Racial Profiling An American Perspective

American Renaissance Speaks Out

American Renaissance is a US group that focuses on what they call race realism. Here is how they describe themselves:

Race is an important aspect of individual and group identity. Of all the fault lines that divide society — language, religion, class, ideology — it is the most prominent and divisive. Race and racial conflict are at the heart of the most serious challenges the Western World faces in the 21st century.

The problems of race cannot be solved without adequate understanding. Attempts to gloss over the significance of race or even to deny its reality only make problems worse. Progress requires the study of all aspects of race, whether historical, cultural, or biological. This approach is known as race realism.

They reproduced a Toronto Star article from the 30th of September 2009 titled "Racial Bias Exists on Police Force, Chief Says". The whole thing of harping on police officers for racial profiling is so repulsive and left wing to me that it makes me almost ill, so I had paid the original article little heed. I am reminded of how Constable Michael Shaw got his ashes hauled by the jerks at the Ontario HRT while we all stood back and said very little. Well, I have had a lot to say, and I meant every word of it. I am so sick and tired of the liberal BS that is behind our so called human rights, and the rhetoric and gestapo tactics being used in this province by Barb Hall and her minions that I want to scream.

This was just one other example of it. But, I did not have to say a word. I can just cut and paste the comments from Americans who are just as intelligent as we are and know a real human right when they see one, and want to see Truth prevail.

Here is a good comment:

“Our responsibility as police officers is not just safe communities. We have a role in social justice as well,” said Blair.

Wrong, Chief Blair, entirely wrong. Please stop with the “social justice” claptrap. Just get the bad people (and you know as well as I do who they are) off the streets of my city. Please. That’s all that normal, law-abiding Torontonians want you to do. Oh, and don’t discriminate against white male applicants while you’re at it.

It’s bad enough when your school system or your city hall gets taken over by diversity loonies — but when your Chief of Police starts talking like a guilt-ridden social worker in a fuzzy cardigan and a “Save the Whales” button, I figure it’s really time to worry.

How many good police officers will get screwed over in this politically correct amuck running?

Barbara Padilla's Got Talent and Class

Winners Win and Losers Lose

Barbara Padilla, for people who have not been watching America's Got Talent this Summer, is a cancer survivor who has wowed America with a beautiful indomitable spirit, and an amazing operatic, singing voice. She is a winner, no matter how the voting goes in the finals. She got the crap kicked out of her by a disease, probably had her pity parties, and tears, and then picked herself back up, because she had a young child, and a husband who loved her, but who also needed her.

Winners never quit, and quitters never win.

Many people who take cases to Human Rights Tribunals/Commissions have no choices that they know about. HRCs/HRTs do a good job of marketing, to create demand. But, a lot of losers take cases to HRCs/HRTs. Why? Because they can.

Barbara Padilla did not have an HRC she could complain to over her illness. She had no real choice but to soldier on, and figure a way out of it, and she did, and the world is a better place for it. That lady can sing, and she inspires others to overcome their difficulties.

When someone takes a Stephen Boissoin to Kangaroo Kourt over a letter to the Editor of a small town newspaper, and some brainless operative of the Kourt finds Boissoin guilty, there is no inspiration to any of us by the outcome, other than to want to fight back.

Winners win and Losers Lose. Stephen Boissoin will never quit, and Darren Lund will never win, regardless of the outcome of silly HRC decisions. This is much bigger than Darren Lund and his Complaint.

When some postie in Toronto takes offence at being stopped by a big white policeman named Constable Michael Shaw, and wins because some Kangaroo Kourter in Ontario can't see the forest for the trees, there is no joy in Mudville over that one either.

Winners win and Losers Lose. Michael Shaw will never quit, and Ronald Phipps will never win, regardless of the outcome of silly HRC decisions. This is much bigger than Ronald Phipps and his Complaint.

Boissoin/Lemire Similarities?

Much Ado About Something Really Important - Free Speech

So, as of September 2, 2009 we have the long awaited rambling, fatuous, yet oft times relevant ruling by Member Hadjis of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in the Warman/Canadian Human Rights Commission v. Lemire case.

Free Speech supporters jumped for joy because of some false sense of vindication that Marc Lemire had been exonerated, but as I have posted previously here and here and here, that is not really the case. Mr. Lemire, was found to have contravened S.13 of the Canada Human Rights Act, and because of blah, blah, blah, Member Hadjis chose not to issue any remedial order against him. That's not exoneration. That's a guilty verdict, without the hanging at the end.

But the blah, blah, blah is what really matters. The guilty verdict allows J Ly to hang another pelt on her string of undefeated hate crime prosecutions, for whatever good that will do her and the Commission.

