alpha mike fox: Free expression

Showing posts with label Free expression. Show all posts

Will labour unions stand down and let Toronto’s agencies evict the occupiers?

Ibelieve it is a dangerous sign that all too often when there is civil disobedience and breaches of public safety, there are labour unions, principally public sector unions, at the core of the illegal activity. We saw it the 2010 G-20 Toronto summit and we see it again at the recent “Occupations”.

Workers belonging to public sector unions are among the most privileged in the land. Their paycheques, vacation allowance, sick-leave and pensions are the envy of the private sector, and yet they seem determined to cast themselves as victims, and more particularly, victims of the capitalist system. And I wonder how many of the union leaders are themselves—by virtue of their income—in that detested 1% we hear so much about.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, role they’ll play in the eviction of Occupiers from St. James Park at Toronto. Will the unions stand down and allow the city to take control of its public space, or will they join the—as Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington phrases it—“urban warriors mustering and recruiting to put up a massive battle to prevent this?”

As Warmington rightly says:

Toronto Police, the bylaw people, the fire department, as well as the mayor’s office, have been very respectful toward the occupiers. There has been patience shown, discretion, integrity and, if anything, too much leniency. No one can say there has been an over the top response because there hasn’t been. There has been no pepper spray, rubber bullets or unnecessary kettling or arrests.

Now that the court has ruled if police do go into and remove the tents and structures from the park, as well as anyone not complying with bylaws, they will not be deemed unreasonable if these tactics are used, should they become necessary.

Surely, at some point, the rule of law must prevail. Let’s hope our public sector unions see it that way and let the city agencies get on with their jobs.

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Are days numbered for Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act?

© House of Commons – MP Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice

In what must be much to the chagrin of leftists across our land, Rob Nicholson (left), the federal Minister of Justice, rose in the House of Commons this week to urge MPs to vote for the repeal of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act because it is an affront to free speech.

Section 13, of course, is the controversial provision than bans communication that is likely to expose identifiable groups to hatred or contempt. The section has been pretty widely condemned over the past few years, with several national media organizations—including the National Post, Maclean’s and the Toronto Star—calling for it to go. And recently, Alberta MP Brian Storseth has put forth a private members bill that, if passed, would see the offensive section scrapped, leaving the criminal code to deal with charges of hate speech in Canada.

According a report in today’s National Post Mr. Nicholson congratulated Mr. Storseth “for his commitment to the promotion and protection of free speech among all Canadians.” The Post adds that the minister said:

Our government believes that Section 13 is not an appropriate or effective means for combatting hate propaganda. We believe the Criminal Code is the best vehicle to prosecute these crimes, therefore I urge all members to support [Mr. Storseth’s bill] and our government’s forthcoming amendments to strengthen the hate provisions of the Criminal Code.

Conservatives voted almost unanimously at a policy conference in 2008 in support of scrapping Section 13 so the minister’s support of Mr. Storseth’s bill is no surprise. And I’m fully expecting accusations from the opposition benches and elsewhere that the Conservative government seeks to protect hatemongers. Be that as it may, though, I support the move to scrap Section 13.

With government support for its repeal, Section 13 could finally be gone by early next year—better late than never, and Bravo! to the Conservative government.

Is this democracy or merely idiocy?

Not a moment too soon: patience seems to be wearing thin with the Occupy movements across Canada, and city officials in several communities are moving to reclaim public property. In some cases, demonstrators have been given deadlines to leave.

Apparently, patience has already run out in U.S. cities like Oakland, where Occupiers have had tear gas and beanbag rounds fired at them, and in Atlanta, where police arrested about 50 people after protesters were warned to leave a downtown park.

“People have a right to protest, but this is no longer a protest. This is a campground.”

– Charles Gauthier
Vancouver

In Calgary and Halifax, protesters have been asked to relocate, and the mayor of London, Ontario said that it’s time for the protesters to leave a city park. Not surprisingly too, the Occupy protests have become an issue in the Vancouver mayoral campaign.

