Two candidates for the Ontario PC leadership have broached the subject of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) in their platform. Randy Hillier and Tim Hudak want radical change. They are to be commended. On the other hand, the two other candidates are indifferent or lukewarm at most.

Time and again over the past 15 years, the gay rights zealots and radical feminists who dominate the Ontario Human Rights Commission and its associated tribunals have trampled upon the historic rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Ontario. Voters in the upcoming election for leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party should pay close heed to this mounting scandal.

Christine Elliott

Christine Elliott is the only one of the four candidates who is promising no specific reform to the province’s corrupt human rights process.

Frank Klees

While acknowledging that the Ontario Human Rights Commission is in need of reform, Klees insisted: “The responsible solution is to reform and refocus the Human Rights Commission, not to abolish it.”

In what he describes as “an essential first step to refocusing the Ontario Human Rights Commission on its original mandate,” Klees introduced a private member’s bill into the Legislature on June 4 to repeal Section 13 of the Ontario Human Rights Code.

However, this is a relatively innocuous provision of the code that prohibits the display of “any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other similar representation” that indicates an intention to violate or incite others to violate a ban on discrimination in the code. Unlike human rights legislation in Alberta and British Columbia, neither Section 13 nor any other provision of the Ontario code authorizes the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal to censor newspaper and magazine articles.

Repealing Section 13 is a good idea, but it would do little to safeguard freedom of expression in Ontario and nothing at all to stop the OHRT from suppressing the freedoms of conscience, religion and association for the benefit of feminists, gay rights activists, racial minorities and other groups designated for preferred treatment in the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Tim Hudak

Tim Hudak would abolish the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, but retain the Ontario Human Rights Commission. By means of the Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2006, the McGuinty Liberals strengthened enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code by concentrating all of the prosecutorial powers formerly exercised by the commission on the tribunal. In its present form, the commission essentially is only an advisory body to instruct the government and the public on human rights issues.

Hudak promises to replace the tribunal with a panel of “specially trained judges” mandated to abide by the rules of evidence applicable in a regular court of law and to hear only “real cases of discrimination or harassment – not politically motivated cases of hurt feelings.”

Randy Hillier

Randy Hillier would abolish both the commission and the tribunal. Like Hudak, he promises to “place genuine violations of human rights before real courts, where all parties can be confident that justice will be done and that procedural fairness will not be ignored.”

In addition, Hillier proposes a Freedom of Association and Conscience Act to protect healthcare professionals and marriage commissioners with respect to their freedom of conscience. Specifically, he promises: 1) “All medical care professionals in Ontario will be protected from performing or referring medical services or procedures which violate their personal or religious beliefs.” And 2) “All provincial marriage commissioners in Ontario will be protected by legislation from performing marriages against their religious or philosophical beliefs.”

Limitations of Hillier’s proposal

Hillier’s singling out of medical care professionals and marriage commissioners for protection against the abuse of the OHRC is a much-needed step. But what about other conscientious citizens?

For example, Scott Brockie, the Toronto print shop owner and evangelical Christian. In 2000, an Ontario human rights board of inquiry found that he had violated the ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in Section 1 of the Human Rights Code by refusing, as a matter of Christian conscience, to print letterheads and stationery for the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

For this “offence” against the secular orthodoxy of human rights, Brockie was fined $5,000 and ordered never again to discriminate against homosexuals in his printing business.

Recall also the case of Christian Horizons, the non-profit agency that operates over 180 residential homes in Ontario for individuals with developmental disabilities. In 2008, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled that this explicitly Christian organization had violated the ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in Section 5 of the Ontario Human Rights Code. At issue in this case was the decision of Christian Horizons to fire an employee for entering into a lesbian relationship in contravention of her freely accepted, contractual obligation to uphold the agency’s lifestyle and morality statement, which includes bans on extra-marital sexual relationships and homosexual relationships.

The tribunal ordered Christian Horizons to pay $23,000 in damages to the one-time heterosexual, but now suddenly lesbian, complainant. Also, the tribunal directed that Christian Horizons eliminate the requirement that employees live according to the principles of Christian morality.

Repeal the Human Rights Code

Prior to the 1981 Ontario Human Rights Code, freedom of religion and freedom of association were solidly entrenched in common law, statute laws and the Constitution of Canada. Christian organizations had a legal and constitutional right to insist that employees uphold the fundamental principles of Judeo-Christian morality. Likewise, faithful individual Christians were free to refuse to assist organizations glorifying homosexuality.

Today, the human rights tribunals of Canada have suppressed these fundamental freedoms. They have decreed instead that faithful Christians can profess their faith at home and in church, but must not act on Christian convictions that conflict with the so-called rights conferred on homosexuals, women seeking abortions and other privileged minorities in human rights law.

Hillier and Hudak’s proposals to abolish the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and empower the courts to uphold the Ontario Human Rights Code will not solve this problem. Time and again, the courts have backed human rights tribunals in using the Human Rights Code to suppress the rights and freedoms of Christians. Brockie is one of the prime victims; at huge personal expense, he appealed the ruling of the tribunal in his case, only to lose again in both the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Christian Horizons decided not to appeal at all and understandably so. The agency stood no more chance of success in the courts than before the tribunal.

What should be done?

What, then, should be done to revive freedom under law and genuine human rights in Canada? The answer is clear: Canada’s elected legislators should abolish both human rights tribunals and the oppressive powers enacted into human rights codes. In Ontario, the legislature should specifically repeal not just Section 13, but also sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and every other provision of the province’s human rights code that tramples upon the historic rights of the people of Ontario to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association.

We encourage all candidates for leader of the Ontario PC party to support such fundamental reform.

A final point

Every human rights tribunal in Canada has set aside the Judeo-Christian moral code. The Canadian Human Rights Commission published a 40-page history in January 2009 in which it proudly acknowledged its leading role in establishing that the equality rights of homosexuals trump the rights of Christians and every other religion which subscribes to similar principles.

Catholic Insight, as an organ of the Catholic community in Ontario, rejects this assault on the peace, order and good government of this province.

It rejects the notion that Christian morality should give way to the supposed rights of homosexual activists; it rejects the idea that the vast majority of Canadians should surrender the principles of their moral teaching to the homosexual agenda.