The CJC, and the CIC and all other unofficial racists of varying stripes are calling for this Decision to be appealed. But of course. We need clarity on this one. As Ezra calls them, the official Joos, and the Islamists need to know the rules so they can carry on to fight "their" good fight, more on that someday soon, whatever the h?ll that is.

But, clarity of the blah, blah, blah does matter to all those who value free speech here in Canada. The ability to be able to speak one's mind without fear of reprisal is a fundamental freedom in this country, which is necessary for all, not just those who fit the boundaries of today's political correctness, and are in a protected group.

But, this thing is now a political football, and there is money involved in politics, and back room bargaining. And there is looming a Federal election, because we have an alleged Prime Minister in waiting who should have stayed at Harvard, but wants to run the show. Last time a prof came on board to run the country, we got Trudeaupia. I'm not wanting that again, thank you very much. I was young and naive back then, and believed the rhetoric. Heck, I was even invited to contest a riding in Scarborough in the 70's as a Liberal. But the Kool Aid had saccharin in it and I hate artificial sweeteners.

So, no matter how you cut it, this thing won't die as it is. But, it will take years to work its way out to a final conclusion, probably. Parliament could strike down S.13, or amend it. Not soon though. See above.

It has to be appealed to get clarity in a higher court, where real judges make real decisions, or so we are told. That will take years.

But, the good news is that we don't have to wait that long, because S.13 has an ugly fraternal twin sister in Alberta in the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act. Although it is not identical, the intent is the same, and there is a key phrase that is the guiding light, if that term can be believed, that links them. Here are the two particular sections of their respective pieces of legislation for you to see what I mean. First the Canadian one on which Member Hadjis had his say for Lemire:

13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Now the Alberta piece on which Lori Andreachuk opined and hung Reverend Stephen Boissoin out to dry a few years back:

3(1) 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

(a) indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or

(b) 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.

There is a lot of similarity here, but why do I care? I care because on September 16-17 Gerry Chipeur the lawyer for Stephen Boissoin, and for all of us, who value free speech, gets to argue the spanking new Lemire Decision along with his brief, before a real judge in Alberta Court of Queens Bench, and get this ball rolling for us all.

I also note in doing a quick review of the provincial and territorial Human Rights Codes and Acts that British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and the North West Territories have a similar provision in their legislation, while the others do not.

Although there is a lot of similarity to the two sections of the respective pieces of legislation, there is one particular distinction, and that is that Canada's legislation uses the single word I have put in bold "repeatedly", while the Alberta legislation uses the word "any". This will be somewhat significant, but only adds fuel to the existing conflagration.

So, the next thing that I decided to do was make sure that I understood the common usage of the words of this legislation, since the common usage is the starting point for understanding the intent of the law.

Just to get a brief handle on hatred and contempt, I went to Wikipedia, for some answers, and found the following interesting though not exhaustive explanations.

Hatred (or hate) is a word that describes the intense feelings of dislike. It can be used in a wide variety of contexts, from hatred of inanimate objects or animals, to hatred of other people, entire groups of people, or people in general.

Here is a bit of the Psychological view of Hate from the same article:

In psychology, Dr. Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness. In a more contemporary definition, the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology defines hate as a "deep, enduring, intense emotion expressing animosity, anger, and hostility towards a person, group, or object." Because hatred is believed to be long-lasting, many psychologists consider it to be more of an attitude or disposition than a (temporary) emotional state.

So, if as it has been described, it is a deep and long lasting attitude and disposition, I wonder how an inanimate object like an article or several on the Internet or even a particular book or many can expose a person or group or persons to hatred, that does not already exist, and is not condoned by society, and allowed to fester for other reasons. But more on that another day.

Even more interesting is the neurological science of hatred. Here is the excerpt about that from the same article:

The neural correlates of hate have been investigated with an fMRI procedure. In this experiment, people had their brains scanned while viewing pictures of people they hated. The results showed increased activity in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in the premotor cortex, in the frontal pole, and bilaterally in the medial insula of the human brain. The researchers concluded that there is a distinct pattern of brain activity that occurs when people are experiencing hatred.

So, the experiencing of hatred has a physiological component to it as well.

Contempt is an intense feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless—it is similar to scorn. Contempt is also defined as the state of being despised or dishonored; disgrace, and an open disrespect or willful disobedience of the authority of a court of law or legislative body.

Here was an interesting comparative about contempt:

Robert C. Solomon (a now deceased psychology professor from Texas) places contempt on the same continuum as resentment and anger, and he argues that the differences between the three emotions are that resentment is directed toward a higher status individual; anger is directed toward an equal status individual; and contempt is directed toward a lower status individual. Contempt is often brought about by a combination of anger and disgust.

Likely means "probable: likely but not certain to be or become true or real." This comes from Wordnet web a Princeton publication.

