I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay
You may well have noticed that my Canadian content has been on the rise of late. I find myself in the grips of a sort of strange bout of nationalism at the moment, which I denote as strange for reasons that will be at least partially outlined in this post. I just can’t muster much enthusiasm for writing about US politics and feel drawn to contributing to the degree of critical dialogue in this frozen tundra I call home.
You’ll have to bear with me, but I’m trying to find ways to satisfy my own Canuck impulses while still making what I write accessible and, perhaps more importantly, engaging to our primarily American audience.
To wit, the revived discussion around same-sex marriage via the squeakers in either direction that have recently occurred in both Maine and Washington prompted me to do some thinking about the same issue north of the border. Riffing off of Jamelle’s post, I decided to check my intuition around the degree to which the issue of marriage equality is, in fact, a non-issue in Canada, contra the state of affairs in the US. It would seem that my intuition is born out by the data of a recent Angus Reid poll on public opinion around same-sex marriage in Canada, Britain, and the US,
Canadians are generally more tolerant to the idea of same-sex marriages than Americans and Britons, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 61 per cent of Canadians say couples of the same gender should continue to be allowed to legally marry in their country.
In contrast, only 33 per cent of Americans and 41 per cent of Britons say that same-sex marriage should be made legal in their respective countries. 36 per cent of respondents in the United States say that such couples should not be granted any type of legal recognition, and 18 per cent of Britons agree.
The poll itself doesn’t go on to the explore the reasons behind the differences of opinion, but I have a working theory that first occurred to me when Reihan Salam made an offhanded comment about the number of South East Asian politicians represented in the Canadian political system at the end of the podcast on race and politics that he, Jamelle, and I recorded a ways back. Pivoting off of E.D’s post on the matter, for a lot of people, the obvious go to answer is religion — i.e. Canada is a lot less religious and, religion being a key factor in determining an individual’s stance on homosexuality, the degree of religiosity exhibited in a country will directly correlate to the attitudes of its citizens towards homosexuality and marriage equality.
On the face of it that argument makes a reasonable amount of sense, but as the graph below used by Alan Wolfe in his March 2008 Atlantic piece on the evolution of religion globally demonstrates, while it is true that Canada is a lot less religious than the US (the US, as Wolfe notes in the piece, is the real outlier in terms of degree of development and degree of religosity — the piece of worth reading if you haven’t), it clocks in a good deal more religious than Britain.
So while I’m not inclined to suggest that religion plays no role in people’s views on homosexuality and marriage equality, neither am I convinced that it is the entire story either.
Part of the story here, I would offer, comes from simple time lines.
Same-sex marriage was made legal in Canada in 2005 (one of the only good things the Martin Liberals did and for which we should remain grateful), though same-sex marriages were being recognized provincially as much as two years earlier, and the last time that decision was questioned in any real fashion was 2006 when Stephen Harper and the Conservatives came to power (same link). So Canadians have had going on five years to used to the idea that same-sex marriages are legally recognized in every corner of the country, it makes sense, then, that recent polling would reflect a greater tolerance/acceptance towards/of the issue.
But that answer doesn’t really get at the root of why it is that almost five years ago a majority of Canadians seemed to shift in their position on the issue of marriage equality. I would suggest that the answer is at least partially wrapped up in the complex issue of Canadian identity.
As well-known Canadian Marshall McLuhan once noted, “Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.” Indeed, what exactly it means to be Canadian remains a sort of opaque question hanging over the country to this day. In a 1998 publication exploring just this topic, The Fraser Institute, a right-wing Canadian think tank, quoted a then recent study of Canadian attitudes towards national identity saying,
On the basis of extensive polling on Canadians’ “silent but deep patriotism,” Anthony Wilson-Smith (1995, p. 8) argues that “Canadians are convinced there is such a thing as a unique national identity-even if they are unable to agree on what constitutes it.”
