Cluck, Cluck, Cluck….Coward
Ms. Lynch whacks herself, again.
Let me leave you with such an obvious question: if my arguments are so fallacious; if my facts are so inaccurate; don’t you think a smart lawyer like Lynch—with a staff of over 200 flunkies, including a half dozen PR staff—would be able to tear me to shreds, especially with a fair moderator like Roy Green?If I had a single inaccuracy in my book or blog, don’t you think Lynch would be able to detonate me? If she had an answer to my charges, don’t you think she’d love to expose them on a national radio show—and leave me stammering for a reply?
Of course. Which is precisely why she won’t debate me. And it’s why she wants to go last, so I can’t rebut her own lies.
Bring it on! ezra levant
The coward Lynch really is an idiot. Ezra is going to be invited onto every mainstream media show the silly woman is booked on. Producers like contrast and they like balance. She’s running but she can’t hide. And, rather quickly, the story is going to shift from her loony report to the fact she is petrified of debating Ezra. Which, along with her rather unfortunate voice and paucity of ideas will make her a laughingstock coast to coast. The terrain has changed. Ezra is just as big a deal as this nitwit. She has to debate him or simply skulk off the field, defeated, tail between her legs. But she knows she can’t because if she does he will bring up the corruption and brutal improprieties of the Commission and its Hate Speech Unit. Which means she’d lose and lose badly.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Hah! Levant will bring up HIS choice of material no matter in which order they present. I’m thinking ‘check’ if not ‘checkmate’.
With an empathetic interviewer, this could be his finest hour.
June 20th, 2009 at 6:02 am
Bring it on Jay!
June 20th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Come on Jay, don’t you want to be a better man? Stop with the coward this, coward that? Please? I’m begging you! It’s upsetting me and driving me into the arms of the cowardly human rights tribunals. Shit! See what you’ve done? Bastard!
But enough about that. I should now like to answer Ezra’s rheotorical question. Listeners to shows like Roy Green are not necessarily interested in a fact based debate. Roy Green is a purveyor of good ‘ol fashion common sense talk radio. His listeners, I think (in the main) want to hear Roy chant the mantra of “ain’t it awful what’s become of this ‘ol world…”
My guess is that Lynch just plain dislikes Levant and his bombast. Does not want to share anything with him. I personally think of all the writers and talkers in the blogosphere on the terribly tired topic of free speech and the horrible looming threat of the loss of same Levant does the best job. He articulates the thing wonderfully, and like you he does not need to reach for the nasty decriptors. It’s shouting Jay. It’s ALL CAPS in another guise.
June 20th, 2009 at 8:11 am
In the Lower Mainland (Vancouver), CKNW 980AM
The Roy Green Show
11:00AM – 2:00PM Sat.
June 20th, 2009 at 9:04 am
You’re going on at Jay for calling Lynch a coward? She is a coward. As for Ezra, here’s what he calls her:
Commissar Lynch; a bully; a liar. He refers to her “speech of an angry bigot”. He also calls her “bitter, vindictive, paranoid…” He refers to her “sociopathic staff” and their “brownshirt approach.” He compares her to a dictator of banana republic.
Jay’s “coward” reference seems no worse. Actually, both he and Ezra are very accurate with their descriptions.
June 20th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Who gives a damn who lynch likes or dislikes? It’s her fucking job, and if she had any intelligence at all she’d get over herself and do it. If this cause is as crucial as she thinks it is, why isn’t she out there confronting her harshest critic? Doesn’t she get paid for this?
I suspect she has some pomo justification about power and confrontation to justify her half-ass attitude, but it’s crap. She knows how weak she is.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Her fall will be because Ezra stood up, uncovered corruption, threatened the gravy train HR racket, and he is the sunlight shining on Lynch the vampire. He’s destroying her and her lackeys. It’s as simple as that. No, she won’t debate him. The jig is up.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:24 am
She is above her critics and answers directly to the government, when necessary. She does not stoop to answer the criticism of common citizens. She and her agency are performing a central function to the creation of tolerance in Canada. The charges of infringing upon free speech are overblown distortions that misrepresent the mission and undermine the public trust.
I should think you all would be a little more appreciative and a lot less cynical.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Nazz jones is right – she is a public servant and as such doesn’t get to pick and choose who she likes or dislikes. Her job is to ensure that the application of Human Rights Act (such as it is and it should be changed big time) is applied fairly and equally to all Canadians – not just the ones that are easy targets, or will fold quickly. Otherwise she is not doing her job and should be dismissed. Government services rely on being delivered fairly, predictably and with routine – not changing at the whim of the public servant who is delivering them. Which, BTW, is why there should be minimum of government services because not even in a perfect world can a government service be applied fairly and consistently to the vast array of problems generated by the public – witness the current mess in EI - trying to solve each and every unique situation of how and why you are unemployed has lead to a system that is overly complex, unfair to some and overly generous to others, etc. etc. etc. – but that is another debate.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Nicholas, I am assuming you are being ironic.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Nicholas says: “I should think you all would be a little more appreciative and a lot less cynical.”
Of what, and why? You’re faced daily with an avalanche of news from far away regimes, where naive societies took their eye off the ball for a moment and ended up being enslaved. Can’t happen here? Such an innocent…
(Greece, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Lebanon, Iran…feel free to add to the list. Greece and Argentina at least were finally brought back by popular revolution.)
June 20th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Commissar Lynch; a bully; a liar. He refers to her “speech of an angry bigot”. He also calls her “bitter, vindictive, paranoid…” He refers to her “sociopathic staff” and their “brownshirt approach.” He compares her to a dictator of banana republic.
And you folks really think she should have a serious national debate with this hateful bag of wind?
June 20th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Yup. And when she does, and she is going to have to, she will have to answer a series of well prepared, carefully crafted, grounded in evidence questions going to the profound and irredeemable corruption of the Hate Crimes Unit of the CHRC and the impossibility of rejigging s. 13 to eliminate its overbreadth and lack of proceedural protections. And when she is unable to change the subject, because Ezra won’t let her, the coward Lynch will be road kill and s. 13 with her.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
You have to admire her penchant for creating hero’s against her. The Canadian thought police should not only be banned but a bill that never see‘s their like again.
Ezra will slice & dice her into wee little gibbering bits. After all he has real facts with something these bureaucrats fear the most. Truth!
JMO
June 20th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Jay: I listened to Lynch on the Roy Green show. With only one ear, mind, because I was driving with the Mrs and needed the other ear to field her questions about shopping and tomatoes etc.
Lynch does not have a listener-friendly voice, I’ll grant. But Ezra does not have a particularly video-friendly face, so what the hell,eh? Roy Green managed a civilized back and forth with Lynch, and he did not hesitate to ask “tough” questions.
He did all of that minus the vitriol and personalized snark that has become the hallmark of blog-based opponents to the HRC and Section 13. This tends to re-inforce my impression of blogs that scream, endlessly, about this issue.
