Ezra Levant's Toronto Stop

I attended Ezra Levant's presentation on the Human Rights Commissions, and the latest developments, last Saturday. It looks like this is a prolonged book tour, but he's been in Toronto before for that specific purpose, so this tour must just be a further enunciation of his ideas.

I went there not to learn anything new - in fact, he didn't say anything new from what I've read in his blog and other blogs around Canada, and of course in his book.

But, that is the crunch of this whole thing. After having exposed the HRCs as the shameless frauds they are, after announcing that they be dismantled, what else is there to say?

I actually went to spice things up a bit - although I did go in all sincerity. I wanted to ask Levant the same question I posed in my previous post: What caused this undignified scurry by Canadians to relinquish important societal and personal freedoms at what seems like a drop of a hat? Why did Canadians submit so easily? What is it in the psyche of Canadians that they allowed their leaders to establish such an institution?

I don't think Levant has answers to these questions, since I don’t think he's really thought about them. My argument has always been that we need to look at these deep societal problems in order to truly eradicate such organizations as the HRCs. I don't think that now the HRCs have been exposed, other forms of censoring free speech, and all the other freedoms, will cease. The government can continue to play a myriad of roles similar to the HRCs, one of which is to give large quantities of free (and unearned) legal services to those who bring up the kinds of grievances that the HRCs had taken care of. In fact, this already happens.

But back to the evening (sponsored by the Libertarian Party of Canada, no less). I raised my hand near the end, when Levant had said he would ask two more people before wrapping up the evening. I would have been the second, and last, but he decided to curtail the evening with the penultimate (which ended up being the final) question.

I am sure Levant saw me. I even waved my hand (gently) a couple of times to get his attention, which I did. Since I link many times to his blog, I can presume that he reads what I have written, and knows who I am – I have my photo posted at one of my blogs.

My concerns on the HRC issues are different from the other blogs that write about it, who understandably are more of a cheer-leading type helping Levant on in his battle. I also understand the Levant: a. doesn't want anyone to rain on his parade - although I do acknowledge that he has done a really great job with his dogged fight; b. probably feels he has accomplished what he has set out to do, and doesn't think anything else is required.

But, debate is the great informer (was Levant censoring me?!). I don't think the fight is over, although Levant may really not be the one to pursue it further. I thought Kevin Michael Grace might have picked up the torch, but his two-year absence from the various national debates is telling. I think his paleo part has taken over, and I don’t think he can see the light at the end of the tunnel – he says as much here:

Self-censorship has become a defining Canadian characteristic. Despite Hadjis’s brave decision, it is unlikely we will see a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend any time soon.

But someone has to start. And a well-known media figure like Grace, who has clearly thought about these issues in depth, and whose analyses I have previously agreed with, is surely the best person to continue with what Levant has started.

Section 13 Is Not All About Censorship, But It’s All About Prohibiting Discrimination

Please bear with me on the length of this article. I think I am proposing unpopular ideas, which have not been discussed by any Canadian writer – even Kevin Michael Grace reneged on this one. Perhaps by reading my thought processes presented in this long-winded fashion, my ideas might make more sense than if I just produced them in more succinct, but less explanatory, terms.

I’ve left the Human Rights Commissions debacle alone for a few weeks now, other than to report on the seeming finale of it all, when Marc Lemire’s case was dramatically dismissed, and Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act deemed unconstitutional.

Practically all of the parties who argue for the removal of Section 13 refer to its censorship qualities. And as Grace writes at Vdare: “Self-censorship has become a defining Canadian characteristic.”

But the important question is: why? Why has self-censorship become a defining Canadian characteristic? A historical survey of pre-Section 13 Canada in terms of the “self-censorship [which] has become a defining Canadian characteristic” would be a noble project, and one that I will try to tackle at some point.

But, looking at the initial reason for establishing Section 13, the resounding factor was that it was censorship against OTHER PEOPLE that was the defining characteristic, not SELF-censorship. It was Jewish groups, along with some blacks, who were trying to stop what they deemed to be anti-Jewish and anti-black propaganda, by groups other than themselves, who initiated this chapter in Canadian history. I would argue that it was this introduction of censorship from talking negatively about “others” that gave momentum to the politically correct atmosphere in Canada, which led to the self-censorship that Grace writes about. Something caused this self-censorship to ingrain itself in the Canadian psyche, and, in my observation, that something was an overriding attempt to stop discrimination.

Here are some peculiar characteristics of Section 13.

1. It started around the same period when Canada was slowly (and later on in a much accelerated fashion) becoming a “diverse” nation. Prime Minister Pearson had relaxed the immigration policies even more in 1967 to allow non-white immigrants from the world over to enter Canada as easily as white immigrants. Non-white immigrants then overwhelmingly out-numbered white immigrants, setting the stage for diversity and multiculturalism.

2. Section 13 was established at the urgings of groups of people who didn’t belong to the majority, mostly Protestant white Canadians. These were Jewish groups and blacks, who were trying to curtail what they deemed to be hate propaganda aimed at them by members of this majority white group.

3. It was thus an attempt to stop, or restrain, discrimination and not speech, that was at the root of Section 13, as the very first sentence explicitly state in the Canadian Human Rights Act:

It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically… any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination."

Later in 2001, this was also extended to the internet.

4. Here, from Lemire’s freedomsite.org, is an abridged list of the rundown on the history of convictions under Section 13:

Not a single respondent have [sic] ever won a section 13 case before the tribunal
- 100% of cases have whites as respondents
- 98% of cases have poor or working class respondents
- 90.7% of respondents have not [sic] represented by lawyers
- So far, $93,000 has been awarded in fines and special compensations since 2003
- 72.4% of complaints specifically identify “jews” as victims

Section 13 and the HRCs are simply attempts at keeping an ethnically and culturally diverse country as harmonious as possible by preventing, or prohibiting, the majority white culture from complaining about, or trying to retain, its historical leadership positions vis à vis these new comers.

It is also a forum where these non-assimilating non-whites can place their grievances and disappointments at not acquiring the goods and lifestyles they expected once they entered the shores of this country.

It is in a sense a forced accommodation of these new comers by the original settlers of the country; new comers who resembled progressively less and less these original settlers.

There is no doubt that Canada’s leaders and elite are artificially diversifying the country. Their method is of course mass immigration. But the ordinary liberalized citizen, who has no time to meander through these Kafkaesque labyrinths, has unthinkingly accepted that discrimination is wrong and that equality (of all these diverse groups) is how societies should live. He will implicitly agree with Section 13 and the HRCs, until, as they now have, they demonstrate their incompatibility with various expected freedoms.

Are “normal” human relations possible in highly diverse countries? I would say no. And part of the laws and policies on discrimination and equality are a way to dilute these frictions that naturally occur when such different groups of people live together.

But, the whole situation goes even a step further. In this land of originally white settlers, who built the country, developed its culture and set its laws according to their abilities and standards, how is a non-white, who doesn’t even have a remote connection to this white culture (like we can argue the Europe-originating Ukrainians have) supposed to fit in?

Often, he doesn’t, in many levels. Therefore, grievances are high, expectations are dashed, and someone has to make sure this dissatisfied new member of the society feels at home. And thus starts the complex labyrinth of curtailing perceived discrimination and institutionalizing equality.

We are beginning to see the effects of all this much more clearly with a minority group that is far more aggressive, and far more self-centered than any previous minority group. These are the Muslims. Muslims are not randomly unhappy or disappointed about their position in Canadian society. They are here to decidedly change things to suit them. Their mandate, through their Koran, is to remove all the infidels, all the non-Muslims, and replace this apostate country with the holy sanctions of their god Allah.

Diversity and non-discrimination have met their perfect match. The devastating news to many Canadians is that there is no diversity in the mind of the Muslim. You are Muslim, or you don’t belong. At least Muslims are logical. Diversity of peoples simply means conflict, to the Muslim.

Freedom of speech (or diversity of opinions, ideas and thoughts) seems to work best in relatively homogenous, non-diverse populations, at least in the West. That is the paradox. Self-censorship, from the little I have studied Grace's remarks above, seems to occur most when diversity of peoples is highest. This is what Ezra Levant, who experienced the debilitating effects of the HRCs and Section 13, and it was those very Muslims who brought him – and Mark Steyn with MacLean’s magazine – to task, has not yet understood. 

So, what is the solution to this end result of diversity of peoples, which issued forth a myriad of policies for non-discrimination and equality, which finally begat the Muslim presence that took advantage of these policies and laws to their final logical extension?

