The Idiot File: Lindsay Blackett - Television Critic

After hearing Blackett's statements about the quality of Canadian television productions for the last couple of days - and his flaccid attempts to defend the "rightness" of what he says, I finally have a few things to add.

First, let me put my own cards on the table with respect to television. I don't watch it - period. Quite frankly, I got turned off network television in the 1990s - the era of such innovative tripe as "Friends", "Beverly Hills 90210", "Frasier" and "Seinfeld" - and the first generations of so-called "reality" shows, a genre that I thought was awful then and I have yet to see anything to change my opinion. I simply decided that there were better places to spend my money than pouring hundreds of dollars into cable to get access to the handful of channels that I might enjoy.

Which leads to my point. Minister Blackett is busy whinging about how "poor" the quality of Canadian-made television is. A sentiment I find ironic in an era when shows like "Little Mosque on the Prairie" and "Corner Gas" have been garnering awards and audience share like wildfire.

However, if Minister Blackett wishes to whinge about "how bad" Canadian TV is, I invite him to think about it a little differently. He should be asking himself how it is with the millions of dollars that American productions sink into actors, advertising and so on for their shows why there's such a dearth of material that is actually worth the time to watch it?

Quite frankly, the most enjoyable TV series I've seen anything of (usually on DVD's borrowed from friends) have had precious little money sunk into them compared to the extravagant expenditures made by American networks on their "top prime time" material.

Are the big American productions profitable? Undoubtedly. On the other hand, are they high quality? Not necessarily. A glossy finish, perhaps - which is what I suspect Blackett is really attracted to.

It reminds me of a co-worker years ago getting a "great deal" on what was then a fairly new Camaro. When he pulled into the parking lot, we all admired the shiny, obviously fresh paint. On closer inspection though, one of us noticed that his car was sitting a lot lower on the left hand side than the right. The proud new owner told us "it was just that the springs needed to be replaced - besides, listen to how solid this thing is ..." followed by slamming the door shut so we could hear the solid "thunk" of a good car door closing. Well ... there was a thunk alright - it was the sound of half the door falling onto the pavement, revealing a travesty of automotive handiwork. An enormous lump of Bondo and fibreglass fell off the door, revealing a door which had been caved in by another vehicle.

The shiny paint was there as bait. The car itself was worse than a beater - it was beaten. I won't bore you with the litany of problems he had after that trying to rehabilitate the vehicle - the point is this - Television shows are a bit like that car these days. They are often very slick and glossy, but underneath it all, there often isn't much to recommend them.

Minister Blackett might want to consider that the next time he decides to make "off the cuff" remarks about the quality of Canadian productions.

Some friends have pointed me to shows I have actually enjoyed in recent years - Firefly, Dark Angel and Pushing Daisies among them - but there's not enough to make me want to do more than borrow the DVDs once in a while - I'd much rather be outside on my bicycle, walking in the mountains or have a good book to read.

Parochialism Is Alive And Well In Alberta

Apparently Minister Blackett hasn't bothered to read or understand the legislation that gives the AHRC its mandate.

The minister responsible for the Alberta Human Rights Commission says a complaint about an anti-gay letter to a Red Deer newspaper should never have gone before the commission.

"It's not there to mediate hurt feelings caused by some words or not," said Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett. "If it's hateful, then that's a hate crime. And that's something for the Crown attorneys and the police services to investigate.

"But the goal of the commission is to make sure people are protected against discrimination where they work, or access to accommodation, access to government services."

Uh huh. Sure Minister Blackett - checked the contents of the legislation? The part where it talks about publishing hate literature would be a good place to start.

"If it's hateful, then that's a hate crime. And that's something for the Crown attorneys and the police services to investigate.

Ah yes - but the amendments that included sexual orientation in our hate crimes laws federally didn't exist until well after 2002. So, what Mr. Blackett is in effect saying is that there should be no recourse whatsoever. I wonder what will happen if he tries to remove those clauses - which also protect other minorities who are regularly attacked by violent hatred?

Boissoin's letter was a thoughtless piece of drivel that called on society's worst elements to commit violence against GLBT people, and repeated many slanderous allegations about GLBT people that do not bear up to scrutiny.

