VIDEO: Together at last: Rex Murphy and Jordan Peterson

Rex Murphy, sometimes quoted and often recommended by Walt, is one of Canada's premier journalists. Jordan Peterson calls him "tough, truthful, politically correct, and possessed of a singular style and character." Like Don Cherry (although he might not like the comparison), he was "deplatformed" by the Canadian Broadcorping Castration some years ago for being too opinionated (on the wrong side, of course), too nationalistic, too politically incorrect... too truthful. Canada's National Post is the only lamestream media outlet which still carries his columns.

I'm pleased to see that Mr Murphy now has his own video channel - RexTV. Last week he interviewed Dr Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto clinical psychologist who has become even more famous than Rex for speaking to power, calmly and rationally, the truth about the modern state of education, politics, identity, and the (((controlled media))). Those are just some of the subjects they cover in this discussion. It runs nearly an hour and every minute is worth watching.



You will have noticed that for much of the interview, Dr Peterson is suffering considerable emotional distress. It's hard for us, his fans, to see him choking up, and verging on tears. But one must admire his courage in putting himself "out there" in spite of everything. He deserves our support and our prayers.

Jordan Peterson has his own YouTube channel, by the way. Walt recommends it highly.

VIDEO: Tranny Blaire White disses tranny Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv for human rights complaint re not being able to get his/her balls waxed

Ed. here. Walt tells me there is no way he can write a better introduction to this story than that posted by our old friend Rex Murphy in "The Yaniv outrage has left Canada, rightly, the laughing stock of the world", in the National Post, 27/7/19. Rex writes:
A friend of mine recently went to his local garage, claimed he was a re-conditioned ’79 Chevy Nova and asked them to do a timing check on the carburetor and rotate his tires. They said they wouldn’t because he didn’t have a carburetor, or tires, and they only worked on “cars.” He is off now to the local human rights tribunal (after a stop for spare parts at Canadian Tire).

The story Rex refers to has been widely reported in America, Australia and Britain, but not in Canada, where the big three (((controlled media))) -- the CBC, CTV, Global -- have agreed amongst themselves to bury it, for fear of offending the suddenly powerful "transgender community" or dealing a setback to the cause of "transgender rights". That would be because the actual story is so ridiculous, such an abuse of common sense, as to defy belief. As Blaire White -- herself post-op tranny -- points out, it really does look bad for the "community".

In a nutshell -- that word being perfect here -- it concerns the efforts of Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv, a self-identified pre-op (= still has testicles) transexual to get a Brazilian wax on his groin. He/she/xe has approached over a dozen businesses which offer the service -- all of them, curiously, operated by women -- and has for some reason(s) been turned down. The technicians have said that they are too busy, or haven't been trained to do that to people with ovular appendages, or are forbidden by the tenets of their religion.

Jonathan/Jessica is outraged that he/she/xe has been insulted and discriminated against, and has filed complaints with the British Columbia Human Rights Commission, which is already notorious for hearing frivolous complaints, as in their prosecution of Mark Steyn. Mr Murphy asks: "...is it simply enough...for someone to walk into its offices, self-declare 'I am a trans woman and I can't get my scrotum waxed,' and have them take on the case? Is that truly all it takes?"

What does this case tell us about the dominance of radical progressivism in western society, particularly on the Pacific coast (for BC is Canada's version of California, just not quite so degenerate...yet). The mind boggles. Anyway, here's Blaire White's take on the whole sordid mess.



Further viewing: Lindsay Shepherd, a young Canadian woman who has been raked over the coals, and banned from Twitter, for standing up for free speech and against progressive censorship, has had her Twitter account reinstated. Click here to watch her video on how she got banned and unbanned, and on human rights tribunals, the Yaniv case and its impact on the respondents. WARNING: Contains vulgar language related to female genitalia!

Footnote: Speaking of "transgender rights", a report just in from Pakistan says police have found the bodies of two transgender women who were tortured and beaten to death. Senior officer Mohammad Ali Zia says the bodies were recovered late Saturday from a locked house in eastern Punjab province. He says it's unclear what motivated the killings, which appear to have taken place three days ago. Transgender people are often subjected to abuse in the conservative, Muslim-majority shithole. They are also among the victims of so-called honour killings carried out by relatives to punish perceived sexual transgressions.

Shocking new poll reveals Ontarians don't like poor people, Muslims, trannies and refugees

Agent 3, always on the lookout for examples of government waste, reports that the human rights industry is thriving in Ontario, particularly in the province's Political Correctness Police Commission [Human Rights Commission, surely! Ed.] Under the leadership of its SJW Chairthingy, Renu Mandhane (pictured), the OHRC has just spent an undisclosed [read: ridiculously large] sum on a poll to study discrimination.