Take small steps backwards, and reduce this diversity, by undoing the method that contributed almost 100% to the situation. Reduce the influx of immigrants who have little, if no, affinities to the culture and traditions of Canada. And especially, reduce Muslim immigration.

I think the exposure of Section 13 was a wake-up call. Lemire’s website is actually a collection of ideas about how his society was changing, and drastically, due above all to immigration. It seems he has anti-Semitic components to his ideas, and may indeed be a white supremacist (and why not, it is his country), but I think his concern was more about these drastic changes. So, as I have pointed out, the essential problem of Section 13, and the HRCs, is not really curtailment of freedoms of speech and expression, but how to manage diversity that has gone rampant, which is eroding and destroying a culture and a country.

Closing down the HRCs and striking out Section 13 are not the answers to this problem. As I have stated previously, there is any number of ways that the head of diversity will rear itself to make its never-ending demands met.

Immigrants and Family Reunification - Suing the Government When it Doesn't Work

As I indicated in my previous post, immigration is not (never) the clear-cut situation it appears to be, or as its policy makers would like it to be.

Some immigrants wishing to come to the U.S., who have waited years and up to decades to get their green cards, are met with another obstacle. Their adult (over 21 years of age) children, who were youngsters when their parents initiated the immigration process, are no longer eligible as dependents of their parents to automatically enter the U.S. with their parents' newly acquired green cards. The parents need to reapply to sponsor these adult offspring. This could amount to several more years of waiting before such a family is reunited. One immigration lawyer says that up to 20,000 immigrants in the U.S. are facing such predicaments, and dozens of them are suing the federal government to avoid these kinds of delays.

Such is yet another farce of the immigration system: Immigrants who often are not citizens, suing the U.S. government, a country that is not their own, to strong-arm it into letting their foreigner relatives into its own borders. As I said in this earlier post, immigration in all its forms, from illegals crossing borders to families pulling in dozens of relatives, has become a human rights and civil rights issue. Americans, and Canadians, can no longer say they will not accept foreigners into their country (for whatever reason they decide not to), for fear of international retaliations, and accusations of racism or discrimination.

Third World and non-Western Immigrants thus acquire incredible force with which to pressure Western governments to concede to their many demands, the most important of which is that more and more of their own people continue to be admitted into these lands.

The Myth of "Skilled Immigrants Only"

Canada is constantly being hailed as having its immigration criteria just right. Here is what Jason Richwine, from the American Enterprise Institute via the National Review, has to say in an August 24, 2008 article:

Instead of bringing large extended families with limited skills into the U.S., we could specifically select for the qualities — education and work experience, for example — that help immigrants succeed. How would such a system work? We need only look north to see it in practice. Canada assigns points to potential immigrants for various desirable characteristics. For example, holding a graduate degree is worth five times as many points as is holding a high-school diploma.

But, that is one of the biggest misconceptions, both here in Canada and what other countries perceive to be Canada's success, about Canada's immigration reality.

As far back as 1990, William Gairdner wrote in his book The Trouble with Canada:

The 1982 report to Parliament on immigration levels said, "Family reunification has been and is one of the traditional foundations of immigration policy."...The result is that immigrants already here determine the mix of immigrants to come, 80 percent of whom enter without regard to their merit. Employment and immigration in Hull has informed me that of the up to 175,000 immigrants planned for 1990, only 24,000, or 16 percent, will actually have to qualify under our point system [of education, work experience and language fluency both in French and English]. A full 84 percent - 174,000 - just walk through the door! For all we know, they could be ignorant, illiterate, unqualified people. We don't know, because we don't ask.

The point is that immigration in Canada is hardly the ordered affair that Richwine thinks it is. Yes, there is a well-defined point system which accepts immigrants based on their skills, but these same immigrants can sponsor and bring with them a myriad of relatives who don't have to undergo the rigorous skills tests, and who can simply arrive in Canada based on their familial connections.

I've written about family reunification, and how in our modern climate of human and civil rights, it has become an inevitable component of immigration.

One of the questions I would like to ask the newly formed Canadian branch of the International Free Press Association is "So what?"