Are you screaming to be heard? Are you screaming because, as many folks have come to believe, that is what blogs do in an effort to gain attention? I mean, for example, when you call someone a “liar” is this because you have clear and irrefutable proof that that person has lied about an agreed upon fact (eg. when the sun is in the sky, it’s daytime…)
You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do, Jay. You have said calling Lynch a “coward” is part of a strategy to create a “meme”. My vote is for a civilized, toned down discussion of the issues.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Johnny, I appreciate your call for civility; but the only reason the coward Lynch was on Green’s show and being asked tough questions is that people, many of whom are bloggers have kept kicking until the daylight has begun to show.
(And on the question of my use of “liar” why yes, I do have clear and irrefutable proof (not to mention screenshots) of the Lying Jackal telling lies.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Is there an audio link available for the Levant v Lynch “debate” on Green’s show yet? If so, could someone please provide this?
June 20th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
hateful bag of wind
Everything Ezra said was backed up with the coward Lynch’s own words, so there’s nothing “hateful” at all about it. I guess the truth just hurts some poor sensitive little ears. Maybe the coward Lynch and her supporters should go fill out one of these: Hurt Feelings Report. I’m sure it could be adapted to suit the Lynch Mob.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Jay: To be clear, I was referring to Levant calling lynch a liar. Do you think this issue would not have come to the attention of the MS media without the nasty edge? If so, I suppose I accept that. I’m not naive, I don’t think. But I have the sense folks, off and on line, are tiring of vitriol in the so called public discourse. Just like Survivor may have been in vogue, and a template of sorts for what we’re interested in having reflected back to us, I think folks have really become inclined to turn away from public discourse, if participation means getting a face full of mud.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Natasha: you’ve illustrated my position quite nicely. Why the vitriol? Why the “poor sensitive ears…”? Why the snark? Is it some kind of contest? Lynch is on the record, vis a vis her interview on Green’s show. Why not discuss her answers to Green’s questions?
Do you seriously think the average Canadian (whatever the hell that is…) is interested in filling out a “Hurt Feelings Report”? The average Canadian has no idea this debate is even happening. This is not on the radar of the overwhelming majority of Canadians. Or am I wrong here? Is this issue right up there with deficit budgets, rising unemployment, climate change/no climate change?
June 20th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
“She is above her critics and answers directly to the government, when necessary.”
Yes, of course I am being ironic. The scary thing is, all this does actually sound like the line of reasoning she might use, so much so that DaninVan thought I was trying to advance a valid point. I get the sense that having to answer to the government itself seems beneath her, and an unnecessary formality. She would be far more effective in terms of reaching her goals if unfettered by such restraints.(Irony)
The Dawg finds Mr. Levants words offensive, and beyond the pale of civil debate. I find Ms. Lynch’s actions offensive, and fully deserving of the ridicule heaped upon her and her minions. Of course she must answer her critics, however distasteful she might find that to be, or lose all pretense of being a representative of a free society.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:24 am
Lynch isn’t a “representative of a free society.” Elected politicians are those representatives. She’s a public employee. While in the position she holds she has a public informative role, that role is fairly circumscribed. It is not meant to be political, and would be most improper if it were.
To get into a public pissing match with the chief pisher of the wingnut conservatives would not be seemly, to put it mildly. It would be like having the Commissioner of the RCMP debating a crime lord on the merits of drug legislation.
Lynch thinks a public debate is healthy, and she is right. But that doesn’t mean that she has to lead it. Her role is to provide information. That’s what she’s been doing, and to do any more would be inappropriate. All Levant has to offer is uber-partisan political polemics of a particularly ugly kind. It’s well outside her role to respond to that sort of thing, and in fact to do so would be unprofessional.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:56 am
Johnny Maudlin: Why the vitriol? Why the “poor sensitive ears…”? Why the snark?
Could you sound any more whiny!
As Nicholas says: The Dawg finds Mr. Levants words offensive, and beyond the pale of civil debate. I find Ms. Lynch’s actions offensive, and fully deserving of the ridicule heaped upon her and her minions. Exactly—and actions speak louder than words.
Ooh, “Ezra says hurtful words. He’s so mean.” Christ, you’re not talking to your mommies here, so grow up and grow a pair. If you want to whine, call up your mommies—maybe they’ll want to listen to your snivelling.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:59 am
Dawg, the coward Lynch crossed many a line with her June 15 speech:
———
“informed by the misinformation and spin of our critics”
“Articles described human rights commissions and their employees in this way:
* “Gestapo”
* “human rights racket”
* “welcome to the whacky world of Canadian human rights.”
* “...(i)t sounds like a fetish club for servants of the Crown”
* “a secretive and decadent institution”
In addition to this mounting discredit for our institution:
* blogs worked to destroy our investigators and litigators’ reputations and credibility with untrue accusations;
* groundless complaints were lodged with the law societies; and
* a Commission employee’s life was threatened.
Some human rights experts tried to respond and correct this misinformation. One human rights expert who wrote a letter to a major daily paper faced an accusation in a response letter by a journalist the next day asking, “is (name of person) a drunken pedophile?”
As personal attacks were made against anyone who tried to correct the record, the number of people willing to make the effort dwindled. There is tangible proof of this: 50% of interviewees for an upcoming book on human rights have stated that they feel “chilled” about speaking up.”
————
this was an outright, completely political attack on critics of s.13, the CHRC and its corrupt Hate Crimes unit. (It was also stunningly inaccurate – especially the line “is (name of person) a drunken pedophile?” which was Steyn underscoring Pearl Eradis’ use of this tactic and which Lynch repeated with her own name on the Charles Adler show. Her tone deafness and the inability of her handlers to do their research is stunning.)
Providing information is one, legitimate, activity. Attacking and misrepresenting your critics is another. As soon as the coward Lynch crossed that line she dropped any pretense of professionalism is became a politician. Different role, different rules.
June 21st, 2009 at 11:15 am
LOL Dr Dawg: Lynch “the crime lord”. Very amusing. You do have a sense of humour!
June 21st, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Thank you Nicholas for stating you were being sarcastic. Dr. Dawg, you simply cannot defend the indefensible. Sorry.
““She is above her critics and answers directly to the government, when necessary.” When necessary???? Are you kidding me? She refused to appear before a parliamentary committee just this week!
“Why the snark?” Again, are you kidding me? She gets the snark because she is a servant of the people, and refused to answer for her self. We all have the duty to treat her with ultimate SNARK for her arrogance. She works FOR us, not parliament. We pay her wages. Who The F**k does she think she answers to?
And yes, Nicholas, ACTIONS speak much louder than words. Dr Dawg needs to pull his head out of his ass and stop looking at the world through Utopian, PC lenses… Tyranny is still tyranny no matter who is pulling the lever of power. Get a grip on the concept of LIBERTY, Dr. D…. its very enlightening. The hurt feelings of the FEW doesn’t justify the oppression and persecution of the many. I’m all for immigration, but they must conform to our values, not the other way around.
June 21st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Dawgie – You really are a joke. The “wingnut” in questions has a best selling book on the HRCs with one of Canada’s leading presses. And you? An unread (and unreadable) blog. Why don’t you get back to us when you have more than invective to offer.
June 21st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
arctic_front:
“She refused to appear before a parliamentary committee just this week!”
