Exactly What You Need HRCs For

SAINT JOHN, N.B. — The New Brunswick Human Rights Commission is holding an inquiry into the province's abortion policy.

Randy Dickinson, chairman of the commission, confirmed Tuesday that the human rights organization received a complaint relating to New Brunswick's Medical Services Payment Act, which sets out the conditions under which the province will pay for abortions.

As for what's going on in Saskatchewan, where the Tribunal may be dissolved and cases that can't be settled via mediation sent to court, I'm not sure what to think of it yet. For one thing, the hate speech provisions in the provincial legislation would remain as per the status quo: in fact, in other Sask. human rights news, Bill Whatcott's case is being taken to the Supreme Court. And in situations where mediation fails, the province will still take up complainant's costs. I suppose the issue here would be costs--its difficult to see this new process being cheaper than going before a tribunal. And while Chief Commissioner David Arnot is clearly sincere in his attempts to reform the human rights situation in that province, can Premier Brad Wall and his gang be trusted to produce legislation in accord with Mr. Arnot's intentions?

Free Speech Senate Inquiry: Free Speeches, No Action

(Actually, four speeches, but whatever)

The speeches were part of the two-hour-long Senate inquiry, a kind of procedure unique to the upper chamber to allow senators to raise important issues. Usually, aside from drawing attention to a given subject, Senate inquiries have little effect.

And remember, underneath it all the University of Ottawa thing was all about Coulter's Coulter camp's inability to successfully rent a room.

Alberta's Section 3 Constitutional; Boisson Acquitted

The full ruling can be found here.

1) Stephen Boisson's language was found to be relatively mild compared to the kind of messages employed to set the hate-speech standard.

2) It was noted that the case was about a single letter, not an extended sequence of hate-speech messages:

...which is odd, because I was under the impression that the letter was republished several times afterwards, perhaps on the Concerned Christians website.

3) The kicker seems to be that the assault on a gay youth--which supposedly came about as a result of the letter, and was committed by (among others) an associate of Mr. Boisson who had been exposed repeatedly to the contents of the letter--is treated as alleged, and the evidence drawn from its circumstances as here say. I was under the impression from the original HRC case that none of this (other than the implications for Mr. Boisson's case) was in doubt.

4) In any case, the judge found that the law was misapplied in Boisson's case, and not that it was invalid. A reference was made to the Lemire constitutional challenge, about which the judge wrote

So obviously that case won't serve as anyone's anti-HRC silver bullet.

HRCs Cleared Again!

Comments re HRC "abuse" of power pulled from CRTC policy opinion. Opinion's author clearly read Shakedown a 2nd time, realized--"Hey! This is all bullshit!" Speechies left sucking rocks. Booyah!

One Issue Leadership Campaign => One Issue Election

Fate of Human Rights Tribunal dominates Tory leadership debate
Hudak's rights plan called 'toxic' politics

Meanwhile, the Natty Post says lick that 3rd rail--but carefully! PS. They still haven't figured out Klees' position yet.