Section 13: How the battle for free speech was won

By Charlie Gillis - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 5:00 AM - 0 Comments

Lorraine Hjalte / Calgary Herald

For all the passion it stirred, you’d think it would get a noisier send-off. An ovation, maybe. Or tears. Instead, Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act slipped quietly beneath the waves last week during a night-time sitting of the House of Commons—victim of a private member’s bill and a trailer load of toxic publicity. Brian Storseth, Conservative MP for Westlock-St. Paul, had glanced anxiously around the chamber as his kill bill went through its third reading. “The benches weren’t full,” he recalls. “That always makes for a bit of extra heart pumping.”

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson had voiced support for the legislation. So had the Prime Minister. The result, then, was never in doubt: at 9:35 p.m. on June 6, by a vote of 153-136,  Parliament got Canada’s human rights bureaucrats out of the business of policing speech on the Internet. There was a scattering of applause, and handshakes for Storseth (the bill requires the rubber stamp of Senate approval). “To be honest, it’s all a blur,” says the three-term MP, laughing. But if the passage of Bill C-304 represents a fundamental shift in Canadian culture, you’d never have known it that night. Members dealt with a few housekeeping matters, then waded through a supply bill. Finally, one by one, they trickled out into the cool Ottawa night.

The effect of killing Section 13 will be debated for years among anti-racist groups and civil libertarians. But it is undoubtedly a turning point. Since 1999, Canadians who felt aggrieved by material transmitted online have been encouraged to seek redress under federal human rights law, which targeted material “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” based on grounds of discrimination like race, religion or sexual orientation. Storseth’s bill repeals the provision outright, leaving the Criminal Code as the primary bulwark against the dissemination of hate propaganda by electronic means.

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Vote night

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Last night, the House defeated an opposition motion that called on the government to reverse cuts to science and research and an opposition motion that called on the government to reverse cuts to search-and-rescue.

After dealing with eight votes on the estimates, the House then passed Conservative MP Brian Storseth’s private members’ bill to delete certain sections of the Canadian Human Rights Act by a vote of 153-136.

Conservative MP Dan Albas’ bill to allow for the interprovincial importation of wine passed by a vote of 287-0.

NDP MP Randall Garrison’s bill to add gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act passed at second reading by a vote of 152-130.

Liberal MP Hedy Fry’s bill to amend the Criminal Code to clarify that “cyberbulling” is an offence passed at second reading after the Speaker broke a tie.

And, finally, a Bloc motion that sought to have the governor general pay income tax was defeated by a vote of 147-141.

Hockey Night in Barrie: NHL meets MPs

By Mitchel Raphael - Sunday, August 28, 2011 at 6:14 PM - 2 Comments

Ontario Conservative MP Patrick Brown’s annual Hockey Night in Barrie continues to grow. Each year the charity fundraiser for the Royal Victoria Hospital has MPs and NHL players sharing the ice for a game.

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The MP who has to talk about the Senate all summer

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 2 Comments

Mitchel Raphael

Handy having an orthopaedic surgeon

Ontario Conservative MP Patrick Brown’s annual Hockey Night in Barrie continues to grow. Each year, the charity fundraiser for the Royal Victoria Hospital has MPs and NHL players sharing the ice for a game. This year (the fourth) raised almost $200,000 for the hospital’s cancer care centre. Current and retired NHL players this time included Ryan O’Reilly of the Colorado Avalanche, Bryan Little of the Winnipeg Jets, Luke Pither of the Philadelphia Flyers and Darcy Tucker. Also attending was Conservative MP Kellie Leitch (who beat Helena Guergis in the last election). The rookie MP would have been handy in an emergency: Leitch is an orthopaedic surgeon who has sports- injuries training going back to the days when she worked with the Toronto Argonauts.

Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel (who took former cabinet minister Jim Prentice’s old seat in the last election) arrived at the game to support Brown and her fellow MPs. But when she got drafted as one of the coaches, she quickly rose to the challenge. (Last year, Stephen Harper put in an appearance and coached the same team.) Defence Minister Peter MacKay arrived with all his hockey gear but had to borrow one of Patrick Brown’s sticks. Most of the MPs present agreed that Brown is one the Conservatives’ best players.

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The QP 20

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 31, 2010 at 12:12 PM - 13 Comments

Michael Chong’s motion on Question Period reform is seconded by no less than 20 MPs. Those seconders include 14 Conservatives (Mike Allen, Dona Cadman, Maxime Bernier, Larry Miller, Gord Brown, Nina Grewal, James Rajotte, John Cummins, Peter Braid, Rick Casson, Greg Thompson, Merv Tweed, Brian Storseth and Bruce Stanton), four Liberals (Frank Valeriote, Martha Hall Findlay, Glen Pearson and Siobhan Coady) and two New Democrats (Denise Savoie and Brian Masse).

The Commons: Stubborn Stéphane

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 9, 2008 at 9:21 PM - 0 Comments

Neither cowardly nor spineless, this man is most certainly a mule

The Scene. If nothing else now, let there be no more suggestion that Stéphane Dion is a wimp. A wuss. A pussy cat of a man. Indeed, if it’s animal metaphors you traffic in, he is neither the rat his sovereigntist opponents once thought him, nor the spineless jellyfish (an amorphous blob drifting along, prone to stinging well-intentioned swimmers with sudden tax hikes) these Conservatives have exhaustively made him out to be.

No, Mr. Dion is most certainly a mule. Stubborn, steadfast and undaunted at the prospect of suffering and burden. Surely there is no more appropriate description of the man we presently see before us. Continue…