Earlier today, we were contacted by "Maclean's" and asked about our take on the demise of Sec. 13. We responded as follows:
We get the impression that the "Maclean's" in which Sec. 13 will be discussed is coming out this week. We don't expect that our entire response will be published, or if any of it will be for that matter, but if it is we thought we'd include the entirely of our response here.
And as for the responses from the boneheads, we present a small selection:
We think that the government was incredibly short sighted in their decision to eliminate Sec. 13. It was a useful and cost-effective tool in the effort to eliminate some very vile, hateful, and potentially dangerous rhetoric online and in the public sphere. Now we have only the criminal code which, in a few cases, is like using a machete when a scalpel would have been more prudently utilized.
Those individuals and groups who were called before the Human Rights Tribunal and who were found to have violated Sec. 13 were not innocent lambs who were victimized by Big Brother. They were people and groups who were causing real harm in their communities. Their words did result in harm, and I don't mean hurt feelings. People's homes were vandalized. People have been assaulted. And these criminal acts had, in many cases, began with the dehumanization of fellow Canadians for no other reason than their ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation.
The people who are celebrating this are the extremists on Stormfront and VNN and a host of other racist webforums, but as we wrote on our blog they should consider that now there is only the criminal code and the penalties are more severe than anything Sec. 13 dished out. It should also be noted that racists aren't content with only Sec. 13. Paul Fromm, for instance, has said he and his group will next focus their attention on the criminal code sections regarding hate crimes.
And as for the responses from the boneheads, we present a small selection:
3 comments:
i was thinking about that article that Levant wrote in support of Fromm when he was terminated from his job, its around somewhere. You should reprint it citing the history of murder and violence with the aryangaurd and Fromm.
Levantes recent article regarding section 13 in the Sun tries to make Neo Nazis out to be harmless fuzzy bunnies again
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/06/20120612-091744.html
I say this as someone with strong anti-racist sympathies: good. We need to deal with this problem without trampling on the right to free expression.
Down the authoritarians...
Ezra Levant is gloating over this one, seems he is missing the point again with his most recent article regarding Section 13 in Sun News. I wonder if he considers it Free Expression to point out that he has shown his true colors in the past by by writing articles of support for known Neo Nazi like Fromm while downplaying the true intent of their violent rhetoric such as was the case with Fromm and the Aryan Guard (Murder, Violence and Brutality).
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