Censure the censors
Human rights commissions are being used to silence Canadians. Can anything be done to stop them?
Kevin Steel - September 17, 2007
She thought somebody was playing a trick on her. When Connie Fournier tore open the letter from the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) on the afternoon of July 18--a Wednesday--she read that a complaint had been filed against her and the website she runs with her husband Mark, Free Dominion (www.freedominion.ca). The letter was dated July 16, two days before, and postmarked the 17th. It said she had until the 18th, that very day, to reply. "At first we thought it was some kind of joke because it didn't seem right that we would be asked to respond in that kind of time frame," Fournier says. As it turned out, it wasn't a joke. But it still had a punch line--the letter didn't say what the complaint was about which made it impossible to respond to, even if she had time.
Sensing that perhaps it wasn't a joke, the next day the 41-year-old mother of four who makes her home in Kingston, Ont., called the CHRC. "It was like pulling teeth trying to get a real person on the phone," Fournier says. When she finally did and read the complaint number to the woman on the other end, she was told it couldn't be right because it was supposed to have one more digit in it. So maybe it was a joke? No; using the last name of the complainant in the letter, they finally determined it was in fact real. Several hours later, Fournier was able to contact someone at the CHRC who knew what was going on; he had the complaint in front of him on his computer screen, he told Fournier. But he wouldn't tell her what it was about. He said he would have to mail it. They settled on having the CHRC fax it to Fournier's lawyer the next day, Friday--two days past the official deadline.
When Fournier finally got to see the complaint she discovered it had been filed back in June. Marie-Line Gentes, a college teacher in Quebec, was charging that Free Dominion, a conservative discussion forum, was fostering hatred towards Muslims. Why this was of concern to Gentes was not explained because Gentes stated in the complaint that she herself was not a Muslim. On top of that, it didn't assert that Fournier had written anything untoward. The target was something someone else had written on the site.
The complaint cited comments written on Free Dominion by Saskatchewan activist Bill Whatcott. For instance, in one, Whatcott wrote, "I can't figure out why the homosexuals I ran into are on the side of the Muslims. After all, Muslims who practice Sharia law tend to advocate beheading homosexuals." Whatcott also posted links to another website hosting a digital version of a pamphlet he distributed in Edmonton last year that called the Muslim prophet Mohammad a "man of violence."
Whatcott has been the target of human rights complaints before. He is appealing two Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal judgments against him for anti-homosexual literature he produced in 2001 and 2002.
In Free Dominion's case, things didn't get that far. Fournier went public immediately, using her website and contacting the media. "We wanted everybody to know because these things, in our opinion, work best if it's all done in the dark. That way if anything funny went on, then everybody would know about it. And funny things were going on right from the word go," Fournier says. The tactic seemed to be successful. First bloggers, then newspapers, jumped on the story, reproducing Whatcott's somewhat innocuous comments across the country. On August 3, Fournier received a letter informing her that the complaint had been withdrawn, no explanation.
If all this seems a bit unreasonable--the lack of time to respond, the bureaucratic obfuscation, the flimsy premise for the complaint--that's probably because it is. But then, when it comes to the matter of free speech in Canada, human rights commissions and their quasi-judicial tribunals are not exactly known for using reason. Though most human rights codes stress the primacy of fundamental rights to free expression, freedom of the press and freedom of religion, they nevertheless include prohibitions against publications and broadcasts believed to foster hatred. Since every type of communication except direct conversation involves some kind of publication or broadcast, the supposed support of these other rights appears almost meaningless--and those looking to silence Canadians are taking full advantage.
Over the last few years, in a series of cases, human rights commissions have stretched the meaning of their codes to invariably rule against the right to free expression and in favour of those who claim their feelings have been hurt. Slowly, precedents have built up that are intimidating people into keeping silent. Now, media organizations routinely censor themselves for fear of being dragged in front of a tribunal, even going so far as to get people to sign forms where they promise not to offend anyone.
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