The Environics Research Group (which has no connection whatever to Ontario's Liberal government), surveyed 1501 people from across the province, including 720 from the minority-majority Greater Toronto Area. The public opinion survey, touted as the first of its kind, is entitled Taking the pulse: People's opinions on human rights in Ontario. To the surprise of no-one other than Ms Mandhane and the progressive thinkers in the Liberal Party and the CBC, the poll found that the majority of Ontarians have negative feelings toward the poor, refugees, transgendered people, Muslims and Arabs.

The lowest approval score was given to those on "public assistance" [read: welfare]. Only 39% of those polled said they feel at least
somewhat positive towards this group. Arabs were second-lowest, with only 44% of respondents expressing at least somewhat positive feelings about them. Why Arabs and Muslims were treated as discreet categories is not made clear, but a slightly higher number -- 45% -- had positive feelings towards followers of the Prophet. Refugees and transgendered people came in at 46%.

There were some positives. 64% of those polled were favourable to people with disabilities, and 62% had positive feelings about "Asians". The survey question apparently did not distinguish between south Asians (like Ms Mandhane) and east Asians (Chinese and Japanese, for instance) or southeast Asians (like Filipinos). 57% of respondents had positive feelings toward Indigenous people (or First Nations, or whatever today's PC term is), although that group was the largest to complain about being discriminated against.

Agent 3 wonders why it was necessary to spend thousands or millions of beaverbucks to get opinions which could have been discerned by spending a few hours eavesdropping on conversations in Tim Hortons coffee shops. But doing that wouldn't have been scientific, EH!

Amazing headline on "Five Feet of Fury" blog!

In "What does Walt read?", Ed. told you about some of the blogs I read regularly. One of them is Five Feet of Fury, written by the amazing Kathy Shaidle, who, to judge by the pic at the top of her blog, has described herself very well in the title.

Reading her blog today, it occurred to me that angry young women can get away with writing a lot of stuff that angry old men can't. What makes me think so? The lead post on FFoF today is about the circus masquerading as a trial of Jian Ghomeshi. Who he? A former CBC Radio personality who got sacked when some of his ex-girlfriends went to Inspector Knacker with stories of his predilection for "rough sex". That was what he called it. The cops call it "sexual assault".

Kathy's opinion is that Mr. Ghomeshi's "female 'victims' sounded like -- it pained me to agree with the guy -- bitter ex- or wannabe girlfriends. (As you had guessed: None of these “victims” called the cops after these “assaults,” some of which dated back over a decade.)" What headline does Kathy give to this piece? "My NEW Taki’s column — Ghomeshi-quiddick: The trial of the cunt-ury!"

Amazing! I couldn't get away with that. Could you, Ed.? [No way. Ed.] I can imagine what would happen if a male writer used the c-word to refer to a female. Accusations of sexism, summonses to appear before a "human rights tribunal", followed by banishment from the lamestream media pending the completion of remedial sensitivity training. Such is the politically correct world in which we live. That, by the way, is the gist of Mr. Ghomeshi's defence.

VIDEO: Who has more "rights": Muslims, women or gays?

Today's National Post features an excellent piece entitled "Why human 'rights inflation' could spell 'the beginning of the end of social change'". According to Dominique Clément, a historian at the University of Alberta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in 1948, included a few dozen rights, all familiar from their notorious violations by repressive states. Today, international law recognizes more than 300.

These less familiar "rights", such as the human right to affordable Internet access or higher education, represent a worrisome trend. "Rights inflation", he argues, erodes the legitimate core of rights that are strictly necessary to life and freedom.

How so? Well, the more "rights" people have, the more likely they are to come into conflict. The "rights" to which I am "entitled" is as long as my arm, but what happens if your arm is longer than mine? Human rights legislation says you may not discriminate against me, or preach hatred against me, for being a white, male, traditional Catholic.

I happen to be a "social conservative" too, but there are no laws to keep the "progressives" from ridiculing my beliefs and demonizing me as antideluvian, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, etc etc and so forth. And if I, or someone like Mark Steyn (Hi, Mark!) attempts to turn the tables, it's "Helloooo, Human Rights Tribunal!"

Imagine, then, what would happen if one of the "protected groups" -- gays, let's say, or wimmin -- came into conflict with another, like... wait for it... Muslims. Consider the following cases.

Case One: a friendly soccer game in Brampton ON last week. It's established law in Ontario that girls can play sports -- even a real sport like hockey -- on boys' teams if they want to. Last Tuesday a coed team from Robert F. Hall Secondary School (a Catholic school) met on the field with an all-male team from ISNA Private Islamic High School. The teams played the first half without incident, and Hall led ISNA 3-1 at the break.

At that point, the coach of ISNA's team realized that there were girls playing on the other team! (How he figured this out is not reported.) So at halftime, the Muslim coach told the referee that his team "didn't feel that they could continue for religious reasons and for their own personal beliefs."

