Posted by
Michael on Monday, June 02, 2008 12:29:28 AM
Anyone reading this enjoys the written word. Because you enjoy the
written word, you should also cherish freedom of speech and freedom of
expression, as it is the right that allows for an environment of many
words to read and hear. If you cherish the freedom of expression, you
should be concerned about the assault on those freedoms by Canada's
Orwellian "Human Rights Commissions."
The Canadian Human Rights Commissions' stated goal is thus:
The Canadian Human Rights Commission
is empowered by the Canadian Human Rights Act to investigate and try to
settle complaints of discrimination in employment and in the provision
of services within federal jurisdiction. Under the Employment Equity
Act, the Commission is responsible for ensuring that federally
regulated employers provide equal opportunities for employment to the
four designated groups: women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with
disabilities, and members of visible minorities. The Commission is also
mandated to develop and conduct information and discrimination
prevention programs.
That's all well and good. Nobody likes discrimination, and I myself
have been discriminated against on the basis of both race and
disability. It's unpleasant. I don't see how censoring people's
political speech plays into making sure employers don't discriminate
against minorities. There is nothing in their stated goal about "hate
speech," which is the loaded term the Commission
threw at the Canadian conservative website Free Dominion last year:
OTTAWA, July 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Free
Dominion, a Canadian conservative web forum, has been targeted via the
Canada's Human Rights Commission (HRC) over allegations the
conservative site promotes "hate speech."
"We have been waiting for six and a half years and the day has
finally arrived, somebody is going to try to silence Free Dominion
using the Canadian Human Rights Commission," Mark Fourier quipped in
posting the letter. "Somebody has likely decided that because they
can't defeat some argument presented by someone at Free Dominion they
will instead try to silence the whole site. It isn't going to work."
The Commission has taken on other conservative writers, acting as
some of sort of partisan law enforcement agent aimed at censoring those
that disagree with them. The most high profile case has been
Mark Steyn, the
best selling author of "America Alone" (I wonder if his being a best
selling author was part of the Commission's motivation?). After
publishing
"The Future Belongs to Islam," the
magazine Maclean's recieved complaints of Islamophobia on the part of
the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Ontario has a specific code in its
Human Rights Code that "interfer[ing] with the freedom of expression of
opinion," but this has not stopped the Commission, which in April said
that it has a "broader mandate to promote and advance respect for human
rights in Ontario, forward the dignity and worth of every Ontarian and
take steps to alleviate tension and conflict in the community,
including by speaking out on events that are inconsistent with the
spirit of the Code."
This is really frightening stuff. There is a slippery slope that
occurs when any government decides that it should step in and try to
govern the free exchange of ideas. One minute a commission is filing
complaints, and the next it could be imprisoning those with opinions
its members differ with. Liberal democracy exists to oppose this kind
of tyranny, and if we fall back into it the evolution and revolution
from monarchy and dictatorship will have been a waste of time.