In Toronto and Vancouver, city spokespersons have made it clear that, while they respect the right of citizens to hold public protests, they will not for much longer tolerate unlawful encampments in public spaces.

Edmonton businessman Ralph Young of Melcor Developments Ltd. gives an example of the public nuisance the Occupy movement typically causes when he noted that there’s a smell that lingers because the only sanitation facilities are a few portable toilets. And, apparently, Young has heard complaints from his corporate tenants about protesters “doing bodily functions outside in the open,” as well as the sudden appearance of syringes and needles nearby.

Who among us would like to have that on or near our property?

I believe we need a better balance between citizens’ right to peaceful protest in parks and other public spaces and the general public’s right to enjoy those spaces. And surely it’s the duty of police services to remove protesters from private property that has been occupied without explicit permission of the owners. I agree with Charles Gauthier, Executive Director, Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Assn., who said recently, “People have a right to protest, but this is no longer a protest. This is a campground.”

In Montreal, about 200 demonstrators have set up camp in a park in front of the Montreal Stock Exchange tower. A spokesman for the city said there are no plans to remove these people.

In downtown Toronto, rag-tag group of people are illegally living in St. James park in tents and makeshift shelters. The protesters have been there for two weeks and are occupying the park without a permit, which makes them squatters.

On the west coast, heavy rains turned Occupy Vancouver’s shanty-town of tents on the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery into a muddy quagmire this week.

So what about those who live and work in those areas, Have they no rights? Why aren’t the policy enforcing laws by which the rest of us abide? Is this democracy or merely idiocy?

Latest test of Canada’s hate-speech laws

Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa | Kevin Morris

The Supreme Court reserved judgment on Wednesday regarding the case of a Saskatchewan man, William Whatcott, accused of anti-gay hate speech—the top court will issue a written ruling in the future. The Supreme Court appeal, brought by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, is focused on photocopies that Mr. Whatcott distributed in Regina and Saskatoon 10 years ago.

In 2002 Mr. Whatcott had been found by a tribunal to be in violation of Section 14 of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code, which prohibits speech that “exposes or tends to expose to hatred, ridicules, belittles, or otherwise affronts the dignity [of an identifiable group].” In his defence, Mr. Whatcott made the distinction between homosexual conduct and gay identity, and the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal agreed and overturned his tribunal conviction.

Is it not appalling that a provincial legislature can pass a law making it an offence to ridicule, belittle, or affront the dignity of an identifiable group? Has the Saskatchewan legislature become so captured by the intolerance of political correctness it has lost its collective common sense? Let’s hope our top court has not suffered similarly and will strike down this vague piece of silly legislation.

In 1990, the Supreme Court judged the federal human rights law against hate speech to be a reasonable limit on the Charter right to free expression. As far as I can tell, the standard used was a definition of hate as “unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification.” Take note that almost all the terms used in this definition are synonyms of libel and slander, which are already covered by our criminal code.

Additionally, the legal definition of hatred has been refined in human rights law (by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal) with an eleven-point checklist of “hallmarks of hate.” As far as I’m concerned, the only point worth protecting groups from is number 11, “Calls to take violent action against the targeted group.” Libel and slander laws should take care of the rest or send the case to a proper court with charges under the Criminal Code of Canada.

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants to us all freedom of conscience and religion, and freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media. Section 1 then restricts the granted freedoms by making them subject “only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

I contend that suppression of expressions of contempt, ridicule, belittlement, or affronts to dignity cannot fairly be considered reasonable limits that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. Freedom of expression is far too fundamental a right to be so easily restricted. Without freedom of expression, other rights are virtually meaningless.

Political correctness is stifling our democracy. In our over-reaching attempts to protect certain groups, we are abandoning too many others to the clutches of capricious tribunals and vote-hungry legislators.

Let us hope the Supreme Court will return some sense of sanity to our so-called hate-speech laws—and won’t keep us waiting too long for its decision.

Name-calling as a substitute for open debate?

