Human Rights Tribunal Sets Stunning Precedent: Religion Erases Jurisdictional Boundaries

From Andrew Coyne’s live-blog of the Maclean’s/BCHRT hearing:

12:05 PM
McConchie is again pointing out that Awan is from Ontario, so whatever traumatic impact the Steyn article is supposed to have had on him occurred, as it were, outside the BC tribunal’s jurisdiction.

12:08 PM
Their reply: he’s a member of the Muslim “community,” which includes BC Muslims. So, I take it, if he’s harmed, they are.

The rest.

New York Times Reporter: WTF?

From Andrew Coyne’s live-blog of the Maclean’s/British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal case:

10:55 AM
So he wants the tribunal to order Rogers to publish … something, in the name of “balancing” free speech against the right to be free of discrimination.

10:59 AM
Just coming back from a break. Lots of media interest, it seems: CBC, CTV (I’m told), the National Post, local media, and a guy from the New York Times, who’s doing a piece comparing how the two countries’ legal systems deal with speech cases. Needless to say, he can’t believe what he’s witnessing…

The rest.

MacNaughton In Charge

Turns out, Heather M. MacNaughton is the tribunal chair for the Maclean’s case. We thought it would be Barbara Humphreys, as she’s done most of the heavy lifting for the BCHRT in 2008. Judy Parrack is another of their designated hitters, sitting in on several cases this year. Obviously, though, this case requires the big guns, as MacNaughton is the Chair-with-a-big-C of the entire BCHRT.

Still, MacNaughton has done some trenches work in ’08. Here’s her statement from one of her cases dated March 19, 2008. It should give a good idea of how the BCHRT system works: you’re guilty until you prove your innocence.

Prove To Us The Complaint Can’t Succeed; Prove It Isn’t Good For “The Code”

Gallagher v Edna Laughy, Cindy Williams, Aggressive K-9 Services and Action Guard Dog Services

[5] The sole basis for the respondents’ application is:

“There was no age discrimination in Aggressive K-9 Services not hiring the Complainant.  He was simply not a suitable candidate for the job.  A decision in this case will not effect anyone else as anyone hired is judged on merit not age, sex or any other factors.”

[6] As the Tribunal has repeatedly said, to be successful in an application under s. 27(1)(c), a respondent must do more than just dispute that discrimination occurred.  They must put before the Tribunal sufficient information for a member to determine that there is no reasonable prospect of the complaint succeeding. No such information accompanied this application and, based on the disputed versions of events, I cannot determine that there is no reasonable prospect that this complaint will succeed.

[7] Furthermore, if Mr. Gallagher is able to prove his allegations, and establish that age was a factor in the decision making with respect to him, this complaint will benefit him and will further the purposes of the Code.

[8] As a result, I deny the respondents’ application to dismiss the complaint.

— Heather M. MacNaughton, Tribunal Chair

The rest.

Hope The Steyn Case Doesn’t Go More Than 8 Hours

[The Independent] We can get into a puerile game where we all shriek to silence the people we disagree with. Or we can grow up, and have an argument. That’s why – for today, and only for today – I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mark Steyn.

The rest.

BCHRT Greatest Hits

We’ll be highlighting a bunch of these this week, as the BCHRT is in the news.

Here’s one from September, 2005. Ralph Stopps applied for a membership at the Just Ladies fitness centre. Tribunal Member (read, judge) Judy Parrack ruled against him. Reason? He knew the place discriminated against men before he walked in the door, so why did he bother? Case dismissed.

[33] Mr. Stopps said he did not know that Just Ladies excluded men.  It was his belief that it was a “marketing” ploy and it was directed at women.  I did not find this evidence credible.  It was clear from the entirety of Mr. Stopps’s evidence that he knew Just Ladies was a women-only facility.  He went there specifically seeking to be denied a membership; he would not have expected this result if it was a co-ed facility.

[159] In conclusion, Mr. Stopps’ complaint is dismissed pursuant to s. 37(1) of the Code.

But, over in Quebec:

A Montreal gay bar that caters to male clients has settled a discrimination complaint with a woman who was thrown out of the premises.

Bar Le Stud and Audrey Vachon, the 21-year-old woman who launched the complaint, agreed to keep the terms of the settlement confidential, Canadian Press reported Tuesday.

Quebec’s human rights commission says businesses have the right to attract a particular clientele but not to discriminate by excluding other customers.

