Category: HRCs

I’d been looking for this for a day or so now and finally managed to find it on YouTube, thanks to SDAMatt (nice job, mate). Mark Steyn was on TVO’s The Agenda the other day, having a go at Mohamed Elmasry’s SP3. As you can likely imagine, ol’ Mark comes out of the gate, practically barking his head off at the end of his chain, wanting to get right to it.

I have to admit that I felt kind of sorry for Steve Paikin at several points throughout the show — the poor bugger must have felt like he was trying to herd feral cats on angel dust at some points — but overall, especially under the circumstances, I think he did rather well. The sock puppets, as you can imagine, were outdone from the start. What I can’t quite figure out, though, is Steyn. He’s nowhere near in full form in this little fracas, apparently going deliberately easy on them at some points? Maybe he just figured that they were just a bunch of kids, being used as shills — the general tone of his post-show post would seem to support this — who had no idea what they were really stirring up (which is clearly what they are, particularly the sputtering Khurrum).

At any rate, have a look and see for yourselves. The whole thing’s chopped up into six chunks of about 10 minutes each, with a little tie-up at the end. Grab a cuppa joe and enjoy… (more…)

Yeah, it’s a slow day. And I have a reunion to go to tonight, so this is as good as it’s likely to get today. Get over it. 😛

Anybody that ever reads Dr. Roy’s Thoughts already knows a few things about the good doctor. Specifically: he’s a pretty bright guy, but a lousy typist and apparently wouldn’t use spellchecking if you put a gun to his melon. Every now and then, though, one of those typos just works out to be sooo sweet…

Jonas points out that the hrcs are social enginerring agencies.

Enginerring. Heh. Hehheh… Yeah… 😆

I may not have had a lot of time for my usual practice of ranting my face off lately, but I have had time to be poking around the world wide weird and finding some good stuff by other folks out there.

Some of what I trip over is pretty good, some is kind of mediocre and some of it just plain pisses me off. Take a poke around and see for yourself…

Fjordman over at the Brussels Journal makes some good points about Eurabia and the colonization of Europe — with some hard questions for those in charge on the far side of the pond; some with tongue in cheek, some not so much:

Western Europeans have in recent years accepted more immigration in a shorter period of time than any society has ever done peacefully in human history. If we want a break we have the right to do so. What we are dealing with is not “immigration” but colonization, and in the case of Muslims, internationally organized attempts to conquer of our countries. If non-Europeans have the right to resist colonization then so do Europeans. Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Norway hardly have any colonial history at all. The Germans had a colony in Namibia. Why should they accept millions of Turkish Muslims, who have a thousand years of brutal colonial history of their own, because of this? There are hardly any Britons in Pakistan today, so why should the Brits allow huge numbers of Pakistanis to settle in Britain? And if the Algerians can demand independence from France, why can’t the French demand independence from Algerians?

[…] The one thing I will not do is surrender my land, which is not mine to give. I do not see anybody else quietly accept being turned into a minority in the country where their ancestors have lived since the end of the last Ice Age, and I cannot see why I should have to do so, either. I don’t care if white Westerners are “scared of being called a racist.” I will not leave a ruined land behind to my descendants because I was afraid of being called bad names. If you think it is “racist” for Europeans to preserve their heritage and protect their children from abuse, then I’m not the bigot here. You are.

Meanwhile, Rick The Dick has gone after a short chick (because short chicks are such a scary threat to our way of life, ya know):

Richard “The Boy Named Sue” Warman has finally filed his statement of claim.

Canada’s busiest litigant, serial “human rights” complainant and — the guy Mark Steyn has called “Canada’s most sensitive man” — Richard Warman is now suing his most vocal critics — including me.

Maybe he’s going after Kathy because going after Ezra’s turning out to be such a colossal pain in the ass (Kate’s pissed, too). Maybe he figures if he can just fling enough shit, some will stick and turn into gravy…(grab a coffee before you read this one; it’s longer than John Holmes):

Today I was sued by Richard Warman, Canada’s most prolific – and profitable – user of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. As readers of this site know, Warman isn’t just a happy customer of section 13 and its 100% conviction rate, he’s a former CHRC employee, an investigator of section 13 thought crimes himself. In fact, he was often both a customer and an investigator at the same time.

