Damian Goddard's Case Dismissed

Nearly two years after sportscaster Damian Goddard was fired by Rogers Communications, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed his complaint in which he alleged that he was fired because he had publicly voiced support for the traditional definition of marriage.

On May 10, 2011, the former Connected star tweeted that he “completely and wholeheartedly” supports “the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage.” Rogers immediately distanced themselves from the tweet, and then fired him within 24 hours.

When someone tells you that "the right" stays clear of the Canadian human rights apparatus, you can point to Goddard even if his case was thrown out (Rogers claims his dismissal had nothing to do with his opposition to SSM).  And, mind you, Pro-Life Hamilton fared much better with the OHRC; their ads ran in the end.

They Don't Understand The Consequences Of Their Intents: Tory MPP Randy Hillier Trashes Federal Internet Crime Bill

...at about the eight minute mark. 

A fabulously confused conversation.  Just afterwards Hillier agrees that Tim Hudak's proposed revamp of Ontario human rights legislation will make "truth a defense" when it comes to adjudicating potential hate speech.  And yet about three minutes previously he had noted, quite correctly, that that same legislation doesn't let the OHRC/OHRT adjudicate hate-speech in the first place. 

And they're calling it hard news.

Also, try to watch the whole clip from the beginning. The first four minutes are Brian Lilley babbling against a garish back-drop.  You can feel the sleep coming on.

Section 13 Repeal On Back Burner

The NDP's justice critic Joe Comartin says:

"Given the backlog of bills, and other work, studies that we're doing on organized crime, I have a hard time quite frankly seeing us doing anything more on that at least in this year, and I expect an election sometime this year, so I think it probably is not going to go anyplace."

Liberal justice critic Dominic LeBlanc concurs:

"We're going to wait to see what the government wants to do," LeBlanc says. "My view was that there was a very legitimate basis for some human rights commission review with respect to Section 13. We've heard evidence about how we can perhaps increase some of the procedural protections, but you're certainly not going to see the Liberals leading a charge to re-open that at this point, and if the government decides to let it go, that certainly would be fine with us."

Worse news for the speechies, an OHRC/OHRT repeal seems to have dropped off the bottom of PCPO opposition leader Tim Hudak's list of priorities. One thing politicians are good at is counting votes: I imagine Hudak has realized that any movement led by a combination of Ezra Levant, Neo-Nazis, and journalists is a net vote loser.

Although Andrew Steele seems to think that the rise of the OLA as torchbearers of rural conservatism in Ontario will make it impossible for Hudak to ignore the issue for any length of time. Steele may be right, and I sure hope so.

Notable For Its Absence

Has any mention been made at the PCPO AGM of Hudak's leadership-race promise to abolish the OHRC? I've mentioned previously that Tim seemed to have thrown that one under the bus as a political loser. Perhaps I have been confirmed.

Liberals Make It Federal

This is the kind of thing that makes me happy that Iggy's keeping Kinsella around:

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper must assure Canadians that he does not favour scrapping the Canadian Human Rights Commission in light of the fact that 20 of his MPs have endorsed plans to eliminate the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Liberal MP Bob Rae said today.

Just a reminder. There's two human rights radicals in the Tory race--Tim Hudak and Randy Hillier--and two purported moderates--Frank Klees and Red Tory no-hoper Christine Elliot. Its a testament to how far the PCPO has drifted right that the kind of OHRC "reform" suggested by one of these moderates, Klees, would involve lifting the prohibition signs advertising "Whites Only Served" and "No Irish Need Apply".

So far:

Eugene McDermott, Candidate of Record, Conservative party of Canada Don Valley East
Kevin Nguyen, 2008 Conservative candidate, York West
Lois Brown, MP Newmarket-Aurora

...are down with that lovely idea.

Human Rights Bits And Bites

Re. yesterday's legislative hearing on the Ontario Human Rights Commission:

A friend who is a Legislative assistant sat in on the Hearings in the afternoon. Apparently Richard Moon testified via telephone and took huge chunks out of Ezra Levant and his fellow travellers. Called him (and you [BCF] by extension) a liar...

An assessment confirmed by today's National Post article by Joseph Brean:

Richard Moon, the University of Windsor law professor who last fall became a darling of right-wing free speech advocates when he recommended scrapping the federal human rights hate speech law, yesterday lashed out at his admirers.

[...]

Prof. Moon targeted Ezra Levant in particular, whose blog is a clearinghouse for skepticism of human rights law, and who claimed the day before Prof. Moon's report was released that it had been "redacted by Jennifer Lynch," the chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

"The claim was false," Prof. Moon told the all-party panel. "I was given complete independence, and when my report was released the following day and recommended the repeal of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the falsity of Levant's claim was obvious. He had just made it up. He thought he knew what I would say and he sought to discredit the report in advance by attacking me and the commission rather than the arguments I might make."

