“You Can’t Say That”: Canadian thought police on the march.

National Review ^ | December 2, 2003 | David E. Bernstein

[quidnunc]

I've had the good fortune of spending this past month on the road promoting my new bookabout how anti-discrimination laws are eroding civil liberties. At the end of a recent talk about the book, an audience member asked whether I believe that freedom of expression is really at risk in the United States from laws meant to aid women and minorities. The heart of my response is, "Look at what's happening in Canada. If we don't watch out, we're next."

The decline of freedom of expression in Canada began with seemingly minor and understandable speech restrictions. In 1990, the Canadian supreme court upheld the conviction of James Keegstra, a public-high-school teacher, for propagating Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic views to his public high-school students, despite repeated warnings from his superiors to stop. Keegstra was convicted of the crime of "willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group," which carries a penalty of up to two years in jail. Criminalizing hate speech, the court stated, was a "reasonable" restriction on expression, and it therefore passed constitutional muster.

Two years later, the same court held that obscenity laws are unconstitutional to the extent they criminalize material based on sexual content alone. However, any "degrading or dehumanizing" depiction of sexual activity — including material that the First Amendment would protect in the United States — was deprived of constitutional protection to protect women from discrimination.

Even the most zealous advocates of freedom of expression often feel uncomfortable defending the right to engage in Holocaust denial or to propagate degrading pornography. But, not surprisingly, the inevitable result of allowing these initial speech restrictions has been the gradual but significant growth of censorship and suppression of civil liberties across Canada.

In many cases, the speech that is suppressed conflicts with the Canadian government's official multiculturalist agenda, or is otherwise politically incorrect. For example, the Canadian supreme court recently turned down an appeal by a Christian minister convicted of inciting hatred against Muslims. An Ontario appellate court had found that the minister did not intentionally incite hatred, but was properly convicted for being willfully blind to the effects of his actions. This decision led Robert Martin, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Western Ontario, to comment that he increasingly thinks "Canada now is a totalitarian theocracy. I see this as a country ruled today by what I would describe as a secular state religion [of political correctness]. Anything that is regarded as heresy or blasphemy is not tolerated."

Indeed, it has apparently become illegal in Canada to advocate traditional Christian opposition to homosexual sex. For example, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ordered theSaskatoon Star Phoenix and Hugh Owens to each pay $1,500 to each of three gay activists as damages for publication of an advertisement, placed by Owens, which conveyed the message that the Bible condemns homosexual acts.

-snip-

[TLI]

Hellooooooooooo Canada . . .
Are yous guys waking up YET???

[WackyKat]

Canada now is a totalitarian theocracy. I see this as a country ruled today by what I would describe as a secular state religion [of political correctness]. Anything that is regarded as heresy or blasphemy is not tolerated."

That is a very good analogy.Just as criticizing the doctrines of the dominant religion is not allowed in a religious theocracy, the regime of multiculturalism cannot allow any deviations from its fundamental doctrines that all people and cultures are of equal value(except white males and Western culture) and that certain groups are favored and cannot be criticized

[quidnunc]

TLI wrote: Hellooooooooooo Canada . . . Are yous guys waking up YET???

I posted this article on a Canadian Free Republic-like forum, and I'm betting that it will for the most part go unremarked.

If past experience is any guide, it will be read but there will be few, if any, comments posted.

[Unam Sanctam]

Canada -- human rights abuser.

[OXENinFLA]

BLAME CANADA!!!

[Porterville]

First and Second amendments protect the USA, and the communist to the North know this.... we can hope, that soon there will be and additional 3 states and two separate nations to the North.

[BSunday]

No wonder there are so many Canadian flag stickers here in Virginia. It's because their own country sucks but America doesn't know it yet.

[Bilbo Baggins]

more pc run amok ping

At least here in the U.S. we can say things like master/slave without worrying about fines or being thrown in jail... or is that not too far away?

[Don Corleone]

Hellooooooooooo Canada . . . Are yous guys waking up YET???

Hellooooooooooo USA. . . .

Are yous guys waking up YET???Too?

[mushroom]

Not if you're selling to the city of Los Angeles you can't.

[The Great RJ]

We all need to read Orwell's 1984 again -- particularly his desription of "thoughtcrime".

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[gcruse]

It's always interesting to see what you have chopped out.

"University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood." The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans."

[quidnunc]

"University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood." The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans."

Regarding this incident involving Sunera Thobani; a complaint was filed, a brief and desultory investigation determined there was no cause for action and the complaint was dismissed.

[gcruse]

Wow. If that wasn't hate speech, there ain't a cow in Texas.
Their hate crime laws are no more rational than ours.

[austingirl]

When will people realize that the leftists are the fascists?

[gcruse]

When will people realize that the leftists are the fascists?

When they get around to believing you instead of the dictionary, I guess.
One of the definitions of fascist is reactionary.  And a reactionary is--

"An opponent of progress or liberalism; an extreme conservative."

[austingirl]

I don't know what dictionary you are using but mine, Webster's, says it is an autocratic system of government characterized by strict social and economic regimentation. Sounds like the repressive politically correct speech movement by the left to me as well as their desire to tax us into oblivion.