Paging Steyn: Get Ready For A Beating

We’ve been looking at the BCHRT over the past few days, to get a heads-up on what Steyn can expect when the Maclean’s case goes before the human rights bureaucrats in British Columbia this week.

Here’s a couple of interesting bits from the BCHRT. Enjoy. You pay for every single minute of it.

Today we’ll cut the BCHRT some slack and look at some cases that were actually thrown out. Why they were thrown out is an educational experience in itself:

1. Staples v Hoffert, case dismissed

Tribunal Chair: Heather M. MacNaughton 

No one appearing for the Complainant 

On behalf of the Respondent: Marcus Hoffert

Reason for dismissal: “(c) there is no reasonable prospect that the complaint will succeed;”

Neat. The complainant doesn’t even have to show up. We also like the language for the dismissal: not “the complaint has no merit,” but that it didn’t have “a reasonable prospect” to succeed.

2. Gallagher v. Aggressive K9 and others (case dismissed):

[Reason for dismissal]: 

(c) there is no reasonable prospect that the complaint will succeed;  

(d) proceeding with the compliant…would not:

(i) benefit the person, group or class alleged to have 

been discriminated against, or 

(ii) further the purposes of this Code

Cool. Another case thrown out not because of merit, but because it wouldn’t get a good betting line in Vegas. Cases can also be dismissed if they don’t further the “Code,” or benefit the entire planet.

3. Tina Small Legs v. Supinder Dhillon:

[19] Here, there is no answer from the respondent.  Therefore, if I find that Ms. Small  Legs can prove that her race was a factor in Ms. Dhillon’s refusal to continue to employ her, then Ms. Small Legs will have established a case of discrimination…

[27] I make the following remedial orders: 

1. Pursuant to s. 37(2)(a) of the Code, Supinder Dhillon is ordered to cease the contravention of the Code and refrain from committing the same or similar contravention. 

2. Pursuant to s. 37(d)(iii), Supinder Dhillon is ordered to pay Ms. Small Legs $5,000 for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect.

Complainant doesn’t show? No problem. Respondent doesn’t show? They lose.

Aurelian v. Cressey Properties (Case dismissed):

(c)  there is no reasonable prospect that the complaint will succeed;  

(d)  proceeding with the complaint or that part of the complaint would not 

(i)  benefit the person, group or class alleged to have been discriminated against, or  

(ii) further the purposes of this Code;  

(e) the complaint or that part of the complaint was filed for improper motives or made in bad faith; 

Ah. Finally they get to (e) and tell you that the complaint was crap. But what if it had “furthered the purposes of the Code…?”

Finally, meet Barbara Humphreys. She works for the BCHRT, and wears two hats. She’s been a counsel for the complainant, as well as a judge (they call it the harmless title of “Tribunal Member”) in BCHRT cases. If Steyn draws her, it ought to be a quick trial. Here’s a good example of the way she decides a case, where she uses a students’ union to guide her decision:

Majority Rules: [National Post] “I was reminded of this justice-by-show-of-hands farce last week when the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) dismissed a complaint brought against the UBC-Okanagan students’ association for refusing club status to another branch of Students for Life.

As part of her justification for dismissing the complaint, BCHRT investigator Barbara Humphreys cited a general meeting of UBCO students in November, 2006, at which a majority voted against permitting a pro-life club. Council had been unable to decide what to do, so they deferred to a student assembly that voted down the application.”

So if Steyn doesn’t show, he loses. If the complainant doesn’t show, he loses. And if enough people think he should lose, he loses. If the case gets chucked out, it’s not because of merit, it’s because of its probable chances for “success.” So he loses.

Bye, Steyn.

Not A Guide Dog? Not A Problem

[Vancouver Sun] A strata council has been ordered to pay a blind man $12,000 for frustrating his attempts to buy into a Vancouver Island townhouse development because he was bringing his guide dog with him.

…

“I have concluded that it was Ms. Frazelle’s understanding that the strata council could only accept a dog over 15 kg if it was a registered guide dog. This had an adverse impact on Mr. Jones because of his physical disability,” [BC Human Rights Tribunal Member, Barbara Humphreys] said in her written decision.

Humphreys said that while Chloe didn’t have training as a guide dog, there was evidence she had adapted to the role as Jones lost his sight.

The rest.

Canadian Association Of Journalists Crashes Party

The Canadian Association of Journalists has formally applied for standing as an intervenor at the upcoming British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal hearings on a complaint of religious and racial discrimination against Maclean’s magazine.

