a party un-invite another guest, or Kinsella wouldn't attend. But I didn't want to make a fuss for the PPF, and a five-hour flight each way for me, for a one-hour debate that didn't pay, wasn't worth making a fuss over.

I hope the event is a success, though with Kinsella verbally vomiting over his potential debating partners, I'm not sure if the PPF will be able to find a debating opponent for him. If I were Keith Martin, I'd certainly not lower myself, Volpe-style, to debating with Kinsella.

I hope the PPF debate is a success, though I'm not sure if Kinsella is quite the draw he might have been four years ago when he actually had access in Ottawa.

I've got about four or five public events over the next two months about human rights commissions, from Vancouver to Toronto, and I'll be sure to publicize them in case anyone wants to attend. Some of them are just me speaking on my own, but at least one is going to be a debate against a senior human rights officer with serious credentials. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

I'll share the details of one of them now: Moses Znaimer's ideaCity conference, in Toronto this June. It's not inexpensive, but it's an amazing line-up of speakers from all walks of intellectual life. I'm honoured to be invited, and I don't think that, like Kinsella, I'll be hiding behind "my lawyer" when tough questions are thrown at me!

Steyn the Infidel

By Ezra Levant on May 7, 2008 11:32 PM | Permalink | |

My old friend Winston attended Mark Steyn's book signing at Toronto's flagship Indigo bookstore, where Steyn was interviewed by Indigo president Heather Reisman.

I had to click on Winston's photos to see what Steyn was wearing on his head: a bright orange "Infidel" ballcap. No word on whether that was a gift from the Canadian Islamic Congress sock puppets last night.

I wasn't there, and I've seen no other reports on the subject, so I'll simply quote Winston's report without comment (and I'll quote his Farsi, just to be exotic!):

He was interviewed by... Reisman and it was as if a moonbat is interviewing an intelligent person (Mark Steyn) and with really biased and one sided question. At one point, she told Mark what he would do if he was "President of Great Britain". Hahaha... I thought Britain has ceased being a constitutional monarchy. LOL... Or she called Bush administration as "Bush's regime" and in response to that Mark said that "Anti-Americanism is a mental illness these days" and the crowd exploded in laughter. Ms. Reisman was surprised why hundreds of people were clapping and whistling for Mark and not for her...

The interview lasted for an hour and the book signing went on for almost two hours. It was such an honor to meet with Mr. Steyn and tell him how I appreciated his emphasis on "Putting an end to the Iranian regime" in his book and advocating it here and there. Moreover, Mark Steyn talked about Iran in particular and said how a modernizing government like that of the Shah was overthrown by radical Islamists in 1979 and that's essentially the type of so-called reform that is now taking place around the world. He brought up the case of Malaysia where they're entertaining the idea of replacing a secular British style government with a Sharia based Islamist one...

I end this entry with what Mark wrote for me: "Let's win this in Canada and Iran."

امروز در یکی از کتابفروشیهای اصلی شهر با نویسنده معروف کانادایی مقیم امریکا مارک استاین ملاقات کردم و واقعآ مایه افتخار بود. در حاشیه کتاب برای من نوشت که: بیاییم این مبارزه (مبارزه علیه اسلامی شدن دنیا) را ببریم

UPDATE: Here is Wendy's take on the event.

Another cabinet minister criticizes Canadian Islamic Congress, CHRC

By Ezra Levant on May 7, 2008 10:52 PM | Permalink | |

Last week Jason Kenney, the cabinet minister and secretary of state for multiculturalism, criticized the Canadian Human Rights Commission for its abusive procedures and its substantive violations of Canadians' freedom of expression. He used words like "dangerous" and "illiberal".

This week another cabinet minister joins Kenney: Gary Lunn, the minister for natural resources. Here is a copy of Lunn's letter to a constituent on the subject. The most important lines are:

I share your concern with respect to the possible consequences for freedom of speech in Canada as a result of the CHRC's decision to hear complaints like the one launched by the Canadian Islamic Congress.

...given the importance of freedom of speech to democratic discourse, I believe that the CHRC should be cautious to not allow cases relating to freedom of speech to become a focal point for its work, when such matters lie outside of its established mandate.

I will bear your thoughts in mind in future discussions on this issue...

I'm impressed with Lunn's remarks. He doesn't pussyfoot around the Canadian Islamic Congress complaint -- he calls it a risk to free speech and indeed democracy. And, more importantly, he criticizes the CHRC itself, stating resolutely that scrutinizing speech is "outside" the CHRC's legal mandate.

