Wednesday, May 21, 2008, 02:33 PM - Justice
RCMP launches investigation into CHRC tactics
By Ezra Levant on May 20, 2008 12:32 AM
http://ezralevant.com/2008/05/rcmp-laun ... on-in.html
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have begun an investigation into alleged criminal conduct by members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The conduct in question was revealed at an extraordinary hearing on March 25th, a hearing the CHRC desperately tried to keep closed to the press.
An officer of Bell Canada, appearing under a subpoena, testified that the CHRC had hacked into a private citizen's Internet account, to cover their electronic tracks as they surfed anti-Semitic websites under the alias "Jadewarr". You can read the transcript of the hearing here -- a transcript the CHRC did not release to the public.
The victim of the CHRC's illegal hacking, Nelly Hechme, told reporters that she was "completely shocked" by the CHRC's conduct. Canada's Privacy Commissioner, who has jurisdiction over the CHRC, is now investigating the matter.
But not even the CHRC's most passionate critics could have imagined that the Mounties would be investigating the CHRC.
According to this letter written two weeks ago by the Ottawa Police Service, a criminal complaint filed against the CHRC by Marc Lemire has now been referred to the RCMP's Integrated Technological Crime Unit. Here is the key excerpt from that letter:
After a full consideration of all aspects of the matter, it is our opinion that this matter falls within the jurisdiction of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We have discussed this matter with the RCMP and the matter has been assigned to Cpl Stephane Turgeon.
I expect that the RCMP will be in touch with you...
So what happens now?
Can the Conservative government really keep using its old talking points, including these two, to avoid dealing with the issue?
· The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal are independent agencies that administer the Canadian Human Rights Act, according to procedures specified by the law, without interference from the government.
· The Department of Justice continues to monitor the Commission and Tribunal to ensure that our human rights system remains effective.
Just how bad does it have to get before the government stops saying that the CHRC follows "procedures specified by the law"? We've got the Privacy Commissioner and the RCMP investigating now. What does it take to get the government's attention -- a NATO airstrike?
And how about the claim that the government is "monitoring" the CHRC to ensure that it "remains effective". Effective at what? Hacking Internet accounts? Shredding their records and deleting their hard drives? Staying out of jail? What exactly about the CHRC's conduct could be called "effective"?
Question: when the RCMP investigates CHRC staff, will the CHRC pay for their criminal lawyers? If so, is that an indication that those CHRC staff hacked the website in the course of their duties?
Until two weeks ago, the Conservative government had plausible deniability about the CHRC's corruption. But not any longer. The Justice Department's 50-page defence of the CHRC's prosecutions under section 13 moved the government from "neutral" into the "pro-CHRC" camp. That was bad policy. And now an RCMP investigation means the government has to do much more than just defend a bad law -- it means it has to defend a scandal. That's bad politics.
The Conservatives have had an excuse for not cleaning up the CHRC's stables: for six months, they've been preparing for an imminent election. Now that Stephane Dion has all but acknowledged that won't happen at least until the fall, it's time for the Conservatives to act, and to act swiftly.
I've got a three-word action plan when it comes to the CHRC: Fire. Them. All.
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Monday, May 5, 2008, 08:29 PM - Economy
StatsCan omissions stir class war; Income redistribution by our tax and welfare systems ignored in earnings report
The Edmonton Journal
Sun 04 May 2008
Page: A14
Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
Column: Lorne Gunter
Source: The Edmonton Journal
I cannot for the life of me understand why Statistics Canada publishes income numbers that do not include money received by individuals from government, unless the nation's official number cruncher is deliberately attempting to fan the flames of class envy and reinforce the case for more and bigger social programs.
On Thursday, StatsCan set off a maelstrom of media coverage with its release of a report on Canadians' earnings in the past 25 years. It said since 1980, median earnings among the top 20 per cent of Canadian earners increased by 16.4 per cent, while the median among those in the bottom 20 per cent decreased by 20.6 per cent.
Headlines abounded about how the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer -- a favourite canard of the liberal-left. Also immediately, the Globe and Mail declared on its website that in the past quarter century, "those at the top end got a lot richer, and those at the bottom got much poorer." The following day, the front page of that paper's print edition devoted nearly the entire space to a declaration that the Canadian dream was dead.
Admittedly, StatsCan is not responsible for how its reports are spun by the media. But surely it is intellectually dishonest for the agency to release earnings numbers entirely out of context, particularly when it knows how those statistics are going to be played out in the press.
