Free speech (and Kathy Shaidle) championed in Canadian Senate

Senator Nicole Eaton recognizes free expression is not just an "American thing", but fundamental to Canadian history (HT: Catfur):

April 13th, 2010

For immediate release


“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to address the state of freedom of speech in Canada.

Like other Senators who have spoken before me on this matter, I am alarmed by the erosion of this most essential right; alarmed because freedom of speech is an inextricable part of our Canadian identity. If we lose that freedom, we lose a part of our Canadian-ness. Freedom of expression in all of its many forms – including freedom of speech, the press, the arts, and religious and cultural expression – has always been one of Canada’s most important national qualities.

It is a golden thread, woven through our great historic moments and all of our great public controversies, and it has guided us to peaceful resolutions of our disagreements and helped us reach our highest aspirations. And, in our increasingly multicultural, pluralistic society, it ensures that everyone in Canada can find their voice, and have their say.

Freedom of speech is the great equalizer for Canadians who seek to address their claims by appealing to our national conscience. In Canada, one doesn’t need to have power or money to make a case – merely a passion to express an idea. This is one of the most attractive qualities we offer to new immigrants, many of whom come from countries where political or even religious dissent is a crime.

But free speech isn’t just part of our Canada today. It is also a great Canadian tradition. In his opening remarks on this subject, Senator Finley mentioned in passing the case of Joseph Howe. I’d like to expand on that, because it set such an important precedent for the freedoms we enjoy to this day.

In 1835 – nearly 200 years ago, and a generation before Canada was born as our own country – Joseph Howe was put on trial for seditious libel, because the newspaper he published had embarrassed local Halifax politicians by exposing their corruption. Howe knew that his own freedom was at stake – if he lost, he could have been imprisoned. But he also knew that much more was on trial that day: the right of citizens to scrutinize and criticize their government was in question.

Some would call that the right to offend!

Here’s what he said to the jury about what would happen politically if he were convicted:

“Were you to condemn me, these [politicians] would say there is no truth in those charges, there is nothing wrong, and matters would continue in the old beaten track. If you acquit me, as I trust you will, they must form themselves into a court of inquiry for self-reformation ; they must drive out from among them those men who bring disgrace on their ranks, and mischief on the community in which they reside…”

At the time, Halifax had fewer than 15,000 citizens. It was still a very new place, and its political and legal culture were still being formed. Howe’s case would set a precedent for Nova Scotia, and the rest of Canada, for centuries to come. Had the jury chosen to side with the Halifax elites – the politicians and other polite company who had been offended and embarrassed by him – corruption would have flourished, and democratic criticism would have withered. Howe’s passionate defence of freedom worked. The jury defied the judge’s instructions and acquitted Howe. And that great triumph set him on course to one day become Nova Scotia’s premier.

But let me quote one more passage from Howe’s speech. Remember, his trial was not long after the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. Canadians and Americans had taken two separate paths, and were still wary of each other.

Howe clearly rejected the American way. He regarded their revolution as an act of rebellion and disloyalty. He was a fiercely proud Nova Scotian. But here’s what he said:

“Let not the sons of the Rebels look across the border to the sons of the Loyalists, and reproach them that their press is not free.”

Howe wasn’t trying to impress the Americans. And he certainly didn’t believe that freedom of speech was only for Americans. In fact, the opposite: in his defence, he constantly referred to the Canadian and British traditions of liberty. To Howe, all modern free peoples enjoyed freedom of speech. Far from being merely an American concept, Howe regarded it as quintessentially Canadian.

Joseph Howe set a great precedent. But the nature of freedom of speech is that it constantly must be supported, for there are would-be censors in every generation. In 1935, exactly a century after Howe’s acquittal, across the country in Alberta, William Aberhart became premier, and like the political elites of Howe’s Halifax, he found Alberta’s newspapers to be troublesome and offensive.

Aberhart’s election came in the face of nearly universal opposition by the newspapers of the day. By 1937, he was so frustrated that he introduced the Accurate News and Information Act, that required every newspaper in the province to run a rebuttal or a “correction or amplification” when ordered to do so by the government.

Alberta’s Lieutenant Governor refused to proclaim the law until the Supreme Court could assess its constitutionality; he was punished by being stripped of his official residence, car and staff. Even without that law, Aberhart prosecuted his war against the press. The Alberta Legislature ordered that a reporter for the Edmonton Journal, Don Brown, be jailed for misquoting a government back-bencher. Luckily, national ridicule caused the government to back down before they could arrest him.

