They Said “Charade,” We Didn’t

Amnesty International Human Rights Kit - A Classroom Resource

2.  Comparing the Declaration, the Convention and the Charter  

(15-20 Minutes) 

Distribute copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (shortened versions included in this package) to your class and go through the rights included in each (compare and contrast them if desired). 

Long Version: try the workshop “The Imaginary Country” (30-45 minutes) or for more on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, try “Human Rights Charades” (45 minutes- one hour) 

The rest.

Meanwhile, Overseas…

… a human rights commission worries about saving lives, investigating officials on the take, rescuing children, and telling the cops to do a better job.

From the files of the NHRC/OHRC (India):

1. NHRC to send investigation team to Kandhamal (1)

New Delhi, January 1: The National Human Rights Commission will send an investigation team to Kandhamal in Orissa to get a “first-hand information on the violence against the Christians there”. The commission made this decision after a delegation of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) met its Chairperson, Justice S Rajendra Babu, in New Delhi on Sunday with a memorandum. The memorandum urged for NHRC’s intervention to safeguard the lives of Christians living in the area.

4. Goel to approach NHRC again on Blueline issue (1)

NEW DELHI: Former Union Minister Vijay Goel announced on Friday that he would again approach the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to demand that it take up the issue of the Blueline bus menace in the Capital seriously as the matter involved the life and limbs of millions of people in the city. In a statement, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said the issue of Blueline buses killing people assumed greater significance in the wake of a recent “sting operation” that showed traffic police personnel taking bribes from Blueline bus operators.

6. ‘Abducted’ girl restored to parents, thanks to OHRC (1)

CUTTACK: A minor tribal girl of Nuapada district, who was abducted by a Chhattisgarh-based businessman in May 2007, was rescued by the State police recently and handed over to her parents following the intervention of the Orissa Human Rights Commission (OHRC). The police action came after the rights panel reprimanded them and directed Nuapada SP to personally pursue the case earnestly.

vs:

British Columbia, Canada

Peter Hayes is a pagan and also a sadomasochist and as such felt that he was discriminated against when he applied for a job as a chauffeur and needed a permit from the police. So he took his case to the Human Rights Tribunal.

Police argued that the laws which protect ’sexual orientation’ do not extend to sadomasochism and paganism and these practices. The court ruled the police action as premature since that was the tribunal’s job to decide.

“How can the tribunal determine if BDSM falls within the meaning of ’sexual orientation’ if it does not have a full understanding of what BDSM means?” Justice Anne Rowles reiterated.

Update: Perhaps Justice Rowles is correct.

From Xeromag:

“Trickier than it sounds. There’s more to being a dom than telling people what to do. There’s a lot more to it than telling people what to do. Anyone can do that; it no more makes you a dom than owning a border collie makes you a shepherd.”

Canadian Equation? Words + Action - Freedom = Auschwitz

Hmm. “History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes.” Commissar Lynch provides, as she would say, “no substantiation for these claims.” But then she’s a “hate speech” prosecutor and, as we know, Canada’s “human rights” procedures aren’t subject to tiresome requirements like evidence. So she’s made an argument from authority: the great Queen’s Counsel has risen from her throne in the Star Chamber and pronounced, and let that suffice. Those of us who occupy less exalted positions in the realm might wish to ponder the evidence for her assertions.

The rest.

CHRC Greatest (Bong) Hits

From July, 2002:

Random and pre-employment drug testing of public employees is a human rights violation and not allowed under the Canadian Human Rights Act, the federal Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) announced this week.  Their decision strikes down suspicionless drug testing policies for federally regulated workers, such as bank employees and airline pilots.

“Positive drug tests simply confirm an individual’s previous exposure to drugs, not whether the person is capable of performing the essential requirements of their job,” the CHRC stated in a press release.  The Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based upon disability or perceived disability, and drug and alcohol dependency are considered disabilities under the law.

The rest.

One Glove, No Love

It’s a matter of degree that we empower the quasi-judicial bodies to dole out punishment against citizens who they deem to have expressed political thoughts in a matter that is unreasonable.  Or that they have said or written something that is deemed “likely to expose someone to hatred or contempt”, to quote the wording of the law.