Obviously his complaint had nothing to do with his team's being on the low end of the score, but, although ISNA would have lost the game by forfeit, Hall needed to win by more than a two-goal differential to advance to the next round of the tournament. So, the girls volunteered to sit out in the second half so play could continue, and Hall went on to win 6-1. Bruce Campbell, speaking for the Catholic school board called the girls' decision to come out of the game "an incredible display of sportsmanship and selflessness and team spirit. But [he added] they shouldn't have been put in that position."

A spokesthingy for the athletic association that organized the tournament explained all teams are expected to abide by league rules and league constitution that includes a gender equity policy, which gives female students the right to play on a boys' team if their school doesn't have a girls' team. "It's our assumption that when schools apply (to be part of the league) they've read the rules and regulations," he said, adding that any team that joins the league is bound to abide by its rules and regulations.

The Brampton Guardian report says that at press time, ISNA Private Islamic High School had not responded to a request for comment. Their end the story by saying that "commenting has been suspended...because some readers have violated our commenting guidelines. Rude remarks and comments that are off topic are unacceptable. Foul language is forbidden."

Case two comes to us from Steven Crowder, an American actor, comedian and former contributor to the Fox News Channel. In October 2013, Big Journalism reported that Fox News had dropped him, shortly after he made negative statements about Fox News host Sean Hannity. Mr. Crowder now hosts a weekly talk show, Louder with Crowder on WAAM in Ann Arbor MI, and posts comedy, commentary and news videos to his YouTube channel, Louder with Crowder -- "the most politically incorrect channel on the Web".

In April, Mr. Crowder posted a hidden camera video which proves that, if you're a Christian who wants to practise religious freedom, you'd better get ready for ridicule, threats and discrimination. But if you're a Muslim who wants to practice religious freedom, of course there's no problem! At least, that's the case in Dearborn MI where he attempted to get Muslim cake shops to bake a cake for a gay wedding, which Islam teaches are wrong. Need we tell you that they refused openly? Watch! And ask yourself if a Christian baker could have got away with this.

"Legal terrorist" files third complaint to enforce "rights" of Muslim students at Catholic University

Meet John F. Banzhaf. Not just plain ole John F. Banzhaf, but Professor John F. Banzhaf, the Third (no less). Wikipedia describes him as a law professor at George Washington University and a "legal activist", which is like calling Ted Cruz "somewhat conservative". Prof. Banzhaf's own website says he's been called a "legal terrorist", "the Osama bin Laden of Torts", and a "legal bomb-thrower". And that's still putting it mildly.

I say that because the good professor is well known in liberal, secular humanist circles -- and notorious in legal circles -- for filing dozens of human rights complaints, including those alleging discrimination against non-smokers, women, and just about every poor, down-trodden minority you can name. They're all being put down, you know, by the racist, sexist, homophobic, yada yada yada white upper class.

So Prof. Banzhaf has form, as they say. Even so, his jihad against Catholic University is, IMHO, over the top. It began back in 2011, when he filed two complaints with the DC Office of Human Rights against Catholic University (which, honestly, is a Catholic university), on behalf of CU's Muslim Students Association. No Genevieve, I am not making this up. Nor do I have any idea why Muslims would want to go to a Catholic university, but they do, and they are organized. Here's a picture of some of the members of the student group.

Sadly, the Muslim Students Association is not officially recognized by the university. Prof. Banzhaf's complaint to the DC Office of Human Rights was not based on any communication with the Muslim students, but on an article he read in the Washington Post in which one Muslim undergrad said he was told that he could not create an Islamic worship group. But CU does have an official group for Jewish law students [Jewish law students? Really?! Ed.], ergo the Muslims were being discriminated against. So said Prof. Banzhaf.

That complaint, filed in October, was actually the second made by the "legal flamethrower". A couple of months earlier he said the Muslim kids' rights were being violated when CU eliminated coed dorm floors. One would think that dorms segregated by sex ["gender"? Ed.] would be more in keeping with the commandments of the Prophet, but there you are.

Both complaints are still "pending". However, Robert Tuttle, a law professor at GWU -- the same GWU at which Prof. Banzhaf teaches -- said Washington’s anti-discrimination law has a broad exemption for political and religious groups. He told the Post in October 2011 that the complaints are "not likely to be successful if [the exemption] is read the way other courts have read other human rights exemptions."

That seemed to shut Prof. Banzhaf up for a while, at least as far as CU was concerned. But perhaps he was just thinking of something else to complain about. And he came up with a doozy. He filed yet another complaint -- or maybe it was another part of one of the two complaints already mentioned* -- saying that the presence of crosses and crucifixes in the rooms of Catholic University were offensive to Muslim students and prevented them from praying.

According to an article in beliefnet news, Prof. Banzhaf alleged that CU "does not provide space – as other universities do – for the many daily prayers Muslim students must make, forcing them instead to find temporarily empty classrooms where they are often surrounded by Catholic symbols which are incongruous to their religion."

