Mark Steyn - Lights Out

Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma wants the burden of proof in cases of racial discrimination to fall on the alleged offender, instead of the person making the complaint.

Mr Calma said Australia’s laws made it difficult to prove there had been discrimination.

Well, you never know: That might be because there hasn’t been. But best not to take any chances. Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission looked at how the system works in Britain, America and, inevitably, Canada, and found that “the onus of proof shifts to the person who has been accused of discrimination once the complainant has established an initial case”, whereas down under “the burden of proof rests on the person making the complaint”.

Oh, dear. As The Age reported, “Mr Calma said if people were forced to defend themselves, it might make them think twice before offending.”

The Herald Sun ’s Andrew Bolt has an excellent response:

OK, Calma – I’ll start your ball rolling to hell. I accuse you of being a damn racist. Which, under your new regime, means a racist you are until you can prove you are not. In the meantime you should stand down, because a racist can’t hold your job, surely?

Indeed. I’m shocked to find that that damned filthy racist Calma hasn’t resigned yet.

WHEN THE CANADIAN Islamic Congress decided to get belatedly affronted by an excerpt from my book, they took their complaint to no less than three of these cockamamie “human rights” commissions. So we were facing potentially three trials, before the Canadian “Human Rights” Tribunal, the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal and the Ontario “Human Rights” Tribunal. As we know, in any civilized justice system, double jeopardy is a no-no, but triple jeopardy is apparently fine and dandy. Today, the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission announced that they’d decided not to hear the case. That’s the good news. The bad news is they decided to issue a verdict anyway. So they added the following:

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

So in effect the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission, the world leaders in labiaplasty jurisprudence, have decided that, even though they don’t have the guts to hear the case, they might as well find us guilty. Ingenious! After all, if the federal “Human Rights” Commission hadn’t been so foolish enough to drag Marc Lemire to trial, their bizarre habits of playing dress-up Nazis on the Internet and posting their own hate messages using telecommunications fraud and identity theft would never have come to light. If they’d simply skipped the trial and declared Mr Lemire guilty anyway, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in.

Over the years I’ve written in newspapers and magazines in dozens of countries and have attracted my share of libel suits and other legal difficulties. But today’s a first for me. The Ontario “Human Rights” Commission, having concluded they couldn’t withstand the heat of a trial, decided to cut to the chase and give us a drive-by conviction anyway. Who says Canada’s “human rights” racket is incapable of reform? As kangaroo courts go, the Ontario branch is showing a bit more bounce than the Ottawa lads.

If I’m charged with holding up a liquor store, I enjoy the right to the presumption of innocence and to defend myself in court. But when it comes to so-called “Islamophobia” – a word which was only invented a few years ago and which enjoys no legal definition – all the centuries old safeguards of English Common Law go out the window. I’d be interested to know whether the Justice Minister of Ontario thinks this is appropriate behaviour. At one level, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall appears to have deprived Maclean’s and me of the constitutional right to face our accusers. But, at another, it seems clear the OHRC enforcers didn’t fancy their chances in open court. So, after a botched operation, they’ve performed a cosmetic labiaplasty and hustled us out.

Oh, and in the full statement they say:

The Commission intends to further consider these issues in the coming months as it embarks on its new mandate.

“A new mandate”, eh? That sounds reassuring, doesn’t it? In what Paul Wells calls her “barely lucid, rambling meditation”, Ontario’s head commissar gives the game away: Unfortunately she doesn’t have the jurisdiction to jail Steyn for “Islamophobia”, but she would if she could – so she’s going to seek the power to do so when the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission is “reformed”. I hope the Government of Ontario is dumb enough to give her the extra powers she seeks, and perhaps then she’ll be man enough to haul me and Ken Whyte into her pseudo-courtroom and actually convict us of the crime rather than merely issuing the verdict in a press release.

TODAY’S EDITION of The Globe & Mail is well worth picking up. This is Canada’s establishment paper, and it doesn’t like what it’s hearing from Barbara Hall, Chief Commissar of the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission, the world leaders in labiaplasty jurisprudence.

First, star columnist Rex Murphy:

The press release wasn’t limited, however, to lamenting the absence of competence and declaring the HRC wouldn’t be proceeding in the matter.

It went on, seizing the educative moment, to light into Maclean’s for its ‘Islamophobia’ over ‘a number of articles’, illustrating a ‘type of media coverage [that] has been identified as contributing to Islamophobia and promoting societal intolerance towards Muslim, Arab and South Asian Canadians.’ More, it regretted that in Ontario, with the statute as written, it is not ‘possible to challenge any institution that contributes to the dissemination of destructive, xenophobic opinions.’ Meaning Maclean’s and whatever of that ilk trails in the familiar and long-tenured magazine’s presumed xenophobic and racist wake.

I’m not a lawyer, so I merely ask the question: Is it normal when declining a case (or, in this case, a complaint) for a commission, court or tribunal to then deliver a guilty verdict? For that’s what the press statement, directly, or by forceful implication, did.

And hasn’t it always been in free society a human right (old-fashioned, I know) not to be judged without a hearing? But here there was no hearing. Neither Maclean’s nor Mr Steyn made a case or presented arguments. And yet the commission’s release damned them in harsh and condemnatory language that was a verdict in everything but name.

Furthermore, it did so before – mark that, before – two other tribunals, which, we presume, listen to and read this HRC’s words, have themselves even begun proceedings on the same complaint. Do judges in real courts act this way? Do they telegraph verdicts to other jurisdictions? Do they make up what they are delighted to call their minds in vacuo? Do they decline cases, then pass judgment anyway, and issue stern and rebuking releases?

And Mr Murphy’s column bears the headline:

Vive Le Canada Libre!

Oh, well, columnists are (or were) licensed to peddle eccentric and contrarian views. What of the sensible sorts who pen the Globe editorials? What have these solid citizens got to say? Here’s their headline: