Weightless in Britain

As youngsters, we referred to the comedy duo of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as Fat and Skinny. Of the team of Bud Abbot and Lou Costello, everyone described the latter as the Fat One. Of the Dean Martin and Gerry Lewis twosome, Lewis was known as the goofy-looking guy. All these performers capitalized handsomely on their physical features.

For the latest example of a legitimate concern on the verge of going wrong, we have a report of the British Parliament, Reflections on Body Image. Some honourable members want it declared  a hate crime to describe a person as "obese" or even to draw attention to a person's weight. An All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image has recommended criminalization of "appearance-based discrimination".

Much of the report was based on the fact that more than 50 per cent of the population have a negative body image. That statistic from the U.K. Centre for Appearance Research. The Centre also states that 20 per cent have been victimized because of their weight.

A key person involved with the report suggested that doctors should refrain from telling patients they have excess weight. "If they don't feel overweight, and there are no health indications, what's the problem?" she asked. Studies have consistently shown that overweight people underestimate how fat they really are.

It is to be hoped that, before any legislation is enacted, a more realistic view of body image will prevail.

Historical "racism"

 
An email to Toronto Star. Published on line May 14, 2012.

Re Refugee bill returns to the bad old days, May 7:

This report speaks of "legally-sanctioned racism" and of Canada returning "to the days when racism and xenophobia were part of our official immigration policy".  This opinion is an example of presentism, that is, judging former times by today's supposedly superior standards. 

At one time, majority feeling, as reflected in government policy, was that English-speaking immigrants were favoured because of their easier and less expensive assimilation into Canadian life. At another time, only farmers were admitted, because that's what the young nation then needed.

This feeling and policy continued well into the 1960s. Today, it is hyperbole to speak of "toxins that are poisoning our country".  The word racism trips off the tongue too lightly in contemporary discourse.

Our immigration policy exists for the sole benefit of Canada. That said, we are obliged to show some leniency towards the downtrodden, the refugees and others rendered desolate by events beyond their control. Such leniency must be tempered by economic conditions and our ability to absorb more newcomers.


This report also leaves the impression that only Japanese were confined to internment camps during the Second World War. Two immigrants on our street in downtown Toronto were whisked away by the police. They joined other Germans and Italians placed in internment camps for the duration of the war. Little has been said about the economic hardship caused to their families. To my knowledge, they have not even asked for an apology.

Women Exploited

Tired of all that advice about losing weight?  In the mid-1990s, Sassy magazine gave 13 reasons not to diet.  The magazine for young women stated boldly: Starving yourself is complete and total lunacy.  Dieting makes you boring.  You'll gain it back, anyway. 

The "evil diet industry" is unregulated and has no legal obligation to prove its products work, the magazine pointed out.  The promise of liberation through weight loss is false.  Today's barbie-doll worship does much harm to girls and young women. 

Unnatural mannequins, computer-altered photographs, anorexic models, all create a false ideal.  Marilyn Monroe, sex goddess of the 1960s, would today be considered too large by the fashion industry.  It wants us to believe the ideal shapes are thin, thinner and thinest.

Unfortunately, too many young women believe this nonsense.  They look into the mirror, imagine their bodies much larger than they really are, and lose their self-confidence.  Naomi Wolf alerted us to this mischief in her book The Beauty Myth.  She tells how the industry's creation of a mythical, perfect body has taught young women and girls to hate their bodies.  This self-loathing leads to eating disorders and depression.

As a first line of defence, every woman should read Gloria Steinem's Revolution from Within.  The book's argument is that too many of our systems of authority undermine women's opinion of themselves.  People in this condition are ready victims for unproven products and services.  As Steinem says it: "Liberation begins with the nurturing of self-esteem."

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.

Bullying -- Special Pleading?

Letter to the Toronto Star. Published April 27, 2012

Re Put our kids before politics, editorial, April 21:

This editorial fails to mention the legislation to which it refers. I presume reference is to Bill 13, an Act to amend the Education Act with respect to bullying and other matters.  

Although the proposed amendment speaks to being "inclusive for all people, including LGBTTIQ," a careful reading leaves the impression its main, if not sole, purpose is for this sub-minority. 

Most bullying occurs because of body image -- the over-weight kid, the skinny one, the one with a skin problem, the awkward one who can't catch a ball or run fast, and so on. This major cause of bullying isn't even mentioned in Bill 13.

This leaves the impression the proposed legislation is the result of special pleading on behalf of the LGBTTIQ constituency. If not, why is it not all inclusive?

