Some art worked

Blazing Cat Fur: Spiffy new marketing collateral from the Canadian Human Rights Commission: among her fine pieces:

Yet, while admiring BCF's work, I must say I've not been very happy with the term "entrapment" to describe the practices of certain agents of the Canadian Human Rights Commission who have gone about posting hate messages on web sites in order to facilitate their prosecution of these same sites for hate speech. Entrapment is encouraging someone to commit a crime, not committing a "crime" and then pinning it on someone else. One has to put scare quotes around "crime" to keep mind that the thing criminal in respect to Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which is designed to prosecute thought "crimes", without all the fuss and bother of criminal law and due process in real courts, is the appallingly worded - in true totalitarian, catch anything and everything style - legislation itself:

13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

And what are the prohibited grounds of discrimination?

3. (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted.

That's right, if you criticize, say, an evil religion in a way that is likely to bring one of its practitioners contempt, you're guilty. And there is a 100% conviction rate under Section 13, which is not surprising given the lack of rights a defendant has in these "courts" and the "criminally"-worded, catch-all legislation.

Yes I know the lawyers have hemmed and hawed with this legislation, to come up with some reasonable standards for limiting our constitutionally-guaranteed (or so we thought) right of free speech. But those who have been following the stories coming out of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal know how easy it is to get convicted. (More to the point, absent direct calls to violence, or absent concrete acts of violence, there is no reasonable argument for limiting "hate" speech in a free society that doesn't want to turn its supposedly disinterested "judges" into arbiters of what kind of social criticism is politically correct, and hence acceptable, and what not.)

And what happens when those put on trial are, as is inevitable, found guilty under Section 13 of the Canadian "Human Rights" Act?

Orders relating to hate messages

54. (1) If a member or panel finds that a complaint related to a discriminatory practice described in section 13 is substantiated, the member or panel may make only one or more of the following orders:

(a) an order containing terms referred to in paragraph 53(2)(a);

(b) an order under subsection 53(3) to compensate a victim specifically identified in the communication that constituted the discriminatory practice; and

(c) an order to pay a penalty of not more than ten thousand dollars.

So let's now look at sections 53(2)(a) and (3):

(2) If at the conclusion of the inquiry the member or panel finds that the complaint is substantiated, the member or panel may, subject to section 54, make an order against the person found to be engaging or to have engaged in the discriminatory practice and include in the order any of the following terms that the member or panel considers appropriate:

(a) that the person cease the discriminatory practice and take measures, in consultation with the Commission on the general purposes of the measures, to redress the practice or to prevent the same or a similar practice from occurring in future, including

(i) the adoption of a special program, plan or arrangement referred to in subsection 16(1), or

(ii) making an application for approval and implementing a plan under section 17;


Special compensation
(3) In addition to any order under subsection (2), the member or panel may order the person to pay such compensation not exceeding twenty thousand dollars to the victim as the member or panel may determine if the member or panel finds that the person is engaging or has engaged in the discriminatory practice wilfully or recklessly.

R.S., 1985, c. H-6, s. 53; 1998, c. 9, s. 27.

In other words, if you criticize an evil religion, you can be sentenced to substantial fines and ordered never to talk or publish on the subject again. Your free speech can be permanently limited, for life.

Criminal. Duly constituted by act of Parliament.

We need a new word. Entrapment won't do. I call for your suggestions. How do you sum up psychological warfare by passive/aggressive nice/nasty bureaucracies infused with Utopian nonsense about ending all forms of "discrimination"?

How do you sum up Maoism with a Canadian smiley face?

Canadians, now is the time to get off your duffs and complain to your politicians, at one of the few moments in our history when they are actually listening a little on the evil Parliament has sown with this legislation. As the Free Mark Steyn blog likes to remind us, Remember your Actionables