This is one of the less-noticed glories of the Canadian human-rights insanity. Complainants float unburdened like puffballs in a summer breeze – blowing whither they list. Targets – Catholic bishops, Catholic magazines, fundamentalist pastors, genital surgeons, heckled comedians, school boards, fast-food joints, school-prom nights, Maclean's magazine – empty bank machines and call in lawyers while the “leisurely” process unfurls in an eerie, Kafkaesque slow motion.And, as if that wasn't crazy enough - here's this story:
...And out in B.C., the Case of the Heckled Comic and the Drink-Tossing Lesbians has intervened and obviously offers a more diverting stew. From national newsmagazines to amateur night at the local comedy store, there is nowhere your fearless human-rights commission does not tread.
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The really funny joke in all of this, however, is not going to come of out the mouth of any comedian. It is the dreary fact that comedians are the latest targets of Canada's human-rights commissions. Did you ever in your wildest dreams see heckling as the subject of a human-rights inquiry?
Howard Galganov, a long time campaigner for anglophone rights in Quebec, got too upset with the Russell Township by-law that makes commercial signs bilingual. So he distributed 5200 leaflets calling to boycott French-owned stores. Not sure if calling for such boycott is even legal in Canada. But Gilles Rhéaume, a militant separatist and a vocal campaigner for unilingual Quebec chose the easiest way and filed a "human rights" complaint against Galganov. Imagine Rhéaume's outrage when OHRC answered him in... English! Unhappy about the English only response, Rhéaume has filed a complaint against the OHRC - to Ontario's French Language Services Comission...
Not a laughing matter? Sure. Not for us, because anyone could end up being targeted. But someone watching from aside might as well mistake it for some silly reality show.
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