Even worse (the complaint goes on), Muslims must pray at the school’s chapels "and at the cathedral that looms over the entire campus – the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception." Oh those terrible, racist, Islamophobic Catholics!

beliefnet news quotes Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society as saying "This attorney is really turning civil rights on its head. He’s using the law for his own discrimination against the Catholic institution and essentially saying Catholic University cannot operate according to Catholic principles."

Another commentator, Thomas Peters, asks "Can you imagine a law professor helping Catholic students to sue a Jewish or Muslim school to demand that the schools install crosses, remove their religious symbols, and allow the Catholics to construct a chapel on their property? Can you imagine the argument being that Jewish and Muslims schools using their religious symbols and following their faith traditions would be described in the legal brief as 'offensive'?! Normally I would have confidence that this lawsuit will be deemed without merit, but the way things are going these days, I just can’t be sure anymore. Simply incredible."

* FOOTNOTE AND CAVEAT:  This story has been all over the Internet this month, especially on conservative and religious websites, but no-one except yr obdt servant seems to have noticed that the original stories in the Washington Post and beliefnet news were posted in October of 2011. 

 

beliefnet news quoted a spokesthingy for the DC human rights commission as saying they were investigating Prof. Banzhaf's complaints, and that the inquiry would take at least six months. But there has been no news since. Walt [and Ed.! Ed.] has [have! Ed.] searched in vain for updates or follow-ups, but have found nothing. I'm beginning to wonder if the whole issue, including the good professor, was a figment of someone's imagination. Anyone who can shine some light into this dark corner of abusive "human rights" complaints is requested to e-mail us.

How black do you have to be to be "black enough"?

What you have to understand, to appreciate the irony of this story, is that Canada's equal rights laws -- included in its "Charter of Rights", a part of the constitution -- are so progressive and righteous as to make America's seem like Jim Crow laws by comparison. Never should anything done by anyone in the Great Not-so-white North be tainted by the merest suggestion of discrimination on the basis of colour. Hiring/firing decisions, for instance, mustn't betray a hint of tint!

Poetic justice, then, that a woman of colour [person of colour, surely! Ed.] took to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission a complaint that she had been wrongfully fired by her employer because of the colour of her skin. Her employer was the Black Educators Association. And the problem with Ms Brothers's colour was that she was not black enough!

No, gentle reader, Walt is not making this up. Unfortunately, the Canuck lamestream media seems unable to find even a tiny picture of Ms Brothers, so we can see what colour she might be. Apparently she's not white, else she wouldn't have been hired in the first place, so Walt assumes she's what was once called a "high yeller". [Are you referring to the pitch of her voice? Ed.]

In a decision released this morning, the Human Rights Commission found that Brothers was "undermined by association staff whose 'colourist thinking' and behaviour created a toxic work environment at the head office in Halifax and the Annapolis Valley regional office in Kentville, where Ms. Brothers was employed as a regional educator."

The woman named in the report for discriminating against Ms Brothers was Catherine Collier, who was vying with Ms Brothers for the same regional educator position, a job which Ms Brothers landed. The HR police chief [Human Rights Commission Chairman, surely! Ed.] said in his report, "It is clear to me that Ms Brothers was undermined in part because she was younger than, and not as black as, Ms Collier thought Ms. Brothers should be.... In Ms. Collier's eyes, Ms. Brothers was not really black enough."

The Association has been ordered to pay Brothers C$11,000 -- $10,000 in real money -- plus interest, for general damages and lost income. The Black Educators Association is, errr, taxpayer-funded, so the award, the lawyers' costs, the Commission's costs -- the whole ball of wax -- comes out of the pockets of the thrifty New Scotlanders.

But never mind. Tracy Williams, CEO of the Commission, assures taxpayers that "This decision addresses an important human rights issue. The commission needs to explore this sensitive subject to better understand its impact and identify ways we can be of assistance." If you pay taxes in Nova Scotia and you disagree, send a postcard saying "I'm a sucker and I'm tired of being licked!" to Human Rights Commission, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Footnote: It's worth reading the decision made by Donald Murray, Q.C., in its entirety, in order to appreciate the kind of thinking that has created the latest in a long line of sins against human rights. The new sin is called "colourism" (or "colorism" if you're in the USA). A bit of good news: apparently people of colour can be just as GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY or colourism as us whiteys.

Identity politics in the police state; "white privilege" in the university

Ed. here. Walt is north of the world's longest undefended (?) border to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. The queen in question is Queen Victoria, and even though she cannot visit Canada in person, she has sent her son, Prince Charles and his consort. Walt is hoping to get a royal autograph.

Meanwhile, it's my task -- just one of many -- to scan the Internet for items calculated to interest and enrage you, our dear followers. Today's edition of Canada's so-called National Post has two related columns, well worth reading, about racism and identity politics in the Great Not-so-white-anymore North.

