Talk:Canadian Human Rights Commission

message: We should add information about Ezra Levant and the Muhammad cartoons.The human right commission was  criticized for its handling in his case.Here are links:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12162007/postopinion/editorials/canadas_thought_police_72483.htm
http://www.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUSN0325508520080106 
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1024759.html
http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10499144
http://www.youtube.com/EzraILevant  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.151.98 (talk) 17:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ezra Levant case 

message: As an attempt at compromise with Frank Pais who repeatedly gutted this section, I have restored only the critique by the Bishop of Alberta, sourced by the Western Catholic Reporter, the largest religious weekly publication in Canada.  It would be difficult to argue that including this criticism somehow violates the Wikipedia "NPOV" policy.  
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On the contrary, including only criticism by white supremists would result in a distorted representation of the enormous international controversy swirling around the CHRC and it's enforcement of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
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Criticism by itself can never be "neutral", only it's presentation should be.  Also, Wikipedia does not necessarily require "equal balancing" of an article, but strives for objective presentation of all facts relevant to the circumstances.
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Also the analogy, to the movie "Minority Report" in which future crimes are prosecuted in the present, is also valid and should be restored with proper sourcing.  The CHRC mandate to punish speech "likely" to cause some result, necessarily involves guesswork about future events, which was the point of the movie.
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It would be helpful to the allow the reader to understand this important social controversy, by including abstracts of recent cases being prosecuted with their eventual resolution.  
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Ideally, this article should reflect all Canadian Human Rights Commission activity, both national and provincial.  When a complaint is filed it is often brought before several jurisdictions at once, which is another part of the controversy and confusion.
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I am confident that all editors here are acting in good faith and we can arrive at a solution which does not require arbitration.
Freedom Fan (talk) 04:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: How is freedom of speech an issue to only a "narrow constituency?" It is an issue to everyone. The CHRC currently seems to think that it, and it alone, has the right to determine what constitutes "hate speech." The CHRC is not a court, so there is no right to legal representation, no rules of evidience, no rules for impartiality, and unlike in civil court, truth is not a defense. This is an issue to everyone - it has galvanized Canadian Liberals and Conservatives and has led to the questioning of just how much power Canada's human rights commissions have and should have. Should a quasi-judicial body, with no requirements of imparitality and training, be allowed to essentially dictate what and what isn't hate speech?
Leftists are supporting the CHRC because CHRC activities are almost entirely directed at the political right. The supporters of the CHRC's recent activities seem to believe in censoring anything that it considered "offensive" and that anybody who doesn't support censoring "offensive" material must be a racist. 
Do misunderstand me. The CHRC has done an excellent job of dealing with discrimination in the workplace and against specific people. This is a very important issue and it deserves coverage in this article.
However, the issue I refer to deals with the CHRC prosecuting forms of expression - that is, material that is only "likely" to cause harm to a group. This essentially means that any written or printed material that might cause harm to someone (and it doesn't have to be a specific person) between now and the end of time is hateful and therefore should be censored. The above powers possessed by the CHRC are not considered acceptable to many in a free and democratic society.
Keep in mind that there are proper avenues for dealing with "hate speech." This includes filing civil lawsuits and contacting the police and asking that hate crime charges be filed under the criminal justice system. However, unlike the human rights commissions, the civil and criminal courts have proper protections and procedures that must be followed to guard against abuse.
For those who claim to support the CHRC is banning "hate speech," I ask this question: Where do we draw the line? Should we rely on the CHRC and its politically driven, untrained staff, to decide this? I don't think so (but that's just my opinion.
Freedom of speech - in particular, speech that is controversial - is a right and a requirement for everybody. Thus, this article is accruate. It is true that more could be added about the CHRC's successes against discrimination against specific people, but the issue of censoring anything that is "hateful" is one that deserves considerable space in Wikipedia - and indeed, everywhere.
:While "freedom of expression" is an issue of importance to everyone, a particular instance of it being limited (which is permissible in certain circumstances) is not necessarily, as most people do not engage in hate propaganda. 
:I don't believe Canadians of any political stripe have been "galvanized" by this issue. This is not so much an issue of "leftists" supporting the CHRC as it is one of the CHRC doing, well or badly, what the law asks of it. The law itself has stayed on the books for 30 years through both Conservative and Liberal governments. You are overstating the importance of the controversy.
:I cannot address all the charges you level at the Commission, nor could I because I am not an expert on this subject. However, the very partisan nature of the material in the article is evident to anyone. It is drawn in large part from partisan sources, and cherrypicks those facts that make a case against the Commission and Section 13 of the HRA. (For example, it omits mention of the fact that Section 13 was upheld by the Supreme Court or any of the rationale for that.) It mixes opposition to the law itself and criticism of the Commission. Joeldl (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Article is not Unbalanced - it is accurate