So we feel strongly about being Canadian, but we don’t really know what we means when we say that we’re Canadian and that is a lasting trend that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Quoted in the same publication, famous Canadian architect Aurthur Erickson argues that, “Canada’s lack of national identity will prove to be our strength in the next century as the world moves toward a “humanity-wide consciousness.” And that by having, “no history of cultural or political hegemony-almost no history at all to hinder us — we are welcomed over all other nations. We are more open to, curious about, and perceptive of other cultures.”
There is something to this, I think.
Part of the Canadian tendency towards acceptance and tolerance of diverse lifestyles seems to come from the wavery sense of identity that we have as Canadians. It is perhaps less difficult to imagine, in the case of Reihan’s question, a South East Asian individual as an equal political player, or, in the case of same-sex marriage, viewing two men or two women as equally deserving of robust recognition in the eyes of the law due to the fact that we have a much less rigidly defined image of what it means to be Canadian — a member of the Confederation — in the first place. There are just fewer definitively determined qualifications to meet and, therefore, fewer opportunities for firmly established notions of normalcy to clash with inclinations that lie outside of those parameters (which is not suggest that there is no such thing as discrimination or othering in Canada — such a suggestion is, of course, patently false).
Canada’s political history as a nation bears out the idea that unlike, say, the US, we have not historically been engaged in the exercise of forceful positive self-definition. Like the US, the country started out as a series of colonies for France and Britain. But unlike the US, there was never any forceful move towards freedom in the way of intentional and, if necessary (as was the case) violent revolution. I mean, for God’s sake, Canada became an equal player in the UK via the Statute of Westminster in 1931, an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and was rendered an autonomous nation in 1982 by the Canada Act, again an act of the (this time) British Parliament.
Indeed, not only does Canada not have a history of engaging in the same kind of positive identity formation that Americans have, Canada actually acted as a port in the storm for British Loyalists during the American Revolution and there remain numerous towns and cities that started as loyalist settlements. Here, then, I think we start to see the unstated flip side to Erickson’s commentary about the strength about the translucence of the Canadian identity, because every strength has its attendant weaknesses.
Proud as we are of our national achievements, there is a pervasive belief amongst Canadians that increasingly the politics of our country just don’t matter that much. Indeed, as was noted in a January 2009 University Affairs article called The Fall of Canadian Politics,
In early December, as the Canadian government teetered on the brink of defeat and the Liberal party slipped further into disarray, the nation sat riveted to the political machinations going on in Ottawa. In offices and coffee shops, everyone wanted to talk politics. And Canadian political scientists could be seen and heard day after day on major media outlets, analyzing and interpreting the quickly moving events as they unfolded. The situation, however, belied a trend taking place in political science departments across the country. While some subfields of the discipline, such as international relations and comparative politics, have grown in popularity, one area in particular has seen a disconcerting slide in interest: Canadian politics.
Young scholars today are not attracted to domestic politics, or so it would seem. Enrolments are on the wane. Fewer PhD theses are written on Canadian politics. Faculty members specializing in the field are in short supply. And some courses that were once the staple of the Canadian political science syllabus, such as provincial politics or legislatures, are going untaught. At other campuses, full-year courses have been reduced to a semester or moved from first to second year, to entice students to enrol.
The sense of disinterest extends well beyond our northern halls of academia. As I’ve mentioned on a few different occasions, voter turn out in Canada’s last federal election was the lowest in the history of our confederation. Part of that record low turnout has to do with election exhaustion, but the sense in which Canadians, especially younger Canadians, fail to see how they’re political decisions have much meaning anymore no doubt also contributes to our malaise. That self-same lack of identity that Erickson pointed to as a strength is, in fact, leading to severe dearth in civic mindedness and vitality in the political discourse of our nation.
As one friend recently put it to me, “Canadiana is so… flat.”
So where does that leave us? Well, in part, I think that one possible outcome here is a recognition of just how much Canadian and American political cultures have to learn from one another.
From my albeit outsider perspective, I think it is fair to say that Americans could stand to learn something from the flexibility and malleability evident in Canadian sense of self and identity. If one thing remains true, it is that times change, and norms, circumstances, and attitudes along with them. A culture/society that isn’t able to evolve with those shifting contexts seems doomed to an increasing state of dissonance, and eventually, de-emphasis and irrelevance.
