Oh, Happy Day

Pass the Kool-Aid and keep the business booming, baby.

[Expositor, Letter to the Editor] Of course, actions speak louder than mere words, and I’m proud that our Conservative government has made significant progress in enhancing the well-being of aboriginal women, children and families. We passed legislation that will allow people living on reserves to launch human rights complaints…

Canadian Ex-Pat: Thank God I’m Back In Australia

More international bad press for Canadian human rights commissions.

[The Australian] You see, these mickey-mouse pseudo-judges have now moved on to prosecuting a fellow named Guy Earle, a stand-up comedian. Apparently during the course of his act he offended a couple of lesbians. They complained that he responded to their heckling of him in a hateful manner.

So endeth the update of the wonderful state of free speech in my native Canada. I think I need a drink, or I’d have to cry.

Horses More Cute Than Cows

[Associated Press] One menu item could soon disappear from foreign dinner tables: meat from slaughtered American horses.

Animal rights advocates are urging lawmakers to pass a bill banning the slaughter of U.S. horses for consumption abroad, arguing the practice is inhumane. Opponents of the proposal say it would actually increase cruelty in the form of abandonment, abuse and neglect.

Former Spy: If Not For My Incredible Heroism, Regular Canadians Would Have Become Nazis

From the Arrogant Has-Beens file.

[National Post] In the 1980s, I became embroiled in the feculent world of Canada’s neo-Nazi movement in an undercover capacity for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

I did this because I believe in Canada’s values of tolerance and respect. I did it so I could support the efforts of CSIS to stop purveyors of hate from infecting Canadians of goodwill.

Worked for free, did you? Nice try, Captain Canada: you did it because you were paid to do it.

If It Doesn’t Start With “G” And End With “Mo,” You’re Out Of Luck

[Globe and Mail] Six years after the Maher Arar affair began to cast a spotlight on Syria’s detentions of Arab Canadians, a citizen remains secretly jailed in the police state.

Bahaeddine Succarie, a 41-year-old Canadian of Lebanese descent, has been jailed in Syria since April, 2007. He was picked up in Damascus, which he had frequently visited since returning to Tripoli, Lebanon, in the early 1990s.

His imprisonment has received no public attention. However, his sister contacted The Globe and Mail this month to express frustration with Canadian diplomats involved in the case.

The Human Right To Be Free Of Cartoons

[Globe and Mail] Should cartoonists get danger pay? Maybe it’s time. Canada’s own Barry Blitt has gone to ground after his infamous, satirical New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as gun-toting Islamic militants. Obama fans hated it. Other cartoonists hated it. But Muslim groups hated it even more. The Council on American-Islamic Relations declared it “inflammatory.” A commentator for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram called it “racist” and Islamophobic.

Fortunately Mr. Blitt works in the United States, where the worst they can do is denounce you. Here in Canada, they can take you to a human rights commission. That’s what happened in April when Halifax’s Chronicle-Herald ran a political cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon.

The rest.

Criminals Will Turn In Their Guns, And Everyone Will Live Happily Ever After

[Edmonton Sun] Sometimes it takes a near tragedy to induce people to rally together and root out the malignant forces ravaging a community.

In crime-plagued Hobbema, south of Edmonton, where a 2-year-old girl was injured in a drive-by shooting, the latest plan to combat the mayhem on the four native reserves in the area is a gun amnesty.

For four months beginning Aug. 1, Hobbema residents will be able to hand in their illegal or unwanted firearms without being charged with possession of an unlicensed or unregistered weapon.

The rest.

McCain Should Call New York’s Human Rights Commission

[Media Research Center] “It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.”
— New York Times op-ed editor David Shipley, a former Clinton speechwriter, on July 21 explaining why he rejected an Iraq op-ed from McCain after running a piece on July 14 from Obama about his Iraq plans.

The rest.

Meet The Next Failure

[Radio Netherlands] The United Nations has named South Africa’s Navanethem Pillay as the world body’s new human rights chief. The 67-year-old lawyer and judge has worked for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Rwanda Tribunal, as well as sitting on the bench of South Africa’s High Court. She succeeds Canada’s Louise Arbour.

The rest.

Flash: Short-Order Cooks Goof Off And Swear In The Kitchen! (Woman Wins $3500)

[Northern News Service] In her decision handed down June 13, adjudicator Shannon Gullberg stated that while she couldn’t find any evidence that the termination of Sherman’s kitchen job was discriminatory, she found the pranks with the stool and the continuous playing of offensive music during Sherman’s employment at Boston Pizza was discriminatory under the NWT Human Rights Act.

“It is absolutely unconscionable that Sherman was subjected to sexually explicit music for a year and a half, and had to suffer the humiliation of having to search for a stool that was hidden from her,” Gullberg stated in her ruling.

Gullberg ordered that the company that owns Yellowknife’s Boston Pizza franchise, Mbotloxo Investments, pay Sherman $1,000 for the injury caused to her “dignity, feelings, and self-respect,” plus $2,500 in punitive damages.

The rest.