Rocket Talk: Can Sunday Subway Service Start Sooner?
Newsstand: November 19, 2009
Gender Studies Coming to a High School Near You
Please Insert Station and Try Again
The Art of Not Knowing
In this occasional feature, two Torontoist staffers face off to debate an issue that is important to our city. We invite our readers to join in the debate in the comments section after the post.
In October of 2006, Maclean’s magazine published an excerpt from writer Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone, which argued that demographics and the failures of liberal society were inevitably leading to the Islamization of Europe. Subsequently a group of Muslim students brought a case before the Ontario Human Rights Commission (chaired by Barbara Hall), claiming that the article was racist. The Commission dismissed the complaint, saying print was out of their jurisdiction, but used the opportunity to lambaste Steyn and Maclean's in an official statement that supported the assertion of racism. Since then there has been considerable debate over the appropriateness of the OHRC statement.
Were the Commission's comments justified? Read on as Torontoist wades into the controversy.
|
CHRISTOPHER BIRD Maclean's threw a predictable snit-fit over Barbara Hall's remarks. This is quite possibly the best evidence that Hall's remarks were perfectly on-target. Let's be clear: the complaint to the OHRC was misguided at best. The excerpt from Mark Steyn's book America Alone was most certainly not hate speech. Maclean's is correct to assert that s.13 (1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act has been expanded in an overly broad manner since the rise of the Internet and its importance in legislation and jurisprudence, and that as currently worded, it potentially infringes upon Canadians' freedom of expression rights, and greatly. Finally, Hall's statement was an unusual and likely attention-seeking step for the commissioner of the OHRC to take. None of which actually has anything to do with Maclean's whining. Maclean's, and Steyn, and Rex Murphy, and the National Post, all echo the same complaint over and over again: how dare Hall say that Steyn's piece was racist? (One sentence, incidentally, of the "four-page diatribe" about which they keep blathering.) Well, how about because it was racist? Remember that the central argument of Steyn's remarkably stupid book from whence the excerpt is taken is that Europe's twenty-million Muslims will breed their way to 200 million in less than thirty years, and that this nonexistent demographic surge will sweep away White Europe (and Steyn's book, and the excerpt, take care to always divide the demographics into White Europe and the Muslims). Steyn knows how to avoid having his tripe be called hate speech, and his contempt for the necessities of polite discourse is evident when he trots out what he calls "the obligatory 'of courses'"—of course all Muslims aren't evil, it's just that the non-evil ones give the evil ones cover! It's insulting to our collective intelligence: I Can't Believe It's Not Racism. And that's fine. Part of living in a free society is that sometimes total shitheads like Mark Steyn, a guy who used artificially inflated Regnery book sales to claim one week's residence on the New York Times best-seller list and who has never let his lack of anything resembling an education stop him from expounding ignorantly about any topic, get to say None of that prevents Hall from pointing out that, hey, just because Steyn's column isn't hate speech doesn't mean it's not racist. The hand-fluttering from certain quarters of the media that Hall improperly issued judgement in a backhanded manner is insane. Have these people ever read jurisprudence? Judges condemn parties acting in an egregious manner all the time. Yes, even innocent parties, if said innocent parties are acting to deserve such a smackdown. And the accusations of "stifling" speech? Really? Hall's statement doesn't seem to have stopped anybody from saying what they think about this issue and many others. Besides, there's a simple rule of thumb for people who are worried about being accused of publishing bigotry: don't publish bigotry. Barbara Hall is self-important, yes. But she's not wrong. | PATRICK METZGER So what exactly did Barbara Hall and her band of merry zealots say about Steyn and Maclean’s, after acknowledging that the OHRC had no jurisdiction in the case? And was it ethical? The Commission statement begins by stating, "Islamophobic attitudes are becoming more prevalent in society and Muslims are increasingly the target of intolerance." This assertion, uncorroborated by evidence, is a quick jab to lead into the knockout punch, the equally unsupported declaration that Maclean's is "contributing to Islamophobia and promoting societal intolerance towards Muslim, Arab and South Asian Canadians," not to say guilty of "the dissemination of destructive, xenophobic opinions." Really? Steyn's article is inflammatory, as intended, and it reflects a particular point of view. However, the validity of the central premise, that demographic