In the spring of 1938, the Supreme Court ruled that Alberta’s Press Act was illegal, and that it violated Canada’s unwritten bill of rights – the same code of freedom that had protected Joseph Howe. And for its efforts in fighting against Aberhart’s censorship, the Edmonton Journal was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize, the first time the citation was awarded outside of the United States.

It was a great Canadian moment.

There are many of these moments in our history – some much more recently.
It wasn’t until 1955 that the University of Toronto shut down its “Art Room”, where, until then, students had to prove they were free of “mental problems” before reading controversial books like Ulysses. The books were later moved to open shelves.

In the 1980s, in the case of Vancouver’s Little Sisters book store, Canada Customs followed Memorandum D911, which arbitrarily declared any description of gay sexuality to be obscene – a vague rule that was eventually thrown out by the Supreme Court. Little Sisters continued its fight against Customs and Canada Post well into the 1990s.

And until Prime Minister Brian Mulroney overturned the order 48 hours later, customs police briefly made Canada the only Western democracy to seize copies of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, after Iran’s fatwa.

We’re in the 21st century now, and one would think that censorship would be obsolete, universally considered a relic of less enlightened times. But nowadays it’s not prudish customs agents or thin-skinned politicians who are the main threat.

It’s Canada’s “human rights commissions”, which would have struck George Orwell as being perfectly named.

These commissions were started with the best of intentions – to help the poor and the weak from being bullied out of a job or an apartment. But they have become censors, policing not death threats or incitement to violence, or any other real crime, but rather the fake crime of hurt feelings.

They have become what author Kathy Shaidle calls a “Tyranny of Nice”.

Section 13 of our own Canadian Human Rights Act makes it against the law to evoke feelings of “hatred or contempt”. But hate is a normal human feeling. What’s not normal is to make those feelings against the law. Of course we don’t want people to turn their hard feelings into crimes –that’s why we have the Criminal Code. But to have a government agency monitoring the Internet, searching for certain political views to prosecute is anathema to a liberal democracy.

In 2008, Maclean’s magazine was put on trial for a week for publishing excerpts from Mark Steyn’s best-selling book on Islam. And the Western Standard’s publisher, Ezra Levant, was prosecuted for 900 days for publishing pictures of the controversial Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Those are two famous cases. But there are plenty more people who have been investigated by the government merely for having a certain point of view.

Like pastor Stephen Boissoin (buzz-ON), who was given a lifetime speech ban by the Alberta human rights commission. And Father Alphonse de Valk of Toronto’s Catholic Insight magazine, and the Christian Heritage Party and Bill Whatcott of Saskatchewan.

Each of these men were prosecuted for expressing their religious belief. Not for doing anything harmful; just for saying something that someone else found offensive.

This shows a systemic bias in our human rights commissions – and that’s exactly the problem with vague, political censorship. It’s not about the law anymore. It’s about political favourites. But that’s just not how we settle our disagreements in Canada. We don’t have the state intervene in political or religious disagreements.

We let people decide for themselves.

There is a common thread to each of these free speech battles. In each case, the targets of censorship were declared “offensive” or “troublesome”. But in each case, the success of those troublesome critics helped make Canada more inclusive and more democratic. Canada is the most peaceful and tolerant country in the world, precisely because we allow people to disagree with each other passionately – and even offensively.

That clash of ideas is often noisy and occasionally upsetting. But through those vigorous discussions, we have been able to navigate our way through hundreds of years of challenges – and our national purpose has never been stronger.

Mr. Speaker, freedom of speech is not just an abstract Canadian ideal.

It is an active, living part of being Canadian. It is an integral part of the Canadian identity. Our citizens use it every day, more often than any other freedom. To study our history is to see each generation of Canadians stand up for that freedom when it is challenged like it has been several times recently with the Steyn, Levant and Coulter episodes. And to learn from our history is to know that we must protect that great inheritance today and whenever in the future it may be challenged again.

Thank you.”
........

Speeches By Senators Finley, Wallin, Duffy & Tkachuk

Those are all Conservative Party Senators, by the way, in case anyone is wondering where the Liberals stand on freedom of speech. I sure don't know.

No one blasphemes Canada's state religion like Kathy Shaidle

It's great to see that 600 people paid five bucks a piece to hear her. The other well-known speakers might have been part of the attraction, but something tells me it was the heretic Shaidle - previously denounced by a local hack and various righteous bores in attempts to shut this event down - who was the star of the night.

