Ezra exposes an empty protest

Apparently the "occupiers" think they have a constitutional right to make a mess, to squat on public land, to scare children and to make an utter mess. The tents are mostly empty and so are the heads of most of these occupiers. St James Park needs to be cleaned up and even Dean Stout doesn't want these squatters on Church land.

Ding Dong! The HRC Section 13 Is Dead!

I'm loving this government. First the long gun registry is up for death by uselessness. Then the CWB loses it's monopsony power to jail our western farmers. They of course, like any good lefties, are whining to the courts, with our tax dollars. Violent criminals might actually get enough time in jail to understand that they did something wrong, thanks to a crime bill the lefties can't stand, because those poor, poor criminals didn't really mean to rape that women, or shoot that kid. Now, the next piece has fallen into place, the striking of the offensive section 13 from the HRC book of tricks.  No longer will people get persecuted for free speech because someone is "offended"!

The problem for censorshipminded activists is that proving hate speech in court is hard. Courts tend to abridge Charter rights such as freedom of expression only in the most extreme cases. It is unlikely that an antiimmigration screed on the Internet or a controversial editorial cartoon would prompt a real judge to shut down a website or fine a blogger. That's why most activists prefer to rely on Sec. 13 of the CHRA and its provincial counterparts (which should also be written out of the law), instead of the criminal code.

Now, real judges will hear real cases of hate speech, not the biased HRC employees. Now, a blogger stating their opinion on an issue will not have to worry about being hauled before the HRC for someone with "hurt" feelings. Kudos to this government for acting on this issue. Now, if "Red Ali" wants to keep Conservative votes, she will get rid of this odious section in Alberta's HRC, but I'm not holding my breath, not with what I have seen of her so far. 

Finally Ezra is seeing his dream come true!



H/T to Small Dead Animals.

Calgary's breath-taking hypocrisy

Kevin Libin on Calgary street minister, Artur Pawlowski:

For the past six years the city has hit him with injunctions, fines and arrests. ... Police have confiscated his signs and his Bibles.

... He’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, mortgaging his home twice in the process, in legal battles over what he believes is his constitutional right to preach the gospel, and help the needful, on city streets. The city, too, has spent a fortune prosecuting him. He’s long believed the city had a bias against Christians. The fact that the anti-capitalist occupiers have been left to openly flout, for two weeks, many of the same bylaws that he’s been routinely ticketed and arrested for, he says, is proof of it. ...

On The Source today, Ezra Levant asked that we email Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi to express our disgust, dismay and disappointment.

Sun News v. the state broadcaster

Further to this is Ezra Levant ripping into the CBC:

[Video from blazingcatfur]

Corcoran disses 'Ethical Oil'

Terence Corcoran:
First with some praise:

... The ethical oil argument is a clever and compelling one, and good for a dozen laughs when it’s delivered — as it was at a Toronto Empire Club lunch the other day — by Mr. Levant. Most of the laughs come at the expense of the David Suzuki crowd, green campaigners and air-headed young campus leftists/activists such as Zoe, Mr. Levant’s caricature of a 20-something McGill student in vegetarian studies who has never been west of Hamilton but has a brain filled with ethical angst over dozens of global issues about which she knows nothing — human rights, environmental degradation, poverty, climate change and Wall Street domination. Zoe is probably preparing even now for Saturday’s march on Bay Street. ...

Then his objections:

... Ethical oil backers appear to have co-opted the liberal left’s concerns about rights and the environment by portraying the oil sands as a morally superior source of oil. In the end, though, ethical oil abandons the principles of free trade and cedes the economic argument to the anti-free trade left. Ethical Oil is too clever for its own good. ...

And Ezra responds:

Hi Terry. Thanks for coming to my speech yesterday!
Defending Canada's ethical oil does not mean creating trade barriers against conflict oil from OPEC dictatorships. For one thing, it's impossible: there is just too much conflict oil on the world market and too little of the good stuff. We see this now with economic sanctions against Sudan and Iran: America doesn't buy any of that conflict oil, but China, Japan and India are desperate to buy all they can.
The ethical oil argument is the opposite of a trade barrier; it is a call for more transparency in the marketplace to allow consumers to make a fully-informed choice at the pumps. Some people don't care if their oil is from Saudi Arabia. But others do. Why not let the market decide? Fair trade coffee shops don't depend on putting Tim Hortons out of business. They just give consumers a chance to pay for the goodwill inherent in ethical production methods. But the good news for energy consumers is that, unlike fair trade coffee or Polar Bear diamonds, ethical oil doesn't cost any more than the foreign stuff.
Terry Corcoran is worried about a fantasy scenario where world governments would sanction blood oil. The real risk is the opposite: right now the European Union, looking to distract from its own appetite for blood oil, is threatening to slap trade barriers on our Canadian ethical oil. Let's fight that real trade threat before going off to fight one that doesn't exist yet.

I'd add that Ethical Oil is a well reasoned response to relentless attacks by environmental radicals and other hysterics, on Alberta's oil sands ("dirty, immoral, environment destroying tar sands, Big Oil, capitalist pigs, ..., ...").  Big Oil was doing a crappy job of defending itself, so someone had to.  Ezra deserves high praise for demolishing all the nonsense and makes the case that, contrary to the dearest wishes of the anti-oil mob and whether or not AGW is actually a problem, there is no alternative on the horizon.  Furthermore, each of the various causes promoted by activists has to be addressed on its own merits.  They are not all morally or ethically equivalent.  Pushing for dubious "fair trade" in coffee beans is hardly equivalent to the anti-apartheid movement.