‘Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” —Canadian “Human Rights” Investigator Dean Steacy, responding to the question “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?”
This is the way free speech ends, not with a bang but as the result of an administrative hearing in a windowless basement in Vancouver, Canada.
At least that’s where a “Human Rights Tribunal” is taking place this week that will further solidify the Canadian legal position that the right not to be offended by something you read is more sacred than the freedom of the press.
Mark Hemingway writes the Idiot's Guide to Completely Idiotic Canadian 'Human Rights' Tribunals.
The hearing against Mark Steyn and Canada's most popular magazine Maclean's has been going on this week in Vancouver.
I've been following the liveblogging by Maclean's national editor Andrew Coyne.
It reads like a slapstick farce in a kangaroo court and would be laugh-out-loud funny if you didn't know that both Steyn and Maclean's will be found guilty after hearing closing arguments tomorrow.
As Hemingway notes
the Canadian Human Rights Commission is stunningly effective: In its 31 years of existence, not a single complaint brought before it has been dismissed. That's right: Everyone is guilty before God and the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Mark Steyn reflects himself on the goings-on "Geez, these days, I don't seem able to step out of the house without committing a hate crime"
By the way, I see I've been nominated for a National Magazine Award, to be handed out later this month. By then, Mr. Joseph will have succeeded in getting the B.C. troika effectively to ban me from Maclean's and from all Canadian journalism. An impressive achievement. My book was a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, and the new paperback edition was at No. 4 the other day, and President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Governor Mitt Romney, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Jon Kyl and (at last count) six European prime ministers have either recommended the book or called me in to discuss its themes. But in Canada it's a hate crime.
One thing I've learned these last few months is that it's always worse than you expect. The willingness of the B.C. troika's social engineers to trample over every basic rule of English law has embedded at the heart of Canadian justice a soft beguiling totalitarianism. I'll be the first No. 1 bestselling author and National Magazine Award-nominated columnist to be deemed unpublishable in Canada.
But I won't be the last.
To get a sense of what these HRCs are doing, they are now attempting to prosecute a case against an American resident, based upon what an American citizen allegedly posted to a mainstream American Catholic website.