Ezra Levant explains AB Government Censorship on Fox News

The other foot

Mark Steyn eviscerates the liberal left in "So now, it’s no business of the state - Funny that the ‘Toronto Star’ writer had the opposite view when it came to my columns" in MacLeans magazine this week on the decision of Quebec to"nix the niqab" as it is a symbol of oppression.

Steyn argues that - yes - why should the state NOT ban it, given all the other infringements advocated by special interests groups like "*Editorial Editor Emeritus" Haroon Siddiqui who supported the CHRC removing MacLeans right to criticize Islam, as it would any other religious "hatemongering".

*p.s I thought this title was Steyn poking fun at this pompous writer, until I realized it was true!

Ellen Ocran - NDP Assistant not Student

Last week when Ann COULTER was denied the opportunity to speak at the UofOttawa there was a VERY angry encounter between a "student" and a "free speech" advocate - recorded on video and in the press.  Here was the clip from the CP article:

"Ann Coulter should go back to where she came from because we don't want her back here," shouted Ellen Ocran, a University of Ottawa student in a shouting match with a Coulter backer.

In this AP clip (below) note angry young black women - vociferously chanting and yelling  with others in extremely confrontational manner.   It is remarkable that someone did not get into a fight.   Certainly for a "student" she was louder than anyone else. 



Then I saw this blog comment.  This young women - Ellen OCRAN - is not a "student" but an assistant for NDP Pat Martin.  As this blog suggests, is this not as bad as a CPC staffer using her unmarried name when writing letters to the press to support her MP?

OCRAN, like a number of other protesters, had buttons identifying them as members of the Cdn Federation of Students.   Interestingly, this groups has ruled for decades as a totally undemocratic organization almost immune from democracy.  Here is website dedicated to removal of the group from Concordia University in Montreal.    Quite shocking.

More from this blog.

Ann Coulter - Calgary proceeds

After the University of Ottawa address was canceled on Wednesday, Calgary managed to make up for by selling-out with a vastly larger, upgraded venue.  Still, a small group of protesters did do a bit a damage and raised a ruckus (Coulter's excellent retort to the noise they were making a they banged on windows - cracking some safety glass - "Sorry, not everyone who wanted to, could get in".)

Tellingly, one was interviewed and quoted as saying:

"I'm for social justice, and she's just full of moronic talk."

Which is THE problem.  Liberals feel they have a god-given right (no pun intended) to spout off whatever they want, but as soon as a Conservative make a comment THEY find controversial everyone runs away with their hands over their ears wailing about how offended the "feel".

George Jones of the National Post had an excellent comment entitled "Censorship and Satire":

On Tuesday, a howling mob demonstrated Canada’s commitment to restraint and respect by blocking Coulter (and those who came to hear her) from entering a lecture hall on campus.

The only group exhibiting Canadian-style restraint was the police. They cast a calm eye on the pandemonium, took a balanced view and chose no sides between people trying to exercise their rights and bullies trying to prevent them. Resisting any temptation to enforce the law, Ottawa’s finest exemplified Canada’s definition of moral leadership by observing neutrality between lawful and lawless.

I’d say Houle’s risk of being charged with practising law without a licence for giving legal advice to Coulter is higher than Coulter’s risk of being charged with hate speech for anything she’s said. But was the provost’s letter really for Coulter — or was it a green light for the mob?

Mike and Ellen [protesters in crowd] are the idealistic, demonstrating, book-burning, sometimes violent spear-carriers of social trends and ideas that shape all periods, occasionally for the better, usually for the worse. Many are educated beyond their intellectual means; all concern themselves with matters beyond their maturity. They’re the collateral damage of higher education.

Here’s the circular sophistry of two-tiered freedom: Approved speech = free speech; censored speech = hate speech. This is what corrupts minds, and I don’t mean students. I mean professors, provosts and presidents. The operating fallacies come from them. Mike and Ellen provide only the noise, the echo and the muscle.

Some say Coulter is an attention-seeking ninny. Assume it’s true. So? Offered as an excuse for a university preaching respect and civility while practicing suppression and intimidation, it’s worse than immaterial. It’s demeaning. Hypocritical. Ludicrous. I regret to say, it’s so Canadian.

Here is debate on Joy Behar - useful I think as she was a comedian so the free speech line is dear to her - plus they cover Sarah Palin's "Don't retreat, RELOAD" comment.

