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Garry J Wise is a Toronto lawyer who's taken an interest in the CIC's complaints and has been quoted on the story in The Washington Times. His shtick is very consistent: eminently reasonable, Mister Moderate, nothing to see here, nothing to worry about, folks. "My impression," he writes, "remains that the complaints against him are dubious, politically-motivated and extremely unlikely to succeed." But that's the point: The thing'll work its way through the system, and at some stage toward the end of this year or maybe next year, the Canadian, British Columbia and Ontario "Human Rights" Commissions will all decide that Maclean's and I should be "acquitted", and that will demonstrate that the system "works".
That may make sense from a lawyer's viewpoint. But it's not how the world operates. As evidence of how the process is ultimately "fair", Mr Wise cites a 2002 case from Saskatchewan, in which the HRC ordered both The Saskatoon Star Phoenix and Hugh Owens to pay $1,500 to each of three complainants who had objected to the Star Phoenix's publication of an advertisement by Mr Owens. The advertisement quoted some of the sterner Biblical passages on homosexuality. Actually, it didn't "quote" them. It merely listed the relevant chapter and verse: Romans 1:26, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and I Corinthians 6:9. Nonetheless, that was enough for the HRC, which relieved the parties of nine thousand bucks for "exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule".
However, as Mr Wise points out, four years later the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, and he evidently regards this as a satisfactory outcome demonstrating the robustness of freedom of expression in Canada. He's right, in an extremely narrow legal sense. But in real terms what's the consequence of Mr Owens' four-year struggle? I would invite Mr Wise to attempt to place the very same advertisement as Mr Owens with The Saskatoon Star Phoenix today. They won't take it. They've learned their lesson. So, regardless of the appeal, the practical consequence of the Owens case has been the shriveling of the bounds of public discourse in Canada.
I would expect the same consequence from an "acquittal" in this case, which is why neither Maclean's nor I want one. I don't know why Mr Wise is so proud of a system which takes four years to determine whether a Canadian citizen and a major provincial newspaper are permitted to cite passages from the world's all-time bestselling book, but there is plenty of prima facie evidence to suggest the "human rights" racket is systemically corrupt. I will cite only the most obvious example:
In the three decades of its existence, no defendant dragged before the Canadian Human Rights Commission under a Section XIII complaint has ever been acquitted. A "court" that only reaches the same verdict is not the most reassuring example of justice's blindness. Furthermore, over half of all Section XIII cases have been brought by a single complainant, Richard Warman. Mr Warman is not only a near parodic definition of a nuisance plaintiff but he is also a former employee of the very same HRC that has been so attentive to his "grievances". When we run one of our election competitions at this website, there's a little bit of small print way down at the bottom saying that any employees past or present of SteynOnline or Mark Steyn Enterprises are ineligible to enter. That's standard boilerplate in the commercial sector. But apparently in Canada's highest "Human Rights" "court" there's no problem about a former employee using it as his own personal inquisition (and, indeed, given the fines he's collected, personal piggy bank). The willingness of the CHRC to serve as Mr Warman's enforcer for what he boasts of as a personal enemies list ought to be a public scandal.
However, let's not be too hard on Mr Warman - and not only because, by now, he's almost certainly got me lined up as his latest "complaint". Mr Warman is only taking the system to its logical conclusion. Being (I assume) a proper lawyer, Garry Wise ought to know that the "Human Rights" process is not an exercise in law. Truth is no defence. In all their whiney columns and letters about their lack of opportunity to "rebut" my piece, the four Osgoode Hall students have not "rebutted" a single quotation, a single fact, a single statistic. And why should they? The accuracy of the statements is not at issue. All that matters is whether you were "offended" by them. So these pseudo-courts are weighing nothing but hurt feelings. And, if you're as ready to take offence as Richard Warman is, you might as well take profitable advantage of such a skewed system.
What exactly does Mr Wise find so admirably "Canadian" about this business? To modify M Trudeau, "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Unless you're tucked up reading a copy of Maclean's."
"Acquittal" would only legitimize this racket. I say it's time to end it.
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