Prove that assertion.
“We pay her wages. Who The F**k does she think she answers to?”
I pay Stephen Harper’s wages. I demand that he debate me publicly, say next week.
Craig:
You are one of the most intellectually dishonest people I have ever encountered in nearly four years of blogging: I can’t believe that you have a tenure-track position in a legit university.
I have raised the actual arguments on the issue of the HRTs ad infinitum at my place, and you’ve been a visitor there. My arguments are perfectly readable: I suspect that’s what galls you.
I’m personally sick of the personal attacks, falsehoods and poo-flinging that seem to be the stock-in-trade of the Speech Warriors: your opposition are all “trouts,” and “cowards” and “Chekists”; it seems perfectably acceptable to you lot to simply make stuff up—calling Dean Steacy a “criminal,” for example. Or to launch a vicious broadside against a CHRC worker because he’s blind. There is nothing you lot won’t stoop to.
Sauce for the goose, pal. Why not talk about the issues? It seems you just can’t be bothered. You’d rather just smear more feces on the wall.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
By the way, Levant’s despicable bigotry against the disabled is documented—check it out. And note that not even Free Dominion could stomach his comments.
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2008/03/assault-on-blind-man.html
June 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Dawg, it is beyond sipute that Lynch is a coward simply because she will not engage with her foremost critic while loudly calling for debate and balance. And it is pretty clear why she will not engage with Ezra – she has no answers for the proven corruption the CHRC hate Crimes Unit engaged(s) in except flat out denial. The problem with that tactic is that the transcripts of her own people admitting to this sordid conduct, under oath exist.
I don’t think anyone at my blog has called Dean Steacy a criminal. However, I would want to see him investigated along with the rest of the cowboys in the Hate Crimes Unit just so we can determine if criminal activity occurred. (And you, as a civil libertarian and an ardent advocate of proper procedure with respect to policing or citizenship matters should join me in demanding a full scale judicial investigation of the CHRC Hate Crimes Unit.)
Now, as a general rule, Dawg, you do make arguments, albeit weak one, for the continued existence of s. 13 and the CHRC’s continued involvement in striping Canadians of their Charter Rights. And you base these on arguments of administrative efficiency and access. I happen to think these arguments have been answered here and elsewhere. The coward Lynch in her report to Parliament has, at least, acknowledged that s. 13 is flawed in so far as it allows penalties (aka $ to Lucy) to be levied by the Commission. Now, frankly, I am far more concerned about lifetime removal of Charter Rights than dollar penalties but the CHRC knew that to avoid having their corruption called on the carpet they had to throw some bone. So they threw this one.
And, equally to the point, they have implicitly conceded that they had no policy or management guidelines for the Hate Crimes Unit by promising to publish one. This is another, small, point suggesting that there is a good deal of rot here.
It is all very well for you to say your arguments are readable, however, are they right? I think not.
As to poo flinging: given the stunt the coward Lynch pulled off accusing Steyn of calling Pearl Eradis (or however you spell her name) a “drunken pedophile” when, in fact it was Pearl who has used the particular trope in an earlier speech, I don’t think you have any business accusing we speechies of of unedifying rhetoric.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Dawg, you really do leave yourself open. Ezra said nothing bigoted about Steacy unless noting the fact he did his work with an assistant is somehow bigoted. What Ezra did note, and you should as well, is Steacy’s blank refusal to answer questions put to him:
“Steacy simply refused to answer several questions put to him. His lawyer had no legal objection to them; he was there under subpoena. Steacy simply didn’t like the questions, so he didn’t answer them—and Hadjis sat there, blinking, a deer in headlights. In a real court, a real judge would have ordered Steacy to answer, or be held in contempt. That’s because, to a real court, Steacy wasn’t just thumbing his nose at the accused, he was thumbing his nose at the legal process itself—at the judge himself. Steacy might even have faced jail, in a real court; his employer, the CHRC, might have faced other sanctions; the case against Lemire itself might have turned on that conduct.”
June 21st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Jay:
You keep using the word “corruption.” With the greatest respect, it’s an assertion you folks keep making, but you have proved absolutely nothing. No criminality (it was Steyn who named Steacy as a “criminal” in Maclean’s. I would personally throw a lot of bucks in a hat to help Steacy sue him for that flagitious comment). No malfeasance. Nothing.
All hot air, Jay. If you don’t like hate speech restrictions, OK. That’s worth an argument, although we’ve had them many times. If you don’t like administrative tribunals, even if their decisions are subject to judicial review, OK again. I disagree, not with your forming such arguments, against which I pose the public good and relative ease of citizen access, but with the endless stream of personal attacks, silly name-calling, and baseless accusations that you folks keep making, with the logorrheic Levant the chief, but very far from the only, offender.
There is a principled argument to be had, and we have had it, you and I. But this other stuff is beyond the pale. No wonder even Stephen Harper is steering clear.
Incidentally, although I come to this late, I think a screening mechanism with safeguards might have prevented any of this from becoming an issue in the first place, and I think that recommendation in the Lynch report is entirely sound. Citizen complaints against Macleans magazine and Levant triggered the reaction, even though the complaints did not meet the bar, and were, as I and other observers had predicted with confidence, dismissed.
I also agree (and here truewest and I disagreed a few months back) that if someone is out of pocket because they have to respond to a frivolous complaint, there should be some attempt to make him or her whole. (And that doesn’t mean $100,000 to pay for Levant’s incessant self-promotion and grandstanding. I’ve never believed that claim of his anyway—more piffle.) Of course, these two recommendations are somewhat at odds with each other.
One last comment—it’s becoming clearer now that human rights legislation in toto is the real target, not mere sections having to do with hate speech. I don’t know whether that causes you concern, as a civil libertarian, but it gives me the willies.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Jay:
I’d missed your last comment. This should suffice to make my point and refute yours:
“Look, I think it’s great that Steacy’s still working after going blind—the fact that he was the CHRC’s union boss probably ensured that his lower productivity and need for another assistant wouldn’t even be considered.”
“Lower productivity?” Do you folks give a damn about evidence? If Levant had his way, blind people would be relegated to selling pencils on Main Street. (You old enough to remember that?)
June 21st, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Dawg, swapping out evidence which has already been entered strikes me as criminal on a number of levels. Refusing to answer questions put to you by counsel is not criminal until you are are ordered to answer by a judge; but it is most certainly corrupt. Stating one thing under oath and then changing your story when presented with contradictory evidence – borderline perjury and certainly corrupt. And so on.
There is a can of worms at the Hate Crimes Unit of the CHRC which the coward Lynch is desperately trying to keep a lid on…she will fail and when she does s. 13 will be repealed and, I hope, a full on judicial inquiry into the practices of the Hate Crimes Unit will be undertaken.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Dawg, I would hold some appreciation for your argument if you did not resort to the same tactics of which you complain.
You once labeled me a prevaricator with no evidence whatsoever to bolster that position. You didn’t like what I had to say, therefore, you were determined to pronounce me a dishonest person well on my way to gaining Nazi or Nazi-enabler status.
