INTERIM PUBLISHING CO. Toronto, Ottawa, 2008

Permanent Winter: Canadian Tribunals
BY PAULY FONGEMIE
FOR CATHOLIC TRADITION


With the war against Christ [mas] gathering no moss as it rolls gleefully downhill to assault another "season" making its advent --- incursion after incursion with the trusted, tried and true weapons of political correctness and "sensitivity" on behalf of the professional perennially aggrieved class asserting claims of being offended, no matter how spurious and malicious --- I happened upon a news item: to wit one tax-funded school moved the Christmas play to January so as to not offend its Muslim students who wanted to celebrate their own religious festival. Christians are supposed to be tolerant and self-flagellant but everyone else gets a free pass to trivialize our sacred traditions, mock them openly or have them deleted altogether. As I pondered, it should have been inexplicable to realize how far the enemies of Christ have advanced in their efforts to "kill" Him once more, but being unable to do so, instead, settle for persecuting and or legally molesting His faithful. Such brazen marginalization should have been startling even to a veteran news hound like I am; sadly I expected it, within a few years, not immediately. After all, we aren't Canadian, yet. Or are we? Then I pondered once again and realized: Oh why not now, especially now! The infernal one and his minions on earth know well how to take advantage of the weaknesses in our legal system --- the use of freedom to squelch it --- that put Christians, and only Christians, at a distinct disadvantage. Not all citizens are equal and under the new imaginative burgeoning rights monolith --- the regime of "tolerance and diversity" --- Christians need not apply. "How?" you ask, "surely the US Supreme Court would jump at the chance to take such a case if given the opportunity?" Wrong, folks. The court of last resort is mostly composed of craven creatures and other assorted denizens of the global mentality that normalcy is suspect, that is, conflicting policies at one and the same time, which seem to pose no discordance among its odd adherents. Anything to invigorate the nihilistic spirit of the age. Twice such a case has gone before them for cert and twice they have deferred to a lower court, both of which resulted in the Muslims pushing Christians into the dirt in lieu of forced conversions. Sharia law, as it is in England, is just around the corner. The terrorists do not have to take hostages here when we are such willing dupes abetting our own demise because we refuse to use our rights of recall and impeachment.

While mulling the mullahs my internet friend, WynMarie, of Calgary, Alberta, wrote me about the powerful Human Rights tribunals [HRT] in Canada that make PC here look tame. I could easily hear the sound of the jackboots and worse. She generously purchased a copy of the above book for me so that I could alert Americans through a book review. The work is one of the most frightening books I have read in my long lifetime, not only for all the innocent unassuming Canadians that have been tormented by this bureaucratic octopus with so many tentacles, but even more because the HRTs & Co. have succeeded where the Big Chill was but a dream. The cover image consists of a single jackboot. I used a similar image and added a mullah's head wear because, as Mark Steyn, who wrote the introduction observed, "It's an interesting lesson not just in the internal contradictions of multiculturalism but in which side is likely to win. If it's a choice between Heather Has Two Mommies or Heather Has Two Imams, bet on Heather Has Two Imams --- or Heather Has Four Mommies And A Big Bearded Daddy Who Wants To Marry Her Off To A Cousin Back In Pakistan. The most radical Islamic groups have figured out the cheapest, easiest way to advance illiberal goals is to use the supposedly 'liberal' human rights regime that's already greased the way for you." [xiii]

Steyn, is a perceptive writer as well as a stunningly lucid thinker, no small accomplishment in the age of wedding invitations via e-mail and the hegemony of the irrational. He was also one of the many victims of these draconian tribunals of thought control. He is the author of America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, an excerpt of which appeared in Macleans magazine, thereby causing him to be investigated. The book recounts all the bittersweet irony that the tribunal became embroiled in as a result of its pigheaded blindness --- my description, not his.