So what if the Danish cartoons produced such a raucus all over the world? So what if Yale University refused to publish the cartoons in the new book by ------? So what if

I'm not sure if the IFPA was formed

Also the inaugural reception, held in Ottawa, was in conjunction with a libertarian film society which is called "Free Thinking Film Society." Now, I'm all for film societies, but do they only have to bring in documentaries? Liberal film societies have

Shame on Michael Coren

Michael Coren, who hosts a nightly political forum on television, and who writes for the Toronto Sun regularly, recently had an article in the National Post titled: "Troubled times in my hometown." He recounts his childhood years in a working class English town near London, and laments that two Islamic terrorists, one who was part of the London Underground bombing, and the other who helped kidnap Daniel Pearl, came from this (his) town.

Coren has been writing about, and covering, Muslims and Islam extensively on his show. He gives some latitude to his guests who downgraded the dangers of Islam, but still insists on saying that there are elements in Islam that are dangerous to the West.

Yet, he retracts some of these stronger positions by thinking that dialogue with Muslims is the best possible path, and never mentions the immigration system that allows Muslims to enter Canada to establish their Muslim lives, replete with dangers.

This delusional paragraph shows that he refuses, for whatever reason, to grasp what the real danger is after all these years. In fact, he has backpedalled somewhat. He writes:

It's difficult to see how a civilized country with free education and health care, a reliable and fair police service, judiciary and bureaucracy and a tolerant culture and tradition of decency and moderation can have produced so many such people. Certainly, it's not because they have been oppressed or denied the privileges of every other British citizen. It's deeply significant that two of those charged in the terror plot were converts to Islam, as were three men convicted in the United States this year of planning murder attacks on a group of synagogues and Jewish centres.

"How can Britain produce so many dangerous Muslims?" he's asking, as thought Britain suddenly started sprouting all those Muslim families (and terrorists) indigenously. He even adds that some of those convicted in various plots were converts to Islam.

So, rather than place the blame on an outside force, which already comes prepared to perform the terrorisms and kidnappings, he faults those Western countries themselves for "produc[ing] so many such people."

This leaves very little room for the real solution. If the problem is from the outsiders, the Muslim immigrants, then don't let these problematic outsiders in. Don't let Muslims in (anymore), since they will simply go about their business of converting the ingenious populations, kidnapping people, and detonating bombs.

Is David Frum Trying to Make American Conservatives Into Canadian Conservatives?

Here is an article about David Frum's website The New Majority, and his "new conservatism," by American Thinker writer J. R. Dunn.

The article distinguishes between the American and Canadian character, which I think is correct, and discusses how Frum’s Canadianness obstructs his view on American conservatism. But, I don't think that is how Frum sees things.

I think that Frum, like many conservatives in the U.S. and Canada, and probably in Europe too, is just sliding ever closer to the liberal state of mind. But I don't think he was a genuine conservative to start with.

Frum in a CBC interview of him soon after his book Comeback Conservatism that Can Win Again came out in 2008, talks about a new type of conservatism. He says the following in the interview:

We're moving toward new formations, not conservatism as we've known it, and not liberalism either... and there are going to be big prizes for the people who can figure out how to get there first.

So, these new "formations" are neither conservative nor liberal, and in fact the compensation for those that come up with this new movement is...big prizes.

I think Frum is actually a careerist, and an elitist. That together with his liberalism, which shows its face regularly, makes him unable to accept true conservatism. I remember reading somewhere that he thinks conservatives should reconsider homosexual marriage. That was about the time when I stopped taking him seriously.

But, what about the elitist part? Dunn is correct in saying that Frum doesn't relate to ordinary Americans, and uses Sarah Palin as the example. I don't think Frum dislikes Palin because she represents the "Yanks [who] are simply a louder and more rash version of anybody you’d find above the 49th," nor is it for any principled reason relating to her tenuous conservative positions, but simply because he is an elitist. I think it is the same reason he dislikes Rush Limbaugh.

Frum recently wrote in the National Post:

[We] are afraid that Palin's distinctive combination of sex appeal, self-pity, and cultural resentment has a following in today's GOP.

Nothing about Sarah’s ideas or positions on conservatism; all about the superficial Palin effect.

Elitism, these days, I think is a liberal trait. Those loud and raucous conservatives, wherever they may be, need the civilizing presence of these elitist careerists liberals like Frum. Of course, in Canada, one will be hard pressed to find such raucous conservatives, and it is these elitist Canadians who want to teach those Americans a lesson or two on decorum.

