Harper's publishes extract of CIC tract

Well, you know how Harper's magazine often republishes without comment interesting and odd tidbits from around the Anglosphere.

It published part of the Canadian Islamic Congress' case study against Maclean's Magazine and Mark Steyn in the latest issue.

That has some jerks crowing that Harper's is quoting Mark Steyn as an Islamophobe.

No Bozos, it is quoting a document full of fabrications, missing quotation marks and misconstrued, out-of -context remarks.

Harper's ironic quotation marks in the top paragraph should have tipped them off to what the editors of the magazine actually think of this screed. Some readers though are obviously too dumb to get the irony.

The intent of the CIC document is to shut down freedom of speech by abiding by the old adage of giving a dog a bad name to hang it. Harper's has lifted it up to the light of day for intelligent readers who know how to read punctuation.

Some do "get it," but choose to misconstrue as a deliberate tactic.

Their dishonesty is breathtaking.

UPDATE:

Rob Breakenridge slices and dices the misconstrued bogus "quotes" here.

Did Mark Steyn say that? Let's review what he actually wrote (emphasis added):

"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children." As he summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

-snip-

Beyond that, though, what about the "sheep-shaggers" remark? Again, let's see what he wrote (emphasis added):

Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book" and its helpful advice on romantic matters: "If a man marries a minor who has reached the age of nine and if during the defloration he immediately breaks the hymen, he cannot enjoy her any longer." I'll say. I know it always ruins my evening. Also: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin."

(...) enjoy the don't-eat-your-sexual-partner stuff as much as the next infidel, but the challenge presented by Islam is not that the cities of the Western world will be filling up with sheep-shaggers. If I had to choose, I'd rather Mohammed Atta was downriver in Egypt hitting on the livestock than flying through the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers.

Jason Cherniak: ethicist

Legal expert and theologian Jason Cherniak now muses about ethics. He is against mercy killing, but ....

However, I also believe that a person has a right to go to a man like Jack Kevorkian and ask to be killed because he or she does not want to go through a terminal disease. I would personally never make that choice and intend to cling to life as long as I am capable of doing so, but I have no right to force others to do the same. I don't think it is reasonable to hold people like Mr. Kevorkian responsible for the personal decisions of his clients.

So I'm still left undecided about Robert Latimer. Is he a murderous child killer, or is he a compassionate euthanizer? In the former case, he deserves to be punished. In the latter case, he deserves forgiveness. Whatever the answer might be, I hope the courts have made the right decision in his individual case. Going forward, I'm sure that they will continue to apply general legal principles in a fair and impartial manner.

At least the great legal minds and the jury of Latimer's peers determined rightly that he was a child killer. So did the first parole board hearing.

Now Robert Latimer is free to come to Ottawa to campaign for his cause. He thinks he did the right thing and he wants public recognition of that, perhaps in the form of clemency.

As Michael Coren said the other day, Canada is much less safe for disabled people because of the narrative that has grown up around "hero" Robert Latimer and his daughter Tracey, who traveled to school on the bus with her siblings the Friday before she was killed, who was not the human vegetable in intractable pain oft portrayed by the media.

Conservatives--making the perfect the enemy of the good.

In conversation with Hugh Hewitt, Mark Steyn says:

But the fact is, though, you never get the ideal candidate. You know, conservatives are great people for making the perfect the enemy of the good. In other words, every couple of years, every couple of Novembers, we moan that this candidate isn’t pure enough and that candidate isn’t pure enough.

AH: Sure.

MS: But the fact is, you can’t build a movement that way. You can’t just be an ideological purist, and he understand that, that in a sense, you’ve got to be driving the movement with the ideas, but there have to be people running for election on the ballot who can get elected.

Chuck Cadman and the vote that lost marriage

Back in the spring of 2005, the same-sex marriage debate was raging. It had not yet become law.

Chuck Cadman's vote, in my opinion, prevented Canada from having an election over marriage.

Maybe, just maybe, if Chuck had voted with the Opposition, the majority of Canadians who wanted to keep the traditional definition of marriage, might have prevailed.

Instead of redefining marriage and eliminating father and mother from every law on the books and replacing those biological definitions with a legal construct, paving the way for polygamy and group marriage, we might have followed in France's footsteps, given the matter the in depth study it deserved, and realized that redefining marriage would hurt the rights of children to know and to be raised by their biological parents.

Chuck was dying. Had there been an election, he would have lost the insurance protection that comes with being a sitting MP.

I recall there was some question at the time whether he made the decision to vote the way he did out of concern for security for his family or out of principle. I don't know the answer to that. I would assume on balance it was probably principle because Chuck was that kind of guy.

The principle in that case was wrong. That vote lost us marriage and generations are going to pay for the grievous way the Liberals under Paul Martin shoved Bill C-250 through the House and the Senate that June and July.

It's offensive to see the Liberals in such paroxysms of judgment when at the same time they lured Belinda Stronach to cross the floor by giving her a cabinet post.

I am so tired of the focus on scandals. Where is the attention to the real issues that matter.
Like the erosion of our civil liberties? No wonder people get cynical about politics.

It's also unlikely that this highly partisan committee would do justice to the freedom of speech issue. They're too focused on Mulroney/Schreiber and now Chuck Cadman.

Sigh.

Hezbollah conversion story

Listen to this incredible story.

I guarantee it will make your day.

H/t Christian government

Freedom of speech could be an election issue

Spoke to Keith Martin again yesterday. We talked about whether his Motion-446 to gut the thought crimes/anti-freedom of speech section of the Canadian Human Rights Act could become an election issue.

"It could be, if people want it to be."

Of course, it looks like an anticipated spring election is not going to happen. So that means "the people" have about six months to make this an election issue.

In the meantime, I asked Keith what can be done about his motion, seeing as his rank in the private member's lottery is in the 200s. That means there is little or no chance of M-446 ever hitting the floor of the House of Commons . . .unless.....someone who pulled a lower ranking is willing switch with him.

"Nothing prevents the government or a committee from dealing with it," he said, noting that an open, transparent review of the Canadian Human Rights Act is the intelligent thing to do.

"That could be done tomorrow."

The other alternative, he said, is that a House of Commons committee could decide to open up an investigation into this on their own.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe says it will be a pleasure to answer it

I asked Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe this today: "Mr. Duceppe, do you have any
concerns about  Human Rights Comissions being used to shut down freedom of speech?
You heard about  the complaints against Macleans magazine for Mark Steyn's article?

Gilles Duceppe: "I didn't hear, I didn't hear about that.  If you come
back, I won't be here tomorrow but we could answer the question next
week.  It would be a pleasure to answer it."

Mr. Duceppe, thank you!  I will check back with you next week.

Apartheid fuelled Caritas executive’s passion for equality

From this week's Western Catholic Reporter, my profile of the Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Lesley-Anne Knight:

Caritas Internationalis Secretary General Lesley-Anne Knight sees her election last June as a “historical moment” for the worldwide confederation of Catholic development agencies.

Not only was Knight the first woman to be elected to the high-profile Vatican-based position, but also she was the first female candidate.

In an interview in Ottawa Feb. 18, Knight said the General Assembly’s vote represented a “coming of age” for Caritas Internationalis because it reflects the importance of the key involvement of lay women, especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia in the confederation’s work.

Now living in Rome with her husband, Knight, 52, often finds herself the only woman at meetings heavily represented by cardinals and archbishops. Unfazed, the married mother of two grown children exudes quiet confidence from her more than 25 years experience in international development work.

The Master's Artist gets high profile mention

For several years now, I've been blogging with a group of mostly American Christian writers at The Master's Artist. We are a diverse group, but we are united by a desire to combine a desire for excellence in the craft of writing with a wholehearted submission to Jesus Christ.

These days the adjective Christian applied to fiction, music, movies and other visual arts, has become a pejorative label, an indication that the product is inferior, derivative, and at best mediocre. The Master's Artist is a community that is working hard to change that state of affairs, through encouraging Christian artists to strive for that excellence, working on our own craft, and through not losing sight of the one we desire to serve, Jesus.

We also hope to provide an antidote for the many writing-related websites, blogs and writing conferences that tell you how to get published, how to write query letters, how to market your book, how to create a product. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But some Christian writers are out there who are called to create works of art, work that may not fit into the product mold, and we want to encourage that.

Today The Master's Artist got a wonderful plug in Christianity Today's live blog from Gregory Wolfe, the editor of Image Journal. He writes:

The Master’s Artist
This site is an excellent example of a group blog, a true community of like-minded but highly individual writers. As they put it, they are “united by the blood of Christ and a love for language.” Topics range from the state of Christian publishing to craft issues to lyrical meditations on writing as a spiritual discipline.

I'm proud to be associated with this wonderful group of dedicated Christians who want to bring the best they have to the stories they tell.

Whoa! Friendly fire alert! Janet Epp Buckingham is one of the good guys!

I have known Janet Epp Buckingham for about 15 years. When she was the director of law and public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada up until 2006, she was on the forefront of the battle for freedom of speech, for freedom of religion and for traditional marriage. She's bright and talented and I think highly of her.

She has done some excellent work and has been engaged in the battle for far longer than most of us. So please, hold the friendly fire!

She is on the side of the angels, even though I disagree with the column she wrote for Christian Week. That column is not consistent at all with her excellent contributions to the fight, so please don't judge her based on that alone. Sure, criticize the ideas in that column, but don't jump to conclusions that it represents a body of work and don't attack her character. She's terrific, even if I disagree with her from time to time. That column is one of them.

Like Denyse O'Leary I found aspects dismaying. Given my knowledge of the great work she has done, I found it surprising.

Denyse writes:

In the “hrc” hearing that Janet Epp Buckingham thinks is just a “pain”, I’d be paying a lawyer who couldn’t really even tell me what to expect to happen - because, so far as I can tell - the “hrcs” basically make it up as they go along. Not like a usual court where your lawyer can really advise you.

Yes, it’s bad enough that I must lose my savings or my home to pay a lawyer, just to go on doing my job. The Bible would say that was an injustice, but … who, oh, cares about that?

Well, I care. And I'm sure Janet cares too, despite the casual wording of the column.

Janet could easily rattle off a litany of human rights commissions abuses of freedom of speech and conscience because she has fought against them. I think she meant to say that there can be a proper role for human rights commissions and that, within their workplace purview, they do sometimes benefit Christians. (Though I know of two Catholics who the Canadian Human Rights Commission has refused to hear concerning genuine workplace discrimination by their union).

People like Alan Borovoy, Iain Benson and other critics of human rights commission abuses have both said they don't want them dispensed with entirely. They still think the original intent of having an administrative, low-cost, mediation-oriented approach to complaints of discrimination concerning housing and jobs is a good idea. For me the jury's out on that. Seems the whole system needs an overhaul.

In Janet's reply to Denyse's post she says:

As for the concern that Denyse O’Leary has about facing a human rights complaint at any time, I am one who vigourously defends freedom of expression. We must work together to make sure that journalists do not have to face spurious complaints. The Ontario Human Rights Act was recently amended to make it even easier for people to make complaints. I was one who made a submission to the Ontario government opposing this amendment.

But where was the Christian community on this? I felt that I was the lone voice. That was the time to have a major push for reform but I certainly did not hear it.

My commentary was arguing that human rights commissions serve a useful purpose in society. While they may need reform, they still have an important function.

She's right folks. Where was everyone when she was making that submission to the Ontario government? Lots of people are concerned now that the abuses of human rights commissions have become so outrageous, but where has everyone been for the past decade when one Christian after another has faced complaints? Some of you have been on it, and good for you. Some, like Mark, were defending freedom of expression before that. But certainly PEN or the CAJ didn't come out against human rights commissions when Christian were targeted, but Janet and the EFC were doing their thing opposing them, along with other excellent groups like the Catholic Civil Rights League, the Christian Legal Fellowship, REAL Women of Canada and others.

If the complaints are suddenly dropped against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, how many will forget about this issue? This battle could be a long one. Though Janet is not engaged directly in the fray anymore, she deserves some respect as a veteran, at the very least.

As for reaction to her article, Janet has to expect that a public commentary will be answered with public speech. In this era when even mainstream publications like Maclean's Magazine are facing human rights complaints, no wonder Denyse hit the roof. She had every right to respond the way she did. I hope we can refocus on the real enemy at hand--those illiberal forces from all side that want to take away our God-given rights.

Thanks for buying my book

Last week, when The Defilers was plummeting past the 1.4 millionth rank on Amazon.com I sounded the alarm and FreeMarkSteyn and Kathy Shaidle came to the rescue.

Thanks to the people who bought my book, my ranking has skyrocketed to 194,480 and was even higher for a time last week. That means perhaps about 12 people bought books, as it does not take much to pump the rankings up. I see today that people are also buying my book along with Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Facism.

How cool.

The Defilers tends to do better in Canada. It is at 73,183.

I am never going to get rich on this book. But I did put a lot of time into it--years and years---and while I don't claim that it is great literature, I think it is a story that could make a long plane ride zip by while you are transported to an engrossing fictional world. It has a Christian worldview but it doesn't sacrifice good storytelling to preach.

Go on over to FreeMarkSteyn or Kathy's site and use their Amazon buttons to buy the book, that way they can earn a little money, too. I haven't figured out how to do that yet over here.

And thanks for your support!

A sad, sad case of the brain drain to the United States

Donald DeMarco used to teach in Canada. What a loss to this country's academic establishment that he has gone to the United States.

Read this amazing essay When Tolerance Trumps Truth and weep for Canada that he no longer teaches here.

He writes:

For example, there can be no justice without truth. In the absence of truth, no verdict (verum + dicere — to tell the truth) can be delivered that separates the guilty from the innocent or justice from injustice.

It is a profoundly sad irony in the modern world that people are willing to ignore the very means that is indispensable for producing what they most ardently desire. They shun truth and expect justice to flower in a barren desert.

Marcello Pera, a non-believer, describes the present situation in the West as anything but the tranquility that arises from mutual tolerance, but as a “prison-house of insincerity and hypocrisy known as political correctness.”

People live in constant fear that any gesture or statement suggesting that one thing might be better than another is not only not tolerated, but met with scorn, derision and often severe reprisals. As Pera avers, “The adjective ‘better’ is forbidden.”

Philosophy, it should be emphasized, is not a luxury for the elite or an idol game indulged in at universities. Philosophy, because it is properly concerned with truth, goodness, beauty and other fundamental verities, is indispensable in providing the basis for civilization and all the benefits that flow from it, including unity, civility, justice, peace, art and science.

By setting tolerance above truth, tolerance degenerates into intolerance, while truth is abandoned altogether.

A system that--on the balance--works?

I had been told on good authority that B'nai Brith was beginning to question its support for human rights commissions because of the way they suppress freedom of speech and are now being used by illiberal forces. Then I saw this letter to the editor in today's National Post from its national counsel Marvin Kurz.

He writes:

The data collected annually by the League for Human Rights in its Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents shows not just ongoing prejudice, but outright harassment, vandalism and even violence. In Mr. Kay's worldview, the perpetrators would presumably be dismissed as kooks, with no connection to mainstream Canada -- except that this is the society that bred them and shelters them. And these kooks, far from being on the fringe, have a disconcerting way of cropping up in a variety of mainstream situations, such as the workplace, schools and in civil society.

It ruined my morning. Why?

Go and read the audit of anti-Semitic incidents Kurz refers to (I have highlighted some of the scariest examples):

In 2006, as in previous years, the single most documented group carrying out the reported antisemitic incidents was those who identified themselves as of Arab origin. The 68 such cases in 2006 represents a 21.4% increase over the 56 incidents in 2005. Other ethnic groups who self-identified in the year's total incidents were Hungarian (10), Russian (5), German (3), Aboriginal (3), Pakistani (2), Chinese (2) and Ukrainian (1).

3. Examples of Incidents

January

Toronto, ON ­ During "Israel Apartheid Week" on campus, an invited speaker alleges that Jews are killers who use their wealth to control the world.

Charlottetown, PEI - A Jewish student is taunted at school and referred to as a "dirty Jew".

Toronto, ON - Two boys parade through the Jewish community waving a vintage Nazi flag from their car.

Vancouver, BC - The campaign manager of a losing candidate blames the 'Jewish-owned media' for his defeat.

Toronto, ON - A social worker gives a Heil Hitler salute and complains to a colleague: "All Jews must die".

Montreal, QC - Several Arabic-speaking men use rocks and bricks in an attempt to force entry into a kosher restaurant via the window. They then throw a lit firecracker inside.

Toronto, ON - A community college teacher tells her students that the media is under the control of the Jews and that "the media make things up like the Holocaust".

February

St John, NB - The words "die Jewish scums" [sic] are found on a soccer message board.
Halifax, NS - Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, is heckled with antisemetic remarks while visiting Dalhousie University.

Toronto, ON - A school principal singles out and harasses the two Jewish teachers who work at his school.

Montreal, QC - A crowd of Arabic-speaking teenagers swarms two women, calls them "dirty Jews", and assaults their male friends outside a restaurant.

Ottawa, ON - Antisemitic insinuations are made repeatedly during a meeting sponsored by the federal government and attended by Canadian NGOs.

Richmond Hill, ON - A child is bullied at school and taunted about his Jewishness.

Montreal QC - A synagogue is vandalized on three separate occasions.

March

Montreal, QC - The owner of a kosher restaurant is threatened by a caller who warns: "You f**king Jew, we got you once, we'll get you again and this time we'll kill you."

Toronto, ON - A swastika and the message "gas the Jews" is etched inside a downtown facility.

Montreal, QC - Swastikas and the SS insignia are spray-painted on the wall of a synagogue.

Toronto, ON - The Holocaust memorial site at Earl Bales Park is vandalized and defaced with graffiti twice over a three-day period.
Regina, SK - Jewish residents are sent pamphlets telling them they will rot in hell if they do not convert to Christianity.

Toronto, ON - The entrance of an apartment is vandalized and painted with swastikas and slogans including "Die Jewz", [sic] "bitch", and "cunt".

April

Montreal, QC - Five teenagers throw rocks at a visibly Jewish man and shout "go back to your country" and "Allahu akbar".

Ottawa, ON - A house with a visible mezuzah is vandalized twice.

Toronto, ON - A supporter of white supremacist Tomasz Winnicki addresses a message to B'nai Brith: "Why don't you dumb-f**k kikes leave this guy alone? Besides you hook-nosers aren't even real Jews. You're just a bunch of Khazars".

Calgary, AB - Swastikas are etched onto two portable classrooms at an Orthodox Jewish day school.

May

Montreal, QC - Two Arabic-speaking men throw rocks at a visibly Orthodox Jewish woman as she sits in her parked car with her infant daughter.

Ottawa, ON - A prison guard taunts an inmate, calling him a "dirty Jew".

Toronto, ON - A mental health patient is harassed by a nurse and labeled a "bad Jew".

Toronto, ON - A Jewish woman living in a social housing project is harassed by her neighbors who carve swastikas onto her front door and make anti-Jewish slurs

Winnipeg, MB - Thirty-one windows are smashed at a synagogue.

Victoria, BC - A white supremacist group distributes antisemitic and anti-immigrant flyers.

June

Montreal, QC - A visibly Jewish teenager is riding on the bus when three teenagers throw peanuts at him and yell, "Jew, Jew, dirty Jew".

