Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet of Fury linked to this editorial which explains how the battle for free speech was won up in the frozen North.

Excerpt:

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson had voiced support for the legislation. So had the Prime Minister. The result, then, was never in doubt: at 9:35 p.m. on June 6, by a vote of 153-136,  Parliament got Canada’s human rights bureaucrats out of the business of policing speech on the Internet. There was a scattering of applause, and handshakes for Storseth (the bill requires the rubber stamp of Senate approval). “To be honest, it’s all a blur,” says the three-term MP, laughing. But if the passage of Bill C-304 represents a fundamental shift in Canadian culture, you’d never have known it that night. Members dealt with a few housekeeping matters, then waded through a supply bill. Finally, one by one, they trickled out into the cool Ottawa night.

The effect of killing Section 13 will be debated for years among anti-racist groups and civil libertarians. But it is undoubtedly a turning point. Since 1999, Canadians who felt aggrieved by material transmitted online have been encouraged to seek redress under federal human rights law, which targeted material “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” based on grounds of discrimination like race, religion or sexual orientation. Storseth’s bill repeals the provision outright, leaving the Criminal Code as the primary bulwark against the dissemination of hate propaganda by electronic means.

With it will go one of the most divisive disputes to grip the country since the introduction of the Charter of Rights itself—a contest of values that over the past five years has pitted Canadians’ desire to protect minorities from discrimination against the bedrock principle of free speech. Mainstream media outlets, most notably Maclean’s, have been hauled before commissions to answer for their published content. The commissions themselves have come under fire for allowing their processes to be used as a bludgeon against legitimate expression, tailored as they are to encourage complainants to come forward. Meantime, a Saskatchewan law similar to Section 13 has become the subject of a Supreme Court challenge that could invalidate hate-speech provisions in most provincial human rights codes. By year’s end, it is conceivable that no human rights commission in the country will be in the business of adjudicating published material.

And here’s a must-read cri-de-coeur from free speech hero Mark Steyn in Maclean’s magazine. (H/T Binks the Web Elf)

Excerpt:

Operationally, Section 13 was stinkingly corrupt. There are some 34 million Canadians, yet just one individual citizen had his name on almost every Section 13 prosecution of the last decade. Just as Matthew Hopkins appointed himself England’s Witchfinder General in 1645 and went around the country turning in raven-tressed crones for the bounty of a pound per witch, so Richard Warman appointed himself Canada’s Hatefinder General and went around turning in shaven-headed tattooed losers in their mums’ basements for far more lucrative bounties of tens of thousands of dollars. He filed his complaints as a supposedly “offended” and “damaged” private citizen while an employee of Her Majesty’s Government. And, in fairness to Matthew Hopkins, he didn’t personally put on a pointy black hat and ride around on a broomstick. Whereas Mr. Warman joined Stormfront and other “white supremacist” websites and posted copious amounts of hate speech of his own, describing, for example, Jewish members of cabinet as “scum” and gays as a “cancer.” That’s how “hateful” Canada is: there’s so little “hate” out there that the country’s most famous Internet Nazi is a taxpayer-funded civil servant.

For Warman, there was little risk: you paid his costs, and the dice were loaded. After Hosni Mubarak was “re-elected” with 97.1 per cent of the vote, he was said to be furious with his officials for stealing too much of the election and making him look like one of those crude ham-fisted dictator-for-life types like Saddam and Kim Il-Sung. So next time round his officials arranged for him to “win” with a mere 96.3 per cent of the vote. Canada’s “human rights” commissars had no such squeamishness: until the tenacious Marc Lemire won his landmark victory in 2009, Section 13 prosecutions had a three-decade 100 per cent conviction rate even the Soviets might envy.

That wasn’t even the most basic affront. Until Maclean’s intervened in 2008, Lemire’s Section 13 trial was scheduled to be held in secret. I couldn’t quite believe this when I chanced to happen upon the “judge’s” rationale, and I suggested en passant that we should get Maclean’s estimable QC Julian Porter to file a whatchamacallit, a brief or motion or whatever, referencing precedents and other jurisprudential-type stuff, and put a rocket up these totalitarian buggers by treating their dank outhouse of pseudo-justice as a real courtroom subject to real law. Secret trials are for Beijing and Tehran, yet in the name of “human rights” they were introduced to Ottawa.