In 2006, the Toronto District School Board conducted a survey to determine the causes of bullying. The most cited reason was "body image" (38% in Grades 7 and 8) and (27 % in Grades 9 to 12), followed by "grades" (17%), "marks" (12%); "language"(7%) in all grades,"gender, religion and income" (5% or lower).  The issue of gay bullying did not register in the study. Source: The National Post, May 29, 2012.

This is reinforced by a 2012 report to the U.K. parliament which noted that more than half the British public suffered from a negative body image.  Evidence presented to a special parliamentary group suggested that appearance is the greatest cause of bullying in school.

The Olympics Extravaganza, London 2012

The Olympic-branding police will be out in full force.

The Guardian reports that London games organizers will be checking every bathroom in every Olympic venue. They are empowered to remove or tape over manufacturers' logos even on soap dispensers, wash basins and toilets. Athletes will not be able to tweet home the brand name of the cornflakes consumed that morning, nor mention the drinking Pepsi, or post a video message from rooms in the athletes' village. Coca Cola is the main soft drink sponsor. Pubs will be banned from posting signs such as: "Watch the London games on our big screen."

These are some of the results of the most stringent restrictions ever put in place to protect sponsors' brands and broadcasting rights. It affects every athlete, ticket holder and business in the entire United Kingdom. All this while 82 per cent of Brits believe the Games will not do them any good.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) demands its own rules. It requires host governments to enact specific legislation to protect games sponsors and IOC "rights". A breach of these rules is a criminal offence.

In a curious twist, a survey of Tweeters found that Nike (a non-sponsor) is the brand most associated with the Games, instead of Adidas, which paid big money for official rights.

So offensive has the rights game become that, at the 2010 World Cup, 36 Dutch women were ejected from a match for wearing orange dresses, in what organizers deemed an ambush campaign by the beer company Bavaria whose symbol is women in orange dresses.

One report claims there is good reason for these Olympic restrictions. Any shortfall in sponsorship must be made up by the British taxpayer. The IOC has stacked the deck. The only losers may be British citizens who was not consulted if they wanted the Games in the first place. Given Olympic history, the taxpayer loses no matter what.

As Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins put it: "The Olympics have become an Orwellian parody of what happens when a world agency blackmails a government aching for prestige into spending without limit."

Toronto Star and the Bible

On April 4, 2012, the Toronto Star reported the banning of the distribution to Grade Five students of the Gideon Bible. The overly-sensitive School Trustees feared reprisals for their decision. According to that newspaper, complaints to the trustees constituted "hate mail." The newspaper gave no examples. It printed three letters in support of the trustees, none against. Mine was excluded. In the interests of fair comment, occasionally absent in that Toronto daily, my unpublished letter:

The Star's headline writer went over the top on this one (Bible ban at schools sparks hate mail, Apr. 9). None of the reported examples of disagreement with the Bluewater District School Board's decision to ban distribution the Gideon bible even remotely qualifies as "hate mail".

Every enlightened educator recognizes the Bible as a vital part of Western World history. Even an atheist, if he deems himself learned, must be familiar with it. One cannot grasp the basis of the English language without it. One cannot learn the reasons for Western progress and the freedoms we enjoy (compared to the non-Christian world) without a knowledge of the history of the Bible.

What do school trustees fear in such education? What does the Toronto Star fear?

Profit from Drunkenness

Earlier posts on this blog may have given the impression that the mischief of human rights commissions is a recent aberration and confined to Ontario and Alberta. Here's one from the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In 1991, the Commission ordered Canadian National to rehire FN, who had been dismissed in March 1985 for repeated absences due to drunkenness. The Commission said that CN had discriminated against him on the basis of a disability -- his drinking.

FN's supervisors first noticed his problem in 1984, and referred him to Alcoholics Anonymous. He attended  two or three AA meetings, became absent from work more than usual, and had an accident with a company car, an incident he attempted to cover up.

Even then, he was not fired, but suspended, and sent to two drug-dependency programs. He refused to participate in follow-up counselling and AA sessions. CN dismissed him, saying he had not seriously attempted rehabilitation.

Unmoved by CN's efforts to accommodate Mr. N's "disability," the Canadian Human Rights Commission held the company had no right to fire him, and ordered he be re-hired with six-years' back wages.

Fortunately, the Federal Court of Canada would have none of this mischief. It overturned the Commission's judgement.