message: The section on controversies that involve the CHRC, specifically a statement by CHRC investigator Dean Stacey that Freedom of Speech has no value and a allegations that CHRC investigators illegaly tapped into someone else's wireless network (which is a crime under Canadian Law) are very relevant and are sourced from a major national newspaper (The National Post). 
Frank Pais has decided that this is not significant or relevant to this article and wants to remove it for that reason alone. I would suggest that this information remains in the article and people reading it can decide for themselves whether it is relevant. The information is accurately sourced - and if it isn't feel free to provide evidence to the contrary. Frank Pais may feel this is not significant, but that does not automatically give him the right to remove it (contrary to what he may think). If someone wants to submit this to an Wiki administrator for a decision, feel free to. But simply deleting material based on personal opinions alone is not acceptable. (Hyperionsteel (talk) 01:31, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What about forking off most of the controversy and criticism related sections into a separate article? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The Controversy Section should stay in

message: For specific wikipedia standards on this issue, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout#.22See_also.22_for_one_section
You can find examples of the "Main article" style at the following wiki pages. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Islamic_Congress#Controversies_involving_the_CIC_President.2C_Dr._Mohamed_Elmasry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea#Korean_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States#Native_Americans_and_European_settlers
I see no reason why this format can't be used for this article - it does not violate the NPOV rules (see link above).
The language used for the single sentence in the Criticism and Controversy link simply states there is controversy and does not take a position as to which side is correct. (Hyperionsteel (talk) 01:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine that you "don't see" a reason why your format can't be used - but that does not negate the validity of my format preference (which I should point out, was agreed upon already when the controversy section was isolated into its own article). Your nitpicking is just stirring up unneeded drama.  The link is clearly shown on the main page - nothing further is needed. Frank Pais (talk) 17:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Frank Pais' formatting preference was not agreed upon in the discussion which lead to the creation of Canadian Human Rights Commission free speech controversies. I suggested that most of the controversy section be forked off, Hyperionsteel, 007blur007 and CRakovsky agreed and Frank Pais did not object. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I think we should bring up a request for mediation. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

text: You show something to support your position, "Mr. Hyperionsteel". There is no onus on me to justify my style preference. Both of our formats are perfectly legit - I simply believe mine to be more legit than yours, based upon the wealth of Wiki articles I've seen which are edited in a similar fashion. Frank Pais (talk) 03:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Proper format

message: Frank Pais has still not cited the wiki policy that supports his position. I've already cite one that supports mine. I would suggest that Mr. Pais does the same as opposed to simply reverted other peoples edits. This is correct wiki policy. (Hyperionsteel (talk) 01:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should bring up a request for mediation. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

text: You show something to support your position, "Mr. Hyperionsteel". There is no onus on me to justify my style preference. Both of our formats are perfectly legit - I simply believe mine to be more legit than yours, based upon the wealth of Wiki articles I've seen which are edited in a similar fashion. Frank Pais (talk) 03:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Frank Pais still won't cite the wiki policy that supports his position

message: I understand that we sort of run the risk of a POV even discussing the way the courts actually operate, the bit about government grants paying for complaintant but not defendant, the conviction rate, etc. Here's the problem: the article, as it stands now, may as well simply read "Click the Criticism and Controversy section if you want to actually learn anything about the CHRC". Yes, I know that it's difficult to keep POV problems out of discussions of things like this, but surely by sticking to the facts one could include things like the rules of the court, conviction statistics, etc. At the very least we need links to "Notable Cases", if only to link to the Ezra Levant or Mark Steyn or Marc Lemire cases or whatever--it's surely not POV to note that these were big cases.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.195.165 (talk) 01:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Does NPOV mean the article can't be informative?

message: While working on the article for Shiv Chopra, this reference was found:
* NCARR v. Health and Welfare Canada et al. :  CHRT.  March 19, 1997.  Available online at chrt-tcdp.gc.ca , accessed online on September 24, 2006
An error is returned. Usually an update on a website can be found by a search there. In this case a search turned up 5 links, but all came back as error when clicked. The website is non-functional! — Rgdboer (talk) 22:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It's archived at archive.today  and the Wayback Machine . - 73.195.249.93 (talk) 07:25, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Website