What if there were a Canadian Patriotism Commission?
What if there were a Canadian Patriotism Commission that was designed to be an administrative, low-cost way for Canadians to complain about potentially treasonous acts on the part of fellow citizens?
Instead of difficult to prove and prosecute Criminal Code provisions, there would be a Canadian Patriotism Act that would make it illegal to publish or communicate publicly anything that was likely to expose the government to hatred or contempt. Truth would not be a defense, nor would intent. Your accusers would need no proof that your treasonous communication actually resulted in any rupture of peace and good government.
Normal rules of evidence would not apply. You would be presumed guilty until you spent an arm and a leg trying to prove your innocence, but that is unlikely to happen. Your only hope was to be able to raise enough money to get your case appealed in a higher court.
Do you think the Left might wake up if the government created such a commission?
At last week's Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing, Dean Steacy mentioned CSIS among the agencies, including the RCMP and big city police forces, that Commission "investigators" have looked at cooperating with. CSIS?
Is it a big leap from investigations of hate to investigations of treason? Or substitute another t-word---terrorism?
The Left has raised huge outcries concerning government surveillance of cell phone and electronic communications to stop terrorists. Maybe the Right has been too complacent about government intrusions into privacy in the name of security.
Here's a link to a most interesting interview with Lawrence Wright on the New Yorker's website about electronic surveillance, and the new threats to the West given new technology.
It would be nice to see a convergence of all people of good will on finding a proper balance between security concerns and fundamental freedoms. But setting up administrative agencies that have coercive state powers to snoop, entrap and to punish with the blessing of a law that is so open-ended that legitimate political dissent can be attacked as treasonous is not the way to go.
So why then are human rights commissions, with all the weaknesses of my hypothetical patriotism commission, getting such a free pass from the Left?
Instead of difficult to prove and prosecute Criminal Code provisions, there would be a Canadian Patriotism Act that would make it illegal to publish or communicate publicly anything that was likely to expose the government to hatred or contempt. Truth would not be a defense, nor would intent. Your accusers would need no proof that your treasonous communication actually resulted in any rupture of peace and good government.
Normal rules of evidence would not apply. You would be presumed guilty until you spent an arm and a leg trying to prove your innocence, but that is unlikely to happen. Your only hope was to be able to raise enough money to get your case appealed in a higher court.
Do you think the Left might wake up if the government created such a commission?
At last week's Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing, Dean Steacy mentioned CSIS among the agencies, including the RCMP and big city police forces, that Commission "investigators" have looked at cooperating with. CSIS?
Is it a big leap from investigations of hate to investigations of treason? Or substitute another t-word---terrorism?
The Left has raised huge outcries concerning government surveillance of cell phone and electronic communications to stop terrorists. Maybe the Right has been too complacent about government intrusions into privacy in the name of security.
Here's a link to a most interesting interview with Lawrence Wright on the New Yorker's website about electronic surveillance, and the new threats to the West given new technology.
It would be nice to see a convergence of all people of good will on finding a proper balance between security concerns and fundamental freedoms. But setting up administrative agencies that have coercive state powers to snoop, entrap and to punish with the blessing of a law that is so open-ended that legitimate political dissent can be attacked as treasonous is not the way to go.
So why then are human rights commissions, with all the weaknesses of my hypothetical patriotism commission, getting such a free pass from the Left?
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