Let's Revisit Alberta Getting It Right

Do You Remember The Concept of Doing the Right Thing But For the Wrong Reasons?

From the Calgary Herald article yesterday when the notice that the 9 charges against the Southam newspapers over a 2002 editorial critical of certain events in the world, and the ideology behind them, there was a gem from the report of the AHRC that I missed at the time.

Here is what it said:

In a seven-page decision dated Sept. 21, commission director Marie Riddle dismissed all the complaints.

"Although in my opinion statements made in the editorial . . . were offensive, based on the recent case law, I can find no basis to forward the complaint for a human-rights panel, and I hereby dismiss the complaint," Riddle wrote.

That says to me that Marie Riddle would have continued this case if she could have. In other words, with all the namby pamby free speechers getting in the way and messing up my gig, I have to let this one go. And that Lemire decision is still al bit of an inconvenience.

Read the editorial that caused these 9 complaints for yourself here. I wonder who the 9 complainants were.

The article appears to have rendered 3 opinion statements, in my opinion. That is what editorials do, and part of freedom of the press.

The first opinion statement was:

The Organization of the Islamic Conference is meeting this week in Malaysia for a summit on terrorism. But delegates are still squabbling over definitions, and many are torturing several different languages in a bid to excuse the suicide bombers who attack "Zionist targets" -- such as, say, families at a Passover seder. Israel, which is waging a military campaign against terrorists, will likely be smeared as a "terrorist state."

The conference will no doubt be a farce -- the predictable fate of any and all such dialogues about terrorism. Thankfully, weak Canadian foreign policy won't be on embarrassing display yet again -- Canada doesn't officially attend OIC gatherings.

Here was a main opinion rendered:

Part of the problem lies with Muslim civilization itself. As Samuel P. Huntington writes in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order: "Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbours ... The conflicts within Islam (have also been) more numerous than those in any other civilization, including tribal conflicts in Africa."

This was the opinion of Samuel P. Huntington, who passed away last year. Dr. Huntington was a teacher in the department of government at Harvard for over 50 years, and was highly respected. It was a quote from his book, but then they tried to slam Macleans magazine for quoting sections of Mark Steyn's book a few years back, so this was fair game for them.

Here was the third opinion they rendered:

It is disgusting to hear Arafat mention Rabin, a man killed for his peaceful convictions, in the same breath as himself. Like his terrorist underlings, Arafat sees the lives of children -- Palestinian and Israeli both -- as fodder for the Arab ambition to ignite a regional war that will destroy Israel. He and his supporters must be isolated internationally, beaten down militarily and made to understand that Palestinians can never hope to have a country so long as they embrace the apocalyptic creed under which suicide bombers -- and Palestinians who cheer them on - explode themselves.

The editorial was rendering opinions on things going on in the middle east, including providing information in the article to support the opinions being rendered, and a human rights commission is basically letting them off on a technicality, rather than charging them with "exposing a person or group to hatred or contempt".

How I read this is that the Boissoin decision is going to be an important one, because Premier Stelmach does not have the guts to put an end to this farce he calls the Alberta Human Rights Commission, or at least the hate provisions of the HRCM Act.