The line that sums up my objection to the racket was formulated by the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle: “You’re too stupid to tell me what to think.” In recent days, the last lonely defenders of the Canadian thought police have all volunteered to demonstrate Miss Shaidle’s proposition. The Opposition [NDP] critic for “public safety,” Randall Garrison, bemoaned the demise of the commissars’ “power to educate Canadians.” “We do have a serious problem,” said Garrison. “If you take away the power to take [websites] down, it’s not clear they have any mandate to even talk to people about it and educate them about it.”

The Conservatives held up their end of the deal once they got their majority, didn’t they? Everyone who said they were not going to do anything with their majority should hang their heads in shame, now. They can’t do everything, but they can certainly do some things.

This is a lesson for us down here. If you love your country, then get out and vote in November! And make sure your friends vote, too – you should be convincing them to vote by giving them the facts about Obama’s catastrophic failures even now.

Related posts

• Canadian conservatives pass bill to repeal Section 13 speech code
• Youtube reverses decision to ban video critical of gay activism in Canada
• Alberta judge rules that it is legal to disagree with homosexuality
• Conservative MP’s bill to repeal Section 13 moves to committee
• Conservative MP introduces bill to abolish Section 13 speech code
• Ezra Levant on the new Sun News television network
• What happens when same-sex marriage conflicts with religious liberty?
• Human Rights Tribunal finds Catholic school board guilty of discrimination
• Saskatchewan planning to abolish its Human Rights Tribunal
• In Canada, Blazing Cat Fur is being sued for linking to Mark Steyn
• Canadian Human Rights Commissions continue war on Christians
• Video of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn testifying against Canadian HRCs
• The Conservative Party takes up free speech in British Columbia
• The Conservative Party takes up free speech in Ontario
• Video of Ezra Levant discussing free speech on the Michael Coren show
• Video interview with Ezra Levant by the libertarian Fraser Institute

It’s the end of the Canadian speech code. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The federal Conservatives voted late Wednesday to repeal controversial sections of the Canadian Human Rights Act banning hate speech on the Internet, backing a bill they say promotes freedom of expression and would have the courts play a larger role in handling hate-crime cases.

In a free vote of 153 to 136, the Tory caucus supported a private member’s bill from Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth that would scrap Section 13 of the human rights code, which deals with complaints regarding “the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet.”

Storseth argues the current human rights code fails to protect freedom of speech, which is guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and believes Canadians are better off if the government repeals sections 13 and 54 — the latter section dealing with associated penalties.

“It’s a really important step for freedom of expression in our country,” Storseth said Thursday, the morning after the bill passed third and final reading in the House of Commons.

“There hasn’t been a tremendous pushback as you would have seen seven or eight years ago when this issue first really arose, and I think it’s because there has been a fruitful debate in our country.”

Senior cabinet ministers supported the bill and the results generated loud applause from Conservative MPs. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is overseas and wasn’t present for the vote. Most opposition politicians voted against the bill, although Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal MP Scott Simms supported it.

Storseth, a backbencher, said the current human rights code allows too many frivolous cases to proceed against citizens, when the Criminal Code already covers hate speech that could generate harm against an individual or group.

Acts of hate speech are serious crimes that should be investigated by police officers, not civil servants, he said, adding that the cases should be handled by “real judges and real lawyers,” instead of a quasi-judicial body such as the human rights commission.

The bill would effectively strip the human rights commission of its ability to rule on cases of hate speech over the phone and Internet, he said, and instead hand many of the powers to the courts.

Storseth said he has also been speaking with colleagues in the Conservative-dominated Senate in hopes the bill will pass through the upper chamber and receive royal assent by the end of the year. The bill contains a one-year implementation period.

For those who need a refresher course on how bad these secular leftist fascism panels really were, you can read this article about the punishment received by a Christian pastor who wrote an editorial critical of gay activism in the schools. He was put on trial for 5 years and had to pay over $100,000 in legal fees, including the legal fees of his accuser. His crime? Making his accuser feel offended.