I am not dishonest. I am not a Nazi. I am not a Nazi-enabler. Nor, I suspect, are any of the people posting on this site. You were frustrated with the argument so simply found a convenient way to dismiss my (our) argument(s).
I am simply a citizen with an abiding interest in protecting the speech rights (er, apparently in Canada, I should call them expression rights) of all Canadians. I do not believe that Government and/or Government bureaucracies are the proper determiners what what is or is not offensive as this can easily change at the whim of who or what is in power at any given time. There are too many examples of originally well-meaning restrictions (free speech among them) going awry and negatively affecting the very populations the restrictions were originally intended to serve. The law of unintended consequences, if you will.
Our freedom to express ourselves is one of the few very real freedoms we still possess. I do not want to see that eliminated, no matter how vile, unless and until it reaches the level of the criminal.
It is my belief that restricting what people can say in public, only drives the vile or nonsensical underground where there will be no opportunity for debate, no chance to reason with adherents, and no chance to change minds with well-reasoned argument, thus giving people no chance to vent their frustrations, no matter how clumsily or vilely stated.
I find it interesting in looking through Tribunal documents that the language used appears to be more important than the intent. For example, if the language was plain, containing a significant amount of the vernacular, it was deemed offensive but if the language used in the argument, while essentially meaning the same thing was provided in the ‘Queen’s English’, it would be determined to have been permissible.
This to me suggests a level of bias the CHRC’s may not yet have considered – social condition or perhaps level of education. On the one hand they are attempting to broaden their definition of identifiable groups to include social condition, yet they fail to acknowledge that those of different social conditions may have different ways of expressing their frustrations. Plain and vulgar language may be de rigueur and used with accepted regularity in certain ;social conditions’ yet be verboten in others.
My question is, how might the CHRC address this conundrum?
June 21st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Jan:
Some examples, re your last 3 paras, would be appreciated.
I do not believe that Government and/or Government bureaucracies are the proper determiners what what is or is not offensive as this can easily change at the whim of who or what is in power at any given time
And yet we have libel laws, anti-incitement laws, public mischief laws, spreading false news laws, and criminal hate speech laws. They didn’t fall from the sky.
But no one, in any case, has had his or her precious political speech rights taken away, except for a miserable collection of hard-core Nazis and homophobes. Frankly, until I see the law stray beyond that, I’m not losing much sleep. And, despite the frankly hysterical language of the Speech Warriors, I’ve seen no signs of it.
I can’t remember calling you a “prevaricator,” by the way. If you were using the same tone as in the comment to which I am replying, you have my apologies.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
If Ezra was a woman, a liberal, a feminist studies prof or a recent immigrant, he’d win the order of canada for what he is doing; he really is an outstanding canadian who is fighting the good fight against some rather malicious bullies.
for all our sakes, let’s hope he wins – we win – or else this nation will end up a lot like contemporary Russia (just with a higher standard of living).
June 21st, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Dawg – talk about intellectually dishonest. When you stop implying that our defence of free speech rights is tantamount to Nazism I’ll take you seriously.
June 21st, 2009 at 9:59 pm
“But no one, in any case, has had his or her precious political speech rights taken away, except for a miserable collection of hard-core Nazis and homophobes.”
Oh, well, that’s OK then, as long as we only limit speech we disagree with! Maybe we should all run our copy by you first for benediction.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:37 pm
You remind me of the doctor who says assuringly This wont hurt a bit, just as he draws back the cover on the needle.
And yet we have libel laws, etc.
Yes, of course, but these are laws. Residing in the states, I am somewhat less sure, but I assume that would mean that if one is accused of violating these laws the accused has all the legal protections guaranteed by the charter. What’s more, if the people find the laws to be inappropriate, they have means by which to change the laws through the parliament. None of this is true under the administrative laws of the Human Rights Commissions. That is a huge difference which you are well aware of, so where is the grounding in your response?
But no one, in any case, has had his or her precious political speech rights taken away
We all have.
Including yourself.
We have been placed on notice that if what we say is considered “hateful”, or if someone claims they felt discriminated against, then we are subject to investigation and conviction by the HRC. They have flat out stated that they feel it their duty to monitor and bring before their hearings anyone whom someone considers to be offensive. This is setting the bar rather low wouldn’t you say? And no, safeguards and mechanisms are no fix, for there still will be people at the safeguard level making subjective decisions over who should be investigated. Even a journalist, a member of the media (the bastion of freedom of speech), was placed on trial before these tribunals. This necessarily makes the people cautious in what they say. That is a bad thing.
Whether you accept or reject the above, there still is the curiosity of the sarcasm in your response. Surely freedom of speech is precious to us all?
Administrative law is not where these kinds of cases should be heard, especially not as realized by the Human Rights Commissions. You might do well to have yourself or a colleague brought up before one of these tribunals.
Now that would be irony.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:04 am
Dawg, You seem to have already found the RCMP “Guilty” yet you argue that you agree with Ms. Lynch that no staff posted on neo-nazi sites, made racist and did other bad things. Many here and elsewhere seem to disagree.
Take a look at this related to “Lucie”
http://chrt-tcdp.gc.ca/search/files/t1216_2807chrt10.pdf
(see Section 59 and 60 as a start then move up)
Jay has already commented on Stacey’s refusal to answer questions. In the Lemire case alone, I believe another investigator (ex) claimed in response to over 150 questions that he couldn’t remember or words to that effect. RIGHT!
It is no secret ID’s such as “Lucie”, Mary”, “Axetogrind”,Poque Mahone, Jadewarr and so many more were used on Neo-Nazi/Racist and Hate sites that they had to sign up for. Thus they were in fact “Members” whether she wants to admit it or not.
For Lynch to deny the obvious – what is in the public record may simply mean she has taken her eye of the ball and has other more lofty positions in sight, is out of the managerial loop and senior staff are keeping her in the dark.
But were I her, I would be getting real nervous and would want to assure myself that nothing Ezra, Mark and others are saying has any validity. For staff to act in this manner and get critized by the CHRT Chair would set the alarm bells ringing as to what else happened in the other cases – including ones co-investigated by Sgt. Chase, Shane Martinez and of course Jadewar.
They have no no Ethics Code,(Langtry seemed to suggest that the Public Service Code of Conduct was just fine but I can point out well over 100 seperate incidents to the contrary) no Internal Affairs group, no Oversight Committee thus clearly a Criminal Investigation is indicated.The Internet Affair and posts on Stormfront needs to be reopened and get real.
In fact, should evidence come forward that there was criminal activity, she herself could be charged under the CC. Why it has to be an RCMP investigation though is that many of the cases in Provinces outside of Ontario and some of the CHRC staff were active in them.
Join all of us in asking for a RCMP investigation. I am sure there is someone out there who knows how to create a Petition?
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:10 am
What’s more, if the people find the laws to be inappropriate, they have means by which to change the laws through the parliament. None of this is true under the administrative laws of the Human Rights Commissions. That is a huge difference which you are well aware of, so where is the grounding in your response?
