The government's support of Subsection 13 (1)

When I attended the March 25 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Hearing, I introduced myself to an attractive young woman in the hallway and found out she was the Dept. of Justice Lawyer, representing the government. Frankly, I wonder how she can live with herself after having a front row seat on what has been going on. For her political masters, I have even more harsh things to say, for after all, she is a civil servant doing as her political masters tell her.

What's important to emphasize here is that the Conservative government is not just remaining silent on the out of control "human rights" commissions, it is an active participant in a process that is flawed both in principle and in practice.

We need a Royal Commission to examine both, because the legal principles no longer resemble anything of the Western inheritance of inherent human rights and freedom that extend back 800 years.

The Act doesn't even resemble the Universal Declaration on Human Rights from 60 years ago. It seems to be some wonky concoction whipped up by left-leaning ideologues and social scientists who owe more to scientific determinism and Marx than the great philosophical and spiritual foundations of our freedoms and rights.

We need a Commission to thoroughly examine the logical consequences of this kind of thinking, one with the legal erudition and philosophical grounding to help get us back on our proper foundations. May I suggest retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Charles Gonthier as one of the commissioners? Canadian Civil Liberties Association general counsel Alan Borovoy as another?

Ezra Levant has obtained a copy of the government brief in support of Subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

He writes:

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.

Mark Steyn writes:

As I always say, the CIC lawsuits objecting to America Alone's thesis in fact confirm it - that in the long run free societies are at risk not from fellows flying planes into skyscrapers but from a misbegotten alliance between the likes of the CIC and bovine western "progressives" only too willing to sign away ancient liberties.

I don't know why any self-respecting person would want to work in the "journalistic" environment Nicholson and Co are creating, a world in which audacious propagandists will be free to use "human rights" courts as a threat to browbeat the press into serving as spineless pliable propagandists. Personally, I'd rather be Eliot Spitzer's hooker. The principles are the same, but the hourly rates are higher.

Right now, most journalists are still asleep to this issue. They have no idea what is going on. Or if they do, they don't mind seeing conservatives like Steyn and Levant getting ground through the process, since they don't think it will ever involve them.

But that is changing. I hope the CAJ conference changes this dramatically.

It is odd to me that Omar Khadr's rights are far more important to the mainstream media than their own right-of-centre colleagues'. Or Brenda Martin's plight in a Mexican jail.

Wake up, journalists, wake up, because your freedom to do your job could soon end.