SCBCchenfreude

The comment thread of a recent Cross-Country Checkup discuss the Human Rights complaints against Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, and Steven Boisson.

Several interesting passages present themselves. Chiefly amoung them is this:

1. The Complainant's costs are not paid by the Commission. The only time that the Commission takes carriage of a case is when the public interest is at issue.

I have filed several complaints and have never had one red cent of my costs paid.

2. Rex has accused the complainants as trying to "shake down" someone by filing a complaint. Complainants have the courage to stand up for human rights, often as great personal cost to themselves.

3. You foreget to mention that all human rights tribunal decisions are reviewable bythe Courts. Some have gone all the way to the Supreme Court, i.e Zundel's case.

4. It is not offensive speech which is protected. Only messages which expose vulnerable groups to hatred or contempt.In other words, will the messages increase discrimination against the target group?

5. Your program also fails to mention that Human Rights legislation is designed to encourage mediation and settlement, often with no penalties being imposed, i.e. the complaint against Craig Chandler and his Concerned Christian Canada and his Freedom Radio Network Inc websites.

I sincerely wish you would have a more balanced presentation on this issue. Hate messages are exposing vulnerable groups to hatred, contempt, discrimination, violence and murder.

Rob Wells

Followed by...

Similarly, Edmontonian Rob Wells filed a Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint against Calgarian Craig Chandler for radio braodcasts and websites that said things like, "God sees murder as equal to homosexuality." In that case, the CHRC negotiated a settlement -- and when Chandler subsequently won the Conservative nomination for a Calgary riding, the provincial party was embarrassed enough to dump him from the campaign.

As I did in the case of Boissoin, allow me to re-iterate that whatever Chandler said, he is 100% right and I agree with every word he says. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Some other bizzare passages include:

A useful way of determining whether Mark Steyn's work is worthy of reproduction in one of Canada's oldest mass circulation journals is to substitute the words 'Jews' or 'Blacks' whenever he uses the word 'Muslims.' Mr. Murphy, can you continue to claim that Mr. Steyn is simply expressing a reasonable opinion that deserves publication after conducting an exercise similar to the one I have suggested?

This argument, put forward by Brian O'Neal of Gatineau, fails on the first premise that Muslim, unlike Jew, is purely a religion. Instead of O'Neals suggestion, why not substitute the words 'Puppies' or 'Men in Blue T-shirts' whenever he used the world 'Muslims'? It makes exactly as much sense.

"Parliamentary Poet Laureate John Steffler" writes the following:

Everyone in the country who values freedom of political and artistic expression should speak out against Bill C-10 which is now in the hands of the Senate. In giving the Heritage Minister the power to deny tax credits to films and TV shows he/she finds offensive, this bill introduces a covert form of censorship and undermines the principle of arm's-length funding for the arts. Pornography is already ineligible for tax credits. What is the bill designed to weed out?

Hey there John-Boy? Why aren't you out there demanding that pornography become eligible for tax credits? Isn't this a covert form of censorship and undermines arms-length art funding? What if Ernst Zundel decides to make a Holocaust-denial flick? Shouldn't he get funding from the feds to pay for it? (Even as the same feds get him deported?)

State funding (tax credits or otherwise) for the arts, in its many forms, including films, documentaries & the visual arts, etc., ... should not be decided by governments, but by a separate, arms-lengh body (Canada Council -- for instance) and it should be based / juried on its artistic merits.

Thus, the people seating on such bodies, should be competent & credible professionals in their respective disciplines. No bureaucrat should have the power to make such funding decisions. Their task is to ensure funds are accounted for, and that applicants follow proper & clear procedures.

Leo Campos Aldunez
Edmonton, Alberta

Sorry there Leo, but without bureaucrats how will these procedures be properly followed? You may hate bureaucrats, but they do serve a purpose, and its the same purpose Aldunez seems to want to deny them. Why should the arms-length body have such amazing powers? Who do you go to if they unfairly deny your funding? How about your anti-homosexual drama that goes against the Council of Canadians' narrow worldview? Isn't that another form of artistic censorship?

fully support the complaint against Macleans magazine which has an obvious bias evidenced by 19 similar articles clearly discriminating against the Muslim community.

I think what is important to remember is that the complainants want to specifically target the approximate 1 million Macleans readers and give them the counter view and more accurate view of the Islamic faith. Further, isn't it a true mark of journalistic integrity to present both sides of the story. I really wonder what Macleans' magazine is afraid of!

Shaheena Kharal

You're right. Shaheena Kharal is a follower of Satan's prophet Mohammed, and Shaheena Kharal is following the false Muslim religion that will cause her to burn in hell forever as an Enemy of the One True Lord. There, we can see what I'm not afraid of! (And there's your true mark of integrity, as I give the other side to her one-sided story: if you want to say something that Macleans won't print, say it somewhere else!)