Surely, the concept of freedom of speech doesn't grant someone the blanket right to make such claims without being held accountable for the consequences?

Politicizing The AHRC

I don't know how I missed this one, but the second amendment to Bill 44 is perhaps even more brain damaged than the first amendment was.

In its entirety, it reads as follows:

The Bill is amended as follows:
Section 16 is struck out and the following is substituted:
16 Section 22 is amended
(a) in subsection (1)(c) by striking out “chief commissioner” and substituting “Chief of the Commission and Tribunals”;
(b) by adding the following after subsection (1):
(1.1) Notwithstanding section 21, where it appears to the director at any time that a complaint
(a) is one that could or should more appropriately be dealt with,
(b) has already been dealt with, or
(c) is scheduled to be heard,
in another forum or under another Act, the director may refuse to accept the complaint or may accept the complaint pending the outcome of the matter in the other forum or under the other Act.
(c) in subsection (2) by striking out “subsection (1)” and substituting “subsection (1) or (1.1)”.

Hmmm...so just what are they tinkering with here?

It turns out to be S.22 of the act which sets out the powers of the director to intervene in a specific case. The existing legislation reads as follows
:

Director’s powers re complaint

22(1) Notwithstanding section 21, the director may at any time

(a) dismiss a complaint if the director considers that the complaint is without merit,

(b) discontinue the proceedings if the director is of the opinion that the complainant has refused to accept a proposed settlement that is fair and reasonable, or

(c) report to the chief commissioner that the parties are unable to settle the complaint.

(2) The director shall forthwith serve notice of a decision under subsection (1) on the complainant and the person against whom the complaint was made.

So, with this amendment, what does it look like?

Director’s powers re complaint

22(1) Notwithstanding section 21, the director may at any time

(a) dismiss a complaint if the director considers that the complaint is without merit,

(b) discontinue the proceedings if the director is of the opinion that the complainant has refused to accept a proposed settlement that is fair and reasonable, or

(c) report to the chief commissioner that the parties are unable to settle the complaint.

(1.1) Notwithstanding section 21, where it appears to the director at any time that a complaint
(a) is one that could or should more appropriately be dealt with,
(b) has already been dealt with, or
(c) is scheduled to be heard,
in another forum or under another Act, the director may refuse to accept the complaint or may accept the complaint pending the outcome of the matter in the other forum or under the other Act.
(2) The director shall forthwith serve notice of a decision under subsection (1) or (1.1). on the complainant and the person against whom the complaint was made.

This is interesting, because it is essentially means that the director can decide that any case can - or should - be heard in another venue.

I suspect that there are a lot of potential problems with this. The most obvious that I can see is the prospect of ministerial interference. It would not be hard for the minister to walk into the director's office one day and insist that a high profile (and politically awkward) complaint is "best heard in the courts". (Theoretically, any case can be heard in court, I suspect)

This completely undermines the purpose of Human Rights commissions in the first place. It is rare that discrimination happens on a scale that most people would say merits the cost involved in a court challenge. For that matter, few people have the financial resources to sustain a long term challenge in the first place. One of the intentions of the HRC's is to provide an avenue of appeal that does not bear the same kind of costs that a court challenge would.

According to Blackett, this is just meant to allow the commission to dismiss "frivolous" cases, but somehow, I'm beginning to suspect that this is meant for other, more insidious reasons.

Bill 44 - Brain Damaged and Going Forward

If the reports on the news this morning are correct, Bill 44 went ahead last night with at best minor amendments. (Sadly, none of the online outlets have stories posted to confirm this, so I have had to refer to the tabled amendments.

The Bill is amended as follows:
A Section 9 is amended in the new section 11.1
(a) in subsection (1) by striking out “explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation” and substituting “primarily and explicitly with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation”;
(b) by adding the following after subsection (2):
(3) This section does not apply to incidental or indirect references to religion, religious themes, human sexuality or sexual orientation in a course of study, educational program, instruction or exercises or in the use of instructional materials.