And we note that it is no longer just “hate speech”, but rather “hate and contempt speech” that is now unlawful.  Where does it end?

Will an organization like the CJC, during the next global crisis, seek to add a rider to the reactionary omnibus bill of the day to prohibit “mean speech” too?  We setup these hyperboles to make our point, but suggesting that the Ezra Levant case or the Mark Styen case was inevitable ten years ago would have been dismissed as hysterical as well.

It’s not like this isn’t happening in the civilized world, anyways.  The United Kingdom has an Anti-Social Behavior Act, which allows judges there, to issue orders to people to change their daily behavior.  There have been orders requiring people to dress a certain way. Even crazier, two teenagers were charged with anti-social behavior for only wearing a single glove.  The court ordered them they were to wear two gloves, or no gloves at all. 

I’m not making this crap up.

The rest.

Next Stop, Christmas

A recommendation claiming York’s Jewish holiday scheduling results in “preferential treatment” has spokespeople scrambling to explain the report is not official policy.
Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) investigator Kim Hanson’s recommendation, released on March 28, was over a complaint launched by York University professor David Noble.
Noble had complained to the OHRC that York’s policy of cancelling classes on the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur was unfair to York’s diverse student body.

The rest.

Bonus Bucks

The Human Rights Commission submits that the reference to “any person or class of persons” is sufficiently broad to allow an award of damages to Ms. D. even though she is not named as a party. In support of this position, I was referred to the decision of a Saskatchewan board of inquiry in Saskatoon Indian and Métis Friendship Centre Inc. v. Millar’s Florist and Greenhouse Limited (1992), 20 C.H.R.R. D/456. In that decision, the board was considering s.31(7) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code which is very similar to s.34 8 of the Nova Scotia legislation. The complainant was the Saskatoon Indian and Métis Friendship Centre Inc., however, the Human Rights Commission was also seeking damages for the employee of the complainant who had been subject to the discriminatory treatment. That person was the main witness at the hearing with respect to the events in question.

The board of inquiry in the Saskatoon Indian and Métis Friendship Centre Inc. case interpreted the Saskatchewan legislation to include persons even though they were not named as complainants. I would agree with that analysis and interpret s.34 8 of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act as giving jurisdiction to award damages to Ms. D.

The Respondent argued that s.34 8 should be limited to those persons defined as parties to the proceeding in s.33. However, if that had been the intent of the legislature, they would have used the term “party” rather than “any person” in s.34(8).

The rest.

 

The Industry’s Booming

In case you wondered what that boring consultant at the front of the room is bringing in:

Preventing Employee Harassment 2 hour: $495
Preventing Harassment & Discrimination 3 hour: $595
Workplace Violence Employee:   $495
Workplace Violence Manager:   $595
Sexual Harassment 1 hour: $295
Sexual Harassment (1 day program):   $795
Investigating Human Rights Complaints (2 day program):   $1,595
Human Rights (1 day program):   $795
Respectful Workplace (1 day program):   $795
Reward & Recognition:   $795

The rest.

Amateur Hour Or…Something Else?

Pearl Eliadis (human rights lawyer) in the Ottawa Gazette:

Criminal law and human-rights law are entirely separate. Human- rights commissions operate in a much less confrontational way, trying to find common ground, seeking settlements and, where discrimination actually is found to exist, recommending remedies. They have no power to make orders, except to dismiss a complaint.

vs:

When it has received all of the submissions, the Commission reviews the report and submissions. It then decides to take one of the following actions:

• dismiss the allegations if there is no evidence to support them;
• appoint a conciliator to help the parties try to reach a settlement; or
• send the matter to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing.

Then the Commission sends a letter to the parties telling them what it has decided, and what the next steps will be.

Full disclosure, anyone?

Session 1 - Trends and Current Issues For Human Rights Commissions

Moderator: Pearl Eliadis

Pearl Eliadis introduced the topic by identifying the following major themes:

• The link between human rights institutions and civil society.
• The interdependence of human rights.
• The effect that international developments have on the domestic implementation of human rights standards.
• The expanding and interrelated set of human rights which in turn affects the perception that human rights institutions have of their own mandates.

The rest.