The Canadian "Human Rights" System Is In Its Death Throes. When Can We Pull the Plug?

An article that appeared last month in The Lawyers Weekly  points out the federal "human rights" racket is sliding into obsolescence (as, no doubt, are its provincial and territorial equivalents):

When the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal were established in 1977, the Canadian Human Rights Act offered the first real protections against discrimination federally, notably by government. Eight years before the enactment of s. 15 of the Charter, the possibility of scrutinizing workplaces, service-providers, government and federal law itself to enable Canadians to realize their full potential without being hamstrung by race, sex and such made for exciting times for human rights lawyers and rights-seekers alike.

But in more recent days, after budgetary cutbacks, legislative repeals and a jurisprudential transfer of its once exclusive jurisdiction, the commission and tribunal process suffers from endemic backlogs and delays, the by-product of which is an aggressive screening mechanism that dismisses or does not deal with a large percentage of complaints and results in shockingly few ["human rights"] tribunal decisions...

Not so shocking, really. Not when you consider that most "human rights" complaints are nuisance ones, the reason they don't make it through. One can understand, though, why a lawyer would want screening to be less stringent; more cases being green-lighted means more money in lawyers' pockets. However, isn't it time for Canadians to take a hard look at this rickety and largely irrelevant apparatus and ask whether it is worth it--both in terms of annual costs and value for money--to keep the moribund beast up and running?

You Said It, Brother

Apropos a South Park episode that didn't exactly venerate Cait, the trans-Jennered heroine of the "progressive" crowd, a Slate (yes, Slate!) TV critic writes:

Being part of an oppressed minority does not automatically make one ‘good,’ well-intentioned, or correct. And likewise, knowing the social justice script by heart does not necessarily mean you are making the world more just.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Syrian Refugees In Canada: Crunching the Numbers

Let's see: if Canada is going to fast track 10,000 displaced Syrians, and 2 of every 100 of them could be ISIS members, that means we'll only be letting in around 200 ISIS fighters.

Hockey Icon Wayne Gretzky Publicly Backs Stephen Harper: Well, Ain't That a Kick in the Head?

One "progressive" tweeter (who's quoted in this Ceeb report) attributes Gretzky's support for Harper and other conservatives to--what else?--a concussion.



Update: The tweeter's malady is examined here. Also here--my musical take on it.

What Rhymes With "Migrants"?

This limerick appears on the NatPo's Letters page (it first appeared here):

The notion of wide open doors
For Syrians fleeing from wars
Is one the Prime Minister
Perceives to be sinister
And openly rather deplores.

I openly rather prefer my effort:

The sight of their flight is upsetting
But how will we know what we're getting?
If some support ISIS
We're in for a crisis
Which means they need serious vetting.

Great Advice

Don't Bring A Clock To School Unless It Looks Like a Clock

This does not look like a clock:



The money quote:

If Mohamed was a Christian, a Buddhist or a follower of Zeus, the school would’ve reacted in the same manner to his mysterious briefcase. 

But if Mohamed was a Christan, a Buddhist or a follower of Zeus, he wouldn’t be receiving any attention right now and his case would’ve been buried in the back pages of the local paper.

The reason why this particular teen is now a national story is because it fits a narrative. The chattering class wants to believe that middle America is an inhospitable place toward Muslims and followers of the Islamic faith are routinely discriminated against in our country.

To paraphrase Facebook's Zuckerberg on the subject: the future belongs to those who use claims of "Islamophobia" to advance their cause, be it leftist or Islamist.

Update: Who is this young my clock-looks-more-like-a-bomb-maker? Mark Steyn fills in his back story. The lad is

the son of a belligerent Muslim activist and perennial Sudanese presidential candidate whose brother runs a trucking company amusingly called Twin Towers Transportation.

Wow. That is amusing.

In an Islamist kind of way.

Unexpected RO'mance Du Jour

Tatum O'Neal and Rosie O'Donnell?!?

Hillary Clinton "Appalled" That The Donald Didn't Challenge a Supporter's Assertion Re Obama's Muslimness

That's the difference between Hillary and me (one of 'em, anyway). She reserves her opprobrium for Trump's non-response in New Hampshire while I think the following incidents are exponentially more appalling:

• the claim that an "offensive" movie trailer about Islam's founder was responsible for riots resulting in the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi;
• "What difference, at this point, does it make?";
• Bill Clinton and his sketchy Foundation trolling Foggy Bottom for lucrative speaking gigs while his wife was in charge of that racket;
• lies about what was--and wasn't--on Hillary's e-mail server (which for some as yet unexplained reason was kept in the bathroom of a Mom 'n' Pop operation in Denver, Colorado).

There are lots more, but that should suffice for now.

Judge Rules Omar Khadr Can Remove His "Restrictive" Monitoring Bracelet and Visit His Family in Toronto

Some of his family, anyway. For, as we learn in this Ceeb report, at least two of Omar's nearest and dearest have apparently flown the coop:

Khadr's mother and one of his sisters made pro al-Qaeda remarks in the past. But Khadr's lawyers say they aren't even in Canada. He told the judge that his client is now mature enough not to be influenced by their views. ​

If, as his lawyer claims, Mom and Sis Khadr (who look like this) aren't even in Canada, then where the hell are they?

Pakistan?

Afghanistan?

Syria/Iraq (say, helping out ISIS)?

Isn't their current location kind of a crucial bit of information, and shouldn't this judge have been less blasé and more proactive about sussing it out? Before deciding that Omar could go visit his Hogtown mishpachah, I mean.

There's a "Refugee Camp" in East Jerusalem?

Why and WTF?

The Toronto Public Library Stands With, Urges Us to "Celebrate" the Young Muslim Whose School Project Looked Oddly Bomb-Like

Found this on the TPL site:

American teen Ahmed Mohamed made international headlines after he was arrested earlier this week for bringing a homemade clock to school. The 14-year-old Texan brought his creation to show his teacher, who mistook it for a bomb. 

The incident generated a social media firestorm – with many people throwing their support behind Mohamed, even starting an #IStandWithAhmed hashtag. 

Some of Mohamed’s high profile supporters included US President Barack Obama, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – who invited Mohamed to the White House, Toronto, and Facebook headquarters respectively...

Mohamed’s creativity and ingenuity provide a great reason of why it is important to support young makers by providing them with encouragement and access to technology resources and training...

That's for sure. Fingers crossed, though, that this isn't the kind of technological resource/training they end up accessing.

Update: The madness of PC in America--it's okay to go nuts because of a Pop Tart that's been bitten into a gun-like shape, but don't you dare raise a ruckus about a clock that looks a lot more bomb-like than it does clock-like. Especially if the clock maker is Muslim.