I'm still suspicious of these changes. In legal terms, what constitutes "primary" and "explicit"; come to that, what constitutes "incidental or indirect"?

For example, one can hardly study Europe in the Middle Ages or Renaissance without spending a great deal of time talking about the impact of the church on society - is that "incidental"? Come to that, a discussion about the Iranian revolution in 1979 would hardly be "incidentally" about religion, would it - religion is right smack at the center of that discussion. Are those excluded in by that wording, or is notification required?

The fact is that this is such a poorly conceived piece of legislative trash that the courts are going to spend decades deciding what the parameters really are ... and it will have done nothing except waste resources for no better reason than to attempt to appease the sensibilities of those offended by having to recognize GLBT people as legal equals.

I think I'll leave the rest to Rick Bell to express disgust with the whole ridiculous farce that is Alberta's government:

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader David Swann figures Ed's outfit "don't get what human rights are about."

They don't get what a lot is about, but when has that stopped them before?

"This is the worst of politics," says Swann, a man who obviously hasn't clocked enough kilometres through the Toryland trenches.

It has been worse and it will be worse again.

On his last sentence, I disagree with Rick Bell. I have never seen a government so overtly hostile to minority populations - even Don Getty's reign of stupidity wasn't malicious. This bunch is, and is becoming even more so.

Blackett, Quit Being A Snivelling Hypocrite

Sometimes, the jokes write themselves; other times, the joke is standing behind the microphone.

In the Calgary Herald today, Lindsay Blackett places himself firmly in the latter category with the following:

"Everybody's looking for the right-wing bogeyman that doesn't exist," Blackett tells me, "but everybody who's talking like that, they are the intolerant ones. It's them, not us."

Those "intolerant ones," in Blackett's book, include the opposition and the media, too.

"The opposition never offered a solution. All they had was opposition based on hysteria, with support from the media."

Waitasec...it wasn't so long ago that Blackett admitted that the proposed S.11 was pandering to the Religious Right in Alberta:

Lindsay Blackett admitted that the provincial caucus wrote the school provisions into the bill as an olive branch to religious groups and conservative voters who might be offended by the province's move to codify gay rights.

... and no, I don't think it's any coincidence at all that Alberta has steadfastly refused to amend the human rights code since the 1998 Vriend decision. Alberta's religious right wing can't have that kind of clout. We remember well the temper tantrums that Klein had over Same Gender Marriage - repeatedly insisting that he would invoke the "Notwithstanding clause" ... until his Attorney General pointed out the logical fallacy of doing so.

So...Lindsay, which is it? Is Alberta's government kowtowing to wingnut religiosity, or are you just incapable of remembering what lies you told us last week?

Just How Screwed Up Is Alberta's Legislature?

Unsurprisingly, Bill 44 is going to go ahead "as is" in the legislature.

There may be room to clarify the wording of a new human rights legislation provision for parental rights, but Alberta Culture and Community Spirit Minister Lindsay Blackett said the clause will remain in Bill 44.

School boards"would prefer if it was in the School Act, but we're this far along.We're not able to retract, nor is there a lot of will to do that," Blackett said.

Ummm...unless someone has dramatically rewritten the basics of Parliamentary procedure, Blackett doesn't know what he's talking about. A bill can be amended during its passage through the house and committee cycles. To say that the government "cannot retract" something is beyond a falsehood - it is a clear statement that democracy in Alberta is so broken that the governing conservatives have lost their grip on the even the basics of how our government is supposed to work.

Premier Ed Stelmach reaffirmed his commitment for Bill 44 and his view Albertans would not misuse it.

"I feel very confident in the act and entrenching the rights of parents," Stelmach said Tuesday. "I have tremendous trust in Albertans."

What lovely little fantasy world does Stelmach live in? Especially when Alberta's own home grown wingnuts have already signalled their intentions?

Bill 44 - Subtle and Destructive Legislation

Frankly, I think that much of what has been said about Bill 44 is based on misinterpretations of the wording in the legislation.

When Brian Rushfeldt opens his yap, you have to wonder just where Charles McVety's hand is, though:

The head of a national Christian lobby group says parents, not educators, will decide when to apply new rights allowing them to pull kids from controversial classes if enshrined in Alberta's human rights laws.

