The Liberals understand that “environmentalism” is all the rage in Canada these days, and are trying to maximize their electoral fortunes. That’s why they’re proposing a painful new tax on carbon emissions that will cause us to “change our behaviour” when it comes to oil and gas products.

We get to freeze in winter, swelter in summer, and ride around on bicycles all year round. But don’t worry, it’s all for the environment. If we don’t feel the pain now, we’ll feel even more later. And the (nanny) state knows best… Right?

I wonder how well this reconciles with the Liberals’ new proposal to ban spanking as a means of parental discipline…

The Liberal-dominated Senate has voted to introduce legislation that would eliminate Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which states that parents and caretakers are “justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child (aged 2 to 12) … if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.”

In other words, they want to define the reasonable discipline of children as criminal assault.

This legislation, together with a recent court decision overturning the grounding of a 13-year-old girl in Quebec, demonstrates that government is eager to get in on the discipline business… against parents that is. In short, responsible adults are being prohibited from making reasonable decisions regarding the discipline of their own children. The natural family is being eroded in favour of nanny state standardization.

So the government gets to impose whatever painful punishments it feels like, so as to change our behaviour. But when responsible parents want to change their children’s behavior, they go to jail.

Nice logic, Stéphane Dion.

[ 21 June 2008: Message edited by: Jeremy Maddock ]

But Dion is a hypocrite, and that's worse.

Okay then, feel free to refute it.

The point is that the government holds itself to a much different standard than it does free citizens.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeremy Maddock:
I'm not a big fan of the NDP either, but at least they stick to their principles.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ohara:
Anyone who references "Ezra Levant" on anything should be suspect.

---

"I'm embarrassed that so many People of the Book are involved in high tech book-burnings. But I'm angry that they're doing so in my name, as a fellow Jew.

It's just a handful of Official Jews; most normal Jews I know are hostile to censorship. But when you call yourself the "Canadian Jewish Congress", you fool a lot of people -- just like something calling itself a "human rights commission" fools a lot of people, too."Ezra Levant

[ 21 June 2008: Message edited by: contrarianna ]

Well alas and alack, it would seem that this thread, having started off a bit on the edge, is going seriously thither.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jaku:
ezra levant's homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-feminist rants deserve no credibility here.

---

"I'm embarrassed that so many People of the Book are involved in high tech book-burnings. But I'm angry that they're doing so in my name, as a fellow Jew.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
It seems like the Left (in Canada) has almost abandoned freedom of speech and expression as being a core civil liberty.

The task of protecting that civil liberty is left to the Ezra Levants of the country.

---

Yes, you're quite right there. And free speech is only one example (albeit, probably the most important).

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sven:
It seems like the Left (in Canada) has almost abandoned freedom of speech and expression as being a core civil liberty.

The task of protecting that civil liberty is left to the Ezra Levants of the country.

---

Well, if you read what Michelle and others have to say about this I don't think you could say that with a straight face.

also i was struck by the fact that none of the cases in which complaints were upheld were ever successfuly appealed to federal court according to an interview i read this weekend with jennifer lynch the head of the chrc. if the law is as bad as claimed why has a court not found so?

this has been presented as a very black and white issue. i do not know a lot about it but i do know that nothing is ever black and white.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
It seems like the Left (in Canada) has almost abandoned freedom of speech and expression as being a core civil liberty.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jaku:
jrootham, i happen to agree with you. for me i cannot help but notice that when nazis were being brought before human rights tribunals no one said a word. sure nazis are easy but the same principles apply. now that mark steyn (really a polemecist writing some very hateful things about muslims) is facing a similar human rights complaint journalists seem to be having massive seizures. i guess i don't undersatnd why journalists are any different than anyone else but mostly i wonder why it is that when the muslim community lays a complaint all of a sudden the world is not good. if i were muslim i too would begin to wonder.

also i was struck by the fact that none of the cases in which complaints were upheld were ever successfuly appealed to federal court according to an interview i read this weekend with jennifer lynch the head of the chrc. if the law is as bad as claimed why has a court not found so?

this has been presented as a very black and white issue. i do not know a lot about it but i do know that nothing is ever black and white.

i am also concerened that it is the national post and the extreme right wing blogs that have really been anti-human rights commissions. they have even agitated to get rid of these commissions all together. i think we may have fallen into a right wing trap and are being used by those whose aims are not so pure.