Blazing Cat Fur: Packed house for Levant, Shaidle, Mansur talk in London. Shaidle:

But then again, the Left draws most of its motivating energy from imaginary problems, like global warming, DDT, backalley coathanger abortions, and the chronic boredome of American housewives in 1950s suburbia. The Left is very concerned about something they like to call “social justice”, which I define as the stubborn application of unworkable solutions to imaginary problems.

Like Spinal Tap’s second drummer, who famously “choked to death on someone ELSE’s vomit,” Canadian leftists have always resented their neighbors in the United States for having a romantic, large scale Civil Rights Movement during the 60s and 70s.

So the HRCs became the Canadian Left’s state-sponsored version of the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit ins but, without the stirring LIFE magazine photos and crappy folk music soundtrack.
[...]
The problem with the HRCs is most commonly presented as an issue of freedom of speech. However, I’d like to raise two additional aspects that don’t get as much play.

First, the HRCs are engaged in class warfare. The majority of “hate speech” cases are brought by highly educated, highly privileged white liberals -- against less educated, working class, blue collar “reactionary” whites, who insist on speaking to each other about topics like immigration, using old fashioned, politically incorrect language.

Therefore, the enforcement of Section 13 is an expensive exercise in state sponsored snobbery, in which people’s own hard earned tax dollars are used by their “betters” to scold and shame them. Worse, the process silences people who already feel linguistically, politically and educationally disenfranchised, angry and powerless. We often compare the tribunals to 1984, but to me they’re more like Pygmalion.

As British writer, Brendan O’Neill wrote:

Today’s Top-down ‘anti-racism’ has nothing whatsoever to do with ensuring equality of opportunity for all); rather it is about policing people’s behaviour and etiquette, especially amongst the lower classes. Accusations of ‘racism’ are no longer about indicting someone for their views on ethnic minorities but rather have become a snobbish judgment on their lack of breeding. ‘Racist’ has largely become code for ‘underclass’: uneducated, uncouth, thick, fat, ‘not one of us’.

Thus, the impact of official ‘anti-racism’ is not to make society more free and equal, but more authoritarian and censorious.

Does the freedom of the internet limit or realize the Islamic terrorist cause?

In the long run, if the Caliphate and Sharia are to rule the world, the internet will presumably have to be destroyed. In the short term, the Jihad can't live without it.

How messed up or empowered can the Jihad become by using the internet, with all the freedom it provides for fostering our desires, including the many desires we didn't know we had until we do? No doubt it depends on how those who fight to destroy the Jihad use this same freedom. Kathy Shaidle reviews some of the possibilities in her latest: Islam in America Series: Internet Jihad | / | Homeland Security

During the Islamic terror attack in Mumbai, India last year, tech-savvy terrorists used BlackBerries and Google Earth satellite-imaging to plan and carry out their atrocities.

Once again, the West's enemies were employing 21st century technology to spread its dangerous 8th century ideology.
[...]
The web's international reach means that online jihad has no boundaries, making it even harder to police. A recent study by the UK's Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), called "Virtual Caliphate," revealed that British Muslim radicals are using Internet tools for recruitment, training and propaganda.

Particularly revealing was the revelation that well-known spokesman Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, a regular media guest and "moderate" Muslim, was using Facebook to "openly glorify terrorism" and post anti-semitic screeds.

Other experts warn of Hezbollah's use of Israeli soldiers' Facebook account information as a source of intelligence, and a possible way to trick soldier's into meeting a Facebook "friend" in person who turns out to be a Hezbollah terrorist.

Meanwhile, a pro-Israel Facebook group page called "I Wonder How Quickly I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Support Israel," was hacked and defaced by a pro-Hizballah group calling itself "Lebanese Shee'a Hackers."

Because Facebook is so ubiquitous, it has actually been used by investigators to track down jihadists. Earlier this month, the FBI looking for a group of Somali immigrants to who left Minneapolis to join an overseas terrorist group were tracked down through their Facebook pages.

As one expert told FoxNews.com, sites like Facebook can help spread radicalism, but that shouldn't "overshadow all the ways it has helped to stop radicalism. The benefits far outweigh the risks, and we are doing all we can to [mitigate] the risks."
[...]
Lynch also points out that debates between radical Muslim members on online forums and chat rooms can actually "undermine moral or turn into open dissent, to the dismay of movement leaders." ("Plus," Lynch adds, video download sites "often feature ads for pornography (...) while you're waiting... I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's a glitch or a feature for the jihadists downloading their bin Laden videos.")