So Frum’s talent might be most beneficial south of the 49th, where there are more of those rumbunctions conservatives to civilize. In fact, he is now an American citizen – after a long American residency. With his new website, and his quest for a new movement, he is setting the stage for a new and prosperous career.

Frum isn’t really inventing anything new, or corrupting Americans with the passivity and liberalism of his native Canada. I think he’s just gauging the direction of the wind to make sure that he is as relevant today as he was yesterday. In that regard, he might be one less Canadian the Americans can do with.

Jihadis Going for Armageddon

"Twin Towers" by Dolores Wesnak, 2002

This was it. This really was the beginning of the war. The Armageddon. Jihad in full force, in full speed, fully intentional. Islam entered the United States in the most dramatic of ways. It was not creeping sharia, or even stealthy jihad (whatever that is). It certainly wasn't hijra.

It was Jihad, in all its glory and all its euphoria. In the name of Allah, for the sake of Muslims, to purify the world of the apostates and infidels and render it immaculate for Islam, the jihadis bombed the iconic towers of America. They were going for the jugular.

We should have got this by now. Some of us do, others are stuck on categorizing Islam and Muslims into various unconnected parts. But Islam is united and Muslims are one. They take apostasy and contradiction of the Koran very seriously.

I don't know when they'll strike again, these jihadis - the avant-garde of the Muslims. Hijra and creeping sharia will work for a while, but after so many centuries, Allah is impatient. That is perhaps his greatest weakness. Yes, he's waited for twelve hundred years (well, six hundred after being kicked out of Spain), in the sidelines with thuggeries and violence here and there. But, his violence betrays his agitation. He is not a calm god.

Now he wants the big prize. The whole Western world is wavering under the anticipation of his wrath. Will he wait, or will he strike again?  

"No," he says, "not those interminable twelve hundred years. Not that tortuous wait, not that endless patience, it goes against my nature! But now I have that stooge in Iran, he’s mad enough and smart enough to start with my nemeses, those Jews, right across from his god-forsaken country. We’ll then just go from there."

"What's taking them so long to get it?" he chuckles to Mohammed who sits across from him, still in shock at what turned out to be paradise.

Political Controversy at the Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF is starting with a big bang this year. An international roster of stars, including Jane Fonda and Danny Glover, is boycotting the festival due to a program titled City to City. City to City is a

new Festival programme that will explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best documentary and fiction films from and about a selected city.

The selected city this year happens to be Tel Aviv, in conjunction with celebrations of its 100th year.

The acerbic, hard-core leftist, Naomi Klein, of the No Logo fame,  even weighs in on the issue in her usual convoluted manner. Her Globe and Mail article starts with a Palestinian sob story. Writes Ms. Klein (actually, under normal conditions she would be Mrs. Lewis - of the famous Jewish family here in Toronto - but she opts for feminist nomenclature instead):

When I heard the Toronto International Film Festival was holding a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv I felt ashamed of my city. I thought immediately of Mona Al Shawa, a Palestinian women's-rights activist I met on a recent trip to Gaza. "We had more hope during the attacks," she told me, "at least then we believed things would change."

The Hope And Change of Obama has infiltrated the globe. I wonder when we'll be rid of it.

The amusing thing is that Cameron Bailey, the co-director of TIFF, has no inclination to celebrate Israel. His (and TIFF's) decision to hold Tel Aviv as the premier city in TIFF's new City to City program seems to have been based on clever marketing and publicity strategies by Israeli consul-general in Toronto who started a "Brand Israel" campaign a year ago to include Israeli films in TIFF. The idea is to clean up Israel's image to the world through artistic presentations, including theatre, film and literature.

Cameron Bailey writes in the festival program that:

The ten films in this year's City to City programme will showcase the complex currents running through today's Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity.

There's that favorite Toronto word which has crept in - diversity. And apparently Tel Aviv is just like Toronto in that regard.

So, there is no need for Naomi Klein and the usual suspect of leftist movie stars to get so worked up. Bailey and the "Brand Israel" group agree with her more than not. And I'm 99.9% sure (leaving out a margin for error) that the films selected will not displease any Palestinians (or Torontonians).

Here is a sample of the films:

* Bena: a Tel Aviv man brings in a Thai migrant worker for help with his schizophrenic son.

