Andrew Coyne always said he wanted to lose

(HT: Blazing Cat Fur who will have lots of updates) Aw nuts, we won : Andrew Coyne's Blog : Capital Read : Macleans.ca Blog Central

be clear on this: it is no victory to be told by a shadowy government agency that you will be permitted to publish. This ruling only preserves the tribunal from utterly discrediting itself, and as such keeps alive the possibility that some other complainant can drag Maclean’s or any other media organization through yet another travesty half-a-continent away, at great expense of time and money. It also prevents Maclean’s from appealing the tribunal’s decision to an actual court, wherein it might have had the relevant section of the B.C. human rights laws thrown out on constitutional grounds — the only way freedom of speech and the press will finally be preserved. (A thought: can you appeal when you win?)

So the real fight, that of returning our human rights laws to their original purpose, and permanently clipping the wings of the human rights commissioners, will have to be won in the political arena. Until that day…

While We're Waiting...

While we wait for the human rights commissars to pronounce their guilty verdict, some links to pass the time..:

Video from last Wednesday of Mark Steyn being interviewed by Mike Duffy on CTV. (a four minute interview worth waiting through the initial 30-second commercial to see)

Excellent Radio interview with "Canada's Victor Lazzlo", Mark Steyn recorded on Friday of last week, by Wendy Sullivan of Girl on the Right. Some interesting comments by Mark on the legal strategy pursued by both Maclean's and the canadian islamic congress during the trial. For instance, while Maclean's had elected not to place Steyn on the stand, under the rules (if you'll pardon the expression) of the tribunal, Steyn's presence in the courtroom that day gave prosecuting attorney Faisal Joseph the right (if you'll pardon the expression) to "turn around" and himself call Steyn to the stand! Yet Joseph chose not to, even though he tried to disparage Maclean's for their choice in not having him testify (if you'll pardon the expression).

Regarding the CTV interview... it took place on the third day of the trial, and makes prominent reference to Andrew Coyne's diligent live-blogging efforts from the courtroom. Given that it took until the last lunch break of the last day of the trial, two days after this CTV broadcast, for the court to discover that Coyne was "broadcasting" direct from the trial, it suggests that precious few individuals within the circle of co-workers, friends, and family members of the tribunal, let alone the troika of the tribunal themselves, follow CTV very closely... or Maclean's... or much of the Canadian blogosphere... otherwise they would have known we were following their every word all week long.

(And Thank God they don't pay attention to non-CBC media, else we would have been denied even this brief glimpse into how ludicrous these proceedings have been)

BCHRT: Make-Believe Justice

I want to publicly thank Andrew Coyne for his perseverance in live-blogging the five-day kangaroo court case against Maclean's maganize last week at the bc human rights tribunal (small caps deliberate).

He carried his readers along quite a roller coaster ride. Here was a funhouse mirror of a courtroom if ever there was one, a child's version of a trial proceeding performed with the same earnest manner seen when little children play at having tea parties with empty cups served to dolls sitting up at knee-high tables.

A child's tea party has no actual tea, and a bc human rights courtroom has no justice. The participants just act as if it did.

Hard to believe that it all took place in my city, in my country, in my Canada.

The final outrage came at the very end, as the curtain was prematurely run down on Andrew's eye-witness accounts of the theater of the absurd:

12:04 PM ...
CODA: There will be no more liveblogging. As I left the courtroom for the lunch break, i was taken aside by a sheepish-looking court official, who said that he’d just learned that I had been “broadcasting” from inside the courtroom. So had I. Broadcasting, I said? I didn’t have a microphone, or a camera.
No, he explained: but liveblogging counts as broadcasting. It’s not the computer that’s the problem. You can type away on it all you want. If you step outside to send it, that’s okay, too. But if you send text from within the courtroom, that’s broadcasting.
Anyway, I gave him my solemn word that I would do no more broadcasting. What with the hearings being almost over and all. It seemed a fitting way to put a cap on the week.

Fitting, indeed. One final empty cup of justice, to toast the conclusion of the game called holding a hearing.

Poetic justice, making a brief appearance at the end of a trial otherwise devoid of any justice.