And his last remark -- telegraphing that he'll keep talking about this issue -- is the most heartening of all.

Friends, remember our two-step plan:

1. Denormalize Canada's human rights commissions; then

2. Press legislators to act.

In the past four months, we've exposed the abuses, corruption and plain old nuttiness of Canada's HRCs. Not a day goes by without editorials and news reports on the subject. (I recommend visiting the Free Mark Steyn site for the most comprehensive daily aggregation of news and views. I used to link to all of them, but there's just too much for me to keep up!)

Now MPs and even cabinet ministers are alive to the problem -- and they're starting to speak up.

Take a moment to send a supportive e-mail to Lunn. Send one to Kenney, too. And why not send one to the Prime Minister, too.

And keep pressing your own local MP on the subject. If you get a response -- positive or negative -- send it to me, and I'll blog about it!

Maclean's to Mohamed Elmasry: see you in court

By Ezra Levant on May 6, 2008 10:29 PM | Permalink | |

Maclean's magazine has issued a formal response to the Canadian Islamic Congress's Al Sharpton-style shakedown. Let me excerpt at length:

Last week, Faisal Joseph, a lawyer representing the Canadian Islamic Congress, offered to “settle” the two remaining human rights complaints against Maclean’s in return for our acceding to a slightly modified version of the demands made last year...

The time to discuss reasonable replies to Mr. Steyn’s piece was after the article was published and before the human rights actions were launched. For Maclean’s to agree to any “settlement” with quasi-judicial proceedings under way would be tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing on our part when we have done nothing but practise responsible journalism.

It would also be improper and damaging to the integrity of Maclean’s, and a troubling precedent in Canadian media, for us to agree to negotiate the content of our magazine in return for the withdrawal of quasi-judicial legal actions and relief from punitive costs of defending those actions.

Moreover, any settlement at this point would have to be approved by human rights authorities in Ottawa, and would thus involve an implicit acceptance on our part of the jurisdiction of human rights commissions to regulate the content of print media publications in Canada. That is an unacceptable precedent.

We believe that a sincere attempt to settle this matter would have involved a direct and timely approach to Maclean's rather than a press conference and public ultimatum eighteen months after the publication of Mr. Steyn’s piece. But rather than approaching this magazine for the purposes of conciliation, Mr. Joseph and his clients publicly impugned our journalists at a press conference, tactics sharply at odds with their stated goal of reaching an amicable resolution...

Here's the best part of the Maclean's response, though it's something we all know will never happen:

While we have no interest in negotiating with the CIC for the withdrawal of its complaints, we remain committed to fostering free and open discussion of important public issues. Maclean’s would be pleased to host a public debate at a neutral venue between Mr. Steyn and Mohamed Elmasry, head of the CIC and the complainant in both the B.C. and federal investigations. The debate would cover issues raised by Mr. Steyn’s original article as well as the CIC’s decision to resort to human rights commissions. We are sure that such an event would be interesting and informative, and we would publish a transcript of the debate either in the magazine or on our website.

We want to debate Mark Steyn, but only if Mark Steyn isn't allowed to show up

By Ezra Levant on May 6, 2008 11:32 AM | Permalink | |

The Canadian Islamic Congress's sock puppets demand a debate with Mark Steyn:

The intention was to engage Mr. Steyn about his views on Muslims... If only Muslims would use the avenues available in a free and democratic society to engage in civilized debate. -- December 8, 2007, Globe and Mail.

True to Canada's tradition of free speech, we decided to engage Mr. Steyn in a debate about his views... We agree, which is why we asked Maclean's for an opportunity to debate Mr. Steyn... This issue isn't about attacking journalists or stifling free expression. It's about ensuring that our media outlets provide a forum for open debate and argument. -- December 20, 2007, National Post

True to Canada's tradition of free speech, we decided to engage Steyn in a debate about his views... we asked Maclean's for an opportunity to debate Steyn... It's about ensuring that our media outlets provide a forum for open debate and argument. -- December 29, 2007, Calgary Herald

The complaint is based on the categorical refusal by Maclean's to allow Muslims to respond and participate in a debate which intimately affects them. Canadians benefit when all parties are brought together, represented at the same table on equal terms. Extremists, by contrast, capitalize on perceived distance between the group they supposedly represent and the rest of society, so that no true dialogue can take place. -- January 31, National Post