What if a small business had hired FN, and lacked the resources to launch an appeal? It would likely have been forced into bankruptcy. Human rights tribunals too often miss the big picture.

Laws, Courts and Bureaucracies

Letter to the National Post.

Father De Souza has pinned the tail squarely on the bureaucratic donkey (Who watches the watchmen, Mar. 16). When bureaucracies, such as police or prosecutors, are strengthened, citizen rights are weakened. Rights laws are zero-sum game. What you give to one must be taken from another. And the Government's new crime bill takes a great deal away from citizens, legally and financially.

I especially enjoyed the phrase "the bureaucracy that wears gowns and carries guns." The rule of law is a nebulous concept ultimately enforced at the point of a gun. It's legalized violence.

Toronto police are the highest paid in Canada, if not the world, yet its members slip from one blunder to blunder. Witness some of their behaviour during the G20 -- mischief that is slowly becoming class-action lawsuits for which citizens will pay.

Witness the shortage of judges and courts (a situation exacerbated by the new crime bill) which ensures the justice will be delayed and therefore denied. Such delays have already set miscreants free to inflict more mayhem on the public.

We do not obey the law because it is the law. Laws change every day. No one I know reads the Criminal Code to see what they can do that day. Law-abiding? No. To the extent law reflects human behaviour, to that extent it is citizen-abiding.

Aristotle put it this way -- a person capable of only following rules is a natural slave. Is the Government turning us into slaves?

Public Documents are Public Property

Unpublished letter to the National Post.

Re Judge allows Toews to find out who viewed his divorce papers, Mar. 8:

A Winnipeg judge apparently saw nothing amiss in granting Public Safety Minister Vic Toews permission to learn the names of people who have viewed his publicly available divorce papers.

The good judge deemed it unfair that personal matters might be revealed "at the whim of any passerby." But that's what happens with public documents. Any serious objection should inspire him to demand that such documents be sealed from public view.

Big Brother is lurking if a citizen must identify himself and have his name recorded simply to view a public document.

The next frightful step may force libraries to disclosed the names of borrowers of certain books. Reading a book about terrorism, or how to make a bomb, or how to do robo-calls, may soon lead to one's home being raided.

Bureaucrats and Politicians Attack Basic Values

Government intervention into more and more aspects of our lives must be challenged as an attack on basic values. Here are some reasons why.

Bertrand Russell -- "The fight for freedom is not won by any mere change in our economic system. It is to be won only by constant resistance to the tyranny of officials."

Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh -- Once you start involving governments,"you immediately begin to involve political philosophies and attitudes of all sorts and all sorts of difficulties that are much more easily avoided if you have something which is voluntarily financed."

Former Ontario Education Minister Thomas Wells -- "There is in many respects a waning confidence in the effectiveness of public education. In elementary education, the most public voiced concern is with the basics -- what many parents and others often call the Three Rs."

The Law Must Earn Respect

Society is in poor shape when citizens, such as in a recent incident involving homeschooling in Alberta, are ordered by law to “honour and respect” the law.

Carve this in stone: Those who enact, enforce or interpret law receive only such respect as is commanded by their performance, not by what they demand.

The situation becomes toxic when families in Quebec must fight for the obvious -- that they, the family, not the government or the courts, are the primary teachers of their children.

The Supreme Court of Canada recently approved the soft totalitarianism of a Quebec law conferring on the government exclusive rights of religious education. These same Supremos claim to uphold religious freedom. In the crunch, they have wilted when called on to defend that freedom.

It's time for a revolution to limit the power of anyone in authority -- political, bureaucratic or judicial -- to clearly stated basics. Governmental intrusion into education must be limited to setting standard tests in core subjects. Activist judges must be reined in, along with empire-building bureaucrats.

To realize a revolution, laws that refer to human rights, diversity, multiculturalism, and other vague notions of how society should operate, must be re-written The re-write will contain strict limits as to interpretation and manipulation by the troika -- politicians, officials and judges, especially our activist Supreme Court. The Russian troika is a carriage powered by three horses, but controlled by one driver. In Canada, that driver must be the people.

Light occasional shines in dark places. The Alberta Human Rights Act gives parents the option of removing children from classes dealing with religion, sexuality, or sexual orientation without academic penalty, something the Supremes denied Quebec citizens. The bad news is that Alberta's appointed Premier, under the influence of radical elements of the province's teacher union, wants to relieve parents of that right.

