Ezra Levant

No common sense
There's a word for what the OHRC allows: Bigotry

The Ontario Human Rights Commission says it's illegal to advertise an apartment for "students" or "seniors" only — that's age discrimination.

But when the OHRC was asked about dozens of "Muslims-only" apartment-for-rent ads in the Toronto area, they said it's out of their hands.

Earlier this summer, the OHRC was clearly short of real work to do, so it started creeping through apartment rental ads online — cyberstalking is what some people might call it. It was appalled by severely normal things landlords were saying.

They came up with an official list of illegal words to use in apartment ads. "Perfect apartment for a student" is illegal. Seriously — that's one of the examples from the OHRC website. It said that's age discrimination. Calling your apartment an "adult building?" Illegal. "Perfect for female student". Illegal.

This summer, the OHRC threatened landlords and even the websites that advertised these "discriminatory" words. But reporter Sarah Boesveld was poking around the website Kijiji.ca and found 32 apartments that say "only Muslims need apply." She called up the human rights commission … which said it's out of its hands.

Now, a part of private property is the right to choose who gets to come on it — no matter what your reason is. Think of the middle-aged male who wants to move into a sorority house. But that right goes further — including the right to exclude people for any reason at all. If you don't like their personality, their annoying laugh, the colour of their eyes. And even the colour of their skin. That's the point about private property: You have the right to be wrong — you even have the right to be racist.

We don't like the idea of people being racist. "Muslims only" is another way of saying "no Jews allowed" or "no Christians allowed." But it's their property, not ours. If people don't like it, they can have a little picket outside the property, on the street. A restaurant that discriminated that way might soon lose the business of fair-minded customers. But there is a market for some kinds of discrimination.

Take women-only fitness clubs. Surely they have the right to discriminate against men. Surely the Black Students Society can only allow blacks in. Surely a movie theatre can charge kids less than adults.Discrimination is something we do every day — it's really another word for choosing. Sometimes people make choices for odious reasons. That's the price of freedom — and it's a far lower price to pay than the costs of having a government so invasive that it can barge its way into every wrinkle of our lives, including our own homes.

I'm not for prosecuting these 32 Muslims-only landlords. If they want someone who follows their religion — for example, who won't bring pork or alcohol into the house, and who will respect their religious traditions — that's fine.

But the Ontario Human Rights Commission doesn't believe in property rights or freedom of association. They believe in counterfeit rights — like the right not to be offended. Except, of course, if the person doing the offending is Muslim, and the people being offended are Jews and Christians and Sikhs and Hindus and atheists.

There's a word for people like those at the OHRC who have different standards for different religions: Bigots.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

CBC gets kid-glove treatment
State broadcasting corporation doesn't want same scrutiny it dishes out

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is used to criticizing others — often, quite viciously. But it sure doesn't react well when it is the mega-corporation being scrutinized.

Last week their president, Hubert Lacroix, lashed out at critics who are asking basic accountability questions about the CBC.

To Lacroix, having to answer for the CBC's mismanagement, luxurious perks and wasteful spending isn't acceptable. In a new conspiracy theory he shared with a friendly reporter, Lacroix says questions about CBC's secrecy and lack of accountability are just attempts to "weaken" the CBC. He says it's a scheme cooked up by his competitors — and he mentions the Sun specifically.

Is Lacroix really saying that being corrupt and wasteful is a sign of strength? That if the CBC isn't allowed to hide, say, its liquor budget and its limousine budget, it won't be a strong broadcaster?

The CBC likes to ask questions about other corporations. But they don't want the same scrutiny for their own corporate mismanagement.

The CBC likes to file access to information requests against the government and they complain if their responses are slow or incomplete.

But the CBC itself is also subject to access to information laws — and according to Canada's non-partisan information commissioner, Suzanne Legault, the CBC gets a score of F for compliance.

Apparently she is part of the plot to weaken the CBC.

Lacroix disrespects the idea of openness. He also disrespects the law — he has refused to comply with court rulings demanding he turn over his expenses. He's spending millions of dollars fighting accountability.

Stories of CBC wastefulness aren't new. But what's new is how the CBC is fighting back.

Lacroix is pulling in favours from media outlets that depend on the CBC for money. He's getting other media to shill for him — other companies who take money from him.

Lacroix spoke to Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press (CP) — she's the one who lovingly reported Lacroix's conspiracy theory last week.

Why would CP — an independent, private news agency — give such a friendly forum to the CBC, their government-owned competitor?

Well, the CBC is also the Canadian Press's biggest customer. CP sells its stories to newspapers across the country. The CBC buys millions of dollars worth from CP.

Would it would be financially dangerous for CP to ask tough questions of

their best customer?

And even Ditchburn herself arguably has a conflict of interest. Nominally, she works for CP. But the CBC regularly pays her to come on their TV panels. Not only does that supplement her CP income, it gives her a bigger media profile too.

Put aside money; even for social reasons, she would never be tough on her TV colleagues.

Do you really think she could ever ask tough questions about CBC's spending – when she herself is a beneficiary of CBC spending?

Same thing with the Toronto Star, same thing with the Globe and Mail — both are co-owners of Canadian Press. So they get a lot of the CBC's

$1.1 billion in tax dollars. It makes them pull their punches.

Even the conservative-leaning National Post has been bought off. In 2009, the CBC signed a big commercial agreement with the National Post to share editorial content — and even to sell ads into each other.

And even Canada's largest private broadcaster, who you'd think would be a critic of the CBC, has been co-opted, too. CTV has now teamed up with CBC to make a joint broadcasting bid for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics.

Well, the Sun hasn't been bought off. We ask questions about the CBC's mismanagement of tax money.

