Mark Steyn: I hate to say I told you so. Actually, I don’t. I love it
By Mark Steyn - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - 0 Comments
As I have said, section 13 is not a right-left thing
Richard Warman (photo by Tony Fouhse)
“Coloured people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it.”
Thus, Ray Bradbury in his prescient 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451. On June 6, the day after Bradbury’s death at the age of 91, the House of Commons passed Brian Storseth’s private member’s bill repealing Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Fahrenheit 451 draws its name from the temperature at which books burn; Canada’s Fahrenheit 13 is its frosty northern inverse—the temperature at which the state chills freedom of expression. Free speech is the lifeblood of free societies, and, as this magazine has learned over the last half-decade, our decayed Dominion was getting a bad case of hypothermia.
We’re not alone in this. In Britain, Australia, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and many other places, democratic societies have become far too comfortable in policing the opinions of the citizenry. But even by comparison with our Commonwealth cousins and Western Europe, Section 13 and its provincial equivalents are repugnant—practically, philosophically, and operationally.
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MPs attend ACTION party
By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 10:09 AM - 6 Comments
The politicos came out for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) annual ACTION…
The politicos came out for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) annual ACTION party in Toronto. (Left to right) Bernie Farber, Nathan Jacobson and Transport Minister John Baird. Behind Farber is Jamie Ellerton, aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
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Baird and Toronto mayoral hopeful George Smitherman.
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Newsmakers of the week
By Lianne George - Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Stampede slams, Meghan McCain’s biopic, and Saddam Hussein’s WMD confession
Everyone loves a stampede
On Saturday, the leaders of Canada’s three major parties turned up in Calgary to take part in Stampede festivities and slip in a little meal-time campaigning. Speaking at a breakfast at the Calgary Zoo, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff blasted the Tories for their latest attack ads, which imply that the Bloc Québécois favours leniency for pedophiles. “I’m in politics to defeat the Bloc Québécois with real arguments,” Ignatieff told the crowd, “rather than slurs and vicious ad hominem personal attacks.” Not far away, at a barbecue in Heritage Park, Prime Minister Stephen Harper slammed the Liberals’ “timid and trendy” foreign policies and the NDP’s ethos of “tax and spend.” “Let the opposition parties threaten to get together to defeat us and replace us,” he said. “Canadians have been clear that they do not want another election.” Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton, invited by Calgary Herald reporter Don Braid to a barbecue at the Ranchmen’s Club, a well-known Conservative hangout, played nice, worked the room and, according to Braid, had “friendly chats with several people I wasn’t sure would talk to him at all.” He even braved a prairie oyster. “Not bad,” Layton said. “I think I’ll have another one.” Continue… -
CJPAC packs them in – Ruby Dhalla during happier times
By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 11:55 AM - 0 Comments
The Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee held its third annual Action party in Toronto…
The Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee held its third annual Action party in Toronto at Andrew Richard Designs.
Below (left to right) are Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow and Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber.
Kenney and Chow share a moment.