Provincial officials have insisted Bill 44, which saw some heated debate Wednesday during second reading in the legislature, would exclusively apply to teachings of sexuality, sexual orientation and religion.

But Brian Rushfeldt, co-founder of the Calgary-based Canada Family Action Coalition, says the proposed human rights provision can be more widely interpreted.

"It's up to the parent to make (the legislation) as broad or as narrow as they want," said Rushfeldt, who welcomed the proposed changes.

"I don't know that the schools nor the government should be the ones to put parameters on it and say it's only sexuality classes or only evolution classes or only religion classes."

The reason I don't buy a broad interpretation here is simple. The proposed wording (at present) is quite limited:

subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or
sexual orientation.

That said, however, we have to recognize that the wingnuts are going to try to use it any way they think they can get away with. That will doubtless include vocal and incessant whining when some of Shakespeare's works are being studied; or for that matter contemporary literature of any sort.

I don't think it will allow them to pull their children out of science class, when the subject happens to offend someone's religious views - that isn't my sense of the wording.

However, what it does do is quite fundamentally undermine the very notion of tolerance and understanding when it comes to sexual minorities. Because sexuality and sexual orientation are specifically mentioned, this in essence gives a blanket right to parents to continue to foster ignorance and bigotry towards GLBT Albertans. It appears to once again reinforce the double standard of conservatives when it comes to equality rights.

From Alberta's Hansards:

Ms Notley: Well, I suspect that the minister had trouble understanding
the question because he doesn’t understand the issue. Your
proposed policy will clearly allow children to be removed from
classes which discuss sexual orientation. Presumably, that includes
where a teacher instructs that sexual orientation is a protected
equality right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Why is the
minister supporting a plan to limit the ability of teachers to talk
about our human rights code to our Alberta children?

Mr. Blackett: Mr. Speaker, what we are doing is saying that, you
know, the provisions are already given to our parents in the School
Act. We will continue to do that. With respect to sexual orientation,
they have that provision to opt out now. They will have that
provision going forward.

I think Rachel Notley's speech in the legislature on Bill-44 warrants further reading as well:

