OP/ED: Political correctness gone too far
By Rob Leggett
A strong democracy calls for …. no, demands … that dissenting voices, however objectionable, be heard.
I believe it is more important to listen to those with whom we disagree, even fervently disagree, than to take false reassurance from those who confirm our own particular foregone conclusions
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Those of us who insist on the value of freedom of speech are willing to contend with those who ridicule, use ad hominem attacks, foul language and promote asinine opinions, all of which are not crimes, no matter how unsavory we may find them.
On the other hand, there are those that wish to gag, suppress or even punish those that they find disagreeable.
Enter BC’s very own Kangaroo Court… I mean Human Rights Tribunal.
This is a quasi-judicial body that many have come to view as an enemy of freedom of expression and speech. A defendant who comes before the “human rights” tribunal has none of the defenses that, in the past, have been assured in common law. The truth is no protection, reasonable intention is no defense, nor material harmlessness, and there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind. The commissars running the tribunals need have no legal training, exhibit none, and it seems they owe their arrangements to their connections with leftwing activists.
Take, for instance, the case of Guy Earle. A comedian who has been a stand-up comic for more than two decades, and was the volunteer master of ceremonies at amateur night at a Vancouver restaurant.
That night, Lorna Pardy and her same-sex partner moved to seats near the stage after the patio closed. The women were disruptive, not only ordering their drinks loudly but ignoring Earle’s requests to quiet down because a new comedian was about to take the stage. In fact, he said, they purposely got louder.
Earle claims that at this point, they were making out and flipping him the bird.
When Earle went back up to introduce the next comic one of the women allegedly yelled two expletives and said he wasn’t funny. Earle countered by calling her unattractive and made a very vulgar sexual reference, responding in a way that comedians tend to do with hecklers.
When he passed Pardy’s table, she threw her drink at him and he continued walking, but later that evening Pardy threw another drink in his face and he admits that in the heat of the moment he took her sunglasses and broke them.
The police were never called and no charges were ever laid. Instead Pardy filed a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal. Her complaint says Earle’s actions violate Section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code. The code says: 8 (1) A person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification,
(a) deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public, or
(b) discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public
Earle’s lawyer, Jim Millar, believes the tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear the case and last September, the B.C. Supreme Court quashed the tribunal’s decision to have a full hearing. The court ruled the tribunal might not have the jurisdiction to determine if Earle’s words were protected expression.
In response to BC’s highest court, the tribunal said it would decide if it has jurisdiction only after a full hearing was conducted.
In other words, they will put him on trial first to see if they actually can.
But this isn’t the end of the story. Ms Pardy is also seeking damages of about $20,000 since she claims to now suffer from panic attacks and post traumatic stress disorder.
Because Earle called her names and broke her sunglasses, she has PTSD and needs $20,000 to deal with it?
From my perspective, the B.C. human rights tribunals have an especially egregious record for ignoring respondents’ most basic Charter rights, and they may think they have found the ideal method to silence anyone who challenges their insane, “politically correct” ideas, but have instead created a monster that can as easily eat them next.
Does anyone deserve to be silenced by ideological propagandists or do they have just as much right to speak as freely as the propagandists themselves?
Free speech does not robotically award the right to be taken seriously or even to be listened to, but it does award the right to speak no matter how unpalatable we may find it.
Just as Voltaire stated, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
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