Hate speech case goes before the Supreme Court

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 5 Comments

A landmark hate speech case is being debated in the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday, pitting an anti-gay pamphleteer from Saskatchewan against defenders of Canada’s restrictions on speech that is considered hateful. Bill Whatcott was convicted of promoting hatred by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal in 2005 and ordered to pay $17,500 to the complainants after he distributed flyers calling gays sodomites and child molesters. But the ruling was overturned by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in 2010, where Whatcott argued his stance was against homosexuality, not gay people. Whatcott’s lawyer will argue that the Supreme Court should strike down the hate speech provisions included in Saskatchewan’s human rights legislation.

CBC News

Cancellation of pro-Palestinian lecture sparks plenty of debate

By Cigdem Iltan - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:05 AM - 0 Comments

The University of Regina was buzzing this month with talk of academic muzzling off-campus. Emily Eaton, an assistant professor of geography, was a week away from presenting “Solidarity with Palestine: The Case for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel,” the second of 12 lunchtime talks scheduled over the summer in Regina’s Victoria Park, when she says the coordinator of the series told her the topic was under scrutiny and asked to know more about it. The lecture series, titled “Profs in the Park,” was to be produced in partnership with the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID).

The next day, she says, the university told her the RDBID had cancelled her event. “This is a clear case of a city-level administration stepping in and saying what its citizens should and shouldn’t be able to hear, and therefore defining the terrain of public debate,” says Eaton. All the professors scheduled to present—on everything from “Gardening with Native Plants” to “Current Trends in Policing”—withdrew from the series. “The profs and the dean collectively decided we’d rather pull all the presentations than be subject to censorship,” says Eaton. (The lecture series has since taken on a new name, “Profs in the City,” and has been relocated to a private space: Neutral Ground Contemporary Art Forum. Eaton presented her lecture to a packed house on June 14.)

Judith Veresuk, executive director of the RDBID, says her organization isn’t to blame for pulling the plug on the original series. She claims that RDBID contacted the university to clarify the content of the talk after the city and her organization received complaints about its subject matter. And instead of providing more info, says Veresuk, the university pulled the lecture. “The next thing I know,” she says, “the university is crying censorship and cancelled the series.”

Be nice or else

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 8:58 AM - 114 Comments

In Hungary, which takes over the European Presidency on Jan. 1, the parliament has passed a media law that some in Canada would dream of: it gives a government-appointed board the mandate to seek out unbalanced news coverage and levy massive fines for those deemed to transgress.

“Media can be forced to reveal their sources, the media authority can search editorial offices, can copy reporters’ notes and mandate that publishers hand over confidential business information and levy serious fines on those that refuse,” according to one account. “Immoral” reporting, involving sex, violence or alcohol, would be policed too. Hungarian newspapers have run blank front pages in protest.  Poland’s Adam Michnik, a hero of the anti-Communist resistance and a great newspaper proprietor, is pretty angry.

The government of one-time pro-democracy darling Viktor Orban says its hands are tied: the bill was introduced as a private-members measure, so government members have no responsibility for it, although they all, surprise surprise, wound up voting for it.

So now a panel of government appointees will decide what’s fair, balanced and nice, and punish transgressors. How could this possibly go wrong?

No laughing matter

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 5:01 PM - 0 Comments

From the front lines of the war on comedy, Le Devoir chronicles the death of the funny:

They may be funny, but, in the end, they’re cheating their audience. To wit: while claiming to be able to laugh at anything, comedians, who are quietly taking over Montreal for the 28th edition of the Just For Laughs festival, have in recent years considerably narrowed the subject and object of their derision.

And that’s not all: far from being the offended rebels many claim to be, these kings of the joke have become less caustic, less subversive, but also more conventional and reassuring.

…

“By nature, stupidity is everywhere, on the right as much as the left. We should laugh at it, not only in well-worn fashion. Comedians today, even the ones who claim to be radical politically aware, no longer stand in opposition to the dogmas of our era. They are the incarnation of these dogmas.”