---

The reason that no appeal has been successful is that the legal grounds of appeal are very limited.

Human Rights Tribunals essentially have the authority of real courts (their verdicts can be enforced at the Supreme Court/Queen's Bench level), but they lack the basic rules of court, and their edicts cannot be appealed in the same way as Provincial Court decisions.

quote:

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Originally posted by jrootham:
Well, if you read what Michelle and others have to say about this I don't think you could say that with a straight face.

---

To reiterate, I can say this with a straight face: "It seems like the Left (in Canada) has almost abandoned freedom of speech and expression as being a core civil liberty."

To be clear, there is a small minority of people on the Left who still champion free speech and expression...so, the Left has "almost" abandoned it as a principle worth defending.

quote:

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Originally posted by jrootham:
Me, I don't think what the Human Rights Commissions are doing amounts to an attack on freedom of speech.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jeremy Maddock:
The reason that no appeal has been successful is that the legal grounds of appeal are very limited.

---

That is true for labour board or arbitration decisions (for example), whose decisions are generally immunized from normal appeal or review by a so-called "privative clause". But it is not true for human rights tribunals. They get no special protection from appeal:

quote:

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Even absent a privative clause, courts have shown curial deference to certain specialized tribunals when interpreting their own Acts. However, a human rights tribunal does not have the kind of expertise that should enjoy curial deference on matters other than findings of fact. The question in this case is one of law.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jaku:
my friend who is much more familiar with these matters than am i tells me that all decisions by a the federal human right tribunal can be sent for judicial review.

---

I’ve received a fair number of readers (and even some feedback) on my latest article, which exposes the inherent hypocrisy of two laws recently proposed by the Liberal Party of Canada.

One member of Rabble.ca called it “the most absurdly painful forcing together of totally differing issues in an attempt to make a point I’ve seen in a while.”

But nobody seems willing to refute the simple conclusion: the Liberal Party is illogical, illiberal, and unprincipled. At least the NDP (despite its socialist leanings) has some principles, and the Conservative Party (despite its lack of principle) vaguely believes in the concept of economic freedom.

But the Liberals are willing to propose a law allowing mediocre bureaucrats to “cause some pain” in order to “change your behaviour,” then immediately introduce legislation that would make it illegal for parents to do the same thing with their own children.

The only difference between these two issues is that children sometimes need reasonable and loving discipline to help them understand personal responsibility and prepare them for existence in a free society. But the state wants a monopoly on discipline, and (in many cases) seems hostile to the very concept of a free society. So the “Liberal” Party has decided to lead the way in establishing new authoritarian policies.

How “socially progressive” of them.

quote:

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Catchfire: I think I'd support a law that demanded beatings for CEOs who polluted with abandon.

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quote:

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the Liberal Party is illogical, illiberal, and unprincipled.

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If you're looking for someone to disagree with that, you are in the wrong place.

quote:

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Conservative Party (despite its lack of principle) vaguely believes in the concept of economic freedom.

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quote:

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Human Rights Tribunals essentially have the authority of real courts (their verdicts can be enforced at the Supreme Court/Queen's Bench level), but they lack the basic rules of court, and their edicts cannot be appealed in the same way as Provincial Court decisions.

---

This is false.

Human Rights Tribunals are not criminal courts. Their decisions can be appealed.

Human Rights Tribunals are "quasi-judicial tribunals" whose decisions are appealable to the Superior Courts.

Their rules are identical to those of all other quasi-judicial tribunals. Allegations are to be proven to the civil standard of proof, because their judgments are civil in nature, and do not involve the pssibility of incarceration.

If you peruse the rules of the Immigration Appeal Division, the Landlord Tenant Tribunals, the Social Assistance Review Board, and other similar Boards, you will find that all use a basic system of rules which in Ontario is embodied in the Statutory Powers Procedures Act.

quote:

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:

You realize if there was such a law, many professional dominatrixes would be out of business?

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Not necessarily. They could be paid by the government to administer the beatings, if you set it up under the single-payer model.

Scary thing is, I don't think transfer payments for that would EVER be cut.

[ 23 June 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

In the case of Section 13.1, I go with PEN Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and all those who see it as a threat to democracy.

I side with those "left wingers" and "right wingers" who also see this legislation as a threat to civil liberties.

