How "Human Rights" Compromises Canadians' Safety

I learned yesterday via BCF that, in a desperate and ultimately fruitless bid to cover her arse and reassert the power of the odious outfit that regulates our ideological purity, Canada's chief "human rights" Commissar paid a large PR firm a whack of taxpayer cash. Way to go, Jen! One of the things we apparently paid for was a speech la Lynch delivered to a Parliamentary Committee looking into state censorship. I went to the CHRC site to read the sucker (to see what my shekels had paid for) when I was waylaid by this--a speech elucidating her racket's role in--hold onto your pantybombs--national security:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission recognizes that safeguarding national security is a critical function of government.

It also recognizes the expertise of security agencies in developing tools and measures for this purpose

When national security and human rights are discussed, it is often suggested that we must give up one to have the other.

I come to you today to express the position of the Commission that both can, and must, co-exist.

The mandate of the Canadian Human Rights Commission covers all federally-regulated employers and service providers.

This includes the transportation sector and border services.

The Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment and in the provision of services based on eleven prohibited grounds of discrimination.

These include race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religion and disability.

In the context of national security, the jurisdiction of the Commission would be triggered when it is alleged that a national security measure discriminates against individuals based on one or more of these prohibited grounds.

This is because the implementation of national security measures, such as screening of airline passengers, falls under the definition of ‘service’ and is therefore within our mandate...

Under s. 5 of our Act, it is a discriminatory practice in the provision of services to deny access to a service, or to differentiate adversely in relation to any individual.

However, not every measure that discriminates on the basis of a prohibited ground would necessarily be disallowed.

The key is whether or not the measure is justifiable. Section 15(1)g of our Act provides this exemption and reads,

“ It is not a discriminatory practice if … an individual is denied … services … or is a victim of adverse differentiation and there is a bona fide justification for that denial or differentiation.”

Human rights jurisprudence provides guidance for determining whether a measure that is discriminatory can be justified. The test would include looking at:

•First, the extent to which the measure is necessary;

•Second, whether there are less discriminatory ways of achieving the same objective;

•Third, the effectiveness of the measure; and

•Fourth, the extent to which the infringement on human rights outweighs the benefits gained by the measure.

I will now turn to the issue of profiling.

Where profiles are appropriately constructed and applied, the practice of profiling could have the potential to reduce the number of individuals who are identified for further screening.

The use of profiling as a national security measure, for example during screening at airports, raises human rights issues when the characteristics and behaviours identified in the profile are linked to one or more of the prohibited grounds.

For example, profiling by identifying persons who have paid cash for a one way ticket; do not check luggage, etc. is not linked to one or more of our prohibited grounds.

On the other hand, identifying persons based on a certain race, or ethnic origin, would be...

It would be? Even when the vast majority (which is to say all) of those endeavouring to sneak explosives on board airplanes are, let's face it, Muslim?

Ms. Lynch and her ilk are always talking about drawing invisible lines separating acceptable speech from unacceptable speech. I think it's time to draw a visible line, a concrete line, separating the CHRC and national security. Because if we don't, and we allow the Lynch mob to dictate how this stuff should go down, we can be all but certain that people will get killed. And in the scheme of things, that's a whole lot worse than people having their "feelings" hurt because they were "profiled" (an action that, when the world was still sane, used to be called "screening").