Coulter, live and loud in Calgary

By Colby Cosh - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 2:00 AM - 375 Comments

At the Red and White Club on the grounds of Calgary’s McMahon Stadium tonight, more than 900 attendees gave Ann Coulter a remarkable, thunderous ovation. But they cheered, I would almost swear, with even greater volume for Ezra Levant, co-organizer of Coulter’s tour. I’m a friend of Ezra’s, but I had never seen him speak on home turf before. The love was palpable and astonishing. I suppose he is part of the city’s image, the legend it tells of itself, at this point.

And—chalk this up to bias if you like—he gives a heck of a speech. The stubbornest Stalinist alive would have been stirred by his fierce defence of strong free-speech norms as a social truce in which all have a stake. He made a particular point of noting that women, ethnic minorities, and gays and lesbians would never have attained civil rights if they had waited around for the Establishment to endow them out of the goodness of its heart. They could not have won an open power struggle; they had to engage in persuasive speech that, at first, offended contemporary sensibilities. Is it cynical and manipulative for Ezra to go into that territory? Maybe a little. But is what he says true and relevant? Indubitably.

The component of Ezra’s introduction for Coulter that rang a little false was the civic self-congratulation. “This is Calgary, not Ottawa,” he bellowed, inducing positively demented applause. “We’re interested in a diversity of ideas, debated vigorously and freely. Places like the University of Ottawa talk about diversity, but they don’t actually mean it, do they?” The fact is, Calgary’s anti-everything left managed a pretty good turnout, perhaps fifty strong, and they did no less to try to interrupt and drown out Coulter’s talk, and perhaps more on the whole, than the U of Ottawa students. But they faced a much tougher tactical situation: a free-standing, isolated venue on a hillside, virtually a fortress; crowd-control gates and wooden barricades on the exterior; and a whole squadron of bicycle and foot police, perhaps upwards of a dozen.

Uncowed, the antis attempted to rush the main doors of the building as Ezra was winding up his intro, spiderwebbing the glass with boot damage, and they battered the exterior windows of the club throughout Coulter’s main talk. Tomorrow morning’s news story may be “Calgary gets right what Ottawa could not”; I wonder, however, how things would have looked if Coulter had visited Calgary first and caught the Cowtown police less well-prepared.

(Incidentally, a pro-tip for the two guys who tried to dress as Klansmen: real KKK outfits have separate hoods. If you go for the one-piece look, you are not a scary symbol of race hatred: you are a scary symbol of the laziness of six-year-olds at Halloween.)

Eventually She came out. I paid little attention (and some of you will be relieved to hear it) to Coulter’s litany of familiar one-liners; I’m not sure anyone paid the words much heed, including Ann Coulter herself. As the thrumming of the protest outside grew louder and began to be punctuated with blows and crashes, she made sure to keep one eye in the direction of the stairway, doubtless ready to make a hasty exit behind the curtain at any moment. The atmosphere of danger, and her consciousness of it, made her seem curiously vulnerable, even as she vaporized hostile interlocutors in the Q&A session. Coulter, if you’re wondering, and you are, is more attractive in person than on camera. She is thus something of a contrast, in this regard, to Sarah Palin. (Meow!) Dame’s not my type, but you find out the second you write about Ann Coulter that she has many open admirers, and a LOT more haters who are unadmitted admirers―unadmitted perhaps even to themselves.

She really is a gifted comic. It was unfortunate that she didn’t bring Calgary new material, but this was a case where the medium truly was the message. During the Q&A, a young female U of Calgary student stood to say that there are “Jesus Was a Muslim” signs all over campus and she isn’t sure how she should react. Coulter, with a simple “Huh” and a nonplussed look, had the room in stitches.

Still, the more interesting action was outside all night―and I don’t mean the rioting, but the small-group discussions amongst smokers, latecomers who couldn’t get in, curious U of C campus-dwellers, and stray protesters. Here, on the grass, ordinary people talked sincerely to each other without punchlines or slogans or sneering. They seemed to be a different species altogether from the formidable, mantis-like Coulter and her mesmerizing blonde mane.