Ms Notley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to be able to
finally have an opportunity to speak at more length about this issue.
I won’t go so far as to say that I’m pleased at the opportunity
because I think that the fact that this bill is coming into this House
today is, in my view, very disturbing to me as a member of this
Assembly, and in some ways, you know, I’m quite sad today,
actually, that I need to be in the House outlining the significant
concerns that exist around elements of this piece of legislation.
What should be a time for a significant portion of Albertans to
celebrate a long-awaited symbolic recognition of their equality has
instead turned into this debate, which, in my view, undermines the
impression ofAlbertans to the rest of the world, undermines our own
collective commitment to education and to diversity and to a full,
thoughtful discussion of things, and ultimately undermines the very
new right which we are in the process of being about to recognize.
Let me just talk a little bit about that. Obviously, the key issue
with respect to this bill is section 11, and that’s, of course, the part
of the bill that would allow parents to have their children opt out of
instruction that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality, or sexual
orientation. It is this particular section which, in my view, represents
a very dark day in the history of this province.
Let me talk first about the issue with respect to religion. Now, I
respect the right of parents to choose what religious instruction their
children will or will not receive. Personally, I would prefer to see a
system where all children were given a very neutral survey course
on what different types of religion look like. That’s my personal
belief of what would represent the most enlightened approach to
educating my children. But I understand that my belief is not
everyone’s belief, and I appreciate that some people feel very
strongly that they don’t want their children’s religious instruction
that they receive at home and their beliefs – it goes beyond just
instruction – to be challenged in the school setting, and that’s fine.
Section 50 of the School Act deals with that issue. It deals with
that already. The School Act talks about education. The School Act
talks about parents’ rights in relation to their children’s education.
The School Act talks about that whole milieu. It is not necessary to
put that provision into the human rights code. The human rights
code is not a document designed to undermine the very rights which
are included in the human rights code. It is not a document designed
to, as the Member for Airdrie-Chestermere talked about, bow to
every different person’s version of what is politically correct today
or tomorrow or the next day. It is a set of rights that we presumably
all agree all people have. So I’m very concerned about muddying
the waters with a statement that we are prepared to undermine some
of those rights in certain circumstances.
Now, I’ll talk a little bit about how it is I believe we’re doing that,
but I want to just stay for a moment on the issue of religious
instruction. One of the problems with putting this into the human rights
code and taking it out of the School Act is that you make it a
human right, and with that comes a whole slew of legal consequences
and implications. It allows for a broad range of interpretive
efforts to be applied to it. What we’re putting in it right now could
be amended through a great deal of litigation in the future, and
because it’s an active right which is found in the code, it will be
treated differently than what’s in the School Act, which is essentially
an administrative provision.
Right now in our schools what theoretically happens is if religious
instruction – and, of course, the School Act only talks about
religious instruction. The School Act does not allow parents to pull
their kids because somebody talks about the dreaded sexual
orientation. Let’s just say for a moment we’re talking about the
issue of religion. If religion is brought up, the family needs to get
notice. Well, that’s fine. What does the notice ultimately look like?
At the beginning of the year, can the school board say: from time to
time in grade 12 the social studies curriculum will call on the teacher
to engage in discussions that will cover issues that may cover
religion, that may cover theories of evolution, that may cover
philosophicaldiscussionsthathaveimplicationsforcertainreligions,
which may cover the concept of, for instance, gender equity and
gender equality? If they give that notice, is that enough? Can the
parent then simply provide the notice to the teacher, and then every
time those issues come up in the teaching moments that we’ve talked
so much about, the teacher just says to the child: you have the option
now to leave the room because we’re talking about these issues. Is
that the way it would work?
Well, now that it’s in the human rights code, it is entirely possible
that the parents would be able to go and say: “Well, this right that
you’re giving me is meaningless if it’s administered this way, so in
fact what you need to do is give me notice every time it’s going to
happen. You’ve got to give me dates. You’ve got to give me
content. You’ve got to give me written curriculum because
otherwise this right that you’ve now given me in the human rights
code of my province is meaningless.” That’s what happens when
you put it in the code. So then suddenly we create chaos.
Alternatively theycan turn around and say: “You’ve given me this
right, but in my exercising this right, my child has to now sit in the
hall playing with his DS or something like that. In effect my child
is being discriminated against now because I cannot crystalize or act
upon my right that is in the code without otherwise adversely
impacting my child by making him or her sit in the hall. Therefore,
you’ve breached my right, so you need to actually come up with a
whole new way to teach my child during the time that that education’s
going on.”
With all of these things, this is not trying to create a panic. This
is not trying to blow it up beyond what it is. It’s not. This is the
kind of thing that happens when you put a new right into the human
rights code, and let’s just be clear: this is a new right that we are
putting into the human rights code. There is no other human rights
code in the country that has this right embedded in the code. It is
embedded elsewhere, not in the human rights code. This is the kind
of chaos that we will create.
Then, of course, the other thing is that under the School Act it is
not necessarily the case that the teacher would become the subject,
a respondent in a human rights commission hearing. The teacher
would not necessarily become compelled to defend their course of
study, defend the way in which the particular issue came up in the
class. They wouldn’t under the School Act. They will now, another
consequence of putting it into the human rights code.

Lastly, a few links to some better commentary on this subject:


The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix has an excellent take on a poorly considered piece of legislation.

Ken Chapman has covered things quite thoughtfully as well.

Don Braid catches how thoroughly screwed up the Stelmach government's priorities are.

Ken Chapman on Bill 44

Go ... Read

It's well written, and he makes some interesting points.

No Kidding!

Apparently, someone up in Edmonton figured out that what Stelmach and Blackett have been saying the last few days since tabling Bill 44 is at odds with what the legislation actually says:

Premier Ed Stelmach told reporters last week that the provision could be used to pull students out of classes dealing with evolution if parents preferred their kids be taught what's in the Bible instead.

