Well, to sum it up — YAWN. At least for me.
This is going to be short, because I didn’t get very much out of it. Except that, like Jay said, the MPs were, for the most part, very unprepared. Just what do we pay these guys for? My take on the biggest dummy — the woman — was it Jennings? Comartin seemed most on the ball, like he’d actually done some reading ahead of time. Jay Currie live-blogged it, so go ahead and check out his notes, starting here. Ezra Levant also live-blogged it (of course), starting here through to his final thoughts.
Except for a couple of snide remarks, Professor Richard Moon was firm that he believed Section 13 should be repealed. Kudos to him.
The censors kept talking about the need to balance the Charter Rights of equality and freedom of expression, with Lynch actually saying that when “we balance rights there may come a point where one is protected and one is not.” Actually, Lynch was very evasive and condescending, as Ezra points out here.
CJC CEO Bernie Farber, who seems to think he speaks for all Jews, thought they were there for Show & Tell. He passed out photos showing vandalized Jewish graves with swastikas all over them. Which has nothing to do with Section 13, but whatever. Farber did little speaking, thankfully for everyone concerned. Instead, the CJC’s main spokesman was their president, Mark Freiman. As eloquent as he was, I have to disagree with Jay who called him “brilliant” (okay he also said “wrong, but brilliant”). His speech relied too heavily on evoking strong emotions, going on at length about the Holocaust as well as numerous genocides, relating them to “demonizing” and “dehumanizing” hate speech. I believe he made some recommendation for creating a tribunal within the tribunal to deal only with Section 13 complaints as their specialty. My thought: Great, more bureaucracy.
Honestly, I don’t understand how anyone, other than a lawyer, would have found that to be of value. With that said, I’ll leave you with Ezra’s final Final Thoughts:
In short, I thought it was great.
I’ve never been more optimistic about the prospects for reform. Now, the only question in my mind is, how much reform is enough?
Isn’t he sweet? So young and optimistic. The whole thing just makes me impatient.
UPDATE: You can view the entire mess for yourself here: Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Click on “View this Clip” or “Advanced View” and select the English or French version.
UPDATE 2: Welcome fellow Steynians! Mr. Steyn provides his commentary on the grande dame of censorship and her squirmings. Plus Deborah Gyapong provides insider commentary of the woman with the Cheshire Cat grin, complete with photos! Scary Fundamentalist has highlights and, of course, Binks!
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MooseandSquirrel said: ” How’d you like Bernie’s show & tell?”
This emotive visual show and tell theatrics was worn out the day Kinsella invented it. We have long out grown this kind of exploitive emotional triggering stunt. I think it was Rathgerber who asked him what direct relevance invoking emotional images of grave yard vandalism had to S13. Farber returned some further abstract victimology mumbo jumbo and Rathgerber responded to him with what we all were thinking ; that the vandalism of graves and synagogues is already illegal and did S13 stop that ?
It was a fallacious abstraction for the CJC to postulate, insinuating S13(an internet censorship law) would stop anti semitic vandalism and invoking holocaust links – really unintellectual argument that had the air of vacant desperation about it.
OK – I obviously did not read things quite right….
I thought the MPs were actually pretty clued in (yes, including Jennings, who seemed clued in and desperate to minimize the damage Mme Lynch was doing).
And, I thought that several of the MPs were openly mocking Mme Lynch….
And, that all of them definitely picked up on the fact she was attempting to patronize them into submission. If nothing else, politicians are UBER sensitive to being patronized….and they universally dislike it!
Condescending and pedantic.
OK. At the 42 min mark or so, J-ly starts equating HRC PS personnel on par with undercover cops posing as drug dealers. WTF? Here the true colours of the HRC come out. Initially established to protect the rights of individuals, they’re going out of their way to act as thought police. Right then and there, J-Ly has sown her seed of destruction. For members of the PS to act in perfidy beyond their mandate is a direct contravention of even the most basic western UN sanctioned rules of engagement (ROE) in war. What makes her think such behaviour is acceptable in a stable self policing society such as Canada that it needs a nanny to ferret out wickedness and burn them at the HRC stake?
48 min and 40 sec. J-Ly, like Moon did in his National Post thesis, branded “clearly, the lay person (see the average Canadian) does not understand the meaning of hate because no Canadian need to fear the merely offensive expression will be prohibited.”
