Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Your Daily Nazi: My Day Among The Nazis

So yesterday I went off to visit room 4D at 180 Queen West for the denouement of Warman Vs. Lemire.  I wound up sitting two seats over from Lemire, who once threatened to sue me, and right in front of the Fourniers (Connie and Mark), who once tried to get me fired.  The guy who threatened to kill me didn't show up this time, which frankly made the bathroom breaks a little more comfortable.

As for Lemire, let's just say that he's gotten big.  Though he's twitchy: sighing, eye-rolling, consulting his notes and passing notes to his supporters.  Indeed there was a lot of sighing and eye-rolling during the government side of the presentation. A lot of German accents too, a lot of gray hair.  Connie's still hot, but Mark is looking positively dessicated these days.  During the break I had lunch with Richard Warman and the gang from B'nai Brith; somebody joked that I was the only person in the court that wasn't a lawyer or a Nazi.  Someone else noted that this looked like a sequel to the Zundel trial, with all the players 15 years older.

As to the presentations, they generally went according to plan, with the pro-HRC side arguing that all that should be on the table is the  severing of Section 13's penalty provisions.  But there were a few interesting twists, or at least arguments I haven't heard before.  The young gal from the African Canadian Legal clinic (Moya Teklu) argued that there has been so little analysis of the CHRC's actual behavior that it would have been impossible for Athanasios D. Hadjis (the tribunal chair that had ruled for Lemire last go-round) to know whether this behavior had changed over time--and thus whether it had become less conciliatory, more litigious. She also has a tattoo on the back of her neck, so they clearly aren't barriers to success anymore.   Richard Warman argued from the transcripts of the earlier hearing that in fact he had been open to the possibility of settling with Lemire, contra Hadjis' opinion.

Barbara Kulaszka was a rambling disaster, and the judge was quite short with her.  The fellow from the CCLA seemed more coherent, arguing that Hadjis did have authority to make a constitutional ruling (something the CHRC contested).  Though I don't think anyone made a convincing case that either the Internet or the addition of penalty provisions has changed things so much that a Section 13 repeal was the only available option.  But that could be just me.  I missed Doug Christie's performance, but did see him parading about outside the court-room in his black cowboy hat, so that is maybe the important thing.

Most of my day was spent staring at the backs of heads suffering varying degrees of hair-loss, so Judge Mosley was by far the most entertaining thing in the room.  He is possessed of an excellent poker face, and didn't speak much.  You could tell when he was going to, though, because he would start moving his facial muscles, making faces, in effect, several seconds in advance as a kind of warm-up.  To me, he appeared to grind far more heavily upon the Lemire side, and criticized the AG's non-appearance and some of Hadjis more obscure lines of reasoning. 

To end off, here's a shot of Richard Warman and me in front of the court-house (from the NP story):

Richard is the guy on the right.  I'm wearing my dad's old barn jacket (you can just barely see the sleeve).

9 comments:

Poyan Nahrvar said...

Whether or not section 13 is constitutional or not may be up to debate. What is not up to debate is the fact that section 13 is clearly a grotesque limitation of free speech.

Whatever happened to "I may not agree with what you say but I will protect with my life your right to say it"?

Frunger said...

"Whatever happened to 'I may not agree with what you say but I will protect with my life your right to say it'?"

The militant left/right has never believed in this statement.

Section 13 is a tool of these radical fringes of society but it's been the HRC that has chosen to ALLOW it to be used by only one side.

The vast majority of the Canadian public would agree with Voltaire, even if they couldn't tell you who he is.

Even lawyers who chase ambulances have more use to society than those who argue the benefits of the HRC. At least injured people have an easily understood reason for seeking compensation.

These lawyers should be spending their time setting up class action lawsuits against airlines for charging fat people for an extra seat. I hear that's a HUGE problem these days.

Terrence said...

Given my libertarianism, I can't exactly wish Warman good luck.

I do wish him a better class of enemies, though. Lemire... ugh.

Meir Weinstein said...

This sick Zundel follower is a nothing. The same Holocaust denial books that he follows is widely distributed through the many Muslim Brotherhood or Radical Islam groups. In fact, the first Holocaust denial books came out of Saudi Arabia authored by a so called Bill Grimstad ( a Saudi Agent) It should also be remembered that Mein Kamph is still widely distributed in Islamic Countries.

bigcitylib said...

Meir, he is one of the driving forces behind Bill C-304.

Meir Weinstein said...

It seems to me that you and your associates refuse to recognize the issues that I raised. I supplied the original evidence against Zundel when he was charged under section 177 (false news). In fact I helped get the AG of Ontario involved with the case. Roy McMurtry missed the Grey Cup game to attend a meeting at the Zionist Center. But times are different today. The Muslim Brotherhood and their allies are a clear and present threat worldwide. It is their web sites and material that should be investigated.

Hardy Weinberg said...

Ugh, these folks make me sick. Even if they are not convicted of hate speech, I am sure they will be convicted of other stuff

Professor of Reeducation said...

Sections 218, 219 of the criminal code do deal with hate speech. But, section 220 retracts it based on certain 'defences' one of which being 'religion'. If we can't see the historical problem with that, then this country is screwed imho.

Mordechai Maizel said...

Mr. Weinstein what you don't seem to get is that Section 13 can be used against Muslim Extremists in the same way it is used to deal with neo-nazis. By agitating for its removal you open the door even wider for these hatemongers to continue in their anti-Semitic ways.