Kafkanada
The Canadian Human Rights Commission backed down and dismissed the “hate speech” complaint against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s.
Macleans, the “winner” (if you can call it winning after having to defend your right to speak the truth) had this to say:
In keeping with our long-standing position that the article in question, The Future Belongs to Islam, an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s best-selling book America Alone, was a worthy piece of commentary on important geopolitical issues, entirely within the bounds of normal journalistic practice.
Faisal Joseph, lawyer for the whiners, said the dismissal was “predictable, given the political climate and the campaign against the commissions themselves.”
“We are not surprised at the decision in light of the inappropriate political pressure that has been brought to bear on the commission and that has prompted the commission to set up an internal review of its procedures under (the hate speech section of the Human Rights Act),” he said.
“Inappropriate political pressure” is what you have when citizens question the HRC’s kangaroo courts. An “internal review” is what you have when you want to be sure “inappropriate political pressure” doesn’t get in your way in the future.
The real loser, the Canadian people, had this to say through their spokesman David Warren:
It is against this background the CHRC decided that the better part of valour is discretion, and that it truly did not need to be prosecuting such high-profile targets as the bestselling author Mark Steyn and the mainstream newsweekly Maclean’s, at the present time. The CHRC can retrench, and return to its bread-and-butter business of destroying little people who command no publicity — biding their time until circumstances are propitious to “extend their mandate” again.
And no doubt the HRC will continue merrily along unless the “political pressure” forces an “external review.”
