By Markham Hislop, Editor
Yesterday afternoon I spent an interesting 90 minutes listening to three lawyers debate the “tension” between protecting freedom of speech and preventing discrimination that is inherent to Alberta’s human rights legislation. The lecture theatre was mostly filled with students as far as I could tell. As the editorialist for SECN, I had a practical reason for attending, beside covering the debate as a news story.
Just about every time I craft a column it could be argued I subject some poor soul, sometimes more than one, to “contempt” (though, in my defence, not “hatred”). Which means I’ve contravened Section 3 of the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act. Probably many, many times.
This is no small matter. Ezra Levant, political commentator and gadfly, and former publisher of the Western Standard, was hauled up before the Alberta Human Rights Commission after he published the infamous Danish cartoons that so offended Muslims the world over. Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada laid a complaint and Levant was investigated. He claimed his legal costs alone were $100,000. The Western Standard folded, presumably in part because of the financial pressures created by the human rights complaint.
Publishers and journalists paid attention to that case, believe me. Especially small publishers like me. My company is young and still struggling financially. One human rights complaint and the attending legal bills, and we are bankrupt. Talk about “tension” between human rights commissions and newspapers!
But SECN is not alone in its financial peril. It seems like very newspaper, large or small, is struggling these days. And that makes newspapers vulnerable to threats and intimidation from people who don’t like our news coverage or our editorial stance on issues of the day.
Let me give you a practical example.
Back in August we ran a number of stories about the theft of the Virgin Mary statue from St. Albert the Great Catholic Church in McKenzie Towne. On the day the statue was found and returned by police I happened to be shooting a video interview with Father Kevin at the church. Several parishoners were on hand to help unload the charred and damaged statue from the police cruiser. They were visibly moved and upset. The desecration of a holy icon clearly affected them both deeply.
Sensing a great angle to the story, I asked to interview them. They politely declined. Both said they and their fellow Catholics were profoundly hurt by the thoughtless acts of two drunken young men (as it turned out), but they preferred to express their grief privately. They trusted the police to conduct a thorough investigation and proceed against the culprits as was appropriate.
I was disappointed at missing a nice little sidebar to my story, but at the same time I respected the men for their restraint and the depth of their convictions.
So I wrote a column about it. In the column I compared SE Calgary Catholics and the outbreak of violence by Muslims the world over who were outraged in 2004 with the publication of the Danish cartoons satirizing the prophet Mohammed. Both suffered because of the descration of a holy religious icon, but I actually had the effrontery to suggest the Catholic response was superior.
No one died in deadly rampages. Embassies weren’t attacked. Flags weren’t burnt. Dutch filmakers weren’t stabbed to death on the street.
The Catholic response was profoundly civilized and I applauded them for it. I also suggested Muslims could learn a thing or two from the Catholics.
I only received a few responses, but they were predictably nasty. One commenter said I didn’t know what I was talking about. But another contacted some of my advertisers and tried to pressure them to stop supporting me. He also hinted at a human rights commission complaint.
I imagine he would have had no trouble convincing a human rights bureaucrat I had subjected him to “contempt.” After all, the infamous Section 3(b) of the Alberta Act, states, “No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that…is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt because of the race, religious beliefs, colour, gender, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income or family status of that person or class of persons.”
Had this person laid a complaint, I would have actually helped his cause by admitting, nay, shouting from the rooftops, that I did in fact have and express contempt for his religion’s tendency to conflate faith, politics and violence.
You see, I believe in the centuries-old Western tradition of satire. And satire by its very nature mocks, ridicules and holds human stupidity up to contempt. The right to satirize evil, or just plain wrong, ideas is something we have long cherished. You do it every time you read a political cartoon.
The world would have been a much poorer place without Jonathan Swift, H.L Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, Stephen Leacock, Alan Fotheringham and a host of other writers, many of whom were professional journalists or scribbled for newspapers regularly.
I’m not about to apologize for satirizing or criticizing Islam. No more than I did for railing about George W. Bush.
But I’d be lying if I claimed the treatment Levant received didn’t throw a chill over my editorializing. Sooner or later someone is going to complain and SECN will be in the juice.
Do we really want journalists and editorial writers to self-censor for fear they will be bankrupted by the morals police in Edmonton? We need more truth, not less.
Someday I plan to publish those Danish cartoons as an act of defiance. The West should not cringe and apologize for its fine intellectual and political traditions. They have stood us well and are worthy of a sound defence.
But there are two possible outcomes of publication of the cartoons that so far have stopped me. The first is the possibility that a Muslim fanatic will plunge a knife into my chest, as happened to poor Theo Van Gogh. Or worse yet, that said fanatic will target a family member.
The second, and frankly more likey outcome, would be a complaint to the Human Rights Commission. And after watching the kangaroo court that Levant was subjected to (and Mark Steyne in other provinces for a recent book of his), I’m not sure I have the stomach or the wallet to take up that fight.
In the event of a complaint, SE Calgary News could triumph and the complaint could be dismissed, as was the case with Levant and Steyn. But we would be forced to pay for our legal defence, while the complainant would bear none. The system has a built-in incentive that encourages the offended to lodge a complaint: the real victory for the aggrieved would be the financial damage to the newspaper, not a victory.
I wonder what the three panelists would think about that. One, Janet Keeping, president of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation, certainly understood the dangers of having a modern day Star Chamber enforcing human rights legislation. The other two, Jo-Ann Kolmes, a partner with Chivers Carpenter, and Jennifer Koshan, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, didn’t give me the impression they got it.
After all, why should they care that a struggling online daily newspaper in SE Calgary can be buried by the cost of defending itself on a human rights complaint? They seemed more intent on protecting the dignity of oppressed minorities than a small newspaper’s right to freedom of expression. Human rights legislation throws a chill over public debate, whether its defenders will admit it or not.
One of the political parties needs to take up the cause and propose amendments to the legislation so that vexatious complaints designed to damage newspapers are weeded out. And they need to do it soon. The future of SE Calgary News may depend on it.
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The Western Standard folded because it was a useless rag that nobody read except some fringe lunatic types.
I applaud you for not bowing in shame and appeasement to the Islamists, their sole goal is to use legal Jihad via HRCs and our civil courts to silence the truth about the perpensity of the Islamist to get violent. Political Islam is just as dangerous as the fanatics, their victims end up broken and bankrupted and cowering in fear. Never surrender our freedoms to those who hate our freedoms.
I feel for you Markham. Not everyone can shell out six figures to defend themselves against the Human Rights Commissions. And nor should they. What a disgrace to our democracy.
I don’t understand people who support this sort of censorship. Do they not think they could find themselves on the “wrong side of the law” someday? With such open and arbitrary laws such as Section 3 (b) which persecute on the “likelihood” of an offence being committed, how could they not? Or are they content to always make sure their words are so carefully edited and chosen from here on out that they never offend some would-be censor who would haul them off before the Commissions? But even so, how would they ever know they were “safe”?
Yahya is a twit who apparently has no logical way to refute your position and must resort to mindless attacks.
.
Markham, of course you are correct in your analysis. However you do not need lawyers to fight the HRC and their political hack defendants.
The big problem is the time you would need to invest Your main weapon gaining the support of other media to support you. The HRCs’, political supporters and people like Yahya fear the spotlight of exposure because they can’t defend their ridiculous ideas. This is why Steyn and Levant have been successful.
I had written a five paragraph text here about my expreince with the OHRC and got the captha wrong..won’t be retyping it…
bye bye…