You see, this is the kind of shopworn ignorance that at this point has been known to make me intemperate. The HRTs are administrative tribunals. We have literally dozens of these in Canada. They do the grunt work of the court system. Their decisions are broadly reviewable by a court: I know what I’m talking about here, as a former union official, because a good deal of labour law is administered through a tribunal system, and the courts not infrequently review and reverse decisions in that arena.
Human rights legislation, like any other legislation, can be changed through parliament/legislatures. Your point here is obscure.
Finally, I don’t have the right to publicly call my neighbour a pedophile, or to call for his death, but I don’t feel my free speech rights are much impeded by such strictures. I don’t feel threatened. They’re a small price to pay for living in a civil society.
There is no slippery slope here. Hate speech is well defnined in the law and in jurisprudence. The bar is high. The blogosphere surely proves that. We pretty much say what we like, we all disagree with each other, sometimes to the point of gross incivility, but no one is calling for sanctions, unless defamation comes into play. (Just ask Ezra—he’s running a lawsuit or two of his own at the moment.)
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
If I were subjected to the same treatment as Ezra, I imagine I would be emotionally charged and angry too. Ezra is being quite civil. especialy consdering the way he has been treated. IMHO
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:45 am
I appreciate the apology, Dawg. Thank you.
If you read through Dean Steacy’s testimony at the Lemire hearings, you’ll understand my reference to language used. I would try to find it for you but frankly, I don’t have the time to search and reread the testimony.
Jay has expanded on this concept in an above post and I agree with him. Educated, intelligent people with generous vocabularies can write or say terrible things quite nicely. So nicely, the listener or the reader may never even realize they’ve been offended.
And, then there’s Rap. :-)
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:33 am
”You see, this is the kind of shopworn ignorance that at this point has been known to make me intemperate. The HRTs are administrative tribunals. We have literally dozens of these in Canada. They do the grunt work of the court system. Their decisions are broadly reviewable by a court: I know what I’m talking about here, as a former union official, because a good deal of labour law is administered through a tribunal system, and the courts not infrequently review and reverse decisions in that arena.”
Well, I hate to raise your ire, but you must realize from the comment you just quoted that there is a certain tiresome quality to the discussion for myself as well.
Whether you are a formal union official or not, you will be hard pressed to indicate to all where one of the Human Rights Council decisions has been reviewed and reversed by an actual court of law. That is the essence of the complaint against the HRC, that they act outside the nation’s laws and undermine the civil liberties of the citizenry. The entire process is open to abuse (see Richard Warman), and the manner in which the tribunals arrive at their decisions turns a number of the legal precedents (right to face one’s accuser, rules of evidence, requirement that the decision made be supported by the law and justified by the evidence presented, etc) on their head. I am well aware how administrative law, doing grunt work as you say, can be used to grind the people of a free nation under the heel of whatever entity is considered the administrator. What kind of a free society would be at ease with this kind of abuse of the citizenry at the hands of the government?
Thank you for your considered (and patient) responses.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Nicholas:
Here’s one that I found in ten seconds or so. You can see the exhaustive (and I do mean exhaustive) involvement of the courts in this lengthy case.
http://www.chrt-tcdp.gc.ca/aspinc/search/vhtml-eng.asp?doid=306&lg=_e&isruling=1
There are many, many other examples of judicial review. Google (without quotation marks) “human rights tribunal decision reversed on appeal” and see for yourself.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:37 am
save canada – “or else this nation will end up a lot like contemporary Russia (just with a higher standard of living).”
But the “higher standard of living” part won’t last very long under those conditions.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
In ten seconds time you have directed me to the HRC’s summation of their case against Bell, in which Bell’s multiple efforts to redirect their case from the “jurisdiction” of the Tribunal to an actual court of law, or to delay the hearing proceedings until an actual court had heard an appeal were dealt with. Bell’s efforts were turned back from appeal to the Federal court, and the Tribunal was allowed to proceed. The Bell case is a good example of some of the problems of which I speak. If the law of the land had been broken, then Bell should have had the right to have the case heard before a proper court of law, not merely been able to ask if its case could be heard before a proper court of law.
If this is your example of things going well, I am afraid to ask what a failed system might look like.
“In that case, although the Court was not prepared to say that the inability to recover costs may never be irreparable harm, it did say that the inability to recover costs incurred in the ordinary course of litigation is not sufficient to meet the irreparable harm test.”
So the Federal court found that the costs that Bell incurred while attempting to defend themselves before the Tribunal did not amount to irreparable harm. It did not say that the costs were insignificant, or unburdensome.
Obviously, one would do well to avoid any such hearing before a Tribunal. Unfortunately, one does not have it within ones power to do so. That results in a chilling effect on everyone, most of all on those of us with limited resources. When you have average citizens like Sean Berry starting to think about using care in the words they choose when discussing the events of the day, you have evidence that the system has gone awry and needs to be fixed.
I will review as you suggest the other examples that will come up under “human rights tribunal decision reversed on appeal”, but I believe the primary concern was in regards to the free speech aspects of the HRC’s efforts to monitor societies discourse. Have they been overturned there, and was the intrusion and disquiet that they generated compensated for?
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:37 am
Being simply an average citizen very interested in my right to free speech I’m amazed at the opinions expressed by an obviously well educated man as Dr. Dawg. He is simply unable to see the profound dangers posed by a body like HRC not only to free speech, but by extension to every other liberty we hold dear. It doesn’t seem to bother him much that the HRC operates outside the law of the land not to mention the normal rules of evidence. He’s not bothered by the fact that the HRC trumped the right of a minister to express his religious views. Certinly, he has no sympathy for freedom of the press.
It seems at some point he decided that “offensive” speech is detrimental to a civil society. But it doesn’t occur to him that “offensive” is a purely subjective term and that anything can be deemed offensive by anyone at any time. But I’m sure Dr. Dawg thinks himself capable of deciding what is and what isn’t “offensive”.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
I thought this was Dawg coming back, but he has moved forward to the next thread, or back to his own blog.
He seems comfortable with the bureaucracy of an HRC, believes the goals are sound, the policies justified, and the restrictions comfortable, much like one might argue that helmet requirements are reasonable and not excessively intrusive.
I agree with you, and I think he is clearly wrong and imperceptive of the real dangers of a society increasingly comfortable with this type of governmental oversight and intrusion, but it is nearly impossible to convince him of it. He is certainly quick, and quite game. He can be a lot of fun to kick things around with.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 am
Nick:
You’re moving the goalposts a tad. The argument was whether the HRTs sare free to do whatever they like. My examples indicate the contrary—many of their decisions have been reviewed by what you folks like to call “real courts.”
Now you’re saying you don’t like the results of the review in the Bell Canada case.. What’s the answer? “Realer” courts?
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Yes, I don’t like the results of the review of the Bell Canada case.