"Why the Human Rights Commission is an early warning of Canada’s drift from free society to police state" contains some thoughts on political correctness and identity politics, penned by George Jonas, a Hungarian Jew who came to Canada as a refugee decades ago. Thoughts like this: "Identity politics play well in police states. We’re not there yet, not even in the vicinity. We’re just heading in that direction."

In "Check your bigotry" our old friend Rex Murphy -- we never miss his rants on CBC-TV's The National -- writes "Only in the very best universities would you ever be able to create a concept as stupid as 'white privilege'."

Here's a further quote: "...if there is one movement, that by its humourlessness, its obsessive mania and its blindness to its failings, chokes on its own goals, it is the so-called anti-racism movement. And you will find its most feverish exemplars in the very citadels of reason, the modern-day university campus. Nowhere in the West will one find such fundamentalist fury as in the frenzies of campus political correctness on the subject of race."

The value of a racist insult? More than a year's pay, in Ontario

Here are some numbers for Canadian readers to think about.

$21,320 - A year's pay, before taxes, for a 40-hour week, at the Ontario minimum wage.

$23,500 - Amount awarded by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal to a migrant worker who was fired and sent home for complaining about being called a monkey.

Adrian Monrose is a citizen of St. Lucia, a tiny dot in the Caribbean. Like many other islanders, he has been coming to Canada for some years to work on the tomato farms in the very southwestern corner of Ontario. He and his mates do the jobs that Canadians won't do.

Mr. Monrose is -- need we say it? -- black. Or dark brown at least. Which may have something to do with why, in May of 2009, his employer, Benji Mastronardi, shouted at Monrose and his fellow workers, "You're like monkeys on a branch."

The defendants said they fired Monrose for constantly complaining about not being paid his full wage, and for being prone to violence. In a decision released last week -- the wheels of "justice" grind mighty slow in Ontario -- the human rights adjudicator said "his termination was more likely in response to his having raised concerns about being referred to as a monkey."

Result? A rather large payout for injured feelings. In addition to the monetary damages, the farm corporation is required "to hire an expert to develop a comprehensive human rights and anti-discrimination policy within 120 days. It must also ensure all of its supervisory staff complete an online human rights course."

Perhaps they would do better, next year, to import a ship-load of actual monkeys.

Major victory for freedom of speech in Canada. (Americans, take note!)

Those who, like Walt, believe in freedom of speech can rejoice this weekend. At least in Canada, that is. [Paula D. writes: "Only in Canada, you say? Pity!"] The infamous Section 13 of Canada's Human Right Act, long criticized by free-speech advocates as overly restrictive and tantamount to censorship, has at last been repealed.

A private member's bill sponsored by Conservative Member of Parliament Brian Storseth was passed by the House of Commons recently, in spite of not having received the official endorsement of Steve "Stephen" Harper's Tory government. It duly worked its way through the Senate which passed it before going on holiday this week.

Thus Section 13, which allowed [encouraged, surely! Ed.] complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for "the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet" gets tossed into the dustbin of history... and not a moment too soon!

Mr. Storseth called the law a "flawed piece of legislation" and characterized the human rights tribunal as "a quasi-judicial, secretive body that takes away your natural rights as a Canadian."

"[Section 13] had actually stopped being used as a shield, as I think it was intended, to protect civil liberties, and started being used as a sword against Canadians, and it's because it was a poorly-written piece of legislation in the first place," he said.

Chief wielder of the "sword" was a champion of political correctness fittingly named Richard Warman. The barking mad human rights zealot who, since 2001, brought no fewer than 16 complaints under Section 13. Warman's frivolous and vexatious accusations were all funded by Canadian taxpayers, since the CHRC covers the costs of the complainant, even if the complaint is dismissed.

One person who found this out the hard way, as Agent 9 reminds us, is Father Alphonse de Valk, CSB, the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. In 2006 he got dragged into the war against the excesses of human rights commissions when the CHRC charged him with hate speech after a complaint (from "guess who?") about some writings critical of homosexual behaviour. He was eventually cleared of all charges but still had to pay 1000s of dollars in legal bills.

Producing and disseminating "hate speech" remains a crime in Canada, but regulating it will be left to the courts (as it was previously), not to human rights tribunals. But while anyone -- even a raving loony -- could file a human rights complaint, charges of "hate crimes" under the Criminal Code of Canada require the approval of the Attorney-General.

Also pleased with this unexpected victory for free speech and common sense should be Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, who have been demonized for writing the truth as they see it. In "How 9/11 killed Canadians' appetite for human-rights speech codes", National Post columnist Jonathan Kay says that "confronting the human rights industry...wasn't just a matter of free-speech principle but a matter of civilizational self-protection. The average Canadian may not give a hoot about his freedom to use the N-word. But he'll be damned if he's going to let the government prevent him from saying what he things about burkas [sic] and terrorists."  

