At long last, Canada has come to its senses:
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that Section 13, Canada’s much maligned human rights hate speech law, is an unconstitutional violation of the Charter right to free expression because of its penalty provisions.
The decision released this morning by Tribunal chair Athanasios Hadjis appears to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its controversial legal mandate to pursue hate on the Internet, which it has strenuously defended against complaints of censorship.
Will this put Richard Warman out of business? And does it affect the case of the pastor who has been enjoined from saying or writing about homosexuals?
In its ongoing national effort to be “nice,” Canada hadn’t seemed to notice that it was becoming fascist with a smiley face. I hope that this is the beginning of a reverse of that trend.
[Late afternoon update]
Thoughts from Mark Steyn:
This is the beginning of the end for the Canadian state’s policing of opinion: Judge Hadjis has repudiated the “human rights” regime’s entire rationale as well as a couple of decades of joke “jurisprudence”.
I confess I wasn’t optimistic when the thought enforcers decided to pick a fight with me, but Ezra Levant persuaded me that the thing to do was go nuclear on this disgusting racket and re-frame the debate. We succeeded. There’s a lesson here for American conservatives, particularly as the president and his allies, with the “fairness doctrine” and bills to control the Internet and whatnot, are tempted down a very Canadian path.
Let’s hope it augurs other, future victories in rolling back Leviathan.
In college I was once accused by a liberal of being a “friendly fascist” because I disagreed with him yet (I suppose) refrained from bashing in his skull in the process.
These days (until now, I hope) I suppose he could simply have called me “Canadian.”
This was no academic problem or joke for us while it lasted. I self-censored several letters to the editor I wanted submit ,becauase I knew I could not afford the 10~100,000 dollars that could possibly have to be incurred were I to be called before the Inhuman Reich’s Kommission.
Now I don’t fear some homosexualist group or other liberal group getting free legal fees in a farcical tribunal while I have to pay for my lawyer as Ezra Levant and others did.
This is huge for us, and as Mark Steyn noted, Yanks had better not let Acorn nuts, Obama internet czars and demands for “equal play” on the airwaves from liberals no one wants to or pays to hear from.
Once these groups have an inch, it is for all intents and purposes a very long mile and institutions are harder to remove than the dumb ideas that give birth them.