shifts can and do result in societal changes, can be attested to by Canada's First Nations peoples, among others. While not complimentary to moderate Muslims, whom Steyn appears to consider broadly as "good Germans" tacitly abetting more bloodthirsty militant elements, neither is the piece racist, or religionist, or whatever the appropriate term is. Steyn clearly, if rather grudgingly, acknowledges that it makes no sense to tar all Muslims with the terrorist brush. The code of ethics for Ontario Human Rights Commission states that "Commissioners shall be neutral and unbiased in their…decisions and judgments." Their role isn't to enforce their political and social views, but to uncover and mediate genuine cases of discrimination or other human rights violations. Deny me a job because of my religion? Human rights issue. Hurt my feelings by writing an article that presents elements of my religion in a negative light? Not a human rights issue. And while it's true that real judges, in real courts, have been known to hand a dressing-down even to innocent parties, that usually comes in the context of an enquiry or a trial. In this case, Hall has made her judgment without considering witnesses, evidence, intent, or any of the things we normally associate with jurisprudence. Of course, a more quantifiable issue with the HRC assumption of guilt is that the Maclean's case has yet to be heard before the British Columbia and Federal Humans Rights bodies. It's here that we get into some deeply unprincipled behaviour—unable to convict the defendants due to what Hall and her minions appear to view as a technicality, they make no bones about signalling to the other commissions and the world at large what the outcome of the upcoming hearings should be. Essentially what we have here is a standard spat between two pompous ideologues from opposite fringes of the political spectrum, except that in this case one of the parties has the seal of official approval stamped on her particular bias. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Hall is seeking to make the subject untouchable, and to do it by invoking the implied threat of governmental authority and expensive, time-consuming legal action. I’ll leave the last words to Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who said that for the Commission "to refer to Maclean's magazine and journalists as contributing to racism is bullshit, if you can use that word." Yes, Mr. Fatah, I think we can. |
Illustration by Marc Lostracco.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
We should dissolve all the HRCs, unless of course free speech doesn't matter any more.
PickleToes, freedom of speech is an American concept that the HRCs rightly give no weight. We're Canadian and don't go in for any of that American stuff like freedom.
Except that HRCs work to protect things like freedom of religion, sexual orientation etc. You know, all those FREEDOMS that your everyday white, christian, heterosexual doesn't need to worry about not having.
OMG White privilege... I feel so guilty.
I actually read America Alone, and the single largest criticism that could be levelled at Steyn is his failure to fully differentiate between Muslims and Islamists or Islamofascists. Frankly, if your family is Muslim and it emigrates from an impoverished country, you’re probably leading such a better life in your new Western home that you won’t be tempted to engage in Islamofascism. If nothing else, your children will probably be leading a significantly better life. This possibility, which amounts to assimilation, was almost completely downplayed in the book.
I never “talk politics,” and I’m still not doing that here, but I am trying to make a substantial factual correction to Bird’s posting.
I'm not saying white people should feel guilty about being white. I was trying to address RealityCheck's comment that Canada doesn't "go in for any of that American stuff like freedom," because HRCs do protect certain freedoms, especially with respect to minorities.
RealityCheck is also incorrect from a constitutional standpoint. Taken purely on the strength of the freedom itself, Canadian freedom of expression is actually stronger than the American right of speech, because the American right has been curtailed repeatedly through its constitutional structure (your right to freedom of speech does not exist in situations X, Y and Z).
Canadian freedom of expression, like many elements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is counterbalanced by section 1 of the Charter, which provides for reasonable limits to those freedoms but recognizes that the freedom is violated by those limits.
It's a fine distinction, and in practice most of the time equals out to the American model, but it's worth noting.
JoeClark:
This possibility, which amounts to assimilation, was almost completely downplayed in the book.
That's because the book (which I've read as well) isn't nearly interested so much in Teh Evil Mooslim Threat as it is in Steyn's concept of decadent liberal European society and how it let the Evil Mooslims spread their badness.
