Ezra Levant addresses the Alberta Human Rights Commission Interrogation
Levant is the Alberta-based publisher who printed the Danish cartoons that sparked a furore in some majority Muslim countries, where mocking Islam or the Prophet is not permitted, and he now faces human rights charges in Alberta:
Some excerpts:
When the Western Standard magazine printed the Danish cartoons of Mohammed two years ago, I was the publisher. It was the proudest moment of my public life. I would do it again today. In fact, I did do it again today. Though the Western Standard, sadly, no longer publishes a print edition, I posted the cartoons this morning on my website, ezralevant.com.
I believe that this commission has no proper authority over me. The commission was meant as a low-level, quasi-judicial body to arbitrate squabbles about housing, employment and other matters, where a complainant felt that their race or sex was the reason they were discriminated against. The commission was meant to deal with deeds, not words or ideas. Now the commission, which is funded by a secular government, from the pockets of taxpayers of all backgrounds, is taking it upon itself to be an enforcer of the views of radical Islam. So much for the separation of mosque and state.
I have read the past few years’ worth of decisions from this commission, and it is clear that it has become a dump for the junk that gets rejected from the real legal system.
That’s my first point: the commissions have leapt out of the small cage they were confined to, and are now attacking our fundamental freedoms. As Alan Borovoy, Canada’s leading civil libertarian, a man who helped form these commissions in the 60’s and 70’s, wrote, in specific reference to our magazine, being a censor is, quote, “hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions. There should be no question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons.” Unquote. Since the commission is so obviously out of control, he said quote “It would be best, therefore, to change the provisions of the Human Rights Act to remove any such ambiguities of interpretation.” Unquote.
The commission has no legal authority to act as censor. It is not in their statutory authority. They’re just making it up – even Alan Borovoy says so.
The full text is here.
Note: This is a different case from the human rights charges faced by Mark Steyn and Maclean’s Magazine for printing an excerpt from Steyn’s America Alone.
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My name is Denyse O'Leary, born 1950, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I have been a journalist all my life. I began to publish books in 2001. I live in Toronto, and I have two daughters and two granddaughters, as of 2008. You can reach me at oleary@sympatico.ca | More from Denyse O'Leary
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