Further reading: "Father de Valk winner of CCRL award". The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) assists in creating conditions within which Catholic teachings can be better understood, cooperates with other organizations in defending civil rights and opposes defamation and discrimination against Catholics on the basis of their beliefs.

"Hate" to say goodbye

At the end of the hippy-dippy 60s, the Liberal Party imposed on Canada, as its new prime minister, one Pierre Elliot Trudeau. The man Allan Fotheringham dubbed "Himself" promised Canadians that when he got through with Canada, they wouldn't recognize it. He was right.

One of the most pernicious laws passed by PET's government, to enact his liberal humanist vision of the future, was the Canadian Human Rights Act, an Orwellian name for a law that actually destroys real rights. Everyone has rights now -- infidels, atheists, pacifists, rioters, vizmins, sexual deviates. Or almost everyone. Certain rights are conspicuous by their absence -- the right to life, and the right to speak your mind freely, not to mention the right to be left alone by the nanny state.

As Ezra Levant wrote today in the Sun papers, the entire law is a corruption of justice. It creates a kangaroo court, run by non-judges, that doesn't follow the same rules and procedures of real courts, but has massive powers to punish and fine people who aren’t politically correct.

According to Levant, the worst part of the law is Section 13, the censorship provision. Section 13 creates a word crime: the crime of publishing or broadcasting anything that can cause hurt feelings. Levant has run afoul of it more than once. So has Mark Steyn, as mentioned here before.

Levant says, and Walt agrees, that Section 13 is an insane law. It is totally contrary to traditions of liberty that go back centuries, inherited from the United Kingdom and more recently the USA, where freedom speech is (supposedly) enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Last week, Canadian Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson rose in the House of Commons to answer a question about Section 13. The question was about a private member’s bill, introduced by Brian Storseth, a Member of Parliament from northern Alberta. His bill, C-304, would repeal Section 13. The effect would be to let people write and speak the truth, without having to answer to the PC police.

Unfortunately, in the Canadian parliamentary system, private members' bills have little chance of passing without the endorsement of the government. But Mr. Nicholson did endorse it. And he called on all MPs to support it.

So, Bill C-304, is now effectively a government bill. And with a Tory majority in both the House of Commons and the Senate, this bill is as good as enacted.

Canadians can look forward to the end of witch hunts by the Canadian and provincial Human Rights Commissions. The Forces of Good and Progress will no longer be able to persecute their political and religious enemies.

Repealing Section 13 would be the best thing the Harper government has done in five years. But C-304 could yet be derailed, if the lamestream media can rally "progressive public opinion" against it.

Walt encourages Canadians who value being able to speak truth to power to show their support for C-304. You can e-mail Brian Storseth and/or Rob Nicholson to let them know you're on the side of freedom. And wish them "Merry Christmas!" while you're at it!

Canadian PM calls "Islamicism" biggest threat

"Islamicism", "Islamization", "Islamic fundamentalism"... Whatever you call it, what we fear most is having a bunch of ragtops, tentheads, camel jockeys or whatever take over our country and turn it into Afghanistan.

Who says so? Certainly not Hussein "Al" Obama. Surprisingly, it was none other than Canadian Prime Minister "Call me Steve" Harper, speaking in an interview with CBC News. The interview will air tonight, September 7th. Tune in to "The National" and you will hear Mr. Harpoon tell Pete Mansbridge that "the biggest security threat to Canada a decade after 9/11 is Islamic terrorism."

Canada's Dear Leader goes on to say that the country is safer than it was on 9/11, when al-Qaeda attacked, errr, a country to the south, but that "the major threat is still Islamicism.... There are other threats out there, but that is the one that I can tell you occupies the security apparatus most regularly in terms of actual terrorist threats."

Harper warned that terrorist threats can "come out of the blue". It is not clear whether he was referring to a political party or something else. The example he gave was the recent outrages in Norway, where a lone gunman who hated Muslims killed 77 people. Why this qualifies as an act of Islamic terrorism was not explained, but Harper said terrorism by Islamic radicals is still the top threat, though a "diffuse" one. [It must be defused! Ed.]

"When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world," he said, citing terrorism in Nigeria, where (as Walt pointed out recently) Muslim extremists have fallen into the habit of burning Christian churches, often with the believers still inside.

The PM said "home-grown Islamic radicals in Canada are also something that we keep an eye on." Harpoon said his government will bring back anti-terrorism clauses that were brought in in 2001 but were "sunsetted" in 2007 because... well... because the Mounties never found any Islamic radicals, home-grown or otherwise, to use them on.

No word yet on when the Prime Minister will be prosecuted under section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act for inciting hatred against a religious minority. Don't hold your breath.