We wished to close the gap and initiate dialogue... Our complaint is based on the categorical refusal by Maclean's to allow Muslims to respond and play a part in a debate that affects them... We believe in the benefit of having all interested parties engage one another on equal terms. -- February 9, 2008, London Free Press

When dialogue stops, we risk re-visiting some of our most shameful mistakes... We believe in the benefit of having all interested parties engage one another on equal terms. -- February 9, 2008, Toronto Sun

Et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Mark Steyn says yes to a debate:

...we've put in a request to let me go mano a mano with the Sock Puppets. Don't care how many there are: One, two, or all three. If Daniel Simard wants to come out of his hiding place, he's welcome to join in for a grand reunion of the original Sock Puppet Four. I'd much rather go mano a mano with the real complainant, Mohamed Elmasry, but his mano is stuck up the Sock Puppets so I guess it's unavailable.

We'll let you know whether Steve Paikin's gonna go for it. But, if they do, it'll be 8pm Eastern tomorrow night. -- SteynOnline.com

The CIC's sock puppets cancel:

Their main reason is that this is not what they have initially agreed to and that they would not have the time to prepare for such a debate. The other reason they offered is that their complaint is with Macleans' magazine and not Mark Steyn personally.

Given this picture, I think we need to go back to our original plan of keeping the combatants apart. -- e-mail from TVO producer to Mark Steyn

Will TVO really let the sock puppets off the hook? I know Steve Paikin, the host, can handle the "combatants" -- he was the outstanding moderator of the last federal election's English language leader's debate. He can handle a few law students and an author.

We all know Steyn can handle it.

So why have the Canadian Islamic Congress's sock puppets declined? They need more time to prepare? They've been calling for this debate for ~~four~~ five months. I don't think it's that they need time to prepare. I think it's that they don't want a debate -- they never have. They've wanted to make Maclean's and Steyn submit to them and their Islamic supremacism that brooks no criticism. That's what going to the human rights commissions was about. That's what their Al Sharpton-style shake-down attempt last week was about.

These aren't liberals, interested in an exchange of ideas. These are bullies, interested in not only one-way multiculturalism, but a one-way "debate": they talk, and Canada obeys.

What a bunch of cowards.

I love it!

By Ezra Levant on May 5, 2008 8:46 AM | Permalink | |

What a handsome man! And what a delicious-looking mug of coffee!

I'm ashamed that I haven't bought mine yet. I'm going online to get one myself this very moment!

Jews for free speech

By Ezra Levant on May 4, 2008 11:06 PM | Permalink | |

I didn't know it until I read paragraph 4 this legal brief, but apparently I, Ezra Levant, have been relying on section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act -- the thought crimes provision -- for my "psychological security".

That's what the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and, to Frank Dimant's shame, the B'nai Brith say. In paragraph 4 of their joint brief, they claim they're "representatives of the Canadian Jewish community" and that Canadian Jews "rely heavily on anti hate-speech legislation, such as section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, for their physical and psychological security."

I admit I've been caught flat-footed by this. I didn't know that I was supposed to be a caricature of a thin-skinned Jew, a neurotic Woody Allen stereotype, a perpetual victim. But that's not being fair to Allen -- he works through his "psychological insecurities" using self-deprecating comedy, as so many Jewish comedians do. Come to think of it, I imagine he'd be a foe of section 13, if he knew about it. If he were Canadian, he'd probably even be charged under it. If you don't realize that Allen has his tongue in his cheek, his movies' outlandish characters and stories could come across as anti-Semitic. (Zelig is my favourite.) Allen himself could be convicted of "likely" spreading "hatred" against Jews.

I'm not the only Jew who didn't get the groupthink memo from our so-called "representatives". It seems that Jonathan Kay, George Jonas, David Frum, Kevin Libin, Michael Ross and Karen Selick of the National Post (not to mention the Asper family), Edward Greenspon of the Globe and Mail, Charles Adler of Corus radio, Ellen Seligman of PEN Canada and Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association aren't fulfilling the official stereotype either. Neither are Noam Chomsky or cartoonist Art Spiegelman or blogger Pamela Geller, but they're not Canadian. I'm not sure if Paul Schneidereit of the Halifax Chronicle Herald is Jewish, and Mark Steyn, Michael Coren and Christopher Hitchens may have some Jewish ancestry but they say they're not members of the tribe, so maybe their anti-section 13 heresy is permitted.