In one stroke she brands all Canadians (who need protection from the HRC in accordance with the parliamentary mandate) as to inept to recognize real hate, but don’t fear, you also don’t need to be fearful of what you say (because we won’t come after you because, after all, you’re to stupid to know what real hate is, because we set the rules on what true hate is, because we have a standard of ethics that are, err…, well you know, we have ‘em – they’re just not published, but trust the nanny, ‘cause you don’t know the difference.) Right.
So Marc Lemay, who hasn’t come down on abolishing Section 13 questions why the powers of censorship should be expanded. To which J-Ly answers:
First she starts of with stats about hate complaints. And then whines about how one complaint has caused a debate about the balance of freedom of expression (yes, they’re talking about Ezra) and freedom from discrimination (oh wait, that would be the one someone who stood up to the apparchik of the HRC, and defeated them…more whining).
And then she goes on about analyzing the loss and making it a victory in reforming the policies of the HRC to further their own goals of being the nanny thought police.
(At this point, I realize what has been bugging me about watching J-Ly. She is actually the twin sister of Liberace. Look at her, the uncontrollable smiling and the slow speech trained to woo the audience. But it ain’t working.)
So the caveat is that the HRC has a mandate to investigate each and every complaint that is given to them. Wow. What a cash cow. Hey everybody, you find anything offensive, don’t worry, it won’t cost you a dime, just come-on-down and file your “making my job for life” easy form and we’ll look into and investigate your claim at no cost…well, no cost to you directly, but we’ll fleece the taxpayer for everything they got, ‘cause as we blow our budget this year, they’re bound to give us a bigger budget next year…yeah!
But in the end, she deflects her responsibility by saying that Parliament must make the Section 13 more clear so that we average Canadians can know explicitly what is actual hate and what isn’t (as if we already don’t know our own feelings) and that in turn would make the CHRC’s job easier. Not that they’d be more efficient, but that it would clarify things.
Again, she just doesn’t get it. In the military, most officers have been trained to stream line any bureaucracy they have for the brownie points. The best brownie points they can ever get is to streamline the whole department out of existence (usually into civilian contractors), but that, in the end is the job of the military, to some day not be needed. But not the CHRC. If their mandate is to truly rid Canadian society of hate, wouldn’t they just put into motion programs that would enable society to deal with it on their own, especially since society is paying for it? But no, the CHRC, like so many other governmental established groups change their mandate so that regardless of their efforts, society can’t do without them. Well, since we managed before the CHRC came along, and given what they’ve actually provided and what they want to morph into (thought police), it is time to stop this insanity before it becomes endemic.
In closing, as (Woodworth) said, when will the HRC’s afford the same legal rights as the real legal system in Canada does. To which J-Ly quickly responds that this right is not a “right” but an “issue.” And then quickly deflects her interpretation to the “Stature,” or the act of Parliament that created this council, and then always the caveat, “…to some extent, international law…” Just what does that mean? Would that have anything to do with the fake human rights laws being hijacked by the (Dar al-Islam) Islamic Nations active within the UN who adjudicate and hold conferences on human rights while all the time having the worst records themselves? Don’t be quoting international law when it’s meanings and boundaries hold no water outside NATO, and with even less H20, in the Commonwealth.
And then the shoe drops. The CHRC is an “administrative agency. Language of prosecution just doesn’t apply to us.” Ergo, we’re not liable for our actions. We’re just following Parliamentary mandates upon the unsuspecting populace who needs our guidance because they’re too stupid to do it themselves.
And again with the lie that the Tribunal isn’t a prosecutorial body, but just a quasi-judicial body, less formal than the courts, where lawyers are not needed, or as has become the reality, “law” is not needed, but just the interpretation of whom ever is adjudicating, without any formal necessity for training or answerable to anybody but the head of the CHRC who, in turn, interprets the mandate given to her by parliament.
See the problem.
One person, one interpretation, one rule, one way to think. But don’t worry, we’re all too stupid to recognize what hate really is, we’re all incapable to be able to understand the truths in the debate when it comes to what tolerance is (according to Moon’s NP thesis). Right.
No person in Canada has more power than J-Ly in influencing an outcome that would affect someone’s life without proper jurisprudence. In the end, it is all about what the CHRC interprets, or what the head of it, that would be you Jennifer Lynch, allows. Every other political and judicial body in Canada has the ability to make such arbitrary decisions without review or accountability. What kind of power have we given the CHRC? I call this completely dictatorial.
And unless Parliament does something soon, they too might find their own members in front of a tribunal for questioning the “greater good” that the CHRC and all their provincial counter parts profess to be the guardians of.