I want courts that rely on the rule of law to hear the complaint itself, not decide whether or not an administrative Tribunal could proceed to do so. I understand there is a role for administrative law, but the creation of “Human Rights” Tribunals (even the name sounds like something coined in the Roman Empire)moves questions that I believe are properly heard in the civil courts into a “court” in which the typical presumption of innocence and rules of evidence etc do not exist. This is problematic. I think what seemed to some like a good idea has been taken advantage of, resulting in what is in effect a double legal system, creating a double jeopardy of sorts, and the possibility of having to defend the same accusation multiple times (see the Steyn/Macleans case) in multiple jurisdictions, and potentially before both the Tribunal and the “real” civil or criminal courts. However it may improve the government’s ability to address issues or may be seen as taking the burden of the court system, it undermines the freedom of the people.
And you slipped this:
“the primary concern was in regards to the free speech aspects of the HRC’s efforts to monitor societies discourse. Have they been overturned there, and was the intrusion and disquiet that they generated compensated for?”
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Nicholas,
One of the problems with this discussion is that folks like you prattle on about the legal system, without actually taking time to learn about how it works. You say you “there is a role for administrative law” but its pretty clear that you don’t.
Administrative tribunals are the courts of first instance in any number of areas: labour law, competitition law, workers compensation law, employment standards law, and, yes, human rights law. They all operate under the rule of law. They’re all required to provide some measure of procedural fairness. They all follow, for the most part, the rules of evidence, although not to such a degree that a lay litigant would find themselves at a disadvantage. They all do jobs that courts cannot do with any degree of fairness and efficiency. And their decisions are all subject to judicial review by the ordinary courts.
The Federal Court has reviewed a number of decisions by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and by the Canadian Human Rights Commission: a search of the Federal Court database on Canlii, a free public database using the terms “human rights” and “hate” reveals 43 decisions. I don’t know if any of those overturn decisions of the CHRT - nor is it particularly relevant. Nor would I expect them to order compensation for the “intrusion and disquiet that they generated” if they did.
I’m going to say this slowly, so that you might understand. There is law in Canada that treats hate speech as a violation of human rights. It is law that has survived a challenge to its constitutionality. If a tribunal or a commission errs in the application of that law, an ordinary court will overturn it, but it is absolutely clear that the tribunal has jurisdiction. The idea that a respondent to a complaint should be provided compensation because a duly constituted tribunal has erred—and thus, I presume, caused “intrusion and disquiet” to the appellant—is, absent some misconduct on the part of the tribunal, simply bizarre.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
An excellent summary tw. The problem being that the Tribunal, as distinct from the Commission, is not in issue here.
So far as I know, while a number of the procedural decisions of the Tribunal have been questioned, the Tribunal itself is not the problem. Rather it is the Commission and, more particularly, its hate speech section which have crossed more than a few lines.
Now, the Commission is somewhat akin to the Crown and the Police in Criminal matters. It has carriage of the case and is under certain duties to the respondent. Some might even suggest that it has run amok in its pursuit of sub-grade Nazis and doctrinaire Catholic priests.
So,would we be thrilled if the Crown tampered with evidence or countenanced perjury on the part of its witnesses? Would be be delighted if parties standing to gain from the outcome of a prosecution were also training the investigating officers? There are a stack of examples (I’ve got a file) of the Commission and its investigators failing to adhere to the most basic rules of conduct and, sadly, the Tribunal, has failed to toss out cases in which there is clear evidence of Commission misconduct. Try substituting evidence in a civil or a criminal trial and see how far you get.
S. 13 is one problem and the conduct of the Commission is another; but they are ineluctably linked because the breadth of s. 13 and the absence of requirements for proper investigative and prosecutorial conduct in the Act have meant that, zealotry and the imposition of personal agenda has replaced professional conduct. To the point of rendering at least one Commission lawyer unable to continue due to a serenity crisis.
It is a flawed statute and a flawed process. The section needs to be repealed and the investigations and prosecutions to date judicially investigated.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Jay,
The Commission is not akin to the Crown. Under the Act, it does not have conduct of the case, although it may appear before the tribunal. If if does appear it must, pursuant to s. 51 of the CHRA, “adopt such position as, in its opinion, is in the public interest having regard to the nature of the complaint.” In other words, it owes no duty to the respondent or the complainant.
The Commission is somewhat akin to the police, in that it is able to appoint investigators. As to whether those investigators “adhere to the most basic rules of conduct”, that’s hard to say, since you don’t articulate said “basis rules of conduct”, but let us, for the moment, assume some measure of investigative misconduct.
In your view, such misconduct should lead to a dismissal of a complaint. But even in criminal proceedings, investigative misconduct does not lead to that result. Under s.24(2) of the Charter, evidence obtained in breach of the Charter may be excluded to ensure trial fairness, but typically only conscriptive evidence – that is, evidence the accused was forced to take part in creating or discovering—will be excluded. That may or may not lead to a dismissal of the case, if the evidence was essential to the case, but it is certainly not automatic.
Even assuming some measure of misconduct, the conduct you point to in labelling the commission “corrupt” is small beer in the greather scheme of things. Here’s a news flash: in the “real” courts, witnesses, including investigators, lie, exaggerate or collude. In the “real” courts, police rely on s. 37 of the Canada Evidence Act to turn back inquiries into their investigative techniques. In the “real” courts, there are fights about destruction of relevant documents – known as “spoliation”. Through it all, judges in the “real” courts deal with these irregularities while remaining focussed on the underlying issue: was a law broken or civil liability incurred?
If you don’t like s. 13, makes a principled argument for its repeal. All this shrieky nonsense about “corruption”, judicial investigations and compensation for the “victims” of the CHRC is a sideshow and one that diminishes your credibility.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Surviving a constitutional challenge confirms it as the current law of the land. It does not affirm or reject whether that law is fair and just, or a law that is compatible with a free society.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
“You say you “there is a role for administrative law” but its pretty clear that you don’t.”
I state my opinion that there is a role for administrative law, and you reject that statement and claim that it is ”pretty clear” that I don’t think that all. Reading two or three comments of mine on the inappropriateness of the government body monitoring the speech of the public in no way can inform you as to my thoughts on Administrative law. For my part, what seems ”pretty clear” to me is that you simply enjoy strutting and brow beating people with less legal experience and education as yourself, to give yourself a sense of superiority that is not justified.
“Administrative tribunals are the courts of first instance in any number of areas: labour law, competitition law, workers compensation law, employment standards law, and, yes, human rights law.”
Yes, and in my country it is used to guide the activities of the various administrative agencies of the government, such as Commissions overseeing the Police Department or Medical Boards overseeing physicians, and a variety of other governmental agencies regulating manufacturing, broadcasting, taxation, immigration and a host of other things.
There is no governmental agency regulating the speech of the public, and God help us there never will be.
“They all operate under the rule of law. They’re all required to provide some measure of procedural fairness.”
In light of their efforts to block the free discussion of a whole host of ideas on the grounds that the discussion itself is hateful, the point and whatever merit it may be assigned is mute. The relative fairness of the procedure is irrelevant if the ends is to allow the government to define what can and cannot be said.
“They all follow, for the most part, the rules of evidence, although not to such a degree that a lay litigant would find themselves at a disadvantage.”
That is pure crap. I would be hard pressed to assign any experience on your part as to the machinations of one of these administrative bodies in any sense other than a reader of the findings of the Bell Canada case. The litigant would not find himself at a disadvantage? Do you suppose Stephen Boission found himself at a disadvantage? Or Fr. Alphonce de Valk? Or any of the others?
