good grief

I expect Prime Minister Rudd will soon have to make speeches about human rights and free speech in Canada. 

The latest from Ezra Levant:

Today I was sued by Richard Warman, Canada’s most prolific – and profitable – user of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. As readers of this site know, Warman isn’t just a happy customer of section 13 and its 100% conviction rate, he’s a former CHRC employee, an investigator of section 13 thought crimes himself. In fact, he was often both a customer and an investigator at the same time.

Being sued by Warman is like being sued by the CHRC

It’s impossible to criticize section 13 without criticizing Warman, because without Warman, section 13 would have been defunct years ago – almost no-one else in this country of 33 million people uses it. I’d call it “Warman’s Law”, but I’ve already given that title to another law enacted because of Warman. Warman’s Law is a law brought in by the B.C. government specifically to protect libraries from Warman’s nuisance defamation suits. (We should find some way to set up a Warman’s law to protect universities from Warman, too.)

Warman doesn’t just “use” section 13. As I’ve documented here before, he actively interferes with other CHRC investigators working on his complaints. For example, he called up Hannya Rizk, a fellow investigator he trained, and told her to improperly withhold information from the person Warman had complained about; he told Rizk to slow down her work to fit his other plans; he tried to get Rizk to improperly disclose confidential information about cases to third parties.

And then there’s Warman’s direct interference in the investigation of his own complaints – wandering right into the CHRC offices, hopping right on investigator’s computers, using their passwords, and just having a ball – violating not only privacy and confidentiality, but the integrity of the CHRC’s evidence – not that such sloppiness has detracted from their 100% conviction rate.

Warman isn’t solely responsible for the corruption of the CHRC, of course – he couldn’t get away with his antics without the cooperation and even encouragement of the rest of the CHRC staff, which happens to include some decidedly ethically challenged people. But Warman is the central figure in its abuse. That is a source of great pride for Warman, who professes a philosophy he calls “maximum disruption”.

The more I learn about Warman, the more I write about him. And, like the CHRC, he hates public exposure. Earlier this year, Warman’s lawyer served me with a lengthy Libel Notice, which I posted to my website here, with my commentary on it here.

Warman’s new lawsuit, which you can see here, covers much of the same ground – but not all of it. For example, you’ll see that part 4 of his Libel Notice – which made up a third of his lengthy complaint – has been dropped from his lawsuit. That part was Warman’s threat to sue me for discussing his conspiracy to assault his nemesis, David Icke. I guess it’s pretty tough to complain about that, when the whole thing was caught on video.

Warman’s suit would censor the conservative blogosphere

Warman’s not just suing me. He’s suing some of the biggest names in the Canadian blogosphere – from Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals to Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury (or, Five Feet of Furry, as the lawsuit says on page 2), to Free Dominion, the largest conservative chat site in Canada. Warman’s goal is breathtaking in its chutzpah: he wants to muzzle the Canadian conservative Internet. It’s not just his goal – it’s the goal of the CHRC itself, and its friends at the Canadian Jewish Congress, who have stated their goal is to “tame” the Internet – or at least those voices they disagree with. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the CJC was bankrolling Warman’s lawsuit – they’ve done joint legal work together before, and Warman’s number one defender is on the CJC’s legal committee. The CJC hates conservatives, and this would be a way for them to do damage to the conservative blogosphere without taking the political flak for it.

Take a look at the language Warman’s lawsuit uses to smear Free Dominion. At paragraph 17, Warman calls them an “extreme right-wing discussion forum”. Look at that language – hardly distinguishable from the CHRC’s and CJC’s boilerplate insults reserved for neo-Nazis. That’s what this lawsuit is about: an attempt by the CHRC’s biggest star to try to marginalize Canadian conservatism. And why not? The CHRC has moved from targeting white supremacists to targeting mainstream conservatives like Mark Steyn; the Alberta HRC has already gagged Christian pastors and taken a run at Calgary’s bishop, and two years ago they charged me with publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Surely attempting to criminalize conservatism is just the next, natural step for these congenital censors.

Read the rest.  More also at Steyn. The bloggers involved are looking at having to fork out some $30,000 each to defend themselves.

This isn't China or Egypt. This is Canada.

Note that this Warman dude, a former CHRC employee, who has also made his living by extracting "damages" from website owners by threatening to sue them, this serial and vexatious litigant who has even prompted one Canadian state government to pass a law to protect libraries from his claims, is now working for the Directorate of Special Grievances at Canada's National Department of Defense.

That's right, the men and women of Canada's Armed Services, who have paid for freedom with their lives in places like Afghanistan, have a self-proclaimed censorial tyrant like Richard Warman as one of their lawyers representatives.

Update: Others noticed well before me. Mr Reynolds (via Steynian):

You'd think that promoting "traditional Canadian values" is what a Canadian "human rights" commission would be about. But you'd be tragically wrong. Plus, "Scrutinizing the Human Rights Machine."  And this:

This is why Ontario’s human-rights commission hasn’t yet suffered the sort of signature embarrassment suffered by its federal counterpart at last week’s Marc Lemire hearing.

But instead of counting their blessings, the folks at the OHRC are complaining that they’ve been left out of the censorship party. And they want in.

Wednesday’s Orwellian communiqué reads like something the Chinese communist party might put out on Xinhua — except that the role of anti-Chinese “traitors” and “saboteurs” has been replaced by evil-doers (such as Maclean’s magazine’s Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant of the Western Standard) who peddle “destructive, xenophobic opinions.”

Marc Lemire is famous for a double-sided fax.

Update 2: The Muslim Canadian Congress seems to be more clear-sighted than many other Canadians.