He accused them of launching a "smear campaign" against human rights commissions and "baseless personal attacks" against their staff.

Meanwhile, at the same hearing Mark "The Steynosaur" wanked it both handed. Read the transcript if you need a fleet enema.

Meanwhile, I am a bit unclear as to what happened at the Justice and Human Rights Committee, where a "review" of section 13 was supposedly up for discussion. From Kady's description:

Real Menard puts forward his brilliant notion of combining the review of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act with his motion to look at including social condition as a protected form of discrimination, and Storseth … … Drum roll … … … says that he’s actually not ready to bring *his* motion forward at this point, so he’ll be happy to discuss this with Menard in future.

Brian Storseth is the Tory MP who wanted to ask the committee to review section 13, and he is "not ready" to make this request--to discuss the possibility of discussing section 13, as it were. Given this, we can probably assume that nothing relevant happened at the committee. As Kady notes: Wow, that was anticlimactic.

Update: Buckets has more, and WK has partial transcripts of Moon's testimony.

Macleans Still Doesn't Get It

As illustrated by this passage from their tirade against Barbara Hall's statement last week on behalf of the OHRC re the Steyn case:

"[Macleans editorial staff] pointed out that nowhere does it ["The Future Belongs to Islam"] suggest there is a plot for global domination involving the entire Muslim community (in fact, [author Mark Steyn] distinguishes between various factions in the Muslim world, moderate and radical)."

So the folks at Macleans divide the Muslim world into two whole factions? Do they really believe such classification corresponds to anything real, the way terms like Sunni or Shia or Sufi might?

What the editors are describing here is their original interview with the law students who brought a number of human rights complaints against them. Imagine you are one of these students. The editors tell you: "But the article isn't Islamophbic. It mentions both kinds of Muslim, good and bad."

Feeling a bit patronized yet?

No, Barbara Hall gave them the public spanking they deserved.

Ontario Human Rights Commission to Steyn And Macleans: You SUck, But You're Legal

From the OHRC statement, released yesterday, in regards to the complaints raised against Maclean's Magazine:

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission has serious concerns about the content of a number of articles concerning Muslims that have been published by Maclean’s magazine and other media outlets. This type of media coverage has been identified as contributing to Islamophobia and promoting societal intolerance towards Muslim, Arab and South Asian Canadians. The Commission recognizes and understands the serious harm that such writings cause, both to the targeted communities and society as a whole. And, while we all recognize and promote the inherent value of freedom of expression, it should also be possible to challenge any institution that contributes to the dissemination of destructive, xenophobic opinions.

[...]

The Commission is concerned that since the September 2001 attacks, Islamophobic attitudes are becoming more prevalent in society and Muslims are increasingly the target of intolerance, including an unwillingness to consider accommodating some of their religious beliefs and practices.

This is the result I predicted back in January: that it would be eventually decided that it is legally okay, but morally reprehensible, for Ken Whyte and company to take Canada's national news magazine and drive it into the same sewer they took the National Post.

I will just re-quote myself from that time-frame:

Is Steyn a racist? Indubitably. Is what he wrote protected by Canadian Freedom of Expression laws? Contrary to some of the Doom-Sayers on the Right, who want to make Macleans, the representative of the "powerful corporate media" in question here, look like underdogs in the case, it almost certainly is.

So, if Mr. Steyn and Macleans get dragged before a Human Rights tribunal and win, what is the point of the exercise? A case can be made that Macleans actually stands to come out ahead, as controversy = increased sales. Mind you, this is Canada not the U.S.. The tabloidization of media culture does not seem to have proceeded quite as far North of the border, and overt displays of bigotry don't seem to play as well up here. Given that most of Macleans' editorial staff are the same gang that crashed and burned the National Post (which you can't even use to line a bird-cage these days, because the parrot will complain), an even stronger case can be made that they have mis-judged the Canadian Zeitgeist a second time, and that the final trade-off will be the two semi-literate Neo-Nazis who are attracted to the magazine by its stand on Mr. Steyn, versus the half-dozen normal Canadians who still read Old Mac from nostalgia, but cancel their subscriptions for the same reason.

For me, what this is all about is the necessary public shaming of a Canadian news institution that has gone from being harmless if a little dull to a disgrace to the nation.

Thanks to the OHRC for providing that public shaming.

Elsewhere, RT gets all foamy and suggests that these latest developments in the speechy wars, esp. Warman's various lawsuits, are a good reason not only to scrap hate-speech laws, but libel laws as well. Oh my!!