We can only hope that one day a streak of enlightenment will penetrate the darkness of the Quebec government and the Supreme Court of Canada. It will not happen voluntarily. On occasion, noses must be pushed into the mud of reality. Such a challenge now confronts us.


Sidebar. "... Ontario's provincial judicial appointments system scores much better than the federal system, which is still heavily tainted by political partisanship and conspicuously lacking in transparency." --- Jacob Ziegel, law professor emeritus, University of Toronto. (The National Post, March 7, 2012)

I Was Only Obeying Orders

Big Brother is today bigger than in George Orwell's day.

Gregg Bereznick, Superintendent of Education at Waterloo Region District School Board, claims for his bureaucracy the status of "co-parent" with real parents. Unless these empire-builders are reeled in their claim to full parental rights is not far off.

Such loss of parental rights has occurred in Sweden and Germany. There, the state has scooped children from their families because the parents preferred homeschooling -- an illegal act in those countries.

The issue in Ontario is about a child at school who drew a picture of her father shooting monsters. An over-zealous teacher complained.The bureaucracy descended with jack books. The father was arrested, strip searched, and threatened with being charged with possession of an illegal weapon. His children and pregnant wife were forced into child services custody. Finally, getting around to searching this family's home, police found a transparent plastic toy that shoots small plastic BBs, and available in the toy section of most department stores.

In answer to an interviewer's question whether he was satisfied with what happened, Bereznick replied, “We do work hand in hand with these families because we co-parent …”

No, Mr. B. bureaucrats do not "co-parent." They do no kind of parenting whatsoever.

If the child had drawn Bereznick or Dalton McGuinty holding a gun, would they have been similarly molested, abused and insulted? If the law permits this mischief, the law is a bigger ass than we ever feared.

I too was only obeying orders, explained Alison Scott, executive director of Family and Child Services for the Waterloo Region “I do not see any need for our agency to apologize for fulfilling our mandated responsibility.”

All this follows on the heels of the decision of the Ottawa Nine (the Supreme Court of Canada) allowing the state to indoctrinate Quebec children against family wishes and traditions.

Big Brother is not only alive and well in Canada, but growing to fearsome proportions. And it's all according to the rule of law (enshrined by lawyers in the Charter of Rights) which states we must obey the law simply because it is the law, not whether it is good or bad for society.

Foreign Issues Have No Place in Canadian Politics

On March 01, 2010, the Toronto Star quoted Harbans Jandali, president of the Ontario Sikh and Gurdwara Council: "Unless they make amends quickly, the Liberals will definitely lose this community's votes." He was reacting to Premier Dalton McGuinty's 30-minute meeting with Kamal Nath, a minister in the Indian government, in Toronto to speak to the Canada-India Business Council.

Sikhs allege that Nath abetted riots in which more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed -- riots in reaction to the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. I sent a copy of this letter to the Sikh Council. No reply. The Star did not publish it:

Re Sikh leaders promise to make McGuinty pay, March 24, 2010

I hope the president of the Ontario Sikh and Gurdwara Council was misquoted when he threatened to make an event in India an issue in an Ontario election. Otherwise, it means that when I cast my ballot over such matters as education, health care, social welfare etc., my vote will be cancelled because of an incident in a distant land with no relevance to Ontario.

My parents came to Toronto in the 1920s. Not once did they talk of the politics of their native Austria. They did not force us to learn German, or wear the costumes of their homeland. They always voted for what they thought best for Toronto, for Ontario, for Canada, not for Austria. All they wanted was to blend into their chosen culture. It is to be hoped later waves of immigrants do likewise.

View from the Sidelines

Rail Travel. Three engineers were killed when a Via train drove through a switching point at four times the mandated speed. Railroad safety advocates now urge that new safety measures be "fast-tracked". With seemingly indecent speed, fee-sniffing lawyers were on the scene signing up clients for class-action lawsuits, and eager for their 40+ per cent of the proceeds.

Political Correctness. A school teacher in Quebec caused a stir when he censored from a school concert the last line of the classic Edith Piaf song Hymne à l'amour. The line -- God reunites those who love -- Piaf wrote as a tribute to her lover, boxing champion Marcel Cerdan who had just died in a plane crash. The teacher said he didn't want to have to answer students' questions about God. The culture minister decried censorship to a work of art. The education minister called it a lack of judgement. The local school board backed the offender on the grounds that teachers lack guidelines for "reasonable accommodation".