I am opposed to those "left-wingers" and "right-wingers" who see this section as good thing that will be beneficial to their agenda.
=====
Among the converts to this way of thinking:
"Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, gives the example of Hitler's Willing Executioners, a book by a Harvard historian that alleges the complicity of German civilians in the Holocaust, a thesis that is arguably "likely to expose" German people to contempt.
...
Mr. Borovoy was one of the main agitators for the establishment of that commission, which he said took over human rights complaints from "over-worked civil servants in the labour ministry."

But today, he is among those who say the commissions have started to go off the rails.

"It just never occurred to anybody that this instrument we were struggling to create would ever be used against the expression of opinion," said Mr. Borovoy, who supports the scrapping of 13.1.

"Although it's true that they have nailed some genuine hatemongers with it, it has nevertheless been used or threatened to be used against a wide variety of constituencies who don't bear the slightest resemblance to the kind of hatemongers that were originally envisioned: anti-American protesters, French-Canadian nationalists, a film sympathetic to South Africa's Nelson Mandela, a pro-Zionist book, a Jewish community leader, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, and even a couple years ago, a pro-Israeli speaker was briefed about the anti-hate law by a police detective before he went in to make a speech," he said.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jingles:

Economic freedom? No need for euphemisms here. What you meant to say was that conservatives believe in the concept of upwardly vertical redistribution of wealth, and with this concept you'll find your hated Liberals very much in agreement.

---

True economic freedom doesn't recognize the idea of "redistribution of wealth" one way or another, nor would it necessarily disadvantage the average person.

Doing away with personal income tax (and the surrounding bureaucratic mess) would be a step in the right direction, as would the easing of many regulations, particularly with regard to small businesses. The elimination of corporate welfare and crony capitalism would also bring the free market system back to its roots.

But the bigger government gets, the more intent it will become on tinkering with the economy and "overruling" decisions that can only legitimately be made by the market.

The ideal government would be significantly reduced in size. Taxes on income/profits/dividends would be replaced by a Fair Tax on consumption (preferably at the local level). Many essential services would be paid for through direct taxation.

Government in most of the developed world has become a self-serving bureaucratic engine. People tolerate its bloatedness because they like the idea of a "safety net," the very concept of which is completely unsustainable.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeremy Maddock:

...decisions that can only legitimately be made by the market.

---

I think you will find other websites that are more receptive to nutty versions of supplyside economics.

[ 23 June 2008: Message edited by: contrarianna ]

Then, with government reduced to nothing like Jeremy wants, the rich face no constraints on their obsession with forcing everyone else to live at their economic mercy.

Sorry, Jeremy, we had that in the 12th century. It was called feudalism. Most people mainly had the freedom to succumb to the plague at the age of 35.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

This is false.

Human Rights Tribunals are not criminal courts. Their decisions can be appealed.

Human Rights Tribunals are "quasi-judicial tribunals" whose decisions are appealable to the Superior Courts.

Their rules are identical to those of all other quasi-judicial tribunals. Allegations are to be proven to the civil standard of proof, because their judgments are civil in nature, and do not involve the pssibility of incarceration.

If you peruse the rules of the Immigration Appeal Division, the Landlord Tenant Tribunals, the Social Assistance Review Board, and other similar Boards, you will find that all use a basic system of rules which in Ontario is embodied in the Statutory Powers Procedures Act.

It is a right-wing bamboozlement point to claim that Human Rights Tribunals "lack the basic rules of a court".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by contrarianna:

=====
Among the converts to this way of thinking:
"Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, gives the example of Hitler's Willing Executioners, a book by a Harvard historian that alleges the complicity of German civilians in the Holocaust, a thesis that is arguably "likely to expose" German people to contempt.
...
Mr. Borovoy was one of the main agitators for the establishment of that commission, which he said took over human rights complaints from "over-worked civil servants in the labour ministry."

But today, he is among those who say the commissions have started to go off the rails.

"It just never occurred to anybody that this instrument we were struggling to create would ever be used against the expression of opinion," said Mr. Borovoy, who supports the scrapping of 13.1.

.

---

[ 23 June 2008: Message edited by: ohara ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by contrarianna:

And decisions of the "the market" are legitimate because, well, its The Market.

I think you will find other websites that are more receptive to nutty versions of supplyside economics.

