Thursday, February 12, 2009

Flagging Sales Make Strange Bedfellows

Here's a bit from the Ontario Human Rights Commission. It's under the title "Submission to the Canadian Human Rights Commission."

The report is either a) a way to show solidarity to the folks living in the mother ship; b) a signal fire to fellow human rights commissions that it's time to circle the wagons; c) a sign that the Ontario Human Rights Commission will never be able to pass its own legislation and therefore needs the CHRC to get its act in gear and have legislation passed all across Canada, thereby letting the OHRC off the leash. Call it Trickle Down Tyranny.

But tyranny over whom? Read on. My comments follow.

The OHRC agrees with the Report’s recommendation that: Non-state actors including the media also have responsibility to address issues of hate expression, and should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership and powers to determine breach of professional standards and order publication of press council decisions.

The OHRC would particularly support a national press council given that, increasingly, media services publish online editions. This would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada.

At the same time, the OHRC recognizes the media must have full freedom and control over what they publish. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to provide opportunity for public scrutiny and the receipt of complaints, particularly from vulnerable groups is important, but it must not cross the line into censorship.


This is hardly a surprise. Two years ago, I had no idea that Canada had a human rights commission in Ottawa, plus separate human rights commissions in every province. No clue. Two years later and they're all over the papers, and not in a good way.

Bloggers and - to a much smaller extent - the press have been hammering the human rights commissions over the past six months. They've upturned the rock and exposed the commissions for what they are: bureaucracies that rule outside and above the law, imposing fines, holding hearings, and punishing people for the crime of being "offensive."

Their tribunal hearings have no set rules of discovery or evidence. Anyone accused of being a bigot does not have the right to face his accuser, nor is the accused presumed innocent. He or she must prove that they're not a meanie. The latest most egregious example of their outside-the-law rule came from Saskatchewan, where it was decided that a restaurant owner should have made it clear that he was not a bigot before throwing a man out of his restaurant. The price tag for the accused? $7000. The crime? He offended the accuser's "dignity."

Bloggers and - again, to a much smaller degree - the media have kept the heat on since the Maclean's fiasco in British Columbia. It is no wonder then that the OHRC and others want to shut them down.

Let's take a closer look:

The OHRC agrees with the Report’s recommendation that: Non-state actors including the media also have responsibility to address issues of hate expression, and should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership and powers to determine breach of professional standards and order publication of press council decisions.

Believe it or not, that's one sentence. Tough to break into, and it literally rolls over you, wave after wave. It seems harmless and friendly enough, until you realize that if it had been written in bullet points, it would be a frightening look into the minds of people that want to do serious harm to your country.

a) "Non-state actors including the media..." All right, so what is a "non-state actor?" That would be you. The lowly citizen. It should hit you again that people who work for the "state" no longer see themselves as "citizens." You are a non-state actor. They are the state. Separate. In charge. (It may be handy to remember that not one person in any human rights commission in the country is an elected official).

b) "...have the responsibility to address issues of hate expression..." This is a tough one because we don't know who they're talking about. If "non-state actors" includes the media, then who are the other non-state actors? Your plumber? The guy handing out fliers on the street corner? Your mom? If they're saying that the media has a responsibility to address issues of hate expression, the answer is simple: "No they do not." They have a responsibility to sell newspapers and beer commercials. Period. If the OHRC is saying that your mom has the responsibility to address issues of hate expression, get ready for some long Thanksgiving dinners.

c) "...should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership..." Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a minute. Did I just hear a provincial body tell a Federal body that it was time to write a new national law? Funny. And here I thought it was elected Federal representatives that did that. Not so. And notice the trick: the provincial press councils would be voluntary, but if that doesn't fly, a national one would be compulsory. Now, why wouldn't they say that the national one should be voluntary too? That is a huge leap: voluntary at the provincial level, but compulsory at the Federal level.

d) "...powers to determine breach of professional standards and order publication of press council decisions." Go fly a kite. Where's the 'professional standards' handbook, and who's going to write it?

e) "The OHRC would particularly support a national press council given that, increasingly, media services publish online editions. This would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada." Bingo. See (c) above. So much for all of that "voluntary" hogwash. They were just kidding around. What they particularly support is national, compulsory media oversight. And, because they're on the low end of the totem pole, they need to call for help from their big brothers at the national level to make it happen. (Two random thoughts: one is the envy they seem to have for their CHRC brethren; the other is that leftists always think about the collective).

The last paragraph in their release is a beauty. You can't make this stuff up. Here comes the doublethink, right to the side of your head: "At the same time, the OHRC recognizes the media must have full freedom and control over what they publish. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to provide opportunity for public scrutiny and the receipt of complaints, particularly from vulnerable groups is important, but it must not cross the line into censorship."

This is hilarious. But not amusing. In order: a new law should be written to force publications - including those online - to join a press council that will oversee their content, using standards written by...somebody, and if the content is deemed irresponsible or unprofessional, then the publication will have to publish the findings of the council saying their own publication is a joke, but don't worry because the media still has full freedom and control over what they publish.

Huh?

But I'm not concerned. I can't believe the big boys in the media would ever go along with this. Sure, it might help shut down bloggers and other non-professionals, but the big boys would never agree to it on moral grounds. All right, and yes, it would silence the small publications that rely on edgy stuff to draw an audience, but no, the big boys wouldn't want censorship in Canada because there's room for everybody. And yeah, okay, the handful of big papers in Canada are hurting for cash, but surely they would never want to sit on a press council just to kill the competition. Never happen.

Yesterday I was watching the radio show (that still sounds funny) on Sportsnet and Mark Spector was a guest. According to the lower-third, Spector's their lead columnist. Fancy. He was telling a story about how a blogger released a rumour about so-and-so, and it took Spector and other reporters 3 whole hours to chase it down and find out it was false. The three-hour deal really bothered him. He repeated it a few times and said it was a huge waste of his time. At one point co-host Nick Kypreos said, "Easy." Spector said, "This is why reporters hate bloggers." He went on to say that blogging should be outlawed and all bloggers should be banned. The hosts laughed, Spector didn't, and they moved on with the show.

I'm sure he wasn't serious.

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