Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Canadian Human Rights Commission vs. parliamentarian’s speech

Following the failure of the commissions to nail journalists Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn over such offenses as printing the Danish Mohammed cartoons and challenging Islamism in Maclean’s, the newest human rights hearing is over “bombastic” and outspoken materials sent by a Saskatchewan member of parliament to constituents in which he decried legal preferences for aboriginal (Indian native) residents and the high rate of crime in native populations. Terry ONeill of the Western Standard calls the investigation of former MP Jim Pankiw “an unprecedented attack on the speech rights of a sitting member of Parliament” (Nov. 3; Ezra Levant, National Post, Oct. 24; CanWest and more).

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9 Comments

  • Canada desparately needs the equivalent of a Bill of Rights.

    Either that or the provinces need to apply for admission as US states, in order to protect its citizens’ (true) civil rights.

    • By Ed

  • Apparently if you have the money to fight a lawsuit or you’re a member of Parliament, you have free speech in Canada. Otherwise, it’s ferme ta bouche.

    Bob

  • Perhaps this one will help our neighbor to the north get their act together on this sillyness. After all, it’s the legislators that have the power to change the system.

  • Building on what Soronel Haetir said, perhaps the most effective way to secure free speech in Canada is for usually non-litigious people to sue their representatives in order to highlight the absurdity of these “human rights” kangaroo courts.

    • By Matt

  • Did MP O’Neill vote for the law that created the Human Rights Commission in the first place?

    If so, I’d put a hoist and a petard in these comments.

    • By Xmas

  • Canada desparately needs the equivalent of a Bill of Rights.

    Actually, it has one, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is part of the Constitution Act of 1982. Article 2(b) reads:

    2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

    b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

    The difference between Canada and the US is in the jurisprudcence interpreting the protection of freedom of speech.

  • I wonder if they have ever investigated human rights complaints made by those who may be slightly to the right. For example, a professor who claims his rights were abused because his politics were too conservative. Or perhaps The League of Puritanical Voters was subjected to hate speech from radical factions of Atheists for Marxism.

  • Todd: You’re right on the money: http://ezralevant.com/2008/10/alberta-hrc-christians-have-no.html

    • By Walker

  • Holy *&%! I’m afraid to write what I think about that lady – I’m afraid to THINK what I think about her!

    From time to time I venture across the Rainbow Bridge to get some Cuban smoke in my mouth. Were they to discover what I thought about her, I might be forced to pay a visit to her “court.” After all, small-minded feces-for-brains Stalinists are of course a vulnerable group; I might inadvertently subject them to hate thoughts.