Defenders of Human Rights in Canada

In Canada it isn't a contest between free speech and the unfettered release of racist dogma. It just, at times, seems like that is what is happening. Cooler heads will prevail, however, and it will all wash out in the end. Meanwhile, we're being treated to the ongoing spectacular of Human Rights Commissions side-lining their original and needful purpose.

Which was, at the time they were initiated, through public concerns that vulnerable portions of the population required protection from racist-inspired actions, would benefit from their intervention. Alas, their usefulness diminished, through the adoption by self-serving segments of society seeking to stifle legitimate critical observation by lodging complaints commissions are only too happy to adjudicate.

Groups such as the Canadian Islamic Congress exploiting the power vested in Canada's human rights commissions for the purpose of finding guilt where none exists. If the Canadian Islamic Congress truly felt that its reputation, and by extension, that of Muslims everywhere, was being besmirched by racist-inspired statements having no basis in reality, they should have taken to the courts, suing their targets for malicious libel under Canada's provisions against the spread of hatred against identifiable groups.

They chose instead to use an instrument whose original purpose, and whose only real purpose, was to ensure protection under Canada's rights and entitlements for all its citizens, regardless of religion, creed, ideology, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. And instead of declining to lend credibility on the record, to the charges of racist "Islamophobia", the various commissions undertook to examine the issue, free of charge to the complainants.

The Canadian Race Relations Foundation's mandate is obviously one of upholding racial tolerance and the encouragement and support of minority groups against the obvious, stated and practised prejudices of those in society who hold racist views. The problem is, as JasonKenney , Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, the danger inherent in some of the "illiberal tactics" used in pursuing tolerance.

"I think it's very important for those of us engaged in anti-racism efforts to ensure the tactics we use, the approaches that we take, are consistent with respect for the liberal values of the Charter of Rights, of the Canadianconstitutional framework , of our democratic parliamentary institutions." Alluding specifically to Canada's guaranteed freedom of expression. Expressing points of view that can be intellectually and socially supported, not those which express deliberately hate-inspiring attitudes.

"I would also hope that we think long and hard about the central role, the foundational role, of such values as freedom of expression in our constitutional framework, and that we do not lightly undermine those constitutional values in our efforts to combat racism or hatred." For example, the public musings ofCUPE's president, Denis Lemelin with respect to his union members - most notably those of Canada Post - to consider boycotting Israel in solidarity with Palestinian unions, might be considered hate-mongering by Jews.

Particularly as he airs his own personal opinions with respect to the illegality and brutality of Israeli actions toward the defenceless, blameless Palestinians. Threatening in the process that his union might even consider the feasibility of no longer working with Israel's postal union, despite that both are members of an international agreement. Completely overlooking the fact that it is the government, not the unions, that operate the postal system.

Dr. Keith Martin, Liberal Member of Parliament for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, whose humanitarian and social-activist credentials no one could deny, found it expedient to put forward a motion in the House of Commons to delete a section of the Canadian Human Rights Act to repeal a subsection making it discriminatory to communicate messages "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt." In recognition of the dichotomy of supporting frivolous suits like that of the Canadian Islamic Congress; in the process stifling freedom of speech.

Simply because the Human Rights Commissions, federal and provincial, appear to have out-lived their practical usefulness, in pursuing an extended agenda, having nothing at all to do with their original purpose. Hate speech and the publication of vicious racial stereotypes are countered by Canadian law. So that, although theCRRF, which is funded by federal monies dedicates itself to a situation of harmony among Canadians, its agenda needs a re-focus.

Something of which was suggested by Mr. Kenney when he pointed out that attention might well be devoted to the "important new challenge" of a rising incidence of racism from within immigrant populations in Canada, with recent immigrants importing wholesale native enmities and through that process repeating bitter strife and separations endemic in their original homelands and cultures.

"One challenge that I see emerging, given my frequent daily contact with members of our cultural community and new Canadians, is the challenge of intolerance or sometimes, frankly, hatred, that exists between immigrant communities, often from the same countries of origin. I could go to a mosque or a temple or agurdwara or a community centre or a church, and not infrequently I hear those remarks."

Inclusive, multi-racial, equal-opportunity Canada is troubled by reflections of a past that simply will not easily fade into obscurity as our new multi-lingual, multi-traditional, multi-cultural communities within the larger community of Canadians settle into their new reality of freedoms and a common regard, battling the bitterness of inter-communal strife that fed the impetus of removal and migration.

It's hard work to become voluntarily and comfortably assimilated. The pernicious and familiar allure of exclusivity and intolerance feeds from human fallibility to societal failures. And nowhere is this more indelibly obvious than at the United Nations. Nowhere is this failure more exemplified than in the corridors of that universal gathering point. And the truly nefarious adoptions of failed and corrupt regimes of a mantle of hostility to the West.

Mr. Kenney was questioned at the CRRF meeting, about Canada's withdrawal from the impending 2009 sequel to the UN's World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia. His questioners - were they truly involved with and interested in anti-racism - would have known that the Durban conference had turned into a shameful free-for-all of anti-Semitism. But then, they presumably did know that.

And since the same human-rights-abusing, Israel-bashing representatives of countries whose egregious rights records held the very same positions as previously, despite the re-naming of the commission, it should be self-evident why Canada refused to give it the authority of assent by its presence. Complicity can be construed through presence, despite expressions of opposition.

"We did not want Canada to be associated with a repeat of those expressions of hatred, and I can tell you in the weeks to come that you will be hearing from a number of countries that have endorsed that decision." Informing them also that both the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties were in support of Canada's boycott.

Now, the question is, how is it that the self-appointed champions of anti-racism and human-rights discrimination within Canada can be unaware of these very public and not incidental details?