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.

How "Chilling" is it Really?

Jennifer and CASHRA Have Chilled The Rest Of Us

When I read Queen Jennifer's Speech recently at CASHRA, I was touched by her commentary of the emotional trauma felt by those who were being interviewed for what might be an upcoming blockbuster bestseller where she sets the record straight after our own white knight, Ezra Levant, picked her and them to pieces with his own best seller "Shakedown".

She spoke of the following: "As personal attacks were made against anyone who tried to correct the record, the number of people willing to make the effort dwindled. There is tangible proof of this: 50% of interviewees for an upcoming book on human rights have stated that they feel “chilled” about speaking up."

Aside from the fact that she misspelled the word "correct" in the first line of this quote, where she meant to spell it "manipulate", I am also curious about the 50% "chill" factor she posits.

Out of curiosity, I wonder if any of these interviews took place on May 11, 2007. On that day Mr. Giacomo Vigna, who works for the Queen (Jennifer not Elizabeth) testified that he was not feeling serene in the Marc Lemire case, and was unable to proceed. She might have also interviewed Mr. Lemire who after this nonsense from Mr. Vigna might have been a little less serene himself. I imagine, his lawyer Ms. Kulaszka, and Alicia Davies for the Attorney General, Paul Fromm for the Canadian Association for Free Expression, and Doug Christie for the Canadian Free Speech League were a little "chilled" too in reverse.

On that day, Mr. Vigna gave this sparkling testimony, probably not his most stellar moment, as he said: "Sorry. Mr. Chair, I don't have the flu but I don't feel in a serene state of mind to proceed with the file today. I don't feel very well. I feel dizzy, I feel anxiety, and I am not in a serene state of mind to proceed with this file today. I have a lot of things worrying me right now and I don't want to elaborate, but my colleague said, Mr. Fine, there are some certain incidents that have occurred which I don't feel at liberty to elaborate right now, which have had an impact on my ability to proceed in a professional way on this file, at least for today, because I wouldn't be rendering the Commission a just service by proceeding in this condition. I am not dying, Mr. Chair, I don't have the flu, but I am not mentally capable of proceeding under these circumstances."

But, I digress, mainly for fun.

Jennifer has this to say also: "Ironically, those who are claiming that human rights commission’s jurisdiction over hate speech is “chilling” to freedom of expression, have successfully created their own reverse chill....

Critics of the human rights system are manipulating and misrepresenting information to further a new agenda: one that posits that human rights commissions and tribunals no longer serve a useful purpose."

Let me be clear about my thoughts here. Not only do I think that the CASHRA members are "chilling" hate speech, they are chilling speech and people standing up for their rights. I came to this realisation this morning as I completed my blog post here. Here is government "chill" in full unadorned glory.

We all know how they have beaten up on Stephen Boissoin, Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, Marc Lemire, and the only one they have a chance of getting away with final victory on is Stephen Boissoin, and their chances are getting slimmer day by day. This does not mean they haven't put them all through the wringer financially and emotionally. That's pretty "chilling" and in itself makes this so called "reverse chill" petty at best.

But when I spoke to my friend the former primary school principal recently, and she told me that with the reinstatement of the recently dismissed claim against her by one of her wacky protaganists, she was just going to bow out, it dawned on me that the "chill" Queen Jennifer was talking about was alive and well. Also, any fake sympathy that I could have mustered for the reverse "chill" her buddies were feeling when she wanted to interview them for her soon to be blockbuster novel went out the window or formed into cubes for a cool beverage.

Just so you understand how the CASHRA chill works, I have been very careful to protect the identity of my "friend", including the community she lives in, any names of people involved, how I know her etc. Why? She does not want to jeopardize her case further in this ongoing insanity. Really, would you want to rattle the cage of someone as power hungry as Barbara Hall and her wandering band of minstrels? The same goes for Gator Ted, and John Fulton, also victims of Barb's Boys. I tried to communicate with them when I was reviewing their cases, and they chose probably wisely not to respond to me. I don't blame them.

I wonder what kind of a parallel universe that Queen Jennifer lives in where she thinks her critics have to manipulate and misrepresent information about the shenanigans that go on with the CASHRA members. Truth is far more ridiculous than fiction could be. You can't make this stuff up.

But I will posit this for her so there is no mistaking my intention. "Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals as they are currently configured and governed do not serve a useful purpose."

Gator Ted and the Doper (Medical Use Only) - Ontario HRC

My license to smoke dope trumps your liquor license UPDATED

Ted Kindos runs, at least for now, Gator Ted's Tap & Grill in Burlington Ontario. Why for the moment? Well, to date in his 4 year battle for his sanity, he has spent over $40,000 defending a nonsense complaint before the Ontario HRC (yes them again), because he did not want to let Steve Gibson, a licensed medical marijuana user, smoke dope by his front door. How insensitive of him!!

Steve Gibson qualifies as a disabled person. Hence the medical marijuana certificate. So, Bad Boy Ted is discriminating against a disabled person, by not allowing him to smoke dope by his front door. It doesn't matter whether it offends Gator Ted's other patrons. They are not probably endangered species, like Stevie Boy, unless Gator Ted were to change his bar to a Gay bar. I am pretty sure that Gay trumps disabled. Hey Ted. I got the answer for you. (I sure hope that Steve Gibson is not Gay).

You can read what Tim Hudak, Niagara West MPP who is running for the leadership of the Provincial PC party, has to say about this bit of fluff and nonsense here.

If Tim Hudak is prepared to go to bat against all the insanity of the Ontario HRC, he might be the guy to have running the PC party here in Ontario. Just a thought. This is not a paid or unpaid political announcement.

Oh, Gator Ted is no fool. In March 2009, he filed a federal court application asking that people permitted by Ottawa to use marijuana for health reasons remain subject to provincial laws. He wants the court to declare he doesn't have to serve such users when doing so would violate the Ontario Liquor Licence Act, putting him at risk of losing his business. The act says he can't serve anyone possessing a banned substance. If he is successful with this route, it will trump the Ontario HRC, he says. Good luck with that Ted. These people don't care about the law. They make it up as they go along.

But the real issue is Gator Ted's. I'm not making this stuff up. If you are in Burlington, drop by his place at 1505 Guelph Line, and drop a little cash on some some grub and a drink or two. He might need it to fight this nonsense. Or you can drop by his Waterdown location at 419 Dundas St. E., but I don't think there is any dope smoking there. (I am not sure if I mean any dope who is smoking or smoking of dope). This is also not a paid or unpaid advertisement.

The Costs of the HRCs - Direct & Indirect

A Brief Look at The Costs of our HRCs

There are costs to the work (work - that's a misplaced word) that our HRCs undertake allegedly on our behalf. There is the direct cost of the HRC itself, and there is the indirect costs born by the Defendant, and to a some extent by the rest of us.

Direct Costs

I was curious to see if I could figure out what the HRC industry spends of our tax dollars in a year. So, I went to each HRC web site. Nunavut does not have their own HRC yet. They work their problems through the NWT HRC. Many of the HRCs have their financial statements in their annual report. Some are part of another ministry, and had to be located there. Reporting standards varied, from one number for the whole, to greater detail.

Bottom line here. The HRCs, including provinces, territories, and Canada total about $77 million annually. There is some guesswork here, since the last financial statement I could find for the Canada HRC was 2002. That is only about $2.32 for each one of us on our annual tax bills. Personally, I'll take the cash if it is offered.

Indirect Costs

All indirect costs of our HRCs are not able to be measured. When I call them indirect, I mean it only from the perspective of the HRC itself. ie. They never see it, or probably care about it.

Legal Fees

The most common of these costs is Legal Fees. Ted Kindos has spent north of $40,000 to defend a nonsense case about a licensed pot smoker at his place of business. Ezra Levant has spent significantly more than $100,000 to defend himself against the nuisance claims made against him over the last few years.


Awards and Interest

Cases when completed often result in an award to the Complainant, with interest calculated from some earlier date. A minister in PEI in a case I will review sometime soon was awarded $600,000 plus interest for lost wages and pain and suffering. In ADGA which I reviewed in an earlier post, the Complainant got about $80,000.

However, most cases settle for smaller amounts before they get to the actual hearing stage. As Ezra Levant titled his book, these are shakedowns. For a nuisance payment of $5,000 to $20,000, plus some other pound of emotional flesh, the complainant walks away with a tax free bonus, and the Defendant gets to crawl away.

Non Financial Award Costs

HRCs tend to be attempting to remediate egregious behaviour on the part of the Defendants, and so they tend to order them to undertake sensitivity training, or something similar. As well, particularly for businesses, they like to get them to put their staff through this training, make them develop training materials in case they should ever again hire someone like the person who complained about them in the first place. Of course, these ativities must be undertaken with consultants approved by the HRC. I smell a sub industry here.

In the case of Viola Landry and the Popeye Restaurant in Geraldton Ontario, she had to put cards with the Human Rights Code on the tables to help her customers not discriminate against each other and her staff. I wonder what happened to the cards after she lost her business.

Emotional and Other costs

This is the cost that cannot be quantified. I watched my friend, the grade school principal, having to retire early because of the deands on her health, of seeing her life's work and labour of love torn apart because she stood up to a loud mouthed parent of the wrong colour.

I listened to John Fulton who owns 2 health clubs in St. Caherines, and hopes he still will after the transsexual who he couldn't accommodate on the spot in his Women's Only Club decided to make a case of it. Mr. Fulton has built his business from scratch over 25 years, and is active in the community supporting worthy causes. Will be able to when this is done, not just financially, but with the emotional cost of it all on him.

Viola Landry's business was not particularly strong when her case started, but she was doing her best to make it work. She closed it down last year, and had to seek work elsewhere.

This Emotional and Physical cost on the bodies and minds of the Defendants of these actions are a burden that our society will bear into the future. As humans, we do not wake up each day with renewed energy, unhindered by the challenges that we faced yesterday or yesterday's yesterday. No, we carry the burden of traumas in our life with us, often forever. The burden may be reduced by therapy with the right counsellor, another indirect cost. But, once that emotional and physical energy has been spent, it often cannot be recovered. We are seeing more cases of chronic fatigue, and autoimmune problems, particularly among those who have carried emotional burdens beyond their own ability.

Will Ted Kindos, John Fulton, Viola Landry end up retiring earlier than they otherwise might have? I would not be surprised that the traumatic burden of their HRC cases will impact their long term physical and mental health. I saw it with my friend the principal.

Can our Country, Provinces and Territories afford the cost of second hand smoke that is coming down the pipe from these cases?

People in our country should be free from discrimination, including the Defendants and this wierd process that makes them into victims.

This system is seriously broken.