In the States, a medical board can ignore the evidence before them, ignore their own discovery, ignore their own expert, and require you to sign a Corrective Order they have written or forego ever getting your license to practice back. Regardlless of the truth, regardless of the findings. But the procedures were followed, so happy day!
Administrative law sounds good in terms of allowing some guidelines for the regulation of various governmental bodies, but in the reality of it is to allow medical board’s and their like to behave in an abusive and tyrannical fashion. To allow the same such intrusion into the walk of everyday life by allowing this type of law to govern the speech of the people is an outrageous violation of our inherent freedoms. I believe if you had ever been in the position of defending yourself against this type of agency your view would necessarily be decidedly different.
So the prattling continues. It is the sound of a commoner making an argument for freedom.
Your response is chiefly a review of the law, with clarifications as to how the law works. It does not begin to touch on the heart of the matter as we have been discussing it, and that will likely continue to be the case, no matter how slow you may be in uttering your response.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Nicholas,
Actually, the fact that a statute has passed constitutional muster at the Supreme Court of Canada does mean that it is compatible with a “free and democratic society”. Unlike the U.S., where courts place limits on things like “fighting words” by treating them as “not speech”, the Canadian constitution defines speech broadly but makes the right to free speech (and other consitutionally guaranteed rightss “subject…to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” (Section 1, Charter of Rights and Freedoms)
The judge who wrote the test that determines what constitutes a “reasonable limit” is the same judge, Chief Justice Brian Dickson, who found that s. 13 was a “reasonable limit.”
As for your hissy fit, would I be entirely mistaken if I guessed that, far from being a “commoner”, you were a doctor who was disciplined by a medical? Just asking.
In any event, your experience (if that’s what it is) with medical boards is not typical of the administrative process. Medicine is a self-regulated profession and courts, which are staffed by people who don’t know a scalpel from a speculum, are reluctant to interfere with the findings of specialized tribunals. They are, on the other hand, quite happy to interfere with the findings of human rights tribunals, which operate without a privative clause and do jobs that, in the courts view, are not far removed from the job performed by the courts. The fact that they haven’t overturned any decisions of those tribunals to date speaks volumes.
It remains to be seen how they will treat the Boissoin decision on judicial review. There’s an argument that the order was overbroad and that the decision doesn’t strike a proper balance between religious freedom and equality rights. It will be an interesting case. It is not, howeve, a travesty of justice, despite the screeching of folks like Levant and Jay.
Incidentally, the kind of speech that is dealt with by human rights tribunals is not that far removed from the “fighting words” that your American courts have found not to be protected speech.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
“Actually, the fact that a statute has passed constitutional muster at the Supreme Court of Canada does mean that it is compatible with a “free and democratic society”.
Our own Dred Scott decision of 1857, the USSC ruled that people of African descent imported to the United States were private property, were not and could never be citizens, and were not protected by the Constitution of the United States. It was the rule of the land, and remained so until after the Civil War was concluded. Though never overturned, the decision was considered effectively overturned by the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Dred Scott decision was the law of the land and was considered to pass constitutional muster, but at no point could you argue that it was compatible with a free and democratic society.
Well, it was pretty easy to get you to bang your head into that 2×4, wasn’t it?
So there is more to living free than being in compliance with the laws of the land, whether or not the Supreme Court has found them to be constitutional.
As to your complaint that if Jay doesn’t like s. 13, he should make a principled argument for its repeal, what in the world do you think all this is about? Anyone who has spent time under an administrative law body should understand that such bodies cannot regulate something so essential to our freedom as the freedom of speech. That being the case, section 13 should be repealed. The Dawg doesn’t see the danger, but he understands the argument.
Why don’t you?
June 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Nicolas,
Don’t dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back. Here’s the thing: we live in different countries, with different constitutions and different histories. While I know that is difficult for you, as an American, to accept that Amerian law is not universal, that’s the cruel fact of the matter
As I pointed out above, in considering s.13, the Supreme Court of Canada had to turn its mind to the question of whether the provision was “a reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. It found that it was. You may disagree with the finding, but you can’t say that the issue wasn’t considered or argued.
In your country, on the other hand, the court doesn’t ask that question in determining constitutionality. In the Dred Scott decision, the majority took the same “original intent” approach favoured by Justice Scalia and Thomas today and found that the framers were of the view that negroes were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”.
In other words, there was no 2 X 4. And you should learn to read before responding.
I take if from continued and generalized whining about administrative law bodies that you are indeed the disciplined doctor that I guessed you were. My condolences. As I said, professional disciplinary bodies are not typical of administrative bodies. But then you chose to practice within a self-regulating profession.
Finally, I have no objection to Jay making principled arguments about s.13 and the need for its repeal. The problem I have is that, like you, Jay gets into a pearl-clutching (thanks Dawg) frenzy about the “corruption” of the CHRC and then conflates principled arguments with his paranoid fantasies. It confuses the issue, even as it thrills the screechers.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Well again, you are missing the point. In your statement you contend that the court found that that section 13 was compatible with a free and democratic society, and so it is so. I contend that the court is a fallible body, made up of fallible people, and can make erroneous decisions that fail to anticipate the consequences.
You committed to the proposition that the SCC’s rulings themselves define whether a statute is compatible with a free and democratic society, which subjected you to the counter that proved so convincingly that courts make errors, sometimes egregious ones. The fact that the Canadian court looked at this question specifically and ruled on it does not somehow place the question beyond reasonable argument. It merely defines the law of the land, for today.
I knew you were likely to take that position. The question was how to get you to commit to it. You didn’t bite on the initial offering, so I had to entice you with something a little more tempting. Vague allusions to a Board action was just too much for your pride to resist. It cracked me up to see all the preening and prancing you did. The “hissy fit” you were so disparaging of was the smoke screen used to blind you. What really makes me chuckle was to hear you pat yourself on the back for your keen insight. Do you think MLK Jr was ashamed over his being jailed in Birmingham, Alabama? I don’t have any problem admitting to a Board action. That is a key reason why I am a part of this discussion. The Board was at odds with me over an opinion I gave, which they disagreed with. They were shown to be wrong on the facts, and two independent experts, one of which was their own consultant, agreed with my statement. Yet they still insisted on righting a so-called “Corrective Action” order, which ignored all of their discovery. I was right, and was proven to be a man of my word, but it cost me a great deal, and the Board cared not. Do you suppose that I am ashamed of this? Your efforts to attempt to inflict pain with your comments of “compassion” are base in nature, and pathetic. The event, in fact, was one of my finer moments.
