And from the transcript we have this quote:"Free societies should not be in the business of criminalizing opinion," Mr. Steyn, a columnist for Maclean's, told members of Ontario's standing committee on government agencies.
"When you go down that road, all you do is lead to the situation that you have in, say, Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, you can't start a newspaper and print what you think, so if you object to the House of Saud, the only thing you can do is blow stuff up."
Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes. Let me just talk about this hateful words business. This is again the sham of this Human Rights Tribunal, in that it does not treat all hate equally. At the time—you claim, for example, to be interested in women’s rights. We have honour killings, we have arranged marriages against the wishes of the brides in this province. The Human Rights Tribunal is silent about that.It always amazes me that western so-called feminists have nothing to say about arranged marriage, burkas and honour killings. Why is it politically incorrect to mention that? It's something I'll never understand about leftist "tolerance."
UPDATE: Christina Blizzard of the Toronto Sun interviews OHRC Commissioner Barbara Hall:
It was her response to Steyn's criticism of OHRC's silence on honour killings that shocked me.
"There are thousands of things that happen in the province of Ontario on a daily basis and we don't comment on all of them," she said.
But, I spluttered, women are being murdered.
"As I said, we are a small commission.
"There are many problematic things that happen in our community and
we have to make choices because we can't respond to everything," Hall said.
So honour killings are merely "problematic"?
Here's a woman who's advocated for years on behalf of women's rights. She found time to crucify Steyn and Maclean's, but she's too busy to raise the issue of women who are being murdered over some hideous interpretation of "honour"?
I guess this is just another example of the silent majority being completely irrelevant, in our so-called democracy. All the wheels of power are controlled by special interest/lobby groups. I elect an MP, and the MP is told how to vote by the Party Whip. How many big issues in the last 40 years have gone against public opinion. Capital punishment, the Metric System, French labels,none of these issues were resolved according to the majority opinion. We need more binding referendums on the election ballet. Meech Lake would have gone through without a referendum. In the US you can get anything on a State ballet, with enough names gathered on a petition. Lets face it, our current system in Canada is a joke.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this one caught me by surprise originally. I, like most others, didn't know these commissions even existed. They made a mistake of taking on a high profile case with Maclean's and Mark Steyn. This exposed them to a wide audience and just how ridiculous they are.
ReplyDeleteYes, and once these programs are started they never go away. Remember Judy Rebick at the National Action Committee on the Status of Women? I had no idea that this lobby group was supported by tax payers. I was shocked to find this out. Kim Campbell mentioned cutting off funding to these type of lobby groups in a campaign speech. There was a wild cheer. Then someone explained to her that you can`t do this, and the issue was dropped. Why would the government fund lobby groups in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThe Human Rights Commission has done such a great job in Quebec. Lets increase their budget.
Yeah, my god. Canada is so screwed up the government pays people to lobby them. You can't make this stuff up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, like that Wendy Cukier at the Coalition for Gun-Control. She fought against the Harper government attempt to remove the long gun registration program. She was also being financed by the Harper government. Talk about an F-up.
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