Ontario PC Leader Tom Hudak is expected to campaign on disbanding the Ontario Human Rights Commission, so we’ll probably hear a lot more about them in the coming months.
And all the familiar figures will probably come out of the woodwork again
Up first, Ezra Levant with a new op-ed in The Star.
But wait, here comes the “sock puppets” again (without their puppet master? this is confusing).
Ezra Levant accuses Canada’s human rights commissions of censorship for investigating our hate-speech complaints about his publishing of cartoons depicting Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad as suicide bombers and for hearing our complaints regarding Maclean’s magazine’s refusal to publish a response to one of more than 20 articles. Among other things, the articles imply that Islam condones sex with minors and animals, refer to Muslims as “sheep-shaggers” and allege that Muslims believe in drinking the blood of their enemies.
Although Levant may regard this rhetoric as “free speech,” most Canadians would recognize it as racist if not hateful. Indeed, the Ontario Human Rights Commission said it has, “serious concerns about the content of a number of articles concerning Muslims that have been published by Maclean’s magazine and other media outlets . . . (for) contributing to Islamophobia and promoting societal intolerance towards Muslim, Arab and South Asian Canadians.”
It is not surprising that Levant is smearing our HRCs for bringing public attention to bear on his own Islamophobic track record.
Khurrum Awan, Naseem Mithoowani, Toronto
Didn’t we get enough of this already?
This issue will probably never truly die. Its interesting that it is an issue among Ontario PC’s as Ontario’s statute is quite narrow compared to that in Alberta, BC and the Canada Human Rights Act.
Its also interesting to hear the two weighed in on the complaint against Levant himself. The complaint against Levant was far weaker than the complaint against MacLeans and far more concerning to secularists like myself–so theocratic was the basis for most opposition to it. The complaint smelled a lot more like the OIC’s “defamation of religions” concept that would put out of bounds attacks on ‘venerated persons’ (or whatever the word is), than classic anti-hate ideology.