Followed by the following from Minister Blackett today:

"This is opt-out on religious instruction not on grounds of religious beliefs. So the thought that somebody can get out of evolution using the fact that it's against their religious beliefs is not correct," he said. "Evolution is not a part of religious studies, it's part of science curriculum, and there is nothing that will change that going forward."

This is more or less what I read when the legislation was tabled.

Alberta Amendments To Human Rights Code Tabled

I see that Blackett has tabled Bill 44, his overhaul of the Alberta Human Rights law.

It's not as awful as I was expecting. Some of what I had heard Blackett musing about in past weeks sounded suspiciously like a resurrection of Morton's private member's bill of 2006. However, relatively little of that seems to have survived the initial drafting of the legislation.

As required by the Vriend ruling of 1998, the province will at long last include sexual orientation in its human rights legislation explicitly, instead of being a court-ordered read-in.

Other than that, the only thing that Blackett included from Morton's bill 208 is an explicit parental exemption if certain subjects are being taught in classrooms. (and it is a comparatively limited exemption).

Notice to parent or guardian
11.1(1) A board as defined in the School Act shall provide
notice to a parent or guardian of a student where courses of
study, educational programs or instructional materials, or
instruction or exercises, prescribed under that Act include
subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or
sexual orientation.
(2) Where a teacher or other person providing instruction,
teaching a course of study or educational program or using the
instructional materials referred to in subsection (1) receives a
written request signed by a parent or guardian of a student that
the student be excluded from the instruction, course of study,
educational program or use of instructional materials, the
teacher or other person shall in accordance with the request of
the parent or guardian and without academic penalty permit the
student
(a) to leave the classroom or place where the instruction,
course of study or educational program is taking place or
the instructional materials are being used for the duration
of the part of the instruction, course of study or
educational program, or the use of the instructional
materials, that includes the subject-matter referred to in
subsection (1), or
(b) to remain in the classroom or place without taking part
in the instruction, course of study or educational
program or using the instructional materials.

In some respects, I'm actually a little surprised by the modest breadth of this set of changes. There's been more than a little agitation for more drastic changes to the legislation, and the summary of the government's rationale, especially with respect to Section 3 is surprisingly in line with my own concerns about simply striking that from the legislation.

I'm quite sure that as I breathe a bit of a sigh of relief that this legislation is not as odious as it could have been, that Ezra Levant is near apoplexy right now.

This Is Interesting ...

Okay, the Alberta Human Rights Commission has quite a few human rights complaints from transsexuals sitting on its desk now. Fair enough.

However, if the writer over at the UofC's Law School Faculty blog "ABlawg" is any indication, Blackett may have tipped his hand:

Lindsay Blackett (Minister of Culture and Community Spirit) is said to have made the following comment: “We have a slightly different process, and we have slightly different value systems and a way of thinking in Alberta, and since most of the people on our commission are from Alberta, they may look at it a little differently then Ontarians do.”

The post's author then goes on to speculate on the various ways that Blackett could attempt to interfere in the process of the AHRC:

For example, will members of the Human Rights and Citizenship Commission be fearful that their salaries will be in jeopardy if they permit these complaints to proceed to a hearing, given that remuneration for the chief commissioner and other members of the Commission are prescribed by the Minister (see s. 15(4) HRCMA))?

What does Blackett’s statement portend for the Alberta government’s current review of our human rights legislation, and the argument that discrimination on the basis of being transgendered should be included in proposed amendments to the HRCMA?

Second, Blackett’s comment suggests that there is a “different value system” and “way of thinking” in Alberta. This suggestion of some sort of monolithic Alberta value system runs contrary to the HRCMA itself, ...

Third, even if there is a relatively conservative mindset in this province compared to some others (like Ontario), this is precisely why we have human rights legislation. Individuals who belong to minority or disadvantaged groups, such as the transgendered (who, it must be said, are not themselves a monolithic group), require the protection of human rights legislation to ensure that they are not subjected to the tyranny of the majority. Again, the preamble of the HRCMA is instructive ...

If the author's speculations are true, then transsexuals in Alberta are going to be fighting a long, ugly battle with the government. (Repeat of Vriend, perhaps?)