On the flip side, Canadians have a great deal to learn from the urgency and vitality that is evident on a day-to-day basis in American political discourse and the robust sense and pride of self that underwrites that elan vital. Cultivating (or in this case, maintaining) a dynamic sense of self is a meaningless exercise if that identity doesn’t have some mooring in firm and substantial roots and values. A ship without anchor or course is merely adrift.
It has been, needless to say, a surprising and somewhat ironic experience for me as I’ve wrestled with trying to put the politics of two countries so divergent in spirit into perspective and relation, to realize that the things that make them so different are, perhaps, the very things that bind their futures together in interesting and unexpected ways.
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37 comments
I can definitely back up the claims about a lack of interest in domestic politices, especially in academia. My favorite subject is Canadian political history, and I wrote my undergraduate thesis on it, intending to continue into grad school with the topic, but the subject area has been virtually eliminated in Canada. Because of the lack of graduate school opportunies for politicial history I decided to change to German history.
“As I’ve mentioned on a few different occasions, voter turn out in Canada’s last federal election was the lowest in the history of our confederation. Part of that record low turnout has to do with election exhaustion, but the sense in which Canadians, especially younger Canadians, fail to see how they’re political decisions have much meaning anymore no doubt also contributes to our malaise.”
I don’t think this is fair Scott ol’ boy. I’d attribute the vast vast majority of the decline to election malaise and also to dissatisfaction with the available choices (a lot of Canadians are naturally Liberal party in nature and when their party is up on cinder blocks they often just stay home disgruntled rather than vote for someone else and that depresses turnout.) We should probably wait for a more traditional election before we start worrying too hard about malaise.
On the SSM side I got married in September to my partner of ten years at my Mother’s house in rural Nova Scotia and the entire community turned out to wish us well. It seemed genuinely well received and my American friends (especially the gay ones) were utterly bowled over by it.
Still I live in the States and I’ll admit that the American politics are so much more interesting. I don’t’ even know why. Canada is just so wholesome, like oatmeal or something. It’s healthy and in a good state and everyone speaks highly of it but you don’t see people running across the street get any unless they’re starving or have high cholesterol. I can see why people might worry about Canada not getting attention but I have to wonder, so what if it doesn’t? I mean do Canadians really worry about how much time their politics get on CNN? I don’t think they do and I don’t think they should.
As an American, I never realized how conflicted Canada was about its self-image until I saw the documentary, Souvenir of Canada by Douglas Coupland.
Being married to a Canadian allows me some weird conversations about politics.
I’d say that Canadians are fundamentally even-keeled and if “conservative” wasn’t already being used for some other part of this conversation, I’d say that they are a lot more conservative than the US. There is a love of stability, tradition, structure, lack of conflict…
One thing that happened to my wife the other day: She was complaining about Maine’s failure/success at passing/blocking gay marriage on her facebook page… and she got attacked. *FROM THE LEFT*.
Discussions of queer theory followed, criticism of homosexual culture seeking affirmation from heteronormative culture, stuff that you’d swear was parody when wielded against a Canadian complaining about the US not having gay marriage. Nope. It was posted in earnest.
She said to me: “Your country is crazy.”
I said to her: “Yeah, whudyagonnado?”
(If I had to hammer down what the main difference might be, it’s that “politeness” is a virtue in Canada far higher up the ladder than “putting it all out there”. In the US, it’s the other way around.)
North
November 13th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Yeah the attacks on SSM from the left always leave me baffled.
Bayesian
November 13th, 2009 at 11:02 am
If I had to hammer down what the main difference might be, it’s that “politeness” is a virtue in Canada far higher up the ladder than “putting it all out there”. In the US, it’s the other way around.
Yeah, I found the same thing when I was working in New Zealand (notably in contrast to Australia). I’d also add “reserve” to politeness – they are related but not the same thing at all.
