Ontario Seeks to Tweak Media’s ‘Human-Rights Filter’
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Murray Campbell, Globe and Mail (Toronto), August 28, 2008
Ontario has overhauled its human-rights system, but the question that remains is whether Mark Steyn is still in trouble. The answer isn’t clear yet, but he would be wise to keep his lawyers on speed-dial.
You will remember Mr. Steyn. He is the famously antagonistic, right-wing author of the book America Alone, the End of the World as We Know It, an excerpt of which was published in MacLean’s magazine in October, 2006. The article infuriated a number of Muslims, including officials of the Canadian Islamic Congress, who demanded equal time in the magazine. When that was refused, they launched an assault using Canadian human-rights agencies.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint, while the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal heard evidence through June and reserved its decision. The experience in Ontario was more complicated and much more intriguing.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission said in April that it couldn’t proceed with a complaint because magazines are not covered under the province’s human-rights code. But the commission said it had “serious concerns” about a number of similar articles in Maclean’s and other news outlets that were “inconsistent with the values enshrined” in the codes and were “contributing to Islamophobia.”
In later interviews, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall said the media have a duty to put their writings through “a human rights filter” and promised to return later to the subject of the portrayal of minorities in the media.
She is getting her chance. The newly revamped Ontario human-rights system gives Ms. Hall’s commission a focus on broader, systemic discrimination issues while leaving the adjudication of individual allegations of discrimination in the hands of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. A separate legal support centre will provide lawyers and paralegals to guide people through the system.
The three agencies are independent but are also intertwined, so that Ms. Hall’s commission can initiate actions before the tribunal and intervene on behalf of others while the tribunal may also refer matters to the commission.
Progressive Conservative MPPs Lisa MacLeod and Randy Hillier are trying to find out the views of the people who will sit on this beefed-up tribunal. Last week, they grilled nine nominees to the tribunal about whether they think, for example, that freedom of speech has to be filtered. Again and again, Ms. MacLeod asked: “Does discrimination trump free press or does free press trump discrimination?”
Most of the people appearing before a legislative committee cautiously refused to respond to what they viewed as a hypothetical question. One exception was Alan Whyte, a Belleville lawyer who said he supports the media’s freedom under the Charter of Rights to report stories “as they see fit,” but then qualified it. “If there is some sort of discrimination that comes out in the reporting that is arguably contrary to the code, then I would also feel that it would be open to a complainant to challenge the reporting as being discriminatory on the grounds of race,” he said.
Ms. MacLeod is right to explore the grey area between free speech and responsibility and to wonder how the tribunal will operate when it is handed allegations of discrimination from people who don’t believe press councils or hate laws protect them. “At the end of the day, these are unelected bureaucrats who will have some pretty serious decision-making power,” she said.
Ms. MacLeod wants more debate on the issue. So does Ms. Hall. It’s time for Attorney-General Chris Bentley to get it going—before Mr. Steyn writes another book.
Email Murray Campbell at mcampbell@globeandmail.com.
(Posted on August 29, 2008)
Comments
What they call ‘Islamophobia’ is a natural, adaptive response to overt aggression.
Middle Eastern people, who are mainly Muslim, but sometimes Christian, are aggressively colonizing white countries, because they encounter little resistance. ‘Islamophobia’ is the simple recogntion of that.
Posted by at 6:18 PM on August 29
Canada is a beautiful country. I hate to see it lose its identity to the muslims. Quebec has tried for years to split from the rest of Canada. I think they’d better keep trying. Canada is commiting suicide faster than the U.K. and the U.S. All we can do is try to warn them. I’ve noticed a group of terrorists that call themselves Antifa is becoming a major threat across Europe and is working its way to North America. They profess to follow nobody’s teachings. However, they idolized Che Gueverra and communist ideology. They would appear to be a national security threat where ever they operate. I would love to see whom is supporting them financially. Anybody else know anything about them?
Posted by at 7:25 PM on August 29
Bandying about words like ‘islamophobia’ as a kind of truncheon insults those of us who do have mental illness. Not to mention the insult here to those of us who face discrimination for real.
Posted by Afraid to Leave the House at 8:42 PM on August 29
“Phobia” is a rather natural human reaction to someone or some group who is hell-bent on not only the destruction of your “tribe”, be it race, religion or some other identifier, but your own PERSONAL death as well. So “Islamaphobia” is a natural reaction, and those who trie to outlaw it are the ones who need to be brought before a “human rights tribunal”.