The biggest bully of all

Libertarian Gerry Nicholls has a great op-ed piece in some of the smaller Canadian newspapers today. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't see in the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star, voices of the progressive urban elite. So, in case you missed it, let me quote some thoughts on the government's role in our lives.

The government is a bully.

The government is always pushing us around.

It bosses us with rules and regulations that tell us where we can smoke, what we can eat and what kind of light bulbs we can put in our homes.

It passes ridiculous laws to intimidate gun owners and marijuana smokers.

It forces us to give up nearly half our income in the form of taxes so it can finance things like artificial lakes in downtown Toronto and chauffeur-driven limousines for federal cabinet ministers.

It even tries to control what we can think and say through the so-called Human Rights Commissions.

In short, the government uses coercion to manage just about every aspect of our lives from cradle to grave.

Plus, let's not forget the government also has the power to put people in jail.

Now that's what I call bullying.

And every time the government bullies its citizens, every time it seeks to restrict our behaviour or control our actions, or steal our private property, it also takes away our liberty.

That should scare all of us. Freedom is a precious commodity in this world; it should be protected and preserved.

Strong stuff. I agree with it. In fact, I love it! But am I the only one?

In one of his Globe and Mail columns recently, John Ibbitson said he doubted that there was much support in Canada for a Tea Party, because Canadians are just too moderate, polite and progressive. On the contrary, I think Mr. Nicholls' remarks will resonate with many more Canadians than Mr. Ibbotson has readers.

Gerry Nicholls has written a book, Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper, Me and the NCC. Click here to find out where to buy it, and read more libertarian common sense. Tell `em Walt sent ya.

A right for Americans, not Canucks

I'm waiting for the accusations of hate-mongering to start coming in in response to at least one of today's posts. I refer to the one quoting comments on the Toronto Star's story on "human rights abuses".

Sadly, things have gotten to the point, in Canada, where one risks being labelled a "hater" for daring to voice even a mild opinion that multiculturalism is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on Canadians, or that immigration from the third world is not an unalloyed boon.

As Mark Steyn (who writes for Maclean's among others) discovered, you can get hauled in front of one or more human rights tribunals for merely quoting someone else's non-PC opinion. So Walt, fearless as ever, is going to do just that, taking one more quote from the comments on the Star's story.

"A former Director of Ontario's Commission publically called for an end to the legal presumption of innocence, and the Federal Commission opined publically that 'Freedom of Speech is an American concept that we don't give much credence to.' Any Canadian who has any love for Common Law liberties wants these Commissions shut down. No changes, no adjustments or timkering. The Laws that create them repealed, and the Commissions shut down forever. No compromise."

John Ibbitson left that one out of Open and Shut. If there's one idea or ideal or right which Americans understand and practise far better than Canadians, it's freedom of speech!

Multiculturalism and discrimination: comments from Torontonians

Today's Toronto Star has a provocative article headlined "Complaints overwhelm human rights watchdog". It reports a number of stories -- some horrific, some ridiculous -- of real or imagined discrimination or harrassment because of gender or, above all, race.

The mission of the Ontario and other human rights commissions is to put right these wrongs, in other words to throw money at the complainants. In so doing they're supposed to teach us lessons in tolerance and make the world a more politically correct place.

More interesting than the story are the comments appended to it, which you can read here. A majority of those writing in feel that multiculturalism is an experiment which has failed (I'm quoting), that immigrants should adjust themselves to Canadian norms rather than the other way around, and that the quest for political correctness has gone way too far.

Here's just one of the comments:
I have said many times... "Toronto will be come a city of tribes where racial, ethnic and religious violence will be the order of the day"...we are not far from that now!No longer is it just white against black and black against white. It is a multitude of different races that have come to this country bringing their past baggage with them . It is the fault of us Canadians not to insist that they confirm to our standards and our way of life. Under our so very tolerant attitude where everyone has rights to do as they so choose... even so called refugees... these people continue to live as they have in their home countries with their customs, bigotry and hate. Many refuse to intergrate into the Canadian way of life. We as Canadians need to get tough. I am an immigrant of color that has been here since the 60's I have seen a great deterioration in our standards and quality of life due to this exteremely tolerant attitude that we as Canadians have.

"C" said it. I didn't.

Here's another, with an interesting suggestion:
In reading this article it looks like many of these complaints are from new or recent immigrant groups against each other. In most part this is probably due to bringing interracial tension, ethnic and religious clashes and personal racist, discriminatory and prejudiced beliefs with them from their country of origin. Maybe the HRC should order mandatory sensitivity training for all new immigrants and refugees as a condition of entering Canada.

Well by golly...!!! I wish I'd thought of that! But would any Canadian politician dare to suggest such a thing? Especially in the Greater (sic) Toronto Area? When pigs fly...