Each of the aforementioned individuals has come out against section 13. But that's the problem: they're individuals. The Official Jews, the Professional Jews, the Jews Who Are Jews for a Living, say that we're all just one big blob of "Jews" who think as we're told to think by them.

And what about Heather Reisman, patron of one of Canada's biggest and most active synagogues, Toronto's Holy Blossom? This Wednesday she is hosting a book launch -- not a book burning -- for Steyn's paperback edition of America Alone. Apparently Reisman isn't aware that Steyn's book is a section 13 crime, denounced (without a trial) by the Ontario HRC's czarina, Barbara Hall, and is about to be subject to a trial in B.C. next month. The CJC's Bernie Farber has less than 72 hours to tell Reisman to start feeling psychologically insecure!

If Canada's Official Jews want to claim that they're "psychologically insecure", they can knock themselves out. It seemed to work for Giacomo "Serenity now!" Vigna. But perhaps they'd be so kind as to speak for themselves, not for the rest of us. Now I know how Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell must feel when they hear Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson speaking "for Blacks".

There is one useful element to their psychobabble dressed up as a legal brief. It is proof, in their own writing, that section 13 is being abused in ways that were never contemplated -- let alone permitted -- by our Supreme Court when they last assessed section 13 in 1990. To protect Jewish "psychological security"? So that's all it takes to trump our fundamental freedom of speech, as enshrined in the Charter of Rights, Bill of Rights, and 800 years of common law?

If you're a Jew (or know of a Jew) who has spoken up against the thought crimes provisions of Canada's human rights laws and I've inadvertently left you off of this list, e-mail me, and I'll add you. And why not e-mail your "representatives" at the CJC, B'nai Brith and (weirdly, as if they're some sort of political body) the Simon Wiesenthal Center at the same time.

Tell them that we all know they need some sort of "crisis" to write about in their endless fundraising letters. But perhaps they might find some other, real, threats to Jewish security -- oh, say, a synagogue or school torching -- and leave the "psychological security" schtick to Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld.

ADDENDUM: It's not just that Jews are opposed to section 13. It's that anti-Semites are in favour of it -- and are using it as a weapon against us. Look at the character of the men who have recently been filing complaints under section 13 and its provincial analogs. Mohamed Elmasry, the terrorist-supporting president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, filed three complaints against Judeophile Mark Steyn; Syed Soharwardy, the infidel-hating president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada filed a complaint against me (and, though he later dropped it, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities picked it up); and even Richard Warman, Canada's most prolific section 13 complainant, has admitted under oath that he went online, under a secret codename, and posted comments on white supremacist websites, signing off with Nazi shorthand for "heil Hitler".

Warman is now suing not only me, but the Zionist National Post and its editor Jonathan Kay, as well as four of Canada's most pro-Israel Gentile bloggers, Kathy Shaidle, Kate McMillan and Connie and Mark Fournier. Section 13 doesn't give "the Jews" security. Section 13 is being used to silence "the Jews" and our righteous Gentile allies. If anything, it makes me "psychologically insecure" to know that section 13 is being supporting in my name even as Alberta's own version of section 13 is being used against me.

I know that the CJC is beyond redemption. And the Wiesenthal Center is really just a museum and a gift store. But I still hold out hope from the B'nai Brith. Does Frank Dimant even know what his organization is doing?

Breakthrough: Anti-racism public interest law firm intervenes against CHRC

By Ezra Levant on May 4, 2008 6:58 PM | Permalink | |

I'm delighted to learn that my old friends at the Canadian Constitution Foundation have requested intervenor status in Marc Lemire's constitutional challenge to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Section 13 is the thought crimes provision that has also ensnared Maclean's magazine for publishing excerpts of Mark Steyn's book, America Alone.

My own human rights battle at the Alberta commission is under that province's version of section 13, which happens to be section 3 under the Alberta act. If the federal section 13 is struck down by the courts, the provincial law under which I'm charged (and others, like Rev. Stephen Boission have been convicted), would immediately be of dubious constitutionality, too.

You can see the CCF's application for intervenor status here.

The CCF's mandate isn't just anti-racism -- they have intervened for patients' rights, as well. But their founding case was taking up the cause of a Nisga'a Indian chief, James Robinson, also known by his Nisga'a name, Chief Mountain. More recently, the CCF intervened on behalf of Japanese Canadian fishermen who were being discriminated against on the basis of their race. In other words, the CCF's anti-racism credentials are impeccable.