Two questions for the Canadians –
1) How correlated, if at all, is the politness versus putting it all out ratio to more American-like political and religious culture of the West (e.g. sample politeness/reserve in Toronto versus Calgary)?
2) do you think the culture that immigrants assimilate to in Quebec is different politeness-wise from the culture they assimilate to in Anglophone Canada? I know a couple (she American, he Hungarian) who live in Hull but work near Ottawa (Nepean). Their comment is that crossing the river is a substantial cultural barrier.
Cascadian
November 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Urgh. Calgary is the plains, prairie chickens. Vancouver is West.
Bayesian
November 13th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Yeah, I know greater Vancouver is higher population and has many more cultural amenities etc. (my USAian mom lived in Victoria for a little over a decade) – I picked Calgary because, if I recall the statistics correctly, it (the whole Calgary-Edmonton corridor) is a huge outlier compared to the rest of Canada regarding e.g. fraction of population who are evangelicals, plus some other statistics I can’t remember, that made it seem more US-like than any of the other major Canadian metros (i.e. Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal).
I was curious if politeness tracked Canadian-ness (reminds of a line that I cannot attribute saying that “New Zealand is like California if the Canadians ran it).
Maribou
November 13th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I would like it noted that
a) there was also criticism from the “right” I guess it would be – people expressing their discomfort and or wishing “those people” would just settle for same-sex unions and call it good.
b) I was quoting Andrew Sullivan in my facebook status (actually that post Y’ALL linked to the other day) so attacking me from the left might not *only* have to do with what was actually said. He does tend to be a pushbutton name.
c) It wasn’t being attacked from the left that makes me feel like the US is crazy. (Dude, I went to *McGill* – I’m an old hand at being attacked from the left.) And also, the stuff they were talking about is not stuff I’ve never thought about before – I don’t think of it as something I would expect to hear as parody, and some of the points are valid even if I think they are misapplied in the particular case where they were wielded. It was just weird because, you know, it’s my facebook status!!! Something on a page where I usually stick to just talking about my cats, my day, and funny things that pop into my head. Where people from work, family, etc, are reading. So I post about something political and who yells at me? Not all the people I expected to potentially piss me off by being bigoted towards a group that I do (pace bisexual privilege) identify with, but random people who I would expect to KNOW I’d already thought about the far-left points they were bringing up, AND to have the internet manners to rant in their own facebook status if they really felt strongly about it.
d) The US is crazy thing came up *tangentially* because I still can’t wrap my gut instinct around the existence of people who think gay marriage is fundamentally not a stabilizing thing. (There are some of those in Canada, and even at McGill, but boy are they unusual.) I always end up thinking about the sketch on This Hour Has 22 Minutes that kind of makes the same point my criticizers from the left do, except they see it as a positive and not a negative…. I don’t remember the whole thing but basically it involves a gay guy on the phone with his mom while she lectures him about how it’s time to settle down, find a nice man, and raise some kids. How she always thought that she would never have any grandkids but NOW IT’S OKAY, so get going on it already. And to me that rang extremely true, because all the parents of gay friends I knew, and other adults who had gay friends, *even if somewhere in their hearts they weren’t okay with them being gay*, thought they should be able to get married! (A direct quote from someone who remains unnamed: “I think two men having sex is completely disgusting and I wish they didn’t have to be gay …. but for Christ’s sake they’ve been living together for 20 years and it’s OBvious they love each other.” ) Living in Eastern Canada, I always felt like even almost all the people who were against gay rights, felt BAD about it and were trying to find a way to get their heads around it – to exert what empathy they had to change their minds … or to, at minimum, explain away the nastiness that they were asserting as ACTUALLY being in the best interests of gay people …. even if it was only because a Maritimer never wants to feel like they’re doing something “mean” to anyone else. Even if they are.