Toronto, ON - A Jew driving downtown is physically assaulted by the driver of another car, who hurls a bottle at him, spitting and shouting that a "pig-nose Jew should not be driving," and threatening that he will "kill you like my grandparents killed yours".

Winnipeg, MB - Antisemitic leaflets are handed out to the audience at a concert hall.

Toronto, ON - A hate rock festival promotes anti-Jewish and anti-Black propaganda.

July

Montreal, QC - A Jewish family discovers a decapitated pig floating in their backyard swimming pool.

Toronto, ON - "Death to Jews" is scrawled on a street sign in the North York area.

Montreal, QC - Three men throw rocks at a group of congregants waiting outside their synagogue, shouting "this is revenge for Lebanon".
Ottawa, ON - While walking to the Jewish community centre, a visibly Jewish man is verbally harassed with antisemitic slurs by occupants in a passing car.

Montreal, QC - At an anti-Israel rally, where open support for the terrorist group Hezbollah is expressed, a Jewish bystander is physically assaulted and a tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) is publicly desecrated.

Winnipeg, MB - Nazi-themed graffiti is spray-painted over a 50-foot stretch on a public park walkway.

Montreal, QC - B'nai Brith Canada receives a message reading: "The Jews are murderers just as bad as Hitler. We should have exterminated them when we had the chance".

Vancouver, BC - Antisemitic graffiti and swastikas are found on 12 different sites across the city.

Toronto, ON - A "Call to Arms" from a white supremacist group is circulated via e-mail calling for violence against the Jewish community.

August

Toronto, ON - While walking in Earl Bales Park, a visibly Jewish man is approached by two men claiming to be Palestinians looking for work. They ask him if he knows any "rich Jews in the area" because they want to work for "religious idiots". The two men strike the man and knock off his kippah before walking away.

Toronto, ON - A rabbi is attacked and accused of "wanting to start wars".

London, ON - A security guard in the mall shouts at kids fighting with one another to "stop acting like Jews".

Toronto, ON - A house with a mezuzah is smeared with feces.

September

Montreal, QC - An Orthodox Jewish school is firebombed in the early hours of the morning.

Toronto, ON - A synagogue in North Toronto receives threats by mail.

Montreal, QC - A glass bottle is thrown at a rabbi's home, shattering his window.

Winnipeg, MB - Antisemitic graffiti is scrawled on the walls of a synagogue and windows are smashed.

Montreal, QC - Several teenagers outline a Star of David on the ground using tape, spit on it and invite other passersby to join in and do the same.

October

Montreal, QC - B'nai Brith's Quebec Region office receives a message stating: "You are cowards and child killers."

Ottawa, ON - A swastika and the message "F**k Jews" is spray-painted on public property.

Toronto, ON - Organizers at a major downtown venue receive death threats against a Jewish performer days before her appearance in a concert.

Montreal, QC - Several men verbally harass a young and visibly Jewish boy, taunting him and ridiculing his head-covering, shouting "why are you wearing that piece of shit on your head?" Toronto, ON - Jewish community signs and property are defaced with swastikas, pictures and the message "F**k Jews".

Brampton, ON - The message "Die Jews" is outlined in the sand of a public park.

Toronto, ON - A Holocaust survivor who uses a transportation service designed for handicapped users overhears the driver making Holocaust denial remarks.

November

Montreal, QC - A Jewish organization receives the following message "If you are not happy with Quebec or Canada policies [sic], you have only to return to Israel and continue to kill your neighbours".

Toronto, ON - The elevator of a downtown building is repeatedly defaced with the words "Jew Killers" and swastikas.

Winnipeg, MB - "F**king Jew" is spray-painted on a vehicle.

December

Toronto, ON - A hotel receives a message from a caller threatening "to kill all the Jews." The caller inquires "how many Jews do you have?"

Montreal, QC - Delegates at the Liberal Leadership convention are urged not to vote for Bob Rae because his wife is Jewish.

Toronto, ON - A menorah displayed in a Jewish neighborhood is vandalized.

Victoria, BC - Anonymous hate mail targets a member of the Jewish community who authored a letter to the editor of a local newspaper protesting the Holocaust denial of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Toronto, ON - A young man is repeatedly taunted with the slur, "Jew Boy," as he walks along the sidewalk.

This is an alarming report. Anti-Semitic incidents are way up. Look at the violent incidents. The vandalism and death threats and vile graffiti are disturbing, but the outright violence is much more terrifying. I was tempted to highlight all of the incidents, so don't assume because I did not highlight some property attacks, I don't take them very seriously. If I were Jewish, I would be deeply disturbed by these trends.

Why does Mr. Kurz letter avoid mentioning where the rise in attacks are coming from, as if it is only the old-fashioned neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers and white supremacists who are responsible? Why does he seem to have no concern at all that the very human rights commissions that he thinks protect Jews from anti-Semitism are being used to silence those who are most vocal in describing the new threats against Jews?

Which was Jonathan Kay's point.

Except I disagree with Kay when he says Anti-Semitism had been banished from the mainstream. I think hatred against Jews has become fashionable, only the word Jew has been replaced with "Zionist" or "Israel." Yes, Kay is right, the old-fashioned neo-Nazi type Holocaust denier has certainly been made persona non grata. But a different variant of Anti-Semitism has mushroomed, most visibly on college campuses that hold Israel Apartheid weeks, that equate Zionism with Nazism. I know Kay sees this, so perhaps it's a case of semantics.

New victim groups are becoming more chic to champion than Jews. Anti-Americanism is a cousin of the new fashionable brand of anti-Semitism.

What's a human rights commission to do about the activities that shut down the appearance of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University in 2003.
Can human rights commissions be counted on to do anything about Israeli Apartheid weeks?

Does Mr. Kurz have any concern about the collateral damage that Christians have suffered via human rights complaints for merely expressing their religious beliefs in the public square on hot button issues? Does he think the state support of rising Christophobia is an acceptable cost? Is Christian religious freedom of any concern to him at all? Yes, some Christian jerks wrote a pamphlet that made it into the list of incidents above. I renounce that pamphlet. Will you not renounce the attacks against us? Or, because they are state sanctioned, they are okay?

Kurz writes:

However, until we are in the enviable position of being able to relegate anti-Semitism -- and racism in general -- to the dustbin of history, we cannot afford to abandon a system that on balance works. To do so would not just be shortsighted but woefully negligent.

How can the state banish anti-Semitism and racism? What kind of police state apparatus would do the trick? Obviously our human rights commissions are failing if anti-Semitic incidents are higher than they ever have been since B'nai Brith started keeping track. If human rights commissions are working, then it would seem we need them to proliferate to cut this rise in incidents, right? No, I think the rise is proof these commissions are not working. Maybe they have contributed to the problem.

European countries are much more "evolved" in their suppression of speech that criticizes any religion, but are Jews safer in places like France? I don't think so. Jews are still safest in the United States of America where freedom of speech is the most robust.

Is the state responsible for teaching virtue? I'd hate to see what that catastrophe will look like, when tolerance becomes the one and only virtue and everything else, especially truthfulness and courage become the source of state sanctions.

Does not civil society--the family, religions, and civil society groups play the much more important role? Or has the state become mother, father, god and police officer all in one?

Yes....I think there is a limited role that the state can play in stopping the deliberate, systematic, hate-filled lying about racial groups or religions that dehumanizes them and incites violence or genocide. But as Irwin Cotler told me yesterday, the bar must be very high before state should prosecute these matters. Freedom of speech is too precious a right. Truth must be a defense.

Or have we in Canada become so post-modern that we don't believe there is any truth anymore, only power? Then why shouldn't other groups with grievances use the same levers of state power to silence their critics as Jews have used to silence anti-Semites? Fair is fair, no? The size of the police state needed to keep anyone from ever being offended would have to be pretty massive. Jews have a case, for sure, when it comes to defamation because Holocaust denial, blood libels and conspiracy theories are blatant lies. But if the truth is no longer a defense, then what? If the rules of evidence don't apply, if a fundamental right like freedom of speech is deemed to be an American concept by one of our human rights commissioners, then what are we coming to?

Mr. Kurz, the system is broken. The people who are doing the most to raise awareness of the threats Jews face are being targeted and in danger of being silenced by these commissions as are a host of innocent bystanders from my faith. Can you not hear the alarms being sounded by PEN, by the CAJ, by columnists and editorial writers across the country?

Irwin Cotler---Canada's Brandeis? Stay tuned

I spoke with former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler today. He had just returned from the Middle East and said he had a stack of materials on his desk to read to catch up on the raging human rights commissions controversy.

He also told me he ran into Richard Warman on the plane. He praised him as someone who has worked pro bono to defend against hate speech in Canada, while he holding down a full time job. He said Warman was going to be sending him materials to bring him up to date with the latest in the ongoing debate, but he also said he would be interested in receiving material from others as well.

Then he mentioned a recent op ed by Jonathan Kay in the National Post in which Kay writes:

The creation of human-rights tribunals and Canada's hate-speech law -- Section 319 of the Criminal Code -- were both cheered by the Jewish legal and activist establishment. In the seminal 1990 case of R. vs. Keegstra, which upheld the validity of Section 319, the intervenors included not only Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith, but also InterAmicus, a think-tank then headed by renowned inter-national-law expert (and future federal justice minister) Irwin Cotler. (Read the Supreme Court's Keegstra judgment and you will find chunks lifted straight from the InterAmicus brief.)

At the end of the piece, Kay posed a question to Cotler:

It is a fight between those Jews who support free speech, and those who support censorship; between those focused on the new threat of militant Islam, and those still worried about neo-Nazi kooks; between those who want Jews to take a vocal leadership role in the defining ideological battle of our time, and those who see themselves as passive victims who require protection from a nanny state.

I know what side I'm on. But ink-stained journalistic yeggs such as me and Ezra can take this battle only so far -- even with righteous gentiles like Keith Martin on our side. What we really need to lead this movement is a Canadian Brandeis. Mr. Cotler, what do you say to switching teams?

Cotler mentioned that Kay used to be his research assistant. He is planning to write a response to Kay's column, so stay tuned. He mentioned the "switching teams" question to me and indicated that he is fully onside with freedom of speech, except for narrowly defined racist hate speech that must meet a high threshold.

He said the case of the Alberta Pastor Stephen Boisson, for example, should never have come before a human rights commission. He said the determination of hate speech should have a "narrow construction," include intentionality and the truth should be a defence, as it is in the criminal law he helped draft. The criminal law threshold also includes the requirement that the attorney general approve prosecutions for hate speech.

He stressed he does not want to see freedom of speech hindered in Canada.

He also expressed concern that human rights commissions, which were supposed to provide a low cost, administrative, mediated solution for disputes, have evolved into a court-like adversarial process. Perhaps funding those facing complaints as well as complainants might be one solution.

Frivolous or unfounded complaints should not be allowed and the truth and intent should be a defence. He seemed fully onside for looking into reform of human rights commissions. He may have some more specifics in his upcoming op ed.

Cotler is also against SLAPP suits--strategic litigation to shut down political debate.

"The first point of departure has to be the importance and the protection of free speech," Cotler said, calling it a "baseline" that must be protected.

Freedom of speech is intended to protect the autonomy of truth. The free marketplace of ideas is the best way to contest unpopular ideas, he said. Hate speech has a narrow genre: it must be hateful and assaultive.

I'll be watching for his op ed.

Ezra Levant is "going to fight like hell"

Ezra Levant faces a defamation lawsuit and he promises to fight like hell.

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

Find out the details here.

Spread the news.

The stories get more and more outrageous

If you owned a restaurant and someone started smoking marijuana on your doorstep and you asked that individual to butt out, would you expect to have to fight the Ontario Human Rights Commission for the next three years?

The Toronto Sun unearthed the grueling tale of Ted Kindos:

The confrontation between Kindos and his customer three years ago may be the catalyst to change national laws, or it could ruin him.

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

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

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

Pete Vere comments on the Sault Ste. Marie Today website:

Just when I thought the Ontario Human Rights Commission had plumbed the sewers of political pandering to their lowest depths, Ezra Levant brings to light the plight of Ted Kindos - an Ontario restaurant owner who is being investigated by the commission for asking a pot-smoking customer to butt out.

snip

Nevertheless, I find it eerie that the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which refuses to investigate seniors allegedly being left in soiled diapers for 24-hour periods at a time, not only found the time and resources necessary to investigate this case, but referred it to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing.

I dunno. No wonder the tide of public opinion is becoming a tsunami against these kinds of abuses.

A left-coast friend muses about taking title Mr. President

Does this situation imply that the title "Mr. President" is no longer spoken for and I can now use it to advance my own social standing at cocktail parties? While moving up the political ladder, I will be accompanied by a Marylin Monroe impersonator with a 5 o'clock shadow who will sing " Happy birthday Mr. President". It's all part of the master plan to walk gallantly in reverse across the White House lawn, past security, and assume permanent residence.

Delightfully creative and amusing post continues here.

Kate McMillan blasts media hypocrisy on global warming "crisis"

How does one convinced of impending planetary doom get up in the morning to work in the industry they do - an industry that employs vast numbers of people to travel the country via commercial jet and automobile, that sustains huge media complexes clogged to the ceilings with electricity consuming CO2-belching technology, that hauls tons of satellite equipment to produce on-the-scene reporting?

That indulges in the broadcasting of sporting events? And entertainment "news"?

"We interrupt this report on the last remaining meter of Arctic sea ice to bring you live footage of Britney Spears' entourage leaving the hospital ... John, you're in the helicoptor, what can you tell us?"

When it comes to curtailing wasteful practices and excessive C02 emissions, shouldn't they be among the first to go?

It's beyond absurdity, beyond hypocrisy. It's nothing less than blatant dishonesty, gross laziness, professional malpractice - or most likely, all of the above. Every one of these so called "journalists" would, if they belonged to any other profession, be called before an industry ethics board to explain their conduct - if their industry entertained such notions, or bothered itself with silly notions like "ethics".

There's lots more.

Why the Unborn Victims of Crime Act makes sense

When Gerald Baker murdered Olivia Talbot, he also murdered her unborn baby Lane Jr. He told the court he took three shots to make sure he got the baby. Yet the killing of Baby Lane is not a crime in Canada. What if Olivia had survived and only Baby Lane died? Then Baker would be serving a short sentence for aggravated assault or something.

Why not a federal election issue?

The Calgary Herald's Licia Corbella has a call to arms to make freedom of speech an Alberta election issue. (H/t FFF)

Could it become a federal election issue, too? Who would lead the charge? The Tories? Liberals? Or will there be some bi-partisan convergence as has happened on Afghanistan?

I haven't a clue what the Bloc thinks on this, but maybe this week I'll find out. The NDP? Well, last time I asked Jack Layton he said he'd get back to me and suggested I talk to his human rights critic. NDP justice critic Joe Comartin thinks we need to improve the appointments process, make sure they are not ideological or patronage positions, and get rid of the backlog, but he supports keeping the laws as they are. He remains concerned about group defamation and trusts the commissions and tribunals to arrive at good decisions.

I wonder what Elizabeth May thinks.

Liberal MP Keith Martin says he's got "huge" support on both sides of the aisle, but so far, not from his boss, Stephane Dion. I wonder if Keith Martin will eventually throw his hat into the ring in the next race for Liberal Leader. Wouldn't that be interesting? What does human rights expert Michael Ignatieff have to say about freedom of speech? Bob Rae, whose Jewish wife was targeted in the last Liberal leadership race?

Meanwhile the federal Tories keep appointing people to human rights commissions and intervening on behalf of the thought-crimes Subsection 13(1). Conservative MPs, except for Jason Kenney, have been mum, at least publicly. The Justice Minister has issued talking points to keep MPs from talking about it.

The prime minister has his priorities. Could this become one?

Stay tuned.

"The Defilers represents a major breakthrough in Christian fiction"

"The Defilers represents a major breakthrough in Christian fiction"

Thanks to Kathy Shaidle's kind words yesterday and this link at FreeMarkSteyn.com my plummeting Amazon.com ratings skyrocketed from 1.4 millionth to 198,738th this morning. That means several of you clicked through and bought a book.

I started writing The Defilers about 15 years ago, while I was still working for the CBC as a television producer. One summer, I was looking for a vacation read--you know, something I couldn't put down, something that would effortlessly draw me into a fictional world. I went to a drugstore rack and checked out several paperbacks and found the level of graphic violence and sex off-putting.

Around that time, a bestselling Christian book was being passed around at my church. When it came my turn, I forced myself to read the thing. It was hard slogging, because one hundred pages in, nothing had happened. No conflict to make you want to find out what happens next. Yes, there were some nice people, nice settings---sort of like a Thomas Kinkade painting, or an embroidered sampler on the wall, but that was about it.

"I can do better than this," I thought to myself. So I started writing the novel on my weekend and vacations. It was a lot harder than I had thought, even though I had been writing professionally for more than 10 years. But I wrote and rewrote, read writing books and took courses, and tried to bring some good storytelling craft to my work. I aimed my novel at the contemporary Christian market in the United States. As my work became more polished, I started to get "in the door" with editors and agents, some of whom have become friends, but I was told The Defilers was too dark, too Gothic. That it would never sell. I was told that I was obviously a talented writer. Did I have anything else? Something a little safer?

My work finally did get published because Canadian publisher Larry Willard at Castle Quay Books had a vision for promoting Canadian Christian writers who did not fit the mould. He offered a contest for first-time authors, administrated by The Word Guild. The prize includes publication.

The first year of the contest, I didn't apply because I was still an American citizen. Paul Boge won that year. His novel The Chicago Healer has done quite well, and even been translated to sell overseas. He has gone on to write a sequel The Cities of Fortune. The next year, I came in a close second to Angelina Fast-Vlaar's wonderful Seven Angels for Seven Days, a spiritual memoir about a dream vacation to the Australian Outback that turned tragic when her husband died. It has gone on to be a best-seller and Christian book club selection in the United States.

I won in 2005. In 2006, a non-fiction title won. And last year, Marcia Lee Laycock, an Alberta-based writer, won for her novel One Smooth Stone. I haven't read it yet, but I've read her other work, so I trust that this novel is good.

All this to say, I am not alone. Canada is home to a number of breakthrough, award-winning Christian writers whose work stacks up against anything you'll find in the drugstore rack, except it has a Christian worldview. But how to get the word out?

Other more established Canadian writers who are Christian have an excellent body of work.

There is Linda Hall, who is one of my favorite mystery writers. I've read about everything she's written. Her work is wonderful.

There is Keith Clemons whose latest novel Angel in the Alley is a page-turner that takes place in a future North America where freedom of speech is history, and preaching the Gospel is a crime. His dystopia seems prophetic in light of the human rights complaints against Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and Catholic Insight Magazine. In previous award-winning novels, Clemons has used human trafficking, euthanasia and Hollywood corruption as backdrops to his lyrically-written contemporary novels.

There is N.J. Lindquist who has written two mysteries in the cozy vein. I especially enjoyed her latest Glitter of Diamonds, that takes you into the celebrity world of professional baseball and involves a murder in the Skydome. Wonderful characters, great pacing.

And Lindquist is a visionary who co-founded (with Wendy Nelles) The Word Guild, a growing association of writers and editors who are Christian to provide networking, support, mentoring and encouragement. The Word Guild sponsors awards that have become increasingly glitzy, in an effort to promote our work.