Perhaps to get around these and other drawbacks, Hamas actually tried to start their own version of YouTube.com last fall.

The site, called AqsaTube, came complete with a ripped off version of the American site's famous red logo. But instead of the cute cat clips and stealth campaign videos you'll find on YouTube, however, AqsaTube was "devoted entirely to propaganda and incitement," according to the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (IITIC).
[...]
Israeli journalist Amir Mizroch noticed the troubling fact that AqsaTube was generating revenue by selling ad space through Google's ubiquitous AdSense program - including ads for Israeli companies. He confronted Google via email and a few days later, Google removed its ads from the Hamas site.

Then, after Mizroch's story eventually appeared in the Jerusalem Post and was picked up by other news outlets, AqsaTube website, then reappeared online looking very different indeed, its violent videos (and its stolen YouTube logo) nowhere to be seen.

Yet for every site that is pulled down by its service provider, many other Muslim terrorist websites remain online. In fact, those same websites and chatrooms were rife with speculation that the FBI had been behind the AqsaWeb takedown, when the real culprit was one curious Israeli blogger and his subsequent newspaper story.

Terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere "don't exist without the Web and the Net," explained Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla in Technology Review. "A networked insurgency doesn't have anything like a traditional leadership. Most of the leadership they get is by going on websites, where they share information very quickly" - especially, it should be emphasized, among populations in which illiteracy is rampant.
[...]
John Arquilla has a particularly interesting suggestion. He told Technology Today that since the United States is,

"...spending so much on military affairs, maybe some of that should be directed towards technologies that will break our opponents' communications. In World War II, there was an investment in creating the first high-performance computers, for that very purpose. Today, it may be an investment in creating the most effective quantum computing or figuring out how to structure the vast ocean of data that masks the movements of al-Qaeda on the Net and the Web. We need a new Bletchley Park [the country house where the German WWII codes were broken], if we're going to win this war."

I tend to doubt that we can hope to shut up the Jihadis by keeping on top of all their communications. I would put more faith in tactics that seek constantly to engage those conversations, to expose, measure, and challenge their primitive ideology with the pornographic and other realities of our modern world that the orthodox, violent Jihad wishes to destroy because it has no real hope of understanding or integrating in orthodox Islamic terms. When we try to measure or test what people really believe or desire about our shared modern reality, we will find out how many ostensibly orthodox Muslims really believe in Jihad now and how many will find excuses to take from or side with the un-believer. And then we will have real information to further justify and focus our tactics of engagement, to expose and turn and fight. Winners force choices on opponents so as to remake reality. War is seemingly chaos that winners find ways to inflect and channel and shape; they don't simply try to control reality or insist it conforms to pre-established models and justifications.

Deserter? my royal canadian foot!

Blazing Catfur calls for attention to the latest antics of Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff's advisor, Warren Kinsella: Kinsella's attempt to pressure TVOntario (the government-owned tv station, in Liberal Party-governed Ontario) to ban "racist" Kathy Shaidle from offering her opinions on Steve Paikin's interview show. Having failed in his campaign, Kinsella is now having a run at Paikin: Blazing Cat Fur: They don't call him the Impotent Lying Jackal for nothing...It's just sad now

Kinsella likes to portray himself as a defender of multiculti values, and of Canadian Jews against hate speech. He also styles himself a fan of Barack Obama. I wonder how he is coming to terms with the latest revelations of Obama's antisemitic tendencies (see here, here and here). I point this out just to point vaguely to the paradoxes of our times that may be driving Kinsella in his five inches of fury: the revelation that left-liberal political correctness and its accompanying "human rights" discourse turns out, when fully revealed, to be antisemitic. Kathy knows this, she knows that PC is anti-freedom which is part of the reason I guess she makes such a show of being politically incorrect in an attempt to wake us up to the real nature and cause of freedom. Yes, there are places and times when we are pushed closer to freedom, not oppression, by being called school-yard names. But try telling that to the Human Rights Commission. Kathy may not always be in touch with those places and times, but those who would pressure TV producers to ban her will probably never know how to judge in anything other than a blind self-righteousness. They certainly won't let others think for themselves and provide the feedback we all need to overcome our delusions.

I was just watching Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1941 propaganda film, 49th Parallel (view here). The final scene of the film, which begins roughly at the 1.44.30 mark features a brilliant performance of Canadian diction and values by Raymond Massey, playing a melancholy soldier. Watch the whole thing; many lines jump out at me (for they echo strongly in these times of Jihad) but if I had to quote just a few, I'll pick these, as Massey addresses the Nazi officer who believes in some mystic ties that bind him to his race and can't understand why an AWOL Canadian soldier who whines about his government can still put great faith in the ultimate authority on which his nation's system of government is based:

Why you spoonfed louse. I can grouse about the food and the C.O. and anything I blame please; and that's more than you with your Gestapo and your stormtroopers and your Aryan bushwa. Ah nuts! What's the good of talking to you? You can't even begin to understand democracy. We own the right to be fed up with anything we damn please and say so out loud when we feel like it. And when things go wrong we can take it and we can dish it out too.

Jonathan Kay's take on Paikin and Kinsella.

Flattening the Waves in Canada

Intellectual fads sweep across nations and civilizations frequently. Some windy and heated blows leave behind a deposit of stupidity that get into the mental furniture of the population at large. It gets into everything eventually, down into the very cracks of culture at the lowest level. What was discussed in seminar rooms 30 years ago sometimes makes its way into discussion in the homeless drop-in centre committee rooms to be discussed by the lumpen-intelligentsia as the latest idea, the most important. Everyone seems to be imbued with the thinest layer of this nonsense and it floats as they walk and talk, clouding the air we breathe. Few even notice the pollution. Mention it on the airwaves though, and then, rather than clearing the air of stupidities, one might find the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council involved and irate. Who the Hell are they? And why does a nation like Canada have such a gang? I have no idea. Does anyone have any idea why a nation needs such creations?

Ottawa radio host chastized for making "abusive and discriminatory," but true, statements about Islam and Muslims

Free Speech Death Watch Update: "Ottawa radio station chastised for comments on Muslims," by Chris Cobb for the Ottawa Citizen,

February 6 (thanks to the indomitable and magnificent Kathy Shaidle, who asks, "Dear me: how all this 'words can rape, maim and leave you for dead in a ditch!!' alchemy operates is an awful big mystery to poor stupid rightwinger me... "):

OTTAWA — A veteran open-line radio host in Ottawa [Lowell Green] contravened Canadian broadcasting standards when he made "abusive and discriminatory" remarks against Muslims, the national broadcast watchdog ruled Friday.

According to the ,Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, Lowell Green launched an "uninformed and unfair" attack when he told his CFRA audience in early December that the majority of Muslims are fanatics, and extremist behaviour is symptomatic of the religion, not just a radical minority.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024764.php

Robert Spencer gives chapter and verse above. Read it while you can.

Five Feet of Fury Versus the Jihad

A handful of normal people went to the HAMAS rally yesterday at the Vancouver Art Gallery plaza to protest Islamic and Left dhimmi fascism. It snowed on us. It snowed on the fewer-than-last-time crowd of jihadis and their cheerleaders. But all was not well with us, though we were more than last time. Too many people on our side were intimidated by the rumor of violence from the jihadis. Our group, to give credit where it's due, did have the sense to come in from the rain, out of the freezing wind and the snow. We went for coffee and chat. Our disparate group, some who are little different from Leftists on most political points, sat with the rest of us and we talked about jihad and the future of our nations. A by-stander joined us. A good time was had by all. No, it's not enough. It's a start that we meet and talk. We do need to do more.

Take a look at Kathy Shaidle's experiences at Toronto's HAMAS hate-fest.

And then consider joining us for yet more talk on Thursday evening at VPL from 7-9:00 p.m. in the atrium for yet more coffee outside Blenz in the atrium.

Canadian Me Too-ism

I've touched briefly on "Holocaust Envy" here and elsewhere, and below we see something similar expressed in a Front Page Magazine interview with Kathy Shaidle on the Human Rights Commissions of Canada.

"[W]hen Canadian leftists saw the Civil Rights Movement in the US, they were actually jealous rather than relieved that Canada had been "left out" of this great noble romantic cause. So they invented the idea that Canada was just as "racist" as the US (without a trace of irony btw -- Canadian leftist are vicious anti-American bigots.)" Kathy Shaidle.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=9D6C5D62-386D-4975-A16C-382620096E14

Short and to the point interview.

Brilliant explanation of why Americans are more tolerant than Canadians

We link to a lot of writing at this blog. I think the following is really exceptional, brilliant in its lucid, straightforward illustration and explanation of basic questions - the nature of tolerance and freedom - we often muddle.

Pete Vere (co-author, with the equally exceptional Kathy Shaidle, of The Tyranny of Nice - the story of Canada's "human rights" commissions) tells a couple of stories to illustrate his keen argument. I'm not sure I believe the second story - Canada can't be that insane a place, can it? - but it doesn't really matter. Sometimes fiction is the best vehicle for clarifying truths otherwise muddled by our rhetorical habits:

...We talk about tolerance in Canada. More often than not, as our electoral choices show, Canadian tolerance is just an excuse to avoid discussing our differences. Thus Canadians stick to what’s comfortable, what’s least likely to offend the most people. We don’t want our differences to cause division and disrupt the social peace.

Americans, on the other hand, relish their differences. Tolerance is created by confronting their differences, then discovering that they share many of the same values and concerns. Americans understand, rightly, that tolerance is a product of free speech. The First Amendment allows them to get past their differences, correct misconceptions, and move on to more pressing issues.

As an aside, I recently spoke with a former neighbor who was even more segregationist than Bill. Yet he’s voting for Obama. I won’t repeat what he said about the Democratic nominee, “but at least he ain’t a Republican. I don’t have to visit the White House while he’s president.”

On the other hand, the folly of subjecting free speech to tolerance and multiculturalism was demonstrated to me during my undergraduate years at a small university in Northern Ontario. During multiculturalism and tolerance week, the university brought in a human rights ‘expert’ from Toronto. She worked for the government, if I recall correctly. She had come to address ‘lingering and systematic discrimination’ among the student body.

Her two prime examples? Two jewels of our Northeastern Ontario geography. Lake Nipissing contained the word ‘nip’ in it, this white woman said, which was a derogatory term for Asians. Obviously whoever named this lake was insensitive to the local Asian community. The other example was Manitoulin Island, which she cited as a misogynous reference to the first white males to settle the island.

Wrong on both counts, something she would have discovered had she brushed up on her local history before pontificating to us rubes living outside of the Greater Toronto Area. But as is so often the case, history and local culture are ignored by government bureaucrats seeking to impose by fiat their enlightened ideology.

In reality, both words are First Nations in origin. Nipissing is the Algonquin word for ‘big water’ and Manitoulin is the Ojibwe word for ‘spirit island’. In retrospect, it’s unfortunate our local First Nations communities did not lodge a human rights complaint over this. This is one complaint I would have supported.

The weeks following this incident were typical of Canadian tolerance and multiculturalism: Everybody avoided everyone different, for fear of giving offense. The Asians, who often visited the lake and who took no offense to the name, felt awkward around the First Nations students. The First Nations students felt persecuted by white people who had once again failed to understand their culture. And feminists and Caucasians didn’t disagree. The latter were horrified that this so-called ‘expert’ was one of them. But how to maneuver these tricky waters without further provoking the First Nations students or causing additional embarrassment to Asian students?

Everyone knew what the problem was. Yet nobody wanted to address it, less they be misinterpreted as intolerant. As for our human rights ‘expert’, she returned to Toronto, blissfully unaware of the division she had sowed among the student body.

Finally, two American students - both black, and both female - said what everyone else was thinking. “This is bullshit, and the only way to end it is to speak freely.”

Read the whole thing.

Pete and Kathy are releasing their new book on Canada's Human Rights Commissions/Tribunals next week. You can order The Tyranny of Nice, at this link.

Harper to call election on Sunday; but do we have the freedom to call the NDP and Liberals Islamist-loving fascists?

For those looking for hope that they might find some motivation to fight for the Conservatives under Harper, the man who has had nothing public to say about the "human rights" commission scandal, at least not since he became Prime Minister (he once called the commissions "totalitarian" but now he lives with them), Deborah G. lights a candle:Deborah Gyapong: YES on QUESTION 10 !!!!!!!

Meanwhile, the NDP is running Islamists, which is exactly what their behaviour and supporters of the last few years have led us to expect.

Of course, I have still to hear Stephane Dion publicly denounce those who helped elect him Liberal Party leader with the "Bob Rae's wife is a Jew" slogan.

Don't miss Kathy Shaidle on Appeasing Canada's Islamists.

Warman!

I've always gotten a chuckle out of the Seinfeld sit com's portrayal and naming of the Jewish?, sometimes showily anti-Nazi, but procedurally neo-Nazi, character, Newman, the fallen bureaucrat. Whenever frustrated by the dastardly machinations of his arch enemy Newman, Jerry Seinfeld is left stymied, knowing any further words will only get him deeper into the hole with the man who has his own black code of political correctness. Jerry is left to spout the refrain, "Newman!", with a twisted face that says "foiled again". Ultimately the thought policeman's due in conversation is nothing more than an ironic return to the most primitive form of language, the ostensive gesture, the naming of (a) God: "Newman!"