Offence intended

We seem to be living -- in Canada even more so than in the U.S.A. -- in an age and a society where no-one should ever be offended by anything, anytime, anywhere. In one translation of the Our Father, we ask God to "pardon us our offences", and indeed, we seem to spend a lot of time apologizing, now, for any offence we might have caused, even inadvertently, by anything we say or do.

Walt will not apologize! There are, in my view, lots of people, organizations and institutions that richly deserve offence...and lots of it!

As W.S. Gilbert wrote "I've got a little list..." Except it's not so little, and it grows every day. If you click on any on Walt's list of tags -- anything from Ablonczy to Zimbabwe -- there's about a 50/50 chance that you'll be led to at least one offensive statement. I try to leave no sacred ox ungored and no latter-day saint unstoned. Everyone, especially those in the highest places, needs a good swift kick in the shorts occasionally.

Yet there are those who say that we shouldn't say unkind things about the Greatest Living American and Leader of the Free World, or the Governor-General of Canada who is a Credit to Her Race. Indeed, it's all we can do, these days, to mention that Mr. Obama and Ms. Jean are... er... black.

To those who think we ought no longer to mix vitriol with printer's ink, I commend this thought from The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, by Philip Pullman:

“No one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to live their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it and if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it, and if you read it and dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me to complain about it. You can write to the publisher. You can write to the papers. You can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published or sold. Or bought or read.”

I have not read Mr. Pullman's book. From its title, I assume I would find it offensive. But, as he says, I don't have to read it. Nor would I try to stop its publication or ban its distribution. Nor would I report Mr. Pullman to one of our busybody human rights commissions. Let him say what he likes. Me too. That's what freedom of speech is all about.

Footnote: Where did I get the quote? From a fine piece by Tabatha Southey headlined "Canadian ruling on ‘offensive' comedy is a gag - but it's no joke", in the Globe & Mail April 2nd.

Book review: "Canada and Other Matters of Opinion"

For thinking Canadians, Rex Murphy has become something of a National Treasure. Not exactly Don Cherry -- though Murphy admires Cherry greatly -- but then the audience isn't quite the same.

Mr. Murphy hails from Newfoundland and has that peculiar love of and feel for the English language that seems to come naturally to educated Newfoundlanders, even though some of them (hello, John Crosbie) try to disguise it when they cast a few pearls before us ordinary people. It must be the Irish ancestry, I think.

Only a Rex Murphy could use the word "objurgation" in a sentence and make it seem entirely appropriate. His Fog Index* must be atmospheric, if you'll parden the pun, but his commentaries on Canadian mores, politics and personalities are eminently readable all the same.

Mr. Murphy commentates [is dis a word? ed.] a lot. He appears Thursday nights on CBC-TV's The National, hosts CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup on Sunday afternoons, and writes a Saturday column at the Globe and Mail. Rarely do I miss any of them.

Let me give you just one short sample from an essay called "Real Rights and Rights Commissions".

"Human rights are as profound and central a concept to the democracties of the world as we have. They constitutute the core of human freedom. They are the antidote to tyranny. They are fundamental.

"Of late, however, in Canada, this most painfully acquired understanding has been utterly unmoored. The various provincial human rights commissions and their federal godfather have been cuttings away at the core of, and extending into utter fatuity, the term 'human rights'. They are capricious, agenda-driven, a great mishmash of political correctness and 'right t hinking' bulldozing away at the basic freedoms of thought, speech and expression while they, under some osmotic impulse, investiage, prescribe and torment with zealous and self-righteous abandon."

Amen! How I wish I'd said that. How I wish I could write like that.

I borrowed Canada and Other Matters of Opinion (Doubleday Canada, 2009) from the library. I'm going to buy it.

*I refer to the Gunning-Mueller Fog Index, a test used by editors for decades to find out whether a text can be read and understood with more or less ease.

Forgive us our offences

There are reports in all the major media today of a sad story from Calgary. Three newborn babies have been found dead in a northeast Calgary home, along with a young woman who may or may not have been their mother. The name of the dead woman is Harsimrat Kahlon.

A police spokesman said that the circumstances are still under investigation, but that the death of the young woman is "not suspicious". The question of whether there was some sort of "cultural issue" remains open.

Although reports in the Globe and Mail and other wimpy print media did not mention the ethnicity or religion of the deceased woman, readers evidently made their own assumptions, which were later confirmed in the TV reports.

Comments in the Mop and Pail (as Richard Needham used to call it) have been disabled. Here, in the Glob's own words, is the reason why.

Editor's Note: Comments have been closed on this story because an overwhelming number of readers were making offensive statements about other commenters and/or the individual or individuals mentioned in the story.

Indeed. God (and the Human Rights Commission) forbid that anyone might suggest that the ethnic background (Indian) or religious background (Sikh) of those involved should be mentioned. Doing so might offend someone. That the cultural background (ethnicity + religion = culture) is 100% relevant to an understanding of what happened obviously does not matter.