The phenomenon of using name-calling as a tactic to silence debate is alive and flourishing in this Ontario campaign. Homophobia seems to be the slur of the day: the Grits are slamming the Tories because of “Hudak’s homophobic flyers” (pictured) that the Grits claim falsely accuse Dalton McGuinty of “keeping parents in the dark” about the province’s sex-ed school curriculum.

According to this CTV report: “The Toronto District School Board has developed a 219-page curriculum resource guide for kindergarten through Grade 12 called ‘Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism’.”

The report claims the resource guide “recommends schools not advise parents when teachers will be introducing concepts such as gender discrimination and non-traditional families in the classroom.”

About 17 months ago, Dalton McGuinty had to back off from a controversial sex education curriculum planned for our grade schools, because of outrage from parents. At the time, he seemed to be caught by surprise by the new curriculum, and within hours of his education minister defending it in the provincial legislature, he told reporters the sex-ed program was halted.

Curious that in 2010 he wasn’t calling parents who were outraged by the sex-ed plan “homophobic”. Back then, he said:

“…it’s very important that as a government …we listen very carefully to what parents have to say and we take their concerns into account and lend shape to a curriculum that they are comfortable with.”

Apparently, the education ministry did not heed McGuinty’s words for nothing much has changed in the past year as far as the content and tone of proposed sex education is concerned, at least, not in our provincial capital, Toronto. And when the PC party publishes a flyer demonstrating that party stands on the side of parents, the Liberal war room slurs Tim Hudak as being homophobic.

That’s it isn’t it? In the eyes of the progressives, one can never criticize a pro-gay, lesbian, etc., agenda without being homophobic. We must all genuflect before the alter of Gay Pride or risk being accused as having an irrational fear of homosexuality and homosexuals, being labeled a bigot, and suffering other unattractive and insulting consequences.

Dirty tricks dreamed up in the smoky backrooms of the political bosses are nothing new, of course, but they remain as cynical as they always were and have a corrosive effect on our democracy. Playing clean is anathema to any Grit party machine. To expect otherwise is like expecting scorpions to stop stinging—its part of their innate nature.

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Tory MP Brian Storseth gives free-speechers something to cheer about

There’s an old saying, Better late than never. An apt way to describe my reaction to the news that five years after forming the government, the Conservatives have put forward an initiative to amend section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), upon which federal Human Rights Commission/Tribunal hate speech cases are based.

Section 13 (1) states in part (full text here):

“It is a discriminatory practice … to communicate … any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

This is a nasty bit of legislation that has emboldened petty officials to overreach in their efforts to reengineer our society. Not only does it place unreasonable restrictions on our right to free expression, but it is also discriminatory for it offers special protections only to certain persons in our society, that is, only to those who are “identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

No protection here for most of us. Nor should there be. Our criminal code already covers slander, libel and hate speech. And none of us require protection from communications that can be merely insulting.

At the Conservative Party’s 2008 policy convention at Winnipeg, delegates passed a resolution to repeal/modify (I can’t remember which) section 13. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson supported the resolution so, since its passing, I’ve anxiously awaited action in Ottawa. No luck so far.

“Freedom of speech is a fundamental principle in our democracy and one which Canadians have fought and died for, for over a century.”

– MP Brian Storseth

Liberal MP Keith Martin proposed a private member’s bill to rescind section 13.1. Martin said it is being applied by “rogue commissions where a small number of people [are] determining what Canadians can and can’t say.” He also said some of history’s most important ideas “were originally deemed to be sacrilegious and certainly in opposition to conventional wisdom.” Unfortunately, without the backing of the party in power, the bill died without coming to a vote. Another Liberal MP, former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler called for reform of section 13, to little effect, of course.

Finally, our wait may soon come to an end. Brian Storseth, a Conservative MP from Alberta’s Westlock-St. Paul riding has taken up the cause. He has introduced Bill C-304, “An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (Protecting Freedom),” a private member’s bill that—since it’s a Conservative MP’s initiative—could actually see the light of day and may even get a chance to be debated.

Have heart, free-speechers!