Mark Steyn: “three years on”

Mark Steyn, who critics of Canada’s HRCs will recognize from his battles with the BC and Ontario Human Rights Commissions, sums up the battle for freedom of speech in Canada three years after his ordeal:

It’s three years since Mohamed Elmasry and his sock puppets filed their suits, and, to be honest, I’d hoped we’d be further along in the campaign to restore free speech to a nation foolish enough to let a gang of totalitarian social engineers steal it away from them. For some, the issue remains mine and Maclean’s “whiteness”. For others, it’s about imposing new social norms and ever tighter bounds of acceptable discourse. As George Jonas puts it, the new “human rights” are nothing more than the tender sensitivities of favored groups.

Read the rest, if you want to feel somewhat depressed.

On the one hand, Canada’s HRCs have been rather effectively denormalized when it comes to policing certain activities, like speech. On the other, their defenders continue to lob lawsuits at their critics, and the mindset that led to the HRCs’ over-reach continues unabated.

Sigh…

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