That's because it is extremely hard to get noticed. Even Christian bookstores have been a hard-sell. Most Canadian Christian authors have to get published in the United States and change their settings to American cities and states to get onto bookshelves in Canada.

Larry Willard wants to get Canadian stories out there. The Defilers is set in Nova Scotia. But Castle Quay is small. There is no big publicity budget, no money for cross-country tours.

The mainstream media pays scant attention if any to what we are doing. Thankfully, through the efforts of The Word Guild, the message is getting through to Canadian Christian bookstores--Mitchell Family Books ran a big promotion last December for Canadian authors, offering 16 of us simultaneous book-signings in all their Ontario stores. 100 Huntley Street and other Christian media have covered us.

All of this to say is that there is a growing movement in Canada of writers who are honing their craft, writing their vision, answering the call to transform our culture through stories.

Come and see.

Hey weren't you the guy . . .?

John Pacheco writes:

Boy, if you have been a cheerleader for the CHRC and S.13 for the past month, you must be feeling really stupid right now.

How are you going to live it down?

Can you imagine what they will say to you at your next champagne party?

“Hey, weren’t you the guy who supported the jackboots at the CHRC?”

CAJ joins PEN in calling for changes to human rights acts

Time to renew my long-lapsed membership in the Canadian Association of Journalists. Suddenly, I am proud of my profession. It's as if I am witnessing the collapse of a Berlin Wall of political correctness right before my eyes. Is anyone reporting on this yet?

Here's an excerpt of the fantastic statement the CAJ issued today:

OTTAWA, Feb. 22 /CNW/ - The Canadian Association of Journalists is
calling on federal and provincial governments to amend human rights
legislation to stop a pattern of disturbing attacks on freedom of speech.
Two recent cases spotlight the dangers of allowing state-backed agencies
to censor speech based on subjective perceptions of offensiveness - MacLean's
magazine, which is facing complaints in two provinces and nationally for an
article by syndicated columnist Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant, the former
publisher of the Western Standard who is now before the Alberta Human Rights
Commission for his decision to publish the Danish cartoons of the Islamic
prophet Muhammad.
"Human rights commissions were never intended to act as a form of thought
police," said CAJ President Mary Agnes Welch. "But now they're being used to
chill freedom of expression on matters that are well beyond accepted Criminal
Code restrictions on free speech."
The CAJ supports Liberal MP Keith Martin's private members motion to have
section 13(1) of federal human rights legislation, the clause dealing with
published material, repealed. Similar provincial legislation should also be
amended as required.

Read the rest here.

This follows Ezra Levant's stunning news yesterday of PEN's support.

Commentary on it from Mark Steyn and Stanley Kurtz at The Corner.

Kurtz writes:

Mark’s post on the rallying of liberal Canadian opinion-makers against abusive Human Rights Commissions is the most important and heartening development I’ve seen since this whole shameful case began. The dangers to Steyn — and all of us — are still great, yet an opportunity is now present for a truly landmark achievement on behalf of free speech. Stand with Steyn: Abolish Canada’s Human Rights Commissions! Up to now, Mark Steyn has been losing. But maybe, just maybe, he’s now on track to a genuinely historic victory.

Eeeek. My book's Amazon numbers are plummeting

The ranking for my novel The Defilers over at Amazon.com has plummeted past the 1.4 millionth mark. Agh.

When I revived this rather moribund, tiny blog to write about the freedom of speech controversy, the ranking spiked briefly up to the 200,000s. Still not great. Means someone bought a book a couple of weeks ago.

The book does better in Canada, but still not well enough to bring me any royalties that could compensate for, say, the amount of gas I had to buy to drive to my last booksigning in Kingston, Ontario. Oh well.

But I did make the effort to try to change the culture through fiction. As Kathy Shaidle has written when Christians get up in arms about some movie or book, we must write our own stories, make our own movies instead of running boycotts or complaining.

So I wrote The Defilers to be a counterweight to pernicious fiction like The Da Vinci Code. I don't make any claims that my novel is great literature. It's an airport novel. I'm not a great stylist. But I do know how to tell a story and it's a far better read than The Da Vinci Code, which is a preachy, crappy book full of cardboard characters. The worldview in The Defilers is Christian but not sicky sweet and likely to give you spiritual diabetes.

Go to Kathy Shaidle's site and use her Amazon button to buy my book. There is only one copy left. They say more are coming. And don't be alarmed. From the very beginning Amazon has depicted a misspelled version of my cover. It says The Defileres. Oh well. The stories I could tell you about how arduous and difficult it has been to get published and get the book any attention.

Another Catholic Register editoral on freedom of speech

The Catholic Register with yet another great editorial on freedom of speech. Find the whole thing here.

But not all of society’s problems can be handled through the courts. Nor should they. In fact, in these particular cases, the “problem” is that certain individuals and groups have been insulted by the claims of other individuals and groups. But in a free and democratic society, being offended by the ideas and words of others is inescapable. The free exchange of ideas makes for a sometimes nasty public debate. That comes with the territory, though; while civil and respectful discourse is the ideal we should all aim to achieve, this doesn’t deny the value of ideas couched in sometimes rude language.

The danger in letting quasi-judicial tribunals arbitrate disputes over language and ideas is that everyone loses. Today, it is Mark Steyn and Catholic Insight. Tomorrow, it is the Roman Catholic Church in Canada.

Some matters are best left to be thrashed out in the court of public opinion. There’s a better chance justice will be achieved there than in the hands of a government tribunal.

Kidnapped and held hostage --yet finds spiritual freedom

I love the work I do because I get to hear and pass along some pretty amazing stories. Like this.

Bosco Gutierrez Cortina found spiritual freedom during the nine months he was held hostage in a tiny cell in Mexico City.

The Mexican architect travelled to Ottawa Feb. 9 to tell how God used his plight to deepen his faith in the hope his story would strengthen others’ belief

“We are safe if we put ourselves in His hands,” he told a packed auditorium at the University of Ottawa at the event sponsored by the Neejee Association for Women and Family. “It is time we realize this truth. On this lies our happiness here on earth, and our eternal happiness in heaven.”

Except for an endlessly repeating cassette tape playing a radio station’s music and ads, he never heard a human voice or saw a human face for those nine months 18 years ago.

PEN issues statement--political landmark says Levant

Ezra Levant writes:

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

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

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

One front in a much, much bigger war--and buy my book

The human rights complaints against Maclean's Magazine for Mark Steyn's book excerpt and Ezra Levant's publishing of the Mohammed cartoons form merely one front in a much bigger war, a war for the very survival of Western Civilization. It's not us against any group, it's mostly an internal struggle because we are imploding.

Our greatest enemy is ourselves, not immigrants from Muslim lands or Jihadis elsewhere. If we had some certainty about who we are, our own culture, our own faith, we could afford to be generous because we would know what we expected of newcomers and what principles we would insist they accept if they want live here. Polygamy, honor killings, female genital mutilation, and beheading our prime minister would be non-starters. Nor would rewriting the Lord's Prayer or forcing us to substitute Season's Greetings for our holidays. But we could be generous about accommodating the religious practices of others as long as those who practice them are free to leave that faith without fear and nothing criminal goes on inside their religious institutions.

I can think of many Muslims who have made us richer for their presence. I would hate it if Canada became the kind of place that would turn away Irshad Manji's family after Idi Amin expelled non-blacks from Uganda. Or refused to accept refugees from Darfur or Iraq simply because they are Muslim.

But if we do not revive a strong sense of who we are by nourishing the roots of our culture---the roots from Jerusalem, Athens and Rome--we will no longer recognize our society in a generation or two. We will not like what we see, whether we have become dhimmified through fear, or fascist through hate. If we become more and more Islamified, non-Muslim women may feel a need to cover up just to protect themselves from roving gangs who think uncovered women are slabs of meat who deserve to be violated. No one will dare criticize Islam or the behavior of Islamists. Gay people will start getting beaten up if they show public affection as they are increasingly in the Netherlands. Our freedoms will be gone.

Or the West could respond with violent crackdowns, internment camps, and expulsions. Canada could start repelling boats like the St. Louis--except they would be full of Muslims instead of Jews--from our shores, because decent Muslims are experiencing the brunt of the threat from extremists who murder and terrorize in the name of Islam. If our country turns in that hideous direction, I would hope the handful of remaining Christians would then start hiding Muslims in their attics. If there is suppression of fact-based reporting, the hate elements could grow. That's a big concern of mine. I am uncomfortable with some of the rancor in the comments sections of some of the anti-jihad blogs. Of course, we don't know if some of that rancor is planted, but I admit, the tone troubles me. We become like what we hate. Beware. If you feel hate, renounce it, confess it and resist it.

We MUST avoid both hate and fear. Either course would be shameful and mark the death of Western Civilization. I would not want a society dominated by either. There is a better way. Jesus showed us that way on the Cross. That's why I love David MacDonald's new song about freedom of speech. I hope this song becomes an anthem for revival. Jesus also showed us a better way by telling us to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's, setting firmly in our overarching narrative the proper relationship between Church and state, the heavenly city and the earthly city (though, granted it took a long time for His revelation to work itself out in practice.) Jesus gave us the basis for understanding the difference between the secular and the eternal.

I think back to a high school history course that looked at the Opium Wars in China. The British had probed the weakness of China and its backward-looking ruling dynasties. They exacerbated it by shipping in lots of opium, creating debilitating levels of addiction, further crippling China so the Brits could carve out their spheres of influence and plunder its riches. The Islamists have probed our weakness in the cartoon wars and the West failed the test. Most mainstream media capitulated to fear, no? So much for our hard-won rights to freedom of the press.

Where does most of the world's opium come from now? hmmmm?

Look at the drugs flooding the streets of North American and European cities. Look at the huge amount of credit card scams and other financial fraud. I recently heard a computer crimes expert talk about how much of the proceeds is going to support terrorism. He said that many of the credit card scams are run by groups who are siphoning off millions but lead very simple lives in Canada because they are shipping all their money back home to the likes of Hezbollah.

Then we have various attempts at lawfare to chill any writing about radical Islam, using the generous mechanisms of our liberal, multicultural and sickeningly soft society to keep us asleep, as Mark Steyn wrote in this Maclean's piece. We are in danger because of our weakness, our greed, our lack of virtue, our unwillingness to have children, our dependence on government, our denial, our self-hatred and our eagerness to blame Bush for the state of the world rather than look at ourselves honestly and then do the hard work it takes to change. But thankfully, we can have help from the Holy Spirit to change if we desire it wholeheartedly.

One of the many disturbing items in the documentary Indoctrinate U was the level of Saudi funding of Arab and Muslim studies departments in American universities. Of course there is no reciprocal funding of Christian studies in Saudi Arabia, right? Some American Universities have stopped flying American flags because it might offend foreign students. It's enough to break your heart. When will we start seeing moves to remove crosses from public display even from church property?

So....what can we do?

It was gratifying to me to see that a few people did click through to find out what an Alpha Course is or to read the link on Oriana Fallaci the Christian atheist from yesterday's post. I hope some of you go to church for the first time in years this Sunday, even if you go only to educate yourself about our heritage.

You can support alternative media like the growing Catholic and evangelical media networks that provide much more in depth coverage of moral and philosophical issues at stake in politics. Get a subscription to the Catholic Register, the Western Catholic Reporter, B.C. Catholic, Christian Week or Faith Today magazine. Subscribe to Catholic Insight and see what you can do to help them defray their legal costs in fighting their human rights complaints. Support the hope-filled, informative new Catholic network Salt and Light TV and the CTS Television Network, which brings us the Michael Coren Live, Listen Up and wholesome evangelism on 100 Huntley Street. Support your local Christian Radio stations. Join the Catholic Civil Rights League. You don't have to be Catholic. Get involved and commit for the long haul.

Subscribe to LifeSiteNews and CERC and support these free services with your donations.

Buy Kathy Shaidle's e-book Acoustic Ladyland and Mark Steyn's America Alone. Hit the tip jar over at Ezra Levant's site and that of others who are giving up their time to keep you informed.

And if you want to help me, consider going to Kathy's site and buying my novel The Defilers through her Amazon button. My novel is about freedom of another sort: freedom from spiritual darkness. Here's what Kathy said about it:

"Deborah's debut, The Defilers, is the first fiction book I've read in years. When she sent it to me, she described it as "an airport novel", and indeed, some smart mass market paperback publisher should snap it up. This police procedural has it all: exorcisms and the occult, murder, cultish kiddie p*rn, romance -- but Deborah didn't win this year's Best New Canadian Christian Fiction Award for nothing. Believe it or not, she manages to tell this twisted mystery tale without graphic sex scenes -- or even swearing -- but this isn't "goodie goodie" tacky "Christian" fiction, either.

Each chapter is a cliff-hanger. It was a fun, yet reverent read, with lots of unexpected plot twists (and characters who aren't who you think they are...) to keep you guessing. I think most of my readers would be quite touched by the angry heroine's faltering journey back to the faith.

Deborah's own faith history is harrowing in its own way. She has more about the book, including reviews, at her site."

And keep an eye out for the great new anthology published by That's Life Communications featuring Canadian authors from The Word Guild, a wonderful association of writers and editors who are Christian. An expanded version of my conversion story that appeared in the National Post will be part of Hot Apple Cider.

It's going to be a beautiful book. So many gifted writers. But we don't get government grants and the news media pays us scant attention. I'm proud to be among them. Here's one of the endorsements:

Imagine a group of Canadians circled around a campfire. They have two things in common: They’re serious Christians and committed writers. “Let me tell you my conversion story,” calls out Deborah Gyapong. Keith Clemons reads a short story and Brian Austin recites an original poem. Grace Fox shares a devotional piece. As the fire crackles and they sip their cider, all 30 speak from their hearts. That’s the concept of Hot Apple Cider—and it’s a good one.
—Cecil Murphey, author and co-author of more than 100 books, including Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story and the New York Times best-seller 90 Minutes in Heaven

Sing about freedom, freedom of speech!

Get ready to sing this song in Ottawa on April 12.

Why I am proud to be an Anglican Catholic

My bishop, the Right Rev. Carl Reid, Suffragan Bishop for Central Canada in the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, has an op ed in the National Post today. I am so proud to have him as my bishop. So glad that our little Anglican refuge has been safe from the gut-wrenching ordeal tearing our Canterbury brothers and sisters apart over these many years.

Bishop Carl writes:

The Traditional Anglican Communion left the cafeteria long ago and has grown tired of the wilderness. We want the full course meal served by the Communion of Saints from the very beginning of the church. Quite aside from our desire to remain steadfast to traditional Anglicanism, we desire just as strongly to do whatever small part we can in terms of healing the broken Body of Christ, His Church, to seek unity rather than division. That's why we have asked to come into full sacramental communion with the Catholic Church, with the Book of Common Prayer, married priests and our Anglican identity intact. At their invitation, we made our formal request in early October and await a reply from the Vatican. As our primate, Archbishop John Hepworth, stated - based on our Lord's Prayer on the night before His crucifixion "that they may be one" - "Unity with Canterbury is a pleasant device. Unity with [the Catholic Church] is an imperative."

Though I was baptized Russian Orthodox, I never learned Russian so the liturgy didn't make sense to me. My father sang as a hobby and used to get paid to sing in some of the best Episcopal Church choirs in the Boston area. While I was growing up though, he didn't take the faith as seriously as he came to later in life. He described himself then as a "mercenary Episcopalian" who would sit in the choir loft and read the Boston Globe sports page during the sermon. We were nominal Christians, and identified as Americans from a Slavic background.

When I experienced an adult conversion, I found my first Christian home in a wonderful Baptist Church. Then I discovered the little Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ottawa about eight years ago. It fed a need to return to my more liturgical roots. It has helped me learn more about the Orthodox faith of my ancestors through similar rites in English. I have received great teaching here and a family-like sense of fellowship. The Book of Common Prayer, like the King James Bible, is one of the great works of English literature. Both were written for the ear and their poetry and musicality enhance the spiritual riches within. They are living heirlooms. It causes me great grief to see them in the dustbins even of most Anglican churches these days.

Every Sunday I'm having my faith renewed and deepened. I'm also receiving an education, the kind of education that leads one to wisdom and helps cut the bonds of sin and death, as one of our parishioners said in a commencement address at Augustine College not long ago.

In my church, the priests believe the Creeds. They revere the liturgy and help us realize we are standing in heaven during the Eucharist. They are all gifted men who, had they been ambitious in a worldly sense, could have had big churches with endowments and all the problems dogging the Canterbury Anglican world.

Instead they have opted for faithfulness. And that has meant obscurity and sacrifice and little earthly return for their trouble. But what a glorious place our humble little cathedral is on Sundays, when we chant the Mass in plainsong, when the air is blue with incense, and we sing our old-fashioned, theologically sound hymns in four-part harmony. And one day, we hope soon, we will be in communion with the See of Peter, part of One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, but with our Anglican liturgy and married priests.

If you want to find out more about the Traditional Anglican Communion's request to come into communion with the Holy See, you can read this article, and watch this beautiful video put together by David Naglieri and the good folks over at Salt and Light TV.

Deliver us from Mark Steyn --who will get the joke?

I have been reading Kathy Shaidle's blog for years now. Most of the time she provides a great portal to some of the most interesting and outrageous material on the blogosphere. Every now and then she says things make me cringe, that I wish she wouldn't say because they give her enemies ammunition against her. But most of the time, I admire her courage, her willingness to be herself, whether she is venting her anger, or telling us what she really thinks in a way that shatters the often absurd fortresses of political correctness.

I don't know Kathy well--a couple of meetings over lunch in Toronto, some telephone conversations, some of which led to this profile. But I know her well enough to dismiss the accusations that float around that she is a racist or hates Muslims, even if she hates certain behavior carried out in the name of Islam. I abhor racism of any kind and if I knew Kathy judged people on the basis of their skin color or background and not the content of their characters , I would shun her.

I think Kathy Shaidle is among the most gifted Canadian writers alive today. Those who read her blog regularly, and there are thousands of us, are only getting a glimpse of her prodigious talent. In other words, if you have enjoyed FiveFeetofFury or Relapsed Catholic, then you will be blown away by her e-book Acoustic Ladyland or her earlier book God Rides a Yamaha. Her essays shine because they are written by a poet. Their images will stay with you. They will entertain you, perhaps shock you and make you think. They will help you to see with an artists eye yourself. If you are a writer, they will spark a good envy that makes you want to try harder to be a better writer yourself.

Over the years, Kathy has held down a full time job while delivering one of the most interesting, creative blogs I know of. I imagine her providing all her great links with one hand one the keyboard and the other combing her hair, putting on a little mascara, or fishing for those tiny subway tokens needed for her long commute. In other words what you see on the blog is Kathy "off the cuff," not Kathy the perfectionist poet, who chooses her words with devastating precision and polishes her work until it gleams. She can't focus totally on her writing even today, because she is job-searching. If you are a daily reader of her blog, you owe it to Kathy to regularly contribute to her tip jar and buy her books, not only for yourself, but for your friends. Kathy's never going to get a government grant to allow her to write full time. It's up to us to make it possible.

Kathy has the mind and the heart of an artist. She sees things that others don't see, or, if they do see them, lack the ability to articulate it. She has the craft to draw us into her vision, and make us go, "aha!" "yes!" And like all great poets, she is a lover, not a hater. When she is angry, it's because she is brokenhearted by a sense of betrayal. Betrayed love.