Ann Coulter = lightening rod to discontent

The controversy over Freedom of Speech has been whipped into a fevered pitch at the University of Ottawa.  The event was canceled last night due to concern by police over the safety for the attendees to the talk. The left and various fringe groups (i.e UK Labour MP George Galloway)  can say whatever they want and we are supposed to tolerate it, but try to turn the tables and this what happens.  The other recent example was the disallowing a York University Jewish Students group to mount a "rebuttal" display during that university's controversial, racist "Israel Apartheid Week" protests.  They were told that because of the likelihood of provoking violence was so high - not withstanding they had agreed to pay for security - they could not participate.

What an outrage!   She will be in Calgary tomorrow.    I can hardly wait because I bet she will be welcomed with open arms.

Hopefully, the Provost at University of Ottawa will get some come-comeuppance from his misconceived idea. Here is his contact info if you wish to tell him your thoughts.

François Houle
Vice-recteur aux études / Vice-President Academic and Provost
Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa
550, rue Cumberland Street
Ottawa (ON) K1N 6N5
Telephone : (613) 562-5800 ext. 5737
Fax : (613) 562-5106
e-mail: francois.houle@uottawa.ca

Quebec Human Rights Decision - give-up your parking spot, or else!

Wow - another Human Rights decision that guaranatee's their reformation.

In Quebec, an obese new condo owner - Marise Myrand - wanted a parking stall as close to the front door of her condo building as possible in order to accommodate her over-weight medical condition.  She asked the condo association to give her one but they refused and so she took them to the Human Rights Commission for their failure to accomodate her handicap.  The Commission ruled that the condo board must give Ms. Myrand  the best parking spot and pay a $10,000 fine.

Another example of the government legislating good behaviour.  As Lorne Gunter puts it: 

What the Quebec commission is doing is institutionalizing absolute selfishness. People from favoured groups must get everything they want, otherwise those they are complaining against are guilty of discrimination.

Pierre-Yves Bourdeau, the Quebec government lawyer who represented Ms. Myrand, told reporters, “When you live in condo co-ownership … you’re obliged to help people with physical disabilities.”

No you’re not. A condo is not a commune.

I'll bet this is overturned on appeal to the Superior Court (after a $50,000 legal bill).

Moral Blindness of the Human Rights Industry

Melanie Phillips in the UK has become one of my favourite columnists recently (but not yet near Barbara Kay).

And this article struck a chord that had been played by Ezra LEVANT.

The civil war in Congo, Krystof writes, has claimed almost seven million lives over the last dozen years.  [And yet] Neither Amnesty nor HRW has issued a single press release or report on Congo so far this year, according to their web sites.

This was the "moral calculus" that explained it:

Since countries of the third world did not subscribe to western cultural norms of respect for human life, they said, we in the west could not judge such countries’ behaviour by those norms. To do so would be an act of cultural imperialism. But since Israel did subscribe to those norms, it was accordingly judged by them; indeed, they added, since the Jews claimed superior standards to the rest of humanity, they needed to be judged by higher standards than those applied to the rest of the human race.

In a comment post, reference was made to this (warning, satire ahead):

UN Streamlines Decision-making by Dumping Democracies

GONGO's - Government Organized Non-Government Organizations

Following a shocking revelation about the sudden death of Mr. Remy BEAURGARD, President of Canadian Government funded Human Rights advocacy organization - was this article in the National Post.

Ezra LEVANT also weighs in on the controversy the has overwhelmed the organization due to perceived interference by newly appointed directors of the minority Conservative Government.

Assertions by staff that this interference directly contributed to Mr. BEAUREGARD's  death are serious, but  more relevant is if the alleged "interference" was true.    If so then the distress that perhaps caused BEAUREGARD's heart-attack may have been in some way self-inflicted by poor management oversight and control.  In no way should this be considered criminal, just difficult.  Obviously Mr. BEAUREGARD took the criticism hard.    In that way the staff should perhaps consider their role in helping to crucify their own boss.

Ultimately, this organization is collapsing under it's own ineptitude.  The Board SETS policy and staff execute - not the other way around.   If the staff do not like that, they are free to quit and find another job elsewhere.   If they have legitimate concern about operations they will have to think long and hard about what exactly their criticism is.  What appears to be happening is that the radicalised staff have gone rogue.  They believe that they are the final arbiters of Human Rights decision, not unlike Jenny LYNCH at the CHRC.  A revolt like this must be put down at once.    These kinds of actions - like countless other similar brushfires at the CWB, CBC, Canadian Nuclear Regulatory Branch and elsewhere - are a Liberal fifth column and are foiling the governments legitimate will.

