Changing Our Boots - CHRC Offices Closing

I can understand why the Public Service Alliance might see this as a negative move, since the human rights commissions have been a source of employment and intimidation for the union .... :
CHRC OfficesWill Close in Three Lucky Cities

The Public Service Alliance of Canada condemns the Harper government's decision to close Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax. The union maintains that the closure of the three offices will make it substantially harder for individuals from marginalized groups to launch human rights complaints.

The three offices slated for closure received 70 per cent of all signed complaints to the CHRC in 2008.

The union, which represents CHRC employees, says this latest attack will have a particular impact on racialized people and recent immigrants. In many cases, the closures will make it much more difficult to challenge both systemic abuses and individual instances of discrimination.

For John Gordon, National President of PSAC, the closures are indicative of a strategy by the Conservative government to destabilize human rights organizations and women's groups in Canada.

"When the Conservatives took power in 2006, one of their first moves was to abolish the Court Challenges Program and close Status of Women Canada offices across the country," Gordon said. "Women's groups were denied government funding if they engaged in research or advocacy work, and equality-seeking groups lost the ability to fund Charter of Rights challenges. The government has also cancelled funding to notable NGOs such as KAIROS , and appointed ultra-conservative partisan board members to Rights & Democracy - manufacturing a massive crisis within the organization. The closure of CHRC offices is another example of this outrageous trend."

Canadians living in British Columbia, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces will no longer have access to walk-in or telephone services at a CHRC office even remotely close to where they live. The urban centres where the CHRC offices are being closed represent a high percentage of racialized people. In fact, 60 per cent of all racialized people in Canada live in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax.

In B.C., residents will no longer have access to a human rights commission of any kind, as the B.C. Human Rights Commission was dismantled by the provincial government five years ago.

PSAC sees the closures of the CHRC offices as part of a broader trend by the Harper government toward self-regulation - something that puts both public safety and human rights into question. By severely hampering the Canadian Human Rights Commission's ability to adequately deal with complaints throughout the process, the federal government is relying on employers to voluntarily meet employment equity obligations and address discrimination. But with no mechanisms for enforcement, the CHRC's mandate will be reduced to mere suggestions.

"PSAC will fight the closures of the Canadian Human Rights Commission offices and continue to fight the Harper government's attacks on democracy and human rights," said Gordon.

(highlighting and linkage by me)

Naturally, Mr. Gordon wants to make hay while he can. Never mind the facts. Regardless who has initiated the closure of the CHRC offices, its good for Canada. Why should Canadians be paying an 'independent' group to prosecute neighbours for saying things other neighbours don't agree with or like.

Nothing does more to 'marginalize' or 'racialize' in Canada, than to have the CHRC pointing out with the 'hammer of Political Correctness', the supposed inferiority of specific groups.

*Note to John Gordon: If only the CHRC WAS about protecting the people from the government, but it isn't. It punishes the people with their own money, and without the protection normally afforded them by rule of law. It is UNDEMOCRATIC and ANTI-FREEDOM. The people need protection from the CHRC! Today's group for special attention may be purple hats, but next year, who knows? Yellow hats may be favoured!

FIRE THEM ALL.

Social Rights, Or Not

Rachel Patterson at ASI writes :

...The term 'right' has come to characterize anything to which either the government or the citizenry feel they can make a fundamental claim to – but this is to express a deep misunderstanding of rights and their traditional link to civil liberties. Instead, a definition of rights has evolved which people almost universally accept but which remains false and untrue to their original intention. Rights began as protections against what the state could not do to a citizen; now they have become what the government must do for an individual....

Now they become an excuse for citizens to attack each other based on whose 'rights' have precedence. Now the basic human rights originally guaranteed are sublimated to the 'right of the week'. Free speech is being thrown aside for the sake of being 'non-offensive'. Freedom of religion must bow to gov't sponsored affirmation of homosexual behaviour. The right to life has been replaced by the right of the more powerful to snuff out the life of the vulnerable AT WHIM.

We are entering a very repressive age, calling itself tolerant, and revoking rights in the name of 'rights'.

NEW DICTIONARY PLEASE!

UN and Human Rights - A New Dictionary Please!

