Collins’ Conviction is an “Outrage” CAFE Director Says

In a statement released late tonight, Paul Fromm, Director of the Canadian Association for Freedom of Expression, termed the decision by Tom Patch, to find Vancouver journalist Doug Collins guilty of promoting “hatred” against Jews in four columns and fining him $2,000 an “outrage. Patch was a one man tribunal set up under British Columbia’s Human Rights Commission who heard a complaint laid by Victoria businessman and B’nai Brith activist Harry Abrams.

“The decision, like so much in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of human rights commissions, was completely contradictory and incoherent,” said Fromm. Patch found that none of the four columns individually crossed the threshold into promoting “hate”, but collectively they did.

“What we have here is a group being granted virtual immunity from criticism,” said Fromm. “Canada, or at least B.C., is no longer a free or democratic society. It is censorship by minority groups and the tyranny of the minority.” This was clearly evident in remarks by Harry Abrams, Fromm charged. Abrams crowed: “This is a great day. This ruling shows that you shouldn’t be vilifying people because of their identifying characteristics time after time.”

“Notice,” said Fromm, “Abrams wasn’t saying that Collins’ comments were false, but that identifiable privileged groups should not be criticized for their identifying characteristics.”
“This ruling must be appealed to the courts. The Canadian Association for Free Expression stands ready to help Doug Collins all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada,” Fromm promised, as he announced a promotional book tour of Ontario planned for Doug Collins later this spring.

“This human rights decision, where truth was no defence, is a further mark of the dispossession of the Canadian Majority,” Fromm said. “Doug Collins fought tyranny in World War II. He paid his dues. He gave his youth for King and country. What an atrocity that dwarves who aren’t fit to shine this old soldier’s muddy boots should impose the book burning and intellectual thuggery that he fought on him more than half a century later.”

“In Shakespearean English ‘patch’ was another name for a clown,” said former high school English teacher Fromm. “The tribunal chairman was well named. His decision was clownish and has made a farcical mockery out of all principles of Anglo-Saxon justice.”

Also See:

The “Abrams” BC Human Rights Tribunal written decision

Canadian Association for Free Expression believes free speech and discussion are essential to any functioning democracy. Freedom of speech and freedom to express one’s beliefs are essential to human dignity.

The Association, through publishing, lectures, conferences and lobbying tries to protect these basic human rights and to promote to the maximum the Charter guaranteed rights of freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.