- Big Eyes: the main actor - and the director - of this film is Uri Zohar, described as an "an actor and comedian in the fifties, [who] headed up an ad hoc troupe of performers and rock-'n'-roll-styled pacifists." The surprising ending to Zohar's real life is that he "left bohemian Tel Aviv behind and became an ultra-Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem."

Maybe Jerusalem should have been the choice for City to City.

* The Bubble: A story of a homosexual tryst between an Israeli and a Palestinian.

* Kirot: a Ukrainian "sex worker" and an Israeli "abused wife" bond over language lessons.

* Jaffa: how the supposed peace between Arabs and Jews is broken in the port town of Jaffa when two teenagers a Jewish girl and Arab boy, fall in love. But, as the program informs, this is not about Arab/Jewish conflict, but "the pain of...all-too-human broken hearts."

* Life According to Agfa: a film set in a fictional Tel Aviv bar named "Barbie", but in the real Tel Aviv, Barbie stands for Abarbanel Mental Health Center.

* Phobidilia: yet another film (the third in the series) about a mentally challenged character.

The only one I might watch is the take on the great French comedy director Jacques Tati's film Play Time. Ephraim Kishon's Big Dig is about "an enterprising madman [who] comes across an unattended jackhammer, as though it had been waiting for him all his life. Lugging the tool into downtown Tel Aviv, he sets up on Allenby Street and starts digging...all the way to the Mediterranean."

There's that madman again. At least Tati's character was idiosyncratic - never mad. Perhaps that is the ultimate message of these Tel Aviv films - that the city is trying to come to grips with its schizophrenic (call it diverse) self. Sounds like Toronto to me.

Kevin Michael Grace's Inadequate Take On Section 13 of The Human Rights Commissions

Kevin Michael Grace, author of the website The Ambler, who has been on a hiatus for quite a while (more than a year, I think), has an article up on Vdare weighing in on the recent HRC high drama. It is a pleasure to have Grace back.

There are a few points, though, that I would like to critique in Grace's article, especially this part:

Canada may have the highest immigration rate in the world, but this is not an issue. Canada’s major cities may have been turned into simulacrums of the Third World, but this is not an issue. Quebec is the tail that wags the Canadian dog, but this is not an issue. There is little left of what we used to be, and what little that exists steadily disappears, but this is not an issue, either.

As Grace writes, "The [1977] Canadian Human Rights Act came about as the result of pressure from Canadian Jewish organizations, specifically, in the form of the "Cohen Committee."' From that, the Human Rights Commissions were formed as the "quasi-judicial" body to enforce the CHRA's mandates.

The Cohen Committee was formed in 1966 to combat:

The distribution of hate propaganda and the activities of racist groups [that] have come in two waves since the 1960s. In the middle of that decade, anti-Jewish and anti-black hate propaganda was widespread in Canada, but especially in Ontario and Quebec. Simultaneously, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, based largely in the U.S., became active in Canada. The result was the 1965 Cohen Committee, upon whose recommendations to the Minister of Justice were based the 1970 amendments to the Criminal Code (s. 318-320) adopted by Parliament.

So, in effect, the creation of the HRCs was propelled by the fears that immigrants (or non-native Canadian groups - the Jews and blacks) might have of violence and hate directed at them.

Earlier on, Grace quotes section 13(1) of the HRC, specifically the part which includes the groups that might have hate directed at them as: "person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination."

This "protected class" according to section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has grown from the original Jews (and blacks) of 1966 to those defined by "race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability." Later on in 1992, sexual orientation was also added.

Grace states in the conclusion of his article that "The purpose of the CHRA was secret but obvious. It was to kill politics in Canada. And in that it succeeded."

But, this was after the fact! The CHRA was installed in 1977 after the recommendations of a non-political, arguably immigrant group, which was trying to protect its "rights" against aggressors and those it esteemed as anti-Semites (and racists). The CHRA, initially, had nothing to do with politics.

Which is why I think its ultimate purpose is not about silencing political dissent, although this is one of the unintended (although if one's on the other side, happily intended) effects. The point of the CHRA, and the HRCs, is to stop discrimination. And the number of potential discriminatorees (?) has grown exponentially since the original Jewish and black complaints. And this growth is highly correlated with immigration – and I am convinced enough to say that it is caused by - immigration.

