Friends of Freedom: Write your Senator and demand an inquiry on the Erosion of Freedom in Canada.

April 4, 2010 by

Friends of Freedom
Write your Senator and demand an inquiry on the Erosion of Freedom in Canada.

Dear Friends of Freedom:

On March 30 2010, Senator Doug Finley rose in the Senate of Canada and publicly asked for an inquiry on the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada.

Freespeechers and Bloggers need to unite and make our views known to all Senators.  Freedom of speech is a fundamental right and we need to express our support for Senator Finley’s request for an inquiry.

Please put aside some time and write a letter to all senators demanding they proceed with calling the inquiry.

Senator Finey stated:

“Honourable senators, I call for this inquiry to accomplish five things: first, to reaffirm that freedom of speech is a great Canadian principle that goes back hundreds of years; second, to put Canada’s censors on notice that their days of infringing upon our freedoms with impunity are over; third, to show moral support for those who are battling censors; fourth, to inquire into the details of what went so desperately wrong at the University of Ottawa to ensure that those awful events never happen again; and, fifth, to inspire a debate that hopefully will lead to a redefinition of section 13.1 of the Human Rights Act.

Honourable senators, there are times for partisan debate when parties must naturally be at odds with one another. This is not one of those times. Freedom of speech and respect for differing views is a foundational principle of our entire parliamentary system — indeed, of our entire legal system, as well.”

The words by Senator Finley are a call to Canadians to get involved.   He went on to say that “If we can rededicate our Parliament to protecting this most important right, we will have done our country a great service, but if we fail to stop and indeed reverse this erosion of freedom, we will have failed our most basic duty, the duty to uphold our constitution and the rights in it, the rights it guarantees for all Canadians.”

Please find attached to this email, a complete list of Canadian Senators who have an email address. A complete list of senators can be found at:  http://parl.gc.ca

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Sample letter written by Marc Lemire to all Canadian Senators:

April 3, 2010

To: Senator Doug Finley
The Senate of Canada,
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A4
Freedom of Speech in Canada

Dear Senator;

I am writing today to express my support for your March 30, 2010 statement in the Senate of Canada on the Erosion of Freedom of Speech in Canada.  I would welcome a Senate inquiry on freedom of speech.

By way of background, I have been battling the fanatical Canadian Human Rights Commission for the past seven years.  Back in 2003 a complaint was filed against my website, the Freedomsite [ http://www.freedomsite.org ] which alleged that my website promoted hatred and/or contempt in violation of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.  In September 2009, after a 32 day hearing, I was completely exonerated for alleged hate speech, and Section 13 was found to be unconstitutional.  Although the case took 6 years, and in the end I “won”, I was not able to claim a cent of compensation for dragging me though the system.

As a result of my 6 year persecution, I have amassed the largest collection of critical material on the CHRC and their systemic corruption.  These documents show the abuse, totalitarianism and corruption of the CHRC.  If an inquiry is called, I would like to present some of this shocking information to the Senate.

The information which I have uncovered includes:

• CHRC theft of internet communications
• CHRC staff signing onto questionable websites and entrapping people
• CHRC staff’s contempt for freedom of speech, including their testimony that “Freedom of speech is an American concept”
• 99% conviction rate before the Tribunal
• The corrupt investigations of the CHRC, which includes dismissing a complaint because it was a “double-sided” fax
• CHRC exchanging information with Police and others, thus usurping safeguards in criminal law
• CHRC contravening the Canada Post Act, by setting up mail drops in Ottawa, to send out hate posters to receive mail under false names
• CHRC editing court transcripts to remove explosive testimony about the CHRC #1 complainer,  then distributing copies of the doctored transcripts to members of the media
• Decision from the Office of the Privacy Commission, chastising the CHRC for refusing to release information

HRCommissionCartoon

The CHRC: an Affront to all Canadians

Canadians are sick and tired of the totalitarianism of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and their obsession to restrict freedom of speech on the Internet. Editorials from every major newspaper across Canada have demanded that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act needs to be scrapped.  The Canadian “Human Rights” Commission (CHRC) has become the single largest threat to freedom of expression, religion and personal beliefs in Canada’s History.

Sections 13 and 54 of the Canadian Human Rights Act are a direct attack on the freedom of expression guaranteed to us under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The provisions of these sections allow the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to prosecute anyone alleged to have said or written something “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” whether there is a living, breathing victim or not.

Vague concepts such as speech or writing “liable to cause hatred or contempt” are the basis of expensive state-funded prosecution of individuals. The statute provides no objective legal test for “hate” or any objective means of determining what constitutes “contempt”. As a result, the CHRC is used by various groups and individuals, as a risk-free taxpayer funded method to silence their critics and those they disagree with. CHRC investigators have testified that that “freedom of speech is an American concept” and therefore not valid in Canada. Such statements are contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but are standard operating procedure at the CHRC.

Commissioners of the Canadians Human Rights Tribunal, who are not judges and are often not even lawyers, have held that “truth” is not a defence against prosecution under Section 13.  Intent or fair comment are also not defenses.  In fact, there is not a single listed defence under Section 13! Because of the lack of any defenses, the Tribunal has a 99% conviction rate since 1978. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal routinely ignores the principles of fundamental justice, such as the rules of evidence, and these kangaroo courts, even allow hearsay evidence.  The CHRA provides for each Tribunal to make up the rules as they go.

Every journalist, writer, Internet webmaster, publisher and private citizen in Canada can be the subject of a Human Rights complaint for expressing an opinion or telling the truth. Given the ambiguity of Section 13, it is virtually impossible for any individual to determine if they might be in violation of Section 13. Arbitrary censorship and punishment are wrong, and cannot be justified in a free society.

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“Human Rights Commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society…It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.”

(Stephen Harper BC Report Newsmagazine, January 11, 1999)

HRCartoon

Hallmarks of Suppression

1: The Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal are not fair, and make arbitrary decisions based on who an accused is rather than on a fair and impartial application of the statute they enforce. High profile accused, such as Macleans, Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are given a free pass, while others, less prominent and lacking the resources to hire legal council are relentlessly prosecuted. This creates a chill on the freedom of expression since there is no discernible “line” between speech that is prohibited and speech that is “acceptable” to the CHRC.

2: The CHRC pays no heed to constitutionally protected rights such as Freedom of Expression. In place they use imaginary “rights” such as the “right to be free from contempt”. There is no such right in our Charter. Both the CHRC and the Attorney General’s office considered freedom of speech to be an American concept that does not apply to Canadians. The CHRC only believes in “group” rights, and not the rights of individuals to “speak truth to power”, hence the 99% conviction rate.

3: The CHRC is out of control and is currently under three investigations. CHRC investigators are under criminal investigation by the RCMP for the criminal theft of telecommunications services; the Privacy Commissioner is investigating complaints of CHRC breaches of personal privacy; and CHRC investigation techniques are under review by the Parliamentary Justice Committee. In the meantime, the CHRC continues to apply the law in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

4: The CHRC engages in clandestine spying on Canadians including using aliases to engage others in conversation and writing questionable material while asking for support for views of the alias for use in a subsequent prosecution.

5: The entire process is paid for by taxpayers on behalf of the complainants. The defendants must pay their costs personally. There is no legal aid and there is no way to claim costs, even if the defendants are found innocent.

Over the past few years, the CHRC has tried to bump itself up into a quasi National Security type agency.  Shamelessly, this politically motivated outfit operates in almost complete secrecy, with no rules, no public oversight and continually deflects Access to Information requests over their activities with absurd claims of “security”.

The CHRC has employed some very shady and possibly illegal tactics including;

• Hijacking a private citizens Wireless Internet connection to connect to neo-Nazi websites and print of material and post messages
• infiltration and spying operations on Canadians
• the use of private police databases such as CPIC, (which holds records of millions of Canadians, including data such as dental records, known aliases, addresses, last contact with police, etc)
• infiltration of internet message boards

• telephone record searches

• motor vehicle record searches

• search warrants

• and even tenancy agreements for rental properties.

Because the CHRC is exempt from parliamentary oversight and doesn’t report to a minister, in enjoys carte blanche to do exactly as it pleases.  Inside the CHRC, there are no guidelines on how they need to investigate complaints.  Nor are there any rules on what CHRC employees can do in the course of investigations.  This includes even the totally unacceptable practice of trying to entrap respondents dragged before the CHRC.

Furthermore, to Canada’s great shame, in any Human Rights Commission case, truth is no defence!  It’s a slap in the face of 200 centuries of jurisprudence as intent, malice, effect, fair comment – none of these factors are taken into account by CHRC Tribunals. In fact, if you argue the truth of your statements, it is then used as proof of your guilt, and a rational to increase the amount of fines! Under the legislation there are no defences available. Is it any wonder that from 1977 to 2009 not a single person in over 32 years has ever won?

Tribunals and political inquisitions have no place in Canada. Recently, David Warren writing in the Ottawa Citizen called the Tribunal a “Kangaroo court” and “Star Chamber”. Others have compared them to the Communists, the Nazis, and the medieval Inquisition.  We need to stop the censorship enforcers and let freedom of speech reign. It’s time to abolish the Canadian Human Rights Commission and pack off this shameful censorship outfit to the “embarrassing lapses” dustbin of history.

I hope to hear from you on this pressing issue.