She's the kind of friend who will tell you the truth if you ask her, "Does my butt look fat in this dress?" On a more serious level, she's friend enough to tell you if your ideas are stupid and will lead you to terrible consequences down the road. Friend enough to risk losing your friendship with hard truths, no matter what your race or religion. When the shoe fits, she is as hard on her own Catholic Church and her working class background as she is on Islam or Scientology or silly New Age beliefs.

She can come across as a rather equal opportunity misogynist---but it's love that motivates her. Not the sickly sentimentality masquerading as love that leaves Teddy bears at shrines for celebrities, but a love that has been tested through great suffering. Kathy has suffered in ways that most of us can only hope we will never have to. She's earned the right to speak to us the way she does, especially when she blasts away at foolish self-pity and today's cult of victimhood. Her suffering has made her deeply compassionate, though you might miss that if you see only her prickly exterior. She would be the first to put out a call for prayer if something tragic struck even one of her her enemies on the blogosphere.

She looks at her church, her country, her culture, her political leaders and "minds the gap" between how things should be and how things are. She's not afraid to point out those "third rail" issues that few people dare write about. But she knows that change won't come until there is an acknowledgment of what's wrong, until we are face head on the truth about how we are ready to get on a train to a terrible destination. She is trying to blow up the tracks for our handcarts pumping merrily to the hell. She is dynamite for the roads to hell that misguided good intentions have paved.

Which leads me to the reason why I started this post. Frequently, I find Kathy laugh-out-loud funny. Dangerous for your keyboard if you are drinking coffee at the same time. You do, however, have to be able to get the jokes. Or understand some of her seemingly outrageous headlines. Sometimes that means clicking through the links. And more often it requires a degree of awareness and literacy.

Several days ago she drew one of those laughs with this headline:

"...and blow up all Israeli citizens, and deliver us from Mark Steyn -- oooops, did I say that out loud??"

The sheer nerve and god-like genius that is Mohammed Elmasry strikes again.


To get the joke you would have to know who Elmasry is and what he said on the Michael Coren show about all Israeli Citizens over 18 being legitimate targets for attack. You would also have to know that Elmasry's the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress and the author of the human rights complaints against Maclean's Magazine for running an excerpt of Mark Steyn's book America Alone.

But there's more. You would have to know that Elmasry provided a new prayer to replace the Lord's Prayer that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty seems to think must be removed from the confines of Queen's Park. You also have to know the Lord's Prayer, which is why the "deliver us from Mark Steyn" line is so funny.

I had a sobering thought though. How many people 30 and under in Canada know the Lord's Prayer? How many would see how funny Kathy's riff is? If I had the time I would go out and do one of those surveys they do on television and ask some young people to say the prayer and see what happens.

When I went to public elementary school in the United States back in the 1950s and early 60s, we still said the Lord's Prayer every morning. My fifth grade teacher Miss McDonough, a scary spinster with a balding egg-shaped head, used to read from the Bible every day. I could not wait to get to school the day Moses was going to see God for the first time. What happens now? The greatest work of literature in the world is in effect banned from public schools. The overarching Story that defines our civilization is scarcely even taught in many churches these days.

The vast majority of Canadians self-describe as Christians, but most probably do not know what the Christian faith teaches if Jason Cherniak is any example.

I've got some homework for all of you. Even if you don't believe in God or Jesus, if you live in North America or Europe or the United Kingdom, find out about the Christian faith. Take an Alpha Course. Go to a Bible-believing church this Sunday even if you feel like a cultural anthropologist. Keep checking churches out until you find one that you feel could teach you something about the underpinnings of your culture. Acquaint yourself the The Bible. The whole Bible, and not just the feel-good, health and wealth stuff. The Old and New Testaments. The least you can do is be a Christian atheist like the late Oriana Fallaci.

And today, I'd like you to read Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg address.

The pope said:

In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was an initial inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not simply false, but it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically falsifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss".[13] The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.

Keith Martin's motion not enough

While lots of attention has been given to Liberal MP Keith Martin's private member's motion M-446 to delete a controversial section of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Pundita has some excellent analysis today that's a must read.

She writes:

Don't assume that those who will practically die to defend keeping Section 13 will instantly nod their heads in agreement with the argument. It's going to be a tough slog. The Cohen Commission findings on psychological trauma were given so much weight because they supported Canada's official policy of multiculturalism.

Clearly, multiculturalism policy expanded beyond a defensible mandate when Section 13 gave government sweeping power to suspend laws crucial to democracy -- laws such as the presumption of innocence.

The task is to demonstrate that you cannot hold onto democracy if you base your concept of social harmony on averting psychological trauma.

I suspect that the recent flood of articles in Canada about the need to defend free speech has lulled some supporters of M-446 into believing that getting rid of Section 13 will be a walk in the park. It's a walk in the park, all right -- Jurassic Park.

There are parallels between the Section 13 issue and Jurassic Park. One is an experiment in social engineering devised by shortsighted people; the other is an experiment in DNA engineering devised by shortsighted people. Both experiments met with awful consequences; it's just that it's taking longer for the implications of Section 13 to play out.

There is indeed a push to criminalize "offensive" speech, which is not big in Canada at this time although it's wafting to North America via Europe. It's the product of this era's version of social engineers run amok.

I want to add some additional thoughts. First of all, private members' business is subject to a lottery that ranks the order a member's bills and motions will get attention in the House. Martin's is somewhere in the 200s, so don't expect to see it any time soon. And let's just say a best case scenario somehow moves the motion to the front of the line, it passes an initial vote and goes to committee. Then what? (Keep in mind the at least 50 per cent of the committee would would adamantly oppose the motion, possibly more depending on which Liberals are on it, and who knows what the Tories message would be). What would be the consequences to the common good if the motion loses?

My memory drifts back to the marriage motion Stephen Harper promised in the 2006 election.

Many Catholics --traditionally more at home in the Liberal Party because they tend to like generous social programs for the poor--voted Tory for the first time because of marriage. Could they have given Harper enough of an edge to hand him his minority win? I'm not enough of number cruncher to give the answer, but I suspect they played a role.

Their high hopes were dashed. Remember how quickly the motion went through committee and to the floor for a vote, with hardly the kind of debate such a crucial issue deserved? Is that what people watching the Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and Catholic Insight cases want for freedom of speech and the press?

Before the marriage motion came to a vote in Dec. 2006, a coalition of socially conservative and religious groups publicly urged the Prime Minister to treat this subject with the seriousness it deserved, and to put off the marriage motion in favor of further study.

They were calling for the kind of study the French government commissioned before it made a decision on same-sex marriage. Based on recommendations that showed changing the definition of marriage would be detrimental to the rights of children, France decided against gay marriage.

The freedom of speech issue is another front in the same battle, even though there are many supporters of same-sex marriage who also strongly support freedom of speech.

Canada is in the midst of a huge shift from a former Christian hegemony in its understanding of human rights to a clash with secularist and materialist conceptions that can be frightening illiberal if they continue to gain ground. Think about the legacy of Karl Marx to human rights and you'll get the picture. That's not all. An additional front has opened as radical Islamists seek to implement Saudi-style conceptions of Sharia in the West and are willing to use our liberal institutions, courts and multicultural apparatus to gain ground. (And pour lots of their oil revenues into changing and radicalizing our university faculties, mosques and other institutions). These two illiberal fronts are working in a strange tandem.

It will be interesting to see whether this freedom of speech issue continues to gain traction and whether any of the groups that fought for traditional marriage will enter the fray. But I doubt they would be interested in merely supporting a motion.

They may be asking themselves---why not something like the Manley Commission? Why not a fully-funded (of all sides) round tables series of cross country discussions like the mining industry got? Why not a Royal Commission? They may be asking themselves, gee, if Mulroney/Schreiber ancient history gets a full blown public inquiry why not the most central issue facing Canada today, our very rights and freedoms AND protection of vulnerable groups from defamation? Is there a way we can do both?

I will be watching for those developments, because I don't think a little tinkering here and there with the Canadian Human Rights Act will solve the problem. The problem goes to the heart of who we are, and it doesn't seem like we know who we are anymore. We need to find that sense again. We need to dig deep and refresh our roots. We need a major re-education process. A renaissance.

I can't tell you the degree of ....what's the best word....betrayal? disappointment? dismay? among social conservatives, religious and non.....at the way the Harper government handled the marriage motion.

I imagine many eyes are watching to see how Harper is going to handle this issue. I know Ezra is right in that there is a lot of support within the Tory Caucus. When I attended the second anniversary of the Tory win in late January, I tried to gauge the degree of awareness and support in conversations with a number of cabinet ministers, MPs and staffers concerning the Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn cases. This event was a couple of weeks after Ezra had put his interrogation on YouTube. I found awareness of the issue spotty back then.....some had only a vague awareness. But others were watching quite closely. A lot has happened in the past month. We'll see what happens.

A Canterbury Tale from Iowahawk

Heere Bigynneth the Tale of the Asse-Hatte.

It's hilarious. Please read.

I'm planning to go see Indocrinate U tonight

Update: Go see Indoctrinate U. But take your blood pressure medication, meditate, pray, whatever it is you need to do to make sure you don't blow a gasket once you've seen it.

I am outraged.

John Robson introduced the movie to an audience of about 100-150 people. John gave a great talk. He's very funny. He also mentioned Ezra Levant and his standing up to the human rights commission as a good example of the kinds of tactics that need to be used to stop this squelching of diverse points of view.

He stressed that when we do have an occasion to stand up against the free speech deniers we should do so calmly, with humor. He described the political correct edifice as "hard but brittle."

In the film, there are a number of examples of people who fought back against ludicrous speech codes, trumped up charges of hate speech. One professor actually faced sanctions for being a ......are you siting down?........a Republican!

Some campuses have taken down American flags because they might offend foreign students.

You know, it isn't the immigrants who are the problem. Shoot, there was a grateful Kuwaiti citizen in the film who wrote a positive essay about the American liberation of his country and he was accused of, I dunno, I can't remember, but the charges were serious enough that he nearly got kicked out of the country.

I didn't recognize anyone there tonight. That's cool. That means there's a whole new set of likeminded people I didn't know existed in Ottawa.

I look forward to seeing this Indoctrinate U tonight at the National Archives of Canada. It'll be interesting to see who else is there.

The show starts at 7. See you there?

Ezra Levant slices and dices Gazette's op ed by Pearl Eliadis

Ezra Levant has a must read post today in which he slices and dices the Montreal Gazette op ed by human rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis.

In this post he not only reduces her arguments to rubble, he corrects some of her facts and points out spelling mistakes. And then he adds some original research that is rather astounding.

Ezra writes:

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

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

He also digs out some of her legal decisions.

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

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

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

I gotta say.....how many journalists would bother to do this kind original research or fact-checking? How many, to be fair, in this era of convergence have the time? If your news desk in far-away Toronto wants Schreiber/Mulroney or Afghan detainees what are you going to do? You have to immerse yourself in a sea of detail that is irrelevant to most Canadians. I feel sorry for the poor folks who have to cover those stories.

This slicing and dicing, and other original work being done on the blogosphere on this human rights issue, reminds me of the work the blogosphere did to expose the propaganda coming out of the recent war in Lebanon and the fact that at least one Reuters freelance photographer was photoshopping his pictures to make bombing look worse.

That same photographer took some of the famous pictures at Qana.

It all speaks to what Pundita wrote recently about how this story is moving so fast it is way beyond the ability of the mainstream media to keep up.

Well history is in the making here in Canada and it is unfolding before our eyes at the speed of light.

BTW, Pundita also has a great new post on "What is this, "We've noticed Western Civilization is in great danger" week?

More from the Keith Martin interview as promised

How did Keith Martin feel about being portrayed as a poster boy for the neo-nazis?

"Well, you’ve got to expect that that’s going to happen but I think you can’t detract from the issue at hand. I think the reporting has actually been very responsible, actually, where the media has actually borne down into the heart of the issue, which is really the issue freedom of speech and the question: Is freedom of speech being affected adversely by the misuse of subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. I maintain it is."

"I think that issue is actually being portrayed fairly. Thankfully it has drawn a lot of attention so Canadians can be informed about an issue that has been hidden under a blanket to be used against certain individuals at times highly inappropriately where ordinary citizens have actually been trampled by the commissions."

Did he know the Calgary imam had dropped complaints against Ezra Levant?

"I haven’t made any comments about specific cases. If you go down that road you’re going to be caught up in issues that are not central to the core issue which is whether subsection 13(1) is written improperly and being misused by the commission."

"If we focus on that, we will not be misdirected in other areas where the attention will be drawn away from the issue at hand."

"My hope is that Parliament will be able to see that there is safe ground upon which to look at this in a responsible way and defend a right that Canadians fought in two world wars and spilt their blood to give us. And it's one thing that we can and must do in this place in Parliament is to defend a fundamental right such as freedom of speech. It’s our duty."

"Are you getting support from within your caucus?"

"Huge support. Huge Support."

" In the Liberal Caucus?"

" Absolutely."

"It’s been improperly stated that there’s some division. There have been some concerns but the vast, vast majority of my colleagues have been very pleased that this idea has come forward, been very pleased that this issue is on the plate of Parliament. And it’s really been also quite bipartisan. Members from other parties too have expressed their support."

What did he think of the justice minister's talking points?

"I think its unfortunate many members of the Conservative party have been very supportive of this, including the prime minister before he became prime minister. I hope that the prime minister sees that by having the motion introduced by somebody else and the positive response that it has drawn, it creates a safe space upon which he can take it upon himself and his government can take it upon itself to introduce it at committee where the committee can actually look at this in a responsible, public and transparent fashion."

"I’m disappointed that the prime minister is attempting to muzzle his caucus ironically on an issue of freedom of speech. And I know that he doesn’t personally agree with that--"

"I hope that the prime minister really moves away from this position which is really untenable given his previous comments and the fact that there are very few true rights in our country. If there’s one responbility this this House has, that this Parliament has its to defend those rights."

Part one of my Feb. 14 interview is here.

You can hear Rob Breakenridge interview Dr. Martin here.

Could MPs be afraid to speak out? And not of Harper?

Last week when I was on the Hill mingling with some MPs from both the Liberal and the Tory parties, I asked an MP for an opinion on the freedom of speech/ Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn human rights complaints. This particular MP was appalled by it. I asked this individual for a public comment. After a few moments thought, the MP decided not to. Then this person mused--alas, I did not have a notebook or my recorder out so I can't recall the exact words--that some MPs might be afraid to speak out on this issue, afraid their families might be targeted.

This was said in a casual manner, as social chit chat, so it didn't register with me perhaps as much as it should have at the time. But the conversation keeps coming back to me. I haven't been able to get away from a gnawing sense of unease. Is this possibly the case? Are some MPs not speaking out on Parliament Hill out of a sense of intimidation when it comes to any form of criticism of radical Islam?

MPs are on break next week, but I will do some more probing on this possible fear angle when they return. It's one of those things though where it is easy to retreat behind talking points or refusals to comment on cases currently before a commission.

Surveys show something like 70 per cent of journalists believed the Danish cartoons should have been republished because of their news value, but Ezra Levant was just about the only publisher to do so. Looks like most publishers did a cost/benefit analysis and figured perhaps the danger to their property and their staff was not worth the risk. Remember how the Indigo-Chapters chain refused to even carry the Western Standard's cartoon issue?

Parliament Hill has changed a great deal since 9/11. You can't drive up on the Hill anymore. Those cars that do have to go through an RCMP checkpoint and get screened for possible bombs. There are airport security type devices for screening everyone who comes onto the Hill without a security pass. There are men and women with those little earpieces all over the place.

Who are we? Even Quebeckers don't know says Iain Benson

Iain Benson of the Centre for Cultural Renewal has written a powerful assessment of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission's efforts so far to find reasonable accommodation of religious and cultural minorities in Quebec. The whole piece is worth a good read. And just as Cardinal Ouellet's brief to the commission which blamed Quebec's social problems and difficulty in welcoming newcomers on the collapse of Catholicism but had a wider application to the rest of Canada, so does Benson's analysis.

He writes:

The quest for a social consensus on the way to deal with Quebec's increasingly pluralistic reality should therefore have been a very positive thing. This would have been the case if the government has set up the Commission as an act of leadership, rather than as a way to distance itself from the Question. When Lucien Bouchard tried to get the population on board with the goal or reaching a déficit zéro, which entailed drastic cuts in government spending, he relentlessly toured the province, meeting with leaders from every sector of the economy. There was no such leadership at the Commission, which offered no social vision around which to rally the population, and allowed for the law of the jungle to rule. Most were horrified that the government had offered a tribune and a year's worth of headlines in newspapers and on TV to the most extreme, racist and bigoted elements in Quebec society. Such a public and organised display of immigrant bashing had never been seen in Quebec, even under PQ government.

Ultimately, the Bouchard-Taylor commission failed not so much because of the occasional unsightly breakdown of decorum and civility, but because at the end of this year long exercise in collective soul searching, as the dust finally clears up, "social peace" is nowhere in sight. The debate also spread from minority issues to questions concerning the very foundations of Quebec society: the Quiet Revolution principles of French empowerment, feminism, and secularism. While the Commission started out being about how a hypothetical we (the French majority) should deal with a hypothetical them (the minorities), it quickly became about how to define this we. But here also, there is no consensus.

For more than 15 years, Benson has been one of the "prophets" warning of a new kind of secularist ideology that was supplanting traditional liberal notions of pluralism. He has argued that all are believers in something--whether our "faith" is religious or non-religious-- and moves to banish religion from the public square are really attempts to make sure that only atheism and secular humanist ideas shape public policy.

Benson does not think the West is going to go back to a Christian consensus, but he hopes it can avoid a new "one-size-fits-all" vision that will force various religious conceptions into the closet.
Instead, he would like to see as much public space as possible carved out for different conceptions, without some degeneration into multiculturalist relativism. Freedom of religion, of speech and of conscience are key to his vision.

Alas there is even less of a "we" in the Rest of Canada.

Syed Soharwardy: the gift that keeps on giving

Update: Ezra Levant has more information, including pictures of the attack victim to show this is not a joking matter. I hope the police get to the bottom of this soon. Whoever is responsible for this kind of thuggery, it cannot be permitted in Canada.

There is so much new stuff about the Calgary Imam who recently dropped his human rights complaint against Ezra Levant that it is hard to keep track of everything. What's happening to him is enough to make you believe in Karma--the moral law of cause and effect. And to make you think carefully about practicing the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

In the karmic what goes around comes around vein, some women from his mosque have filed human rights complaints against him. And now it seems one of those women was roughed up by a burka-wearing woman and man who claimed to come from Soharwardy's mosque. Police are investigating.

Could one write a bad novel with more plot twists than this? Soharwardy denies that anyone from his mosque would have done such a thing. And I caution us all to be very careful about jumping to conclusions or imputing motives as tempting as it might be.

This drama reminds me of professional wrestling storylines with campy villains and heroes. (A fez-wearing imam in one corner with his burka-clad, black glove-wearing cheerleaders vs. Ezra in a singlet with a bomb in his turban?). (Thanks to Binky over at FreeMarkSteyn.com for the pix of Ezra and Warren)

But the feud can become so distracting that we get our eyes off the bigger picture and that's the routine abuse of human rights by so-called human rights commissions. While the Alberta Human Rights Commission investigation into the imam's mosque is not a freedom of speech violation it is a jurisdictional violation of freedom of religion. If there are any criminal activities, then the police should be investigating, not Shirlene McGovern. We have to draw back from the narrative now and then to see which principles are at stake.

