The Truth is not enough—in Canada
by Grant Havers on June 16, 2009
Psychoanalytic historians of the future will have to make sense of the schizophrenic behavior of democracies that want to export their ideals to distant lands while they tighten and squeeze civil liberties at home. The latest dreary news to come out of Canada’s notorious human rights commissions is that the latter want to further increase their powers over freedom of speech. While Canadian soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan to build a decent democratic regime (or at least one infinitely more humane than what the Taliban has to offer), the apparatchiks back home are moving to increase statist intrusions into what liberals used to call the private realm of life.
At present, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) already gives its tribunals the power to punish anyone who “likely” exposes a person to “hatred or contempt,” as the judges define these practices. In short, all they need prove is that your comments, blogs, or e-mails might cause a person to feel harshly towards another person. To date, only individuals with politically incorrect views have been brought before these kangaroo courts. Needless to say, the CHRC would shut down Takimag in an instant if it had a chance!
Despite considerable public criticism of this nonsense, the guardians of the CHRC want to strip Canada’s Criminal Code of any free speech defenses, and thereby add to its surveillance powers. Under the present Code, those who are accused of a “hate crime” can defend themselves on the grounds that they were either telling the truth or sincerely believed that they were doing so. If the CHRC has its way, the truth will no longer be enough to protect a citizen from its clutches, as long as that truth is deemed “hateful.” Some of Canada’s top schools are already garnering the dubious distinction of being havens for the suppression of academic freedom, and this proposed measure will only add fuel to the fire. (Anybody who writes or teaches on Islam from a critical perspective in Canadian universities should take special note of this ominous development.)
It would be comforting to believe that evil triumphs when good (that is, conservative) men and women do nothing. To date, however, conservative governments in Canada have not only tolerated but even expanded the powers of these commissions, in the vain hope of winning votes from leftists. If politicos on the Right refuse to strip these commissions of their powers, who will do so? To be sure, the Canadian Left—which generally supports the CHRC—would predictably accuse, in good Stalinist fashion, the Right of protecting the freedoms of alleged xenophobes and fascists if these tribunals were demolished. It may come as a surprise to the so-called conservatives who want to protect the CHRC, but the voters who support these star chambers are unlikely to vote Tory anyway.
In short, what has the Right got to lose? Restore liberty to Canada, and tear down this tyranny now!
[lots of links in the above]
http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/...gh--in_canada/