The Human Right To Dorm Life

Times-Colonist – The University of Victoria’s efforts to evict a student who has lived in on-campus housing since 1991 could be heading back to B.C. Supreme Court.

Alkis Gerd’son claims UVic is violating his human rights because he has a mental disability. In 2004, the province designated Gerd’son as disabled, allowing him to collect monthly support, including a housing allowance and other benefits. His complaint goes before a B.C. Human Rights tribunal in June.

Gerd’son earned a bachelor’s degree in 1997 and has not completed classes since. The university has been trying to evict him since 1998.

Another Example From The “Why Not To Bother Starting Something” File

Times-Colonist – It seems increasingly likely that a dispute between the parents of a Nanaimo bantam girls hockey team and the Nanaimo Minor Hockey Association will go before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal later this year.

Parents recently cancelled a settlement meeting to try to resolve the dispute, first made public last fall.

A complaint filed on behalf of the Bantam A female hockey team claimed “gender-based” discrimination after a competitive hockey program for teenage girls for the 2009-10 season was cancelled.

The NMHA informed parents the female Bantam A competitive program, which had been running for four years, would be cancelled due to a lack of players.

Epic Fail: Paper Tries To Stand Up For Free Speech, Ends Up On Its Knees

Bold ours.

Chilliwack Times, Open Letter to Readers – There has been much discussion lately about “free speech” in Canada. I use parentheses [sic] to denote a term that causes many individuals to have a gag reflex as they consider the term to be a uniquely American concept that has no relevancy with our sense of Canadian values. Call it “freedom of expression” or what have you, but I do have concerns about our willingness to acquiesce to seemingly arbitrary standards of conduct and speech imposed by quasi-judicial bodies. Their willingness to take away your right to expression should concern all of us.

Blogger Psyched About Job Prospect

Scaramouche – Love power? Looking for employment? Willing to relocate to beautiful British Columbia? Well, then, do I have the job for you–a spot on the B.C. Roobunal…

Good call:

Heather MacNaughton, Chair, BC Human Rights Tribunal. 2008 salary: $172, 101.

Human Rights Is Big Bucks #19: Heather MacNaughton

Heather MacNaughton, Chair, British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. (2007-2008 numbers; latest available):

Salary: $172, 101

Rank out of 5,452 high earners in BC Government: 203

Writer Nails It

Bold ours.

Vancouver Courier – In a culture where anyone can yell “discrimination” against anyone for any perceived slight, and go judicial on their assets, there’s a constant danger of a chilling effect. Not just on comedy, but on illustration, journalism, theatre and music.

Democracy was never supposed to be about the tyranny of a solitary offended citizen.

Pardy’s Lawyer To Bar Owner: You Should Have Just Paid Up

Bold ours.

CP – Cousineau told the hearing Friday that if Ismail had apologized in the beginning, assured Pardy that this would not happen again at his restaurant and offered her compensation, the issue may never have reached the tribunal.

“Perhaps if that had happened we wouldn’t be here today,” Cousineau said.

Human Rights Is Big Bucks #16

Update. See below.

CP – Comedian Guy Earle could end up paying a heavy price for his freedom of speech – up to $15,000 if his accuser has her way.

At an open-mic comedy show hosted by Zesty’s restaurant in Vancouver, B.C. three years ago, Earle, acting as volunteer emcee, lit into Lorna Pardy and her lesbian partner with a profanity-laced tirade that Pardy’s lawyer said left Pardy humiliated and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Lawyer Devyn Cousineau said during her closing arguments at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal hearing Friday that Pardy should be awarded between $10,000 and $15,000 in damages for the discrimination she suffered as a result of Earle’s homophobic comments.

TGET:

Cousineau said nothing about 10 or 15 thousand dollars, or any dollar amount whatsoever during her closing arguments.

Mr. Scott has his facts wrong, his Canadian Press article is inaccurate.

A Canadian’s Philosophical Dilemma

National Post – I can’t make up my mind which I want to come back as in my next life, a thin-skinned lesbian or a serial pedophile.

Priorities, Baby

Rex Murphy, National Post – Meantime, real cases of human rights violation, individuals genuinely stranded and deprived of their rights as citizens, such as the couple in Caledonia, Ont., who’ve lived through a multi-year siege by local First Nations gangs, unaided by the Ontario government or the police–noiselessly pass by.

Where was the mighty Ontario Human Rights Commission during all of this? Adjudicating the locker room rights of a St. Catharines fitness club.

Video: Anatomy Of A Shakedown

Smyth: Earle’s Comedy Sucks, But He Has The Right To Suck At It

The Province – But is his vicious spat with a heckler in a late-night comedy club really a matter for a state arbiter? If this is a choice between offensive “humour” by bad comedians in half-empty neighbourhood nightclubs, versus an all-powerful government joke regulator, I think I’ll take the offensive gags.

Human Rights Commission A Joke

Montreal Gazette – Is there some contest to see how silly a complaint Canada’s human-rights commissions will try to take seriously? If so, there’s a new front-runner, as B.C’s Human Rights Tribunal grapples with a complaint from a woman who was insulted in a Vancouver comedy club. Talk about people unclear on the concept.

Stunning Human Rights Testimony: Warm Beer Served In Bar

Covenant Zone – Sam Ismail asked Samantha to comment on how, during the evening in question, the bar ran out of cold Corona and she had to get another case, which she said was somewhat unusual. Samantha told the Pardy table they would have to drink warm Coronas. The point of all this was not made clear.

