Comments on: This should be fun…

By: jay

jay — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 01:48:08 +0000

“The CBC article was not as clear as it might have been”…Gee Alan, I can’t imagine how the CBC writing about the Western Standard could be anything other than completely objective and entirely clear. You might be interested in my comments re Ezra over at the Zerb’s.

http://thestar.blogs.com/azerb/2006/02/western_standar_1.html#comments

You can also see a comment suggesting that Heather Mallick “was the most scintillating stylist in Canadian newspapers”.

The mind boggles.

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:14:19 +0000

I am corrected but it is not my fault. Really. The CBC article was not as clear as it might have been that the columnist was not being objective in his/her relationship to the quoted slur. Darcy makes it clearer: http://dustmybroom.com/?p=2994. OK, that is good. Now I can l go back to disliking the Western Standard for the good old reasons of their stunned ideas as opposed to anything racist.

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 12:19:45 +0000

I am suggesting that the columnist’s words are subject to editorial policy and, yes, that racist language is not acceptable language for an editorial policy. Not because it is “scary” but because it is evidence of stupidy and pointless in addition to being simply hurtful to many not involved (ie others in the community subject to the slur). That being the policy of this publication, I need not consider it a source of eithical or intellectual standards. An equivalent slander would be that its title is obviously apt.

By: jay

jay — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 04:10:10 +0000

I’m confused Alan: are you suggesting that this asshat’s remark should not have been published? Seems the only ethical breach I can detect is the willingness of the Standard to keep the asshat’s name confidential. (Of course, if the asshat knew he would be quoted by name he probably would not have said this.)

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 03:09:15 +0000

Sounds like we need not worry about Ezra’s publication and its grand ethical standards anymore: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/02/15/western-standard-060215.html

By: jay

jay — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:39:05 +0000

Atually Joel, though my dramatic sense laments it, any competent Crown will decline to press charges simply because the required element of mens rea Alan alludes to is not present.

But a man can dream.

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:46:38 +0000

Well, I would think he can only do it in response to a properly laid charge. A charge with internal weaknesses falls on its own accord.

Plus he can only bring an attack under the Charter on an otherwise properly laid charge as it relates to him. Seeing as hate speech crimes are merely a class of incitement crime and we have loads of incitement crimes (s.22 “counselling” and s.61 “sedition” come to mind), it is unlikely that anyone would succeed in a general “no crime in speech” argument. Constitutions do not deal in those sorts of abolutes.

By: Joel Fleming

Joel Fleming — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:39:26 +0000

I’d love to see Levant forgo other defences and jump straight to a Charter defence (and thus a Charter attack on hate-crimes legislation). Would it be possible for him to do so, or does he *have* to exhaust other defence avenues first?

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:07:13 +0000

No, just a provincial court judge looking over her half rims at the unwise prosecutor to say “It’s not an element of the offence, stupid”.

But 319(2) might be in lay which creates a crime for a inordinately general activity: “wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group”. I think that its generality might imply that the promotion has to be pretty direct, Rwanda-style defilement of a group. Were some sad Crown attorney to run a charge on that basis, a Charter defence could be brought but you are supposed to run other defences first and it would be pretty easy to show that a magazine or journal republishing a openly available cartoon is not the “wilful promotion” of anything when it was expressly done for another end, the exercise of free speech and freedom of the press. If an element of a criminal offence is not present - in this case a specific mental element - the charge itself fails and you need not delve into constitutionality.

By: jay

jay — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:35:00 +0000

Alan, does this mean I’m not destined to see McLauglin, CJC, look over her half rims and say to Ezra, Esq.

“”It’s the Charter, Stupid” is your position here Mr. Levant?”

Damn.