View topic - Ezra Levant's Opening Statement to AHRC :: Free Dominion - Principled Conservative - Party and Canadian Politics

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 2:06 pm Post subject: Ezra Levant's Opening Statement to AHRC

Here's video of Ezra Levant's opening statement to the Alberta Human Rights Commission

http://ezralevant.com/2008/01/opening-statement.html

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 2:14 pm Post subject:

Here's the text of Levant's opening statement

Alberta Human Rights Commission Interrogation
Opening remarks by Ezra Levant, January 11, 2008 – Calgary
My name is Ezra Levant. Before this government interrogation begins, I will make a statement.
When the Western Standard magazine printed the Danish cartoons of Mohammed two years ago, I was the publisher. It was the proudest moment of my public life. I would do it again today. In fact, I did do it again today. Though the Western Standard, sadly, no longer publishes a print edition, I posted the cartoons this morning on my website, ezralevant.com.
I am here at this government interrogation under protest. It is my position that the government has no legal or moral authority to interrogate me or anyone else for publishing these words and pictures. That is a violation of my ancient and inalienable freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and in this case, religious freedom and the separation of mosque and state. It is especially perverted that a bureaucracy calling itself the Alberta human rights commission would be the government agency violating my human rights. So I will now call those bureaucrats “the commission” or “the hrc”, since to call the commission a “human rights commission” is to destroy the meaning of those words.
I believe that this commission has no proper authority over me. The commission was meant as a low-level, quasi-judicial body to arbitrate squabbles about housing, employment and other matters, where a complainant felt that their race or sex was the reason they were discriminated against. The commission was meant to deal with deeds, not words or ideas. Now the commission, which is funded by a secular government, from the pockets of taxpayers of all backgrounds, is taking it upon itself to be an enforcer of the views of radical Islam. So much for the separation of mosque and state.
I have read the past few years’ worth of decisions from this commission, and it is clear that it has become a dump for the junk that gets rejected from the real legal system. I read one case where a male hair salon student complained that he was called a “loser” by the girls in the class. The commission actually had a hearing about this. Another case was a kitchen manager with Hepatitis-C, who complained that it was against her rights to be fired. The commission actually agreed with her, and forced the restaurant to pay her $4,900. In other words, the commission is a joke – it’s the Alberta equivalent of a U.S. television pseudo-court like Judge Judy – except that Judge Judy actually was a judge, whereas none of the commission’s panellists are judges, and some aren’t even lawyers. And, unlike the commission, Judge Judy believes in freedom of speech.
It’s bad enough that this sick joke is being wreaked on hair salons and restaurants. But it’s even worse now that the commissions are attacking free speech. That’s my first point: the commissions have leapt out of the small cage they were confined to, and are now attacking our fundamental freedoms. As Alan Borovoy, Canada’s leading civil libertarian, a man who helped form these commissions in the 60’s and 70’s, wrote, in specific reference to our magazine, being a censor is, quote, “hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions. There should be no question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons.” Unquote. Since the commission is so obviously out of control, he said quote “It would be best, therefore, to change the provisions of the Human Rights Act to remove any such ambiguities of interpretation.” Unquote.

The commission has no legal authority to act as censor. It is not in their statutory authority. They’re just making it up – even Alan Borovoy says so.

But even if the commissions had some statutory fig leaf for their attempts at political and religious censorship, it would still be unlawful and unconstitutional.

We have a heritage of free speech that we inherited from Great Britain that goes back to the year 1215 and the Magna Carta. We have a heritage of eight hundred years of British common law protection for speech, augmented by 250 years of common law in Canada.

That common law has been restated in various fundamental documents, especially since the Second World War.

In 1948, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Canada is a party, declared that, quote:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights guaranteed, quote

1. “ human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,

(c) freedom of religion; (d) freedom of speech; (e) freedom of assembly and association; and (f) freedom of the press.

In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed, quote:

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

a) freedom of conscience and religion;

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

Those were even called “fundamental freedoms” – to give them extra importance.

For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights and a Charter of Rights. This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values.

It is also deeply procedurally one-sided and unjust. The complainant – in this case, a radical Muslim imam, who was trained at an officially anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, and who has called for sharia law to govern Canada – doesn’t have to pay a penny; Alberta taxpayers pay for the prosecution of the complaint against me. The victims of the complaints, like the Western Standard, have to pay for their own lawyers from their own pockets. Even if we win, we lose – the process has become the punishment. (At this point, I’d like to thank the magazine’s many donors who have given their own money to help us fight against the Saudi imam and his enablers in the Alberta government.)

It is procedurally unfair. Unlike real courts, there is no way to apply for a dismissal of nuisance lawsuits. Common law rules of evidence don’t apply. Rules of court don’t apply. It is a system that is part Kafka, and part Stalin. Even this interrogation today – at which I appear under duress – saw the commission tell me who I could or could not bring with me as my counsel and advisors.

I have no faith in this farcical commission. But I do have faith in the justice and good sense of my fellow Albertans and Canadians. I believe that the better they understand this case, the more shocked they will be. I am here under your compulsion to answer the commission’s questions. But it is not I who am on trial: it is the freedom of all Canadians.

You may start your interrogation.

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 2:33 pm Post subject:

It's just too bad that this can't make national news and newspapers

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 2:45 pm Post subject:

What more can be said!!! Thank you Ezra Levant for speaking so powerfully and justly for all of us.

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 2:47 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:04 pm Post subject:

Aaaaahahahahahaaaa!

Did you see that chick's face??? He ripped her a new one!

Ezra, you rock! Laughing

_________________
"...single men must have access to donor eggs and “gestational carriers.” - David Johnston, Governor General Appointee
(The man Stephen Harper calls "the best of Canada")

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:08 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:08 pm Post subject:

More video from Ezra's "interrogation."

http://ezralevant.com/2008/01/what-is-your-intent.html

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:11 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:16 pm Post subject:

Oh, he had so many good one-liners in there! And, everytime he sent off a zinger, you could just see it hit home.

She was SO ticked off! Laughing

_________________
"...single men must have access to donor eggs and “gestational carriers.” - David Johnston, Governor General Appointee
(The man Stephen Harper calls "the best of Canada")

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:24 pm Post subject:

The video is quite amazing. I spent my 6 minutes watching the woman. The body-language was amazing. Several eye rolls, and facial expressions of distaste. Ezra is a very brave man and every effort should be made to expose and ridicule this abominable exercise. The only way to expose this bunch of cockroaches is to shine a very bright light and speak of them and TO them in the harshest of terms. God Bless Ezra Levant.

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:28 pm Post subject:

I have a minority opinion here.

I was actually a bit surprised that Ezra didn't speak more passionately. He was lower key than I expected. Only at the end was he observably passionate.

I wasn't sure that the woman was ticked off - she looked bored.

And I know people might think is a shallow comment but Ezra had enough respect to put on proper clothing and yet the person hearing the issue is dressed as if she's running out for milk.

While I do not agree in any way shape or form with Ezra's decision to publish the pictures and I think he's forgotten that he made an informed decision to do so with consideration of the consequences I do believe that he had the right to publish them. I don't believe in censorship. I also disagree with his wholistic view of muslims but I think he's entitled to that view.

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:29 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 12/ 08 3:32 pm Post subject:

I thought it was great.

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for these cockroaches who have been dwelling in the shadows for too long.
_________________
"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death." ~ James Madison

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