Lottery fraud. An Ontario woman was charged with fraud for writing bad cheques. She did so in order to purchase $80,000 worth of lottery tickets. Her total winnings were $3,600. The report makes no mention of fraud charges against the lottery commission.

Whales' rights. A federal court in California was petitioned by five whales (listed as plaintiffs) claiming their treatment in a theme park amounted to slavery. The petition was signed by people from the Ethical Treatment of Animals who wanted the court to declare the owners violated whales' rights under the U.S. Constitution 13th amendment which abolished slavery. The judge ruled that orcas had no standing to seek the same constitutional rights as people.

Don't laugh. Princeton Professor Peter Singer believes that apes have greater rights than new-born babies and mentally-handicapped humans. This mischief blurs the meaning of human rights, a mischief Singer teaches to his young, likely unquestioning, students.

The rationale of it all. English language dictionaries describe usage, as distinct from their French counterparts which prescribe usage. The Concise Oxford Dictionary informs us that the pronunciation of rationale is ra-shun-al. Its bigger and older brother, The Oxford English Dictionary, describes the pronunciation as ra-shun-al-eh. It rhymes with finale. Is it that little Oxford brother hangs out in coffee houses, while Big Brother sips cocktails with the intellectual elite?

Book burning. There is no need to burn the great books of our civilization. Just leave them unread on the shelf. Our society is doing just that. Scientific knowledge is cumulative. The humanities, as expressed in great literature, great music and great culture must be read and learned anew each generation. Unfortunately, the our current money-oriented ethos rejects this approach to our heritage.
The staged book-burnings by the Nazis were fuelled by books of philosophy, history, religion, culture. I other words, the humanities.  Scientific books were saved.

Human Rights Tribunal Again Exposed as Unfair

Ontario Rights Tribunal found a law librarian guilty of racial profiling when she asked for identification from a prospective user of the library.

The Ontario Divisional Court found otherwise, stating that the evidence on which tribunal vice-chair EricWhist made his decision was inconsistent with other facts in the case.

The court found that Whist switched the onus of proof from the complainant to the respondent, and "placed [the librarian] in the difficult position of trying to prove a negative, namely, that her conduct in the performance of her routine duties was not motivated by race and colour."

The court also said the tribunal "misconceived" in comparing the librarian's conduct to racial profiling by the police.

Whist himself admitted his decision was based on inference not evidence. This again points up the inherent weakness of human rights tribunals -- lack of impartiality.

The court assessed the complainant with court costs ($20,000). His tribunal costs were borne by the taxpayer.

The question remains -- what if the librarian lacked the resources to launch an appeal? We can only speculate how often injustice is perpetrated by these tribunals when someone convicted by inference cannot afford an appeal to a real court.

The National Post, December 19, 2012.
The complainant appealed the Divisional Court decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal, claiming, "There's no mention of hairstyle discrimination, but it's real." In demanding a re-write of the Ontario Human Rights Code, he said, "I want you to think of a new law. If you have dreadlocks, you can be discriminated against."

Israel and Canada

It is to wonder who advises Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. A recent report in the New York Times and a column in the Toronto Star by Rabbi Dow Marmur dealt in painful detail with the looming conflict in Israel between ultra-Orthodox Chabad Jews and the rest of the nation. During my last visit to Israel, our guide spoke of civil war.

"The co-existence between the two is breaking down," said the president of the Israeli Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem research organization. "It is an extreme danger."

This week, like a blind elephant, Baird tromped into this simmering dispute, trumpeting Canada's friendship with Israel. According to reports, his visit was Chabad oriented.

The Star reported, "[M]any in the secular to mildly religious crowds who met with Mr. Baird were distinctly uncomfortable at the notion of a Chabad rabbi in their midst." Baird had actually brought the rabbi with him from Ottawa where, as Chabad public affairs director, he spends much time on Parliament Hill.

While maintaining friendship, Canada must remain aloof from internal Israeli matters. The aborted visit of Charles de Gaulle during our Centennial should have taught our politicians that lesson.

Dumbing Down

It once was that self-help books bore such positive titles as In Praise of Gentlemen or A Thinking Person's Guide to (whatever). No longer are we gentlemen or thinking people.

In a commercial enterprise, self-styled Klutz, offers our young people such books as The Encyclopedia of My Immaturity and Your Own Personal Stinking Diary. Why this undermining young people's search for self-confidence?

To capitalizing on the perceived contemporary loser mentality, we have an endless array of published efforts all titled (Whatever) for Dummies, and yet another The Complete Dummy's Guide to (whatever). Do people actually enjoy saying "I'm a dummy, sell me a book"? Or is it that some of us do not know when we are being insulted? How else to account for the popularity of such publications?