StatsCan did the same thing last spring when it released a report on our incomes in the previous decade -- 1996 to 2006. It led the public and reporters to believe that the gap between rich and poor had increased dramatically when in fact it had not moved a jot in 10 years.
The trouble (read fatal flaw) in both these StatsCan reports is that neither includes either taxes paid to governments nor benefits received. They paint only a picture of a pre-tax, pre-benefit world.
Who lives in that world -- a world where there are no taxes paid by the rich nor any welfare, pensions, child tax credits, GST rebates and so on received by the "poor"?
These StatsCan earnings reports lead to days and days of sensational news coverage and impassioned calls for more social programs from opposition politicians, special interest groups and editorialists.
But they neglect to mention that Canadians in the bottom 20 per cent of the income table receive 52 per cent of their income from government or that Canadians in the top 20 per cent pay nearly two-thirds of all income taxes.
The income redistribution achieved by our tax and welfare systems is completely overlooked in painting a portrait of a society increasingly divided along income and class lines. What motive would StatsCan have for doing this other than to manipulate the political debate in favour of a bigger, more lavish safety net?
Thursday's report insists that in the past 25 years the average Canadian has come ahead just $53 dollars in real income. Worse yet, the bottom one-fifth of Canadians have seen their earnings drop from $19,400 in 1980 to $15,400 today, after adjusting for inflation.
But without accounting for taxes and benefits, these numbers are meaningless. When transfers from government to individuals are included in the calculations, according to Statistics Canada's own numbers the median income of the poorest 20 per cent rose over the period, from $21,100 25 years ago to nearly $25,000 today, even with the effects of inflation taken into account.
And when the effects of progressive taxation are also factored in, the assertion that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor disappears, entirely.
Yes, before taxes and benefits, the income of the top 20 per cent is now 13- times higher than the income of the bottom 20. But after taxes and benefits, the gap between rich and poor was 5.6-to-1 in 1996 and it was still 5.6-to-1 in 2006, the last year for which StatsCan has applicable numbers.
The fact that the wealthiest 20 per cent in Canada are roaring ahead in some idealized, unreal, statistical Neverland is only of significance to people who are eager to feed their own prejudices about the uncaring "rich" and the "invisible" poor.
Figures released by StatsCan in other reports paint a very different picture of "poverty" and "income inequity" in Canada.
In just the past year the agency has told us only 11.7 per cent of children under the age of 18 still live in poverty, "far below the 18.6 percent in 1996." Seniors and single moms -- two groups that suffer a disproportionate share of low income -- have seen real income increases of 15 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively, since 1996. Now just 6.1 per cent of seniors are low-income and 29 per cent of single mothers (compared to 53 per cent a decade ago).
We should be pleased with the pro-gress we have made, rather than playing numbers games to spark a class war in Canada.
____________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist/Editorial Writer,
National Post
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Tele: (780) 916-0719
E-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca
Fax: (780) 481-4735
Address: 132 Quesnell Cres NW
Edmonton AB T5R 5P2
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Saturday, April 26, 2008, 11:33 AM - Justice
Please send more complaints
Otherwise how will our taxpayer-funded hate police manage to keep their cozy sinecure?
MARK STEYN
Maclean's
MARK STEYN | April 23, 2008 |
Last week's letters page included a missive from Jennifer Lynch, Q.C., chief commissioner of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, defending her employees from the accusation of "improper investigative techniques" by yours truly. Steyn, she writes, "provides no substantiation for these claims," and then concludes:
"Why is this all important? Because words are important. Steyn would have us believe that words, however hateful, should be given free rein. History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes. That is why Canada and most other democracies have enacted legislation to place reasonable limits on the expression of hatred."
Hmm. "History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes." Commissar Lynch provides, as she would say, "no substantiation for these claims." But then she's a "hate speech" prosecutor and, as we know, Canada's "human rights" procedures aren't subject to tiresome requirements like evidence. So she's made an argument from authority: the great Queen's Counsel has risen from her throne in the Star Chamber and pronounced, and let that suffice. Those of us who occupy less exalted positions in the realm might wish to ponder the evidence for her assertions.
It's true that "hurtful actions that undermine freedom" and lead to "unspeakable crimes" usually have some fig leaf of intellectual justification. For example, the ideology first articulated by Karl Marx has led to the deaths of millions of people around the planet on an unprecedented scale. Yet oddly enough, no matter how many folks are murdered in the name of Marxism-Leninism, you're still free to propound its principles at every college in Canada.
