Nothing Is FREE...

Representatives of Canadian Jews oppose free speech

It sounds like Canadian Jews are just as Leftist as U.S. ones. Will Jews ever learn not to support authoritarianism in government? Was Hitler not a big enough lesson?

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association will be among a number of groups arguing this week that the Internet should be open to all kinds of speech, no matter how repugnant. Opposing that position is B'nai B'rith of Canada, which is adamant that hate speech must be kept off the Web.The two sides will argue their positions as interveners this week at a judicial review of a ruling that challenged the constitutionality of hate speech provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act.The case arose after a human rights tribunal ruled that Marc Lemire, of Hamilton, Ont., had contravened the act by publishing an article on the Internet that was likely to expose homosexuals and blacks to hatred and contempt.But the tribunal didn't impose the hate speech provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act, ruling they were unconstitutional.Richard Warman, an Ottawa lawyer, then complained, alleging Lemire had engaged in activities prohibited by the act, by communicating hate messages on several websites, and sought remedies. Those found to have engaged in the discriminatory practice "wilfully and recklessly" can be fined up to $20,000.Marvin Kurz, representing B'nai B'rith of Canada, said while his group would support some changes, such as removing the penalties, he believes the law is constitutional and the tribunal member misread it when determining Lemire's case."There are some forms of speech that are so bad that it's dangerous and harmful. It has to be the worst of the worst ... that we have to be protected from," Kurz said. "There's a real value in the way the law is now."

Source

Posted by jonjayray at 12:12 AM 6 comments Links to this post

Alleged? What Does The Star Need...

Alleged neo-Nazis arrested for series of violent attacks in Vancouver
2011/12/09 18:23:12
Two alleged neo-Nazis are facing assault charges following a series of violent attacks, including one in which a Filipino man was set on fire.

I understand and agree with the concept of innocent until proven guilty but it would seem those who write the captions need to excercise a little common sense.

Freedom Of Expression Has Become An Oxymoron...

...but nobody should be surprised when you consider that you and I are limited in the words we can use in our politically correct nirvana. The "N_word" is a prime example.

Doors barred to Israel hater, but Islamophobe ushered in


Kinsella: The Harper Government© sure didn’t take long to show us all what they’d do with a majority, eh? This week, they let a Muslim-hating white supremacist into Canada. For good measure, they gave the creep a platform at.. MORE...

Hate Laws Take A Backseat When The Target Is Jews And I Wonder...

if this applies if the Jew is black, gay, transgendered, disabled, female, et al?

Toronto Star writer apparently withdraws from anti-Israel hatefest

Sorry Too Little Too Late...

...http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/ explores the missed opportunities and the results of the rehabilitation period which was used by the new OPP Commissioner for not charging him before he left the country.

Fantino vows to track down Canadian charged with promoting genocide

If Their Was Ever A Need To Practice Apartheid...

...it would be against QuAIA!

Cohn: Not all apartheid is created equal

By Martin Regg Cohn

Tue Jul 06 2010

If it looks like apartheid and sounds like apartheid, why not call it what it is? Solidarity with the Palestinians, anyone?

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid “free speecher” tries to censor pro-Israel demonstrator

Remember how the QuAIA issue was all about free speech? They meant for them, not for opposing viewpoints

mooseandsquirrel.ca

No Surprise...

National Post editorial: Corporate sponsors should walk away from Toronto’s Pride parade

Jonathan Kay  June 23, 2010 – 10:50 pm

TD. Bud Light. Via Rail. Pizza Pizza. Rogers. These companies are among those listed as sponsors for the upcoming Pride Week in Toronto, which will culminate in the city’s famous gay-pride Parade on July 4. Like all the other sponsors, they now risk having their corporate names tarnished when that parade twists through downtown Toronto, loudly spewing hatred against the state of Israel.
Last month, Pride organizers sensibly decided to ban Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), a group of one-issue activists who have cynically traded on Pride’s goodwill to get an audience for their shrill chants. But on Wednesday, organizers backtracked. Under a newly announced policy, parade marchers will simply have to declare themselves in compliance with City of Toronto anti-discrimination policies, and then police their own behaviour. As a result, QuAIA will no doubt be back with the same shrill messaging, once again making many Jews feel unwelcome at an event that is supposed to celebrate diversity.
Anti-Israel bigots are free to have their own parade – but not on the public dime. The City of Toronto, whose councilors already have explicitly denounced QuAIA’s “apartheid” propaganda, should prepare to cut funding. Corporate sponsors should do likewise. When the hate starts spewing, it will be a disgrace for gay pride. Let it not also be a disgrace for shareholders of some of this country’s most recognized corporations.