I suspect that the CCF's intervention will be the first of several. I think it's likely that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, or one of its affiliates, will join the constitutional challenge, too. And the Canadian Association of Journalists has expressed their willingness to intervene in my case and in Maclean's, too. I'm grateful for their offer of help -- but intervening in this direct constitutional challenge could be a way to defeat the legislation itself -- a more productive use of their legal resources than fighting individual cases under the legislation.

By the way, I think that a constitutional challenge to section 13 has a good chance of success. Eighteen years ago, section 13 was tested by the Supreme Court of Canada, and it survived by the barest of margins: four to three -- and one of the dissenting three judges, Beverley McLachlin, is now the Chief Justice. You can read the case here.

If section 13 was ruled constitutional in 1990, why would it fail now? Precisely because the Canadian Human Rights Commission has been unable to control its appetite. In 1990, the SCC let the law live because, said the court:

In sum, the language employed in s. 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act extends only to that expression giving rise to the evil sought to be eradicated and provides a standard of conduct sufficiently precise to prevent the unacceptable chilling of expressive activity. Moreover, as long as the Human Rights Tribunal continues to be well aware of the purpose of s. 13(1) and pays heed to the ardent and extreme nature of feeling described in the phrase "hatred or contempt", there is little danger that subjective opinion as to offensiveness will supplant the proper meaning of the section.

The CHRC's conduct has been more and more censorious since 1990; it has moved squarely into arbitrating what's "offensive", by their own proud admission. Even without the ascension of Justice McLachlin, the retirement of Justice L'Heureux Dube and the death of Justice Wilson, the CHRC's current conduct clearly exceeds the latitude granted by that 1990 judgment.

I'm proud of the CCF's intervention. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association intervened in the 1990 case -- I'm sure they'll intervene again, now. Add in groups like the Canadian Association of Journalists and maybe even PEN Canada, and you've got a big tent coalition for liberty.

I'd like Canada's HRCs to have their wings clipped by Parliament. But maybe the Supreme Court of Canada will get there first!

Ezra in Wonderland

By Ezra Levant on May 3, 2008 10:41 PM | Permalink | |

I attended the Canadian Race Relations Foundation conference on Friday. Other than Jason Kenney, the National Post's Kevin Libin, and me, there was only one white male in the audience of 100. I don't think I would have noticed such a thing were it not a foundation supposedly dedicated to diversity. I'll get back to that point in a moment.

More importantly, I recommend to you Libin's front page story in Saturday's Post about Kenney's speech, if you haven't read it yet. Some excerpts:

Jason Kenney, a Cabinet member and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, labelled "dangerous" the "illiberal tactics" employed by some activists in the name of tolerance.

"I think it's very important for those of us engaged in anti-racism efforts to ensure the tactics we use, the approaches that we take, are consistent with respect for the liberal values of the Charter of Rights, of the Canadian constitutional framework, of our democratic parliamentary institutions," Mr. Kenney told the crowd of about 100.

..."There is a large and growing debate about freedom of expression and the role of the human rights commission, and organizations that seek to use these commissions to deal with what they believe constitutes thoughts or opinions reflective of hatred or xenophobia," Mr. Kenney said. "I would also hope that we think long and hard about the central role, the foundational role, of such values as freedom of expression in our constitutional framework, and that we do not lightly undermine those constitutional values in our efforts to combat racism or hatred."

That's the toughest broadside yet aimed at Canada's human rights commissions. "Dangerous". "Illiberal". "Undermine those constitutional values". That's tough talk.

So far, it is still only talk -- but it shows a growing school of thought within the government: Canada's HRCs are out of control, and are paradoxically becoming a menace to real human rights, like freedom of speech.

That the cabinet minister in charge of domestic human rights and multiculturalism would call "anti-hate" activists on the carpet so publicly and pointedly is dramatic. In a way, it is as important as Keith Martin's private member's motion to repeal section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the thought crimes provision. Martin's motion is more precise. But, as a motion (as opposed to a bill), it is what lawyers might call obiter dicta -- a non-binding statement of opinion, not a change in the law. Martin's motion is a call for a Parliamentary rebuke of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Kenney didn't bother to wait for the vote!

(Have these two men even met on this subject yet? They ought to; at the very least, even if the Conservatives aren't yet willing to formally endorse Martin's motion, they should ensure that the motion actually makes it to a vote.)