"But," you counter, "no one is forcing people to think only the approved thoughts. Thoughts are private, speech isn't." I respond, he who controls your speech also controls your thought process. Once a person is in the habit of accepting that he is not permitted to say anything to anyone that may be subject to scrutiny by the government, he invariably adopts the attitudes that accompany the accepted speech and the forbidden ideas that gave rise to the verboten speech shrink until they exist no more than a vague memory. This is the way the intellect is put together. This is why indoctrination and propaganda are important tools for the powerful with evil designs. Only those souls with the will to resist and endure whatever hardship is in the offing are excepted. It is less the control of speech ---only the method employed --- than it is the control of thought, for it is ideas that form a culture --- beliefs and ideas. The term culture is derived from cult, meaning worship, meaning beliefs and the ideas that flow naturally from those beliefs. Now if the government were to tell you that you can no longer believe in Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, you would disregard this command as ridiculous because it is unenforceable as such. But not so with speech which is tangible. Ergo PC speech. You see, the mere words of a few staunch, devout Christians do not really affect a sodomite or a Muslim. What they want is affirmation in the one and supremacy in the other. They must curtail the very thoughts that give shape and form to Western culture, now but a shell of Christendom, yet still the center of what it means to be civilized, still acknowledging our gratitude, however tentatively, to the Blessed Trinity, One Supreme Godhead in Three Divine Persons.

  The curtailment of exorbitant "free" speech up north works this way: Any member of an approved "minority class" [Christians and Whites are automatically excluded in most cases --- unless a White homosexual or an abortionist] can make a claim of bias or "hate" against any writer or speaker he wants, to the local HRT. All the force of the mighty government will come to bear down hard on the accused, who has no right to a jury and no right to a government paid lawyer, no matter how impoverished. The accuser, on the other hand is represented by the anti-Western, anti-Christian tribunals. Bankruptcy and loss of a livelihood are such real possibilities in this uneven handed crushing of common sense that most Canadians have muted their voices for fear of reprisal although they do not approve of the sinister policy.

"I've learned a lot of lessons during my time in the crosshairs of the Lynch mob. Although the feistier columnists have spoken out on this issue, the broad mass of Canadian media seems generally indifferent to a power grab that explicitly threatens to reduce them to a maple-flavoured variant of Pravda. One boneheaded 'journalism professor' even attempted to intervene in the British Columbia trial on the side of the censors. As some leftie website put it, 'Defending freedom of speech for jerks means defending jerks.' Well, yes. But, in this case, not defending the jerks means not defending freedom of speech for yourself. It's not a left/right thing; it's a free/unfree thing. But an alarming proportion of the Dominion's 'media workers' seem relatively relaxed about playing the role of eunuchs to the Trudeaupian sultans." [Ibid.]

Mark Steyn ends the introduction with the happy declaration that the two authors of the book are exceptions. And most fortuitously for all of us here in the States that they are courageous enough, stalwart enough, to warn us of the looming peril in the increasingly stifling theater-of-the-absurd PC milieu we are succumbing to. Even for those who are not speakers and writers, etc. Ordinary housewives are now censoring their own speech within their families, and among their acquaintances. We have close relatives who are Canadian. In just a few short years I have witnessed a once vibrant, outspoken, yet gentle soul of a pro-life advocate shrivel into a depressed and distressed loner --- a permanent winter of fear which freezes her from speaking up as before. She has never been dragged before an HRT kangaroo court of intimidation with the presumption of guilt, but she doesn't have much to fear. The whole point of the Gestapo up there, as well as here, is to get us easily demoralized, non-confident folks to allow fear of reprisal to control us. A nation of robotons. Judge Napolitano refers to us as a "Nation of Sheep". Fear of the guillotine used to be necessary, but in our usurious, rapid change-vexing age it is the fear of losing one's already precarious position, one's means to support self and family that quickens the populace to quell any notion of calling wrong, wrong, and right, right. Human nature. If you have any doubts, look at all the government employees in America who refused to quit their jobs when indoctrination in sensitivity to all things homosexual was forced on them hour after hour, in violation of their initial consciences. The paycheck is so paramount --- and I am not blaming them at all --- that they will endure the most excruciating circuses that belie any notion of dignity and human liberty. Why should it be any different in Canada?
 
One of the authors, Peter Vere, may be familiar to American readers although he is Canadian; his articles and reports have appeared in various Catholic and secular publications, such as the Wanderer and the Washington Times. Kathy Shaidle, has a blog, FiveFeetofFury.com on which the latest headline [as we uploaded this review] is thus:

Canada's Human Rights Commissions new best friends? Muslim 9/11 truthers and their anti-Semite pals!

She is tenacious, determined to expose the thugs in high places with hefty sinecures so as to warn her American neighbors. You can purchase this blockbuster book there. Bookmark her blog, one of the few blogs worth the investment of time.

There are only six chapters, all of them eye-opening and compelling. I will cover the last two only, I want you to purchase the book and pass it around to anyone who will consent to read it. Including the two appendices, the work is a scant 82 pages, not one word wasted. Every honest true blue patriot can manage this, no matter how busy.

If I have any criticism it is is the title, for I think the authors were being too nice with the choice of the word "Nice". There is nothing nice at all about every case I read, anything but. The intolerant "tolerance" brown shirts are about something altogether different, the eradication of common sense, and western tradition. I think everyone should be nice when possible to his neighbor and a tyranny of nice, while still a ridiculous use of taxpayer money, would not be so insidious and destructive. Besides, they would encourage everyone to be nice to Catholic priests, too. If you detect a note of sarcasm, you are on point. Civility has nothing to do with the misery to the north: it is an all-out war against reason and the natural law.

As I was scanning the Table of Contents, the chapter that caught my eye was "Under the radar: the cases nobody knew about". Whenever a government entity is up to no good, penalizing and criminalizing its innocent citizens for their beliefs, flying under the radar is preferred as is evildoing under the cover of night. The fait accompli is hard to undo. Chapter 5 provides the light. It is key because most of us know about the highly publicized Fr. Alphonse de Valk --- Catholic Insight case. But we do not know about all the others. After he was exonerated of high crimes and misdemeanors against homosexuals, he was interviewed. At the close of which he uttered this startling line:

"Now we have to turn back the cases that were already decided."

Under the cover of stealth, innocent people were prosecuted in order to impose the regime's idea of ideas, in other words, the long forced march of cultural re-education or attitude reassignment. Chairman Mao could have picked up some pointers. The innocent victims of the tribunals lost because they had no monetary sources to fight with and were soon exhausted. One of the most bizarre cases [HEADLINED Your mother lied] is the following and I cite verbatim, because if I recapitulated from memory no one would believe me, even though everyone knows no one could make this sort of thing up:

Washing your hands before eating is one of the first lessons your mother teaches you. "Don't come to the table with dirty hands, you'll spread germs and get sick," Mom says.

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal fined a Vancouver McDonald's approximately $50,000 for dismissing an employee who could not abide by the restaurant's strict handwashing policy. (Yes, it's strict but not unreasonable --- as any employee would suggest even though countless thousands of current and former employees have never considered complaining about it, after all).

In fairness to the employee, she had developed an allergy to hand soap. Her doctor verified the allergy, for which she had spent some time on disability. Thus, she is not without sympathy. Perhaps McDonald's ought to have looked into transferring her to some other position that did not require the handling of food. The microbes we call germs, however, do not distinguish between those with soap allergies and those who do not.

And this is where the tribunal imposed political hyper-sensitivity at the expense of hygiene, health and biology. The tribunal's decision was based on the following "finding": "There was no evidence of: the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing..."

Remember that the next time you're in a restaurant and your children use the facilities. You're guilty of discrimination if you force them to wash their hands afterward --- one that could cost you $50,000. ("Sorry son, there goes your college fund").

According to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, it's okay to pop french fries into your mouth after flushing the toilet. [60]

Someone please call Laura Ingraham!

Better yet, why do not people with allergies to hand soap avoid employment where handwashing is so critical, or better still yet, bring their own medically-acceptable soap with them to the job? This is what I mean by the loss of common sense.