Yet we need the narrative to keep us interested and make us bother to check out the otherwise boring policy and legal stuff. It all reminds me of a wonderful New York Times (yes, I understand the collective gasp) story I read years ago that showed how a good narrative could be used to make an otherwise boring, process, banking story interesting. It started with a couple of men--maybe a sheriff and his deputy or a bank official---going to a farm with foreclosure and eviction documents. The farmer shoots them and kills them.

The writer set the farm scene--for some reason I recall wintry, snowy hills and isolation. Then the story proceeded off the front page into several thousand words about bank mortgages, land prices and collateral and stuff that would usually make my eyes glaze over, but was so beautifully paced that I stayed with the stuff and actually absorbed it because just at the right time I'd find out more about the murder and what happened next. The farmer with the gun had bought his farm with borrowed money. But then the market price of the farm dropped below the face value of the loan, so the bank moved in to take the land. Sounds a little like the sub-prime mortgage thing, no?

Back to the human rights issue. We need to take advantage of this fascinating narrative to get us to acquaint ourselves with some of the deeper philosophical, legal and moral arguments at stake. And we also have to make sure we don't get too caught up with personalities, either demonizing people or putting others on pedestals. And I urge all of us not to fall assume we can mind-read or impute motives. Let's be careful and remember that how ever much we may love to hate our show biz villains, Soharwardy is a human being and not a cartoon. Imagine yourself in his shoes and think of how you would want to be treated.

Oh yeah. The professional wrestling motif can also work for Mark Steyn. Can't you see him wearing one of those red plaid quilted flannel shirts, perhaps a front tooth blackened, taking on the tag-team Law School Four all wearing condom like sock-puppet outfits? And Mohamed Elmasry as a Don King type promoter? And Warren Kinsella as some bizarre Vegas-style or Don Cherry type sports commenter, resembling Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic strip with a computer generated haze of curse words and bathroom graffiti swirling about his head, but pixilated for family viewing? Here's Binky's take on the Kinsellameister.

Shoot. This drama is so much fun to watch I feel like I'm blowing Lent.

But the issues at stake are deeply, deeply serious. They will remain long after this narrative ceases to hold our attention. As Keith Martin points out in his recent interview with me (more to come, I promise) real people are having their lives crushed by unjust human rights commission and tribunal processes.

MP Keith Martin interview on M-446

Dr. Keith Martin is interviewed on AM 770 CHQR. Click here for the audio.

I hope to add more from my interview with Keith this evening. He had some interesting things to say about the Tory talking points.

But first, I have to remember I have a life, and some bathrooms need cleaning.

Trouble with the links on this site? Switch to Firefox

Someone commented over at Ezra Levant's site that he's having trouble with the links on my site.
That does happen, alas, when one is using Explorer as a browser. The site was designed to look its best and works well if you use Firefox.

If you must use Explorer, and the links don't work, try navigating away from the site, then coming back. The links may work. Sorry about that, folks.

Support for Keith Martin's Motion M-446 "HUGE"

UPDATE:

Someone commented over at Ezra Levant's site that he's having trouble with the links on my site.
That does happen, alas, when one is using Explorer as a browser. The site was designed to look and work its best with Firefox.

If you must use Explorer, and the links don't work, try navigating away from the site, then coming back. The links may work. Sorry about that, folks.

I have more great stuff from Keith Martin but can't get at my regular office computer today. So keep checking back for more.

Here's the original post:


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

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

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

Stay tuned.

P.S. Check the Dion link, because the one time he is on the record talking about the Martin motion, he is not in favor.

Jason Kenney and Mr. Awan

A busy day up on the Hill today. More later. I had a little chat with Jason Kenney about this and that. Asked if he'd heard from Khurrum Awan, one of the law school four, in response to this letter.

Kenney said he hadn't heard from "Mr. Awan" but he had heard from "some of his colleagues."

"On the advice of counsel, they referred my letter to Rahim Jaffer and John Tory," he said, adding, "I hope they’re not paying for that counsel."

Awan is one of the four law students/ex law students who approached Maclean's Magazine to ask for equal space and control over the cover art to respond to an excerpt of Mark Steyn's book America Alone: the End of the World as We Know It. That excerpt is now the subject of a human rights complaint against the magazine.

Calgary bishop offers to settle publishing dispute

When I heard that Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy had dropped his human rights complaint against Ezra Levant, I wondered whether Bishop Henry, who himself faced human rights complaints two years ago, had influenced his decision. So I called his office and asked for an interview. He called me back yesterday afternoon. I think you will find what he said most interesting. My story is on The Catholic Register`s great new website. Read the whole thing here.

OTTAWA - Calgary Bishop Fred Henry would like to see Imam Syed Soharwardy
and former publisher Ezra Levant settle their feud so they can work together
to stop the abuses of human rights commissions.

“Whether or not I could be a referee in any kind of context, I have
thought about that in the past and I’m still open to that,” Henry said.“But
right now I think things are a little bit too inflamed and they’re too emotive
for any kind of intervention.”

Henry is even willing to offer his office for the sit down meeting that Soharwardy publicly asked for in a Calgary Herald Op Ed piece Feb. 13, where he
announced he was dropping his human rights complaint against Levant.

“They are both good men,” Henry said. “I think they recognize there are
some problems with the human rights commissions.”

Henry said he hopes they can find reconciliation.

Vancouver Olympics committee must prevent human trafficking

From the Western Catholic Reporter, an excerpt of a story I did on efforts to prevent human trafficking.

Les Soeurs de la Congregation de Notre-Dame de Montreal want to make sure
the 2010 Winter Olympics do not become a venue for human trafficking.

The congregation’s leadership committee wrote a strongly-worded letter
to Vancouver Olympics organizing committee (VANOC) board chair Jack Poole Jan.
25, urging him to prevent the surge in trafficking that has accompanied previous
Olympics and international sports events.

The letter notes that the level of human trafficking to Greece doubled
before the 2004 Athens Olympics. “As well, it was astounding to learn that at
the World Football Cup 2006, ‘performance boxes’ designed to accommodate 650
clients of sex workers were built near the main venue in Berlin.”

“Recruiting, trafficking or forcing human beings to prostitute
themselves should never be associated with sport,” the sisters wrote.

Priest warns against New Age teachings

Here is a version of the story I filed on Fr. Dan Dubroy`s recent Theology on Tap in Ottawa posted on the Western Catholic Reporter website. An excerpt:

Father Dan Dubroy expects a negative reaction when speaks about New Age
teachings, even when he addresses Catholic audiences.

That’s because New Age teachings and practices have infiltrated many
parishes and Catholic retreat centres, he told an Ottawa Theology on Tap Feb. 5.

He did not realize the extent himself until he read a document on the
Vatican website entitled Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: a
Christian reflection on the New Age.

New Age teachings are “not about Jesus,” he said. They involve techniques
that lead to inner knowledge that “God is inside me.”

“If God is inside me, then I must be God,” he said.

Earl, Earl, get a grip

Kate over at Small Dead Animals links to this column in the Ottawa Sun by Earl McRae. I just want to say, Earl, get a grip. It's a long time since we've had a coffee together. I need to knock some sense into you. You've picked up that stupid fear rampant among the left that if Barak Obama gets elected some right-wing fascist conspiracy is going to make sure he gets assassinated.

He writes:

They do not want to hear that Barack Obama is as much an American as they are, and who has had to explain more times than he should have that he is not a Muslim, but a secular Christian. They do not want to hear that he is a better American than they are, these right-wing extremist fascists in the land of America who no doubt believe it's God's will Barack Obama not get to the White House, no method of deterrence out of bounds, in their zealotry to protect and perpetuate Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Mom's apple pie, and the cross of Jesus in every home.

Who killed Bobby Kennedy, huh? He didn't have a cross in his house. It's one of those dots we have failed to connect for a long, long time. Dots that showed a pattern long before 9/11. Some of us still haven't connected those dots.

As an American-Canadian, I find this offensive! Why would you assume, Earl, some person with a cross in their house is going to go an assassinate Barak Obama because he has a Muslim middle name? Americans love a convert to Christianity. People with crosses in their houses, people with white skin, are voting in droves for him in the Democratic primaries. Most Americans want the racial divisions to be over. They want it so badly, they will overlook the fact that he's inexperienced and doesn't have many ideas. He sounds great. He gives Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg--so Mark Steyn wants what he's having.

Earl, honey, he is more likely to be killed by a Muslim extremist who sees him as an apostate for leaving the faith than he is to be killed by some far-right Christian, and even that is unlikely in North America. Sorry, but as Kathy Shaidle so often points out, the violent Christian types exist on Law and Order and that's about it.

I think Dr. Sanity has a great diagnosis for the strange fascination with thoughts of an Obama assassination. She writes:

I think Shelby Steele is absolutely correct in his assessment:

The Barack Obama phenomenon is about white America. It's not about Barack Obama and it's not about black America. There is this need, this driving hunger, to somehow get this race thing resolved, to redeem the country, to get beyond it. That's [the] phenomenon.

It's all about atonement and redemption.

Which is interesting because, if you take this feeling to its logical conclusion, then race would no longer be an issue in America (at least on the larger level). I have the sense that this is the precise psychological reason why the left is so preoccupied with the idea that Barack will be assassinated.

They are somewhat ambivalent (as I have noted many times before) about any of the approved and sanctioned victim groups actually achieving anything. Thus, they can simultaneously support Obama and be obsessed with his anticipated martyrdom. It means they don't have to change their "oppressor vs oppressed" meme one iota. In fact, from their perspective it would be a psychologically acceptable solution to their ideological dilemma.

I agree. There is far more of white liberal guilt floating around America than there is hatred towards blacks. Or Muslims, for that matter. The country is ready for a black president. I just hope it isn't Obama, as admittedly appealing as his baritone preacher's voice and hopefilled platitudes sound.

How about if McCain chooses J.C. Watts to be his VP?

Rally for Free Speech April 12 in Ottawa

Plans are underway for a big Rally for Free Speech on April 12 in Ottawa.

John Pacheco, who organized the biggest pro-marriage rally during the same-sex debate, has taken on putting this one together. Expect it to be big. He says this:

Never before in our nation’s history have the civil liberties of Canadians
been under such an assault as they are today.
Every day that we continue to
live under the tyranny of the Human Rights Commissions and the other soft
totalitarian organs of illiberal regimes is another day where the cost of
removing their yoke will be that much higher - either for us, for our children,
or for our grandchildren.

snip

Don’t look to the next guy to do something about it. That’s the approach
that got us in this mess in the first place - people passing the buck instead of
picking it up.
It’s YOUR responsibility to stand up NOW and be counted.
Because if you don’t stand up now and do something, write something, or say
something, the cost of recapturing our precious and eroded freedoms in the
future will take more than just a pen.

He has a website for the rally. It's here.

Calgary Imam to withdraw complaint against Ezra Levant

His Calgary Herald Op Ed is here. (H/T Mark Steyn)

Soharwardy writes:

Based on subsequent discussions with several Muslim leaders and more particularly with some of my Christian and Jewish friends, I have come to the view that the filing I made is outside of what I now believe a human rights commission's mandate should be. I now am of the view that this matter should have been handled in the "court of public opinion."

Consequently, I intend to withdraw my complaint filed with the Alberta HRC against Ezra's "right" to publish the offensive and hateful drawings. I believe the decision he took was irresponsible and was intended to stir up strife, but I now appreciate that it may not fall outside the limits of freedom of expression.

And this:

Further, I would respectfully request that our federal and provincial government leaders give consideration to enacting legislation establishing narrower and more well-defined boundaries for human rights tribunals in our country.

From what I can understand, the scope of cases currently handled by human rights tribunals in Canada has expanded beyond what was originally envisioned. It seems to me that any changes to the parameters for these commissions should be made by elected officials.

Sounds like he has come around and would support Keith Martin's private member's motion M-446.

Ezra plans to continue fighting. He does not view the move as anything but a tactical surrender.

He writes:

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

I wish, however, that Ezra would take up Soharwardy on his offer for a truce and that they could work side by side for the bigger picture--reining in these human rights commissions on the federal and provincial level. If Ezra is right and "hudna" is involved, the imam's true colors will reveal themselves and he can pick up the battle again with renewed vigor.

Otherwise Ezra runs the risk of some bad optics down the road.

Soharwardy writes:

"And if you really believe the central issue is that human rights tribunals have gone too far, then let's work toward a solution that best serves all Canadians. However, if your priority is engaging in untruthful character attacks on Muslims or grandstanding on American television, then I guess you will not be interested in constructive change.

"It's time for straight talk, Ezra. A man's word is his bond. It's the Code of the West."

I agree. If he's even in the least for real, even willing to go through the outward motions of being for real, he would make an excellent poster boy for getting the laws changed. Why not join forces and enlist him to the project of protecting fundamental human rights? This could have a huge impact on other Muslims in Canada, to help them understand that a religious Muslim can also see the importance of fundamental freedoms.

Maybe the organizers of the April 12 Free Speech Rally on Parliament Hill should invite the imam to be a keynote speaker in support of getting the laws changed.

Let's be gracious as well as wise, no?

Disappointing but not surprising

When I read about the leaked memo from Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's office to Tory MPs on the Human Rights Complaints issue I was disappointed but not surprised.

I can understand Kathy Shaidle's dismay in her National Post op ed entitled Gag me with a Memo. She writes:

When bloggers first heard of the accusations against Steyn and Levant, and began mounting campaigns to "stop the CHRCs" from further stifling freedom of speech, many were encouraged by a rediscovered, then widely circulated, quotation from future Prime Minister Stephen Harper, circa 1999:

"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."

Looks like Stephen Harper lost a few things during his move to 24 Sussex Drive. Namely, a principle or two.

Has Harper been Ottawatized?

Maybe. Maybe not. It's another world up on Parliament Hill, inside the Queensway, where the Mainstream Media creates a little echo chamber. It's dominated by reporters who would smear Liberal MP Keith Martin as a neo-Nazi poster boy for introducing his pro-freedom of speech motion M-446 to axe the dangerously illiberal Subsection 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act. That smear reverberated through newspapers across the country t and through the CBC Radio, even forming the basis of the As It Happens interview with Martin several days later.

So...maybe that'll give you some idea what Harper and crew are up against. Not that that is an excuse.

The journalists on Parliament Hill are overwhelmingly white, centre-left, secularist and middle-class, but think their viewpoints are objective. How they perceive issues is a "no-brainer" and anyone who disagrees with them is therefore not objective, and has no brains. Many are lapsed or nominal Catholics. There are often no more virulent critics of the Christian faith and the Catholic Church than those who think they know it from the inside but reject most of its tenets. As the pope has pointed out there is something strangely self-hating about the West.

Unfortunately, most Canadians do still get their news from sources like CP, CBC and CTV and papers like The Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail. They don't follow issues too closely. Most Canadians probably don't know much about the dangers to freedom of speech. And if human rights commissions only deal with neo-Nazis, "scary" Christians and conservatives, then they have no worries, the world is unfolding as it should. It won't affect them or their pocket books and it gets rid of speech they don't like and brushes away unpleasant realities---such as the threat of Islamic extremism--they would rather forget about or blame BushHitler for.

I was speaking to one MP has he was getting on the elevator near the House of Commons foyer the other day. We talked about the human rights issue and he called it "the under story." It is. It is the biggest issue facing Canada today. It is bigger than the war in Afghanistan, and a heck of a lot bigger than how we treat Afghan detainees, because if this issue is not addressed, we will lose not only Afghanistan but the very foundations of Western Civilization, as we surrender bit by bit to illiberal elements of Islamism and its useful idiot's ideology of secularist fundamentalism.

The threat to our fundamental human right of freedom of speech is as big as the marriage issue, which also spoke to our civilizational confidence, and our willingness as a society to support the fundamental building block of society, the biological family. But now that we have obliterated the traditional family from our laws, erased biological distinctions like mother and father and replaced them with a legal construct, why should that legal construct remain two persons if one man and one woman, the biological prerequisite for children, is no longer part of the definition? Why not polygamy as is already being practiced with the sanction of welfare authorities in Toronto? Our secularist civilizational enemies have disarmed our ability to protect ourselves from multiple marriage. Since the feminists have not even cried out against abuses against women in the Islamic world, will they be able to mount arguments against polygamy's inherent abuse of the dignity and equality of women?

Freedom of speech is THE election issue, as far as I'm concerned. It is interesting that those on the left (and their journalistic minions) see aspects of the misnamed War on Terror as a human rights issue too, but they are focusing only on the human rights of our enemies at home and abroad, demanding perfection of our soldiers and justice system to the extent that enemy combatants and home grown sympathizers should get practically the late Johnny Cochrane-style dream teams for their defense at taxpayers' expense.

Most of all, the problem is with us, our weakness, our decay, our cultural amnesia, the superficiality and emotionalism that has replaced a deep and rational Christian faith.

Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger nailed the problem when he wrote "If Europe Hates Itself" back in 2004. What he says about Europe applies here in Canada.

There is a strange lack of desire for a future. Children, who are the future, are seen as a threat for the present; the idea is that they take something away from our life. They are not felt as a hope, but rather as a limitation of the present. We are forced to make comparisons with the Roman Empire at the time of its decline: it still worked as a great historical framework, but in practice it was already living off those who would dissolve it, since it had no more vital energy.

snip

In the violent turbulence of our time, is there a European identity that has a future and for which we can commit ourselves with our whole being? I am not prepared to enter into a detailed discussion on the future European Constitution. I would just like to indicate briefly the fundamental moral elements, which to my mind should not be missing.

The first element is the “unconditionality” with which human dignity and human rights must be presented as values that precede any jurisdiction on the part of the state. These basic rights are not created by the legislator, nor conferred on the citizens, “but rather exist in their own right, are always to be respected by the legislator, are given previously to him as values of a superior order.” This validity of human dignity, previous to every political action and to every political decision, refers back ultimately to the Creator: only He can establish values that are founded on the essence of man and that are intangible. That there be values that cannot be manipulated by anyone is the real, true guarantee of our freedom and of man’s greatness; Christian faith sees in this the mystery of the Creator and of the condition of the image of God that He conferred upon man.

snip

In our present-day society, thank God, whoever dishonours the faith of Israel, its image of God or its great personalities, is fined. Whoever scorns the Koran and the basic convictions of Islam is fined, too. Instead, with regard to Christ and to what is sacred for Christians, freedom of opinion seems to be the supreme good, and to limit this would seem to threaten or even destroy tolerance and freedom in general. Freedom of opinion, though, finds its limit in this, that it cannot destroy the honour and the dignity of the other; it is not freedom to lie or to destroy human rights.
The West reveals here a hatred of itself, which is strange and can be only considered pathological; the West is laudably trying to open itself, full of understanding, to external values, but it no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure.

Well....I'm not so sure I agree that it's great to fine people who criticize Judaism or Islam. But it is strange that while that is the case in Europe and increasingly in Canada, it is open season on Christianity. I bet some of the "right not to be offended" crowd would change their tune immediately if blasphemy against Christianity became an accepted ground for human rights complaints.

Hilarious "ecumenical" discussion via church signs

You can find it here.

Things done in bad taste or worse

I am with Binks and Ezra on Kate's recent poor taste prank on Warren Kinsella.