So, likely does not mean the same as certain, just probable. So, it's not a fact jack, just a probability.

Expose means "to subject or allow to be subjected to an action, influence, or condition."

Discriminatory means "containing or implying a slight or showing prejudice."

So, S.13/S.3 purports to define as a practice which contains or implies a slight or shows prejudice, a repeated/any something that is probably (though not scientifically determined), ie. more likely to happen than not, but not certainly, going to subject or allow a person of a defined protected group to be subjected to an action, influence or condition of intense feeling of dislike, or of being despised or dishonored.

So, my question is how do they propose to know that for a fact, since what I have just stated is not factual in the first place? Oh, I forgot, they only need to know, or think they know, probably.

This whole section of legislation in whatever National, Provincial or Territorial version you prefer (I prefer none of them) has the ring of being specious to me. In other words, using the definition of the word specious, I would say that this section of legislation has "the ring of truth or plausibility but is actually fallacious", when broken down, and examined.

In fact, as I look at the Boissoin case particularly, with the Alberta legislation, it gets more absurd by the minute.

For, example, if I go to my dentist's office and get an x-ray on my teeth, I know that I have been exposed to x-rays by the evidence before my eyes - the picture of my teeth.

However, if I (or Stephen Boissoin in this case) wrote a letter to the Editor of the Red Deer Advocate about the Homosexual Agenda in education, and people at the Alberta HRC believed that it exposed (likely) homosexuals to hatred and contempt, how would they know? First off, they don't care, as they didn't care in Lemire either, and I'll come back to that. But, they could attempt to look objectively at the Red Deer homosexual community and see if 5 years after the fact of the letter, which was about the time the Decision came down, they were more or less exposed to hatred than they had been before THE LETTER.

In the case of Lemire, where Member Hadjis found that Lemire had contravened the legislation by publishing the Aids article, which was likely to bring hatred and contempt to blacks and homosexuals, since they took about 6 years to come to trial and a Decision, they could have objectively looked to see if blacks and homosexuals were more hated and held in contempt than previously or not. Of course, they didn't.

In Boissoin, EGALE, a gay rights group refused to be a party to Lund's Complaint, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, although disagreeing with Stephen's content, supported his right to freedom of speech in the matter. So, anybody who could have said, "I feel more hated today and more contemned than yesterday" did not come forward."

In Lemire, the Official Joos lined up, but sadly they always do. They cried wolf once again, but offered no substantive proof of any harm, just sabre rattling, as usual. But, of course there is no responsibility to offer any proof of harm.

The Lemire case bogged down on all the shenanigans of the Canadian HRC entrapment methods. They made the Keystone Kops look smart, and Marc Lemire announced the other day that he has a book coming out soon, that should shed more light on this. It should be interesting reading.

In Boissoin, Lund trotted out a retired constable from Calgary, not Red Deer, and a psychologist both of whom were qualified as expert witnesses on gay and lesbians for their work in and around them. Since they were qualified by the Complainant, they of course testified to the harm done by the letter. Boissoin always considered this political commentary and so his expert witness was a political scientist who said THE LETTER was a political statement, which would have been excluded from S.3.

Both of these cases look like a bunch of blind guys getting together for a circle jerk to me. You can't measure if someone is probably going to be exposed to hatred and contempt from an article or THE LETTER. You can only guess, and if you guess at probably, that lowers your odds, and gives you maybe, where the legislation says probably.

In both of these cases, and a number of other decisions that I have seen, and I am thinking of the Constable Michael Shaw case in Toronto recently in particular, the use of the word probably, or it as a concept is thrown around like it is a gospel word.

Yes is Yes, and No is No, but probably is not a strong enough word to destroy several years of some one's life for. Stephen Boissoin had been in this mess for over 7 years, and Marc Lemire much the same. Tell me folks. Did they deserve this?

C. S. Lewis

Moral Busybodies - Courtesy of Just Right blog

I have always respected C. S. Lewis as a Christian with an interesting perspective. He was born in 1898, and died in 1963. Along the way, he was a fallen away Christian, who returned to the faith about age 30, somewhat under the influence of his friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Although he wore many hats, he is best known as an author, a Christian lay theologian and apologist. I came across the following quote of his courtesy of the Just Right blog here, which I found particularly descriptive of the workings of our human rights commissions/tribunals at this time, and so I am sharing it with you.

"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -- C. S. Lewis, from God in the Dock, Page 292

The HRCs and their leaders in our midst are Omnipotent Moral Busybodies. They are frightening in their exercise of a power that they should not have, and yet, they are so sure of the rightness of their cause, whatever the heck that might be, that they carry on regardless, and view those who stand in their way, as nothing more than chaff to be discarded.

What will it take for Canadians of good will to awaken to the evil that is being perpetrated in our midst in the name of Human Rights protection, by people appointed and authorized by our governments Federal and Provincial? If I ever figure that our I will do it, and let you know. Until then, I will not remain silent, while people like the following are sacrificed to whatever god is the god of made up human rights:

Stephen Boissoin
Constable Michael Shaw
Bishop De Angelis
My friend the forced to retire grade school principal
Gator Ted Kindos
John Fulton
Violet Landry
and the countless thousands of others who have had to keep secret their humiliation at the hands of the HRCs and HRTs of this country.

Quago - A New Term for our HRCs/HRTs

New Vocabulary as Part of Denormalization

Frankly, I don't know how some of the bloggers out there come across the more absurd things in our world, but they do. Blazing Cat Fur picked up on this today. It was basically an article from the UK Times Online about the most absurd thing I have heard in at least the last 24 hours, maybe.

The article was about the Quasi Non Government Organisations (quangos for short and for quaint) banning certain words in common parlance because they might be politically incorrect, such clearly offensive words as gentleman's agreement, blacklist, black sheep, black mark, right hand man. These all clearly have racist or other discriminatory overtones, don't they, at least to idiots with nothing better to do with their time.

Aha, methinks. Brain engaged. BCF headlined his post with "Jennifer Lynch will be on this". That reminds me of other Organisations where idiots are employed with nothing better to do with their time than to try and make us all politically correct. We do it somewhat differently in Canader, eh, what! Our HRCs/HRTs are Government Organisations, not Non Government Organisations, but they are Quasi, in the sense that they are fake courts using fake processes to make real pain for real people, but not following real proper procedures. So they are really Quasi Government Organisations, or we could call them Quagos for short.

Quago works for me as part of denormalisation. They are Quasi - not real. But, with Quago, I am reminded of quagmire, and dealing with them is like falling into a quagmire. When you have been summoned to an HRC/HRT, you have been quagoed. So quago is a noun that stands for the HRC/HRT organisations themselves and also for the process of being complained about and the process of resolving at great pain to yourself the complaint, as in, "I've been quagoed."

So, Constable Michael Shaw was quagoed recently, as has Stephen Boissoin been, though he is appealing his quago. Ontario is trying to quago Bishop DeAngelis and the 12 from St. Michael's in Cobourg. They tried to do a triple quago on Ezra levant, but he saw their quago and raised them, so they dequagoed him. They also unquagoed Mark Steyn. Unquago and dequago mean the same thing essentially.

My friend the grade school principal was double quagoed by Ontario, but then they unquagoed her on the one case, because they said it had no merit. Now, they have requagoed the dropped case, making it a double dip quago.

When you put it this way, you can see that quagoing is both fun and profitable, at least for quagos. J Ly is the head of a quago, or Quagojefe. Quago employees, like baristas at Starbucks could be quagoistas.

I see that my spellchecker went yellow bananas on me with quago and derivatives. Obviously, my new words are not part of the accepted lexicon yet, but since they just came out of my imagination a few minutes ago, I'm okay with that.

Anyway, quago works for me. Whadda ya think?

Queen Babs Latest Annual Report

Premier McGuinty Raves About Her

I have been waiting with some trepidation for the latest Annual Report for the Ontario Human Rights Commission to see what new super powers, she who I wish could not be named, had taken unto herself and her minions.

My trepidation was actually unwarranted. Abject fear, and horror would have been more appropriate as she unveiled in her annual report what had been policy for some time, that now personally unburdened by the screwing up of individual lives for the alleged public good, having delegated that to the new/old Tribunal, which still seems to report to the Ontario HRC, she could go after larger groups.

This is the Barb Hall, who declared a victory for the small percentage of visually impaired people, like the Chair of the Tribunal Mr. Michael Gottheil, in our population when she miraculously enforced a system of call outs for each and every stop on every route on every transit system in Ontario, with a few laggards being roundly beaten into submission. By the way, she did this without leaping a single building. She hasn't declared or even acknowledged any form of defeat for the equivalent percentage of acquired brain injury and otherwise mentally challenged members of our population, like myself, who now find it harder to take public transit, because of the increased confusion caused by this unnecessary noise, and the fear and paranoia it causes for us. Law of Unintended Consequences, anybody?

Wait until she releases her policy on Housing and goes after landlords who are reticent to put their homes, buildings and life savings at risk to low income, and less desirable tenants.

Next up, police and RACIAL PROFILING. That's gonna be a big one. If you want to see where she is heading next, watch the Tribunal cases, and see when she ups the ante. First, she went after Metro Toronto Constable Shaw. Now, it's the Chief, William Blair. Then watch as it shifts from the tribunal back to Barb's Commission for policy for all the police forces of Ontario. There's a pattern here, and if the Police Chiefs of Ontario don't jump on this hard, they will be screwed royally by the time this is all said and done.

