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Opening statements in CCEPA debate
by Scott Gilbreath ~ October 31st, 2008
As promised , I took copious notes last night at the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs (CCEPA) debate on human rights and free speech. Rather than pronounce my verdict on the evening, I’ve decided initially to share my notes online so everyone can draw their own conclusions.
This post will cover only the opening remarks of the four speakers. This portion occupied about 30 minutes of a two-hour meeting, so there will be more to come.
NB: These are my notes, not an official transcript. I stand by the accuracy of these notes as an honest reflection of what was said, but what appears below should not taken as a verbatim record of the proceedings. (I have speakers using the pronoun “I” for convenience, not necessarily to suggest direct quotation.)
CCEPA will make available a DVD of the evening’s discussion in about three weeks.
I estimate that 80-100 people came to the hall at St Mary’s University, which has a capacity of approximately 300.
The four panelists spoke in this order:
Dan Leger, Director of News Content, Halifax Chronicle Herald
Krista Daley, Director and CEO, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (NSHRC)
Mark Mercer, Professor of Philosophy, Saint Mary’s University.
Pearl Eliadis, Montreal Human Rights Lawyer
The moderator was Kevin Kindred, Lawyer and Chair of the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project.
The presentation began with Chris Stover, General Manager, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs, who welcomed us to the evening’s event and introduced the moderator.
Kevin Kindred Opening Remarks
He welcomed us to a debate on an issue that is important but sometimes volatile. He will try to be an impartial moderator. He himself is a lawyer and human rights activist on behalf of homosexual rights, but will put that aside this evening. He will try to ensure that we hear from all four panelists equally.
The human rights vs free speech controversy has been called the perfect storm of public policy issues.
He mentioned three legal cases that, in his view, exemplify the issues:
1. Stephen Boissoin, complaint brought by Darren Lund
-case decided in Alberta
2. Craig Harrison, complaint brought by Richard Warman
-case heard by Canadian HRC
3. Macleans, complaint brought by three Muslim students
-complaint considered by three jurisdictions, none of which sustained the complaint: Canada, Ontario, BC
Each speaker will make an opening statement. Then I will ask questions of the speakers, then members of the audience will be able to ask questions.
Dan Leger Opening Statement
I’m not an expert in human rights; I’m a journalist. I receive complaints and special pleadings about newspaper articles every day; people insist on a right to rebut or dispute.
We live in a marketplace of ideas. Some people don’t like that. I am a small-l liberal: I respect all races, creeds, etc.
I don’t like everyone who agrees with me on the importance of free speech. Some of them I wouldn’t have lunch with; I wouldn’t introduce them to my daughter. We have a philosophical agreement that freedom of speech is an essential part of our democracy, but I don’t necessarily like what they say or do.
Re Danish cartoons: Chronicle Herald did not publish them, although Mark Mercer and others thought we should. Why not publish them? They weren’t very good—they weren’t funny—and they weren’t ours. Anyone who wanted to see them could go online.
We have an award-winning cartoonist, Bruce MacKinnon. He is paid to hurt feelings. Cartoonists are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. They’re supposed to prod, to get into places conventional journalists cannot.
Re MacKinnon cartoon of Cheryfa Jamal: complaint brought by Centre for Islamic Development. When we were finally able to sit down with CID, we had a good, friendly conversation. Mutual understanding increased tremendously.
Freedom of speech, for me, is not an abstraction, it’s a daily issue. I defend it, even if sometimes I don’t like the people I’m defending.
Another reason for intensity of issue: effect of the internet. Anonymity of e-mail allows people to send hate to me and many others with impunity. I can’t find them in the street to punch them in the mouth. They can say what they want, be as cowardly as they want and sound like they’re big guys, even though they’re writing from their mother’s basement on their little computers.
Steyn and Levant have a job to do. They’re free lancers. Controversy is great for journalists. I’m not surprised to see it happen, but I am surprised that people take it so seriously.
Krista Daley Opening Statement
Topic tonight: juxtaposition between freedom of expression and human rights. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. All rights have to intertwine and interconnect. If you start to give one right primacy over the others, the whole thing will unravel.
I have worked in fledgling democracies. Our system is a gift, the idea that all our rights are interconnected.
What is the connection between freedom of expression and right to be free of discrimination? Words can discriminate, affect self-esteem, raise self-doubt, loss of dignity. Have discriminatory effect.
At what point does freedom of expression step over a line that would cause discrimination and cause contempt against some groups that have been targeted in our society?
NSHRC founded in law, structured process, not arbitrary decision, all in accordance with law.
What is the role of the HRC? Why not go to criminal law, the courts? What are advantages and benefits in using HRCs to try to find balance between freedom of expression and freedom from discrimination? HRCs have existed for long time—40 years—and have years of expertise in area of discrimination and historical context of discriminated groups in society.
HRCs simpler than courts, more cost-effective, and have more flexibility regarding remedies. Also, we facilitate discussions between parties to grievances as opposed to criminal court with verdicts, convictions, and criminal records.
Mark Mercer Opening Statement
My 8-year-old son was studying the French Revolution. He wondered how the Terror could be carried out by something calling itself The Committee of Public Safety.
It doesn’t matter if HRCs are behaving well under their mandate. No one should be subject to government censorship for three central reasons.
1. Life is worth living only if you have something that matters to you, something that you care about. We are social creatures. It matters to us that others know who are and what we’re about, know what we’re thinking and saying.