Binks at www.freemarksteyn.com writes:

Despite the particularities of Mr. Kinsella’s personal quest and tactics, we’d not ever make such ‘jokes’, because of the risk of offending human dignity– our own, that of real survivors of genocide, or Kate’s, and the dignity of someone we profoundly disagree with, but recognize as falling within the spiritual duty of humbly praying for our enemies.

We’re trying to see things with the eyes of eternity: that our friends and current adversaries might love and serve justice, truth, and goodness; that all be saved; that each be the best themself as possible, according to the will of almighty God. Kathy, Warren, Mark, Omar, Ezra, Khurrum, Kate, Mohamed, even Binks– civilized and civil humans, Canadians citizens, sons and daughters of God– whether they know it or like it or not.

I would prefer she hadn't done it. She's a lot younger than I am and probably didn't grow up with the pictures of bodies stacked in mass graves, or starving concentration camp survivors in the Family of Man edition sitting around her childhood living room. I doubt her mother and aunt and grandparents were stateless persons in Nazi-occupied France who had to flee for their lives as refugees to the United States. I chalk her stunt up to thoughtlessness, not bigotry, however.

Kinsella's quick willingness to smear people with the Nazi label also cheapens the Holocaust. And he does it with much more frequency. Ezra points out:

But would Kinsella's high dudgeon sound a little more credible if he had not, just last month, used Holocaust analogies and imagery himself in a cheap shot at a fellow Liberal?

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

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

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

Kinsella's bad taste and Holocaust profanation is coupled with his dangerous anti-Christian smearing. His admitted cruelty in his Barney the Dinosaur stunt mocking Stockwell Day's Christian beliefs, was premeditated. His war room tactics tried to paint sincere Christians as somehow scary and dangerous to Canadian society, with having some evil hidden agenda. This made me feel threatened and has helped me to understand how other vulnerable groups, including Muslims, feel when all members are tarred with the same brush. That's why I try to be careful and think of how Muslims who fled here to escape fanatical jihadists feel when they are also portrayed as terrorists.

I wonder why Kinsella pays no attention to the real dangers posed to Jews today, instead devoting his attention to attacking the very people courageous enough to call our attention to it. B'nai Brith's yearly catalogue of antisemitic incidents in Canada tells a similar story. Open up the document at the link and note that for 2006, (the latest survey) there is the highest level of anti Jewish attacks since they started doing the survey. A huge increase. And it ain't white skinheads of European origin who are doing most of the hate crimes. Yet if the "right not to be offended" crowd of complainants and cheerleaders has their way, it will soon be illegal to inform people of any facts that could put any aggrieved group in a negative light. Except Christians. There is no equality before the human rights codes in that event.

I hope in his new gig with the Canadian Jewish Congress, his consciousness will be raised about the real threats Jews face now in Canada and elsewhere. No doubt Muslims also face threats here, and we should be on guard against that as well. But silencing any criticism of any group is not the solution. Nor is undermining the Christian underpinning of our secular society and notions of human rights.

Yesterday, while I was visiting www.silobreaker.com and plugging in some of the names in the freedom of speech controversy, this song on YouTube composed by Kinsella popped onto the screen. It's called "Barney Rubble, He's my double."

I thought it was an odd coincidence that I should happen upon that song on the same day that Mark Steyn entitled a post about Kinsella Barney Rubble.

I find the song disturbing. It's hard to imagine that an adult man, a father, a lawyer, someone with obvious intelligence and communications skills would take the time to write, and brag about writing in the credits, and have anything to do with the performance and production of such a juvenile product. So.....while I think Kate was right, I don't think Warren can claim the moral high ground.

Cool new site Silobreaker

There's a cool new site called Silobreaker.com that gives you various visual presentations on searched subjects, showing how these subjects are related to others. Lots of interesting links.

Here's a graphic that came up when I put in a search for Ezra Levant.

O Canada, the land where all the big debates are settled!

O Canada, the land where all the previously unsolved philosophical debates are now "settled." Even as the free speech debate swirls around Mark Steyn , Ezra Levant. (And let us not forget Catholic Insight magazine) our betters tells us the limits of free speech have been "settled."

For instance, David Mader writes:

Let's start by putting aside this debate's straw man, the free speech absolutist who believes that the state may not under any circumstance proscribe speech or expression. We may freely admit that such an approach is contrary to our legal and political tradition; and even in the United States, whose free speech laws are immeasurably more robust than our own, limits on expression are well settled.

What angst I would have been spared, had I grown up in today's Canada. Back in the dark ages when these debates were still unsettled, I took Philosophy 101. I was told certain debates had raged since time immemorial and could never be settled because no side could never be proven, one way or the other. How appalling. Nowadays, Canadians are spared the existential anguish of contemplating the questions that dogged philosophers since before Socrates. People in human rights commissions, government bureaucracies and courthouses have settled these issues for us. Aren't you glad you don't have to worry your fuzzy widdle bwain?

The debates now settled are:

free will vs. determinism

does God exist?

nature vs. nuture

the relationship of body and soul; matter and spirit

is there an objective truth or is everything relative?

To name but a few. Luckily, I don't have to think about them anymore. I remember the harrowing contemplation I once experienced as I crossed my college campus. Which path should I take? Am I free to choose, or, is it predetermined that I choose the left or the right? Ah, the relief of living in Canada, where this debate is settled. There is no free will or moral culpability because every human being merely the victim of a faulty system that is to blame for every social ill. Unless you are a member of the majority culture and defend Western Civilization, the patriarchal mess that brought us that system. Then you are uniquely morally culpable for every ill afflicting society today. Luckily, though white, I am a woman so I remain a victim!!!! Hooray!!!!!

In Canada, the existence of God as written into the Preamble of the Charter of Rights and Freedom is "a dead letter." In other words, people used to believe God was important, but no longer. That's settled. No God exists as our ultimate judge, no heaven above us, no hell below. Imagine! Canada!

As for nature vs. nuture. When it comes to one's sex, male or female, it is nurture all the way, baby. The debate has been settled, various dangling and non-dangling bits notwithstanding, in favor of a social construct: gender, a linguistic term that in some languages encompasses many, many genders beyond male and female. Which is coming soon to a human rights code near you.

Our notions of male and female are totally the legacy of patriarchal dead men. Men are no different than women, but are completely interchangeable, whether it comes to raising children (in other words, fathers are not necessary! nor are mothers!).

In Canada, soon I suspect that when two men want to have a child together state help will make up for their lack of a womb. It already helps two women who want to conceive without the help of a man. This is how the state ensures freedom of choice even though choice doesn't really exist from a philosophical standpoint....oh oh, I'm getting confused. I must remember that my betters know better and these contradictions are unimportant now that the debates are settled.

Whenever the system unfairly treats women, such as in hiring for police, fire or military services, then upper body strength requirements must be revised downwards. Since equality trumps all rights, the playing field must be leveled.

But when it comes to gays and lesbians, it is nature all the way. Sexual orientation is as indelible as the pigmentation of one's skin, so we are told. To argue that maybe there maybe elements of nurture in the evolution of a gay identity is hateful, so our betters tell us.

Our betters have eliminated that odious distinction between the sin and the sinner that withstood centuries. Jean Paul Sartre rocks! We are what we do. Period. It is impossible to love someone and hate what they do. Because existence precedes essence, and not the other way around. (Or some mixture or overlapping of nature and nurture, but drawing the line would be too unsettling so forget it)

(Parents with rebellious children, take note! I guess they already have. Maybe that's why Johnny's self-esteem remains so high, even while he is breaking windows or writing nasty slogans in washrooms, as captured by the Karsh of Canadian washrooms. Rather than appease your children, liking everything they do no matter how odious because you can't separate the sin from the sinner. The idea that we can lovingly correct a child for bad behavior is soooooo yesterday, and deemed impossible by our betters. This, too, is settled. We can drug them instead, especially if they act like boys. )

As for the relationship of body and soul. Well, it's all body, folks. The soul or spirit is just an epiphenomenon, the product of some electrical impulses and chemical reactions in the brain. Any thought that we have an eternal spirit, especially to argue our eternal spiritual life begins at conception, is as dead as God. This is settled folks! And just as it's only a lump of cells in our wombs, so also have we ascended from the primordial slime by random chance. Any other view beyond materialism is beyond the pale in the school systems dominated by our betters.

As for whether something such as truth exists, well it is settled in Canada that in a multicultural world, all cultures are equal and truth is therefore relative. That is the absolute, settled truth, folks: there is no truth. Oh, except Western Civilization is uniquely bad. We cannot discriminate, that is bad. But it is okay to discriminate against Christians, and increasingly, against Jews, because members of those groups disagree with the truth that there is no truth.

No, it is better that the state tells us what to think in these areas, no? We have so many choices now that we are freed from the responsibility to raise our children and care for our elderly relatives. Maybe our rights will be extended so we can off grandma or grandpa when it gets too boring to visit them in the nursing home. And isn't it wonderful how many choices of porn channels we now have?

We can lie back with our beer and popcorn and rest assured that smiley face thought police have made Canada a better place. Oh, there is work to be done, to eradicate and silence those who remain unsettled, but the work continues apace.

Where's the beef?

Binky over at http://www.freemarksteyn.com/ has published a link to the latest effusion from Mohamed Elmasry, the man who made the human rights complaints against Mark Steyn and Maclean's Magazine.

His arguments may prove to be persuasive up on Parliament Hill where, if Keith Martin's motion M-466 came to a vote in today's Parliament, it would probably lose. Contrary to Elmasry's contention, there is a big reservoir of good will towards Canadian Muslims in all political parties and the concerns he raises about "Islamophobia" will be taken seriously. Few have time to investigate the facts outlined in the excerpt of Steyn's book America Alone that Maclean's ran and that is deemed "flagrantly Islamophobic."

Given the experience of Jews with vicious blood libels and conspiracy theories that prompted pogroms all over Europe and in Slavic countries, and culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, there is a sympathy--and rightly so--for protecting groups against defamation. I, too, am uneasy with just assuming that the marketplace of ideas will take care of everything. What would be the remedy if mainstream media outlets started saying things that were untrue about a group? Using that groups holidays as occasions to publish lengthy features disputing the tenets of that faith? Gee, it's been happening to Christians for years now. Hmmmm.

Defamation used to mean saying something about someone or a group that is untrue. Unfortunately, under the Canadian Human Rights Act subsection 13, the truth is no defense. Defamation now seems to mean writing anything about any group, no matter how true, that is likely at some point in the future to subject them to contempt or hatred. That is Orwellian. As one of the original architects of human rights legislation in Canada, Canadian Civil Liberties Association General Counsel Alan Borovoy told me recently, that section could be used to outlaw any legitimate reporting of world hot spots from Rwanda, to the Middle East, to Northern Ireland because any religious or ethnic group in these stories could say the coverage was likely to expose them to contempt or hatred. No proof of that contempt or hatred is necessary either.

Let's get something straight. The libels against Jews are just that....libels. There is no Jewish conspiracy running the world; they did not carry off 9-11 with the help of BushHitler. Holocaust denial is also untrue.

Yet there is documented evidence that some extremist Muslims are calling for the restoration of a worldwide caliphate. Anti-Jewish cartoons far more vicious than the Danish cartoons are frequent fare in mainstream newspapers in the Middle East.

If Mark Steyn wrote about Muslims breeding like mosquitos rather than quoting an Imam who used that phrase, I would shun him. Human beings do not "breed like mosquitos" or "infest like vermin" as some anti-Semites have said about Jews. Yet the mosquito quote, magically removed from its quotation marks and attributed to Steyn, forms one of the complaints against him and Maclean's.

By the same token, Elmasry's liberal use of the n-word in this article could run him into the same problems if someone decided remove the quotation marks from his Mark Twain quotation and accuse him of making racial slurs against blacks. In fact, without the quotation marks, one could say he was inciting people to kill them. Unfortuntely, the human rights complaint against Mark Steyn is full of missing quotes, and assumes his review of a dystopian novel represent Steynian conspiracy theories.

So, we have now from Elmasry a similar complaint to those raised in various op eds by the four law students who demanded that Maclean's give them equal space and control over the cover art for a rebuttal of the Steyn book excerpt.

I feel like that old lady in the classic Wendy's commercial. I have lifted up the massive bun of accusations and I see this shriveled, self-pitying whine of group defamation and I'm saying, "Where's the beef?"

Where is the rebuttal? What facts in Mark Steyn's book America Alone are untrue? What quotations were made up?

We have known about these complaints since early December. Surely, surely, if what Mark Steyn has written is untrue, there has been time for someone to come up with a responsible refutation of his facts and shown that his quotations were made up. Where is it?

I came across this disturbing definition of defamation according to Sharia, concerning a deeply-troubling U.S. court decision.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court’s seminal 1964 New
York Times v. Sullivan decision defined libel or slander by a journalist as
stating or writing falsehoods or misrepresentations that damage someone’s
reputation—and in cases of public figures, doing so with malice.
Under
sharia, by contrast, libel constitutes any oral or written remark offensive to a
complainant, regardless of its accuracy or intent. Slander “means to mention
anything concerning a person that he would dislike, whether about his body,
religion, everyday life, self, disposition, property, son, father, wife,
servant, turban, garment, gait, movements, smiling, dissoluteness, frowning,
cheerfulness, or anything else connected with him,” according to Ahmad Ibn Lulu
Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368). 1
Repeat: Sharia regards even the truth as slander if
its subject dislikes the facts. Now applied through foreign courts, sharia law
interpretations of libel have demonstrably undermined U.S. press viability
already. Though Mahfouz never proved merits in any libel case, he has threatened
or sued more than 35 journalists and publishers (including many in the U.S.)
through Britain’s High Court, and exacted fines, apologies and retractions from
all but Ehrenfeld. Last Thursday, New York’s Appeals Court substantially (if not
intentionally) allowed the application of sharia rules here.

We cannot allow Sharia definitions of defamation to prevail in the West. Then truth, fair comment and absence of malice when mistakes in fact are made would be no defense.

We also have to understand though that Sharia to believing Muslims means "justice" and when we attack Sharia, it sounds to them like we are attacking justice. Sharia does not necessarily equate with cutting off the hands of thieves and stoning adulterers, though in its extreme form, it can. I do not want to tar all Muslims with the same brush. I want those who appreciate the freedoms we have here to feel welcome to practice their religion publicly, with our making reasonable accommodations to their rights to pray five times a day, wear hijabs or whatever. I defend their rights to worship freely because my rights to worship freely are tied up with theirs. I don't want to see rabid secularists use fear of Muslims to shut down their faith or mine.

The Afghanistan motion

Government Motion - Seeking to Continue the Mission in Afghanistan

That,

 whereas the House recognizes the important contribution and sacrifice
of Canadian Forces and Canadian civilian personnel as part of the UN
mandated, NATO-led mission deployed in Afghanistan at the request of the
democratically elected government of Afghanistan;

 whereas, as set out in the Speech from the Throne, the House does not
believe that Canada should simply abandon the people of Afghanistan
after February 2009;  that Canada should build on its accomplishments and
shift to accelerate the training of the Afghan army and police so that
the government of Afghanistan can defend its own sovereignty and ensure
that progress in Afghanistan is not lost and that our international
commitments and reputation are upheld;

 whereas in February 2002, the government took a decision to deploy 850
troops to Kandahar, the Canadian Forces have served in various
capacities and locations in Afghanistan since that time and, on May 17, 2006,
the House adopted a motion to support a two year extension of Canada's
deployment in Afghanistan;

 whereas the House welcomes the Report of the Independent Panel on
Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan, chaired by John Manley, and recognises
the important contribution they have made;

 whereas their Report establishes clearly that security is an essential
condition of good governance and lasting development and that, for
best effect, all three components of a comprehensive strategy - military,
diplomatic and development - need to reinforce each other;

 whereas the government accepts the analysis and recommendations of the
Panel and is committed to taking action, including revamping Canada's
reconstruction and development efforts to give priority to direct,
bilateral project assistance that addresses the immediate, practical needs
of the Afghan people, especially in Kandahar province, as well as
effective multi-year aid commitments with concrete objectives and
assessments, and, further, to assert strong Canadian leadership to promote better
coordination of the overall effort in Afghanistan by the international
community, and, Afghan authorities;
  
 whereas the results of progress in Afghanistan, including Canada's
military deployment, will be reviewed in 2011 (by which time the
Afghanistan Compact will have concluded) and, in advance, the government will
provide to the House an assessment and evaluation of progress, drawing on
and consistent with the Panel's recommendations regarding performance
standards, results, benchmarks and timelines; and

 whereas the ultimate aim of Canadian policy is to leave Afghanistan to
Afghans, in a country that is better governed, more peaceful and more
secure;

therefore, the House supports the continuation of Canada's current
responsibility for security in Kandahar beyond February 2009, to the end of
2011, in a manner fully consistent with the UN mandate on Afghanistan,
but with increasing emphasis on training the Afghan National Security
Forces expeditiously to take increasing responsibility for security in
Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole so that, as the Afghan National
Security Forces gain capability, Canada's combat role should be
commensurately reduced, on condition that:

(a) Canada secure a partner that will provide a battle group of
approximately 1000 to arrive and be operational no later than February 2009,
to expand International Security Assistance Force's security coverage in
Kandahar;

(b) to better ensure the safety and effectiveness of the Canadian
contingent, the government secure medium helicopter lift capacity and high
performance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance before February 2009.

Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for
Democratic Reform

Let's not be too hasty to get rid of group rights

Whoa! Even though I found the points that Mike Duffy raised during his interview with Mark Steyn last night interesting for how they display the Liberal Party's intellectual inconsistency, I hope that both Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn will not go overboard in defending individual rights to the total expense of group rights. That's not to say that there might be legitimate reasons for extending some of the human rights protections onto native reserves. But let's also think of the consequences of human rights commission's applications (and those of courts) to other groups--religions---and the damage these bodies have already caused religious freedom as both a group and an individual right.

Growing up in the United States with a default liberal mental programming, I used to rail against the concept of group rights, especially for how they played out in the Quebec language issue. And yes, some of the ways that Quebec's language laws have been implemented have been ridiculous and deserving of the lampooning they have received from Steyn, Mordechai Richler and others.

But as I have come to understand better the group rights as understood through Catholic teaching and seen how human rights complaints have been used to undermine the ability of confessional Christian schools to impose behavior codes on their faculty and staff, I have changed my tune.

A strict interpretation of individual rights---where there is only the individual against the state--is a dangerous notion. That means that all intervening institutions that provide a bulwark against state power are stripped of their collective rights. Already, the same-sex marriage law in Canada has stripped the biological family of its rights by removing biologically-based designations such as mother and father and replaced them with a social construct: "legal parent" in all the consequential amendments of other laws pertaining to marriage.

Thus, as McGill professor Douglas Farrow has argued, (especially well in his book Nation of Bastards) the state now defines an institution that existed prior to the state. The state can now determine who has the rights to a child. It can now determine who then becomes the "legal parent." It is no longer a given that the biological parents have that inherent right. Watch for the rise of "children's rights" that the state will increasingly defend against parents who argue for the prior right to control the education of their children. Watch for more and more state interference with the role of the family in nurturing and raising children.