But, my abject fear and horror quickly turned to nausea and revulsion when I read the following:

Premier Dalton McGuinty praised the work of the commission and took a shot at new Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, who has been critical of human rights bureaucracy and called for the tribunal to be scrapped.

"I think that the Conservatives are bringing kind of a small view to what we're doing here," McGuinty said. "We are participating in a remarkable adventure largely without precedent in the annals of human history. We're inviting people to come here from the four corners of the world. It's only natural and predictable that in those circumstances from time to time there will be a little bit of friction ... we need a place in a civilized society to address those kinds of concerns," he said.

The Conservatives are bringing a small view, says he. If voicing concern about how the Ontario HRC rides roughshod over the lives of individuals, and silences those whom they have destroyed with gag agreements is a small view, give me some more of the small view, please. Premier McGuinty calling the actions of the Ontario HRC "a little bit of friction" is like saying that World War II was a minor family squabble.

The biggest problem currently is that the truth about the abuses of the Commission are so hard to get at because of the gag agreements, and the shame that those who have been abused feel, not unlike that felt by battered spouses.

So, midst all of this zaniness, I wrote this little poem to calm my frazzled nerves. It didn't work particularly well, but it was fun doing it.

Barb Hall Ontario's Queen of Censors

Barb Hall's annual report came down from on high
Full of promise of peace, love and pie in the sky.
It sounded so good, that Premier McGuinty did say
"Our Barb walks on water each and every day."

Jim Corcoran connected with Bishop De Angelis one day,
When the Bishop asked him to leave the altar and pray.
Gay Jim didn't like it and swore he'd been had,
So he went to Pope Barb, who could feel for the lad.

He asked for some cash, $260k if you could,
then for De Angelis to change church gay teaching if he would.
It ain't gonna happen, a fight's on the rise,
And Jimmy and Barb don't have God on their sides.

This is only one dustup, but Barb doesn't care,
She'll pick fights with anyone, any time anywhere.
Her record has been solid, but the reason is clear,
Her opponents are usually quaking with fear.

So, we'll see how she does when the party is over,
Who's standing, who's sitting and who just fell over.
If she wins this one, I quit. I am leaving.
I'll be heading to somewhere warm to do my grieving.

She's going after Housing, her next port of call
Cheap housing, nay free for one and for all.
Landlords are a nuisance. They're such greedy folk.
Complain about costs, mortgages, debt load, what a joke.

Choose their own tenants, pick one over the other.
What about that broke underage mother?
She's got no money. What's that matter to you?
If Barb's Policy says your stuck, then her word is true.

Now Policing's the big one that she's out to get.
To her it's all 'bout racial profiling, the works you bet.
They ground Constable Shaw. Next up is Chief Blair.
When all's said and done, not a cop safe nowhere.

She'll own every badge, while the bad guys go free,
You won't even be safe in your house, you'll see.
When all's said and done, I'll say I told you so,
But I'll be outta here. We'll just get up and go.

If you want it to differ, here's what you must do
Get up off your duff, and help us out of this stew.
Read "Shakedown". Don't breakdown, there's more of the same.
The only way to stop this is to get in the game.

Write letters. Send emails. Phone friends. Do whatever.
But quit, we must not. Not Now. Not ever.
Barb's dastardly plan must be put to an end
Or, you'll never be sure who's up next, my friend.

Racial Profiling

The Pot Calls the Kettle Black

I woke up this morning angry, not of course with the beautiful vision lying next to me (that would be my wife), but because over night it had dawned on me.

When I was a younger man, after I qualified as a Chartered Accountant, I worked for a time in the National Tax Department of one of the large Big 8 then firms of CAs in their Toronto main office. I worked on the 42nd floor of the Royal Trust Tower. In those days you could see the Island airport, and in those particular days I saw them put the needle on top of the CN Tower with a giant Sikorsky helicopter. That was pretty cool, but note my point, just a reminiscence that shows how old I am.

Anyway, I worked for a man, Bill Goodlet, who had spent many years with the then Department of National Revenue, and had been one of the bright minds involved in a very significant reform of our taxing system in Canada in 1971. He taught me only one thing that I particularly remember and value in my bag of tricks to this day.

It was the articulation of his Repugnancy Index. We were a National Tax Department so it was our duty to review trends and bumpf and to find ways for clients of the firm across Canada to save tax dollars. Essentially, we shovelled clouds many days. But, in our shovelling, we looked at tax savings ideas as we came across them. In looking at these ideas, schemes really, I learned about the Repugnancy Index.

He taught me to step back from my planning on tax savings and reviews of other tax plans and look at it from all angles and see if it had a figurative smell to it by trying to look at it as others would do, if they were ordinary people, without our specialised training, and also how our peers and detractors would view our plans. If we detected a mental aroma, we had to determine if the aroma were one of decaying flesh (dead - get rid of it), disease (see if it can be healed) or newborn fresh skin. I have carried that with me for about 30 years, and wish I had opened that pocket in my trick bag a few more times over the years.

But, the Repugnancy Index buzzer went off for me over night, which is why I awoke angry this morning.

The Ontario HRC has accused Constable Michael Shaw of racial profiling as I blogged here, and of course as written about elsewhere by many. If Constable Michael Shaw was black, and Mr. Phipps was white, and if the black Constable Shaw had asked Mr. Phipps for ID, this case would never have occurred in the first case, even if the white Mr. Phipps had filed a Form 1 complaint with the HRC. First off, the white Mr. Phipps would know better than to even try to file a complaint.

Why you ask? Because the Ontario HRC has a mandate like all CASHRA members seem to, to do racial profiling in case selection, and case follow up. That's why I am so angry this morning. We are being had on this issue among many, by an organisation purporting to be working for our good, doing exactly what it is accusing police officers of doing, and they are getting away with it, which is the most galling thing of all.

I have known for a few days that something about the Michael Shaw case wasn't sitting well with me, and I thought that it just was that it was a lousy decision, and that Kaye Joachim really had no background or real world experience for drawing such a conclusion. Then, I put it all together.

No matter what anyone tells you in this fair province, as long as the Ontario HRC keeps running as it does, there are not equal rights for all Ontarians, and I don't think it is any better anywhere else in this land, or under J. Ly's umbrella.

I am looking at how Barb Hall took the one case of a blind person on the TTC, and turned that into call outs on the TTC and then on all of the transit systems in Ontario, at great cost to all of us as taxpayers, and is now nagging through her own HRC the last 3 who are struggling to comply. You might look at my blog post here that included that topic.

In the mean time, she is set to take on the Chief of Police of the Toronto PD, Bill Blair in September about racial profiling, having dinged his Constable Shaw. She is going in the same direction with this one, folks. She, the queen of profiling is going to claim that police, who actually have crime statistics on their side to assist them in predicting behaviours, is going to blame Toronto's Police Chief for systemic profiling in his force. If she wins this case, and she has a good track record of winning these ridiculous decisions, this does not bode well for police forces all around Ontario.

Someone needs to use Freedom of Information access to get data on the Ontario Human Rights Commission handling of complaints for a period of time to analyse their statistics and find out beyond their self serving annual report the truth of their activities. You want to see profiling. You'll find it there.

How long can this absurdity continue?

Constable Michael Shaw

Thank You in Return

Today, I received a simple but meaningful to me, comment to the posting that I made about Constable Michael Shaw recently, after his senseless gutting over nothing at the hands of the Ontario HRC, which so disgusted me.

It was from the Constable himself. He identified himself by his badge number and Division, and said simply "Thank You." 2 of the most important words in the English language.

I did not write the piece to be thanked by him particularly. I wrote it because he was screwed over, and I hate it when people are screwed over by our HRCs. But, I really hate it when public servants particularly those who put their lives at risk so we can be safe, and those who spend their lives teaching our children are abused by our government minions in the name of BS Human Rights violations that occurred only in the mind of some person who can't let go of their childhood, and takes it out on an adult who looked at them sideways. Of course, in Constable Shaw's case, he didn't look at him sideways but straight in the face and asked him for ID.

So, I appreciated that Constable Shaw took a moment in his day to acknowledge that I had spoken up for him. Those two words made my day. It honoured me to be appreciated.

When I wrote the article about Constable Shaw, I articulated my cousin's death while on patrol in 52 Division many years ago, and a couple of other things, including a recent speeding stop I had in Michigan.

But, here's another example with a following question. A couple of years ago, I was proceeding along a stretch of 80 km road on the north side of London approaching an intersection with a green light. Suddenly, a car crossed right in front of my path, and I t-boned him in the empty passenger side of his car and destroyed my car with two of my daughters as passengers. In short order, there was a police car on the scene, and members of the London equivalent of the SWAT team also arrived in their van, because they were nearest to the scene, and fortunately not otherwise occupied.

These men and women treated my two children, the driver of the other car, and myself with dignity and respect, ensuring that we were safe and physically unharmed. My kids and I got to ride home in the tactical unit van, to the confusion of our neighbours. I recall very little of that night, which is part of why I failed to mention it in the last piece, but I do recall being treated very respectfully. If the accident had occurred in Division 33 in Toronto, one of the responding officers could have been Constable Shaw. Oh, but not right now, because he is off on administrative leave over this nonsense.

