Dissidents Of The HRC On “File”

The words of Jennifer Lynch, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is a perfect example of a paradox. She claims that Canadians are “uninformed” and deliberately misinformed about hate speech laws, saying that the debate is unbalanced, but refuses to have any such debate with opponents of the governmental branch. She purports to uphold “human rights”, but at the same time fully seems to endorse this parallel legal system which is able to investigate and censor those people who uphold their human right to free speech. In the worst circumstances, the HRC is directly responsible for the censorship of speech considered not acceptable, only it won’t explain what parameters it considers for what is acceptable speech. The disclosure of such information appears to be entirely discretionary for the Human Rights Commission.

While Jennifer Lynch argues that she wants an honest debate on the issues, it’s one she doesn’t want to make with the people actually being stifled by her organization, people like Ezra Levant, persecuted for nothing more than publishing Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. She wants the debate to be made in the same places that the HRC was created: in a parliamentary committee:

“We welcome this debate. We want it to be an informed debate in the right forum, a place where people can have an informed dialogue. [That place is] Parliament, and parliamentary committees. This why we did a special report to Parliament [last week]. That’s the appropriate forum,” she said in an interview.

She criticized Conservative MP Russ Hiebert for relying on “one source that is full of misinformation,” in his study of the CHRC in a parliamentary subcommittee. But she placed most of the blame on conservative author Ezra Levant and his blogging allies for spreading “misinformation” about the CHRC’s mandate and practices.

Far be it from me to assume some kind of alliance with a number of bloggers who write about the Human Rights Commission and the extra-judicial authority it often uses to overreach the constitutional protections of Canadians. But the fact is that I have very diverse opinions that in does not necessarily associate me with others who write about the HRC’s, other than the subject matter. To infer that Ezra Levant is some kind of leader of a blogging alliance is absurdity, conspiratorial even, since the people who criticize the HRC are considerably varied in their political affiliations.

It’s been downplayed by more than a few people already today, but the most disturbing news from Jennifer Lynch is yet to come:

“Please, please, look. We have experienced 16 months of invective hurled at us, and at any time when anybody has tried to speak up and correct misinformation, gross distortions, caricaturizations, then the very next day there’s been some full-frontal assault through the blogs, through mainstream media. I have a file. I’m sure I have 1,200, certainly several hundred of these things,” she said.

“There is an agenda out there, and I’m a public servant responsible for giving effect to the principle that ‘individuals should have the right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,’ and I’m going to do it. I’m not going to sit by. Others are afraid to speak out because they know they’re going to be attacked. If you Google my name today you’ll see how I’ve been attacked.”

I’m not going to speak to the optics of a “commissioner” for an organization that determines what speech should be allowable keeping a “file” on the thoughts of private citizens in Canada. Such a revelation is odious, to say the very least, and has all sorts of disturbing historical associations with surveillance societies of totalitarian regimes. But I think what’s most compelling is that Ms.Lynch seems to genuinely feel that she is being misrepresented by bloggers, and that she feels threatened by the information that is out there. Perhaps she is feeling some sense of what her organization does to people; becoming afraid to criticize and express dissent on the internet is considered a primary freedom of our society. The Canadian Human Rights Code’s Section 13.1 is a tool which the HRC has used to determine what it considers speech that is likely to expose any minority group to possible hatred or contempt.

While such concerns limiting free speech has been known to be mainly expressed by the right, even prominent leftwing activists have spoken out against the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Noam Chomsky said in response to Section 13.1:

“I think it’s outrageous, like the comparable European laws. It’s also pure hypocrisy. If it were applied the media and journals would be shut down. They don’t expose current enemies of the state to hatred or contempt?”

Perhaps the most compelling criticism comes from Richard Moon, a University of Windsor law professor, who said that the HRC prohibitions are not about wrongful intent or motive for hatred, but simply the possible effects or impact that the free expression of ideas might have on certain minority groups. Therein lies the most damning reason to abolish the HRC, and leave true “hate crimes” to the criminal code.

A Jobs-Killing Recession? Perfect Time For A Public Strike!

Photograph by: Mark Blinch, Reuters

Although I work in the private sector, I can understand the concept behind trying to get the best possible deal for one’s position of employment. It’s natural to want a competitive wage, good benefits, and job security. If you can manage that during a time when your business is doing well for itself, all the better. But the fact is that the current demands of CUPE in Toronto borders on the frayed ends of sanity. The national unemployment rate hit 8.4% in Canada this June, meaning nearly one out of every 10 able-bodied workers in the nation can’t find work. Of significant interest is this little tidbit of information from Statistics Canada’s website:

Ontario was the only province to experience a substantial employment decline in May, down 60,000, bringing total losses since last October to 234,000 or 3.5%. While Ontario accounts for 39% of the total working-age population, it has experienced 64% of overall employment losses since the start of the labour market downturn.

Ontario’s unemployment rate in May rose by 0.7 percentage points from the previous month to 9.4%, the highest in 15 years.

The timing of this strike is something that has to enrage even the most apolitical resident of Toronto. Saddled with a recession, high unemployment, and a critical moment in the administration of stimulus projects beginning in and around the GTA, for thousands of unionized workers to suddenly up and walk out over salary negotiations is tantamount to extortion. The unions are trying to squeeze the city for the last drop of money that they don’t have, while threatening another ugly garbage strike that created a rat infestation the last time in 2002. Every single government in Canada, municipally, provincially, and federally, is either close to deficit, or running massive deficits. While millions of Canadians currently hope and pray they won’t be the next to wind up at the unemployment office, waiting two months for their benefits to come, the unions come waddling up to the barren trough, counting on the rage of Torontonians to work in their favour of a quick settlement.

The fact is that the demands the unions are making is really only another example of disparate realities of the public and private sectors. Most Canadians can’t “bank” their sick days and then cash them in at a later date if they’re not used, nor do many workers even get paid if they miss a day by staying at home. That’s why in my occupation we have the colloquialism: “A day off is a lay off.” Yet the unions are trying to get the city to allow workers to bank up to 130 days of unused sick time, while workers already receive a stupendously generous amount of 18 sick days a year, for a cash gratuity on retirement. That’s an unfunded liability adding up to an estimated cost of $186 million per year, for essentially nothing more than workers deciding not to take their “sick” days.

If ever there was an opportunity for the city of Toronto to bust the taxpayer-bludgeoning expense of the unionized public sector, it is right now. 30,000 city workers walked off the job today in Toronto, while 60,000 people in Ontario lost their jobs in May alone to the recession. Perhaps it’s time to offer these jobs to people who actually want to work for an honest days wage, feed their families, and receive reasonable benefits. It would be a wake up call to the unions to simply dump the contracts, tear them to tiny pieces, and offer non-unionized positions immediately to thousands of unemployed workers at highly discounted wages. If the unions can’t be reasonable during a time of great constraint, why be reasonable to the workers who enable such blackmail? If the city workers think they can pile Toronto in garbage snowbanks all summer, while the beer and alcohol goes dry, nobody would raise so much as a peep of sympathy if the city simply “fired” the unions outright and brought in workers who actually want to work.

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Jack: “Apparently it’s a huge issue although I don’t know why. All people have to do is take their garbage to city hall and dump it on the pavement. Soon enough city council will “get it” as they find themselves unable to breath within a block of the place. They can swear, they can curse but it won’t help them one bit as the public screams “fire them all” and they have to do that.” [Link]