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The Tyranny of Human Rights Commissions

By Selwyn Duke

If you want to know what lies just a little ways further down the rabbit hole of political correctness, go north, Western man. If you do, you’ll wind up in Canada, where the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT) has given us what columnist Margaret Wente calls “The case of the smelly lunch.” But it smells more like tyranny.

The saga started when Maxcine Telfer, owner of a Mississauga-based operation that helps immigrant women find jobs, Audmax Inc., hired a gal named Seema Saadi as an “intake worker.” But finding a job and keeping one are two different things, and Miss Saadi went on the outtake line after only six weeks. This is, of course, when the trouble started.

Saadi went to the OHRT and, writes Wente, “complained of discrimination and harassment because of her race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, ethnic origin, disability (she is legally blind), creed and sex,” an eight-category discrimination cocktail that would make Telfer champion bartender of the bias-raised bar. What was Saadi’s specific complaint? Wente tells us:

Read the rest here.

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2 responses to “The Tyranny of Human Rights Commissions”

  1. Philip France Avatar
    Philip France

    Selwyn,
    Your article is both poignant and alarming. How much longer are we to put up with this crap? How much longer can we be led by the nose by overgrown infants?
    The inmates are running the asuylum.
    It is time for God-fearing Christians and Jews to confront this apostasy. My Jewish bretheren have plenty of ammo. We Christians have more – but we must recognize that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6:12)
    This madness must end – or it will be ended.
    Thank God I’m with the good guys!

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  2. Maxcine Telfer Avatar
    Maxcine Telfer

    I have just read your great article about the recent case of Audmax Inc. v. Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, 2011 and thought that since the inception of this case to its closure last month, I have not had a chance to speak out and or up except through the outcomes of the case in the media.
    I am ready to start a new realm of Employer rights, policies and advocacy for small business owners like myself and others who call me quite often once they are taken to the OHR for trivial reasons.
    Now that the election is over we must start the ball a-rolling especially for small business owners.
    Small businesses are the economic engine of any modern economy. “Small businesses make up for 70% of job growth in Ontario” (The newly appointed federal government SME manager at the SME fair Wednesday September 21, 2011) , yet in Ontario it seems to be the small businesses that are in the crosshairs of the Human Rights Tribunal (HRT).
    Daily, I receive calls from more and more small businesses that have been brought to the Human Rights Tribunal by former employees. In reality, this means more companies that cannot afford a $50 000 – $100, 000 retainer fee for good representation. Yet another small business whose name is dragged through the mud because of a disgruntled employee and a system that does not ask the right questions before passing judgement. Yet another company taken down, with no real method in sight to deal with this tribunal.
    As a visible racial minority woman, a single mother and who is taking care of a bed ridden mother with a son studying Engineering who was also dragged into the HRT court and had to take out student loan while I borrow $100,000 on my house (that once belonged to Ms Saadi) to fight the wrongs of HRT, I would like to see a support system for those who have been done wrong and for those who will be.
    I would also like to see changes to the methods used by the HRT, the lack of an independent investigation for finding of facts, the procedures for admitting evidence and the lack of accountability in their decision making, which have actually done much more harm than good.
    In other words, Ontario has tarnished its own track record ( the many international responses to my case) on protecting Human Rights. We as Ontarians have taken several steps backwards with respect to integrating and managing our diverse society. This is a big issue facing the people of Ontario and how they will go about interacting with each other.
    As the Global Compact Principles suggest that while businesses cannot be moral authori­ties, they are moral agents. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 called on “every organ of society” to play their role. Eleanor Roosevelt went still further when she addressed the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948, calling on all of us to remember all the “small places”:
    “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home–so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he [she] lives in; the school or college he [she] attends; the factory, farm, or office where he [she] works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
    Deborah Gyapong writes: Unbelievable. Thank God this awful decision was overturned Abolish these tribunals and commissions. The sooner the better. They are an assault on our civil rights. I hope this is an issue in the next Ontario election – I am making it a post election issue
    For the past 17 years while many sit at home and enjoy holiday events I am in my office trying to find the next innovate ideal idea to ensure new comers, single mothers and youth get food clothing and shelter yet I am taken to Human Rights. Today Thanksgiving day is no different.
    Today is the new solution to change. Why not let us ………
    Regards,
    Maxcine Telfer, founder and managing director Audmax Inc.

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