Religious freedom is also at stake. A narrow notion of individual rights sees religion as a private matter. Believe what you want, but keep your public professions of faith out of the public square. Freedom of religion, however, is also a group right. People should have the freedom to assemble, to worship, to choose their religious leaders and practices without having some human rights commission or court coming in to determine which practices are okay or not---unless they clearly violate the Criminal Code, such as female genital mutilation, or threats to kill those who convert to another faith. This notion of religious freedom is rapidly being eroded as well. I do not want some human rights commission telling me which part of the Bible is okay for me to read. Courts should not be telling Catholic high schools that they have to allow a gay student to bring his male date to the prom, or determining whether a Catholic bishop's pronouncements on faith issues have more or less weight than those of say a Catholic teacher's union.

I don't want some human rights commission coming into my church to tell us that we have to hire a priestess because our traditional view of the priesthood runs afoul of some human rights commission's definition of the equality of women. I don't think the present unisex, "gender-is-a social construct" view that prevails in Canada properly reflects the complementarity of the sexes. There are deep theological reasons for an all-male priesthood. I don't want some ignoramous Christianophobic bureaucrat deciding these matters for my religious group. Thus, I disagree with the Alberta Human Rights Commission's hearing the complaints against the Calgary Imam who complained against Ezra. That is just as serious and dangerous an overreaching into the arena of religious freedom as their investigation of Ezra is a breach of freedom of speech and of the press. If there are Criminal Code violations at the mosque then and only then should the state interfere.

As for the group rights of francophone speakers? I respect the rights of franchophones to protect their language. It's tough to work out the balance between group rights and individual rights. It takes philosophically grounded thinkers. Alas, our law schools are preparing people who perfect technique at the expense of wisdom.

In our Christian tradition, we have come to see that there is both the individual and the group. We are all individually made in the image of God, but we are also part of the Body of Christ, a unity. That's why there is such beauty and richness in the Christian conception of rights that will be lost if we define them down to merely individual rights, or merely group rights. In the Muslim world, the notion of individual rights is not developed. Group rights trump everything. That is equally dangerous. We have both in our Western heritage.

The Liberal Party has not always gotten this right and there has been a great ideological inconsistency in how they have applied these principles. But the libertarian strains in the Conservative Party will not do these principles any justice either. Let's not exclude Edmund Burke in our headlong embrace of John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism.

Woe to us when we see only individual rights and all the intervening institutions have been dismantled and undermined. Who will then protect the individual from the crushing power of the state? When families have become a social construct and whatever we "choose" at any moment, who is going to be responsible for raising and nurturing children to be virtuous, self-governing members of society? Enter massive state daycare programs, mandatory illiberal indoctrination to sexual dogmas and the elevation of tolerance as the virtue that trumps everything else. When religions have been banished to the sidelines, what institutions will help families to stay intact, promote the kind of sexual restraint that families need to flourish. Who will make sure that men stick around to be good fathers to their offspring? I fear that soon, if present trends continue, that it will be considered hate speech to publicly state that sexual activity should be confined to heterosexually married couples.

About a year ago, I did a long piece on Stephane Dion after he became Liberal leader, looking at what Catholic voters might like or dislike about him. Some Catholic thinkers had some deep reservations about his narrow conception of rights. Here is an excerpt where I quote McGill religious studies professor Daniel Cere:

Cere also sees Dion as in “lockstep” with the Trudeau legacy left by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter, however, Cere said is a “thin document” that does not go “far enough in the robust conception of rights that grounds the Catholic tradition.”

“His [Dion’s] position is so grounded in an individualistic conception of rights,” he said. “That kind of conception can be corruptive of forms of communal identity – family, religion or nationality.”

The Catholic tradition sees human rights grounded in an authentic conception of the human person that recognizes the communal dimensions of family, social and national identities, he said.

“I don’t think the Catholic community can feel completely comfortable with the Dion vision,” he said.

Cere is especially worried about religious freedom, especially the rights of religious institutions to hold views that are inconsistent with so-called charter values. He warned that the individualistic notion of rights is increasingly narrowing the conception of religious freedom to freedom of conscience even though the Charter and the courts recognize both conscience rights and religious freedom.

Luc Gagnon, editor of the French-language conservative journal Égards and president of Quebec Campagne-Vie agrees.

“He’s in the same line as Chrétien and Martin but worse, because Martin was a serious Catholic, and that placed some limits on his liberalism,” he said. Gagnon fears that Dion will go even further not only in the separation of church and state, but also in the separation of morality and politics.

Gagnon fears that the next “right” that might be championed is the “right to die.”

I fear that on the other side of the aisle, there is also a similar shrinking conception of rights.

Pundita weighs in on the Archbishop of Canterbury's latest capitulation

She writes:

Williams engaged a variety of odious debating tactics to defend his position. There was the ever-popular Moral Equivalency Argument. He pointed to the existence of some Orthodox Jewish courts in Britain and the British government's tolerance for anti-abortion views of Catholics and other Christians. From there he argued that British laws should also make accommodation for Muslim ones.

When last I checked Jews and Christians -- now with the clear exception of the Anglican sect -- do not sanction polygamy.

And I am not aware that the decisions of the Jewish courts are legally binding, any more than the decisions of Britain's existing Islamic courts. Why would the archbishop want to put Islamic justice on par with British justice? Here he falls back on the Argument for Inevitability as a substitute for rational discourse:

“It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system,” he said.

British law --and indeed all law -- is based on the concept of justice. If you try to base justice on inevitability, this rationalizes all manner of crime and moral outrages.

Mike Duffy interviews Mark Steyn

CTV's Mike Duffy interviewed Mark Steyn tonight on his program Mike Duffy Live about the human rights complaints he and Maclean's Magazine face for an excerpt of his book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know it.

Mike quoted the book and pointed out that, well, it happened to be true.

Mark talked about the shame that these complaints are bringing on Canada.

Mike pointed out a strange inconsistency on the part of the Liberals. On one hand, they claim to be the party of human rights and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion wants MP Keith Martin withdraw his motion to axe the controversial anti-free speech subsection 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. On the other, they oppose the Tories plans to extend human rights legislation to include Canada's aboriginal peoples.

Mark stressed the importance of equality before the law.

When I went down to the foyer to get my coat, I asked if I could take a photo of him on the set for my blog. He suggested I get one taken with him. So here it is! Thanks, Mike!

Aspects of Sharia inevitable says Archbishop of Canterbury

Maybe it wouldn't have been inevitable if the Anglican Church hadn't strayed so far from its traditional Christian moorings. Then maybe Anglicans would still be having babies and all those beautiful churches in the U.K. wouldn't be mostly empty.

Binky has lots more with good links:

It’s always fun to pick on bearded lefties like the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. He recently said that the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK “seems unavoidable”. For this, he’s receiving flak from many in the media.

The simple fact is: he’s right.

As Melanie Phillips has detailed in her excellent book Londonistan, over the past two decades, England became the center for Islamic fundamentalism in the Western world: some of the 9/11 bombers had connections with mosques, schools, and groups in the UK. The British Government, the chattering classes and intellectual elites, and the established Church of England have almost universally– whenever it was really important– surrendered, appeased, and given in to the most militant elements of the immigrant Muslim community, in the name of fighting supposed ‘Islamophobia’, multiculturalism, getting the muslim vote, and avoiding unpleasantness.

Appalling interview on As It Happens with Keith Martin

Anyone who listened to Carol Off's interview on CBC's As It Happens with Liberal MP Keith Martin just now will be appalled if they know anything about the context for the recent private member's motion M-446 .

I certainly am. The 800 pound gorillas in the room---the human rights complaints against Maclean's Magazine and against Ezra Levant and the now defunct Western Standard were not even mentioned!!!!!!!!!!!

But---the intro stressed the lame "guilt by association" smear that some neo-Nazis like his motion.

Thankfully, Keith was unflappable, made many, many good points, and is sticking to his guns, despite Liberal Leader Stephane's indication that he would like him to voluntarily withdraw the motion.

Could it be that Carol Off DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT the complaints against Maclean's Magazine and Ezra Levant? Does she not read the Globe and Mail? The National Post? Maybe she always skips the conservative columnists and the editorial pages. If she does know, why on earth would she leave out that key information?

I'm afraid ignorance may be a plausible answer given NDP Leader Jack Layton's response to my question about the Maclean's situation today.

In the scrums today in the House of Commons foyer, I asked Jack Layton the following:

"Mr. Layton should the Human Rights Commission be investigating Maclean's Magazine for the article by Mark Steyn?"

He responded: "I'm going to have to get back to you on that. I'm sorry. We'll have our Human Rights Critic get in touch with you."

I did speak with the NDP Justice Critic Joe Comartin at length. He believes that human rights commissions do need to protect vulnerable groups against defamation. He insisted the truth is a defense and for the most part expects that justice will be served in the final decisions of all the commissions concerned. I will be writing up my interview for a story, so once I transcribe it I may have more to post here.

Letter to MPs that urges Liberals to keep subsection 13

Got this within the daily email Robert Jason sends out:

It reads in full [emphasis mine]:

Letter From: Khaled Mouammar
Sent: February 2, 2008 12:40 PM
To: Khaled Loutfi Mouammar
Subject: MP Keith Martin's Motion to remove Hate Speech from the Human Rights Code

Hon. Member of Parliament,

It has come to my attention that Keith Martin, a Liberal MP has introduced a private member's motion to delete s. 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, under which four law-students filed their human rights complaints against Maclean's Magazine.

Keith Martin’s motion is, in my view, motivated solely by the Muslim community’s filing of human rights complaints against Maclean’s Magazine. As such it represents an attempt to deprive an identifiable community of the means to protect itself from discriminatory actions and hate speech. It is within itself, contrary to the Muslim community’s s. 15 Equality Rights.

While motivated by the Muslim community’s complaints, the victims of Mr. Martin’s Motion are all minority communities who have filed complaints under this section previously – Aboriginal, African-Canadian, Jewish, and Chinese-Canadian.

If s. 13(1) of the CHRA were deleted, it would leave minority, multicultural, and immigrant communities with no protection under our Federal Human Rights Code for hate speech.

The Motion directly contradicts the wisdom of the Supreme Court of Canada, which has upheld s. 13(1) under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It is unworthy for the Liberal Party of Canada, which claims to be the party of multiculturalism, equality, diversity, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and human rights to be the source of a Motion to take away from the multicultural and minority communities of Canada, the power to file complaints about hate speech with our Human Rights Commissions.

I call upon all fair-minded MPs and Parties, to reject the effort by MP Keith Martin to undermine the multicultural fabric of our society, our commitment to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, our commitment to equality, and our commitment to building a society in which all citizens are able to live with dignity and without being subjected to dehumanizing speech. History has made abundantly clear the potentially horrific consequences of hate speech.

Interesting. It would seem from this letter that equality and the relativism of multiculturalism trumps every other right, including the right to speak truthfully or within the realm of "fair comment" about any "protected" group. What is going to happen as various protected groups start using these commissions and tribunals to start complaining against each other?

Just as hate crimes complaints were laid against verses of the Bible, could not another protected minority see hate crimes complaints laid against their holy books?

Does this letter-writer support, for example, the human rights complaints against the Calgary Imam that have been filed by some women accusing him of treating them in a discriminatory fashion? Though there is an element of poetic justice in the fact that the same imam who cried hate speech against Ezra Levant for publishing the Danish cartoons is himself the subject of complaints himself. But I don't agree the commission has any business hearing them. Just as I think it is overreaching in hearing the complaints against Levant.

I think the Alberta Human Rights Commission is violating the Charter by hearing those complaints. If there are criminal violations in that mosque, the women should go to the police. If they are complaining because they were not treated equally to men, silenced during a meeting, or told to wear a hijab, that is not the business of the state. As long as these women are free to leave and attend another mosque or convert to another religion without threats or danger, and radical extremists are not using the venue to incite hatred against identifiable groups or commit treason against their own country, the state should butt out. Religion is not only an individual right, it is a group right, one that is rapidly being eroded. Only when a religion is violating the Criminal Code, should the state get involved.

Human rights commissions have been used against Christians to challenge behavior codes at private Christian schools and universities. The same thing could happen to private Muslim schools. Ezra Levant is called for a separation of mosque and state when he went before AHRC. That separation should also go the other way and protect the mosque from interference by the state. But it seems the AHRC thinks it is its business to step in not only in mosques but also in churches when it investigated the Calgary Catholic Bishop Fred Henry for a pastoral letter defending traditional marriage.

Would Mr. Mouammar like it if human rights commissions determine that a private Muslim school has to hire a nominal Muslim feminist who does not believe in or practice the tenets of the faith?

Be careful what you wish for, because the very power of these bureaucratic agencies can be turned on you. I frankly don't think that is a good thing.

Human rights are not about the ability to live in a world where you face no criticism and the state uses its power to censor your opponents. They are far more robust than that here in the West. I hope Mr. Mouammar will more deeply reflect on the contents of the documents he cites and on the fact that equality is not a trump right, no matter how much some politicians and bureaucrats would like it to be. His very own religious freedom could be at risk. So will his own freedom of expression.

It is interesting that this individual is the one who has promoted the idea that any negative opinions about Muslims is the new form of Anti-Semitism. Arabs are Semitic peoples, yes, but Islam does not equate with a race. Muslims come from all races and cultures around the world.

Excellent analysis by a judge of freedom of speech debate

This is the celebrated metaphor of the “marketplace of ideas,” which postulates that free speech is necessary because it is the “marketplace of ideas” that generates what the truth really is. The American commitment, that a society where ideas are freely expressed is better than the one where ideas are controlled, has been likened to its commitment that free economic markets are superior to state-regulated economies.

-snip-

The debate continues, because others might suggest that Nazi Germany was not a free “marketplace of ideas” but rather a regime that practiced strict censorship. In support of this suggestion is the infamous 1933 Berlin “Bücherverbrennung” (Burning of the Books), during which 20,000 books were burned on the state allegation that they conflicted with Nazi ideology. The Nazis did not tolerate any competing thought or expression, and so those who take this view say that Nazi falsehood did not win over truth in a fair and open encounter.

Read the whole thing.

The Human Rights Commission Jihad

Here's an easier link to use than the one Ezra Levant provided to counter-terrorism expert John Thompson of the Mackenzie Institute on The Human Rights Commission Jihad.

He writes about why human rights commissions are a new front for radical jihadists:

First, Human Rights Commissions don't just have a bias against the accused – they're stacked against them. As Mark Steyn observed in a January 2008 column in Maclean's: In the three decades of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's existence, not a single "defendant" has been "acquitted." Would you bet on Maclean's bucking this spectacular 100 per cent conviction rate? "Sentence first, verdict afterwards," declares the queen in Alice in Wonderland. Canada's not quite there yet, but at the Human Rights Commission, it's "Verdict first, trial afterwards." So I'm guilty and Ken Whyte's guilty and Maclean's is guilty because that's the only verdict there is.�

Secondly, Human Rights Commissions are cheap – very often, the plaintiff needs no legal counsel (unlike the defendant), and might very well have his expenses refunded if he does have a lawyer in his corner. The defendant cannot expect any such beneficence, and will probably expect to ring up the same degree of expenses ($50,000 plus) that they might in a general civil action.

Thirdly, in a regular civil action in a real court, there is the process of discovery or disclosure; whereby the plaintiff and the defendant can demand to see each other's records. Normally, in the courtroom Jihad in the US (and to a lesser extent in Canada), this is where the plaintiffs back off.

Favors citizen advocacy over human rights commissions

Warren Kinsella for the record.

http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry080205-100949

He quotes his correspondence with the National Post, hoping to get equal time to rebut today's John Ivison column:

The problem, here, is that human rights commissions have the power to dismiss frivolous and vexatious complaints speedily - and they haven't been using it. They will blame underfunding, but I think that is an excuse. They needed to establish a reasonable threshold for jurisdiction, and that they didn't do. In that gap, Ezra has built a flourishing second career. [I have bolded for emphasis]

Ironically, what I favour most of all is citizen-based advocacy, with no human rights commissions or Criminal Code provisions being necessary at all. Make group defamation easier to do - that is the best way for a society to express itself. When that was done in Oregon in the 1990s with the White Aryan Resistance, it put them out of business. They have never recovered. That is always the way to go, to me - citizen-based advocacy. Being condemned by a peer is always more effective than being pursued by a bureaucrat.

Another Warren Kinsella quote for the record:

As such, I'll keep saying it until someone finally hears me: I don't support the complaints against Steyn or Levant. I think they are utterly without merit. In fact, I believe they have the potential to denude future, more-serious fact situations of all credibility.

Besides: given my own political past (cf. the fuzzy purple dinosaur, inter alia ), I can hardly take the position that it should be somehow illegal to speak caustically - even cruelly - about deeply-held beliefs.

Thus, David Mader's point: the debate, here, should be about where to draw the line - not whether there is a line or not.

url: http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry080204-205415

Mader is worth reading. He writes:

For example, I don't think anyone has argued that publication of the Biblical verses addressing homosexuality resulted in harm to the body of any Canadian, gay or straight (or otherwise). Surely some will see an inherent harm, manifest in the perpetuation of homophobic attitudes, perhaps augmenting the obstacles faced by gays and lesbians struggling with their sexual orientation and seeking family or community acceptance.

These harms are absolutely real, in their own way. But the distinction between these indirect harms and the harm resulting from a physical assault should be obvious: all conduct causes indirect harm, to a greater or lesser extent. We focus on the most egregious causes of indirect harm - hate speech, pornography - precisely because they stand at the very edge of the indirect. But if we choose to cross the line, we give up any objective defense against further limits; the only differences between the speech we allow and the speech we proscribe are subjective limits based on the personal preferences of the individuals who enjoy lawmaking power at any given time.

Good stuff. I disagree with Mader, however, that free speech limits are largely settled. They are about as settled as the abortion issue, when 30 years of polls show that Canadians would prefer to have some restrictions on abortion, but our politicians tell us the issue is "settled."

Mader also has an interesting post about human rights in general:

The thing about human rights is, it's pretty hard to argue about who's for'em and who's agin'em when there's no set definition of what 'human rights' actually are.

For instance, if you think that people have a human right not to be subject to hateful speech or literature, then you're likely to think that those who disagree with you are "opposed to human rights." On the other hand, if you think that people have a human right to free expression - including hateful expression - then you're likely to think that those who disagree with you are likewise "opposed to human rights."

and he concludes with this:

Reasonable minds will disagree; they always have. But how about we start disagreeing, and lay off this whole "you don't believe in human rights" meshugas?

Amen!

Rush Limbaugh on the difference between liberalism and conservatism

Rush Limbaugh:

Liberal is not something somebody has to be convinced of. It's not something you have to run around and persuade people about. You don't have to argue with them to change their minds. It's just the natural ease of dealing with ephemeral issues and it is not really solving them, but making you and everybody else think you care deeply about them. Conservatism is not easy. It takes work. It takes thought, conviction against easy answers from the left that do not work but they sound wonderful -- and it really grates on a lot of conservatives who have devoted their lives to try to bring the ideology to as many people as possible; remind them it's the structure and basis for the founding of our country. It just grates to have people on our side so easily defect and then turn around, and turn the guns on us as though we are the problem, which is what is happening with the McCain campaign. Senator McCain successfully targeted the weak, the mushy, the squishy, the Jell-Os, some of the left, the Drive-By Media. The maverick... Here's the dirty little secret. The "maverick" is swimming with the majority. The maverick is not a maverick. The maverick is with the majority, and he's swimming very easily with the tide. He's not a maverick.

