Spare me the therapeutic platitudes
By Mark Steyn - Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 100 Comments
I’m supposed to be happy my room complaint is a growth experience for hotel staff?
As readers may recall, a few weeks ago I was invited to testify at the House of Commons about the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission. While in Ottawa, I stayed at a certain local hostelry that shall be nameless (the Château Laurier). I don’t like to complain. Seriously. I do so much of it for a living that I resent giving it away for free in private. But my room was unsatisfactory in many basic respects, and, a few days after I drew them to the attention of the gal at the checkout desk, an email arrived from the Assistant Manager, Housekeeping, which I quote in full:
“I would like to extend my thanks for bringing these issues to our attention. We truly appreciate Guest feedback, as it enables us to learn and grow from difficult experiences and truly strive to improve the overall Guest experience. Continue…
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Name the date, Jennifer. I’ll be there.
By Mark Steyn - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 8:55 AM - 91 Comments
The CHRC’s chief commissioner claims she is seeking a ‘balanced debate.’ Here’s my offer.
Last week, I wrote about the neo-nationalist and quasi-fascist parties elected to the European Parliament. When a political movement calls itself, as in Bulgaria, the Attack Party, one naturally expects to hear the martial drum of approaching jackboots. But, in western Europe and in North America, the reality is that fascism pitter-patters in on cashmere slippers, smooth, unthreatening and beguiling as it gently ushers us ever deeper into Soft Despotism (to use the title of Paul Rahe’s new tome) or (to take Kathy Shaidle’s and Pete Vere’s book) The Tyranny Of Nice.And so it is that the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, after lying low during the worst year-and-a-half in its existence, now feels it safe to poke its head above the parapet. A year ago, at the height of publicity over its investigation of Maclean’s for publishing an excerpt of my book, the CHRC sought to get itself off the hook in the traditional manner: commission a report. They signed up professor Richard Moon, who’s no pal of mine and is distressingly partial to state censorship. Yet, amazingly, his findings, published at the end of last year, recommended the abolition of Section 13—not, alas, on the grounds that this abominable “law” licensing ideological apparatchiks to police the opinions of the citizenry is at odds with eight centuries of Canada’s legal inheritance, but on the narrower utilitarian basis that in the age of the Internet Section 13 is unenforceable.
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Freedom of Expression in Canada: even better than Equatorial Guinea
By Michael Petrou - Friday, January 16, 2009 at 12:07 PM - 38 Comments
Freedom House, an NGO that tracks the progress and decline of democracy around the world, has voiced concern about Canada for the first time I can remember:
“Canada faced threats to freedom of expression as government agencies brought charges against journalists who wrote commentaries that were critical of Islam,” it concludes in its 2009 report.
Jennifer Lynch, and the rest of you at the Canadian Human Rights Commission, take a deep bow.