2. Consent of the governed necessary for legitimacy of government. If you are forbidden to say certain things, then you are not in a position to give consent to government policy. Impossible to consent without opportunity to influence government.
3. Respect for individual autonomy. Telling someone to “shut up” is to treat them as a child. Not proper treatment even for a child. They cannot find their own way of life for themselves. Proper ways to correct misbehaviour: evidence and example. Otherwise, we treat them disrespectfully.
How is balance achieved by shutting people up?
It is a social project to foster a society in which no one is vilified.
Three conditions for restriction of free expression:
1. Problem addressed must be a real problem of speech causing discrimination
2. Means must be effective to desired end. Need empirical evidence that restrictions are effective in stemming discrimination.
3. Means must not create worse problems than the problems you’re trying to solve. Restrictions need to apply only to real haters.
Section 13 and other restrictive legislation certainly fails conditions 2 and 3, and sometimes 1 as well.
Re condition 1: the problem is serious. Some reasonably fear personal safety because of what someone has said. That is terrible and must be addressed. Being offended is not the real problem, but that is what HRCs often deal with.
Re condition 2: There is no empirical evidence that HRCs are effective in reducing discrimination. I know of only two studies, and both were inconclusive. What are the demonstrable social benefits of HRCs?
Re condition 3: Innocent people fear speaking freely because of HRC rulings.
Get rid of Section 13 and other restrictions on free speech.
Pearl Eliades Opening Statement
I agree with most of what all three speakers said.
Disagree with notion that speech is fundamentally different from other human acts and therefore deserves special protection. Speech is an act. For example: Harassment can be perpetrated solely by words. HRCs routinely accept cases where the act complained of consists purely of words. People are harassed on basis of sex, race, sexual orientation, etc.
What is the difference in present controversy? It isn’t the speech; it’s the fact that it’s been written down and published. The media are engaged.
Re marketplace of ideas. The media have a direct interest in the outcome. They themselves have constrained the marketplace.
People in the media have taken this very seriously. Because Macleans and CanWest are affected, they take the controversy very seriously. These aren’t crazy people with bad haircuts sitting in their basements. MSM have printed gossip and rumours about Richard Warman. His home address has been published online with a map and optimal sniper locations.
Those who have threatened to kill Warman have also threatened HRC officials and Barack Obama. One was arrested earlier this week in the US.
There is a great deal of empirical evidence for those of us who have worked in Rwanda or Sri Lanka. Journalists are systematically attacked and oppressed.
There is also evidence that speech, words, are fundamental human acts that can kill or hurt or damage.
I support freedom of speech, it is a fundamental human right, but issues of libel, incitement to genocide, incitement to hatred, do need to be carefully watched. Society needs to be vigilant, we need to care.
UPDATE (31 Oct.): Next installment here.
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October 31st, 2008 at 03:15 PM
Krista Daley – Scares me!!!!!
“HRCs simpler than courts, more cost-effective, and have more flexibility regarding remedies.”
So it’s easier? Right, exactly who wants to bother with those real courts, real law, even if they are older than 40 – What BS!!!!
More cost effective? For whom exactly? Yes far more flexible. We cant make MURDER’S apologize to the families of their victims but will shut any one else up with a difference of opionin.
I’m going to go bobbing for apples now – maybe I’ll be lucky and drown in the water as opposed to drowning in her BS!!!!!
What “rules” should we as Canadians be following — the very cut and dried indications of the Canadian Constitution and Canadian law or the vague outlines of section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Code?
The rights to freedom of speech, expression and religion are all in great danger as a result of this particular section in a code that does not even deign to allow itself to be governed by the standard rules of law. It simply runs rampant over our rights as Canadians, saying that it is “protecting” the rights of “other” Canadians.
Aren’t we all entitled to our opinions? Aren’t we all entitled to the same rights?
October 31st, 2008 at 08:52 PM
“I support freedom of speech, it is a fundamental human right, but issues of libel, incitement to genocide, incitement to hatred, do need to be carefully watched…”
Pearl Eliades – scares me!!!!
1. She does not even know what freedom of speech is if she thinks she is
supporting it.
2. Where in libel law has ‘incitement to hatred’ been recently added? It
hasn’t. This is Pearl’s HRC law.
3. Finally, the scariest of all, we “do need to be carefully watched’ by Pearl
I guess, like children. Hell, the whole HRC industry is staffed by a
bunch of busy body naturally nurturing women….and a few unnaturally
nuturing men.
Fire them all and find them government paid daycare jobs at lot lower salaries.
October 31st, 2008 at 08:58 PM
that would be “..and a few unnaturally nurturing men”. Heh, I like the typo version better I think.
November 2nd, 2008 at 02:09 AM
“HRCs simpler than courts, more cost-effective, and have more flexibility regarding remedies.”
And tyranny is easier, cost effective and truncated civil systems, so much more streamlined for the aspiring autocratic termite than that mucky old democracy. Termites have a hard time outside the ant hill society that’s why real populist democracy stymies them.
They lead off their argument with a distraction and a lie. The fact is section 13 (1) of the CHR act has been arbitrarily interpreted by zealots in the HR industry to be a defacto speech code to which only industry insiders have the arcane [artisan key to unlock application od this code….generally on their ideological dissenters.
Speech codes are not “human rights. It is sovietism wrapped in Christmas paper. The disingenuous human rights industry workers who advocate for expansion of the quasi judicial commissariat into a speech code enforcer will be on the morally wrong side of history and on the losing end of the eternal battle between tyranny and freedom.
November 2nd, 2008 at 07:35 PM
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