[ 23 June 2008: Message edited by: contrarianna ]

---

The market is legitimate because it is based on free choice and honest competition between multiple actors (obviously, some basic regulation is needed to keep all parties honest).

It goes without saying that the results of a free market system are not always perfect for everyone involved. Sometimes they don't even seem fair.

I understand that you guys at Rabble are on some grand, ideological crusade to iron out all the unfairness in the world, and in a way, I almost respect your idealism.

The reality, however, is that choice and freedom, and by extension capitalism, are consistent with human nature. Solving problems through coerced collectivism is not.

If you create a system that gives all the power to government, you might stifle capitalism, but the selfish part of the human spirit will come out in other, far more destructive ways (read: extreme government corruption, even Stalinism).

Anyway, people have had this debate a million times. Most of the people on this forum have obviously made up their minds, so there's no point in having a grand theoretical debate.

So you can keep advancing your ideas, and I'll keep advancing mine... it's (supposed to be) a free country.

...

Speaking of which, I just did a bit of research regarding judicial review of Human Rights Tribunal verdicts. Unionist and jeff house are correct in saying that Human Rights Tribunals get no special protection from judicial review.

The standard of review, however, is a very complicated legal topic. A detailed report on it can be found at http://www.gov.bc.ca/ajo/down/standard_of_review.pdf, if anyone is interested.

The point I was trying to make (in saying that HRT appeals are difficult) is expressed by the author at the top of page 34:

quote:

---

... over the past 20 years, reviewing courts have been asked to grant deference to administrative tribunals in areas and in ways that extend beyond the deference that appeal courts have traditionally granted to trial courts.

---

In other words, courts are much less likely to strike down an administrative tribunal's ruling than a Provincial Court verdict.

Also keep in mind that evidence excluded by a Human Rights Tribunal (under rules of evidence which often favour the complainant) cannot be considered by the reviewing court.

A particularly galling example can be found at http://www.safs.ca/april2000/balance.html. (This ruling was later appealed, but upheld by the BC Supreme Court.)

I think it's safe to say that, practically speaking, HRT rulings are very difficult to appeal.

[ 23 June 2008: Message edited by: Jeremy Maddock ]

quote:

---

I understand that you guys at Rabble are on some grand, ideological crusade to iron out all the unfairness in the world, and in a way, I almost respect your idealism.

---

And, in a way, we're almost not insulted by the staggering condescension of that statement.

What it comes down to is this, Jeremy.

Babble is a left wing discussion forum. As such, we're skeptical, to say the least, of the wonders of "market values". This is to be expected from people who believe in such corny concepts as equality, justice, peace, democracy and a better world.

Did you honestly expect that you'd instantly convert us all to the joys of right wing libertarianism simply because you've graced us with your sparkling prose?

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
.

And, in a way, we're almost not insulted by the staggering condescension of that statement.

What it comes down to is this, Jeremy.

Babble is a left wing discussion forum. As such, we're skeptical, to say the least, of the wonders of "market values". This is to be expected from people who believe in such corny concepts as equality, justice, peace, democracy and a better world.

Did you honestly expect that you'd instantly convert us all to the joys of right wing libertarianism simply because you've graced us with your sparkling prose?

Well, as Winona Ryder put it in WELCOME HOME, ROXY CARMICHAEL "It's good to want things..."

---

No, I didn't really think I'd "convert" you. Its just that I was reading Marx the other day and was inspired by his blind hope. (What can I say, I'm a sentimental guy.)

But at least you people have some principles, unlike most of Dion's gang. I strongly believe in the concept of the ideological spectrum -- if we all thought the same way politics wouldn't be much fun.

quote:

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Its just that I was reading Marx the other day and was inspired by his blind hope.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jeremy Maddock:

The market is legitimate because it is based on free choice and honest competition...

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quote:

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The market is legitimate because it is based on free choice and honest competition...

---

Here is the problem with that, Jeremy:

The "market" allows consumers to influence many things, such as the provision of goods. This is done through "free choice", as you say.

But let us imagine that I have 500 times the wealth that you do. Then, I have the potential to exercise my "free choice" 500 times for every time you can.

Many factors conspire to insure that the distribution of wealth is not based on individual merit. Inheritance is an obvious example, the cost of good education another. Some people might even say that shooting a basketball well does not justify a salary of $24,750,000.00 per year.

http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm