Gee, what about Mark Steyn,... and his little episode with the "Kangaroo Courts" up north.....?
Posted on 06/23/2008 12:35:10 AM PDT by forkinsocket
According to some journalists, freedom of speech is in peril in Canada. And human rights commissions are "kangaroo courts."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Only genuine misunderstanding or deliberate distortion can explain the media's mostly one-sided discourse on the case of Maclean's before the federal, as well as the Ontario and British Columbia, human rights commissions. The group that filed the complaint against the magazine argued that a series of articles, especially a 4,800-word piece portraying Muslims as a menace to the West, may have constituted hate speech.
Canada has followed a different path on free speech than the United States, where there are no anti-hate laws because the U.S. Bill of Rights says "Congress shall make no laws ... abridging freedom of speech or of the press."
The Canadian Charter of Rights, too, guarantees "freedom of the press," but it places "reasonable limits" on it. That's why the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the anti-hate provisions of both the Criminal Code and human rights statutes.
What constitutes hate is up to the commissions and, ultimately, the courts to decide. But this being Canada, different jurisdictions tackle the issue differently.
The federal commission and the one in Ontario do not hear complaints against the media. But others, as in Alberta and British Columbia, do.
That's not the only anomaly.
Ontario deals with hateful signs and pamphlets. You may be dragged before the commission for holding up a sign, "Kill all Muslims," but you won't be if you were to write that in a newspaper or a magazine (even though you would have reached a wider audience).
Another anomaly: The federal commission was mandated to deal with hate transmitted by phone. In 2001, it added the Internet. It did not foresee media websites.
Thus a conundrum for the commission: It cannot sit in judgment on what the media say in print but it can when they put the same material on their websites.
This being Canada, the commission has appointed a commission. Professor Richard Moon of the University of Windsor was asked Tuesday to come up with a solution.
Yet, despite the jurisdictional inconsistencies, grey legal zones and the difficulty of balancing free speech and hate, the system has worked reasonably well.
Complaints are weighed and either rejected or referred to a tribunal, which holds hearings, and whose findings can be appealed to the courts.
The federal commission gets up to 15,000 inquiries a year, says Jennifer Lynch, chair. "We take up only about 700 and refer only about 70 or 80 to the tribunal.
"Hate cases are only 2 per cent of that stream. The tribunal has dealt with only about 15 hate cases, so far. And not a single one of them has been overturned by the courts." So, why the hue and cry?
Karim Karim, chair of Carleton University's School of Journalism, says journalists are "fixated on their own right and privileges.
"What about the rights of people to be free of discriminatory and hateful speech? Journalists talk about one principle, and not the other."
Barbara Hall, chair of the Ontario commission, makes the same point: "Freedom of expression is not the only right in the Charter. There is a full set of rights accorded to all members of our society, including freedom from discrimination ... If you want to stand up and defend the right to freedom of expression, then you must be willing to do the same for the right to freedom from discrimination."
Anti-hate laws could be made consistent across Canada by exempting the media, as in Ontario, or axing the anti-hate provisions altogether. We may even adopt the American system and remove the anti-hate section from the Criminal Code as well.
Many disagree, including the Canadian Jewish Congress. Its head, Bernie Farber, says the anti-hate laws have helped make Canada "the warm, tolerant and accepting nation that it has become."
Beyond the law, there's self-restraint. Most media exercise it, every day. We do not publish racist cartoons and anti-Semitic rants. That Maclean's published a series of virulent articles about Muslims itself speaks volumes.
This guy probably used to write for Pravda.
This armed citizen doesn’t want to be a subject.
Glad I don’t live in Canada. But, come to think of it, many state - and, yes, federal - legislators have recently declared war on our First Amendment as well. :-(
I have a great difficulty when “loaded” terminology forms part of Statute. Concepts like “Hate” and “Discrimination” for instance.
Is “Hate” aways wrong? No, but it is almost always trivialized into meaning “strongly dislike” or “disapprove” before it gets codified into Law.
I don’t “hate” broccoli or cauliflower: I will go to great lengths to ensure I don’t ingest any because I strongly dislike them. “Hate” is a far more corrosive emotion: I “Hate” the Nazis, for example, and will crawl over broken glass to ensure that they never get into power again. In that sense, “Hate” can be a very constructive and positive emotion, not to be trivialized by passing laws against it.
