POLITICAL CHILL IN THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

How Canada has lost it freedoms and how Americans might lose theirs.

by Brian Winn. (Citizens Informer, March-April 2002)

An orgy of political correctness has seized our northern neighbour. Immigration reformers and even advocates of freedom of speech are being fired by fanatical boards of education. In one of the most notorious cases, a Canadian teacher has been fired, after 24-year career, for organizing a free speech conference and attending the funeral of a U.S. patriot.

In 1997, Paul Fromm, a Toronto area English instructor, was fired for organizing a free speech conference.

A labour arbitration board upheld the firing in a 2-1 decision, released March 8.

Fromm, who is a member of the national advisors of the Council of Conservative citizens and has spoken at several CofCC meetings, including one last June in Asheville, North Carolina, was fired for organizing the March, 1996 Second Canadian Free speech Conference in Vancouver.

The Arbitration Board concluded that the Peel Board was justified in firing Fromm because "he publicly spoke in favour of known racists' right to make racist comments." They judged: "These acts were a breach of the school board's multiculturalism policy."

Among the speakers at the Free Speech Conference was lawyer Douglas Christie, who had defended a number of Canada's thought crimes victims, including revisionist publisher, Ernst Zundel.

Another speaker was columnist Doug Collins, who was dragged before a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for a column that called Steven Spielberg's movie Schindler's List "swindlers list". He decried excessive Jewish influence in Hollywood. At his hearing, truth was ruled to be no defence. Collins was a British World War II hero with 11 escapes from POW camps to his credit. Collins was one of Canada's leading immigration reformers, having written the wake-up call, his book Immigration: The Destruction of English Canada.

In Fromm's case, the second reason for his firing was his attendance at a November, 1994 Memorial Symposium held in Urbana, Illinois, for the late Prof. Revilo P. Oliver, distinguished classicist and patriotic author.

Attending this memorial, said the Arbitration Board, showed that Fromm "continued to publicly consort with known racists".

A videotape of the memorial had been obtained by David Lethbridge, a teacher at Okanagan College, and a candidate for the Canadian Communist Party. He passed the video tape on to the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith, which pressured the Peel Board to fire Fromm.

The Arbitration Board also blamed Fromm for associating with Atlanta lawyer, Sam Dickson, a respected patriot who organized the Revilo Oliver memorial. Dickson, a member of the C of CC Board of Directors, is accused of being "a well-known virulent racist" by Alan Dutton, a professional government grant chaser, and anti-racist, whom the Peel Board hired to spy on Fromm's political meetings and activities.

Since 1982, Canada has had a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that supposedly guarantees freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom of belief. But while these guarantees may sound very much like those of the U.S. First Amendment, they are subject to a weasel clause. Instead of affirming absolute protections, they are subject to "such reasonable limits as are generally accepted in a free and democratic society." Judges have used this escape clause to so restrict these rights that, in some cases, even truth is no defence.

Populist activists in our northern neighbour face a number of legal perils. Importing books or tapes from abroad brings one to the attention of Canada's customs censors. The censors regularly seize material that they suspect of promoting "hate" against a list of privileged groups - race, religion, ethnic origin. Even a book by a President of the Untied States - a collection of comments by President Theodore Roosevelt - Theodore Roosevelt on Race, Riots, Reds and Crime has been banned. Section 319 of the Criminal code of Canada makes the wilful promotion of "hate" against privileged minorities a crime.

Truth is a defence. However, an evangelical Christian minister was convicted several years ago for putting out pamphlets denouncing Islam as a religion of violence. The defence of sincerely held religious belief was not accepted. Even more worrisome to activists are federal and provincial human rights codes that impose civil penalties for writings that are "likely to expose to hatred or contempt" an even longer list of privileged groups, including homosexuals and lesbians.

Before such human rights tribunals, truth is no defence. Only the feelings of the aggrieved minority count: As part of Bill C-36, legislation touted as part of the war on terrorism, the Canadian government gave the censorship lobby the gag order they had long sought over the Internet. The law turned over control of the Internet to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Websites that are likely to expose privileged groups to "hatred" or "contempt" can face cease and desist orders and fines of up to $40,000. Truth is no defence.

Fromm, one of Canada's leading immigration reformers and free speech advocates, had been the target of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith since 1991. The Jewish lobby grups objected to Fromm's opposition to Canada's open door immigration policy which has flooded the country with Third World immigrants and reduced Whites to minority in Toronto, where they had been a 99% majority 40 years ago.

The Jewish lobby groups also bristled at Fromm's defence of freedom of speech and his fundraising for some of their other victims; such as, New Brunswick teacher, Malcolm Ross, fired for writing books and booklets about his Christian beliefs.

Spokesmen for the Jewish organizations were ecstatic at the Fromm decision. "This has raised the bar for teachers," cheered Bernie Farber, of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

"This is a tragedy for the teaching profession," said Fromm. "In Canada, it's best to check your brains at the door. Teachers will know that, if they have any politically incorrect thoughts, they just better shut up. This decision makes a farce of the freedom of speech and freedom of association protections of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms".