Shackling the Press

No sooner has Mark Steyn revealed the newly-enshrined right not to be offended than the Canadian Islamic Congress has given a case in point: it has filed a complaint against Maclean's Magazine with three Human Rights Commissions regarding an article by Steyn called 'The Future Belongs to Islam'. Read the complaints at Steyn's website. There are just so many things wrong with this. First, regarding Human Rights Commissions:

• HRCs are not bound to rigorous standards of evidence and procedure.
• HRCs are given power to force compliance and levy fines.
• HRC employees need not have legal training, and appointments are often political in nature.
  
• HRCs are balanced heavily in favour of the complainants, who are not responsible for the legal fees and paperwork that can tie up or cripple the party being investigated.
• By contrast, the complainants can avoid legal fees, time in court, and have the benefit of a lower standard of legal procedure - this makes it an easy system to abuse.
  
• HRCs in Canada have done more stripping of human rights (especially those of freedom of speech and freedom of religion) than upholding them - without the checks and balances of standard legal procedure, the HRCs have given favour to certain rights (or even perceived rights) at the expense of other constitutionally enshrined rights.

Regarding this particular case:

• Why three complaints? The main complainant is filing several complaints in the hopes that one will stick. Even if 2 of 3 complaints are unsuccessful, he is victorious.
  
• The main complainant on all three complaints, Mohamed Elmasry, is a professor of computer engineering at the University of Waterloo. That's in Ontario. So I can buy a complaint with the Ontario HRC or the federal HRC. But how can he file a complaint with the HRC in British Columbia? And how can that commission justify hearing the case? What jurisdiction can it possibly have?
  
• The simplest action for the complainants would be to respond in kind: publish a rebuttal in another paper or magazine. Doubtless there is no shortage of media outfits that sympathize with them and would be glad to be the vehicle for such a rebuttal. The fact that the complainants have chosen the HRCs betrays their disinterest in open and frank debate. Instead, they want to silence detractors. If the complainants are so sure of their position, why not silence them with an unrebuttable rebuttal?
• The complainants are using deceptive - no, outright false - claims.
• One of the quotes listed as a grievance is not even Steyn's - it is directly from a Muslim leader!
  
• This is a bold and direct attack on the freedoms of thought, speech and press, and it is obviously so. It is a travesty that HRCs have even considered hearing these complaints.

Any member of the free press that thinks government control (by HRCs or another arm) will not restrict their journalistic freedom is naive. These complaints are very dangerous in that they could very well be a precedent in that direction. This is the very reason for the First Amendment to the US Constitution with regard to the freedom of the press. Yet, aside from some notable exceptions, the mainstream media, whose future is at stake with Maclean's, has been remarkably silent on the issue.

These complaints have heightened the debate about HRCs, but not enough that Canadians will demand that they be shut down. If the HRCs realize the danger of ruling in favour of the complainants and fail to do so, Maclean's will be off the hook, but so will the HRCs. The best possible outcome may just be that Maclean's loses its fight initially, but is supported by the anger of the free press and freedom-loving Canadians and fights the HRCs off for good.