What I find crazy and shocking about the US is the sheer level of antagonism. There are people who hate gay people! Loudly and right-up-front-with-picket-signs-about-it. Magazines post appeals to contribute to campaigns to Make Sure Those Gay People Can’t Adopt Kids. And etc. I know such loud, angry, vituperative, bigoted people exist in Canada but they are such a minority that a person doesn’t have to think about them day to day (at least not in Montreal or PEI). The kind of thing that I see around here all the time is the kind of thing the Canadians I knew saw as over-testosteroned teenage male behavior that anyone worth anything would’ve grown out of by the time they got out of high school….
Sorry to ramble on so long but I’m on painkillers today, what’re you gonna do?
PS My three years in Montreal suggested that Quebecers were louder and less polite, but equally tolerant unless they were feeling extra-nationalistic and they were thinking about people who spoke the other national language than they did, possibly even more tolerant because of being more knee-jerk socialist than English Canada west of Quebec and thus wanting to run around giving as many govt benefits as possible to anyone who wants them. However, I’m not sure that applies outside of Montreal at all… Hull seems more like Montreal to me than the Gaspé or Quebec City do.
Scott H. Payne
November 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Is this Mrs. Jaybird? Welcome, glad to have your comments!
Maribou
November 13th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Yup! Me again. Thanks for the very interesting post, and I’m glad you’re glad even if the non-painkillered part of my brain is looking askance and thinking I really didn’t need that many paragraphs.
Scott H. Payne
November 13th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Have you processed the length of this post? I’ve got no moral high ground re: concision, sister. And you’re welcome.
To everyone else: great thoughts and thanks for them. At work, shouldn’t be blog commenting. Will try to offer some follow up thoughts over the weekend.
Maribou
November 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Hey, at least you livened it up with pictures!
Jaybird
November 13th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
It’s more of a “I’m Mr. Maribou”.
Maribou
November 13th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
PPS Obviously I think THHTM sees it as a positive, NOT the attack-from-the-left people, even though I wrote it wrong.
PPPS Maritimers, at least how I was raised, have this weird perception of “The West” being “Ontario-Alberta” and BC being “The West Coast” but actually a lot more like us than the rest of Canada is. Because, you know, the coastal thing. So when I said “English Canada west of Quebec” I actually meant “Ontario-Alberta”.
North
November 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Oh? You’re from the Maritimes too? Which part? Nova Scotia? I got married on the South Shore and the people in Lunenburg Country were the best. Of course I’m sure the opponents probably just stayed away. I appreciate them for that.
Maribou
November 13th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I’m from Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown mostly although a lot of my family roots are in Borden and Montague). I will say that (despite standing by what I’ve said above) as a teenager I did not feel like it was all that gay-friendly. People were perfectly nice, kind, etc., BUT almost no one was publicly out because they were all afraid that they would lose their jobs, get beat up, etc – not loudly & publicly but just “oh, sorry, we had to lay SOMEONE off” or getting fired for specious cause and anonymous gay bashing or “well, it’s not GAY related, it’s just football kids beating up band kids, that always happens”. (These things did happen from time to time, so the people who weren’t out weren’t crazy to be cautious.)
That said, I have really seen a change in attitudes there in the last 20 years or so…. including in some people I thought were never going to change. I attended my friend’s wedding to his husband on the North Shore a few years ago and for the first time I really felt like, had Jaybird been a woman, I still would’ve felt “safe” coming home.
North
November 13th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Yeah I’m with you there. Never visited PEI though I’d heard it was really nice. (My family has a little island in Mahone Bay that they grow potatoes on so you can blame it on island rivalry. Come stay on MY island indeed!)
As for gays in the Maritimes I think I feel the same way you did when you were younger. I didn’t see or hear about it much but then again I didn’t come out until I was well away so how would I know? But the community was extraordinarily kind last fall.
Katherine
November 14th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I think you’re right about there being a basic Canadian conservatism, at least at this point in our history. (Andrew Sullivan “conservatism”, not conservatism as typically defined.) This is a country where the Liberal party made sharp budget cuts to restore a balanced budget and the Conservative party engaged in deficit spending to stimulate economic recovery.
