Sunday, February 12, 2006

Stirring The Pot

Apparently, The Western Standard and the Jewish Free Press in Calgary think it serves some kind of purpose to reprint the cartoons that have been at the center of controversy for the last couple of weeks.

On CBC Radio earlier today, I was treated to the sound of Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard cloaking himself in the language of "Freedom of the Press". While such freedoms are clearly presented in the Charter of Rights, he may well find it to be a something of a hair shirt to wear as it is bounded by this clause, and publishing those cartoons could be viewed as having little informative value now, and therefore justifiably subject to review either in the context of a human rights complaint, or more seriously as a violation of the hate crimes provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Levant himself appears to be setting up what he thinks will be a "precedent" case in the courts. In doing so, he may well put Stephen Harper's government in a very awkward place quite quickly. Consider this little pickle - if a Muslim group complains about the publication, Harper is obliged to prosecute it to the full extent of the law. Why? If he does not, his political opponents will point to it as an example of Conservative Party "racism". However, if he does prosecute Levant, Levant will accuse the government of attempting to suppress freedom of speech as guaranteed in the constitution. Also, we mustn't forget that the CPC did make statements during the election about 'getting tough on crime', and 'enforcing the laws that are on the books'.

I don't think Levant himself appreciates just how sticky things are going to get. Of course, Levant could be hoping to provoke a long term challenge of the Hate Crimes provisions of the Criminal Code - which have become strangely inconvenient since they were amended recently to contain the following words:

(4) In this section, “identifiable group” means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.


In either case, things are about to get very ugly for Stephen Harper's new government in Ottawa. (and I'll be curious to see just how the Conservative party manages to wriggle through this collection of contradictions - hopefully a bit less hypocritcally than has happened with the Emerson affair? - I don't like the pickings to be too easy when trashing the illogic of a government)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are some positive defences against that clause though, specifically:

(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or

(d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.


I'm sure that Mr. Levant and his lawyers will argue on these two points, because [sarcasm mode on]obviously Mr. Levant is only interested in peace and the spread of good will.[sarcasm mode off]

Mr. Levant will aslo probably argue clause b:

b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text;

This would open up a can of worms between Jews and Muslems in Canada. Though that may be Mr. Levant's purpose, to alienate the Muslems in Canada as well.

JN
www.nishiyama.tzo.com

MgS said...

In any case, it puts Harper's gov't between a rock and a hard place, doesn't it.

If, as you postulate, Levant argues clause B, he will likely find himself skewered in the courts on it. Given the amount and volume of coverage on the topic, it would be extremely difficult to make a coherent argument that clause b) is a legitimate comment. (also, knowing how Lerant (& co) write it would be hard to justify that line of reasoning).

Topics c&d are possible defenses, but that doesn't mitigate the "out-of-court" impact of Levant's actions, or any legal fallout from those actions.

Anonymous said...

Having received more info (if you can call a story in the Calgary Sun info) it would appear that the Jewish Free Press had run the cartoons along side of some anti-semetic cartoons. This would definiately give the Jewish Free Press a positive defence under c and d for sure. It would also imply that they did it to spark discusion as they weren't singling out one religion.

As an interesting side note, at the time of this comment, the Western Standard's web site was down...

JN
www.nishiyama.tzo.com

MgS said...

I just heard a bit of an exchange between Le(r)ant and a leader of a local Muslim association on the radio.

All I can say is that Levant is, like a lot of other conservative commentators, your basic button-pusher. As far as I'm concerned, he's out to provoke a conflict in this mess.

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