As to the mechanics of a board action, you are on poor footing again. The primary interaction is between the licensee and the Board’s officers, chiefly the Board’s lawyer, the chief investigator, and the two or three ex-cops that make up his investigative unit. The interaction is adversarial in nature, rather than a fact finding effort on the part of a group of wise, experienced physicians. The above mentioned officers are looking to build a case against the licensee with which a Corrective Action order can be issued. In this setting the truth is not a defense, nor can one rely on the Board’s order to reflect the findings of their discovery process nor the testimony of their own expert witnesses. (Any of this sound familiar?) All can be ignored, if the Board’s lawyer so chooses to do so in writing the Corrective Action order. Your recourse is to appeal the decision to an administrative law judge, whose primary goal will not be to review the facts of the case, but will simply review whether proper procedures were followed. And even if the judge does rule in favor of the licensee and against the decision of the Board, the Board can ignore that as well. The relative independence of the Board and the limited role the judge advocate can intervene creates a definite obstinacy on the Board’s part that is unhealthy and at odds with our traditions of liberty, freedom and a right to a fair hearing. If this is how administrative law works in the case of a professional board, how would the same type of independence play out in the creation of body to monitor and regulate the speech of the citizenry? Well, we don’t have far to look to find the same kinds of abusive actions on the parts of the CHRC.
Actually, the fact that a statute has passed constitutional muster at the Supreme Court of Canada does mean that it is compatible with a “free and democratic society”.
The Supreme Court findings are merely the findings of a court. They define what the law of the land is, but they do not define the conditions necessary for a “free and democratic society”. That is what the court aspires to do. The members of the court are individuals whose fallibility is all the more manifest by the frequency with which they disagree with one another. The court aspires to Truth, but it is not Truth itself.
Again, the findings of the Court, whether they consider the question of whether “a reasonable limit prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” or not, are subject to human error. In regards to section 13, I contend that the court made a grave error, and the fallout of that error is just now gaining national attention.
Your ready embrace of governmental bodies such as the SCC or the CHRC belies a certain lack of awareness of the inherent fallibility of the devises of men.
I do not have anything further to add to this topic. I’ll give you the last word.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Nick,
The scales have fallen from my eyes. It is clear to me now: whether you’re getting your ass handed to you by a disciplinary body or opining on the law of another country, it matters not. You are the final authority on “Truth itself”.
I am profoundly sorry I every doubted your wisdom. Just one question: what exactly is it that the Medical Board cited you for?
June 26th, 2009 at 12:11 am
tw, Nicholas raises an interesting question: how provisional are SCC decisions? Now the legal answer is, not provisional at all. As Nicholas correctly observes a decision of the SCC defines and delineates the law at the moment the decision is rendered.
At the same time, the SCC deals with the facts found at trial and considers whether or not the law applied to those facts by the judge at trial and the Appellate Courts is a) the correct law, b) constitutional, c) extensible to the found facts in a new matter before it.
At the moment, the CHRC is hanging onto Taylor for dear life. Because Taylor stands for the legal point that speech can be legitimately circumscribed by the limitations clause in s. 1. “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
Now, the interesting question Nicholas raises is whether, having determined that Taylor’s answering machine should be subject to censorship as a matter of a reasonable limit on freedom of expression, the SCC will see non-inciting speech on the ‘net as falling into the same category.
It is, I think, an open question at this point. While you have – without any particularly good reasons – dismissed the importance of the Taylor answering machine’s reliance on a regulated carrier the fact remains that the medium which is alleged to be subject to s. 13(1) is rather different from an answering machine. Lawyers have been known to distinguish even Supreme Court decisions on a great deal less than this sort of distinction.
Nicholas suggests the Court made a grave error in Taylor. It may have. And it is quite possible that the current Court, if offered the opportunity, will rectify that error by striking down s. 13(1) on the basis that it is so broad and badly drafted that it cannot pass Charter muster. Remember, s. 13 was considered at the dawn of the internet. The extension of its reasoning into a profoundly interactive medium which has extended the capacity to “publish” to every Canadian may very well tempt the Justices to narrow Taylor or to conclude that Taylor was a decision from another era the basis for which has profoundly changed. Living trees and all that.
Taylor is not written in stone. It can and will be revisited and it is always open to the SCC to note new fact and new priorities when interpreting the Charter.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Jay,
The SCC will depart from earlier decisions, but will only do so for “compelling reasons”. What are the compelling reasons here?
The statute hasn’t changed, and if the changes proposed by the CHRC go through it will become less vague, as least as far as the definition of hate and contempt. The arrival of the internet, if anything, reinforces Dickson C.J. view that s. 13 strikes an important balance between equality rights and speech rights. Moreover, the concerns raised in McLachlin’s dissenting reasons, such as the concern that s. 13 “may reach speech which is in fact anti-discriminatory”, have not been borne out in the application of the section by the CHRT.
In short, I don’t think a court is going to overturn this. Which leaves a political solution. You folks seem think the best way to achieve that politicial solution is by demonizing individuals such as Lynch, Warman and Steacy, distorting or glossing over the facts of cases and attacking the human rights system as a whole. I think you’re wrong.
Dr. Nick (shurely not THE Dr. Nick?)
I perfectly aware of the “inherent fallibility of the devises of men”. But sadly, even if He exists, God has remained silent on this particular subjects. And if I have to trust infallible men, I prefer the justices of the SCC to a guy who got his ass handed to him by a medical board in another country.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
TW, nobody can force anybody to treat others with respect, without hatred and/or contempt, if it is not to be found within their own will. You, of all people, ought to recognize this.
Fortunately, it appears that Nicholas, like any autonomous, free-thinking human being, isn’t incapable of controlling his own reactions to any one of the aforementioned.
Being an athiest, it’s probably outside of my power to deduce, but I think ‘He’ may have indeed weighed in on this subject, at least according to a broad number of religious and cultural tenets, all claiming that ‘He/She’ did so – something known to me, through rudimentary biblical teachings, as the ‘Golden Rule’ and to others of different faiths as its equivalent.
Truthfully, I’d sometimes like to shut you up but I recognize that if I were given the power to do so, I’d have to offer the same alternative to you, with complimentary respect. Yet, once I get past the nastiness, you have provided some insight into the law as it currently exists.
For that, I can only thank you.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:01 am
You know, if Jennifer Lynch and their thugs, in pursuit of imaginary criminals, have almost certainly engaged in real criminal behavior. Most fitting would be Ms. Lynch spending a few years behind bars for her jackbooted thuggery.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:06 am
By arguing against CHRC solely on the basis that it operates outside the law we may inadvertently be giving the impression that we would be happy if such a body were constituted within the parameters of the law of the land. I for one would take no comfort in such a scenario. Such a body with such a mandate would completely corrupt our legal system in a very short time. (I leave it to the posters here to imagine the obscene contradictions such a state is heir to)
July 8th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
These laws only exist to massage the feelings of racial special interest groups. They are a payoff for voting for the leftist/statists that passed them. Democracy cannot be sustained as long as bribes are traded for votes to identifiable groups. It has the effect of polarizing the society in the name of “unity” and destroying the country financially in the name of “social justice”. The Government has no moral or legal right to manage someones “feelings” at the expense of my personal liberty. It has no legal right to take my private property in the form of taxation to buy the votes of people I politically oppose. Until we stand up and be as loud and aggressive politically as these special interest groups we will be pushed aside to curry favor with groups who claim “victim of society” status. Don’t let these punks guilt you. Freedom is a morally superior position. Equality is for everyone regardless of race creed or color.