Canada: Free Speech not a Human Right?
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Remember those Danish cartoons about the Muslim prophet Mohammed, which caused such a ruckus when they were published? A Canadian publisher, Ezra Levant, has been hauled up before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for republishing those cartoons in the
Western Standard. So much for free speech and the freedom to discuss issues of public interest, at least in Alberta.
I note from his original response to the complaint that Alan Borovoy, general counsel to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, was shocked -- shocked! -- to hear that the Human Rights Council would be used in such a way:
"during the years when my colleagues and I were labouring to create such commissions, we never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech". Borovoy wrote that censorship was "hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions. There should be no question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons."
This is what
always happens when you invest a government body with power: they expand, and sometimes pervert, their mandate. And when you give them a mandate to police "offensive" speech, you shouldn't be surprised that almost any speech can be found offensive to someone.
The first interrogation is over -- details on
Levant's web site -- but the decision will be made later. I salute Levant for standing on principle, and fighting for freedom of speech, rather than trying to cut a deal with the tribunal:
I am here at this government interrogation under protest. It is my position that the government has no legal or moral authority to interrogate me or anyone else for publishing these words and pictures. That is a violation of my ancient and inalienable freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and in this case, religious freedom and the separation of mosque and state. It is especially perverted that a bureaucracy calling itself the Alberta human rights commission would be the government agency violating my human rights. So I will now call those bureaucrats "the commission" or "the hrc", since to call the commission a "human rights commission" is to destroy the meaning of those words.
...It is procedurally unfair. Unlike real courts, there is no way to apply for a dismissal of nuisance lawsuits. Common law rules of evidence don't apply. Rules of court don't apply. It is a system that is part Kafka, and part Stalin. Even this interrogation today -- at which I appear under duress -- saw the commission tell me who I could or could not bring with me as my counsel and advisors.
Brad - Tuesday 15 January 2008 - 04:46:47 -
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