AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, the Ontario Human Rights Commission backed down over the Mark Steyn case, but not without issuing some anti-Steyn dictum in spite of its self-confessed lack of any jurisdiction. Here’s a news story on the event, and note this passage:

This qualified exculpation — Ms. Hall compared it to a judge making comments in a written judgment — was the latest chapter in the growing controversy over free speech in Canada’s human rights bureaucracy.

Her statement drew harsh criticism from a progressive Muslim leader who said the commission had sided with Islamist fundamentalists in the debate among Canadian Muslims over the acceptance of traditional Canadian values.

You’d think that promoting “traditional Canadian values” is what a Canadian “human rights” commission would be about. But you’d be tragically wrong. Plus, “Scrutinizing the Human Rights Machine.” And this:

This is why Ontario’s human-rights commission hasn’t yet suffered the sort of signature embarrassment suffered by its federal counterpart at last week’s Marc Lemire hearing.

But instead of counting their blessings, the folks at the OHRC are complaining that they’ve been left out of the censorship party. And they want in.

Wednesday’s Orwellian communiqué reads like something the Chinese communist party might put out on Xinhua — except that the role of anti-Chinese “traitors” and “saboteurs” has been replaced by evil-doers (such as Maclean’s magazine’s Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant of the Western Standard) who peddle “destructive, xenophobic opinions.”

There would seem to be many opportunities for investigative journalism here, for anyone interested in examining things closely. Perhaps Macleans should undertake the effort . . . .

And here’s still more on the disaster that the Canadian “human rights” bureaucracy kakistocracy has become. At least this is getting attention in the Canadian press.

UPDATE: Okay, I have to quote this, too:

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote “human rights,” the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” — to which he replied “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

Jeez.