While the UN is very busy pushing a worldwide acceptance of abortion as a basic 'human right', and the 'human right' of homosexuals to be affirmed in their behaviour by every world citizen, they don't seem too concerned about anti-semitism. What the heck does 'human rights' even mean anymore!!

NRO:

Kicking Israel Around [Anne Bayefsky]


Here is a window on the dirty game of U.N. politics that is laughably called “human rights.” The scene is the U.N.’s Palais des Nations, in Geneva, where negotiations are taking place over the final document to be adopted formally at Durban II, the U.N.’s “anti-racism” conference that begins on April 20. President Obama is desperate to avoid offending anybody who is not American, particularly Islamic states, so American officials remain tight-lipped about whether they will participate in Durban II or not. While Americans observe the planning sessions from the sidelines, this is what is happening in the pit.

The first issue discussed today was the central one for American participation. Israel was the only nation criticized by name in the 2001 Durban Declaration, which asserts that Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism. Although the Obama administration stated last month that it would not agree to “reaffirm the Durban Declaration in toto,” paragraph number 1 of the working draft of this year’s declaration “reaffirms the 2001 Durban Declaration as it was adopted.”

Today the European Union indicated that it is satisfied with this language and has no intention of proposing any modification that would bring the Americans onboard. Suggestions had been floating around to reaffirm only “the core provisions from 2001,” or to insert an explanatory footnote with reservations. None of this materialized. It turns out that the EU’s “who gives a damn about the U.S.” position is part of a deal struck with Islamic extremists. As long as the EU reaffirms the denunciation of Israeli racism in Durban I, Islamic states will refrain from introducing more racist-Israel language into Durban II. That’s how the EU does business: Forget the principle — just keep the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) happy.

The EU position should spell the end of Obama’s fence-sitting. The game is up; alleged Israeli racism is going to be “reaffirmed,” since not one country is prepared to oppose it.

Meanwhile, the idea of denouncing anti-semitism remains controversial. In this global proclamation about intolerance, there is only one draft paragraph among 141 that briefly mentions “anti-semitism,” and today the South Africans indicated they had problems with that paragraph. The Russian chair of the proceedings announced that he was delaying consideration of the subject and moving its discussion to an unrelated debate over paragraphs concerning freedom of expression.

What’s behind all this? The OIC countries are locked in a struggle with EU states over the ability to stifle free speech (such as “defaming” Islam) in the name of protecting religion. The Russian move helps the OIC nations by letting them use the anti-semitism clause as a bargaining chip, to be played in exchange for the EU’s allowing free-speech restrictions. In a related issue, the Danish are unhappy with the mention of something the U.N. invented called “anti-Arabism.” That phrase has been inserted in the paragraph about discrimination in the form of Islamophobia, Christianophobia and anti-semitism. But the rest of the EU has told the Danes to get lost, on the grounds that if the EU proposes deleting anti-Arabism, the OIC will insist on deleting anti-semitism. As EU officials explain to observers, “We want to show restraint.”

Restraint of course, is a one-way street at the U.N. So the Syrians duly proposed adding a denunciation of “foreign occupation” — a.k.a. Israel. Not one country objected to the Syrian proposal — not even Australia, which until now had not been intimidated by the anti-Israel and anti-democratic forces. According to U.N. rules, this means the proposed language will be added into the draft in “square brackets,” indicating that it is firmly in the mix for the purposes of future deal-making. Syria also said, “later on we will propose further amendments.”

Watching the U.N. conduct the business of human rights is revealing. It teaches us how negotiations between fascists and democrats proceed. Democrats “show restraint,” while fascists don’t care who they offend or what they say. And more often than not, Jews and the Jewish state are the political football. The farthest thing from this playing field is true concern over the protection of human rights.

— Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute and at Touro College, New York.

Meanwhile in Canada, the difference between a conservative approach to human rights and a liberal approach is the difference bewteen Canada's non-participation in Dubai under conservative PM Stephen Harper, and PM Paul Martin's (liberal) support of Tamil Tigers.

If only such a difference was obvious on Canadian soil, regarding human rights in Canada! Perhaps that's 'not an area of interest'.

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