Pete Vere Senior Writer The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal has rendered a decision against Pastor Stephen Boissoin, a Baptist youth minister who in 2002 wrote a letter to the Red Deer Advocate denouncing homosexual activism in local public schools. The letter, which was published during the height of Canada’s debate over same-sex “marriage,” garnered much attention due to Boissoin’s having compared this type [...]
Liberal introduces motion to modify Human Rights Act, while Tories told to stay quiet Liberal MP Keith Martin has introduced a motion (M-446) in the House of Commons to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its Section 13(1) powers to investigate and punish the lawful expression of opinions and facts. That section of the Canadian Human Rights Act refers to ideas [...]
Every federal and provincial human rights code in Canada prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, so why do faithful Christians not take advantage of these laws to protect themselves from anti-Christian discrimination? To anyone who is at all familiar with human rights litigation, the answer is, or should be, obvious: Canada’s human rights codes are a two-edged sword that [...]
Two separate human rights commission complaints launched by student pro-life groups in British Columbia have received rulings. The struggles of pro-life university students to be allowed to present their views on campus has drawn the fire of some major legal players in British Columbia. John Hof, head of Campaign Life Coalition in the province, says student groups facing discrimination on campus should [...]
John Jalsevac Special to The Interim As Presbyterian minister Tristan Emmanuel handed Chris Kempling a check for $18,000, with a promise for $32,000 more to come before the year is through, he encouraged the beleaguered B.C. school teacher, saying, “Chris, I want you to realize that God has not forsaken you. God does not forsake his people.” With that, he pointed out [...]
Commentary by Ian Hunter The Interim My brief is to give the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary, Fred Henry, some unsolicited legal advice concerning his upcoming dealings with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Before the advice, here is what has happened to date. In January 2005 Bishop Henry issued a pastoral letter on the oxymoron that has come to be known as [...]
The legal sagas of Scott Brockie continue, more than eight years after a complaint was first filed against the Christian printer from Toronto for refusing to publish gay- and lesbian-oriented literature. In the latest installment, the Ontario Court of Appeal has reversed a Divisional Court ruling and put Brockie on the hook for more than $40,000, which includes legal costs - his, [...]
By Peter Stock The Interim Spanking is okay ... sometimes. So says the Supreme Court of Canada. In a 6-3 decision, the court upheld as generally constitutional Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which provides an exemption from criminal prosecution for parents, teachers, police or other authority figures who use "reasonable" physical force to restrain or discipline a child. The majority of [...]
At a time when many Canadians are beginning to notice that provincial human rights commissions - quasi-judicial bodies established to investigate and mediate alleged human rights violations - have become arbitrary, politically correct star chambers, British Columbia is set to do what had previously been thought politically impossible. In late May, the Liberal B.C. government introduced draft legislation that will scrap its [...]
We have come to expect such silliness from human rights tribunals but a recent Alberta decision takes the cake. It's ridiculous, that one cannot even mention something in a story that might injure the feelings of certain "vulnerable groups." At least that's now how it is for Edmonton-based Report Newsmagazine, which lost a crucial media freedom case before a tribunal of the [...]
The kind of police and private-citizen harassment that took place in Regina recently is nothing new to Bill Whatcott. It's all part of his determined pro-life and anti-homosexuality stand. According to Whatcott, he and four others were peacefully protesting near Regina's City Hospital Feb. 18, when police officers arrived in three cruisers and a pick-up truck. It was 4:25 p.m., a busy [...]
LifeSite News A human rights tribunal hearing over an evangelical pastor's ad on homosexuality ended Dec. 21, with the complainant shaking hands with the pastor. Ken Campbell, a frequent speaker at pro-life events, was taken before the tribunal to answer to charges that a 1998 ad he had published in the Globe and Mail was offensive to a practising homosexual who complained [...]
Ruling on second complainant favours Brockie On Dec. 5, three days of appeal began in the Ontario Divisional court. Scott Brockie's lawyers contended with those representing a homosexual man named Ray Brillinger, the Gay and Lesbian Archives and the Human Rights Commission over the right of Brockie, a practising Christian, not to print material he found objectionable. On April 3, 1996, Brillinger [...]
A case against Rev. Ken Campbell is now being heard before the British Columbia Human Rights Commission - the second time the pastor from Tumbler Ridge, B.C., has faced a tribunal for the same publication. Campbell, an ordained Fellowship Baptist minister, broadcaster, and Christian activist formerly based in Milton, Ont., placed a full-page ad in the April 18, 1998 Globe and Mail [...]
Scott Brockie's legal challenge to an Ontario Human Rights Commission ruling against him has received a significant boost with the announcement that an inter-faith coalition of groups has been formed to intervene in support of his case. The Canadian Religious Freedom Alliance, comprised of the Christian Legal Fellowship, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the Catholic Civil Rights League, filed a factum [...]