So, here's the question. If you are in an accident, and need help, who would you prefer to be on the scene, a part time mail man like Mr. Phipps, or Constable Shaw? I choose Constable Shaw, but only Mr. Phipps is still on the job. That's the real tragedy.

To Serve and Protect - If You Can Stand The Interference

How Dare You Do This To Our Police Officers?

I came across this quote from Ronald Reagan. I do not know when he made the Speech entitled "Encroaching Control (The Peril of Ever Expanding Government)", but in it he said the following: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in the United States where men were free." The same applies here in Canada.

A friend sent me the link to the article on the Ontario HRT ruling about Constable Michael Shaw in the National Post on July 31. I subsequently found the ruling itself here, and confirmed that the reporter, Lorne Gunter had not flipped his lid, but was accurately documenting what had occurred.

Suddenly, I was taken back in time to my 30th birthday March 13, 1980. I went to bed a little tipsy, having just celebrated the big 3 0. My second cousin, named Michael, just like me, because we were born 3 1/2 months apart, him first, didn't go to bed that night. He was at work. I did not know him very well, though when we saw each other at family gatherings, I enjoyed his sense of humour and his sense of honour. His older brother Don was an RCMP officer in Ottawa, when he was born, and Michael became a Toronto City police man when he himself grew up.

On March 14, I awoke, and turned on the news after I finished my shower. It was then that I heard that my cousin, Constable Michael William Sweet, had been shot and killed in attempting to thwart a holdup at a tavern in the 52nd Division of Metro Toronto at about 2 am. Here is his Honour Roll Profile.

I just read that the man who gunned him down, Craig Munro, and has been incarcerated for the last 29 years came up for parole this year, and was denied in February. It happened in British Columbia, not here in Ontario, so he won't be making a claim to the Ontario HRC that his rights have been violated. He is a First Nations band member, and the break in that my cousin died for was about the booze in the bar primarily. I wonder if Michael Sweet was doing a bit of racial profiling when he died, or if he was trying to serve and protect the citizens of his adopted city, and fighting for his life.

Back to now, or nearly now. Ronald Phipps was stopped by Constable Michael Shaw and his partner, Constable Noto on March 9, 2005, almost 25 years after my cousin Michael Sweet's death. The irony is not lost on me.

Mr. Phipps, the complainant, is a black man, and was a reserve letter carrier that day in the upper class Bridle Path area of Toronto. The police were on the lookout for someone who had been lurking in the area, though the person of interest had not been described as black. Constable Shaw thought that Mr. Phipps behaviour was suspicious, and they stopped him and asked him for ID.

He provided it. They checked it. They went on with their day. Apparently, he stopped them later to ask why they had stopped him. End of story. Not so. It would have been if he were white, because he would not have had a band of provincially paid story inventors looking to impute some kind of ulterior motive into a policeman's doing of his job, but as I said Mr. Phipps is black. Same if he were First Nations, or some other colour, just not white.

It has to be racial profiling. That's what Kaye Joachim, the Alternate Chair said. Kaye Joachim reads minds apparently. I thought the new TV show, made in Toronto "The Listener" was fiction. Not necessarily so. I have it on good authority that I just made up, that it is based on the cases from the Ontario HRC.

I wonder if Kaye Joachim is a theoretician, lacking in real world practical expertise. What I mean by that is that she does not lack for legal training. She has been a lawyer for over 22 years, having graduated from Osgoode Law. She also has a Master degree in law from the U of T, which she got in 1997, and was on the faculty there for a number of years. She has been a labour arbitrator and negotiator, and has had senior positions with Ontario government organisations like the Ontario Labour Relations Board, Ontario Financial Services Commission, and of course the Human Rights Tribunal. In 1997 She wrote a book " Reform of the Ontario Human Rights Commission" which is not readily available, but which might be an interesting read, to see her mind set. She sounds like a pretty book smart person to me. I wonder. Book smart, Street dumb?

Here are some paragraphs from the ruling written by Mr. Joachim:

[32] After being provided with the applicant’s driver’s license and Canada Post identification and having ascertained that the applicant had no police record or other suspicious notations on his record, Constable Shaw nonetheless proceeded to question another letter carrier, Mr. Finlay, about the letter carriers in the neighbourhood. Only after Mr. Finlay identified a "Black man” who was acting as a temporary letter carrier did Constable Shaw cease his inquiries. I reject Constable Shaw’s explanation that he was trying to teach Constable Noto about alternative ways to complete an investigation and find instead that Constable Shaw’s heightened scrutiny of the applicant was continuing (I told you he reads minds).
[33] I emphasize that although I have rejected each of Constable Shaw’s explanations as not consistent with the preponderance of probabilities, the combination of his actions when viewed together further supports my conclusions.
[34] I conclude that the applicant’s colour was a factor in Constable Shaw’s surveillance, decision to stop, and subsequent inquiries about the applicant on March 9, 2005 and that he breached the applicant’s right to equal treatment without discrimination on the basis of colour with respect to services, contrary to sections 1 and 9 of the Code.
[35] I stated earlier that there were disputes between the parties with respect to the manner and content of the two conversations between the applicant and the officers. I find that it is necessary to make some findings on these matters as they may affect the remedial aspect of the case. The applicant asserted that the officers drove abruptly into a driveway that he was about to cross and approached him in an intimidating manner. The first word Constable Shaw uttered, in a disrespectful manner, was “ID.” When he asked why they wanted his identification, Constable Shaw answered in an insulting manner, “I would ask even if you were the Prime Minister of Canada.” The police check took a considerable period of time during which the applicant asked to continue delivering mail and the police car followed him while he was doing so.
[36] This is denied by the officers. They testified that they stopped on the curb and did not pull into the driveway because of rules against entering unnecessarily upon private property. They politely advised the applicant that they were investigating break and enters in the area and asked for identification. While Constable Noto conducted the police check, Constable Shaw inquired why the applicant had not delivered pamphlets to every home. Upon being advised by the applicant that not everyone wanted pamphlets, and upon receiving the negative results from the police check, Constable Shaw apologized for stopping him. They deny following him in the police car while they did the check.
[37] I accept the applicant’s evidence that he felt intimidated by being approached by two police officers, wearing guns, one of whom, Constable Shaw, is a very large man. I note that the applicant has a small stature. I also accept that he perceived that the officers did not treat him respectfully. However, I am not persuaded on a balance of probabilities that Constable Shaw used the police vehicle in an intimidating manner, that he approached the applicant in an intimidating manner or that he spoke rudely to the applicant.

Mr. Phipps related somewhere in the process that he came to Canada as a young boy from Jamaica and had no familiarity with racism prior to coming to Canada. In 1975, he apparently with some other boys approached a police car, and asked for directions. He says that the officers called them pickaninnies and asked them if they thought the police car was a cab. For him to be relating this over 20 years later implies that this has some traumatic hold on his psyche, and some influence on his day to day actions and feelings.

He related how he felt intimidated by the approach of two police officers, one very large one (Constable Shaw), both armed. He probably wants the Police Force to hire shorter, skinnier officers so they won't intimidate people. He specifically wants the police to pair officers with partners "of a different race or culture" to teach them to "cope with difference."

He also said he wants his 14 year old son to be able to trust the police, but he is not sure he can convince him of that.

Recently, I was pulled over by a police officer in Michigan, when my vehicle set off his radar detector. I have no idea how that happened??? Anyway, I was extremely nervous, and I noted that like all officers I have ever seen in a stop, he had a heightened awareness due to adrenaline flow, probably. I responded to him very calmly, even though I did not feel it, and shortly was on my way. I was anxious about it for at least another day. Get over it. It did not take me 4 years and a kangaroo court to get past it. I can guarantee you that I could not relate the details of the stop the same way that the officer who stopped me would, because the energy and emotions that both of us underwent were different.

By the way, Constable Shaw is on paid leave, because he is a victim here. The citizens of Toronto tax dollars are at work paying him to not do the job he is trained and skilled to do, because of this harassment of him. I wonder if he will ever be able to reconcile that he was just doing the job he was hired and trained to do, with the nonsense that came from this witch hunt. Will he second guess every possible stop he goes to make?

This stuff makes me sick. I want our police officers to be able to Serve and to Protect us, not to be afraid to do what is right, when it is called for.

Recently, a young OPP officer out of London 4 months on the job he had dreamed of all his life, was killed when he and his partner were trying to apprehend a suspect in a car theft. Their vehicle was in a collision with a large truck. His partner was seriously injured. She too was doing her dream job, having worked her way out of the call centre to the field only 1 1/2 years earlier.

Officers came from all over to honour this young man at his funeral, as they did for my cousin at his, and as they do when an officer falls. They do the job they love because they know it needs to be done, and because they want to be the ones doing it.

It disgusts me to see the Ontario HRC make a mockery of police work with rulings like this. Before Kaye Joachim makes such a ruling she should have to do a week's ride along with officers in the field to see the pressures of the job, and the stresses they go through every day, and how they cope with them.

But, this gets bigger in September, when they go after the Chief, Bill Blair, as they claim that this nothing, is in fact a pervasive nothing, that must be dealt with. Next, just like call outs on public transit across the province, that started with one blind person in Toronto, we will have a wacky ruling and new procedures mandated from the Ontario HRC for all the Police Forces in Ontario to follow. I assume that Chief Blair is not standing idly by waiting for this shoe to drop.

Dalton McGuinty, put Barb Hall and the Ontario HRC and HRT out of our misery. This is disgusting, and unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg.