Update on: The HRCs Are Mostly About Discrimination

Below I have linked to the Youtube videos showing the discussions on dismantling the HRCs on the Michael Coren Show, which I wrote about in the previous post. The first couple of minutes of Part 1 I think pretty much delineate Coren's views (Coren is the more right-leaning of the talk show pundits), where he says that scrapping the hate speech component of the HRCs is a good idea, but all the rest should remain.

In Part 2, he briefly admits that even if the Conservatives were to initiate the dismantling of the HRCs, the other parties would derail it by saying that the Conservatives agree with (i.e., are) Holocaust deniers, homophobes (and he could have also said racists, sexists, and so on).

In short, like I said before, those who advocate the removal of the HRCs have only looked at the issue in terms of hate speech (free speech), and not in terms of discrimination. And I've said all along that the main purpose of the HRCs is to fight "discrimination," and curtailing free speech is just a by-product of the whole set-up. I don't think any party would enjoy being called racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and certainly not the newest accusation, Islamophobic. Unless people deal with these issues, I don’t think government maintained (and mandated), and tax-payer subsidized HRCs are going any time soon.

John Turley Stewart, of the National Post (who's also on the Coren Show panel), does a good job of arguing for total dismantling. But, to me, he sounds like the lone voice in the whole debate. Coren is for partial reform (i.e. getting rid of the hate speech parts), as I think are most critics of the HRCs, including Ezra Levant.