Canadian "Human Rights Commission" Farce

Brilliant writer Mark Steyn and MacLean's Magazine find themselves defendants in a "human rights" case in British Columbia, Canada. The whole thing has been a farce from day one. If you ever want to know why many people oppose the concept of a "living" constitution, all you have to do is look at how this case is being adjudicated to find out what happens when laws become "living". The rules of evidence vary according to the whims of the tribunal, and the most ridiculous assertions are accepted as fact.

Terry O'Neill, writing in the Western Standard, gives us a lengthy look at the first day:

Given the circumstances, one's thoughts turn to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a work noted not only for its depiction of a world turned upside down but also for some rather telling insights in humanity's foibles. "Everything's got a moral," Lewis Carroll writes, "if you can only find it."

Of course! In the "curiouser and curiouser" world of the Tribunal, the task at hand is not—and, actually, cannot be—to deliver true justice; it is to teach the defendants a lesson. If only they can find it.

After all, as has been documented relentlessly on The Shotgun and even, surprise, surprise, the mainstream press, Maclean's can be convicted under B.C.'s kangaroo-court law of inciting discrimination or hatred even if what Mark Steyn wrote in the October 23, 2006 edition of the magazine, about the threat to the West posed by Muslim population growth, is true and even if there is no evidence that the story sparked any actual discrimination or hatred.

Bang! You're guilty simply because a "protected" group, in this case Muslim Canadians, feels offended and is able to produce supposed "experts" to say that the published material is of the sort that might lead to discrimination or hatred. Our old colleague Ezra Levant, facing a human-rights inquisition of his own in Alberta, has correctly suggested that he and Maclean's stand accused of "pre-crimes," a concept introduced to the masses in the 2002 Tom Cruise science-fiction movie, Minority Report. And, yes, we are aware that we have looked once again to the world of fantasy to illuminate the situation at hand.

Andrew Coyne has been live-blogging the proceedings at this site, and it's well worth reading the previous three days as well as reading today's action as he posts it. It's liberalism run completely amok.