So Long Section 13 by Ezra Levant

The following is lawyer and broadcaster Ezra Levant's excellent half hour show on the recently repealed Sec. 13 (Internet censorship) of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

I reproduce the text of a recent article he wrote for the Sun Media which forms part of the show. Many of his best shots, though, are not in the article,. He is especially devastating about the role of chronic complaint filer and one-time Canadian Human Rights Commission employee and investigator Richard Warman. He shows a clip form a British documentary that shows lawyer Warman egging on some goons to assault -- to "pie" -- visited Brith author David Icke for whom Mr. Warman had a special dislike.

Levant explores the evil origins of Sec. 13 -- a campaign to silence an aging eccentric, John Ross Taylor. I know it well. I have told the John Ross Taylor story in more than a hundred speeches across North America in the past few years. Levant does a good job. He is, however, using without acknowledgement material developed by Barbara Kulaszka, Marc Lrmire and myself. In the end, however, it's important that this story gets out to the public -- no matter who gets the credit.

Sec. 13 -- and this fact does not appear in Levant's report -- was the result of lobbying by the Deputy Attorney General of Ontario who said the province had been unable to "get" John Ross Tauylor for his telephone answering machine messages. He was not breaking the law: that is, Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code -- the hate law. Taylor's commentaries on news stories - often about Israel or Negro crime -- were well within the law. To silence him, as Jewish lobby groups were urging, a new law -- one which did not allow the defence of truth, fair comment, or intent -- had to be drafted. Thus, to silence one aging eccentric -- a man who would eventually be tossed into jail under this law -- Parliament added Sec. 13 into the Canadian Human Rights Act -- legislation aimed at eliminating discrimination in the provision or good and services and in employment practices in the federal government and federally regulated industries. [Of course, anti-White "employment equity" -- pro-minority discrimination would be alright.]

Levant's report is an indictment of a lazy and complacent media and legal establishment which had no trouble with police state legislation as long as its only victims were poor, eccentric or already demonized "rightwingers."

Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION

ezralevant.com/2012/06/so
So Long Section 13

By Ezra Levant on June 11, 2012 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments




Ezra lauds the long-awaited ruling to rid the country of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

This report aired on The Source June 11 2012.

-long-section-13.html

[CLICK ON PERMALINK TO SEE THE TELECAST.]

Conservatives strike blow for freedom - Tories yank Section 13 of human rights act like noxious weed

By Ezra Levant on June 11, 2012 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments


To understand how Canada got an Internet censorship law, also known as Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, you must go back in time to 1913.

That’s when John Ross Taylor was born in Toronto.

Something about Taylor just wasn’t right. In his 20s, as the world lurched towards the Second World War, Taylor openly sided with the Nazis. He was interned during the war. After the war, despite the absolute repudiation of Nazism, Taylor didn’t give up hope. He continued to call for Canadians to throw off our liberal democracy in favour of dictatorship. And, of course, he seasoned that with a dose of anti-Semitism and anti-black racism, too.

It was pitiful: He’d print up some pamphlets, climb to the top of an office tower, and dump them off the roof, like confetti, hoping that would foment a revolution. What a deluded loser. But Taylor was never violent. If you turn the sound off when watching reels of him on the news, you’d mistake him for a banker — always dressed in a three-piece suit, the kind of thing you’d expect from the grandson of a Toronto alderman. But he just wanted an all-white Reich here in Canada.

Obviously this bothered right-minded people after the war, especially Jews in Canada, many of whom were survivors of the Holocaust. Canada’s Official Jews — the bosses of the now-defunct Canadian Jewish Congress — pressed their friends in the Liberal Party for laws banning Taylor’s anti-Semitic rants. And in 1966, a committee appointed by the justice minister proposed new laws to ban hateful speech. The Cohen Commission specifically mentioned Taylor by name as a rationale.

Using this harmless buffoon as an excuse, they recommended infringing on freedom of speech for all Canadians. “There is an evident distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ public discussion, and the state has as great an obligation to discourage the latter as it has to maintain the former,” they wrote.

So in 1977, Parliament passed the Canadian Human Rights Act, and Section 13 made it illegal to publish anything “… likely to expose a person … to hatred or contempt.”

Well, around that time, telephone answering machines were all the rage. And Taylor, now a senior citizen, saw this as his magic weapon for convincing Canadians to go fascist. He would stand around street corners in Toronto, handing out cards inviting people to get a racist message by calling his answering machine. Seriously.

Taylor was charged — and convicted — of having a mean answering machine message. He appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court — which heard the case in 1990, when he was 80. They ruled against him, four to three.

Gentle reader, do you think after such a stubborn life Taylor complied and unplugged his answering machine? He did not. And thus he served nine months in jail — more than most Canadian rapists do.

For more than 30 years, Section 13 had a 100% conviction rate for the thought crime of hurting someone’s feelings.

What an abusive law. What an un-Canadian law. What a ridiculous law in the age of the Internet.

Last week that law was pulled out, like a noxious weed. In 20 years time, I predict it will be regarded as one of the Conservatives’ greatest legacies: Freedom.

This column appeared in the Sun Chain June 11 2012.