Closed for debate

By Erin Millar - Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 12:10 PM - 80 Comments

It was standing room only at the University of Victoria on Oct. 21, when anti-abortion activist Stephanie Gray visited from Calgary to debate distinguished medical ethicist Eike-Henner Kluge. Gray and Kluge duked it out twice that day, to accommodate those who couldn’t fit into the 200-seat room for round one. Not one to disappoint, Gray, who is executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, employed the tactics that make her so controversial: she compared abortion to the Holocaust, showed a video of an abortion, and juxtaposed images of bloodied fetuses with photos of corpses from atrocities such as the Rwanda genocide.

Yet compared to some of the activism on Canadian campuses, the debate was mild, the audience civil, even polite. Periodically, when Gray began speaking, a group of students would hold up signs sporting slogans like “My body is not up for debate.” And there were scattered heckles when she accused pro-choicers of believing that “a woman has the right to directly and intentionally dismember and decapitate and disembowel her child.” But she wasn’t accosted, yelled at, or in any way prevented from speaking her mind. Nevertheless, the debate and other events organized by UVic’s pro-life club, called Youth Protecting Youth (YPY), are shaping up to be the basis of a legal battle over free speech that could change the way student unions and even universities operate.

The spat began in October 2008 when the university’s students’ society refused to give YPY the same meagre funding all UVic student clubs receive. Clubs approved by a committee are entitled to $232 each year and such perks as banner supplies and free room bookings. Upon review in 2009, the committee approved YPY. But the students’ society board stepped in and once again revoked the funding. In an Oct. 5 meeting, the society’s directors accused YPY of “harassing” female students (although they mentioned no specifics). Director Tracey Ho summed up the society’s position by saying, “No one should debate my rights over my own body.”

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George Galloway: an odd champion of free speech

By Michael Petrou - Friday, March 27, 2009 at 1:41 PM - 26 Comments

George Galloway cancelled our interview because he didn’t like my question.

This was during the 2005 British general election. Galloway was campaigning for the Respect Party, which he launched after being kicked out of the Labour Party for, among other things, describing it as “Tony Blair’s lie machine.” I had spent the day in the hardscrabble East London riding Galloway hoped to win away from Labour’s lightweight incumbent Oona King and chatted informally with Galloway a couple of times. He promised me an interview later, after a community meeting where he and King were scheduled to speak.

Galloway wiped the floor with King that night. He is a rhetorical master and was in his element. “If you make war against Muslims abroad, he bellowed to cheers, “you’re going to end up making war against Muslims at home!”

When the speeches were finished, Galloway was mobbed by supporters and a few journalists, including an American woman who had a difficult time asking him anything without cooing. Sick of the softballs she was lobbing at him, I asked Galloway how he felt about the jailing of “your friend Tariq Aziz.” Aziz was Iraq’s deputy prime minister under Saddam Hussein and has since been convicted of crimes against humanity. Galloway had indeed described Aziz as his friend, but apparently he didn’t like my tone and growled “I don’t’ want to talk to that guy,” when one of his handlers brought me around for the interview. When another reporter, Johann Hari of The Independent, tried to pose a question, Galloway loudly denounced him as a drug addict.

This is the man who is now bizarrely being hailed as a martyr to free speech, ever since Canada denied him entry to this country because he delivered aid and money to Hamas, which Canada considers a terrorist organization.

To be clear, I think the case against allowing Galloway to come to Canada is paper-thin. Even if the decision follows the letter of the law, it is ridiculous to suggest that he poses any sort of security threat. He should be permitted to come to Canada and speak wherever he wants. Unfortunately, in a country where we’ve grown used cabinet ministers’ incoherent mumblings or refusal to deviate from prepared talking points, Galloway, with his flash and eloquent brogue, would make a positive impression.

But it’s worth remembering the man behind the charm. He reacts to unpleasant questions from journalists with belligerence and insults. He praised Saddam Hussein. And he once described the disappearance of the Soviet Union – one of the most murderous regimes in history – as “the biggest disaster of my life.” I’m confident that Canadians would tire of Galloway once they got to know him. 

Tough critique or hate speech?

By Alex Shimo - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 70 Comments

It’s not often a barroom-calibre brawl breaks out in the life of a political scientist. But a serious battle has erupted over a presentation given last June by professor Frances Widdowson, and it could jeopardize her career and help define the limits of free speech in Canadian academia.

Speaking at the 2008 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA), Widdowson, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal College in Calgary, argued our Aboriginal reserve system isn’t working. It encourages unemployment and alcoholism, since there are few jobs on reserves, she said. Policies that encourage First Nations to live separate lives merely prop up a broken system; the best way to help natives achieve health and prosperity is assimilation. Her paper also criticized Aboriginal traditional knowledge, arguing that some claims didn’t hold up to scientific analysis, and discussed a “development gap” between natives and settlers, implying the Europeans were more advanced.

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Down with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and its modern analogues!

By selley - Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 1:03 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Vaughn Palmer on cutting costs in Victoria; Christie Blatchford on the “S.M.” trial.

In the spirit of brotherhood, we will now destroy you
The Conservatives revoke the opposition’s allowance, and other random federal matters.

The Vancouver Sun’s Barbara Yaffe chooses an unfortunate day to marvel at the “surprising air of maturity and confidence” Stephen Harper is exhibiting as he attempts to deal with the economic crisis—“in sharp contrast to [his] past political demeanour, widely criticized as petty, nasty and excessively partisan.” We assume Harper decided to bankrupt the opposition parties after deadline. Bummer. (Also, Tony Clement is not one of Harper’s “strongest performers.” That’s a ridiculous thing to say anywhere, but it’s an especially ridiculous thing to say if, like Yaffe, you support the Insite safe injection project and if, also like Yaffe, you have just applauded the government for abandoning its opposition to Insite—which is news to us, incidentally.)

The National Post’s John Ivison looks at the potential effects of revoking public financing for political parties, and sees no way the Liberals can “meekly stand in the House of Commons and support the measure as its fair share of the economic plan.” It represents upwards of 60 per cent of their funding base! “The chances of another general election in the near future have always seemed remote, on the basis that none of the combatants could afford it,” Ivison notes. But “with this proposal, they can’t afford not to.” We’re sure they’ll work something out.

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Megapundit: Where's our Obama?

By selley - Monday, November 17, 2008 at 1:25 PM - 15 Comments

Must-reads: Rosie DiManno on race statistics; Lawrence Martin on finding a new Speaker; Doug Saunders on waiting for a European Obama; Greg Weston on Jim Prentice’s new job; Jeffrey Simpson on bailing out the Detroit Three; David Frum on the GOP’s bleak future; Don Martin on Elizabeth May.

Change we don’t believe in
Sure, the Liberal party will soon “change.” But neither it nor Canada, the pundits lament, will Change.

Ignatieff vs. Rae vs. LeBlanc is precisely the leadership race the Liberals needed, L. Ian MacDonald opines in the Montreal Gazette. For one thing, he says, “it will keep costs down at a time when the party is broke.” But more to the point, it means “amateur hour is over.” The only two legitimate candidates understand their goal is to “unite the party, fill its campaign coffers, and win the next election,” and nothing else. No young people; no new ideas; no funny business.

The Gazette‘s Don Macpherson also handicaps the race for the leadership, suggesting—weirdly, in our view—that “because of the unfortunate timing of the current leadership race, Ignatieff starts off his second run risking unfavourable comparison with the charismatic [Barack] Obama.” This is particularly true in Quebec, he argues, where election fatigue has set in and there’s nothing remotely novel about Charest vs. Marois vs. Dumont. Fair enough, but who’s Ignatieff up against? Rae and LeBlanc, and then Harper? Which of those three juggernauts is going to out-Obama Iggy?

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Aw nuts, we won

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 10, 2008 at 2:34 PM - 0 Comments

In the matter of Elmasry and Habib v. Roger’s [sic] Publishing and MacQueen (No. 4), heard before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal this past June:

More comment to follow once I’ve read the thing, but be clear on this: it is no victory to be told by a shadowy government agency that you will be permitted to publish. This ruling only preserves the tribunal from utterly discrediting itself, and as such keeps alive the possibility that some other complainant can drag Maclean’s or any other media organization through yet another travesty half-a-continent away, at great expense of time and money. It also prevents Maclean’s from appealing the tribunal’s decision to an actual court, wherein it might have had the relevant section of the B.C. human rights laws thrown out on constitutional grounds. (Or does it? Can you appeal when you win?)

So the real fight, that of returning our human rights laws to their original purpose, and permanently clipping the wings of the human rights commissioners, will have to be won in the political arena. Until that day…

NOTE: The foregoing represents the views of the writer only, and should not be mistaken for those of Rogers or Maclean’s, their management, employees, lawyers, shareholders, window-cleaners or bonded couriers.

NOTER: The Tribunal does not appear to have put the decision up on its website as of 2:45 PM Eastern time. I’m assured it’s coming soon. UPDATE: It’s up.

So Much Bigger Than Ezra

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

It’s been an odd experience working on my story that appears in this week’s print edition of Maclean’s. Some of the Canadians I have talked to about his incredibly important subject — freedom of expression — seem to lose their love of freedom and their s**t their cool when confronted by two words: Ezra. Levant. I spoke to one intellectual luminary whose ability to make a rational argument not to mention his sense of decorum suddenly deserted him and the best he could muster at the mention of Levant was to compare him to a walking piece of male anatomy. Fine. I get it. A lot of people don’t like Levant and a lot of people disagree with him and a lot of people are offended that he published the Muhammed cartoons in his magazine. How can I put this simply? With apologies to the band: This.is.Bigger.Than.Ezra.

So much bigger.

When you read the story — and it’s long and complicated — please note the comments of Louise Arbour, as well as those of the UN rapporteur on free speech. This is not a right wing or left wing issue.

In a nutshell:

“…Pakistan and the other nations that have banded together in the Organization of the Islamic Conference have been leading a remarkably successful campaign through the United Nations to enshrine in international law prohibitions against “defamation of religions,” particularly Islam. Their aim is to empower governments around the world to punish anyone who commits the “heinous act” of defaming Islam. Critics say it is an attempt to globalize laws against blasphemy that exist in some Muslim countries — and that the movement has already succeeded in suppressing open discussion in international forums of issues such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and gay rights. …”

Maclean’s: Stifling Free Speech Globally

American exceptionalism

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, July 18, 2008 at 2:15 PM - 0 Comments

Over at the NY Times, Adam Liptak has been writing occasional articles exploring how the American legal system and its conception of rights differs from those in other western countries. In the two articles I’ve read so far, his case studies come from Canada.

Some people have fretted to me that the NY Times is pointing out that the US is out-of-synch and implying it should get with the program. But to me the articles provide the context that helps explain the growing resistance in the US to sign on to various international legal regimes — and the recent efforts to discourage judges from citing foreign case law in constitutional matters. Such efforts were driven initially by conservative legislators worried about “importing” foreign jurisprudence sympathetic to gay marriage or hostile to the death penalty, for example. But I will be watching to see whether the critique draws more liberal adherents when issues such as free speech and the admissability of tainted evidence in criminal trials become implicated.

Today: NYT: Should Criminals Go Free When Police Blunder

June 12: NYT: Unlike others, US Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Free speech wins one

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, June 27, 2008 at 5:19 PM - 0 Comments

Nine years later, Rafe Mair finally gets the monkey off his back: Supreme Court throws out libel case against outspoken BC talk show host

The judgment includes some uncharacteristically clear language from the Court in defence of free speech:

The traditional elements of the tort of defamation may require modification to provide broader accommodation to the value of freedom of expression,” Mr. Justice Ian Binnie said for the majority today.

“There is concern that matters of public interest go unreported because publishers fear the ballooning cost and disruption of defending a defamation action. Investigative reports get “spiked”, it is contended, because, while true, they are based on facts that are difficult to establish according to rules of evidence.

“When controversies erupt, statements of claim often follow as night follows day, not only in serious claims [as here] but in actions launched simply for the purpose of intimidation.”

There is nothing wrong with laws that ‘chill’ speech which is false and defamatory, Judge Binnie said. “But chilling debate on matters of legitimate public interest raises issues of inappropriate censorship and self-censorship.

“We live in a free country where people have as much right to express outrageous and ridiculous opinions as moderate ones,” Mr. Justice Ian Binnie said, in a spirited defence of free expression in an era when extravagant over-statement is commonplace. Continue…

Spreading doubt and other crimes against nature

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, June 23, 2008 at 11:44 AM - 0 Comments

Needless to say I’m very much in favour of this. I’m all for free speech, of course, but people have a right to live free of doubt…

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress – in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming – to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

Liveblogging the Maclean's Trial V: Stand and Deliver

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, June 6, 2008 at 12:21 PM - 0 Comments

Merciful heavens, it’s the last day. Time for final arguments…

Faisal Joseph for the complainants: We’re here to right a terrible wrong. Case involves a complicated intersection of two important values — free speech and the right to be free from discrimination. Neither trumps the other, in his view. Not all speech is afforded the same protection — speech that is not close to the “core value” of free speech is not as well protected. That would be hate speech. Doesn’t advance truth-seeking, because it silences the target group. Doesn’t advance their self-development, etc.

Not offensive speech we’re after, but hate speech. And only on enumerated grounds — so just exposing individual polticians, say, to hatred is okay, but not those groups listed in the code. Two-part test under the code: does the speech itself espouse hatred, and is it likely to cause others to hate.

Going through the case law on Sect. 7.1 of the BC Human Rights code. Factors to take into account: the vulnerability of the target group, the tone of the message, whether it’s presented as opinion or fact, the context, the method of dissemination. Particular case that’s noteworthy: Canadian Jewish Congress vs. North Shore News (ie the “Doug Collins” case.)

Stressing that it’s a two-part test, so free speech is well protected. eg. Speech that is neutral in tone, but might cause someone else to hate, is not caught; ditto speech that is itself hateful, but might not cause others to hate. Catches “only the speech that is appropriately silenced.” Application ensures there will be no — he pauses to do big air-quote — “chilling” effect.

Concedes some speech within a “shaded” area will be suppressed — but will only require authors who are “close to the line” to “think very carefully” about how they say it. Continue…

Liveblogging the BC HRT, Day Two: A Day That Will Live in Entropy

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 12:18 PM - 0 Comments

Lots of good coverage of yesterday’s proceedings, beginning with the mighty Ezra Levant, who had so much fun he’s staying on another day. Also Brian Hutchinson, my old stable mate at the Post, pays appropriate homage to the majesty of it all. Plus the great man himself, of course, and uber-blogger Michelle Malkin and Jay Currie and … well, I better get in while there’s a chance of a seat…

9:32 AM Habemus dongle! The good folks at Rogers — wonderful people, never said a bad word about them — have kitted me out with some sort of external modem thingie, so I will not be forced to type with my thumbs today. KDO, I don’t know how you do it!

9:34 AM The tribunal enters. There’s a little ritual that plays out each time: the two contending sides, and some of the spectators, rise, as you would for a real judge in a real court. The rest of us stay seated, in silent protest.

9:36 AM Faisal Joseph up for the complainants. He’s promising to treat us to a tour of some of the seamier parts of the blogosphere. No guilt like guilt by association. He dumped a bunch of material on the Maclean’s side only last night — and apparently some more stuff this morning — which would ordinarily be out of order but not, as by now you will have guessed, here.

9:40 AM Kurrum Awan back on the stand. Joseph entering a Sept 2006 Ottawa Citizen poll in evidence, showing that two in five Canadians back racial profiling. Aha, clearly the evil hand of Steyn at work: he’s already influencing public opinion even before the Maclean’s piece appeared!

Whoops – not a poll, just a clipping of a Doug Fisher column. (Doug Fisher!? I thought he’d retired by then?) The panel is solemnly studying it… And studying it…. And studying… Now they’re going to “retire” to consider it. In this case that means actually leaving the room — as often as not they just kind of swivel round in their chairs and put their heads together, like kids sketching out a football play, though I’m willing to guess the other two go along with whatever the chair, alpha-commissioner Heather MacNaughton, says.

9:53 AM I remain impressed with Steyn’s ability to influence opinion even in advance of publication. I admit this seems implausible. However, we must always remember, good people of Salem, that when when it comes to witches, all things are possible, natural and supernatural… Continue…