The Slow Death of Freedom in Canada

Well, it looks like I screwed up the other day by saying that Mark Steyn was going to be tossed in front of "the three - yes, three - human rights commissions in Canada." What I should have said was, "Three of Canada's innumerable human rights commissions."

I'm a Canadian citizen, and I don't even know how many human rights commissions there are in the country. Steyn and Maclean's are apparently being star chambered by BC, Ontario, and the Feds. Now it's Ezra Levant's turn.

Ezra Levant
Levant is the former publisher of the out-of-print Western Standard. In February, 2006, the Standard re-printed the Danish Mohammed cartoons that sent Muslims into a tizzy. The Standard was attempting to show that free speech trumped everything else. For papers and magazines around the world to not re-print the newsmaking images would only show that violence and death threats could control the media.

Unfortunately, Levant was wrong. Not for re-printing the images, but in thinking that freedom of speech mattered a whit in Canada. Because two days ago, Levant found himself in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The Calgary Herald (which didn't re-print the cartoons even though they're the crux of the complain against Levant; must have been an oversight) reports that Syed Soharwardy, the President of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, filed the complaint.

Alberta has a human rights commission? News to me. I didn't even know Ontario had one until Steyn got himself in trouble with the Canadian Islamic Congress. And lucky for him that he did. The Congress sounds like a bunch of nice guys compared to the "Supreme Council."

The Herald reports, "Levant, the magazine's former publisher, will be on the hot seat [Thursday] in Calgary during a commission investigation - a process he calls an "interrogation" - in which he'll be questioned extensively about the publication of the cartoons."

What Levant did is not a crime. Yet. But he still must hire a lawyer and go before these Orwellian magistrates and defend himself. You might be interested to know that Soharwardy does not have to appear during Levant's "questioning," and so Levant is not entitled to face his accuser.

Now, if you've read this far, think about what I've just told you. A magazine publisher is being accused of printing cartoons. He has to take a day away from his family. He has to shell out for a lawyer. He must appear before a commission that will question him "extensively" about the cartoons' publication. And that sound you hear from the Globe and Mail, the CBC, CTV, and the Toronto Star is...crickets.

The journalists in Canada are a joke. They're the first ones to scream about the (now shown to be fictitious) freedom of the press, yet when one of their own is tossed before a Kangaroo Court, you hear nary a whisper.

I'd love to see the Q&A between Levant and the Alberta Human Rights Commission:

HRC: Why did you print the cartoons?

Levant: Because every news outlet in the world was reporting riots. We thought readers should see what caused it all, and no one else in Canada was printing them.

HRC: But if no one else was printing them, why did you think you could?

Levant: Because they're cartoons.

HRC: No, they're offensive.

Levant: But they're cartoons.

HRC: No, Daffy Duck is a cartoon. You could have printed the Daffy Duck ones.

Levant: But Daffy didn't start any riots.

HRC: Exactly.

Levant: What?

Canada is playing a very dangerous game with this human rights business. We have now exposed ourselves for what we are: a de facto totalitarian state.

When a writer (Steyn) can be brought before a commission for what he writes, and when a publisher (Levant) can be brought before another commission for printing cartoons, you realize that the American framers were on to something: to have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, you need to write it down in plain, simple language. Canada's convoluted "constitution" is worth about as much as toilet paper when it comes to the freedoms that most Canadians think they have.

Here's what Jefferson and the boys put their names to:

Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of speech. Comma. Freedom of the press. And that's that. No need for long preamble or clarification. Print the thing, and let debate and discourse sort it out.

Notice that the framers put this amendment as numero uno. In Canada, these freedoms come dead last.

Levant Photo: National Post