And if the conflation of all Muslims with the radical right isn't simpleminded bigotry, what is?
Err, what race is Steyn being racist toward then? The "Muslim race" or the "decadent liberal European society race"?
And how is making demographic projections - oversimplified as they may be - racist? What does that make AGW alarmists?
Bird's long-winded article can be summed up in a few words: Steyn is racist because he's racist. And how do you tell if someone is racist? Because Bird and the OHRC say so.
P.S., unnecessarily profane writing is usually a sign of cognitive dissonance. You should get that checked out.
His book is a series of largely baseless condemnations of liberal European social policies, based on a series of largely baseless condemnations of the Muslim populace as a whole. This latter bit is the "racist" part, as explicitly laid out in my portion of the article. I'm sorry if this was hard for you to understand, but then again, a lot of things are hard for you to understand, so I expect you're used to it by now.
P.S. Unnecessarily profane writing is usually a sign of cognitive dissonance where it interferes with proper vocabulary use. Complaining about profanity, on the other hand, is usually the sign of a small mind with no actual basis for argument, desperate for anything resembling a point.
The demographic scenario is arguably implicitly racist because it requires these sinister Muslims to breed further sinister Muslims, rather than, you know, people who might not be exactly like their parents.
Now that you've thrown a predictable snit-fit over my comments, it's evident that they were right on target.
Chris Bird, Mark0 et al. need to actually keep up on this story.
CHRC Investigator Dean Steacy said in court that "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value"
http://volokh.com/posts/1207856516.shtml
So an agent of the Federal Government has proclaimed that there is no such thing as Free Speech in Canada and that any claims to this "right" will be ignored by the agents of the state.
Dean Steacey remains an investigator with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
I do love that Mark0 talks about protecting freedoms, "HRCs do protect certain freedoms, especially with respect to minorities." It's Orwell come to life - some are more equal than others and have protected rights different than other people. Any society that treats people differently before the law based on their religion, gender, or ancestry is by definition irreparably biased and prejudiced.
Surprised to see so many enthusiastic racists and bigots on Torontoist.
Joe - Islamists, like all revolutionaries, tend to come from the deracinated children of the bourgeois, corrupted by leftist ideas of authenticity and flailing for an identity and a target of rebellion. Osama - not a poverty stricken child. Che - well off med student. Ayman al-Zawahiri - prosperous surgeon.
So many violent psychopaths have been doctors, medical students, engineers, and lawyers. Leadership of the various communist insurgencies, Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Quaeda...
You see the same in Canadian born adherents of LTTE, Babbar Khalsa, International Sikh Youth Federation, Sinn Fein... In the US the Weathermen were similarly children of privilege.
Poverty doesn't create terrorism - leftists and anti-imperialists create terrorism through word and deed.
Dean Steacey remains an investigator with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
And if Dean Steacey had any power of judgement as an investigator I might be bothered, but whoops, he doesn't.
(He's also technically correct - Canada has no tradition of freedom of speech, but rather freedom of expression - although this of course is not what he meant.)
"HRCs do protect certain freedoms, especially with respect to minorities." It's Orwell come to life - some are more equal than others and have protected rights different than other people.
Now this is just retarded. HRCs exist to protect freedoms with respect to minorities because majorities don't need those freedoms protected, not because minorities have more rights all of a sudden.
Poverty doesn't create terrorism - leftists and anti-imperialists create terrorism through word and deed.
Such as noted leftist Timothy McVeigh. Or those dratted anti-imperialists the Ku Klux Klan. Or Al-Qaeda, a fundamentalist, anti-liberal Islamic sect (like practically every other fundamentalist Islamic movement, naturally).
Liberalism causes terrorism? God, did Jonah Goldberg throw up on this site or something?
Shut up, you leftists! Stop creating terrorism with your words!
I feel sorry for Patrick. A well-written article, and no one responded to it. Maybe next time you should add some circular logic.
I only included "especially with respect to minorities" because minorities are most often discriminated against based on faith, race, sexuality etc.
