First of all, holy crap! You mean to tell us that it took this long to come to trail and reach any kind of verdict?
here, here, here, and here).Alleged cameraman attacker cleared
By Kevin Martin,Calgary Sun
We think that the government was incredibly short sighted in their decision to eliminate Sec. 13. It was a useful and cost-effective tool in the effort to eliminate some very vile, hateful, and potentially dangerous rhetoric online and in the public sphere. Now we have only the criminal code which, in a few cases, is like using a machete when a scalpel would have been more prudently utilized.
Those individuals and groups who were called before the Human Rights Tribunal and who were found to have violated Sec. 13 were not innocent lambs who were victimized by Big Brother. They were people and groups who were causing real harm in their communities. Their words did result in harm, and I don't mean hurt feelings. People's homes were vandalized. People have been assaulted. And these criminal acts had, in many cases, began with the dehumanization of fellow Canadians for no other reason than their ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation.
The people who are celebrating this are the extremists on Stormfront and VNN and a host of other racist webforums, but as we wrote on our blog they should consider that now there is only the criminal code and the penalties are more severe than anything Sec. 13 dished out. It should also be noted that racists aren't content with only Sec. 13. Paul Fromm, for instance, has said he and his group will next focus their attention on the criminal code sections regarding hate crimes.
![]() |
Dennis Mahon was convicted of sending a bomb in the mail and sentenced to 40 years in prison. |