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By Deborah Gyapong
Canadian Catholic News
HUMAN RIGHTS complaints against Maclean's magazine, for running an excerpt of conservative columnist Mark Steyn's bestselling book America Alone, have raised alarms about the rise in government sponsored censorship in Canada -- especially against Christians.
Mohammed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress has launched complaints with the Canadian, British Columbia and Ontario Human Rights Commissions, describing the Steyn book excerpt -- entitled 'The Future Belongs to Islam' -- as "flagrantly anti-Muslim."
The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the BC Human Rights Commission have both agreed to hear the complaints, while Ontario's has been considering it.
"The Canadian Islamic Congress is arguing that my article is a 'crime,'" Steyn wrote on the National Review Online blog The Corner on December 17. "By accepting the case, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has indicated it's prepared at least to consider the possibility that it's a 'crime.'"
He added: "That in itself is a significant concession to my opponents, and damaging not just to me but to the concept of a free press."
Iain Benson, a lawyer who specializes in religious freedom issues, agrees.
"I think that such claims are dangerous as a free and democratic society must allow the maximum freedom of speech and the press particularly on matters such as the nature and extent of Islam in Canada. Just like the nature and extent of atheism or Catholicism in Canada," said Benson, who was speaking as an individual and not for the Centre of Cultural Renewal where he is executive director. "These should all be 'fair game' for fair comment."
Catholic and social conservative activist John Pacheco shares Benson's concerns. "Mark Steyn is probably most popular conservative commentator in the world. If he can be attacked, it does not bode well for freedom of speech for Canadians."
Pacheco has launched an online petition, asking the prime minister and provincial premiers to suspend human rights commissions until there is an impartial review to make sure freedom of speech is protected.
"We consider many complaints launched through so-called 'human rights commissions' to be political tools to shut down dissent and uphold politically correct thought and opinion," the petition at SoCon.ca states. "In particular, we note the inordinate number of successful cases brought against conservatives and, in particular, Christians."
Pacheco pointed out that Steyn is a Christian, and that there has been a litany of human rights complaints against Christians in recent years, mostly for alleged homophobia or discrimination against homosexuals.
These include complaints against Calgary Bishop Fred Henry for a 2005 pastoral letter on marriage; a 1995 complaint against the Mayor of London Ontario, Diane Haskett, who as a Christian refused to recognize Gay Pride Day; the complaint against Christian printer Scott Brockie who refused to print gay advocacy material; and complaints against various people who have written letters to the editor or distributed pamphlets that have been deemed anti-homosexual.
While some complaints, like those against Bishop Henry, were eventually dropped, many others have resulted in substantial fines -- such as the $10,000 fine against Haskett and the City of London. While the complainant does not have any costs in making a complaint, defendants must pick up their own legal tabs. In the case involving a complaint against a BC Knights of Columbus chapter, the BC Human Rights Commission ruled that the Knights had the right to refuse to rent it for a lesbian wedding reception, but still insisted the Knights pay $1,000 to each of the complainants to compensate them for their hurt feelings.
While many complaints against Christians have received scant coverage in the mainstream news media, the complaints against Steyn and Maclean's are gaining traction, even in newspapers and well-trafficked blogs in the United States. One American blogger, Hugh Hewitt, who is also a talk radio host, has called for a boycott of Canadian goods and tourism.
Most politicians have been silent, except for Canada's multiculturalism secretary of state Jason Kenney.
"To be attacking opinions expressed by a columnist in a major magazine is a pretty bold attack on the basic Canadian value of freedom of the press and freedom of expression," Kenney told the Canadian Press December 12. "I think all Canadians would reject that kind of effort to undermine one of our basic freedoms."
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Though some conservative columnists have raised concerns that the outcry from the mainstream media is rather feeble, some of the strongest defenders of Maclean's right to print Steyn's book excerpt have come from other Muslims, especially from representatives of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC).
"Labelling Canada's premier weekly news magazine as a carrier of Islamophobic literature is a thinly veiled attack on freedom of press that will serve no purpose other than to reinforce the stereotype that Muslims have little empathy for vigorous debate and democracy," said MCC president Farzana Hassan in a press release.
MCC members have said they disagree with Steyn's arguments, but would prefer to refute them in an open debate rather than use the levers of the state to censor them.
-- courtesy Canadian Catholic News. Please do not reprint without permission.
Related stories:
Muslim students file rights complaints over Maclean's article
But Muslim Canadian Congress defends Maclean's freedom of expression
CBC News, December 5
Suing for silence
The right to free expression of opinion and belief -- though constrained in its extremes during wartime -- is not something that can be negotiated in a free country. For it is the most fundamental right -- the queen bee in the hive, as it were. Every other freedom depends on this freedom. Take it away, and we no longer have a free country. . . . I make this point in light of the case that has been brought against Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine, before Human Rights Commissions for Canada, British Columbia, and Ontario, by the Canadian Islamic Congress, led by Mohamed Elmasry. The first two commissions have already agreed to hear the case, and thus rule on whether Mark Steyn had the right to express the opinions and beliefs in his bestselling book, America Alone, and specifically in the excerpt entitled, "The Future Belongs to Islam," which ran in Maclean's last year. According to the complaint, by expressing his opinions and beliefs, Mark Steyn "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and Islamophobia." That not all Muslims agree, has been made clear by members of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who have entered the fray in defence of Steyn and Maclean's. But that is a tactical side issue.
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, December 9
Tory minister slams Islamic Congress complaint against journalist
A Conservative cabinet minister says the Canadian Islamic Congress is attempting to undermine basic Charter freedoms by filing complaints against a journalist who wrote a book on the Muslim world. Jason Kenney, the secretary of state for multiculturalism, weighed in Wednesday on the controversy surrounding columnist Mark Steyn's bestseller America Alone. The Canadian Islamic Congress has filed complaints with federal and provincial human rights commissions based on an excerpt of Steyn's book that appeared in Maclean's Magazine in October.
Canadian Press, December 12
The arguments may be drivel but that's no reason to censor them
In one sense, this is a depressingly familiar battle over free speech. But it's also unique, and uniquely depressing, because the core of Steyn's argument is that Muslim immigrants are a threat to the West because they are not embracing core western values. One of those core values is freedom of thought and expression. So how does the CIC respond? By insisting Steyn should be punished for writing that.
Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen, December 15
Hurtin'
These days in Canada, if you're feeling down and blue, and you think somebody hates you, you bring your case to a Human Rights Tribunal. And the people you think hate you get that knock on the door, celebrated in the literature of the Soviet Gulag, and wherever else ideology triumphed over humanity in the 20th century's painful course. . . . I mentioned last week the case Mohamed Elmasry and the Canadian Islamic Congress have brought against Maclean's magazine for publishing Mark Steyn -- simultaneously before multiple human rights commissions, a tactic that is itself an egregious abuse of process. It is a case that should clang alarm bells right across Canada. Yet we've heard only a few modest tinkles.
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, December 16
Censorship In The Name Of 'Human Rights'
The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) is taking Maclean's magazine to a human rights commission. Its crime? Refusing the CIC's absurd demand that Maclean's print a five-page letter to the editor in response to an article the CIC didn't like. It may shock those who do not follow human rights law in Canada, but Maclean's will probably lose.
Ezra Levant, National Post, December 18
January 3/2008
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Perhaps they need a nap.
It should be pointed out that in Canada no individual has the exclusive right not to be offended.
The Supreme Court has ruled:
"The key is that people will disagree about important issues, and such disagreement, where it does not imperil community living, must be capable of being accommodated at the core of a modern pluralism. People are free to disagree with our beliefs as they wish",
The argument that "...if one's moral view manifests from a religiously grounded faith, it is not to be heard in the public square, but if it does not, then it is publicly acceptable. The problem with this approach is that everyone has "belief" or "faith" in something, be it atheistic, agnostic or religious. To construe the "secular" as the realm of the "unbelief" is therefore erroneous. (Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36)
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