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Binks asks a question, but gets no response
by Scott Gilbreath ~ November 4th, 2008
Near the end of the morning session at the Joseph Howe Symposium, the mighty Binky made his way to the microphone and posed a question to the panelists: Wayne MacKay, Krista Daley, and Noa Mendelsohn Aviv. My recorder wasn’t on at that time (to save the battery), so I paraphrase from memory. He said something like this.
If I’m Ezra Levant (but I’m not), or Mark Steyn, or Margaret Wente, or Macleans magazine, and something I wrote or published is the subject of a complaint to a human rights commission, I have resources at hand to help with a defence. I have legal resources, financial resources, connections to important and influential Canadians. I have the ability to mount an articulate and legally solid defence.
But if I’m Joe Schlub, or Jane Schlub, and I’m hauled before a human rights commission for an opinion I expressed, I have none of that. I’m not as visible or well-connected as Levant or Macleans. I’m alone and I probably can’t afford a good lawyer to speak for me at hearings. I have very little, if any, hope for success before a human rights tribunal.
Are you concerned that a two-tier justice system has developed in human rights commission matters? Are you concerned that accused Canadians who are poor and marginalised do not get a fair hearing in human rights proceedings?
The Binkster gave a clear and direct critical question to the morning panel. The audience interrupted him twice with applause, the first questioner so interrupted.
So, how did the assembled experts respond? It was, to say the least, underwhelming. Law professor Wayne MacKay mumbled a few words about how that might be a concern—and that was it.
To be fair, the question was not directed at Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, for she did not defend the role of human rights commissions as speech cops. So, her silence was not unexpected.
Krista Daley, however, is a whole ‘nother story. She’s the director of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, and she defended to the hilt the work of human rights commissions. Her opening remarks earlier that morning evinced not a shadow of doubt about their essential contribution to the progressive improvement of Canadian society as it marches onward and upward toward her utopian vision.
What’s more, she said this during her opening remarks:
I might have time to talk about process in the HRC, I might not, but that can certainly be something I can talk about during the question and answer period.
Binky’s question pointedly criticised the fairness of human rights commission procedures—a fundamental aspect of the process of human rights bureaucracies—but Ms Daley had nothing to say.
Her silence speaks volumes.
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November 4th, 2008 at 09:19 PM
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