Barbara Hall has higher priorities than human rights
In his testimony to the Ontario parliament on Monday afternoon, Mark Steyn accused the province’s Human Rights Tribunal of ignoring honour killings. When Toronto Sun columnist Christina Blizzard asked Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC), to comment about that, she received a troubling response.
It was her response to Steyn’s criticism of OHRC’s silence on honour killings that shocked me.
“There are thousands of things that happen in the province of Ontario on a daily basis and we don’t comment on all of them,” she said.
But, I spluttered, women are being murdered.
“As I said, we are a small commission.
“There are many problematic things that happen in our community and we have to make choices because we can’t respond to everything,” Hall said.
So honour killings are merely “problematic”?
It’s a question of priorities. The OHRC hasn’t got time to worry about women getting killed for disrespecting a male relative. Barbara Hall has bigger fish to fry, like sitting in judgment of every word published by Canadian newspapers, magazines, and websites.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and “media services” Web sites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.
For Barbara Hall and the OHRC, some things are simply more important than human rights.
h/t: Kathy Shaidle and Ezra Levant