The CPAC Debate

Ezra Levant and Concerned Citizen discuss the panel discussion on the HRCs at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Edmonton. I was able to watch all 80 minutes, but Levant also has a few shorter clips of the action.

Ian Fine was pretty brilliant in the way he avoided questions - I don't know why parliament did this or that, We just apply the law. His attempts to appear reasonable - We understand that there is concern, We appreciate that there is another take on the issue, the Supreme Court and Parliament agreed that we needed more protection against hate [italics are my paraphrases], etc. - were severely undermined by his statement of support for more laws against hate.

The big catch to me is that it is not enough just to look at a law and ask what is wrong with it in a legal sense, i.e. the letter of the law. The law, in this case the Human Rights Act, also has to be examined in a practical sense - that is, how the law is being used. In the case of Human Rights Acts, the law is being used in a way that was never intended, which the Supreme Court in the Taylor case did not anticipate - very much against the spirit of the law. When the law is used to prosecute political discourse and victim-less non-crimes, you know there is a problem with it.

The other thing is this idea that hatred needs to be stamped out by the government. This is a way of thinking that is very common, but diametrically opposed to the way our Dominion was conceived. That is the key point, that - as Levant and Martin argued - ideas should be tested, evaluated, and tossed out or retained in the court of public opinion, not by the government. When people seek to have arguments silenced, it is an indication that they have no defense against the arguments.