The rest.

Minister That Drafted Human Rights Code: Rein It In

This writer’s first-hand experience as Deputy Minister of Labour, drafting the first Human Rights Code for B.C. in 1974, fully supports the view from Mr. Levant’s testimony: “The commission was meant as a low-level, quasi-judicial body to arbitrate squabbles about housing, employment and other matters, where a complainant felt that their race or sex was the reason they were discriminated against. The commission was meant to deal with deeds, not words or ideas.”

The rest.

Canadian Imam: Court Of Public Opinion Is Best

[Kingston Whig-Standard] But the recent controversies about the role of human rights commissions and concerns about their potential to encroach upon free speech caused Soharwardy to rethink the matter. Some months ago, after consulting widely (including asking my opinion), he publicly withdrew his complaint, explaining that he had come to the conclusion that “the court of public opinion” was the only logical place to settle issues of appropriate speech, and that human rights commissions might better stick with their more traditional role with respect to discrimination on prohibited grounds in employment, housing and services.

The rest.

We’ll Pass On The Big Mac

More from the Human Rights/Fast Food file:

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that Beena Datt is exempt from the rules of hygiene because she has a skin condition which is irritated by soap and water. In order to protect her rights, the commission ruled that even though hand washing is the law in B.C., McDonald’s Restaurants can’t require Datt to wash her hands when she starts a shift, after going to the toilet, or whenever an alarm sounds reminding employees to wash up.

As the grand finale to this three-ring circus, McDonalds was ordered to pay Datt $50,000. In case you think this is an isolated incident, the Alberta Human Rights Commission has declared it a human right to work in a restaurant while infected with hepatitis. Everyone feel better now?

The rest.

Women Ski Jumpers Sue Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee

Lawsuit? That’s so 80’s.

These ski jumpers haven’t been paying attention in class. Don’t they know they could have had a slam dunk case and a free lawyer by going to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal?

[Canadian Press] A group of 10 women ski jumpers are going to court in an attempt to have their sport included in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A statement of claim will be filed in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday against the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee, Deedee Corradini of the lobby group Women’s Ski Jumping USA told the Canadian Press.

The jumpers are frustrated the International Olympic Committee did not include women’s ski jumping on the program for the 2010 Games.

The rest.

When Human Rights Collide

Another round of free speech vs. abortion. DWE is pretty certain that Students Unions are the training camps of human rights commissions.

[National Post, May 21, 2008] It is just one of several recent campus disputes that have pitted an anti-abortion minority against their elected student leaders, and which are increasingly finding their way into the quasi-judicial system of human rights tribunals.

At Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, for instance, a human rights complaint is being drafted over a student politician’s written order that the anti-abortion group may not hand out leaflets, use the school’s name, or engage in any “unsolicited conversations.”

The Post talks about the Capilano College story, but we posted that last week.

BC Civil Liberties Association Take An Interest

I am retained as counsel for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (‘BCCLA”) to request an order pursuant to Rule 8 of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Rules of Procedure for leave to intervene in this matter. 

In support of this application, please find enclosed a Notice of Motion, the Memorandum of Argument of the BCCLA, and the Affidavit of Mr. Murray Mollard, sworn May 14, 2008.

The rest.

More from writer Mark Steyn, who goes before the BCHRT soon.

Free Speech Debate An Opportunity For Quebec Separatists

So, what dramatic statement could he make that could reshape the entire human rights tribunal fiasco?  I was figuring something like this: threatening to introduce legislation for a referendum on Quebec independence the moment Steyn, Levant, Macleans, or anyone else exercising free speech is convicted by any tribunal.

The rest.

Steyn Reads Writing On Wall, Starts Packing

Steyn:

4) I have been nominated for the National Magazine Awards, which in the normal course of events would be regarded as a big career boost. In my case, by the time the winners are announced, I’m likely to have been declared unpublishable in the daffy Dominion. So any award will make a nice accessory for the tomb of my Canadian career. 

Considering his accent, we doubt he’ll get the “Canadian born” tag if he’s mentioned again in the press. Nor will he be re-published in the press, for fear of reprisal, unless he’s writing watered down junk. In which case, these words from Orwell are apt, as far as Canadian publishing goes:

Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you: not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as in the future. You will never have existed.

