Section 13 gets a stay of execution
I haven’t blogged about the CHRC in a while, but this is worth mention:
Canada’s Human Rights Commission has rejected suggestions that it stop investigating hate messages on the Internet, saying the issue shouldn’t be left solely to the Criminal Code.
… “freedom of the press is not an absolute value and cannot be exercised in isolation from other rights and freedoms.”
This stance entails, among other things, a rejection of the “Moon Report” that came out last year, which recommended scrapping section 13 of the CHRA — the “hate speech” section of the act.
Note too the casual dismissal of a concept like freedom of the press (a not-particularly-subtle dig at, among others, Maclean’s magazine and Ezra Levant) as being less than absolute. Precisely how many centuries of Western jurisprudence are we overriding by that statement, I wonder?
Constrained liberties are not liberties at all; limited freedoms are not freedoms at all. They are, instead, a kind of limp-wristed or incomplete totalitarianism. A right must be absolute, or else it is not a right. A non-absolute “right” is, instead, simply a privilege that the state grants on a whim. And as we saw with Proposition 8 in California, what the state grants on a whim can be taken away on a whim.
If the spokesperson is serious, and if there is no absolute right to freedom of the press in Canada, then there is no freedom of the press in Canada, period. And that’s a very frightening thing to contemplate.
BCF has it exactly right: Stephen Harper must act now or lose the next election. Of course, that statement raises another question: whom would we elect in Harper’s place, and what party could we turn to, and still retain hope that the CHRC might be suitably de-fanged?
And from BCF’s site, I shamelessly crib this:
Write the PM, write your member of parliament , write the members of the Justice Committee – Stop the CHRC. Let the members of the CPC know – no more donations, nothing – until Section 13 (1) is removed from the Canadian Human Rights Act and a full judicial inquiry is launched into the corruption at the CHRC.
Are these hollow words on the Conservative Party web site – Stand Up for Canada?
Conservative Party Member E-mails:
Stephen Harper HarpeS@parl.gc.ca
Jim Abbott – AbbotJ@parl.gc.ca
Diane Ablonczy AblonD@parl.gc.ca
Leona Aglukkaq Aglukkaq.L@parl.gc.ca
Harold Albrecht AlbreH@parl.gc.ca
Mike Allen AllenM@parl.gc.ca
Dean Allison AllisD@parl.gc.ca
Rona Ambrose AmbroR@parl.gc.ca
Rob Anders AnderR@parl.gc.ca
David Anderson AnderDa@parl.gc.ca
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John Baird BairdJ@parl.gc.ca
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Maxime Bernier BerniM@parl.gc.ca
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I started blogging back in 2004 -- in May, if the Wayback Machine is to be believed. Not that I remember the exact day. To be honest, I didn't take it that seriously then; it was a fun distraction, but nothing more.
That all changed, I think, once the Danish cartoons were published, and the assault on the right to freedom of expression became very visible. With the recent issues in Canada concerning the "human rights" commissions, the gravity of the matter has only increased, and my interest in blogging has increased right along with it.
I used to blog at a domain called Time Immortal, but it seemed to be the right time for a change -- there's been a lot of that in my life of late. Hence this blog: a fresh start, and proof positive that I won't shut up even if I get shut down once in a while.