If Richard Warman can't satisfactorily counter a stunning claim in the statement of defense just filed by the Free Dominion team of Connie and Mark Fournier, I know how I will act should I ever encounter the man on the streets of Canada. Ezra Levant frames it thus:

My co-defendant, Kathy Shaidle, examines paragraph 42, which I shouldn't have skipped:

42. Under the false identity "Axetogrind," the plaintiff [Richard Warman] posted in 2004 a copy of a confidential letter sent to the CHRC by a young woman, [name omitted by CZ] in settlement of a complaint the plaintiff made against her and in which she expressed her shame and denounced her previous beliefs. The plaintiff posted the letter on the neo-Nazi VNN with the preface "With friends like these..." He did so without any regard for her safety or consequences she might suffer.

Stop to think about that for a moment. If I understand that right, a young woman does the right thing -- she recants her bigoted views and apologizes. (That she does so under the duress of a government prosecution, rather than through a debate, gives it the feeling of a jail-house confession; that's the nature of government censorship.) But it's an incredible story: someone shows contrition and humility, and grasps for enlightenment. She does so in a confidential letter.

Warman takes that letter, and uses it against her, in his online persona of a neo-Nazi.

If Warman and the CHRC really think that neo-Nazi websites are inhabited by people who are dangerous -- people who are violent, not just people who talk tough -- then Warman deliberately placed this woman's safety in jeopardy. Why?

Was it because he was denied the thrill of crushing her, as he had done with so many others, in a full hearing? Was it because he was denied his payday of tax-free money from a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal order? Or was it simply his cruel streak, the streak that manifested itself when he counselled a physical assault on his nemesis, David Icke, the same streak he exhibited when he bragged about hauling his enemies before the CHRC just for "fun"?

That is astounding conduct. It is so deeply malicious, so deeply unethical, so deeply corrupt, it can only be called evil. There is no bona fide collateral purpose to it; there couldn't be; [Jane Doe] had already surrendered. It was sheer malice.

This is the man who claims his reputation was undone by us. To which I'd say: what reputation?

Free Dominion files its defence against Richard Warman's lawsuit - Ezra Levant

The entire statement of defence is worth reading for those following the sad saga of "human rights" commissions in Canada.

Richard Warman Sues to Shut Up Conservative Bloggers

If you would like to be able to continue reading conservative blogs, especially their accounts of the outrageous conduct at the Canadian Human Rights Commission, but more generally whatever free-spirited bloggers choose to write about without undue fear of being financially ruined by law suits, or their mere threat, now is the time to just stop your reading routine and consider seriously sending some financial help to the bloggers being sued by Richard Warman. If you want a fair trial, if you want the truth to out, the bloggers being sued have to know they will be supported in going to trial. As any honest lawyer will tell you, under the very expensive (because otherwise fair and careful) Canadian legal system, once you are sued for libel and have to face the huge costs of lawyers, time, and personal energy - costs that you will be very unlikely fully to recover even if you win the suit and win "full" costs - you have already lost, even if eventually the court takes your side in the dispute. Consequently, an ethical lawyer will be telling the bloggers who are being sued, consider settling out of court, even if you think what you have written is true. A well-paid civil litigation lawyer of my acquaintance likes to joke that even he could not afford to employ his own services.

The most complete write-up on the story so far can be found at the blog of one of the defendant's, Ezra Levant. Also being sued are Free Dominion, Kathy Shaidle, five feet of fury, Kate Mcmillan of small dead animals, and Jonathan Kay of The National Post.

As Ezra notes:

Take a look at the language Warman’s lawsuit uses to smear Free Dominion. At paragraph 17, Warman calls them an “extreme right-wing discussion forum”. Look at that language – hardly distinguishable from the CHRC’s and CJC’s boilerplate insults reserved for neo-Nazis. That’s what this lawsuit is about: an attempt by the CHRC’s biggest star to try to marginalize Canadian conservatism. And why not? The CHRC has moved from targeting white supremacists to targeting mainstream conservatives like Mark Steyn; the Alberta HRC has already gagged Christian pastors and taken a run at Calgary’s bishop, and two years ago they charged me with publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Surely attempting to criminalize conservatism is just the next, natural step for these congenital censors.

