Human Rights Commissions Step Outside Mandate
Some Muslims Find Criticism of Their Faith Hard to Ignore
Apr 28, 2009
Dotted around Canada are 14 human rights commissions. Their job is to protect citizens from abuses of their rights. Their original goal was to prevent discrimination in housing and employment, but now they are moving into the dangerous territory of censorship
Magazine Article Offends Muslim Students
A case that has received wide attention is that of Mark Steyn, who wrote an article in Maclean’s Magazine (October 2006) that angered some Muslim students. The students, with the support of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), claimed that Mr. Steyn’s words raised hatred against Muslims. And, they launched complaints with the Canadian, British Columbia, and Ontario Human Rights Commissions, describing the book excerpt, entitled “The Future Belongs to Islam,” as anti-Muslim.
In the end, all three commissions dismissed the complaints. However, Steyn and Maclean’s were saddled with hefty legal bills, while the complainants expenses were covered by taxpayers.
Publisher Prints Controversial Danish Cartoons
On February 14, 2006, Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant raised the ire of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities (ECMC). The ECMC filed a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission against Mr. Levant for republishing Danish editorial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. When a Danish newspaper first published these cartoons there were riots in the Muslim world and death threats issued against the artist and newspaper.
In August 2008, the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissed the case. Near the end of a lengthy battle, the complaint was dropped, but the investigation cost Mr. Levant about $100,000. As he sees it, the process is the punishment.
Human Rights Commissions Involved in Censorship
In his opening remarks to the commission in January 2008, Mr. Levant protested: “It is my position that the government has no legal or moral authority to interrogate me or anyone else for publishing these words and pictures. That is a violation of my ancient and inalienable freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and in this case, religious freedom and the separation of mosque and state. It is especially perverted that a bureaucracy calling itself the Alberta Human Rights Commission would be the government agency violating my human rights.”
Furthermore, he said “For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights, and a Charter of Rights…It is procedurally unfair. Unlike real courts, there is no way to apply for a dismissal of nuisance lawsuits. Common law rules of evidence don’t apply. Rules of court don’t apply.”
Most Journalists Angered by Human Rights Commission Action
Journalist Rex Murphy suggests that such cases diminish the meaning of human rights
Writing in The Globe and Mail on November 14, 2008, Murphy opined: “Canada’s human-rights commissions are diluting and trivializing and thereby offending the very core of the concept that gives them their name.”
Rebecca Walberg wrote in The Calgary Herald (December 19, 2007) that the commissions are “obsolete bodies whose moment has passed.” As a social policy analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, she sees it as a serious problem that commissions “can be exploited by a narrow lobby seeking to impose its doctrine upon other Canadians…That the CIC can do so at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, while Maclean’s and Steyn must spend their own money to defend themselves, is a travesty of justice.”
Even one of the people who worked tirelessly to get the commissions set up is opposed to what they are doing today. Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote: “It’s one thing to invoke the law against discriminatory deeds; it’s another thing entirely to employ it against discriminatory words.”
This was in an article in The Calgary Herald on March 16, 2006; he added, “We never imagined that (commissions) might ultimately be used against freedom of speech…There should be no question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons. Religious prophets no less than political leaders or even deities must be legally permissible targets of satire or even scorn. This is the essence of free speech in a democracy.”
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