Parliament! Your CHRC child is all grown up and it wishes to take over the household. What are you going to do about it? BTW, Halloween is right around the corner, so the J-Ly masks are selling like there’s no freedom of speech tomorrow.
“…the system is part of a group of large expanse of Federal agencies and Tribunals that all adhere to the rules of procedural fairness and the rules of natural justice and have processes that are meant to encourage a less formal approach where lawyers are not necessary…”
Again, she makes the point against the HRC. Just what is “natural justice?” And where does a “less formal” approach to justice get me when that lead to not being able to the accuser having more rights than the defendant? I guess that what natural justice is, whereby the strong overpower the weak in a manner of natural selection, as dictated by the circumstances, or in this case, where the HRC gets to dictate its’ own circumstances…until the it gets a bloody nose, such as in the case of Ezra levant.
And returning to the freedom of expression, “…is protected in our statute…the only expression that is limited is the expression that is of extreme and vile nature (and then she goes on to say that Canadians might be confused as the various acts are interpreted so that there must be limits on some rights and not others – which is her interpretation of the Taylor case in the Supreme Court)…at which point (Woodworth) points out that J-Ly has missed the point of his question, but we’re all out of time…
So sorry, please come again. As the Committee chairman said, he thinks he’ll have to have her back to answer more questions. God I hope so.
Just don’t have the time or the stomach to look at the next hour. I’ll have to save that for tomorrow, or some other masochistic evening.
Steven Woodworth the CPC MP made some critical statements about Canadians valuing their right to free speech and he reiterated to committee and the censors how fallible government systems are and how these mistakes leave real victims.
He was a rare bit of enlightenment (beside Moon’s reiteration of the need to repeal S13 because it was redundant and too constitutionally risky to administer) in an otherwise unenlightened gabfest of statist censors and their enablers.
Yes, smart of Woodworth. How’d you like Bernie’s show & tell?
Oh, one thought — Comartin seemed to be best informed and asked good questions. He seemed quite concerned with the infringements on free speech. And get this — he’s with the NDP. Well, I guess just like there’s always a rotten apple or two wherever you look, it stands to reason that there’s also bound to be a good egg where you least expect it.
I vote for Jennings as the biggest dummy – encouraging the Commission to ask for more powers. She almost made me hurl.
I thought Lynch’s testimony was revealing in that she showed her ignorance of and contempt for the Charter. She has no clue what s.15 even means, much less saying that she has the power to have it override s.2 (which is the only one listed as a “fundamental” right).
I agree — what an idiot! And Lynch was scratching and clawing — in a very controlled way — to hang on to her cozy position. Very evasive in answering questions. I also noticed that she droned on in her answers in order to fill up time, so that the questioner wouldn’t have the chance to ask anything else.
I’ll stick with my “brilliant” position. Freiman basically ran circles around the dummies on the Committee and managed to polish Lynch’s turd about divorcing the message from the messenger to a dazzling brightness. It was brilliant and wonderfully competent advocacy. It is what the better lawyers do.
I agree with you about Moon; he fought his corner. Unfortunately he flew right over the heads of the apparent dolts we have for a Justice Committee.
Lynch was right at the Committee’s level. She ran the clock. After an hour of her “testimony” not one person in that room knew more than they had an hour before. (I did because I could surf blogs and porn while I live blogged.) At the same time, she found willing collaborators in most of the Committee members. Between them they actually diminished the net information flow in that room.
Bernie’s show and tell was out of the Lying Jackal’s “Use a visual aid” playbook. It was clever with Barney, stupid with the fish, idiotic with the boys bathroom, sent up with Kate’s motor cycle serial number, plain goofy with the doorknob: Bernie, you’re a nice guy….stop it. It makes you look stuck in the 90′s. We have the Criminal Code for that sort of thing.
As a Canadian I was embarrassed for my Parliament. Underbriefed and far too fond of their own voices. Not one of them used their ridiculously short time effectively. Comartin tried, so did Woolworth. The rest just sucked.
Re: Freiman — well, you’re the lawyer. And it wasn’t really a challenge to run circles around those fools. Still, when Freiman suggested creating a tribunal within the tribunal — “Star Chamber” I think you called it (good one) — I’m hoping a light when on with some of them.
Ezra is definitely more optimistic than I — maybe it’s partly because he’s younger and partly it’s just his nature.
And “surf blogs and porn”? Mr. Currie — tsk, tsk!
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