Although Lemire’s case was not filed by Jews afraid of his neo-Nazi/white supremacist sentiments, it is nonetheless the birth of Jewish immigrants’ protestations. Another immigrant group, the Muslims, decided to take this easy-win (100% conviction rates to date) phoney court set up to sue prominent Canadians, including the national magazine MacLeans.

Grace, like Levant and many of the “free speech” crowd, is acting like the journalist that he is. He is viewing the whole CHRA and the consequent HRCs as governmental strong-arms to silence dissent - of writers, really. But, the government is using a specific (world) view, that of anti-discrimination, to induce this silence.

It seems to me that the history of the CHRA and the HRCs is intertwined with immigration. If writers like Grace ignore that, then the whole debacle of the high levels of immigrants from countries which are incompatible with Western democracies (like Muslims), will continue to weave around all aspects of Canadian life. It is one thing to dislike "statism", but it is also not recommended to ignore the realities of modern Canadian life. Immigration, and its consequences, are everywhere. 

Update: The great Edwin S. Rubenstein from Vdare, who developed (I say invented) the VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (VDAWDI), seems to agree with me with his just posted, September 4, 2009, article. He says:

So gargantuan is America’s post-1965 immigration disaster that there is now an immigration dimension to every public issue—Health Care, infectious disease, mortgage fraud, crime, school overcrowding.

You could replace American with Canadian (although it starts a little later in Canada in 1967), and his sentence would be just as accurate.

Hate speech law "ruled" unconstitutional

The Canadian media (blogosphere and main stream) are abuzz with this bit of news.

Here is what I gleaned from the following blogs and websites:

The Shotgun blog
Small Dead Animals
Big City Lib Strikes Back
Jay Currie
GenX at 40
Covenant Zone
Ezra Levant
Rob Breakenridge interview of Ezra Levant on CHQR AM 770 (scroll to the bottom)

I will go through the information point by point.

I will post my brief commentary at the end.

The case:

* Marc Lemire was charged with hate speech on his website by Richard Warman

* Before the case went to the Human Rights Tribunal, Lemire had removed all incriminating information from his site

* Lemire spent the better half of five years in this HRT case

* Warman has a history of bringing hate speech cases to the HRCs, and has to date won tens of thousands of dollars in this lucrative "enterprise"

The HRT judge and his ruling:

* Athanasios Hadjis, the HRT judge, has been involved with the HRT for at least five years

* So far, he's had a 100% conviction rate with section 13 (1)

* He didn't rule that that Section 13(1), was unconstitutional

* He did rule that Section 13(1), when combined with the penalty provisions set out in another portion of the Act - Section 54(1) - is unconstitutional, since it violated section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

* So technically, Section 13 (1) still stands. But is "unconstitutional" when in conjunction with the penalty - read thousands of dollars of fines - seeking section 54(1)

* The big question is whether Hadjis has the authority to make constitutional rulings

* According to the National Post: As a statutory tribunal, Mr. Hadjis does not have the legal authority to officially declare a law unconstitutional. But if he finds it would be unconstitutional to enforce it, he can do as he has done, which is to "simply refuse to apply these provisions."

The lawyers:

* Eleven lawyers prosecuting the case

* Two from the Justice Minister’s office

* Four from the CHRC

* Five from the B’nai Brith, Canadian Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center

The background to Hadjis' decision:

* Ever since the MacLeans, Steyn and Levant cases at the various national and provincial HRCs, there has been a media blitz focusing on the HRCs

* Levant's book Shakedown, describing his and others' ordeal, and proposing to demolish the HRCs, is a national bestseller

* Shakedown has been glowingly approved by all the mainstream, even left-liberal publications

* High official, such as Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission Jennifer Lynch, have been stumbling in the media, including cancelling debating Ezra Levant on a national television show on CTV

* During Lemire's case, too many "scandalous" stories started coming out, including the HRC hacking into a private citizens internet account to hide their tracks while logging into Neo-Nazi sites

* Hadjis, up to now, had been working on obscure cases, and has had a 100% conviction rate, and lethal fines for the convicted

* With media scrutiny, Levant's new book out, Lemire not backing down for five to six years, Hadjis had to do "something"

The consequence:

* Ultimately, the Federal Court or the Supreme Court are the ones to decide on the actual constitutionality of Section 13

* The Canadian Jewish Congress has already said the case should be appealed

* The losing parties are sure to appeal the case, when it will go before the Federal or Supreme Court

* Another suggestion is that Canadian government (the Conservative Party of Canada) repeal the law

* This could be an election issue, since the Liberal Party leader is shooting for a Fall election

My commentary I will add for now is:

What will the Federal or Supreme court judges do? Is it worth their time to dismantle this institution with which they are aligned?

