SteynOnline

Randy Richmond (bicycling correspondent of The London Free Press) doesn't like the cut of my jib:

Hey Mark
Randy Richmond of The London Free Press here.
Have emailed your mailbox twice to suggest you email me directly or give me a call to discuss coverage of Canadian Human Rights Commission.
You seem to be afraid to confront someone directly after questioning their journalistic abilities.
Is this what your career has become?
I expect more from you.
Waiting for your reply.
Randy Richmond
London Free Press 

1) We have no record of any emails prior to this one. So please re-send.

2) I'm not "afraid to confront someone directly" if you're proposing hand-to-hand combat on an abandoned bit of scrub after dark. However, if you're proposing to interview me for an hour, use a 25-word quote, and then fill up the rest of the piece with reactions from Catsmeat, Bernie, your bicycle boy Warmfront, Head Sock Khurrum Awan, ovine fornication specialist Professor John Miller, etc, perhaps you could explain what's in it for me.

3) I don't think there's really any question about your "journalistic ability", is there?

4) "Is this what your career has become?" Ah, well. I didn't get the professional advice you did.

[UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief seizes opportunity for self-congratulation] 

Unlike Randy Richmond of The London Free Press, who's too busy valet-parking Richard Warman's bicycle, Ezra Levant has spotted the most interesting aspect of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's latest decision:

Look at paragraph 10, which cites an earlier Chair's interim ruling on Warman v. Ouwendyk (my emphasis):

The hearing on the question of the constitutional validity of the impugned sections of the Act will be deferred pending the outcome in Lemire. If the complaint is substantiated, the Tribunal will not issue any order until the final determination by the Courts of the constitutional question.

In other words, no matter what the Tribunal found in Warman v. Ouwendyk, they're not going to issue any orders until Marc Lemire's constitutional challenge has a "final" determination. That could mean a trip to the Supreme Court -- in about 2012.

In this case, the Tribunal was so disgusted with Warman -- and so stupefied that a complaint would be made against a website that doesn't exist -- that he really didn't plan to issue any order at all. But had he wanted to throw the book at Ouwendyk, he couldn't -- another Tribunal chair had ruled that everything is on ice until Lemire is done.

The enforcement of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act has been suspended indefinitely by the CHRT.

That's fascinating.

Indeed. As we've all observed, neo-Nazi website poster Richard Warman is now a busted flush. Justice has not only to be done, but to be seen to be done, and even "human rights" justice can no longer be seen to hang out with such a creepily narcissistic obsessive as Warmfront. But the larger point is, as Ezra says, fascinating. The endgame for Maclean's and me has always been to get this thing to the Supreme Court and have Section 13 and its provincial equivalents struck down. That takes a long time and it's expensive (which is why we encourage you to buy a copy of Shakedown, or take out a subscription to Maclean's).

However, it is a remarkable tribute to the speed with which the law has been "denormalized" (in Ezra's word) that the Tribunal has, in effect, concluded that Section 13 cannot be enforced. Like many laws, it remains on the books, but even the kangaroo courts understand that it can no longer be enforced. It reflects worse on them than on the accused. That's great news - except, as Ezra adds:   

But look what hasn't been suspended: the investigations and prosecutions of section 13. And, as I've said a dozen times before, it's the process that's the real punishment. In this case, it was three years from complaint to ruling -- three years of bullying someone because they had "wrong" political ideas.

The CHRC and the CHRT will continue with that informal punishment, the punishment of abusive process.

The law is coming apart at the seams; the law's chief user has been officially exposed as malign; the law's enforcement has been suspended; but the sick, sick HRC system continues to grind on, using our money and abusing our heritage of natural justice.

He's right. The "thought police" will recommend fewer Section 13 cases to the Tribunal but will take longer and longer, and more and more of the defendant's time and money, to conduct the preliminary investigation. We have denormalized the creepy Warman, and denormalized the law itself. It is important now to denormalize the abusive half-decade-long investigation procedures. After being dragged through the process over nothing for five years, even B'nai Brith, one of the CHRC's favored sons, should figure that out.

Amidst all the coverage of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's latest decision re Stormfront member Richard Warman, only his personal stenographer at The London Free Press seems to have missed the news angle. Oh, well. It's up to Randy Richmond if he wants to go down with Mr Warmfront's sinking bike. I hope he's not riding pillion.

On a related matter, I bumped into Jason Kenney in the lobby of the King Edward Hotel in Toronto a couple of weeks back, and thought, as I often do on such occasions, how great it is just to run into cabinet ministers strolling around unaccompanied. A month on, it's not so easy. As The National Post reports, Mr Kenney now has a full-time RCMP security detail, having had the temerity to question whether it's in the interest of taxpayers to fund the ugly thugs who run the Canadian Arab Federation. I don't quite get Khaled Mouammar's line of thinking here: He's the guy living off Mr Kenney's departmental checks, but Kenney's the whore?

Richard Warman, Canada's most famous Stormfront member and a plaintiff on every Section 13 complaint to come before the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal in the last seven years, appears to have come a cropper. At this rate, even Randy Richmond, the devoted admirer of Mr Warmfront's bicycle, may find The London Free Press no longer willing to print quite so many fawning profiles.

What happened was this: Last summer, shortly after dismissing the Maclean's/Steyn case, the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission announced it was no longer on board with Mr Warmfront's pursuit of his latest no-name Internet loser and would not be appearing with him before the Tribunal. Those of us who want to rid Canada of this racket have a long way to go but it appears we have succeeded in sowing some discord among a hitherto indivisible alliance. Just as the Justice Department and even B'nai Brith were putting some distance between themselves and the blundering hacks of the Commission, the Commission decided to put some clear blue water between itself and its hitherto most favored son, Mr Warmfront.

Now, in an otherwise routine Section 13 case, the Tribunal has decided to do likewise. In his decision, "Judge" Lustig concludes:

[58] In regard to the other remedies sought by Mr. Warman, I have decided not to grant any relief under these provisions for the following reasons.

[59] During his cross-examination, Mr. Warman admitted (after initially denying) that he had participated in communicating messages on Internet Websites similar to the Northern Alliance Website utilizing pseudonyms such as "Pogue Mahone" and "Axetogrind"...

[62] Mr. Warman stated that the communications quoted in the previous two paragraphs did not "cross the line" into hate messaging nor did they provoke hate messages by others. He stated that the inclusion in his postings of possible hate messages from others were inadvertent slips by him in sending messages over the Internet. He further stated that his postings were intended to assist him in his quest for information about persons using the Internet to communicate discriminatory hate messages.

[63] I do not see any acceptable reason for Mr. Warman to have participated on the Stormfront or Vanguard sites, since there appears to be ample easily obtained messages on these sites available without his involvement. Moreover, it is possible that his activity in this regard, could have precipitated further hate messages in response. His explanation for including other hate messages in his postings by mistake seems very weak to me.

[64] Mr. Warman has, with the assistance of the Commission, instituted most of the s. 13 (1) complaints under the Act that have come before the Tribunal. He has been very successful in these cases and has garnered accolades for his work in this regard. The evidence in this case of his participation on Internet sites similar to the Northern Alliance site is both disappointing and disturbing. It diminishes his credibility. For this reason and because the activities of the Respondents have ceased for a lengthy period of time, I will not make any further Orders in this matter.

"Signed by"

Edward Peter Lustig

OTTAWA, Ontario

March 13, 2009

(My emphasis.)

This decision - especially [63] and [64] - is good news for Ezra, Kate, Kathy and the Free Dominion bloggers being legally harrassed by Mr Warmfront, and possibly for Marc Lemire in his constitutional challenge, too. As discussed below, "Pogue Mahone" (the pseudonym Warman uses to post his hate messages) means "Kiss my arse". "Judge" Lustig declined to do so, and Richard Warman's arse did not stand up in court. If nothing else, the CHRT and CHRC understand that it is no longer in their interest to be associated with this weird, self-aggrandizing Stormfront poster. One hopes that Bernie Farber will come to see things the same way.

Meanwhile, a grand way to celebrate the waning of Warman is with your own personal copy of Shakedown.

PS Kathy Shaidle points out the obvious flaw in the logic here: The offending material was removed from the website years ago, but the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal has now reposted it all, and in a much more prominent venue. In other words, Canada's biggest disseminator of Internet hate is the Government of Canada.