As a preliminary to Valentine's Day, the Toronto Star made a pitch to the turnip wagon crowd with a report on how to approach one's beloved. The subhead: The Idiot's Guide to Proposing.

Will no one rid us of these cash cows?

A Toronto Coffee Time shop owner, pestered by a customer who bad mouthed his product to other customers, called him a gypsy. The "offended" person complains. The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT) in April 2010 ordered the shop owner to pay $15,000 to this nuisance who was undermining his business.

In a burst of righteous hyperbole the Toronto Star described this incident as "rampant racism." The "victim" must know someone at the Toronto Star. The newspaper featured him with a photograph in front of the "offending" shop.

In a real court, the complainant would have to prove damage. What if the owner had called him a Somali pirate? How much would that be worth? Or a German? Or an Englishman? Does the commission have a sliding scale of nationalities for this "rampant racism"?

Within a year or so, Coffee Time was no longer there. It is reasonable to speculate that the "guilty party" lacked the funds to appeal this ham-fisted judgement to a real court, or lacked the funds to pay this outrageous award, and that the Tribunal put him out of business.

The presumption in human rights legislation is that the victim is poor and helpless while the accused is wealthy and mean. Reality has yet to make an appearance at the OHRT.

The Quebec version of this rogue gravy train ordered the Mayor of Saguenay to pay a man $30,000 who claimed his freedom of conscience was violated by the city council opening its meetings with a short prayer. He demanded $150,000. This abuse of all things rational would be laughed out of a real court.

Were it not for the prospect of a pot of gold at the end of the human rights rainbow, these commissions would be out of business.

As if all this were not bad enough, comes news that the OHRT has expanded its reach by creating the crime of  "assumed discrimination". This does not pass the empire-building sniff test.

The reported example is the complaint by a former employee of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal that she is a victim of "assumed discrimination" because the City of Toronto demanded that she apply through regular municipal channels for an exemption to a parking by-law. The complainant preferred to go directly to her old friends on the Tribunal.

It's a foregone conclusion the Tribunal will declare the city guilty of discrimination, and order the exemption to the by-law, and the payment of a bag of money to their old pal.

Human Rights and Wrongs

Email to the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, December 2009. In May 2011, the Museum of Human Rights replied with a request a donation. No reaction from the Royal Society.

To determine the nature of a corporation, commission, institution, or tribunal, one must look beyond its proclaimed mandate, and examine its core. What is the policy of those who created it? What is the essential behaviour of its operators today? Do all involved have a broad knowledge of matters at hand? Or do they represent special interests?

Wesley J. Smith, a Fellow at the U.S think tank Discovery Institute, observed: "Expert commissions to advise on contentious issues of public policy are usually political tools designed to come to a predetermined conclusion in order to pave the way for desired policy changes."

The Smith Principle has general application. Witness the Royal Society of Canada, a gathering dedicated "to encouraging education and the advancement of knowledge in the social sciences and the humanities." That is its proclaimed policy. Does its behaviour reveal its core?

This gathering of the learned appointed an expert panel to "assess the pros and cons of permitting physician-assisted death". Contradicting its mandate of neutrality, the panel's mission was to evaluate "arguments deployed against decriminalization by opponents of voluntary euthanasia and/or physician assisted suicide".  Does this represent the open mind one would expect of such a gathering?

What objectivity should we expect from the Society's panel when five of its six members are euthanasia advocates? What does this tell us of the Society's core? Objectivity or predetermination? Needless to say, the panel produced the desired pro-euthanasia manifesto in its November 2011 report.

Apply the Smith Principle to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The concept of human rights covers a diverse and ever-widening spectrum of interests. Will the Museum represent this diversity?

Examine the Museum's Content Advisory Committee -- a panel that will recommend what the public will see. Of the sixteen members of this committee, eleven are activists with feminist and homosexual agendas. Is that representative of broad Canadian opinion? Dare we fear the Museum will become a platform for special interests?

May we expect from the Museum a balanced and objective approach to highly contentious issues, such as the right to life for the unborn? The rights of family-oriented women who have been marginalized by activists with little or no family experience? Misandry as well as misogyny? The rights of women forced to abort healthy females because their ethnic communities prefer boys? Will there be tolerance for the diversity of views on other rights issues?

The Museum's core behavior so far indicates a special-interest mandate.