Related posts

• Youtube reverses decision to ban video critical of gay activism in Canada
• Alberta judge rules that it is legal to disagree with homosexuality
• Conservative MP’s bill to repeal Section 13 moves to committee
• Conservative MP introduces bill to abolish Section 13 speech code
• Ezra Levant on the new Sun News television network
• What happens when same-sex marriage conflicts with religious liberty?
• Human Rights Tribunal finds Catholic school board guilty of discrimination
• Saskatchewan planning to abolish its Human Rights Tribunal
• In Canada, Blazing Cat Fur is being sued for linking to Mark Steyn
• Canadian Human Rights Commissions continue war on Christians
• Video of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn testifying against Canadian HRCs
• Mark Steyn on a Chicago radio show, commercial-free
• Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant on a Chicago radio show
• The Conservative Party takes up free speech in British Columbia
• The Conservative Party takes up free speech in Ontario
• Video of Ezra Levant discussing free speech on the Michael Coren show
• Video interview with Ezra Levant by the libertarian Fraser Institute

Here is the description for that video, posted by SDAMatt: (Note: Tory = Conservative)

Tory backbencher Brian Storseth wants to eliminate Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA). That is the provision in federal law that gives the Canadian Human Rights Commission authority to hear complaints of hate speech on the Internet. We wish Mr. Storseth, the MP from Westlock-St. Paul in Alberta, well in this campaign. Section 13 is a particularly pernicious infringement on free speech. Originally added to the CHRA in 2001 as a protection for vulnerable groups against racist or violence-promoting websites, the clause has more often been used by minority activists (or those purporting to act on behalf of minorities) to silence those who do not share their opinions.

The biggest problem with Sec. 13 is that its provisions make it far too easy for commissioners to find an alleged offender guilty. Unlike in a court of law – where the presumption of innocence, rules of evidence and bans on hearsay testimony protect defendants from wrongful prosecution – at a human rights tribunal complainants may remain anonymous and complaints may be filed by third parties with no direct interest in the case at hand. (Some folks even make a profitable hobby out of launching these complaints.) Hearsay evidence is perfectly acceptable, the onus to prove one’s innocence often falls on the accused, and tax dollars pay for the plaintiff’s lawyers while the accused is on his or her own to fund a defence.

A further flaw in Sec. 13 is that neither the truth nor the lack of intent to harm is permitted as a defence. It does not matter whether the offending Internet message was truthful or if adjudicators find it “likely to expose an identifiable group to hatred or contempt” (the standard employed under criminal law) – the owner of the website on which it appears and the person who posted it are guilty anyway.

In 2007, Sec. 13 was used against writer Mark Steyn for material he wrote in Maclean’s magazine that four Muslim students claimed had offended them. That same year, a similar provision in Alberta provincial human rights law was used to prosecute Ezra Levant for publishing the infamous Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the now-defunct Western Standard magazine. In both cases, the clear intent of the complainants was to limit legitimate debate about religious extremism.

Fears that getting rid of Sec. 13 will lead to a flood of vicious anti-Semitism and the like are unfounded. Sections 318 through 320 of the Criminal Code already prohibit “hate propaganda” – including “any writing, sign or visible representation that advocates or promotes genocide.” And it has been used several times to prosecute true hatemongers, James Keegstra, most famously. Nothing in Mr. Storseth’s proposal would affect those laws.

The Conservatives have a majority in the House of Commons and the Senate, and they have Prime Minister Stephen Harper there to sign the bill. They need to do this right away, and then ban political contributions by large corporations and public sector unions.

But wait! There’s more! (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The Supreme Court of Canada recently laid the smack down on Human Rights Tribunals across the country. In a recent decision, B.C. Workers’ Compensation Board v. Figliola, a five-judge majority dramatically reduced the discretion of human rights tribunals to rehear discrimination complaints already decided by other administrative bodies such as workers’ compensation boards.

According to lawyer Peter Gall, who is also representing Dr. Brian Day in a health care related case that the Canadian Constitution Foundation is also assisting in, “the practice of workers taking a second kick at the can in front of human rights tribunals after their discrimination complaints had already been dismissed by a labour board or other administrative decision-maker ‘was happening often enough that it was a real problem'”.

This Supreme Court decision applies to all human rights tribunals across Canada and is very important to the business community of British Columbia and Canada because it provides for finality and prevents “forum shopping” and the issue of multiple proceedings.

I know that there are  a lot of conservative voters who are disillusioned with the Canadian Tories over the abortion issue and the free speech issue. The Conservatives need to get something done on these issues, immediately.