Posted in: Full Comment  Tags: Toronto, Pride, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

Pride

Pride Toronto turns around on "apartheid"

Pride Toronto pulls a u-turn on the controversial decision to ban controversy from its annual parade.

Pride

Parkdale Pride problems

 

Does A Punch To The Mouth Hurt More...

...if it was motivated by "hate?" Does it take less effort to remove graffiti from the wall of a place of worship than a bridge underpass? Both are a crime and should be treated as such and attaching a label, something leftists tend to do, doesn't change the action but social in-activists need a cause to survive mentally and financially.

Hate crimes stats don't tell full story

By MINDELLE JACOBS, QMI Agency

Last Updated: June 15, 2010 2:00am

Pessimists will point to Statistics Canada’s latest report on hate crimes as proof that Canada’s experiment with multiculturalism has failed.
Certainly, the report is disconcerting. Police-reported hate crimes jumped 35% in 2008 over 2007 and six out of 10 people accused of such crime are aged 12 to 22.
Aren’t youth supposed to be more colour-blind and gay-friendly than older generations?
As well, Edmonton and Calgary seem to have a troubling problem with hate crimes motivated by race and ethnicity — three-quarters of the reported hate crimes in Alberta’s two major cities fell into that category.
But does that mean Alberta is a particular hotbed of racial hatred or do the efforts of local police hate crimes units and zero-tolerance policies play a significant role in bumping up the stats?
Similarly, about 40% of the police-reported hate crimes in 2008 were in Toronto and Vancouver, two of the country’s most multicultural cities. Are these cities seething with bigotry as well? Of course not.
If you look under enough rocks, you’ll find the slimy underbelly of discrimination. But let’s not blow this study out of proportion. After all, this is not Kyrgyzstan, where hundreds of minority Uzbeks have been killed.
The vast majority of Canadians embrace a live-and-let-live philosophy, partly because Canada is wealthy, stable and rooted in inclusive Judeo-Christian principles and the rule of law and partly because we are a nation of immigrants fashioning a comparatively new country.
If any nation can shake off the worst traits of tribalism, surely Canada can.
It takes vigilance and a determination to leave age-old feuds from the old country behind, though.
Celebrating one’s culture is one thing. Importing hatred and intolerance under the guise of a twisted sense of self-righteousness is depraved.
On a personal note, I was at a dinner party with a group of Jewish friends over the weekend and several of us complimented a woman on her Star of David necklace. Further discussion ensued and she said she was scared to wear it in public. People immediately took sides.
There were those who agreed they’d never wear their Star of David in public for fear of being victimized by anti-Semites.
And there were those, including myself, who felt it was ridiculous to hide one’s Jewishness in a country as tolerant as Canada.
While two-thirds of the religiously motivated hate crimes reported to the police in 2008 were committed against Jews (165 incidents), I refuse to succumb to trepidation.
Hate crimes constitute less than 1% of all our crimes.
Yes, we have a few bigoted lunatics. But we have a powerful counter force — millions of Canadians without a discriminatory bone in their bodies.

mindy.jacobs@sunmedia.ca

Government Has No Place In The Bedrooms Of The Nation...

...and we know the results of that PET mantra and it appears like the next mantra will be  regarding the government's place in the Recreation Rooms of the country.

Pride’s ejection feat: Levy

Did organizers get dragged into dumping QuAIA from parade?

By SUE-ANN LEVY, Toronto Sun

NO TAX $$$$ To Fund Hate Groups Unless Of Course...

Readers mull Pride funding

April 22, 2010

Pride festival on Yonge St.

CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR

Re: Dispute threatens funding for Pride, April 19
The attempt by city bureaucrats to censor freedom of expression at Pride is an outrage. If expressing the opinion that Israel practices apartheid (a view shared by both Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter) violates their “anti-discrimination” policy, it’s a policy that needs an emergency rewrite.
There is no human right not to be offended or to “be comfortable” at all places and times. Pride’s origins are in political struggle, not corporate sponsorship. Politics always involves (sometimes heated) disagreements. If that makes some people uncomfortable, they are perfectly free to stay home.
John Wilson, Toronto B’Nai Brith’s definition of hate speech is very convenient — if you’re fronting for a repressive government. According to your story, the Zionist lobby group finds any comparison of Israel and apartheid South Africa “inherently hateful.” If this is so, why do they not avail themselves of Canada’s laws against hate speech? Because they’re not that stupid.
Rather than risk losing in court, which they would if they prosecuted the use of the word “apartheid” to describe the apartheid-like conditions under which the state of Israel forces Palestinians to live, B’Nai Brith and its fellow travelers want to impose their extra-legal definition of hate speech on a public more easily swayed by emotive appeals than by the often hard to come by facts about the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and its many crimes.
Stephen Kerr, Toronto Elle Flanders, a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, which participated in the last Pride Toronto, states that “this has nothing to do with anything other than criticism of Israel.” I find it amazing that a homosexual woman would denounce Israel, the only country in the Middle East where gays are able to live openly and freely. In any other Middle Eastern country, including the Palestinian territories, homosexuals are ostracized, imprisoned, or executed. Ms. Flanders states that she is a “big Jew-lover,” but one has to wonder.
Dr. Jerome Edelstein, Toronto The city or any level of government shouldn’t be in the business of using our tax dollars to promote or block events like the Pride Parade. The businesses that benefit and people who wish to attend should put up the necessary funds to run the event.
The city believes its anti-discrimination policy was likely violated by QuAIA (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid), and has received complaints about the use of the phrase “Isreali apartheid.” Some people feel uncomfortable about the use of those words and some people like myself feel uncomfortable about the event itself and I have chosen not to attend.
The government’s role is to protect our choices, not to use our tax dollars as carrots and sticks.
Vedran Saciragic, Toronto Councillor Kyle Rae and city managers Mike Williams and Ceta Ramkhalawansingh are threatening Pride’s funding if they don’t ban QuAIA. Their reasons include the charge that a marcher wore a crossed out swastika, a well-known anti-racism symbol, and that criticism of Israel’s many violations of international law makes some people uncomfortable.
In 1980, I co-founded Gay Asians Toronto, one of the first groups for racialized queer people in the city. By the end of the decade, I marched in the Pride parade with the Simon Nkodi Anti-Apartheid Committee, a gay and lesbian group against human rights violations in South Africa. In 2009, I marched with QuAIA, a queer group in opposition to human rights violations in Israel/Palestine. Social justice is a key issue and a proud tradition in the queer community and at the parade, especially for those who sit on the margins of social power.
That city politicians and bureaucrats would use threats to censor human rights debate from our gay march, especially on such obviously spurious grounds, is presumptuous and arguably homophobic.
Richard Fung, Toronto

Israel’s attack was provoked

April 22, 2010

Re: Spreading a message of life, death and peace, April 18
Oakland Ross’s portrayal of Dr. Abuelaish, the Palestinian doctor who “refuses to hate,” is appallingly unfair to Israel. I sympathize with the doctor losing members of his family, which is tragic. However, Mr. Ross provides no context whatsoever for Israel’s actions. Instead, he provides a litany of reasons why Dr. Abuelaish should hate Israel. 
Without context, these reasons serve only to inflame the reader against Israel and Jews.
One example: “It was the Israelis, after all, who prosecuted the war that splintered Abuelaish’s family.” Israel did not want to go to war when it attacked Gaza. It had no choice. Israelis were being bombarded daily by dozens of rockets aimed at its schools and homes.
After Hamas ignored many warnings, Israel’s only option was to invade Gaza. The article is similarly filled with many other misleading allegations, damning Israel (and by extension all Jews) without context or explanation.
David M. Sherman, Toronto We can just hope together with Dr. Abuelaish that peace, which only results from truth and justice, will someday prevail in that troubled land.
Jaime Oksemberg, Toronto

Palestinian support for Nazis casts shadow over Gaza conflict