LEVANT has marshalled quite alot of evidence to suggest that this group has drifted a long way from it's initial goals - and that perhaps since these goals were formed, the landscape has changed significantly.   However as Mr. LEVANT has so well documented in his book, we have become overrun by these "do-gooders".  I now believe that ALL GOVERNMENT HUMAN RIGHTS organizations have outlived their usefulness and have become part an industry of radicalised government sponsored bullying - sowing discord, distemper and anxiety where little or none existed before.

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

I support the wholesale retirement of Rights & Democracy on that basis.  It is no longer useful for Government to fund Advocating for Human Rights - that job is best left to private citizens advocating on their own.   I advocate shifting funding to local communities and groups who have broader mandates - like Edmonton's Heritage Days Festival or funding sports, cultural and educational exchanges - will do more to encourage racial harmony in Canada and elsewhere than these NGO's.

Le point de bascule (the tipping point)

I made the most wonderful discovery today, via re-reading the National Post's interview with Jennifer LYNCH on June 15, 2009 in which she lashed out against her "enemies" (whom she declined to name but obviously must include Ezra LEVANT). Among the comments posted below the article were a few well informed ones referring to le point de bascule.

Not having seen or read of it, I searched and found it at www.pointdebasculecanada.ca. It is a francophone blog that appears to be taking the same tack as Ezra LEVANT - at least as far as taking the CHRC to task. The founder - Marc LEBUIS - claims to be a supporter of Free Speech and is obviously very bilingual (not really sure about his other background) . He has a number of french posts translated into English, in order I suppose, to get wider distribution. Yet even for his french posts he has employed the free "Google Translate" add-in on his site, which allows any reader to select one of the 36 languages available and have the french version rendered almost instantly into that tongue. WOW! I declare the "Two Solitudes" officially over.

In particular, M. LEBUIS has taken an Imam in Montreal named Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti to task for some of the outrageously hateful comments made by him in an ebook (in french/arabic) available at his website and mosque. Among some of his pronouncements:

• Gays and lesbians should be “exterminated in this life”. Gays involved in sodomy must be “beheaded”.
• Infidels generally “live like animals,” “love perversity”, “are our enemies,” and their offspring are the most perverted of children. Male infidels want to “sexually exploit women.” “One of the greatest forms of ignorance and injustice” would be for Muslims to regard infidels as being on the same level as Muslims.
• Christianity is a “religion of lies” responsible for the Western world’s “perversity, corruption and adultery.”
• Jews “spread corruption and chaos on earth.”
• Men are “better” than women, having “a more complete intellect and memory.”
• Muslims in Muslim lands must “humiliate and punish” Christians and Jews; Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and others must convert to Islam or “be killed”.

Did he miss anyone?

M. LEBUIS on April 1, 2008 filed a formal Sec 13 complaint (aka The Hayiti Case) with the CHRC using the above examples from Imam Al-Hayiti's ebook (apparently on his website) entitled L’islam ou l’intégrisme - À la lumière du Qor’an et de la sounnah (Islam or fundamentalism - In light of the Qor'an and the Sunnah).

The CHRC's staggering response to this complaint? Rejected. In a letter dated Dec 5, 2008, the CHRC could not find any "identifiable group" that was hurt by such statements (above).

Huh? Excuse me, but WHAT?

M. LEBUIS after an exhaustive dissection of the decision, makes the following trenchant conclusions:

• If you belong to a minority, you can with impunity propagate hatred and contempt against the majority. You are not held to the same standards of tolerance, respect and civility as the majority. Equality under the law, according to the Commission, does not exist anymore.
• If you belong to a religious minority, you can with impunity propagate a supremacist ideology that also condones the extermination of other minorities, and of the majority, if this is the doctrine of your religion.
• If you belong to the majority and you expose the supremacist, totalitarian and anti-democratic ideology propagated by a minority, you risk being sued.

In his closing closing, M. LEBUIS remarks about Commissioner LYNCH's whining about a “campaign” to “discredit” the Commission.

"I cannot help but observe that the CHRC has discredited itself without need of assistance."

That about sums it up. Do we need any more evidence that the HRC's have outlived their usefulness? I think not.

Fire. Them. All