Ah, but that's the Good Totalitarianism. What about the Bad Totalitarianism? You know, the one everybody disapproves of: Nazism. Isn't it obvious that in the case of Adolf Hitler, "hateful words" led to "unspeakable crimes"? This argument is offered routinely: if only there'd been "reasonable limits on the expression of hatred" 70 years ago, the Holocaust might have been prevented.
There's just one teensy-weensy problem with it: pre-Nazi Germany had such "reasonable limits." Indeed, the Weimar Republic was a veritable proto-Trudeaupia. As Alan Borovoy, Canada's leading civil libertarian, put it:
"Remarkably, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the Canadian anti-hate law. Moreover, those laws were enforced with some vigour. During the 15 years before Hitler came to power, there were more than 200 prosecutions based on anti-Semitic speech. And, in the opinion of the leading Jewish organization of that era, no more than 10 per cent of the cases were mishandled by the authorities. As subsequent history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it."
Inevitably, the Nazi party exploited the restrictions on "free speech" in order to boost its appeal. In 1925, the state of Bavaria issued an order banning Adolf Hitler from making any public speeches. The Nazis responded by distributing a drawing of their leader with his mouth gagged and the caption, "Of 2,000 million people in the world, one alone is forbidden to speak in Germany."
The idea that "hate speech" led to the Holocaust is seductive because it's easy: if only we ban hateful speech, then there will be no hateful acts. But, as professor Anuj C. Desai of the University of Wisconsin Law School points out, "Biased speech has been around since history began. As a logical matter, then, it is no more helpful to say that anti-Semitic speech caused the Holocaust than to say organized government caused it, or, for that matter, to say that oxygen caused it. All were necessary ingredients, but all have been present in every historical epoch in every country in the world."
Just so. Indeed, the principal ingredient unique to the pre-Hitler era was the introduction of Jennifer Lynch-type hate-speech laws that supposedly protect vulnerable minorities from "unspeakable acts." You might as well argue that Weimar's "reasonable limits" on free speech led to the Holocaust: after all, while anti-Semitism is "the oldest hatred," it didn't turn genocidal until the "reasonable limits" proponents of the day introduced group-defamation laws to Germany. 'Tween-wars Europe was awash in prototype hate-crimes legislation. For example, the Versailles Conference required the new postwar states to sign on to the 1919 Minorities Protection Treaty, with its solemn guarantees of non-discrimination. I'm sure Canada's many Jews of Mitteleuropean origin will be happy to testify to what a splendid job that far-sighted legislation did.
The problem the Jews found themselves up against in Germany and elsewhere was not the lack of hate-speech laws but the lack of protection of the common or garden laws — against vandalism and property appropriation and suchlike. One notes, by the way, that property rights are absent from Canada's modish Charter of Rights. The reductio ad Hitlerum is the laziest form of argument, so it's no surprise to find the defenders of the ever-more-intrusive "human rights" enforcers taking refuge in it. But it stands history on its head. Most of us have a vague understanding that Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933 as a pretext to "seize" dictatorial powers. But, in fact, he didn't "seize" anything because he didn't need to. He merely invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Republic's constitution, allowing the state, in the interests of the greater good, to set — what's the phrase? — "reasonable limits" on freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom from unlawful search and seizure and surveillance of postal and electronic communications. The Nazis didn't invent a dictatorship out of whole cloth. They merely took advantage of the illiberal provisions of a supposedly liberal constitution.
Oh, and by the way, almost all those powers the Nazis "seized" the morning after the Reichstag fire, the "human rights" commissions already have. In the name of cracking down on "hate," Canada's "human rights" apparatchiks can enter your premises without a warrant and remove any relevant "document or thing" (as the relevant Ontario legislation puts it) for as long as they want it. And without anybody burning the House of Commons or even the Senate.
As for "freedom of the press," in her now celebrated decision to dismiss the Canadian Islamic Congress complaint against Maclean's, Barbara Hall of the Ontario "Human Rights" Commission acknowledged that she did not have jurisdiction over magazines. So she ruled that, while she didn't have the power to toss us in the clink, she'd certainly like to and we certainly deserve it. Commissar Hall suggested that if my words had appeared on a sign rather than in a magazine article, she would be free to haul my hatemongerin' ass into the dock. Makes sense to me. So I've now put the offending excerpt from my book on a placard and I'll be in Toronto in the first week of May to drop it off at her office. I look forward to the prosecution. Given that we've already been found guilty, I don't think I've got much to fear from the trial.
Happily, beginning on July 1, under Ontario's "human rights" reforms, Commissar Hall will have far greater powers to initiate prosecutions against all and sundry. Under the new proposals, " 'hate incident' means any act or omission, whether criminal or not, that expresses bias, prejudice, bigotry or contempt toward a vulnerable or disadvantaged community or its members." "Act or omission"? Of course. The act of not acting in an insufficiently non-hateful way can itself be hateful. Whether or not the incident is a non-incident is incidental. I quote from "Concepts Of Race And Racism And Implications For OHRC Policy" as published on the OHRC website:
"The denial of racism used by so many whites in positions of authority ranging from the supervisor in a work place to the chief of Police and ministers of government must be understood for what it is: an example of White hegemonic power over those considered 'other.' "
Got that? Your denial of racism merely confirms your racism — because simply by being a "White hegemon" (like Barbara Hall or Jennifer Lynch) you wield racist power. The author, Frances Henry, cites the thinking of "modern neo-Marxist theorists" as if these are serious views that persons of influence in Canada's "human rights" establishment ought to be taking into account, rather than just the latest variant of an ideology that's led to the deaths of millions in Russia, China and everywhere else it's been put into practice. Yet, underneath the blather about "omissions" and "denial" of racism is the bleak acknowledgement that, alas, Canadians just aren't hateful enough to justify the cozy sinecure of taxpayer-funded hate police. "I would say that for a province as large and as diverse as Ontario, to have 2,500 formal complaints a year, that that's a very low level," Commissar Hall said. C'mon, you Ontario deadbeats, can't you hate a little more? Or complain a little more? To modify Brecht, we need to elect a new people, if only to file more "human rights" complaints.
Oh, and again, isn't that kind of a Nazi thing to do? Exaggerate the threat in order to justify government powers to deal with it?
Well, look, the defenders of the present "human rights" regime started this whole free-speech-leads-to-the-Holocaust line. I'm not saying that Canada's thought-crime enforcers are planning to murder millions of people, only that (as Jennifer Lynch might put it) history has shown us that extraordinary government powers in the name of "reasonable limits" often lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes. Whether or not I'm the new Fuhrer and Maclean's is Mein Kampf, Commissars Lynch and Hall are either intentionally inverting the historical record or, to be charitable, simply ignorant. But, if it's the latter, why should they have extraordinary powers to regulate public discourse?
I don't have as low an opinion of Canadians as Barbara Hall and Jennifer Lynch do. I don't believe your liberty is the conditional discretionary gift of hack bureaucrats advised by Marxist theorists. You defeat bad ideas — whether Nazism, Marxism, jihadism, Steynism or Trudeaupian pseudo-"human rights" mumbo-jumbo — in the bracing air and light of day, in vigorous open debate, not in the fetid corridors of power policed by ahistorical nitwits.
It's not a left/right thing. It's not a gay/straight thing. It's not a Jew/Muslim thing. It's not a hateful Steyn/nice fluffy caring compassionate Canadian thing.
It's a free/unfree thing. And the commissars are on the wrong side.
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/ ... 1672_31672
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Saturday, April 19, 2008, 02:52 PM - Morality
I believe that all Christians should be supporting their Christian worldview by supporting the only federal political party which supports the Judeo Christian foundation which our country was founded upon. This heritage made our country one of the freest countries in the world.
I'd like to take a moment to show you the importance of you supporting the CHP again.
Canadians have many opportunities to vote for political parties which will support the killing of 110,000 preborn children in Canada annually. There is one baby aborted in Canada for every four children which are born alive.The Liberal & New Democrat Parties are staunchly in favour of abortion on demand. The Conservative Party has declined to allow the issue of abortion to be spoken on by their candidates. They have also declined to allow abortion to be brought before their Conservative Party convention. They do not wish to touch this issue because it may cost them their roles in the Canadian Parliament. There is no point voting for a Political Party which will not take a stand or moral issues. Humans were created in the image of God. It is not within our human mandate to take the life of an innocent person. Pro life Canadians have only one political party which is committed to ending this slaughter of our children. That party is the Christian Heritage Party.
Canadians have many opportunities to vote for political parties which endorse same sex 'marriage'. The Liberal and New Democrat Parties are both staunchly in favour of same sex 'marriage'. The Conservative Party paid 'lip service' to their election promise to revisit the same sex 'marriage' issue by asking Parliament to vote on whether they wanted to readdress the same sex 'marriage' issue. There's a vast difference between putting something on the table and asking if MP's want it put on the table. Marriage was instituted and clearly defined by God to be between one man and one woman. It is not within our human mandate to change that definition. There is only one party which supports the traditional, God given, definition of marriage. That party is the CHP.
These are just two of the issues where Christian Canadians must vote according to their beliefs. Otherwise they are voting against Christian precepts. We have been made stewards of one vote with which to glorify God. We must use it to vote according to His precepts.
In Canada, those who publicly state Christian viewpoints on morality are in danger of facing charges by both Federal and Provincial Human Rights Commissions. Prime examples of these are:
- Dr. Chris Kempling, a clinical psychologist employed as a teacher in British Columbia. He has been charged for writing a letter to the editor during the same sex 'marriage' debate in Canada. He has been charged for offering counselling within his clinical practice for people struggling with their sexual identity. He has been charged for running as a candidate for the CHP and stating the policy of the CHP on marriage. These charges violate Dr. Kempling's rights to freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of political affiliation, and freedom of religion, all of which are guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- Ron Gray, Leader of the CHP, the CHP, and the CHP Skeena Bulkley Valley Electoral District Association, have all been charged for posting information from an online news site regarding homosexuality. The material posted were reports according to the Stanford Law Review and were factual medical information. Thee charges, placed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, violate Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Section 3 which is our right of political involvement. If these cases are lost then political freedom in Canada has been lost. These charges also violate Section 2 freedom of religion, conscience, thought, speech and expression.
Some past Human Rights Commission cases include:
- Hugh Owens who was charged for placing an ad in the newspaper with Scripture verse references to homosexuality. The judge, in her ruling, said that the Bible, on the issue of homosexuality, borders on hate literature.
- Scott Brockie who was charged for declining to print pro gay material at his own print shop.
Further ongoing Human Rights cases:
- Ezra Levant & Western Standard Magazine have been charged for printing the "Danish Cartoons". These charges violate Ezra Levant and the Western Standard's right to Freedom of the Press.
- Mark Steyn & Macleans Magazine have been charged for excerpts printed from a book which Mark Steyn had written. These charge violate Mark Steyn & Macleans Magazine's rights of Freedom of the Press & Freedom of Opinion.
Human Rights Commissions decide not on fact or law but according to the feelings of the complainant. The HRC are not required to gather evidence, the only evidence necessary was whether a person's feelings were hurt. The CHRC website assures us that "truth is not a defence". That is a scarey thought!
As you can see there are many threats in Canada to our freedoms. These threats must be fought! The only political party with a will to take up the battle on behalf of all Canadians is the Christian Heritage Party. There is no better time to support the CHP than today.
It is time for all of us to come together and make a stand for the Judeo Christian heritage on which Canada was founded. If we will not defend our freedoms then we will lose them.
You may find more of our policies at our website at www.chp.ca . We have a political position on many things as you will be aware.
There is also opportunity to sign up to make monthly donations and take out a membership.
If you have any questions, please contact me.
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Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 09:14 PM - Miscellaneous
If you're interested in attending any of these functions, please contact the EDA representative listed at http://www.chp.ca/en/events/events.html
April 9 - Joint meeting hosted by York Simcoe & Simcoe Gray in Barrie, Ont.
April 10 - Meeting with MP Maurice Vellacott in Ottawa.
Addressing the Parliamentary Internship Program.
Joint meeting of Sarina and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex in Wyoming, Ontario
April 11 - Joint meeting of Haldimand-Norfolk, NiagaraWest-Glanbrook, St. Catharines, and Welland EDA's in Smithville, Ontario.
April 12 - Family Coalition Party Banquet details at http://www.familycoalitionparty.com/Inv ... 0flier.pdf
April 14 - Radio interview in Perth Wellington
Meeting of Perth Wellington EDA, Listowell Ontario
April 15 - Meeting of Huron Bruce EDA.
April 16 - Elgin Middlesex London EDA.
Use the contact information to check for registration information.
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Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 09:03 PM - Miscellaneous
Ron Gray will be guest on the Michael Coren Show at 8 p.m. tonight, April 8. It airs on Crossroads. Check your local listings at...
http://www.ctstv.com/
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