The Post covered Kenney's main points well -- they were really the only news of the day. But there were a few things about the conference itself that, while not meriting the front page of a national newspaper, would surprise severely normal Canadians -- that is, the taxpayers who paid for the conference.

As Libin's article mentioned in passing, there was a question and answer session after Kenney's 45-minute speech. Not a single question was regarding his remarks about human rights commissions. Most of questions -- and both Libin and I were stunned by this -- were not really even questions, but hostile comments about the government's decision to boycott "Durban II". That's the upcoming sequel to the 2001 international "anti-racism" convention that descended into an orgy of anti-Jewish hatred that even the U.N.'s Mary Robinson, no friend of Israel or the Jews, called "horrible". I think at least three of the questions on Friday complained about Canada's decision not to attend.

Their questions to Kenney had a mild anti-Israel flavour -- two of the delegates on Friday actually complained about how much they have to hear about the Jewish Holocaust -- but it was nothing more than you'd see at a typical NDP convention these days. But then it hit me: they weren't bitching about Canada's decision not to go to Durban because they were anti-Zionist. They were grousing because the government's decision meant that their exciting, all-expenses-paid junkets to South Africa were cancelled, too.

If Canada sent a government delegation, Canada's "anti-racism" NGO's could go, too. If not, then not -- or at least not on the taxpayers' dime.

(By the way, can an NGO really be an NGO -- a non-governmental organization -- if it is organized, or paid for, by the government? Friday's conference wasn't for NGOs. It was for GONGOs -- government organized non-governmental organizations.)

The entire conference suddenly made sense to me.

Why had there been no heckles from the hard-left crowd when Kenney spoke?

Why had the foundation's directors and staff been so obsequious to Kenney?

Because they all depended on Kenney and his department for their grants and hand-outs. Did they really care about Kenney's ideological differences with them? Did they really care about his views on freedom of expression, or anything else for that matter? With a few exceptions, most of them didn't. They wanted to know why they couldn't go to their next junket, to have a week-long reunion at a five-star hotel in exotic South Africa with all of their other "anti-racism" friends from other countries.

Another question suddenly made sense: a woman of colour complaining to Kenney about how hard it was for minorities to get jobs in the federal government. (The answer, of course, is the public service's strict requirement for French-English bilingualism, especially at senior levels.) But she wasn't asking in the abstract. She was presenting herself -- and the rest of the room -- as candidates.

This wasn't a conference, in the main, of civil servants with cushy public sector union jobs. These were "anti-racism" grantrepreneurs -- people who had to hustle, every year, to liberate $50,000 or $75,000 from this government agency or that one, to keep going. They were what economists call "rent-seekers" -- or what Ayn Rand called "moochers and looters". Civil servants would have booed Kenney, because they already have secure sinecures. But these people don't.

That wasn't just my hunch. It was made crystal clear to everyone in the room -- especially Kenney himself -- by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation poobah who thanked Kenney.

Des Doran, a Jamaican-Canadian member of the CRRF's board, started off his response to Kenney... with a racist joke about how Irishmen (like Kenney) are a bunch of drunks.

I'm not sure what Kenney should have done. It was the end of the conference, everyone was smiling, and this doddering old man thought he'd tell a racist joke. If it weren't at an "anti-racism" conference, I'd probably defend the joke -- it was almost funny; and Doran is clearly from a different era, when calling Irishmen drunks was acceptable. I'm just pretty sure that if someone had made a Black joke or a Muslim joke, he would have been hounded out of that meeting, board of directors or not, different generation or not. Ask Tom Lukiwski.

Kenney chose to laugh along with it, though the rest of the CRRF's directors looked like they were going to throw up. Not because they didn't think the joke was funny, but because the whole damn point of inviting Kenney to the speech was to hit him up for a bigger endowment. Didn't Doran know that?

Well, yes he did know that. Because -- in front of the whole convention -- after his joke, Doran flat-out asked for more cash. It was so awkward, so desperate, even I felt pity for the old fool.

Kenney gave the same response that he did to the Irish joke: a courtesy laugh.

Gentle reader, I went to this "anti-racism" conference to hear Kenney talk about human rights commissions. And that's what happened.

But what I saw as well was a permanent court of race-hustlers and beggars -- and even bigots. And all of them were living off the government teat.

I had no interactions with the CRRF's executive director, Ayman Al-Yassini, whose c.v. boasts what others would hide, namely that he was

visiting professor at the University of Riyadh (King Saud University) in Saudi Arabia. He published extensively on the relationship between religion and state in Islam, religion and development and religion and foreign policy.

