Thursday, September 4, 2008

Lawyering free speech down to size

... or how a few Canadians are making their nation a scary laughingstock.

Ezra Levant:

"The Canadian Human Rights Commission has said and done some pretty appalling things over the years, but one of their most-publicized embarrassments was when Dean Steacy, the CHRC 'hate speech' investigator, famously testified that at the CHRC, 'freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value.' ...

"According to the closing arguments filed last week by the CHRC in the Warman v. Lemire 'hate speech' case, Steacy was correctly enunciating CHRC policy: they don't believe in 'freedom of speech' -- that's American. See paragraph 48 of their submissions, here.

[In part] 'Mr. Steacy did not testify that the Commission gives no value to freedom of expression because it is an American concept as alleged by the respondent(.) What Mr. Steacy said, [sic] was that the Commission distinguishes between American notions of "freedom of speech" and the different Canadian value of "freedom of expression."'

Huh?

Freedom of speech is part of freedom of expression. Speech is a form of expression -- the most common form. Is that really the best the CHRC can do to explain away Steacy's incorrect, bullying, and un-Canadian statement?"

************************

Okay. I guess it depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Read the whole thing.

(via Blazing Cat Fur)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a MAIN example of why it's not necessary to report on Canadian news stories. We're American, not Canadian. They won't see the American way any more than Americans will adopt Canadian provinces. So, let's talk about bein' "Born In The USA!"

Anonymous said...

Wanna go night swimming, the water temperature is 82 degrees and it's calling my name. I'll catchya on the flip side, kid! Hugz -n- <3!

Eowyn said...

Ha! Hope it was a great swim :)

Actually, some of the folks on my blogroll are Canadians I met during an infamous "human rights tribunal" attack on journalist Mark Steyn and the Canadian magazine Maclean's (equivalent to our Time and Newsweek). I couldn't believe Canadians allowed themselves to have these kangaroo courts (they're not even courts of law) decide who can publish what. But they have -- and the neat thing is, there are a LOT of Canadians who hate it, and are fighting against it. I join in whenever I can, though, as you say, we're in different countries.

My wonderful stepmom is from Nova Scotia, so I've got family in Canada, and I tend to consider them ALL as cousins -- though you won't hear me say "it's aBOAT time" and stuff like that ;)

Anonymous said...

Haha. Nice reply!!!!! I'm glad to read that your step-mother is a good person. Night swimming again, it's the calm before the storm, "Hanna" is going to hit the east coast tomorrow so we're going to enjoy the evening swimming in warm waters, the rain may chill the temps down a bit, flood watches, etc., for the east coast.
Take care, Sweet Stuff!

Eowyn said...

You too kiddo :)