The time to discuss reasonable replies to Mr. Steyn’s piece was after the article was published and before the human rights actions were launched. For Maclean’s to agree to any “settlement” with quasi-judicial proceedings under way would be tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing on our part when we have done nothing but practise responsible journalism.
It would also be improper and damaging to the integrity of Maclean’s, and a troubling precedent in Canadian media, for us to agree to negotiate the content of our magazine in return for the withdrawal of quasi-judicial legal actions and relief from punitive costs of defending those actions.
Moreover, any settlement at this point would have to be approved by human rights authorities in Ottawa, and would thus involve an implicit acceptance on our part of the jurisdiction of human rights commissions to regulate the content of print media publications in Canada. That is an unacceptable precedent.
We believe that a sincere attempt to settle this matter would have involved a direct and timely approach to Maclean’s rather than a press conference and public ultimatum eighteen months after the publication of Mr. Steyn’s piece. But rather than approaching this magazine for the purposes of conciliation, Mr. Joseph and his clients publicly impugned our journalists at a press conference, tactics sharply at odds with their stated goal of reaching an amicable resolution. macleans
I’m buying a subscription!
Overall a really crappy day for the Socks, Elmo and the CIC. And not such a great day for the CHRC as they are going to be stuck hearing this.
(And, by the way, how long can it take to answer my three complaints. Registered letter this week, Federal Court two weeks after that. Clock’s ticking Jadewarr.)
Aw, look at the cute little Canadian babies! It’s all very sweet and innocuous, right?
Don’t believe it. Read between the lines, and you realize this is a sinister Canadian plot to take over America. Canada’s military is no match for ours, so the crafty Canucks are using infancy instead of infantry to carry out their imperial designs.
Think about it. Canadian officials send women across the border, smuggling in “anchor babies” cleverly disguised as clumps of tissue. The women give birth inside the U.S., which means their Canadian offspring are entitled to U.S. citizenship. As these “children” grow and mature, they receive instructions from their masters in Ottawa about how to undermine American culture. JAMES TARANTO wall street journal
Instead, when I heard about it, I immediately said, great, let’s have a debate. No point me being in the same studio as the Sock Puppets and being kept in a hermetically sealed compartment. Yet even with a three-to-one advantage the Socks pussied out.
This is Islam as represented by the likes of the Canadian Islamic Congress. They don’t want any kind of honest open debate, because they can’t handle it. That’s why they prefer to use government agencies to shut down debate on the specious grounds of invented crimes like “Islamophobia”. And apparently TV producers, having been complicit in the fraud that the Sock Puppets are “the complainants”, are willing to protect the wee sensitive souls from any exposure of the charade. mark steyn
Has anyone told the Socks that in law the other side has a lawyer too?
These kids are priceless. They have galvanized the right and made the CHRC a laughingstock. Now they have demonstrated pure cowardice as wannabe bullies usually do.
I finally have the comments back to working....sort of. Basically I have to wade through the spam to find the nuggets. I do this a couple of times a day. Sometimes comments are lost. I am working on this. What I need is a Capcha like the coolkids have.