Similarly, “Discrimination”. Discrimination is a good thing: you discriminate every time you buy a Chevrolet over a Honda, or choose Vanilla ice cream over Chocolate. or decide not to have anchovies on your pizza. Everyone discriminates and it is a good thing that we do.
Discrimination is another more powerful word for “choice”. The Law has no business deciding your choices for you: providing they are not harmful to other folk.
“Racism” and “Sexism” are both illogical and irrational reasons to exercise one’s right to discriminate, and you would be very justified in questioning the judgment and intelligence of anyone who used these as decision-making parameters as they are foolish. But it should not be against the law to be a fool: the real world has better ways of punishing fools — more effective ways than the Law can ever produce.
Similarly most of the -phobias: some of them are proper psychological issues (in which case, treat them if they are getting in the way of healthy living) and some of them are dam’ned sensible ways to live. None of them make sound basis for Laws to be passed.
So it is sad to see that our Western civilization is stooping toward passing Laws that really have no sound basis: in this case, “Hate” laws.
“Haroon Siddiqui”
I could just stop right there.
Haroon Siddiqui is the favorite “colored Muslim friend” of the sociopaths that run the Toronto Star. Siddiqui is such a nutjob he has spawned a group of websites specifically devoted to debunking his crap.
So with that in mind, Haroon Siddiqui might have gone a bridge too far in attacking the freedom of speech that the rest of the Toronto Star organization has come out strongly for in the MacLeans case. Otherwise he is what he has always been, a Muslim sideshow mouthpiece the Star editorial board uses to spew their illiberal anti-Canadian, anti-American venom.
Wouldn’t be surprised if at least one Toronto Star employee calls him out for his lies through omission in this article, or his unfettered acceptance without criticism of the statistical quote he used in the piece. That quote needs to be redacted. It’s a out and out blatant falsehood.
Reasonable Limits is how we got “Campaign Finance Reform”.
Political speech is what the founders had in mind when the First Amendment was drafted.
What does Reasonable mean when we are talking about Free Speech Rights?
Well when it is your ox that is being gored as it seems to be with Mr. Haroon Siddiqui a more restrictive speech code would seem appropriate.
How ever I would be very surprised indeed if Mr. Siddigui would be in favor of monitors of hate speech entering a Mosque to see what kind of hate was flowing from the mouths of Imams and then hauling the Imams before a human rights commission.
While I agree the government via the citizens has a responsibility to protect kids from trash that people say it is no justification for laws putting people in jeopardy of jail or fines for saying what they want.
Want to talk racial hatred...you will be exposed and the community will reveal you for what you are...a pig who deserves to be an outcast. However, using the force of the state to stop it violates their constitutional command to protect it.
Whats the right mix with that kind of problem?
Fixed it.
Not really, hate laws are a sign that the government has so far exceeded it's boundaries that it must be immediately dismantled by any available means possible.
Hey Haroon (rhymes with moron), “reasonable limits on free speech” is an oxymoron.
Gee, what about Mark Steyn,... and his little episode with the "Kangaroo Courts" up north.....?
Yeah...it's funny how people defend their own rights against arbitrary rule.
"What about the rights of people to be free of discriminatory and hateful speech? Journalists talk about one principle, and not the other."
This is where the notion of positive rights leads - always to the subjugation of the rights of others.
Haroon Siddiqi preaches fascism. Raw fascism. What he writes would dovetail nicely with anything ever said by Paul Joseph Goebbels.
Or by any mullah, BTW.
Maybe this is the cure for the kangaroo court?
HAROON SIDDIQUI
drip, drip, drip...another parasite slithers it’s way into Western civilization.
I like these foreign born maggots that move to Canada and start interpreting their laws for them
Well Commies never had any use for Religious Expression, so it is no wonder they consider the outlawing of Christianity as ‘reasonable’.
No one should ever be able to take away anyone's freedom to speak their mind openly no matter how rude, crude, or unacceptable socially it may be!
Hate crimes are the begining of totalitatianism and dictatorships!
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