He was clearly the envy of the room -- an ethno-bureaucrat with a big budget, immune from Parliamentary accountability because it's already in his endowment fund. He wore the nicest suit in the room, nicer than Kenney's. I'm guessing Ermengildo Zegna.

But most of the crowd looked like they were more Moore's people, or even Tip-Top. Not because they lacked a fashion sense, but because there just ain't a hell of a lot of demand for anti-racism "consultants" in Ottawa these days. That's a lot of junkets, conferences -- and $2,000 suits -- gone missing from the "anti-racism" movement.

There are human rights zealots. And there are clock-punching bureaucrats. But on Friday, I met a different breed: a hundred low-budget racial "consultants" who care more about their perks than the anti-Semitism of a UN conference, who care more about getting money for their pet projects than about the minister's views, and who think nothing of anti-Irish bigotry because, well, that's acceptable racism to them.

I had never heard of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation until this week. I don't think most Canadians had, either. I can't think of a single reason why the Conservative government shouldn't pull the plug on them the first day of their majority government. I truly believe that race relations in Canada would be better without this horde of Jeremiah Wrights. And at least he gets his money from his churchgoers, not taxpayers.

ADDENDUM: There is one important anomaly to this group of rent-seekers that I would be remiss not to mention -- and mourn. I didn't find it on the CRRF's website; I heard about it in Kenney's speech. About half the CRRF's starting endowment came not from the government but from private donations from Japanese Canadians. I think their contribution was about $6 million, and it was made in memory of the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

Japanese Canadians who were interned had real rights violated -- property rights; freedom of association, equality before the law, due process and natural justice; and the golden thread of British jurisprudence: the right to be innocent until proven guilty. Those were real human rights -- not the fake human rights of today's HRCs, such as the "right not to be offended". I admire the fact that instead of demanding cash, those Japanese Canadian donors gave cash.

They must be so appalled at what has become of their money. Instead of funding an endowment to ensure that Canadians are never again pre-judged by their race, that Japanese Canadian money is doing the exact opposite: it is funding a retinue of hyper-racialized grievance-mongers, to whom everything is about race.

There was a single Japanese Canadian in the room, a representative of those original donors. I didn't speak with him, but I wonder what he thinks about bankrolling this travelling carnival of Al Sharptons in training. I have never seen a Japanese Canadian race huckster. I'm not saying they don't exist; I just think it's beneath the dignity of the Japanese Canadian culture to muster professional complainers. They're too busy doing real things in the heart of Canadian society, not constantly separating themselves.

I think the fact that tax dollars go to the CRRF and a dozen groups like it is a scandal. But I think it is downright heartbreaking that millions of Japanese Canadian dollars, donated to further racial harmony, are being used to exacerbate differences between the races, and to fund perpetual racial tension.

Japanese Canadians were picked on because they were not treated as Canadians, full stop. They were treated differently in law because of their race. Why, that's exactly what the CRRF is all about.

Frankly, it sounds a lot like what's happened to the Canadian Jewish Congress -- a group that was set up almost a century ago to integrate Jewish immigrants into society, and to recruit Jews into the Canadian armed forces, has turned into a grievance-mongering group that would be unrecognizable to its original founders.

Mark Steyn on CTV's Mike Duffy Live

By Ezra Levant on May 2, 2008 4:18 PM | Permalink | |

Mark Steyn was in Ottawa today, and he appeared on Mike Duffy Live, straight from the foyer of the House of Commons. You can watch the clip here.

It was fun to see Steyn in Canadian surroundings -- he's done MDL before, via satellite -- and I was impressed with Duffy's thoughtful and well-briefed questions.

Duffy's most daring question was about Richard Warman, Canada's most litigious human rights complainant -- daring, given that Warman has such a penchant for defamation suits, of which I'm painfully aware.

Duffy and Steyn talked about Warman's complaints, and his five-figure, tax-free payments from the Canadian Human Rights Commission for succeeding in those complaints. Steyn called Warman's deal a "racket" and a "scandal". It was a great discussion, and it made for great TV.

I'll be interested to see if Warman sues Steyn, Duffy and CTV now, too. They've said no more than many of the people Warman has threatened, such as this student from McGill. On the other hand, does Warman really want to get the full and hostile attention of CTV and its affiliate, the Globe and Mail -- and their countless lawyers?