RealityCheck seems to have forgotten that anyone who is discriminated against can take their case before the HRC. If I felt that I was denied certain things based on my whiteness or my masculinity or my heterosexuality, I could take the case to the HRC. It does not constitute treating people people "differently before the law based on their religion, gender, or ancestry."
In this case, Hall has made her judgment without considering witnesses, evidence, intent, or any of the things we normally associate with jurisprudence.
Patrick, this just isn't true. Witnesses aren't necessary because any inquiry would determine the nature of the article itself, which is also the evidence. And intent, the most difficult part of any judicial inquiry, can ultimately only be gleaned through the writing (Ernst Zundel, in his many trials, swore up and down that he didn't have a single hateful thought against non-whites).
Give me a break, Chris. Barbara Hall et al saw an article, read it, didn't like it, and declared it racist.
If someone else had been appointed commissioners, say me or Mark Steyn, I guess it would have gone the other way since there's apparently no requirement beyond personal opinion before making a pronouncement on behalf of a government agency.
Christ.
Christopher, what race are Muslims?
Keep in mind, Bill 106 was contentious in the legal community, and its passing was fraught with allegations the government was using parliamentary rules to quash what could be potentially adverse comments on the re-organization and modernization of the OHRC. A lot of organizations in the sector that deal with human rights and the issues as they pertain to employment, housing, etc., have massive qualms about the Human Rights Legal Support Centre. Hall may have, in some way, also been playing to their concerns by assuring them that in no way will the OHRC suddenly cease to have an "activist" agenda when pursuing the righting of wrongs.
Al-Quaeda is rooted in a Marxist and anti-colonial mindset. They are the (not-so) wretched of the earth that Fannon celebrated.
And if these reactionary groups are so inherently anti-leftist, why are all of the usual suspects on the left celebrating their actions? Unions aligning with various terrorist groups, communist parties calling terrorism a fiction, etc.
George "end of the soviet union was the worst day in my life" Galloway creating the Respect party and celebrating Saddam, Assad, Ahmadinejad, denying the holocaust... But yeah, no connection between leftists, terrorists, or fascists.
As to the ability of all people to get support from HRCs - tell that to Marc Lemire whose faxed complaint was rejected because it was double-sided. He's a piece of trash racist who surreptitiously installed the only 2-sided fax machine in the CHRC's office to stymie his own complaint. Riiiiight.
Barbara Hall famously barred the Barenaked Ladies from performing on city-property for being sexist and you trust her to make sound judgments? You're a piece of work.
I don't think that Barbara Hall ever barred the Barenaked Ladies from performing on city property.
If I recall correctly, the only act of barring (and certainly the most high-profile one) was done by the previous mayor, June Rowlands, who promptly lost her position in the next municipal election.
The winner of that election? Step forward, Barbara Hall.
"... Canadian freedom of expression is actually stronger than the American right of speech, because the American right has been curtailed repeatedly through its constitutional structure (your right to freedom of speech does not exist in situations X, Y and Z)."
I'm sorry, but I don't find your example of "situations X, Y and Z" very persuasive. Could you please give me a specific non-alphabetical example of a political opinion an American is unable freely to express because it is not protected by the First Amendment that a Canadian could?
Your anti-Steyn diatribe masquerading as a defense of Hall was lame, by the way. No matter how you dress it up, it was highly improper for her effectively to pronounce the defendants guilty without having jurisdiction, while the same allegations were pending in two other tribunals. If you don't need evidence or a hearing, why are their any proceedings going on at all? Why are their depositions and testimony? Why are their investigators? They could simply read the damn things and rule by fiat.
And you were wrong--she didn't say it wasn't a hate crime, but was racist. She simply said the HRC didn't have jurisdiction over it because of the medium, but that it was racist. There's a big distinction, considering she went on later to comment about how the reach and authority of the HRC would be expanding, implicitly rectifying this lamentable situation. She was saying Steyn and Maclean's got off on a technicality, despite their guilt.
Despise Steyn all you want. It's people like you who enable statism and encourage the policing of thought, not people like him. This is why there's a Second Amendment in America, too.