You guys eat up everything Lerant (typo intended) says as fact. The guy is supposedly a lawyer, yet he doesn’t even know (or maybe purposely leaves it out of his rants) that the CHRC and the CHRT are two TOTALLY separate bodies, with separate legislated mandates (any dummy can figure that out by reading the Canadian Human Rights Act).
Furthermore, contrary to Lerant’s “musings” the CHRC has not and cannot “rule” that something is hate–they can only refer things to the CHRT for further inquiry. The CHRT makes the decision. Again, this is something established in the CHRA–something any good lawyer would know.
Also, you cannot be “charged” under the Canadian Human Rights Act, nor does the CHRT “convict” or “prosecute”–these are criminal court terms, which as a lawyer, Lerant should know. A complaint is filed and a decision rendered–period. The participants are “complainants” and “respondents” not the “victim” and the “accused”.
All of you that praise Levant and call him a genius, consider this: Levant is a lawyer–an expert at law. Levant claims that all HRC staff are nothing more than second-rate bureaucrats. Yet at the same time he pays thousands in lawyer’s fees (which apparently he funds from the dummies that eat up his one-sided, first-year lawschool-journalistic-activism) to fight the HRC’s. Now, wouldn’t a lawyer of his calibre be able to defend himself? After all, there are federal inmates with less than a grade 10 education that manouver their way through the CHRC process–WITHOUT COUNSEL!! Similarly, many ferderal government departments have staff who are not lawyers defend them when CHRC complaints are filed against them.
Granted, if a case goes to the CHRT, which is a formal administrative tribunal with all sorts of legal rules and procedures, a lawyer is required. Speaking of which, complainants in HRC cases pay their own lawyer’s fees–they are not paid by the government. Yes, the CHRC may intervene in a Tribunal hearing, but the complainant has their own counsel and is responsible for the bill–unless of course, the Tribunal awards costs to the complainant (then the respondent pays).
While all of this may seem trivial, it shows how Levant will manipulate facts and language to hit his readers at a base, emotional level (suckers).
So, do you want section 13 (1) taken out of the Canadian Human Rights Act?
Instead of listening to Lerant go on about the crooked CHRC (which has yet to be proven as both the RCMP and Privacy investigations are ongoing), we all need write our MPs and demand that it be repealed. This will be far more effective than sitting at your computer eating up Lerant’s highschool-like character assassinations of average Joe public servants (character assassinations that are created by skewing facts and taking quotes out of context).
AND if you have made it this far in my rant, you may want to ask yourself if Lerant REALLY does want the hate provisions gone from our HR legislation. After all, it is his ‘fight’ against them that makes him a hot commodity online, in the papers and on TV. Without hate provisions, Lerant is just another right-wing windbag with not too much to say.
Lerant says he’s disgusted by, and has contempt for, the entire “human rights industry”. Yet at the same time, it is the HR industry that butters his bread.
Think, research and form your own rational opinion. Don’t be duped by a second rate lawyer who is more interested in skewing facts and cashing in on it, than he is in furthering the cause free speech.