I don’t know about the “politeness” bit, though, and anyone who’s listened to a House of Commons debate should reasonably dispute it. It’s more a dislike of extremism that probably comes from not having to deal (at least in the last decade or so) with any major crises.
Thanks for the great post Scott. From my outsider position, it doesn’t seem that Canada, or at least the small corner I know, lacks a culture or self image. It’s just that the image of itself is not of divinely granted superiority. When Canada makes political decisions they actually look at what’s being tried elsewhere to inform their decision on how to move forward. This in stark contrast to the jurisprudence of the Scalia wing that insists all American decisions must be internally seminated to avoid the taint of the foreign or European.
There is also a lot to what JB has to say. Canada is fundamentally “c”onservative or perhaps Torry in comparison to what passes South of the line. Why aren’t Canadian banks failing? Why isn’t Bay Street in the same mess as Wall Street? Because Canadian Banks and Financials didn’t buy into the get rich quick foolishness. By the way, I’ve read that this had nothing to do with regulation other than self regulation and this is what is wonderful about Canada.
Politeness, as JB also points out, is a distinguishing character. When I cross the line, I slow down. I stop at yellow lights to allow others to make left turns. I give panhandlers change. These all seem like cultural peculiarities that are distinct if not wonderful. A notable exception to this is the scorn which should be shown to Leafs fans.
I moved to Canada from the states about five or six years ago to be with my girlfriend (now wife). At times, I still find the Canadian modesty a bit strange. When I told my American friends that I was moving to Canada to be with my girlfriend, they all gushed about how great Canada is in their minds. When I told Canadians I know, they expressed disbelief that an American would willingly move to their country.
I don’t know if I can explain the differences in character; although I can offer a story: when I first moved to Toronto, I was waiting to meet my girlfriend at the subway station one day and I was in front of the station for about half an hour casually watching people go in to the station from some distance away. The gate was wide open and there was a box to drop money in for the fare. Usually, they have a guard in the booth, but nobody was there that day. And, in spite of the fact that the gate was wide open and it would have been a breeze to walk in without paying, nobody walked in without paying. Even people who were alone dropped their money in the box. I couldn’t imagine something like that happening in any of the US or French cities I lived in. When I told her about it, she laughed and said, “Well, of course they paid. Canadians really believe in the general good.”
I don’t know if that explains the gay marriage issue, but I think it’s a combination of downplaying the country and not wanting to upset the general social consensus on the issue. Because, indeed, I remember when SSM became legal here- by sheer coincidence we were married that week- and so far, I don’t know any Canadians who really object. I know some who might disagree on religious grounds, but they’d rather not upset the social order in any way.
My wife always chalks it up to the difference between believing in “peace, order, and good government” as compared to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
I agree with all the pro-Canada opinions expressed here. But it is important, for balances sake, to admit Canadians can go too far sometimes in persuit of civility. For example the kangaroo courts of those blasted Human Rights Comissions.
Cascadian
November 13th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Kangaroo courts? You’ve been reading to much Mark Steyn. I’m somewhat familiar with the BC version. Though, I’m familiar with some of their short comings, I’d love to hear what brings them to the level of a kangaroo court.
Rufus
November 14th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Unless I’m mistaken, they’re also null and void now. I thought the Tribunal itself had decided this summer that they violate the Charter provisions for free expression.
North
November 14th, 2009 at 11:08 am
No I believe the Tribunal essentially claimed they were legit but that they shouldn’t prosecute internet expressions of “hate” because they were too common and the dictates of the HRC would be unenforcable.
North
November 14th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Well they are an extra judicial system that pays for the legal fees of complainants but not for defendants and reaches conclusions prior to the presentation of evidence or rebuttal and do not allow defendants to face their accusers. In some instances they haven’t even allowed defendants to know the names of “secret experts” “secret witnesses” or even the exact nature of the “secret complaints” they’re being charged with. They stifle free speech and dole out financial penalties and censorship based on concepts of political correctness gone wild rather than law and precedent. Oh, yes, they also have a 100% conviction rate on cases that reach their tribunals; very effective no? So yes I do feel that the term kangaroo courts is a harsh but not unreasonable one to apply in their case.