This chapter moreover relates the watershed event of June 15, 2001, the day on which Canada declared the Bible "hate literature". The impetus was a Protestant's disapproval of sodomy that was part of an ad that ran in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, which was also charged. The piece cited various Bible passages in reference to the sin of sodomy. By all accounts the ad was poorly done, what the authors called "tacky". And as they astutely observed, "if tackiness was a crime, then Canada would have long ago shut down the CBC ..." The man had to defend himself as his own attorney, and spent thousands of dollars over a four year period. God has not yet withdrawn all grace --- the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned the commission's ruling that the Bible is hate speech.

In Alberta one Protestant minister is not so fortunate, he is still banned from quoting the Bible. [59]

Ironically and prudently, the authors said they would not quote directly from the verses in the ad. Even with the declaration of the Court of Appeal, they are not sure they would be safe from harassment, although it may have been tongue-in-cheek, but only by half.

Previously I used the phrase, "theater-of-the-absurd" --- practice and policy based on conflicting realities as rational; this was not rhetorical flourish. Vere and Shaidle have a section in this chapter, "Augmenting their mandate" in which we read about a Dr. Stubbs, who performs enhancement operations on certain private parts. Two transsexuals denounced him to the Ontario Human Rights commissars because he would not do "a labiaplasty on one and a breast augmentation on the other". Dr. Stubbs informed them that transsexual women are different from biological women. In other words, internally they are still men. The authors had a witty quip in parentheses. The doctor was doing his best to be medically sound in his approach and he was not sure about what went where --- we are not trying to be funny here, though. On cue he was accused of "discrimination", which was a farce since he was discriminating on behalf of their own health. This doctor was able to hire a lawyer, unlike many of the victimized; the attorney was necessary because "political correctness clashed with medical reality." The authors did not provide the results of the case; perhaps as the book went to print it was not known. Better a botched surgery than a politically incorrect medical assessment. Never mind the sickness or moral depravity that induces people to do such things in the first place that require this disfigurement.

These are just a few of the many who are targets of the self-anointed elites. The chapter closes with the following lines:

" ... now infamous comment summarizes the key problem in every case raised in this book. Canada's human rights commissions and tribunal act as though they are above the law. In the name of tolerance and multi-culturalism, these government agencies place themselves in judgment of the very democratic rights and freedoms that make a tolerant and multi-cultural society possible. ..."

The last chapter deals with the deteriorating social climate because of the "star chambers". It is most fittingly titled, "Canada's Human Rights Commissions: A Legacy of Hate and Mistrust". Let me cite a few brief insightful passages:

" ... this ruthless campaign to impose 'like it or not' tolerance, besides being an oxymoron, is also self-defeating. Canada's human rights industry foments hatred and mistrust among ordinary Canadians. Tolerance should be built on a foundation of voluntary social discourse in which every citizen is free to express his or her honest opinion. We have to know what we are supposed to be tolerating before we can decide whether or not to tolerate it.
 
"And recently, due to the stated efforts of progressive activists, 'tolerance' has come to mean outright 'approval.' It is not enough, they insist, that people politely mind their own business when faced with another's lifestyle or values. They must also voice their approval of such differences, even if doing so would violate their own deeply held beliefs. To do otherwise is to risk public censure as an 'intolerant bigot.' At worst, failure to (pretend to) approve could jeopardize one's livelihood, or even one's life itself.

"Unfortunately, multiculturalism and tolerance have become the excuse used by the HRCs to shut down such conversations before they even begin. This is not surprising as the two terms are, in reality, incongruous. For, as we saw in the Mark Steyn case, multiculturalism discourages people from merely making commonplace factual observations about other cultures." [74]

Precisely. If any American thinks it can't happen here, he only has to cast a glance at the smattering of unconstitutional rulings of the courts from California to New Hampshire, whereby social policy is legislated from the bench, the preferred, only acceptable policy that is, and the preferred kind of legislating, too. This better be our wake up call. One may be accused of being the Grinch that stole Christmas, but I  urge those who can to give them to the soldiers of Christ in their parishes, families and friends. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas as the expression goes, but what happens in Canada does not stay there. We all know what rolls down hill.

Postscript:

I salute the authors and the ever valiant WynMarie! God bless you all.



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