The case was of the right thing happening for the wrong reasons - the HRT judge got frightened of media scrutiny

Even with section 13 gone, and the HRCs dismantled, will this lessen the types of cases that could be filed based on "hate" or "discrimination" or "racism" etc. I.e. what is the root cause of such kinds of cases being filed?

What provisions will the government put in place to help the kinds of cases described above?

- One that already exists is in the Criminal Code of Canada, which has a Hate Crime Provision

- Another is providing plaintiffs with all kinds of government support such as free lawyers (legal aid), subsidizing their cases, charitable organizations raising funds for such cases, etc.

Are Muslim Women Apostates the Same as Sharia-touting Muslims?

Stills from Shirin Neshat's videos: Rapture and Turbulence, from
my article "Islam's Missionary Women"

Jihad Watch (Robert Spencer), Altas Shrugs (Pamela Geller), Frontpage Magazine (Phyllis Chesler), and other anti-jihad sites have been covering extensively the death threat that is hanging over the head of the young Muslim apostate Rifqa Bary, who converted to Christianity. This is, of course, strictly within the mandates of Islam – "Kill the Apostates," it declares, and will do it.

More interesting to me is how Muslims apostates especially in the U.S. and Canada are reacting to this.

Nonie Darwish is a convert from Islam to evangelical Christianity, who emigrated to the U.S. from Egypt. She has an article at the Hudson New York with stringent demands that "The US government…protect its citizens not only from the terrorism of jihad, but also from Islamic Laws condemning Muslims to death and that encourage vigilante street justice."

Here are more quotes from that article:

There is no peace for the apostate, not even in the West. The above threat [on Rifqa Bary's life] is real and will increase exponentially with the growth of the Muslim population and those who demand Sharia as a religious right...

In Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and so on, the majority of the population believe that apostates must be killed and that jihad against non-Muslim countries a badge of honor. I do not wish to see the same desensitization happen in the West, but the silence of Western media is deafening.

Former Muslims need protection now from the US government and court system. We need protection from Sharia Islamic Law.

Notice how Darwish mentions in passing the growing Muslim population in the West, which is directly responsible for the increasing Muslim-related problems, but never mentions it again, let alone propose measures to solve it.

A while ago, before I started Our Changing Landscape, I was writing full-length articles for Camera Lucida, to include more detailed, researched information (and longer posts) that I didn't think a blog was good for.

Here is what I said in 2006 in my article "Islam's Missionary Women" for Camera Lucida (now a revised version of this article is on Camera Lucida and Our Chaning Landscape):

With their frenetic and wholehearted immersion into Islamic reform, these Muslim women are actually changing the laws and regulations which have served their adopted countries for decades, if not for centuries. They have expanded their original intention of culling allies, and instead appear to be ready for a takeover. Since they are beginning to realize that the West’s apprehension toward Islam is very different from theirs, they seem to think that one expedient option might be to usurp the institutions and organizations into performing their mission for them.

This article was later revised for Chronwatch, and published in October 2008.

I revised the above strong words from my 2006 article for the one in Chronwatch to:

But our duty as Westerners is not to reform Islam, nor to accommodate Muslim women - those very women who will have male and female Muslim off-spring, thereby turning our countries into what they left behind. Our responsibility is to make sure that Islam is kept at a distance, which includes Muslims. This may be a harsh rejection of the pleas made by the Hirsi Alis and Wafta Sultans, but they more than anyone else should understand our predicament. And if they don’t, how different are they from their male counterparts, who are aggressively pushing into our societies to change the West into an Islamified entity? We can never be sure if our assistance to these multitudes of Muslim women would alleviate their plight, but making drastic changes in our own societies in response to their grievances will only damage us.

My point remains the same now in 2009. The more Muslims we let into our countries, the more they, in their righteous and often correct indignation, are going to make demands on our systems to accommodate their needs.

This holds equally true for sharia proponents as well as for Muslim apostates and "moderates," who want to change laws and policies for problems that have nothing to do with Canada or the U.S.