Insensitive Blogger Dares To Question PTSD

National Post, Hugh MacIntyre – Plus I find her assertion that she is suffering post-traumatic stress from being called bad names a little over the top. Does she wake up screaming every night because some comedian insulted her? I somehow doubt it.

Enough With This Talk Of Justice, On With The Witch Hunt

TGET:

Guy Earle Legal Defense Fund Now Open

FFoF – REMEMBER:

The angry lesbians bringing this “hate speech” case (over a pair of broken sunglasses) get all their “legal” fees paid by your taxdollars, while Guy is out of pocket five figures and counting.

By Our Count, National Post Is Sixth Rag To Use Lame “Last Laugh” Line

National Post – Will lesbian heckler get last laugh in rights fight?

BC Human Rights Tribunal: Racial Profiling OK (If We Say So)

British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal Annual Report 2008 – 2009 – The Chair approved seven new special programs this year.

The British Columbia Nurses’ Union received five year special program approval to restrict hiring for the position of Education Diversity Officer to candidates who are members of a visible minority…

The Legal Services Society (“LSS”) received five year special program approval to limit hiring and/or provide preference to people of Aboriginal ancestry for lawyer and staff positions…

School District No. 28 (Quesnel) received five year special program approval to restrict hiring of teaching positions assigned to the Aboriginal Education Department to persons of Aboriginal ancestry…

Thompson Rivers University received five year special program approval for three programs that allow it to restrict hiring to a person of Aboriginal descent…

Vancouver Community College received five year special program approval to recruit persons of Aboriginal Ancestry for its new Culinary Arts – Aboriginal Speciality training program…

No Statute Of Limitations On Bigotry

British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal Annual Report 2008 – 2009 – [page 8] The Code requires that a complaint must be filed within six months of an act of discrimination, or the last instance of a “continuing contravention” of the Code.  The Tribunal may accept late-filed complaints if it is in the public interest to do so and no substantial prejudice will result to anyone…

[Page 9] A complainant filed a complaint five years after he was fired and told it was due to restructuring. In unrelated civil proceedings, he learned that one respondent said he was fired because of his disability.  It was in the public interest to accept the late complaint because the complainant did not discover the discrimination until the later civil proceedings. The respondents were not prejudiced by the delay.

Human Rights Activist: BCHRT “Flawed”

[Province] A case in point arose this summer, when a raucous public debate reverberated across Canada after the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal agreed to hear a complaint about an allegedly Islamophobic article published in Maclean’s magazine.

Critics, including B’nai Brith Canada, say the complaint had no merit and should not have been heard. Defenders say the tribunal was simply fulfilling its role of hearing complaints under Section 7 of B.C.’s Human Rights Code, which prohibits publication of anything that “indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate . . . or is likely to expose a person or a group or class of persons to hatred or contempt.”

As the public awaits the tribunal’s verdict, critics have seized on the case to call for major reform to the quasi-judicial body.

David Matas, senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada and a longtime human-rights activist, says the way in which human rights is governed in B.C. is “flawed.”

Liberal Aussie Politician Laments Canada’s Freaky Star Chambers

More international bad press for Canadian human rights commissions.

[The Australian] All this is frighteningly reminiscent of the situation in Canada, where official agencies of the state prosecute citizens for the thought-crime of political incorrectness. Canada’s federal and provincial human rights commissions were established to fight discrimination in housing and employment. But these quasi-judicial bodies have metastasised into partisan star-chamber tribunals that selectively file charges against those who espouse conservative political or religious beliefs.

Alberta Human Rights Commission: Let’s All Pretend This Never Happened

CHRC punted on Steyn. OHRC punted on Steyn. AHRC now punts on Levant. BCHRT…you’re up! Come on, chickenshits. You nailed McDonald’s for handwashing, surely you can bust Steyn for a hate crime. Or will you punt, too?

[CBC] The Alberta Human Rights Commission has dismissed a complaint against publisher Ezra Levant for reprinting the provocative Danish Muhammad cartoons in his magazine in 2006.

The complaint was filed by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities.

Levant, who has characterized the controversy as a free speech issue, said he was pleased with the outcome and pledged to continue fighting against censorship.

Anningson: What If…?

[Times and Transcript] So what if none of us ever got to say what we thought was important?

What if when I tried to write about vegetarianism the meat lobby had me shut down. What if the coffee federation silenced me when I said we should pay more for a cup of coffee because the labourers don’t make enough? What if the government brought me up on charges when I suggest that detainees are being treated unfairly in military prisons?

If you have been reading Maclean’s magazine this year you will realize that Canada has such a thing as a Human Rights Court, which is not really a court in a standard legal system, but a court where any individual whatsoever can bring charges that you have somehow written or published hate literature against some group.

Burnaby Paper To BC Human Rights Tribunal: Shame On You

[Burnaby Now] The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal members should feel ashamed.

Comedian Guy Earle is now the latest target heading for a showdown at the tribunal over comments Earle allegedly made while at an open microphone during a weekly standup comedy night in March of this year.

The revelation that Earle is now scrambling for legal advice comes just weeks after the human rights tribunal sat for several days to hear a complaint about an article written by journalist Mark Steyn and published in Maclean’s magazine.

The rest.