__________________________
Marc Lemire

Email:  marc@lemire.com

Members of Parliament who have openly stated their support for a repeal of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act:

Liberal MP Keith Martin
Liberal MP Dan McTeague
Conservative MP Brad Trost
Conservative MP Rob Anders
Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber
Conservative MP John Baird
Conservative MP James Rajotte
Conservative MP Bruce Stanton
Conservative MP Lee Richardson
Conservative MP Russ Hiebert
Conservative MP Kevin Sorenson
Conservative MP Helena Guergis
Conservative MP Nina Grewal
Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre
Conservative MP Rick Dykstra
Conservative MP John Williams
Conservative MP Rick Casson
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson

Filed Under: Anti-Defamation League (ADL), anti-Semitism, B'nai Brith, Canadian Human Rights Act, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Canadian Identity/Sovereignty, Canadian Jewish Congress, Editor's Zone, Ezra Levant, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Thought, Human Rights/orgs, Internet Freedom, Jewish Lobby, Maclean's magazine, Marc Lemire, Mark Steyn, Political Zionism, Richard Warman, Sec. 13, Senator Doug Finley

Canadian Senators support Freedom of Speech and slam “Human Rights” Censorship

April 2, 2010 by

Canadian Senators support Freedom of Speech and slam “Human Rights” Censorship

SenatorFinley

Canadian Senator Doug Finley slams “Human Rights” Commissars
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Canadian Senators support Freedom of Speech and slam “Human Rights” Censorship

“…our own Canadian Human Rights Commission has egregiously violated freedom of speech without any shame. In a censorship trial in 2007, a CHRC investigator named Dean Stacey testified that, “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” He actually said that. The Canadian Human Rights Commission actually admits they do not give free speech any value. That is totally unacceptable.”

Senator Finley – Senate of Canada – March 30, 2010

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SenateDebatejpg

Debates of the Senate (Hansard)

3rd Session, 40th Parliament,
Volume 147, Issue 13

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

http://parl.gc.ca/40/3/parlbus/chambus/senate/deb-E/013db_2010-03-30-e.htm?Language=E&Parl=40&Ses=3#52

Erosion of Freedom of Speech

Inquiry—Debate Adjourned

Hon. Doug Finley rose pursuant to notice of March 25, 2010:

That he will call the attention of the Senate to the issue of the erosion of Freedom of Speech in our country.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise to call the attention of the Senate to the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada.

There can scarcely be a more important issue than this one. Freedom of speech is, and always has been, the bedrock of our Canadian democracy. The great Alan Borovoy, who was the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association for more than 40 years, calls freedom of speech a “strategic freedom” because it is a freedom upon which all other freedoms are built. For example, how could we exercise our democratic right to hold elections without free speech? How could we have a fair trial without free speech? What is the point of freedom of assembly if we cannot talk freely at such a public meeting?

Freedom of speech is a most important freedom. Indeed, if we had all our other rights taken away we could still win them back with freedom of speech.

Benjamin Franklin once said: “Without Freedom of thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of speech.”

Freedom of speech is embedded in Parliament’s DNA. The word “Parliament” itself comes from the French word “parler,” to speak. As parliamentarians we guard our freedom jealously. No member of the House of Commons or the Senate may be sued for anything that is said in Parliament. Our freedom of speech is absolute.

Yet, only last week, a few miles from here, censorship reared its ugly head. Ann Coulter, an American political commentator, had been invited to speak at the University of Ottawa. Before she even said a word, she was served with a letter from François Houle, the university’s vice-president, containing a thinly veiled threat that she could face criminal charges if she proceeded with her speech.

On the night of her speech, an unruly mob of nearly 1,000 people, some of whom had publicly mused about assaulting her, succeeded in shutting down her lecture after overwhelmed police said they could not guarantee her safety.

Honourable senators, it was the most un-Canadian display that I personally have seen in years. It was so shocking that hundreds of foreign news media covered the fiasco, from the BBC to The New York Times to CNN. It was an embarrassing moment for Canada because it besmirched our reputation as a bastion of human rights — a reputation hard won in places like Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach and Kandahar.

More important than international embarrassment is the truth those ugly news stories revealed. Too many Canadians, especially those in positions of authority, have replaced the real human right of freedom of speech with a counterfeit human right not to be offended.

An angry mob is bad enough. That may be written off as misguided youth, overcome by enthusiasm. However, such excuses are not available to a university vice-president who obviously wrote his warning letter to Ms. Coulter after careful thought.

Ann Coulter is controversial, she is not to everyone’s taste, but that is irrelevant because freedom of speech means nothing if it applies only to people with whom we agree. To quote George Orwell: “Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

In a pluralistic society like Canada, we must protect our right to peacefully disagree with each other. We must allow a diversity of opinion, even if we find some opinions offensive. Unless someone counsels violence or other crimes, we must never use the law to silence them.

Freedom of speech is as Canadian as maple syrup, hockey and the northern lights. It is part of our national identity, our history and our culture. It is section 2 of our 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, listed as one of our “fundamental freedoms;” and it is in the first section of Canada’s 1960 Bill of Rights.

Honourable senators, our Canadian tradition of liberty goes much further back than that. In 1835, a 30-year-old newspaper publisher in Nova Scotia was charged with seditious libel for exposing corruption amongst Halifax politicians. The judge instructed the jury to convict him. At that time, truth was not a defence. The publisher passionately called on the jury to “leave an unshackled press as a legacy to your children.” After only 10 minutes of deliberations, the jury acquitted him. That young man, of course, was Joseph Howe, who would go on to become the premier of Nova Scotia.

Our Canadian tradition of free speech is even older than that. It is part of our inheritance from Great Britain and France.

[Translation]

Quebecers are heir to article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789. This article states:

The free communication of thought and opinion is one of the most invaluable rights of the man; any citizen can thus speak, write, [and] print freely. . .

France has produced some of the most well-known defenders of free speech in the world.

(1650)

François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name, Voltaire, was a polemicist who used satire and criticism to press for political and religious reforms. He paid a personal price, facing censorship and legal threats.

[English]

Voltaire put it best when he famously wrote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” His passionate advocacy helped shape liberty on both sides of the Atlantic.

English Canada has an impressive legacy of free speech, too. Like Voltaire, John Milton, the great poet who wrote Paradise Lost, was constantly hounded for his political views. His 1644 pamphlet on free speech, Areopagitica, perhaps the greatest defence of free speech ever written, is as relevant today as it was 350 years ago. In it, Milton wrote, “Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worst, in a free and open encounter?” and, “He who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself . . .”

Yet, despite our 400-year tradition of free speech, the tyrannical instinct to censor still exists. We saw it on a university campus last week, and we see it every week in Canada’s misleadingly named human rights commissions.

This week in Vancouver, a stand up comedian named Guy Earl has been on trial before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for the crime of telling jokes that someone did not find funny. An audience member who heckled him is suing him for $20,000 because she found his retorts offensive. They may have been offensive, but what is more offensive is that a government agency would be the arbiter of good taste or humour. Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years of hard labour for telling a joke about Stalin’s moustache. It is a disgrace that Canada is now putting comedians on trial.

There is not a lot that the Senate can do about the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, but our own Canadian Human Rights Commission has egregiously violated freedom of speech without any shame. In a censorship trial in 2007, a CHRC investigator named Dean Stacey testified that, “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” He actually said that. The Canadian Human Rights Commission actually admits they do not give free speech any value. That is totally unacceptable.

Freedom of speech is the great non-partisan principle that every Member of Parliament can agree on — that every Canadian can agree on. I will never tire of quoting the great Liberal Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier when he said that Canada is free and its freedom is its nationality. I will readily give credit to Keith Martin, the Liberal MP from British Columbia, who two years ago introduced a private member’s motion to repeal the censorship provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Honourable senators, I call for this inquiry to accomplish five things: first, to reaffirm that freedom of speech is a great Canadian principle that goes back hundreds of years; second, to put Canada’s censors on notice that their days of infringing upon our freedoms with impunity are over; third, to show moral support for those who are battling censors; fourth, to inquire into the details of what went so desperately wrong at the University of Ottawa to ensure that those awful events never happen again; and, fifth, to inspire a debate that hopefully will lead to a redefinition of section 13.1 of the [Canadian] Human Rights Act.

Honourable senators, there are times for partisan debate when parties must naturally be at odds with one another. This is not one of those times. Freedom of speech and respect for differing views is a foundational principle of our entire parliamentary system — indeed, of our entire legal system, as well.

I look forward to the constructive comments of my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle to build on the bipartisan history that Canadian free speech enjoys. If we can rededicate our Parliament to protecting this most important right, we will have done our country a great service, but if we fail to stop and indeed reverse this erosion of freedom, we will have failed our most basic duty, the duty to uphold our constitution and the rights in it, the rights it guarantees for all Canadians.

I know that, like so many generations of Canadians before us, we will meet the challenges of our time and live up to our responsibility to pass on to our children the same freedoms that we inherited from our parents. God keep our land glorious and free.

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Filed Under: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Anne Coulter, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Areopagitica, B'nai Brith, Babylonian Talmud, Canadian Human Rights Act, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Canadian Identity/Sovereignty, Canadian Jewish Congress, Canadian Politics, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Editor's Zone, Elizabeth Dilling, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Thought, George Orwell, Guy Earl, Human Rights/orgs, Internet Freedom, John Milton, Law & Justice, Marc Lemire, Political Zionism, Senator Doug Finley, Voltaire