Jay Currie

Well, at least we know they took their media training and when they are going to make a contentious ruling they wait for Friday afternoon. Last Friday the Member popped out a couple of decisions. Cute.

1. The BC Civil Liberties Association was denied interested person status.

2. Paul Fromm application to call additional witness and recall witnesses who had already testified – based on the new documentary evidence in the Lemire matter – was denied based on the rather interesting idea that Fromm already had had the documents in question from July 2007. Which, of course, may very well be a matter of fact but one wonders what the fuss was in Federal Court as to the Commissions ludicrous claim of s. 37 Canada Evidence Act “public interest privilege” (normally reserved for spies and biker informants) back in December and January was all about. Here there is a fact of the matter which I am apparently missing. As well, the materials supplied to Fromm by the Commission were heavily redacted without there being any stated justification for the redactions and with the Commission arbitrarily deciding to redact the names of employees below managerial level and the non-Commission recipients of the emails.

3. Amusingly enough, Member Hadjis seems to recognize, albeit indirectly, that Commission staffer Harvey Goldberg lied under oath regarding the CHRC’s attempted liaison with police forces.

“The remaining [redacted] documents [provided in April and May 2008], which make up the bulk of the material in question, demonstrate that the Commission cooperates with several community groups and police services relating to s. 13. These are basically the facts alleged in the Respondent’s Amended Statement of Particulars dated December 18, 2006…Furthermore, ample evidence of the cooperation between the Commission and police services as well as community groups has already been adduced during the earlier hearings.”

You will remember Goldberg’s perjury to the Tribunal, June 25, 2007 before he thought his emails would ever make it into evidence:

MR. CHRISTIE: Have you advised as a matter of policy that the special mandate of the Canadian Human Rights Commission could be interpreted as assisting police in prosecutions under the Criminal Code?

MR. GOLDBERG: No, I have not.

MR. CHRISTIE: Have you ever participated in any such cooperation?

MR. GOLDBERG: No, I have not.

MR. CHRISTIE: Are you aware of other Commission staff participating in such cooperation?

MR. GOLDBERG: No, I’m not.

Essentially, the Member has acknowledged that the Commission’s own documents prove that Goldberg was lying though he does not say it in so many word.

The CHRC’s Hate Crime Unit is corrupt. It needs to be judicially investigated. Now.