Charter of Rights Adulation

On the something anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, editorial writers, columnists and guest writers virtually salivated when celebrating the benefits rendered by this document. None mentioned blatant abuses. My April 16, 2012 email to The Globe and Mail. Unpublished.

It may be well and good that other nations copy our Charter of Rights and Freedoms as extolled by seemingly endless editorial writers, retired judges and commentators  However, any export of this document must include the caution:"Contents subject to extreme abuse."

One need only examine the Charter's Ontario offspring with its over-reaching tendencies and questionable results  such as --  A UFO cult declared a religion thereby transforming a breach of contract into a more lucrative case of religious discrimination.  A coffee shop owner ordered to pay $15,000 to a disruptive customer on whom he cast a racial slur, the order forcing him out of business.  An Ottawa lawyer created a cottage industry pursuing racists on the Internet.  A hockey association ordered to pay $18,000 to a family for failure to provide adequate dressing room facilities.

The Ontario Superior Court ordered a re-hearing of a case where a business owner was ordered by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal to pay $36,000 to a dismissed employee. Immediately following the decision, the Commission obtained a writ of seizure ordering the sheriff to sell the business operator's home to enforce the payment. On appeal, the Court said it was "simply not possible to logically follow the pathway taken by the adjudicator."  Had the accused not had the funds to appeal, she would have lost her home. And so on, across Canada, the tax-supported abuse continues.

Human rights tribunals are cash cows for the aggrieved, real or imagined. Countries importing our Charter must be so warned.