[…] But, as I promised to do when I was first served with a Libel Notice by Warman, I can tell you that I’m not just going to play defence here – I’m going to use Warman’s lawsuit to put his conduct, and the very conduct of the CHRC itself, on trial.

This is the kind of stuff that I like to see. No time this morning for a long rant here, so just read it for yourself (taken from the CNW Group newswire yesterday):

Attention News Editors:
Commission Issues Statement on Decision in Maclean’s Cases
TORONTO, April 9 /CNW/ – The Ontario Human Rights Commission has decided not to proceed with complaints filed against Maclean’s magazine related to its publication of an article “The future belongs to Islam.” The complainants alleged that the content of the article and Maclean’s refusal to provide space for a rebuttal violated their human rights. The decision means that the complaints will not be referred to a hearing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Denying a service because of race or creed can form the basis for a human rights complaint. However, the Ontario Human Rights Code does not give the Commission the jurisdiction to deal with the content of magazine articles through its complaint process.

Even though the Commission is not proceeding with these complaints, it still has a broader role in addressing the tension and conflict that such writings cause in the community and the impact that they have on the groups that are being singled out.

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being
inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

“Clearly more debate on this issue is required in Canada,” commented Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall. “That’s why we issued a statement today.”

To read the full statement, please visit our website: www.ohrc.on.ca.

Aussi disponible en français
For further information: Jeff Poirier, Manager, Communications Policy & Education Branch, (416) 314-4539

Welcome, boys and girls, to my 501st post! 😀 How the hell did it ever get to this point?? 😕

Well, the upgrade to the software seems to have gone okay so far, so I’m going to get on with blabbing about what’s on my melon today: HLCs … again. If you’re one of those dimwits that is still having trouble figuring out why these things need to be gotten rid of, you really should read Lorne Gunter’s column in the Edmonton Journal today:

All you need to know about how rotten the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is — how undemocratic and anti-freedom it has become — is that in hate-speech complaints, the commission has a 100-per-cent conviction rate.

No one who has ever been hauled before it for allegedly uttering hate speech has ever been acquitted.

[…]

You can see this in the words of lead CHRC investigator Dean Steacy. Asked by Lemire’s lawyer, Beverley Kulaszka: “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate one of these complaints?” Steacy replied, “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value. It’s not my job to give value to an American concept.” Pardon me? Freedom of speech is entrenched in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And, of course, we inherited hundreds of years of English constitutional protection of free expression before that.

It gets a lot better than that. Read the whole thing here.

Meanwhile, even the Ministry Of What You Should Think has finally figured out that they can neither ignore this nor sweep it under the rug. CBC Sunday did themselves a mini-documentary on the out-of-control HLCs today (although, as you can imagine, it tries to put that typical CBC gloss over the ugliness of this Leftist farce). Grab a coffee and check out the vid (it’s about 15mins or so long): (more…)

That’s how we like to think of ourselves, isn’t it? Wonderful Canada, a towering bastion of the Championing Of Human Rights® and a shining example for the other nations of the world. Gives us all a warm, fuzzy, self-satisfied kind of feeling, doesn’t it? We just love to think of ourselves and being the ones to whom others look to for guidance; that we set a great example for others to follow.

Well, it turns out that we’re setting an example, all right; just not in the way that we’d like to think we are. It seems that there’s a lot of talk across dinner tables in the Cayman Islands about us. It seems some bunch down there calling themselves that “People’s Progressive Movement” (always beware of any cadre with the word “progressive” in their name) is proposing some changes to their constitution and, just the way we like it, plenty of people in the Islands are pointing to our example.

The problem is, they’re pointing to us as an example of what NOT to do (emphasis and commentary are mine, of course)…

More than a dozen members of Cayman’s clergy attended a meeting organised by the United Democratic Party concerning the constitutional changes proposed by the People’s Progressive Movement.

Of particular concern to the clergy in the proposed changes is having a Bill of Rights enshrined in the new Constitution and the constitutional establishment of a Human Rights Commission. […]

Mr. Glidden said there were two ways Cayman could codify the UN Conventions on Human Rights; either through local legislation or by enshrining a Bill of Rights in the new Constitution. He pointed out that the Constitution would be much more difficult to change if the people of the Cayman Islands ever decided they wanted to change some aspect of the Bill of Rights.

Reverend Nicholas Sykes spoke about his concerns about the formation of a Human Rights Commission, the provision for which is proposed by the PPM to be included in the new constitution.

Mr. Sykes said the proposed Bill of Rights and its related quasi–legal structures “are likely to affect us at the deepest levels of our lives” [you have NO idea how much, Nick -D].

Referring to page 13 of the PPM’s Explanatory Notes to the Summary of Proposals with regard to the constitution changes, Mr, Sykes noted document states the new Human Rights Commission would, in addition to seeking to ensure that human rights are respected, “also help individuals with credible complaints about breaches of human rights by mediating those disputes or, if necessary, help them bring their complaints to the courts or other appropriate bodies [sound familiar? -D].”

Mr. Sykes drew attention to the “other appropriate bodies” part of the statement and said he would give examples of the workings of other appropriate bodies and particular Human Rights Commission elsewhere in the western world.

“I can assure you that justice in the eyes of these newly–conceived bodies has been quite unlike the justice to which we are accustomed,” he said. “I suspect, though we are not told, that chief among the other appropriate bodies being referred to in the [Explanatory] Notes would be an arm of the new Human Rights Commission itself. That is the way it works elsewhere.”

In addition to calling the stated proposed purpose of the Human Rights Commission – “to ensure that human rights are being respected”– a utopian measure that seeks to conform to international treaties and to the Bill of Rights, Mr. Sykes said the system would be one–sided.

“The function of the commission and any related appropriate bodies is to assist the complainant, to assist the bringing of complaints, to help individuals with credible complaints about breaches of human rights,” he said. “What about the other side of the issue? The literature given to us does not dignify the one being complained against with a description. Let me call him the defendant. All the assistance goes to the complainant, but where is the assistance given to the defendant?

“The system is one–sided, and in this matter alone, is offensive to a reasonable person’s sense of justice.” […]

“Personally, I would go further and say that the social experiment in human rights that Britain and the European countries have engaged in has been an unparalleled disaster for them.”

Mr. Sykes detailed several cases taken on by the Canadian Human Rights Commissions.

“In [Human Rights Commission] the defendant’s right to due process is withdrawn. They reach judgments on the basis of no fixed law and by simply agreeing to hear a case, they tie up the defendant in bureaucracy and paperwork, and bleed him for the cost of lawyers, while the person who brings the complaint, however frivolous, stands to lose nothing.” [pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? -D]

Mr. Sykes said over half all of the Canadian Human Rights Commissions “hate crime” cases have been brought by one person who was a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. […]

“This is the sort of madness you’ll face in Cayman if [the Bill of Rights] comes,” he said. […]

Mr. Ebanks warned that many of the judges and other who would interpret a Bill of Rights in Cayman would be coming from countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, where post–modern thinking is widely accepted.

So there you have it. In a nutshell: “After the unholy mess that these Miniluvs have made of people’s rights in Canada and elsewhere, you want to bring them here?!? Are you mad!?!”

The worst part of all this is, that they’re absolutely right. These Leftist bureaucratic abominations have done more to run roughshod over people’s rights than anything else in free western history that I can think of. I, for one, am more than a little embarrassed to find that another free state within the Commonwealth is finding themselves looking to us, not as an example of the heights to which they may aspire, but rather the depths to which they can sink. Caymanians would be wise indeed to pay close heed to the words of warning of at least one Canadian, who wrote in a recent letter to the editors of the Cayman Compass:

Speaking as a Canadian, I would strongly urge all your readers to pay heed to Mr. Sykes and avoid any notion of a bill of rights like the plague.

Twenty–five years of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has done nothing but diminish the freedom of Canadians to speak their mind and associate with whom they wish, and turn what were once the assumed rights of Englishmen into privileges to be decided by ever more intrusive government meddlers.

The recent Internet videos showing the ordeal of Ezra Levant before one of our provincial Human Rights Commissions has made a laughingstock of Canada; Mr. Calder is entirely correct in describing it as madness.

I don’t know if anyone from the Cayman Islands ever comes by here or not but if they do, I cannot suggest strongly enough that they heed the warnings of men like Messrs. Sykes and Ebanks. They clearly have your best interests at heart and even if they didn’t, their actions cannot but be of benefit to you in the long run.

Trust me on this one. I come from a land that has learned this bitter lesson the hard way.