Canadian Writer Offends UFO Lovers

David Warren:

Still, if Canada is to recover free speech and freedom of the press, journalists will have to be brave and bold, and I’m prepared, like a Boy Scout, to do my bit. I don’t care what the personal consequences to me — they can sue me, they can throw me in prison (I’ve already been hauled before the Ontario Press Council) — but I’m going to speak out. I’m going to tell you exactly what I think about Extraterrestrials.

The rest.

Student Human Rights Advocates Stabbed In The Back By Home Team

The Capilano Students’ Union:

In the view of the executive, this clearly indicated the Heartbeats’ anti-choice agenda. They were denied club status primarily out of respect for the human right of women not to be threatened with the profound discrimination of having control over our bodies taken away. The executive had, and has, the responsibility to weigh many factors, including: what the law says, what the CSU constitution says, what the rules of procedural fairness are, and the human right of all of us to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Okay, so the human right to have an abortion trumps freedom of assembly. Fine. But wait! Then the CSU defenders of human rights found out what it’s like to be threatened and dragged through the human rights process:

[August 29, 2007] B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled it will hear a complaint made by a group of Capilano College students who said it was twice denied “club” status by the college’s students’ union because of its anti-abortion stance based on religious views.

And the winner is…

[May 15, 2008] In January of 2008, the tribunal rejected a request by the CSU to dismiss the Heartbeat Club’s complaint.  This morning, the two parties reached an agreement that will finally give Heartbeat a chance to be recognized as an official CSU club, allowing them to utilize the University’s facilities in order to carry out their mission.

How do you like your human rights now, CSU?

Editors Circle Wagons

The South Asian Post, an influential Vancouver-based weekly, ran an editorial this week supporting Maclean’s in its ongoing dispute with the Canadian Islamic Congress. In ‘Why you should care about Muslims vs. Maclean’s,’ the Post’s editors wrote that “[i]f we as Canadians truly value freedom of the press and free speech as the cornerstones of our democracy, we must protect them with the same vigor.”

The rest.

And If They See It, Can He Get Them To Care?

We’re at that point in the plot where the maverick investigator takes the call saying a third example of the strange spore has been found in a field in Idaho, and he pushes another pin in the map and goes “Hmm” thoughtfully.

But he still can’t get his colleagues to see that something’s going on.

The rest.

Lawyer: What The Hell Are They Teaching At Law School These Days?

While I am just a blogger, a peon, while aspiring and dreaming of being a columnist like Steyn, I am by trade an attorney at law, and am thus genuinely appalled by the actions of these law students.  Their actions show either a complete absence of knowledge of Canadian and British common law history, or a flagrant opposition and antagonism to this history by their method of attack. 

The rest.

Entering The Mainstream

As the debate over human rights commissions and free speech became a media gong show this week, it was easy to forget that just two months ago, it was on the fringes of Canadian political discourse, focused on the travails of a little-known white supremacist.

The rest.

John Martin: Give Me Mexican Justice Over Canadian Human Rights Commissions

In all honesty, I’d like my chances in a Mexican courtroom over a Canadian human-rights interrogation any day.

The rest.

Maclean’s To Faisal: Eat Me

Last week, Faisal Joseph, a lawyer representing the Canadian Islamic Congress, offered to “settle” the two remaining human rights complaints against Maclean’s in return for our acceding to a slightly modified version of the demands made last year.

While Maclean’s is pleased at this tacit recognition that the original demands of the students were unreasonable and rightly not accepted, we cannot accept Mr. Joseph’s offer to “settle” for the following reasons…

The rest.

For more on Faisal, see this one.

Mark Steyn And The Kids Of Osgoode Hall

Our take on Mark Steyn’s debate with the kids of Osgoode Hall:

Steyn: kicked factual ass, good stats, a couple of funny jokes, too loud, accent plays badly on TV. Unless they’re boozed up and talking soccer, English guys need to tone it down to sound smart. Shouldn’t have debated them in the first place, because it made them seem legitimate, but he won. Best line: “Steve, let’s say I missed your show on the Queen’s Jubilee…”

Kids: wanna-be lawyers, so what do you expect? Shuffled too much paper. Babe on the right looked good, others too self-righteous. Guy sounded stupid when he said Libya was “oceans and continents away.” Best line for looking like a dick: “I didn’t interrupt you, sir.”

Steve Paikin, moderator: #1 in the business. When’s an American network going to call him up? Obviously didn’t buy the stuff the kids were selling. Good job keeping Steyn chilled as much as possible. Best line, delivered to the kids: “You’re comparing Ernst Zundel to Oriana Fallaci?“