I don’t doubt that the motives in their establishment were pure but it’s clear they’ve been hijacked in recent times by some excessive (but in some ways quintessentially Canadian) ideals of political correctness. Here’s a quote:
“If you think that we’re concerned, upset, from time to time discouraged with some of what we’ve been hearing and reading in the press, you’re right, we are. Because to be quite clear about it, we do believe in what we do. We believe that in our society there should be limits on freedom of expression and freedom of speech, that there is a line, not one that we draw, but one that must be drawn nevertheless. We are comfortable with what we do.”[ http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1379407
And yes, Steyn is a polemicist jerk that goes out of his way to bait Muslims. Unfortunately defending freedom of speech sometimes means you end up defending the speech of jerks.
Cascadian
November 14th, 2009 at 11:37 am
First off, there are a number of bodies that are being thrown together here. There is a Federal Human Rights Commission and Tribunal as well as Provincial Commissions and Tribunals. The function of the commissions is different from the tribunals. Commissions are the gate keepers. Their job is to investigate complaints to see if they should proceed to the tribunals. It’s the tribunal’s job to actually hold hearings and decide cases. BC no longer has a commission.
These bodies act in accordance to statute… law. If there is a problem, as in section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, it is the legislator’s problem to fix. The Tribunals would be guilty of judicial fiat if they decided cases willy nilly or chose to disregard laws they were charged to uphold. It’s unfair to hold them accountable for following the rules that are laid out for them. It certainly isn’t the case that the tribunals deal exclusively with hate speech. In fact, at least with the provincial tribunals, hate speech forms a very small part of their caseload, most of which involves allegations of discrimination in employment, services, tenancy and so on. In all cases, their decisions are subject to judicial review.
Steyn, Levin, Warren are Canadian versions of Rush/Hannity and co. Their speech must be protected but their motives and screeds should be seen for what they are.
North
November 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I don’t like Steyn, Warren et all but come on. Rush/Hannity? Have you even read their writings? Yes they’re right wing and abrasive but they’re capable thinkers and not too bad in terms of polemics. And when did it become a government agencies job to police the discourse of the media?
You asked how the whole lot of them resemble kangaroo courts, I provided and I don’t see any refutation here. I think their impressive 100% conviction rate and their secret witnesses, charges and accusers are particularly apt for comparison. Yes indeed the law that made them, a law that was very general and subject to broad interpretation, controls them. It’s amusing how they were initially conjured to fight antisemitism and now are being hijacked by political Islam groups. Or how former CHRC employee Richard Warman now turned activist was a complainant on all but two of the hate speech cases investigated by the HRC. Talk about organizational capture.
Still, I agree with you that it’s the legislatures job to fix it. The whole wasteful pointless mess of them should be axed legislatively. Canadians have better things to spend their money on than a posse of exrajudicial thought police. If there’re any serious problems that these commissions are actually addressing they could much more justly and fairly be addressed by adding them to the courts roster.
Cascadian
November 14th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
OK, let’s try again. For starters, even if we just look at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, it is untrue that they have a %100 percent conviction rate (which I take you mean they rule in favor of the complainant). Take a look:http://chrt-tcdp.gc.ca/NS/decisions/index-eng.asp?filter=year. This completely leaves out the hundreds of provincial cases filed each year, which I promise you don’t have any where near %100 percent “conviction” rates.
Second, don’t you think for such a scary monster, having only thirteen free speech complaints is rather meager? Should we look at the groups that our friend Warman was persecuting? Western Canada For Us, the Canadian Nazi Party, and the Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team. It seems to me like he plucked some low hanging fruit. Which of his victims would you like to exonerate?
I agree with you that the tribunals should be moved into the courts and judiciary proper where they would have more independence and stronger positions. However, unless the legislation that they rule under changes, where they hold court will solve none of the problems.
