Saturday, September 06, 2008

Lemire Retreats! Speechies Get Stiffed!

Somewhere out there, Marc Lemire is putting the final touches on a 500 page "book" outlining his constitutional challenge to Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. However, Ezra has already posted the CHRC response and, not surprisingly, he has ignored the most important bits.

Firstly, Lemire has long claimed that CHRC staff in general, and CHRC investigator Dean Steacy in particular, posted racist material in the course of their investigations of various White Supremacist websites. Well, no more! From the CHRC document:

The respondent has conceded at page 400, line 4 that Dean Steacy posted no racist material in the course of his duties as a Commission investigator.

Naturally, Ezra, Kate, Mark Steyn, and etc., were happy enough to regurgitate Marc's nonsense. I imagine now, in light of all the lawsuits his pronouncements have generated, that Mr. Lemire will not be on their Xmas card list.

However, my favorite bit concerns Lemire's whole ridiculous "hacked wifi" conspiracy, in which CHRC employees, whose laptops were not wifi enabled at the time, were apparently able to hack an encrypted network from about 350 meters away, or three times the effective diameter of your typical wifi hotspot. This charge was bone-headed to begin with, and the MSM (esp. The National Post) touched a new bottom in journalistic credibility by reporting it with a straight face, even after Buckets and I publicly refuted it (well, Buckets did most of the work, but he is shy and retiring and doesn't like to make a fuss). In any case, it appears that Lemire has dropped these accusations from his brief as well:

There is no allegation in the respondent’s written submissions corresponding with previous allegations in motion materials pertaining, inter alia, to disclosure, that the Commission breached the privacy of the individual whose name was publicly disclosed as a result of a subpoena granted to the respondent by Bell Canada, or that the Commission gained surreptitious access to her wireless internet service. The evidence did not establish any such surreptitious access and this was denied vehemently by the Commission. The Commission considers this unsubstantiated allegation to now be withdrawn.

Of course, Ezra, Mark, Shaidle and the rest of the "Canuck Six" were quick to broadcast this drivel to the world as well, with Mr. Steyn going so far as to accuse Dean Steacy of criminal acts by name. Presumably, they will all apologize immediately.

7 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

This is what the Human Stain wrote:

Mr. Steacy disconnected himself from the office Internet, and looked around for alternative wireless connections. He found one belonging to a young lady whose apartment is a block away from CHRC headquarters in Ottawa. Without obtaining a warrant, he connected to her server, and in effect used her as his cover for his "jadewarr" postings

Ah, journalism.

buckets said...

Shy and retiring? Compared to you, perhaps. ;-0

Unknown said...

All this info is just a sideshow to the real action, where HRC's retreated in the face of logic and common sense. Really, reading about Canada's HRC's is a soap opera all in itself.

Kurt Phillips said...

Considering that she and her husband have recently attended the CHRT hearings of overt Nazis (Northern Alliance and Jason Ouwendyk), perhaps Connie no longer is going to bother with the pretense of supporting Lemire for his "free speech" stance any more?

Anonymous said...

By the way let's not forget that even mainstream journalists like Rex Murphy;

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?current_row=19&tf=tgam/columnists/FullColumn.html&cf=tgam/columnists/FullColumn.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&date=&dateOffset=&hub=rexMurphy&title=Rex_Murphy&cache_key=rexMurphy&start_row=19&num_rows=1

bought into outrageous allegations perpetrated against HRCs.

Holly Stick said...

Does Rex actually qualify as a journalist, if they have qualifications?

Reality Bites said...

Murphy's one of those people who started as a commentator and completely bypassed "curmudgeon" on the way to "asshole."

He is not, however, a journalist nor has he ever been employed as one. He has always been paid for his opinion, not his journalism skills.

He has also run for provincial office three times, once as a Tory and twice as a Liberal. The voters displayed their wisdom by defeating him all three times.