SteynOnline

If this is correct, I don't see how it's possible to regard the Canadian Human Rights Commission as anything other than a racket for one of its former employees. Why should Richard Warman collect five-figure sums from suing websites for "crimes" in which he has himself participated? 

That's the name of this American lady's website, and I especially liked this comment:

That none of the 4 HRCs involved in the Steyn/McClean's and the Ezra Levant cases threw out the complaints with a forceful " As government entities, we have no authority to question, let alone judge, anyone in Canada for writing, publishing or refusing to publish anything ( libel, incitement, copyright infringement, and fraud excluded) " is an abomination. That so many commenters claimed Freedom of Speech should be limited to promote harmony, to prevent offense, or to prevent false ideas from spreading is frightening.

True, the US does not have any of these appalling Star Chambers . . . so far. But we will. Colleges and Universities across the country have them and the Speech Codes and Re-education Penalties that go with them.

Sad but true. I don't know which is worse - that one of the oldest constitutional democracies in the world has been reduced to the same pitiful condition as a speech-coded American college, or that in the dominant power on the face of the earth institutions which are supposed to encourage rigorous enquiry and exploration of ideas are the most repressed precincts in the country. 

For those who requested it, we've posted the splendid reply to Khurrum Awan by the Hon Jason Kenney, PC, MP, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity (a government department that would have surprised Sir John A Macdonald, but this is no time to be picky). I especially like Mr Kenney's use of the word "chutzpah" to describe Mohamed Elmasry, the hater who's complaining about hate speech.

We're also posting the original letter by Khurrum Awan to Mr Kenney. Mr Awan is one of the authors of the dossier on Maclean's "Islamophobia", a remarkably totalitarian document which seeks, among other things, to criminalize discussion of TV sitcoms and novels. Where's Margaret Atwood and the gang on that last one?

Mr Awan asserts that the Secretary of State's earlier comments constitute "undue interference with a legal proceeding" and that, since he and his chums announced their suit, the various responses published by Maclean's have "tainted" their complaints and are thus "contrary to the human rights code which prohibit retaliation against a complainant".

Golly, that sounds awfully serious. Are we in contempt of "court"? Oh, dear. I fear the odds of our conviction may have increased dramatically - which is quite a neat trick on our part, given that there's a 100 per cent conviction rate to begin with. At this rate, it's going to be like one of the goofier banana-republic trials where you get both hanged and shot.

Mr Awan's illiberalism is breathtaking in its ambition. But he has the wind of Canadian "multiculturalism" at his back and he may yet pull it off. 

At his website today, Werner Patels refers to me as a Super Agent Provocateur. Introducing me at a speech at 21 in New York recently, Frank Gaffney also hailed me as an "agent provocateur", and I politely demurred, on the grounds that for me the phrase tended to evoke an undercover cop in the men's room at Minneapolis Airport.

However, as it happens, the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission controversy is not short of agents provocateurs. Want some names?

Okay, step forward, senior CHRC "human rights investigator" Dean Steacy, last heard from in these quarters explaining that "freedom of speech is an "American concept". Mr Steacy likes to hang out at the "white nationalist" website Stormfront and post under the name "Jadwarr", as the CHRC quietly conceded just before Christmas:

1. Do any investigators post on Stormfront.org?

 I am not aware of any investigator other than me, who has posted on Stormfront.

2. Getting back to Jadewarr, do Commission employees sign up accounts on Stormfront, under pseudonyms such as "Jadewarr"?

I used the Jadewarr email address to create an account on Stormfront. I am not aware whether or not other investigators have created other accounts on Stormfront.

3. Do you know who Jadewarr is?

Jadewarr is not a person,  it is an email address and a user account on Stormfront.org. I created the Jadewarr email address on yahoo.ca and the Jadewarr account on Stormfront. I have used the Jadewarr email address and the Jadewarr account on Stormfront on occasion, in the course of investigating complaints. I am not aware of anyone else having used the Jadewarr email address or account.

4. To your knowledge, is Jadewarr a Commission employee?

See above.

5. As part of your duties, have you ever signed up with a message board and made postings?

Yes, I have done so using the Jadewarr account in investigating section 13 complaints. 

So let's see if I understand this. Canada's "Human Rights" Commissions have managed to get anonymous website comments designated a crime and its investigators now go around leaving such comments themselves? Is that right? Traditionally, an "agent provocateur" in the men's room has to entrap the guy in the adjoining stall into propositioning sex. In other words, the target still has to commit the actual crime. But in the case of the HRCs the agent provocateur can, in effect, commit the crime himself and then charge the target with it.

Nice work if you can get it. Agent Steacy and other current or former CHRC employees who do likewise would undoubtedly insist that they're nice liberal progressives posing as anti-Semitic white supremacists. But who's to say it's not the other way round? Maybe someone should take them to the CHRC. 

The HRC scandal is not primarily to do with me, Ezra, Muslims, Christians, gays, white supremacists or anybody else. It is about the corruption of justice. The genius of the English legal system is the balance it strikes between the components of any trial - judge, jury, prosecutor, etc. The CHRC system muddies all the distinctions to the point where an ex-investigator is the serial plaintiff and a current investigator is posing as a perpetrator to create "crimes" in which there is no presumption of innocence.