Katherine
November 14th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I’m with North. Firstly, there’s 34 complaints on the linked page, not 13. Some of the defendents include the National Research Council of Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency, and First Nations bands. There’s a long list of people Warman was going after besides the ones you’re mentioning.
We don’t need a tribunal that doesn’t abide by normal rules of jurisprudence and uses secret witnesses. Goodness’ sakes, we oppose systems like that when the US uses them to try terrorists. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad can face a civilian court, but it’s too dangerous to have Ezra Levant do so?
Ditch the thing, end prosecutions for speech on the grounds that it’s offensive or hateful, and try people accused of incitement to violence – which is a reasonable place to draw the line with regards to free speech – in normal courts.
Cascadian
November 14th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
*Shaking head* The cases on the linked page are just from this year. They’re not all from Warman nor do they all side in favor of the complainants. Remember, there’s a difference between a commission which seeks to find if a complaint has merit and a tribunal that judges the case. There are no secret experts at the tribunal level, where the actual hearing takes part.
Bev and the Supreme Court of Canada would be as bound by the legislation as any other adjudicative body. Many of the cases I’ve seen in BC are women getting fired because they’re pregnant. My favorite case involves a store/post office that didn’t allow strollers. Hardly the scary stuff that Kleyn and co. have you all spooked over. Remember, all of these decision are subject to judicial review. If they are so suspect they would be cake to J.R. These aren’t some kind of Star Chambers that have run amok, as much as some have led you to believe.
Katherine
November 14th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
They do make the defendants pay, which punishes people even if they’re innocent. And I don’t see why these things can be dealt with in the regular courts.
Cascadian
November 15th, 2009 at 12:02 am
You think respondents are given council in “regular” courts? I’m all for moving the process into courts with independence but do you think Provincial or Superior Courts would be cheaper? The AG gives money to clinics. The tribunals don’t direct this. These clinics don’t have endless resources and don’t take any one that walks through the door. You get what you pay for. Many choose or are forced to represent themselves. Would you advocate doing away with human rights in Canada?
North
November 15th, 2009 at 1:39 am
By the time it gets to regular court the defendants are already out a fortune for defending themselves in the comissions and then have to start paying for legal proceedings? Meanwhile it’s only when the courts get involved that accusers have to pay a dime? It just is unfair and blatantly encourages specious complaints.
The HRC’s are not human rights in Canada. They’re most like a tumor on human rights in Canada, either harmlessly but uselessly parasitic or possibly malignant. Either way getting right of the kangaroo court tribunals is in no way equivalent to getting rid of human rights in Canada. It would probably enhance human rights in Canada.
Cascadian
November 15th, 2009 at 2:31 am
North! Commissions aren’t the same as tribunals. Quit confusing the two. They’re separate. BC doesn’t even have a commission. You’ve drunk the cool-aid.
Tribunals are not Kangaroo Courts. Here’s a link to BC’s decisions this year: http://www.bchrt.gov.bc.ca/decisions/2009/oct-nov-dec.htm. You will not find any complaints by Warman (I challenge you to even find a section 13 complaint.) You will not find that the tribunal always sides with the complainant. I don’t know what else to tell you. You’re accusations are unfounded. I’ve provided you with links and arguments showing you why you’re mistaken. There’s very little more I can do. *sigh*
Mostly, this post is making me imagine a Canadian Brokeback Mountain with gay lumberjacks.
I think you’re generally right. But one of the reasons US political debate is more vigorous is that it’s more extreme than in Canada. If you look at the Conservative response to the recession, there’s a general consensus that Keynesian spending is the way to go. The Conservatives participated in the auto bailout, because they knew it would wreck a tremendous number of jobs if they wouldn’t. Politics is relatively pragmatic when it comes to the big issues. People are active in the US partly because Bush was so atrocious and large parts of the right wing are so nuts.
Also, Canadian political participation is typically higher than in the US. The 2008 election saw record low turnout (as in, lower than at any point since the 1890s) – and turnout was 58.8%. That’s higher than any recent US election other than 2008, which was a record high for the US.