H/T Gateway Pundit

Cardinal Ouellet to guide Synod on the Word

From the Catholic Register's website:

OTTAWA - Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet has already begun his new assignment guiding next fall’s Synod of Bishops at the same time preparations move into high gear for the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress June 15-22.

Pope Benedict XVI will not attend the Congress, much to the disappointment of organizers and Quebeckers. However, around the time he the announcement was made, the Pope appointed Ouellet recording secretary of the Synod, which will gather about 250 bishops from around the world on the theme: “The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church.”

“I was moved by the gesture of the Holy Father, in the context of the difficulties I had over the fall,” Ouellet said in a telephone interview Jan. 31. “At the same time I am a bit scared because it is a lot of work,” he joked. “I will rest in 2009.

“My responsibility is to guide the whole work of the synod — technically and at the level of content,” he said.

Ouellet had just returned from a week in Rome, where he has already begun his work in helping to focus the bishops’ reflections. During the Synod next October, he will introduce the reflections and, after 10 days, integrate what has been heard so far. When it is over, he will oversee the development of a unified message. His experience as president of the commission of the message in the 2005 Synod of the Eucharist prepared him for his new role.

“Now it will be an opportunity to finalize the link between the Word and the Eucharist and to show the unity between the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist,” he said, stressing the importance of the Word of God as “the ground of everything.”

Jason Kenney on freedom of speech in Question Period

K.D. O'Malley writes:

So I guess Warren Kinsella was wrong when he predicted that the Conservatives would "repudiate" Ezra Levant "before the week is out." During the last few minutes of Question Period today, New Democrat MP Wayne Marston demanded to know whether Jason Kenney supports Levant in his efforts to -- do whatever it is that Ezra wants to do to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

She provides this exchange from today's Question Period blues:

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

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

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

Stephane Dion gets scrummed on the Martin motion

Here's what the Liberal Leader said:


A reporter asked Stephane Dion if he wants to withdraw the [Keith Martin] motion [to get rid of subsection 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act] and the reporter questioning says: "The government was defending it as supporting charter protected rights and freedoms."

"Yes we, it's not the Liberal, a motion supported by the Liberal Party," Dion replied.

"But the government said it's basically just protecting Charter protected freedoms," the reporter said.

"No. We think, we think. . ."

The reporter interrupts "Why would you want to withdraw?"

"We don't want to change the Human Rights Act this way. We don't support that."

Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton, in another foyer scrum, talked about how pleased he was that Parliament passed a motion for Canada to intervene in the case of an Afghan journalist facing the death penalty.

Layton said: " Well, we're very pleased that the House of Commons has adopted our motion to protest the death sentence that has been meted out to a young journalist in Afghanistan and we feel that it's just simply not acceptable for Canada to stand back while the exercise of the freedom of speech is being greeted with such an horrific penalty and in the defence of journalists, in the defence of human rights, it was important that Canada speak up and speak up rapidly. I'm pleased that the other parties accepted our proposal and let's hope that it sends a very strong message and that other countries will join in the global campaign that's building around this particular case.

Gee, Jack, it would be nice if you and Stephane would also defend the rights of journalists and publishers here at home, too. Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn may not face literal beheading or firing squad, but they could face a loss of livelihood, even imprisonment down the road under the present human rights laws. At the very least, they face huge legal bills, even if the complaints are eventually dropped.

Interestingly, the NDP is joining the anti-Motion 446 juggernaut.

Great words by Binky to take to heart

I have been surfing over at FreeMarkSteyn.com, the great aggregation of blog posts, media reports and graphic art having to do with the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant complaints.

I came across these words of Binky's:

Except we remember that the enemy here are the bad ideas, not the people involved: to the bad ideas we show no mercy, no quarter. We overcome evil with good; we stand on guard for the better Canada which is and can be, aside from the dreams of caliphate on the one hand, and the longing by some on the left for systems so perfect that nobody ever needs to be good.Except we remember that the enemy here are the bad ideas, not the people involved: to the bad ideas we show no mercy, no quarter. We overcome evil with good; we stand on guard for the better Canada which is and can be, aside from the dreams of caliphate on the one hand, and the longing by some on the left for systems so perfect that nobody ever needs to be good.

“They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is shall shadow
The man that pretends to be.”

- T.S. Eliot: Choruses from The Rock (1934)

Binks

Amen! to that.

Back in the days when I was an illiberal Lefty radical dope-smoking hippie who demonstrated against the Vietnam War, blamed patriarchy for my problems and treated the gal who roomed across the hall from me at Dartmouth rudely after I found out she was for Richard Nixon, what started to turn me around was the behavior of those with whom I vehemently disagreed.

Fast forward several years, when I was starting out as a journalist in Nova Scotia in the early 1980s. I was no longer dope smoking, but I was nevertheless doing the American expat, rubber boot, crunchy granola homesteading thing in the country. Most of my friends still smoked dope and were living in handmade houses not much better than shacks, or old farmhouses with asphalt siding surrounded by rocky fields. Then we got word about plans to prospect for uranium near our home town of Bear River.

So we formed a little environmental group to "stop the mine." In my new role as a journalist, I also attended information meetings the geologists put on to combat the "we're going to glow in the dark!" propaganda of my friends. They outfitted us with Geiger-counter type things to measure background radiation, they taught us some basic science. I learned that I got a bigger dose of radiation flying in an airplane or sitting on a granite boulder than I would receive living near a mining operation. One of my environmentalist-group friends dismissed this out of hand. She dismissed science, saying it could not be trusted because big companies published science books....duh.

But I'd go to the information sessions where my friends were often rude and obstructive and watch how the geologists were patient, unfailingly polite, objective, measured, and tried to answer questions as honestly as they could. Their behavior started to open my mind to what they had to say. And the behavior of my friends made me question their ideas and their characters.

The clincher for me was this. The geologists insisted that they obtained permission when they prospected on private property. While prospecting, they would walk the woods in a grid pattern, marking their grids with little pink plastic strips tied in the trees. At a meeting of the environmental group, a member bragged about removing some of these plastic strips and putting them on his property and then complaining that the geologists were trespassing!!!! I don't recall anyone else being appalled. That was my wake up call. This "end justifies the means" stuff of the left had veered into dishonesty and fraud. That's when I jumped off the bus and started to discover ideas that seemed alien to my default illiberal Baby Boomer programming.

The brown-shirt style antics on campuses these days? My generation started them with their stupid take-overs of administration buildings and riotings at Democratic Conventions and such. Alas, everyone caved to us. They appeased us. My whole spring term at Dartmouth we were "on strike" and didn't attend class, but we were all "passed" our courses. Just about every campus across the United States was on strike that spring. We were the ones who threw out the canon. Who coined the words "Dead White Men" and repudiated them.

I repent. I deeply regret the legacy my generation has left the Western world. We bequeathed an intellectual amnesia that allows Jason Cherniak to think Trudeau created our rights to free speech with the Charter. We have left stupidity in our wake.

The point of this post though is that there is always a temptation demonize people we disagree with, especially when there are high stakes. I don't want to do that. Because maybe some shrill, name-calling, strident deeply confused person like I used to be will wake up when they see me responding in rational, calm, measured, good-humored, and I hope, kind, ways, even if sometimes the love has to be tough.

Yes....overcome evil with good. Thanks, Binks.

If you care about the facts read Pundita's post

This post of Pundita's is chilling , all the more so because it is written with logical and legal precision. Please read the whole thing. These are facts that you need to know if you care about freedom of speech in Canada. This post (and its links) should be mandatory reading for any journalist who decides to cover the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant issues. It should be mandatory reading for any politician in Ottawa before he or she steps before the mics in the foyer of the House of Commons to speak on Liberal MP Keith Martin's motion to get rid of the anti-human rights Subsection 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The familiarity with this set of facts is as important as, well, a familiarity with the actual text of the Manley Commission's report for anyone covering Afghanistan.

Pundita writes:

The wording of Elmasry's filing makes it clear that his complaint is directed at the website, which still carries the Steyn article in question. The filing also makes clear that Elmasry, his attorney Faisal Joseph, and the Osgoode 4 are familiar with the CHRC mandate to review cases of hate speech published on the Internet.

A copy of the CHRC filing and the wording of the CHRC queries sent to Rogers (which can be found at Mark Steyn's website) very definitely indicates that the CHRC is investigating the complaint with regard to the Internet.

Even a cursory review of Internet hate speech decisions with regard to Section 13 reveals that one of the 'remedies' applied to the respondent is removal of the writing from the internet. In addition, the respondent is enjoined from publishing anything else that might relate to the speech in question. I repeat, anything else. And by "enjoined," I also mean the respondent can face prison if he does not carry out the remedy.

My conversation with former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler

The other day, I had a long chat with the former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler about the Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn cases. I did not have my notebook or recorder with me and my understanding of the conversation was that it was off the record so I'm not going to tell you what he said.

But I can tell you some of what I said to him. I reminded him of a compelling op ed for The National Post entitled The Forgotten Exodus that he wrote about how Jews have been persecuted and expelled from many Arab countries since the creation of Israel.

Cotler wrote:

Yet the revisionist Mid-East narrative continues to hold that there was only one victim population, Palestinian refugees, and that Israel was responsible for the Palestinian naqba (catastrophe) of 1947.

The result was that the pain and plight of 850,000 Jews uprooted and displaced from Arab countries -- the forgotten exodus -- has been expunged from the historical narrative these past 60 years. Moreover, the revisionist narrative has not only eclipsed the forgotten exodus, but denies that it was also a forced exodus, for the Arab countries not only went to war to extinguish the fledgling Jewish state, but also targeted the Jewish nationals living in their respective countries. (emphasis mine)

I drew a parallel to the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant human rights complaints. I said his own excellent op ed could run him afoul of the Canadian Human Rights Act if someone found it offensive. It does go against the prevailing orthodoxies. Truth is no defense. Fair comment is no defense. The complainant would get his or her costs picked up, but the defendant has to pay his or her own legal bills. I told him I felt such complaints were a misuse of the human rights commission.

I also explained to him that human rights commissions have been used for years to target Christian expression. I thanked him for the efforts he had made when he brought in the Civil Marriage Act to include a provision that defended the rights of people to disagree about same-sex marriage and to continue to enjoy the religious freedom to pass on views about the traditional definition of marriage. I told him how vulnerable many in the Christian community feel about the constant attacks on our faith through human rights complaints and frequent media smears, yet most of us follow the example of the Catholic Civil Rights League, and do not try to use human rights commissions to shut down freedom of speech. We believe in censure, not censorship.

I asked him if he were aware of the litany of human rights cases against Christians who have merely defended some of the tenets of their faith in the public square. It seemed to me that Cotler, who is an expert on human rights, had no intention of encroaching on religious freedom when he brought in the Civil Marriage Act. He listened to the concerns raised by many in the Christian community during committee hearings and amended the legislation that was eventually passed.

I also told him about the human rights complaints leveled against the Calgary Imam who filed the complaints against Ezra Levant. I told him the Alberta Human Rights Commission was overreaching by even agreeing to hear this case as well, and thus violating religious freedom provisions in the Charter. If Syed Soharwardy wants to insist that women sit apart from men, or wear hijabs, or keep quiet in his mosque that is no business of the state, I said. Those women are free to find a better little mosque on the prairie, or to start their own. If they have criminal complaints they should go to the police. The state has no business arbitrating which religious doctrines are good or bad, or what religious practices are good or bad unless they come up against the Criminal Code, or rise to the level of hate speech, which requires the consent of the attorney general to prosecute. The so-called (bad metaphor) of a wall of separation between church and state (or mosque and state in this case) is meant to protect both the state from control by any one religious institution and the churches and mosques and synagogues etc. from state interference.

If there is criminal activity such as death threats or direct incitement to violence inside a religious institution, that is the business of the state, but not whether a religion treats women equally according to a feminist understanding of unisex gender equality. As long as people are free to come and go as they please, and do not fear threats or experience assaults, and their conscience rights remain free, it's none of the state's business.

I also said to him that the conception of human rights that arose out of the Judeo-Christian are the most robust conceptions we have. Though I didn't say all of this, I think he knows or should know that under a Judeo-Christian understanding, our human rights are God-given, precede the state, and come from our being made in the image and likeness of God. The state has no right to trample on these rights and freedoms, especially those relating to belief, expression of belief and conscience, unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

I suspect that there are many other Liberals, who, if informed by their constituents of the issues at stake, will come to see that the human rights legislation is flawed. That it has become anti-human rights legislation. I recently spoke to Canadian Civil Liberties Association general counsel Alan Borovoy who told me:

“We never envisioned that these laws would be used as an instrument of censorship."

“This trend towards using human rights laws as an instrument of censorship is a very backward and disquieting step,” he said. “When you look at how broad the law potentially can be in this area, they could wind up censoring all kinds of material.”

Borovoy finds especially troubling the fact that the law includes material “likely to expose” people to hatred or contempt. He noted the lack of any requirement for intent to foment hatred. The truth or a reasonable belief in truth is not a defense. That means news coverage of world hot spots such as Rwanda, Kosovo, the Middle East and Northern Ireland could be seen as subjecting any of the ethnic or religious groups involved to contempt or hatred under this law, he said.

Last week, I also spoke to Liberal MP Tom Wappel, who told me he has been concerned about human rights commissions and their impact on freedom of speech and freedom of religion for years. He did not think, however, that the law will be changed until there is a majority government--Liberal or Conservative. But that was before Keith Martin introduced his motion.

I suspect there are many others within the Liberal caucus who feel the same way as Wappel and Martin. Some will realize the importance of this issue when Keith Martin gets them up to speed. Liberal Leader Stephane Dion should tread carefully if he does not want to see a caucus more divided than it already is on Afghanistan.

Let's not forget Warren Kinsella burned a lot of bridges during the last election campaign when he turned his "kick-ass skills" against Paul Martin . It was an illustration of "friendly fire" on a grand scale and contributed a great deal to Martin's defeat. The Blogging Tories loved it.

Dion has lots of work to do in healing those remaining divisions.

Also, don't forget the smears against Bob Rae at the last Liberal Convention. No, this issue is not going to be a slam dunk for Kinsella and his ilk. Cries of racist! and Nazi! may have worked in the 90s when the Reform Party first came to Ottawa and before the National Post and the blogosphere expanded the spectrum of debate beyond Hugh Segal and Red Toryism on the right and the NDP on the left. (I remember a former CBC colleague calling the Fraser Institute fascist back in those days. Now, their free-market capitalism is no longer beyond the pale of public debate.)

Those who think they can smear people merely by virtue of the fact that some neo-Nazis have supported Keith Martin free-speech motion on their sites, must remember they live in glass houses.

Keep up to date on all the latest postings on the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant cases at FreeMarkSteyn.com or their individual website.

What the Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn coverage reveals

I've been disappointed in much of the mainstream media (or lack thereof) coverage of the attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press illustrated by the human rights complaints leveled against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn . Though I applaud most of the op eds, columns and editorials. (I think these folks get it the seriousness of this battle), the television interviews I have seen have been, for the most part, sloppy. And Joan Bryden's piece yesterday for Canadian Press is an embarrassment.

Thankfully, the blogosphere can quickly slice and dice to correct the errors, wipe away the smears, and fill in the ommissions. For example, Ezra weighs in on Bryden's piece:

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

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

Few, including Bryden's piece, have given an adequate primer of what the debate is actually about. Anyone coming in new would likely be confused. That's why I think all of us should periodically do what Ezra is doing at his blog and rerun introductory posts that help people to understand fully the implications of what I think is the most important political story in the country. If you need the start near the beginning of the Steyn and Maclean's complaints, go here.

In the TV coverage, the hardball questions have been directed at Ezra or those who defend him, but, as in David Aikin's interview on Mike Duffy Live with one of the law school complainants Khurrum Awan, blatant inaccuracies were not challenged. For example, Awan got away with saying their actions were not an attempt at censorship because human rights commissions are not government bodies. Say what?

I think in some instances the journalists on the Hill are too fascinated by the details about Tasers and Schreiber and detainees to do their homework on an issue that is, in the grand scheme of things, far more important because how these cases are settled will directly impinge on how journalists can do their jobs. (As an aside, does anyone ever ask what might happen, to Canadian soldiers that might end up in the hands of Jihadist extremists? Anyone bothered to write about how well Al Qaida and the Taliban adhere to the Geneva Convention?)

Aikin never challenged Awan on whether a privately-owned magazine has any rights to refuse to allow a group of law students to dictate the cover art and five or six pages of its content as a reasonable request. If CTV runs a documentary on Jihadist extremists, would Aikin get the seriousness of the story if some law students insisted CTV run something of equal time to rebut the facts in that documentary, by some person the students selected, with CTV having no control except maybe of sound levels and color balance on the finished product? Would CTV also allow the students control over the opening graphics of W-5 or the evening news with Lloyd Robertson? I think CTV would react pretty much like Ken Whyte over at Maclean's did.
Aikin allowed Awan's spin to prevail.

On Steve Paikin's The Agenda, and on the Duffy's program, with Aikin hosting, the interview with Ezra was sidetracked by irrelevant questions on whether the cartoons should have been published, not the draconian anti-human rights implications of subsection 13 in the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) and similar sections in provincial human rights legislation.

Must read post by Pundita on anti-human rights legislation

She writes:

In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the reasonable limits clause in Section One and the wording in Section 15(2) give Canada's government sweeping powers to suspend the protection of rights named in the Charter. However, the administration of Section 13(1)(2)(3) of the Canadian Human Rights Act suspends such a broad scope of rights that it is an egregious offense to fair justice.(1)

Because Section 13 cases are "quasi-judicial," the government may deprive citizens of their right to fair trial, while at the same time government retains the right to impose penalties on citizens found in violation of Section 13. While this situation applies to all cases investigated by a human rights commission, Section 13 represents even broader suspension of rights than applied to other alleged violations of discrimination law:

1. Under Section 13, the government may launch an investigation on the basis of a complaint that public messages are "likely" to expose the complainant to hatred and contempt. At the same time, Canada's courts provide such a vague interpretation of "likely" as to render the term virtually meaningless beyond "remotely possible."

2. In the justice system, relief for this situation is found in the principles of "fundamental justice," addressed under Section 7 of the Charter, which can "void for vagueness" laws that do not to have a clear and understandable interpretation.

Read it all.

H/T FreeMarkSteyn.com

Keith Martin defends his motion

From Canadian Press:

For Martin, receiving praise from a white-supremacist group was both unwelcome and ironic.

"I'm a brown guy," he quipped in an interview.

More seriously, Martin said: "I'm hardly their poster boy. I fight and rail against what they stand for at every turn."

Nevertheless, Martin said he stands by his motion and won't be deterred from promoting it just because it happens to appeal to "some of these crazy, peripheral groups that have extremely bizarre and often offensive viewpoints."

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

"This is not the position of the Liberal Party of Canada or the Liberal caucus or Mr. Dion," said spokeswoman Leslie Swartman.

"We support the Canadian Human Rights Act and will not entertain changes to it such as this."

But Martin said he won't back down, arguing that it's his right and duty as a parliamentarian to introduce private member's bills that address issues of importance to his constituents.

Martin said constituents first brought to his attention concerns that the human rights act is being abused by people who lodge frivolous complaints about something that offends them, sparking lengthy hearings in which the accused are forced to defend themselves at their own expense.