Barbara Kay: Quebec wants to uncover faces while it covers mouths
Barbara Kay | September 1, 2015 | Last Updated: Sep 2 12:11 PM ET
More from Barbara Kay | @BarbaraRKay
More from Barbara Kay | @BarbaraRKay
CLAUS BJORN LARSEN/AFP/Getty ImagesPolicemen
secure the area around a cultural centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, where
shots were fired during a debate on Islam and free speech on February
14, 2015.
Over
the years I’ve written many columns about honour killings in Canada’s
South Asian communities. Under the terms of Quebec’s proposed Bill 59,
my frequent allusion to the demonstrable fact that most victims of
honour crimes are Muslim girls and women might, posted on the Internet
as all my published writing is, lead to prosecution for Islamophobia
with a possible fine of $20,000, and my name posted to an online list of
offenders in perpetuity. Would that stop me from criticizing the
cultural roots of honour crimes? Yup, it sure would.
Such a lawsuit could be
initiated by any individual who feels offended by a statement that he or
she believes promotes “fear of the other.” The fact that what I have
written is “true” and “in the public interest” would not be grounds for
my defence, as they are under the actual laws of defamation.
This bombshell makes a mockery
of the federal government’s 2013 move to end scrutiny of Internet
speech in abolishing Section 13 of the Human Rights Act. Most worrisome,
if made law, the bill would allow the Quebec Human Rights Commission
(QHRC) to pursue websites it deems disrespectful to Islam.
This would put in the
crosshairs, for example, the useful online publication Point de Bascule,
which has for many years assiduously and with meticulous annotation,
connected significant behavioural dots linking Muslim Brotherhood
operatives to what is known in anti-Islamist parlance as the “stealth
jihad.” (The biggest losers, if pointdebasculecanada.ca were to be censored, by the way, would be CSIS and Homeland Security in the U.S.)
The site’s publisher, Marc
Lebuis — a source and a friend — who delivered a blistering denunciation
of Bill 59 early in the hearings, is well placed to criticize the
double standards inherent in tribunals fixated on combatting hate. In
2008, as an experiment (for Lebuis hates speech codes, but wanted to
provoke public discussion on free speech), he filed a complaint with the
federal HRC against a Salafist imam whose writings excoriated Jews,
praised beheadings, lauded the executions of gays and called for violent
jihad. As he had anticipated, the HRC declined to hear the case.
The QHRC would doubtless exercise the same willed blindness to hatred spewed by Islamists under an activated Bill 59.
The QHRC would doubtless
exercise the same willed blindness to hatred spewed by Islamists under
an activated Bill 59. Its driver, QHRC director and top
constitutionalist Jacques Frémont, is consumed with the alleged, but
unproven, scourge of Islamophobia in our society. In a speech broadcast
by Radio-Canada on Dec 2, 2014, Frémont explained he planned to use the
requested powers to sue those critical of certain ideas, “people who
would write against […] the Islamic religion,” but did not add “or any
other religion.”
Frémont has indicated that
Bill 59 is inspired by UN resolutions, by which he doubtless means
Resolutions 16/18, initiatives of the 56 Islamic states that comprise
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to suppress hate speech,
which they equate with criticism of Islam.
Frémont has publicly stated he
sees the QHRC’s role as one that should be “making the law” by choosing
“risky” cases — in this case challenging the settled fact that the
Internet comes under federal authority — and that Bill 59 will “change
mentalities” in order to “change culture.” There’s more than a whiff of
Big Brotherism in these phrases.
Premier Couillard is now on
the defensive, as well he should be for permitting this dreadful bill,
which would ascribe criminal-court powers to a mere “commission,” to see
the light of day, when “incitement to hatred” is already covered by the
Criminal Code.
Ironies abound here.
In 2005, Quebec was to my
knowledge the first jurisdiction in North America to adopt an
anti-Shariah resolution. Had Bill 59 been active then, such a resolution
could have been deemed Islamophobic by the QHRC.
Most paradoxically, Bill 62,
also up for passage, will proscribe face covering in the public sector, a
good thing. Why would a government that wants to uncover some faces for
the sake of “religious neutrality” want to cover all mouths for the
sake of one religion?
National Post
kaybarb@gmail.com
Twitter.com/BarbaraRKay
kaybarb@gmail.com
Twitter.com/BarbaraRKay
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