Ducks unlimited

By Ezra Levant on May 2, 2008 3:55 PM | Permalink | |

I wrote the following little item for the National Post:

Like dozens of Canadians, I was deeply moved by the death of 500 ducks that made the mistake of lollygagging at Syncrude’s oil sands plant in Ft. McMurray. The National Post put the story on page one, and even the Prime Minister called the deaths a “terrible tragedy.”

I agree. I can’t believe that 500 ducks were wasted that way. Imagine all the lost foie gras (though optimistic scientists have said five of the ducks can be saved). And it’s not just a blow to fine dining. How many Turducken connoisseurs will now have to make do with turkey stuffed just with chicken? How many restaurants will go without their signature dish, Peking Duck – another devious scheme by the Dalai Lama to embarrass the Beijing Olympics?

Of course the news is anything but a tragedy for environmentalist groups – Heart-rending fundraising letters are being written right now. For them, the golden goose only becomes golden when it’s killed – even if it is a species that is as far from extinction as, say, the rat.

...If oil-thirsty America – and China and India –stop using oil sands oil because it’s duck-insensitive, they’re just going to buy their oil from somewhere else.

Somewhere like Saudi Arabia. Or Venezuela. Or Nigeria. Or Russia. Pretty much everywhere oil comes from is worse than Canada – even with our new reputation as duck murderers.

If Canada’s PR nightmare is the slogan: “Boycott Canadian oil: they kill ducks!” what would the alternative be?

Buy Saudi oil: because only 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 were sponsored by us!

Or, buy Sudanese oil – we’re working towards a final solution to the Darfur problem!

How about, buy Mexican oil: Canadians can come for a week – stay for two years!

...Every barrel of oil steamed out of the sand in Ft. McMurray is one more barrel that doesn’t come from a misogynist, human rights-violating environmental basket case, usually a dictatorship, and often a sponsor of terrorism. The moral thing to do would be to pump as much oil as technologically possible from Ft. McMurray.

Save the ducks? Sure. But I’d rather liberate Saudi women, save Russian democracy, or stop Nigerian theft of foreign aid.

Just a normal Friday for me

By Ezra Levant on May 2, 2008 8:45 AM | Permalink | |

Today is the final day in the Canadian Race Relations Foundation conference, with the title "What is Canadian Racism? Engaging in a Critical Analysis of this Distinct Manifestation of Racism and How to Tackle it." Here's a shocker: it's a government agency, with its board appointed by the federal cabinet.

I'll be there, of course.

Not so that I can publicly commit my life to the CRRF's motto, which "...acknowledges [Canada's] racist past, recognizes the pervasiveness of racism today..."

Not so that I can wear an "I'm sorry" button, along with everyone else, as they do in this wonderful short story by Robert Ferrigno.

Not so that I can write down every pearl of wisdom from the CRRF's executive director, Ayman Al-Yassini, whose biography includes:

(Counterpoint: I admit one could actually learn a lot about racism and sexism teaching at an officially anti-Semitic, officially misogynist university in a fascist theocracy.)

Nope. I'll be there because I've been invited as a guest of honour by today's keynote speaker, the Hon. Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, who has asked me to sit at the head table with him as he delivers his thoughts on multiculturalism and Canadian identity. To kill time until he talks, I think I'll bring along my signed copy of America Alone to read (and, as my friends know, I like to read aloud, or at least in a stage whisper, instead of keeping the goodness all to myself).

I haven't seen Jason's speech yet, but I'm guessing it might even have a few bon mots about human rights commissions. I'll report back.

And if I see Richard Warman or Dean Steacy there, I'll be sure to wave at them from the head table.

We're number five!

By Ezra Levant on May 1, 2008 1:11 PM | Permalink | |

Robert Jago's monthly ranking of Canada's top political blogs is up, based on traffic. That's an inexact science, but Robert has worked it out pretty well by combining several different measurements. (Ryerson's Infoscape lab does the same on a weekly, post-by-post basis, though they seem to be on a holiday now.)

Mark Steyn ranks number one, of course. My blog has moved up from #14 to #5 in a month -- thanks for visiting! I'll try to keep posting on a daily basis to keep it interesting.

Just skimming the list, two things come to mind:

1. Conservatives and libertarians outnumber socialists and liberals about two to one;

2. Richard Warman's lawsuit against me, Kate, Kathy and Free Dominion (which didn't quite count as a blog), if successful, would deal a blow to conservative voices in the Canadian blogosphere. I don't think it's a stretch to say that's one of his goals.

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