Posted by at 11:13 PM on August 29
Conservatives only want to ban pornography. The left wants to ban any opinion that’s in too much conflict with their own. They also want to ban inconvenient facts, as Rushton is all too well aware. It is very obvious to me which side of the political spectrum is most dangerous to our liberties.
As bad as the United States is getting, we don’t have anything yet quite comparable to Canada’s Stalinist Human Rights Commission. If you’re a Canadian, you had better love Big Brother.
Posted by Heteronormatively Privileged White Male Oppressor at 11:26 PM on August 29
“a group of terrorists that call themselves Antifa is becoming a major threat ….they idolized Che Gueverra and communist ideology. I would love to see who is supporting them financially. Anybody else know anything about them?”
They are run by an organization located in NY City, I forget the name. This was covered here in the discussion about Jarod Taylor’s attempted speech in Halifax.
Posted by at 11:51 PM on August 29
“New Ontario commission to focus on “systemic discrimination issues.”
Of course, multiracialism or multiculturalism has never worked in the history of the world, and it won’t work now. As we are seeing right now in this country and Europe, there are various tribal groups jockeying for power, control and domination, and much tensions and conflicts are the result of it all.
As long as a natural or man-made catastrophe doesn’t come along and the corrupt multicults continue to force their perverted ideology on citizens, a semblence of peace can be achieved for a while. Creating “commissions” to investigate “systemic discrimination” and the like, and shouting down anyone who points to obvious signs that diversity is unravelling and isn’t working, usually helps to contain things a bit, but not for long.
Extremely pluralistic societies are always on the verge of imploding no matter how many generations pass or how many manipulations the elites are forced to do in order to prevent bloodshed, and this one will be no different than all the rest.
Of course the multicults refuse to believe they’re going to fail, because they, like all those like them in the past, think their brand of genius will prevail.
And like all those in the past also, they will only realize the folly of their hare-brained schemes when they’re hoisted atop a throng of outraged citizens heading for the nearest tree.
Posted by Ranger at 2:52 AM on August 30
Yet another example of the stifling PC in Canada. As in the UK, people in Canada actually get tossed in jail if they say anything remotely insulting of “visible minorities,” even criminals. Combined with massive affirmative action and the infamous divorce laws that drain wealth away from productive men, the practical effect of these laws there, and in the USA and Australia, is to make it almost impossible for productive White families to start families and raise kids.
Canada and the Britain have a ridiculously high rate of emigration of Whites, even higher than the similarly afflicted Australia and USA, to White countries such as Germany, Austria and Denmark, which have “bloodline-based immigration” of White ethnics abroad and thus a stronger White character. The message is simple— White families will move to countries where we can raise our children among our own people.
Posted by Miroslav at 3:53 AM on August 31
“a group of terrorists that call themselves Antifa is becoming a major threat ….they idolized Che Gueverra and communist ideology. I would love to see who is supporting them financially. Anybody else know anything about them?”
I could be wrong, but I’m under the impression that “Antifa” (idiotic short form of Antifascist) is a generic term for Far Left extremists who take a particular interest in, well, in people like us: race realists, white nationalists, etc.
The term Antifa gets tossed around at OnePeoplesProject, but I don’t know if they claim copyright on it or not. But then, claiming copyright would be such a fascist thing to do. The people who disrupted Jared Taylor’s speech in Halifax may think of themselves as Antifa’s, but their official affiliation was with the local chapter of the Anti-Racist Action (ARA).
Also, Antifa’s call skinheads (and other white racialists) “boneheads.” So if you get called a bonehead by a lefty, they might be insulting you even worse than you thought.
As for who’s supporting them, I don’t know if there’s any big bankroller of the George Soros type, but various ARAs do get funding from their local City Halls — despite their frequent use of violence and intimidation. Just ask Jared Taylor.
Posted by at 6:38 PM on August 31
Back in the days of the Heritage Front and the Zundel demo’s, the Antifa would show up and raise a nasty stink, (quite literaly), and pull stunts like trying to poke the eyes out of police horses. Toronto Metro Police eventually started using eye shields for their horses. They are a real commie organization with affiliations to ARA, (anti-racist action), and other B’nai Brith umbrella groups. If you ever have to deal with them, take caution. They may look like skinny, drug-addicted misfits, but they can be extremely dangerous. Some of their tactics include sticking adversaries with AIDS infested needles and throwing urine filled balloons, and excrement. They are among the lowest of the low. They have even been known to attack elderly folks at immigration reform meetings, and have no morals whatsoever.
Posted by Louis from Montreal at 4:10 AM on September 1
The idea is to put all Christians and Jews in jail even if they don’t do anything.
Posted by at 8:32 AM on September 1