An unwelcome fight
We wish we didn't have to be the ones to battle for Canadian freedoms--but we will
Ezra Levant - April 24, 2006
The Western Standard has reported on the illiberal nature of human rights commissions before. In a May 2004 cover story, we described how the Canadian Human Rights Commission tried to censor a sitting member of Parliament, Jim Pankiw, for expressing politically incorrect views in his mail-outs to his constituents. The fact that unelected, unaccountable, tax-paid busybodies presumed to tell an elected parliamentarian what he could or could not say was outrageous, and should have offended all Canadians, no matter what they thought of Pankiw's views.
Well, now it's our turn to come under attack by a human rights commission. Syed Soharwardy, a radical Muslim imam from Calgary, has lodged a complaint against us with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission. Soharwardy, who before coming to Canada taught at an anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, argues that our publication of the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed, in the Feb. 27, 2006, issue, violated his human rights--and he argues that our freedom of the press and our freedom of conscience should be abridged. It's more than that: Soharwardy doesn't just complain that we published the cartoons; he complains that we dared to try to justify our publication after the fact.
Soharwardy first went to the Calgary Police Service and asked them to arrest me. They calmly explained to him that in Canada, the police do not enforce the Koran as the law, as they do in Saudi Arabia, where it is that country's official constitution.
Frustrated, Soharwardy went to an institution less liberal than our police: Canada's professional "rights" activists. Instead of politely showing him the door, they accepted his complaint, and served us with a legal demand that we respond within 21 days (a copy of Soharwardy's hand-scrawled complaint, and our formal response, can be found at www.westernstandard.ca/freedom).
The next step is a forced "reconciliation meeting" where I am compelled to sit down with Soharwardy, and a government bureaucrat will try to broker a compromise. I can advise that there will be no compromise;
I will come to that meeting with a copy of the Canadian Constitution and the oath of citizenship that new arrivals like Soharwardy must swear when coming to Canada: "I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen." Queen Elizabeth's laws start with our Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of the press and conscience. That means that while Soharwardy is welcome to submit to whatever religious code he chooses, our magazine doesn't have to submit to whatever religious code he chooses.
I have lamented the absence of traditional defenders of free speech. Traditionally, many of them have been on the left, and perhaps the fact that we are conservative in flavour has given them laryngitis. I am pleased to report that I received a phone call from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, informing us that they would be seeking intervenor status in our case, to argue the complaint against us should be dismissed. This is a welcome act of solidarity from a traditionally liberal group who understands that if the Western Standard is bullied today, the Toronto Star will be bullied tomorrow.
We did not seek out this human rights complaint, and we do not welcome it. Our job is to publish a news magazine, not to engage in lawsuits. But if this imam brings a fight, and if the human rights commission endorses it, we will meet that fight vigorously. We will use that forum to remind the country that Canadian values mean something, and they mean something different than Saudi values. The phrases "Canadian values" and "Charter values" are more than just Liberal party campaign slogans. They refer to Canada's hard-won freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of conscience. And multiculturalism and diversity mean something, too--that while Soharwardy can practise fundamentalist Islam, we at the magazine are free not to do so.
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