Not for malicious reasons. We ask because it's our right as taxpayers to ask. And anyone who would tell us to shut up about it is disrespecting taxpayers.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

PM's chance to defend freedom of speech

After five years in power, the Conservative government finally has introduced a bill to repeal the censorship provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

After five years in power, the Conservative government finally has introduced a bill to repeal the censorship provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

That provision — called section 13 — gives the government the power to censor anything on the Internet "likely to expose a person … to hatred or contempt".

So it covers a Facebook link that you share that has an off-colour joke. Or a comment that you make on a blog that isn't quite politically correct.

Finally, the Conservative government has taken the first baby step to repealing it.

Well, that's not quite accurate. The Conservative government and the Justice Minister haven't done a thing. But a backbench MP from the northern Alberta riding of Westlock-St. Paul has. Last Friday, Brian Storseth introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-304, called "An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (Protecting Freedom)." Normally when a private member's bill is introduced, it's merely a symbolic act — pretend busy-work that's little more than a press release, that has little chance of being passed, and often doesn't even get a chance to be debated.

But Storseth's C-304 isn't at the end of a long line. It's near the front — it's 15th in line. So it's quite likely that the bill will actually be debated, as soon as November, and voted on this year.

It should be a slam-dunk. Freedom of speech is so important to our society, it's bigger than left wing versus right wing, or conservative versus liberal.

During the Conservatives' two terms of minority government, they were afraid of offending the small group of Canadians who make their living by being professionally offended by things.

Literally a thousand lawyers and bureaucrats across Canada collectively take about $200 million from taxpayers to "work" in human rights commissions. And then there are all the lawyers-of-fortune and other shakedown artists and hangers-on out there who don't work directly for the industry, but who have a stake in it.

Of course these censors have a political agenda of their own. They don't believe in diversity — diversity of opinion, that is. All the people prosecuted by the Canadian government under section 13 fit a pattern. To use the language of the complaining left, the human rights commission engages in racial profiling. One hundred per cent of the people prosecuted under section 13 have been white and Christian. And 90% of them have been too poor to afford a lawyer.

Since the law was enacted by Pierre Trudeau, not a single case of Muslim extremism or Tamil extremism or Sikh extremism has ever been prosecuted by the censorship police. They just go after blue-collar white folks who tell immigrant jokes instead of fancy folks making fun of Christians or George Bush.

No doubt the complaining industry will lobby hard against this bill. But the Conservatives have the votes to do it ­­— and probably enough truly liberal supporters in the opposition, too.

But how about the prime minister himself? In 1999, Stephen Harper said this: "Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society. It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff." It has been a dozen years since then. Will Harper restore our freedom of speech, by supporting Storseth's bill?

We're about to find out.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

CBC: Canadian Bash Corp.
Best feature at taxpayer-funded TIFF party for 'cool people' — riot gates to keep non-cool folks at bay

How has your household income done over the past few years?

Was the recession a tough time for your family? What do you think the looming double-dip recession is going to do to your cash flow?

Those are real questions for most Canadians. But not for the CBC.

In 2005, when Liberal Paul Martin was prime minister, the CBC wrung $982 million out of taxpayers. That's a staggeringly large sum.

Luckily, a fiscally conservative Stephen Harper took over. That's a joke: Since the "Conservatives" took over, the CBC's annual welfare cheque has rocketed to more than $1.1 billion.

Have you had a double-digit raise over the recession?

The CBC — and the more than 10 government unions who live off it — are having a party while the rest of the economy has been under stress.

Literally, a party. A month ago, the CBC threw a luxurious party at the Hazelton, Canada's most exquisite hotel, during the Toronto International Film Festival. They blocked off the street, and had stars like the band U2 on their red carpet.

The CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos hosted the party. But he isn't in any film. He just wanted to — in his words — party with "cool people." That's what he said.

When the Sun asked how much money they blew on this vanity party, the CBC refused to answer.

That would be fair enough if the CBC were like the other companies putting on the ritz during the film festival — private companies promoting movies or fashion.

If they want to spend their shareholders' dollars on a party, that's their business

But the CBC doesn't spend shareholders' money. They spend our money.

And they didn't even have a film at the film festival. They just wanted to be amongst the "cool" people.

I asked the CBC's spokesman Jeff Keay if the party cost more or less than $1 million. He refused to say.

One of the things that made the party expensive was the police-style riot gates to keep ordinary taxpayers at bay. Remember, they had to block off the city streets to really party hard. But that might have meant some non-cool taxpayers might have wandered in.

Taxpayers have their place at a CBC party: To stand back and gawk, in order to make the cool people feel cool. And, of course, to pay for the whole thing.

According to a poll by Abacus Data, more than 80% of Canadians do not know just how much money the CBC gets — half of them think the CBC liberates $150 million or less a year. No — it's almost ten times that much.

If the CBC's vanity party at the film festival did indeed cost $1 million, that really shouldn't be so shocking to us. The CBC burns through $1 million of our tax money every eight hours.

It's not just inappropriate for this Roman-style party to be going on in the middle of a recession, deficits and private sector cutbacks. It's also unacceptable competition against entrepreneurs in the media.

Because of its $1.1-billion subsidy, the CBC can decide, on a whim, to engage in uncompetitive practices. It can, for example, bid for exclusive broadcasting rights to shut out other companies. Not just for sports events, but for public events.

For example, the CBC bought up the rights to the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill.

Only the CBC was allowed full, end-to-end coverage of the Canada Day festivities.

Seventy-five years ago when the CBC was founded, there might have been some reason for their subsidy.

Today, in an era of 500 TV channels, YouTube, iTunes and Netflix, there is no reason for one favoured channel to get $1.1 billion a year.

Sure, the big government unions love it.

And so do the "cool people."

But the rest of us have to live in a recession.

Cut off the CBC — and let them succeed or fail on their own merits.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY