The Trial of the Millenium - Canadian Style
Don't blink now because the trial (sort of, but not really) of the millenium (the Canadian millenium) is going on as I type this entry.
Yes indeed Macleans vs a complaint made to the B.C. Human Rights Commission concerning a certain bias in its coverage of the Islamic Menace is now in session - complete with live blogging and corporate media lawyers and outraged indignation galore.
Well, here's hoping it fizzles. I mean, Macleans could use the attention, and certainly its star pundit, Mark Steyn (formerly of the NatPost, which was also driven into the ground - journalistic-reputation-wise - by the current editor of Macleans, Ken Whyte) has taken advantage of the publicity to boost sales of his book, "America Alone", reviewed here:
"America Alone reeks of rightwing punditry projectilely vomited atop a dung heap of bigoted assumptions."
Still, a person's a person no matter how stupid and since there's not reasonable cause here for a trial, there's no reasonable cause for any of this, in my opinion. To be hauled up before a Canadian Human Rights Commission to defend yourself against a speech complaint, the weight of the state lined up against you and behind the complainant is wrong, wrong, wrong and has no place in a grown up democracy.
But I sure as hell don't blame the complainants for availing themselves of a perfectly legal avenue of redress, either. It's exactly what I would do in their shoes, as would many Canadians.
Which is, in a nutshell, why it is time for Section 13 to go. It's that Catch-22 of social progress - if you're savvy enough to use the system, you don't need it anymore.
