Thursday, January 31, 2008

A Step in the Right Direction?

Ezra Levant broke news today that Keith Martin, Liberal MP for Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca (Victoria), gave notice of his Private Member's motion, which reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be deleted from the Act.
It's curious and somewhat disappointing that a Liberal beat the Conservatives to the punch, but as Levant notes, it is also quite advantageous.  It's not the ideal - the entire Human Rights Commission provision has to go. But it is a promising step in the right direction. A few questions come to mind:
  • This is a motion in Parliament. What implications would the carrying of the motion have for provincial Human Rights Acts and Commissions?
  • What would happen to pending subsection 13 cases?
  • What recourse would others have who have lost subsection 13 cases?
In the meanwhile, a few more columns have appeared in the Canadian mainstream media against the HRCs. Among the best is another one from Rex Murphy: 
Mostly I fear, if the HRCs are tied up, Canadians will be reading, unguided, what they choose to read, deciding for themselves what they like and what they don't, will discard a book or pass it to a friend, like a column or curse one - lit only by the light of their own reason. The horror! Before we know it, we'll have an unstoppable epidemic of free speech, free thought, and freedom of the press.