Ezra is being a little hyperbolic here: an individual suing to protect his reputation is not the equivalent of state censorship even when the individual has been intimately related with state censorship in the guise of "human rights" activity. But calling Free Dominion "extreme right wing" is indicative of political motivations. We shouldn't allow our sense of Ezra's showmanship to detract from the fact that law suits, or their mere threat, can be used as an effective silencing weapon against those with relatively unpopular opinions and little money to defend themselves, which is the situation of most conservative bloggers in Canada today. In such a situation it behooves every one who values a free society to insure that those whose speech is under attack be given the financial support to mount a full and vigorous defense, if one thinks their political attacks on a public political figure have been in any way reasonable and justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Ezra continues

... there are two other defendants in this suit: the National Post and its editor, Jonathan Kay. Six weeks ago, Kay briefly – maybe for an hour or two – posted a column about Warman’s Sen. Cools comments on the National Post’s website. But as soon as Warman complained, Kay took it down, and the Post later published an apology both in print and online. I obviously disagreed with that decision, but I’m not the one responsible for putting out a newspaper every day on a tight budget. Kay and the Post are in the business of publishing, not suing. They made the decision to cut bait, and move on to other, more important fights – as they have done with their outstanding coverage of the CHRC ever since.

But that act of over-generous magnanimity – legally unnecessary in my view, but probably a smart business decision – did not exempt them from Warman’s litigious nature. He’s suing them nonetheless. I’m not sure what Warman hopes to get from them – they’ve already apologized in a disproportionate way. It will be interesting to see how the Post responds. Will they try to cut bait again? If so, how? Or have they reached a point with Warman where they realize he is using this lawsuit as a punishment to them – maximum disruption-style – for their excellent reporting on Warman and the CHRC?

Warman will never sue Rogers

Speaking of big, corporate defendants, where is Maclean’s magazine and Mark Steyn on the list of defendants? I would never wish a Warmansuit on Maclean’s or Steyn, of course. But next to the Post, nobody’s been tougher on Warman and his bigoted, anonymous online comments then them. Could it be – perhaps? – that Warman doesn’t want to sue Maclean’s, which is owned by Rogers – which just happens to be the ISP through which the Cools comments were posted? Is Warman afraid that they will prove what he doesn't want them to prove -- that it was he who posted those bigoted remarks? I don’t know, but I’m curious. And I think a judge will be curious as to why comments in Maclean’s magazine, with its 2.8 million readers, weren’t regarded as actionable, whereas a few bloggers were. In a lawsuit that already reeks of politics, not serious legal matters, it’s just one more reason for judges to raise an eyebrow.

That’s because what any defamation suit is about is how much the plaintiff’s reputation has been reduced, and whether that reduction was fair. Warman and the CHRC have taken a shellacking in the press for three months, based on the true facts of Warman’s hyper-litigiousness, his confessed anonymous bigotry and other malfeasance. Warman has let the vast majority of these publications go (though he has tried to pick on a McGill university student). Just what is his reputation worth these days, what with all the revelations? What is he implying by ignoring Maclean’s pounding of him, month after month? And, regardless of what Maclean’s says or does, when a self-described human rights hero admits to posting anti-gay, neo-Nazi bigotry, as Warman does, what’s left of that reputation to defend?

Warman will avoid examinations for discovery

There is one more matter of interest in this lawsuit: the dollar amount at stake. Warman is suing for $50,000 plus costs and interest. From one point of view, that’s small potatoes – though I’d imagine that each of the defendants will spend close to that in legal fees. But it’s unlikely that Warman is suing for that sum out of modesty, or out of recognition that he has damaged his reputation through his own misconduct. The reason is more likely Rule 76 of Ontario’s court procedure, which permits a streamlined trial for claims of that size. In other words, by limiting his claim, Warman can avoid an examination for discovery – the extended pre-trial questioning, under oath, that parties have to submit to in normal trials. Under the expedited rules, Warman can escape such an interrogation until the trial itself – which will likely mean less questioning, less follow-ups, and a lot of “I can’t remembers”. It shouldn’t come as a surprise – like the rest of the CHRC apparatus, Warman prefers to avoid scrutiny of his actions.

As notable American blogger Ed Morrissey says:

It doesn’t matter if Warman’s case has little merit or hope of succeeding. The costs involved in fighting these kinds of lawsuits will drive people into silence, intimidated by financial ruin. If bloggers won’t stand up against these kinds of tactics, then who will?

So, please visit the sites under attack. Consider their arguments and, if you sympathize, consider seriously how much you can afford to send them when you hit their PayPal buttons.

Here's how one student journalist responded to the threat of a Warman lawsuit. We all need to learn from his courage.