With mainstream media attention recurring weekly, scrutiny of human rights commissions has been unprecedented in 2008. But not any more. Now it’s just about daily. Even on Saturdays and Sundays.

Nothing even suggests abatement. Instead of subsiding, mainstream criticism is escalating. Swelling. And today it might be just about to burst. Because, as the Post’s Joseph Brean announced,

.. Tuesday, at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in Ottawa, one of Canada's most prominent white supremacist propagandists.. will put the country's entire human rights bureaucracy on the witness stand… The curious thing.. is that Mr. Lemire, the last president of the now defunct neo-Nazi Heritage Front, enjoys the qualified support of a Liberal MP, PEN Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association -- even a leader of B'nai Brith Canada.

Which so goes to showing and telling how questionable the antics of human rights bureaucracies seem to Canadians. By all means -- let’s find out. This day the interrogators get interrogated.

How has it come to this? Why do we regard human rights commissions with such suspicion? How have human rights bureaucracies heaped such undivided public disrepute upon themselves?

The Star’s Haroon Siddiqui would like us to believe shameless detractors have got nothing to object but justified limitations to free speech. That’s the only reason why detractors, as he alludes,

.. argue that human rights commissions have no business limiting free speech. [Despite how] by law it is the business of several of these tribunals to assess and curb hate speech…

What nonsense, Mr. Siddiqui. We get that speech must sometimes be constrained. As when shouting “Fire!” in crowded theatres. And we totally get how justified tribunals are to curb hate speech. What we do not and should not get is these tribunals hurdling from curbing hate speech to imposing false obligations to not offend on Canadians.

That’s what we do not and should not get. How, as Darren Lund warned, these tribunals test the limits of expression:

[Far as tribunals are concerned] ..the test is fairly straightforward: Freedom of expression must be limited when it calls for hatred and violence against vulnerable people.

Because, should Mr. Lund be right as we suspect -- that kind of testing isn’t just wrong. It’s evil. Nobody is invulnerable to hatred and violence. When it comes to human rights, expressing hatred and calling for violence must always be limited. Always. Not just when these tribunals deem whatsoever expression to be against the vulnerable -- i.e., by the invulnerable or not so vulnerable.

Tests for limiting expression must absolutely never fail to address real distinctions between hate speech -- and speech which is merely offensive. Regardless who speakers are deemed to be. All hate speech is offensive. But not every offensive expression qualifies as hate speech. For how invariably offensive are inconvenient and troubling truths? Just so. By failing to distinguish hate from offensive speech, by creating false obligations to not offend, what will tribunals most particularly silence? Most particularly: inconvenient and troubling truths.

Tribunals must cease (...read more...)

Now there's a story at the Globe & Mail about how "Canada begins tracking U.S. into slump". The implication being we need not worry -- it's only going to be a "slump".

Meanwhile, there's opinions published at the Globe about how "Global capitalism teeters on the brink". Meaning that economies everywhere aren't just slumping or flirting with recession or depression. Nope. Economies are teetering. On the brink of what? Destruction? Annihilation? Obliteration?

Fair enough. Nobody knows how bad the economic news will get. In Toronto everything seems fine. Across Canada inflation is down while consumer demand, housing starts and home prices are all up. But by this time next year? Who knows.

Other than soothing present anxiety, there's not much point even trying to predict economic futures. However. Is it possible to avoid economic disasters? Can we learn anything from this one? Who is to blame?

Back in August 2007, the Globe ran a piece suggesting we ought to blame our economic disasters on 77 year-old widows living on social security and refinancing their homes in order to pay for medical bills. Because, by unwittingly stepping into the arcane world of subprime lending, Ms. Barron was, in fact,

.. helping to set in motion a chain of events that has rocked financial markets around the world and left few investors untouched.

And it didn't sound like they were kidding. But why would Globe editors run any story insinuating "The face of the global credit crisis" belonged to Ms. Barron? As if any global crisis should ever get blamed on elderly widows? As if refinancing homes to pay for medical bills happened so frequently often as to demolish whole economies? Why, other than as a truly sad joke, would Globe editors run stories blaming Ms. Barron's demographic?

No clue. Ought to call and ask why. Except, going by what happened last time -- better not to call or ask them anything at the Globe.

Best guess? Globe editors prefer blaming anyone but those actually responsible. They’d blame medically distressed elderly widows living on social security if it meant turning blind eyes to the real source of North-American irresponsibility.

It wasn’t the medically distressed elderly poor. Nor was it just the rich getting too greedy. Let's stop pointing such false fingers. Regardless whether in illness or good health, for richer or relatively poorer -- it continues to be across every North-American demographic that we’ve become irresponsibly and obscenely greedy.

Whether using our home equities as ATM machines. Or lending no money down. Or securitizing bad lending practices. North-Americans across every socio-economic spectrum are fully to blame.

Not to say all speculating is wrong. To the contrary. But liquidating our own homes? Securitizing our debts? Hedge-funding our obligations? When we agree to do so across every demographic? How can consequences not assume biblical proportions when we so shamelessly rob and sacrifice the future to our all-consuming, devouring greed?

The irresponsibility of North-American greed. It is not just natural or regular greed. Economically, ecologically, personally (...read more...)

If you find Monday’s bailout of Bear Stearns by U.S. regulators to be more than a little hypocritical, well, join the rest of us. The so-called free market once again showed how it is anything but free, and that any absolute power—in this case the power of greed—corrupts absolutely. But where is the lesson that should be learned by an investment sector that ignored the need for risk management? By its actions, the U.S. government is showing that there is no lesson to be learned, or no penalty to be given. It also shows that in spite of its right-wing rhetoric, the “freest” world economy can and does interfere with the marketplace. Ironically, that’s good news for environmentalists. Now that the U.S. government has set this precedent, the right’s self-serving arguments about non-interference in free markets no longer apply. And now everyone knows it.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the financial market place should be done away with or should be allowed to meltdown. What I am saying is that this week’s events clearly illustrate the role regulatory controls play in a complex world. There is a lesson here, but it is not, unfortunately to the free markets whose actions precipitated this crisis—they’ve been spared that rod. The lesson is to people and governments everywhere. We are reminded by the Bear Stearns fiasco that collectively we do have the obligation, power, and right to use whatever regulatory levers exist to both save the economy, and save the environment. After all, what is more important, the financial health of rule-breaking investment firms that benefit the few, or the long-term health of the environment that benefits everyone?

Written yesterday at http://www.corporateknightsforum.com

Richard Florida’s latest dive off the springboard of the Creative Class shows up in geography - where you choose to live determines your destiny. In the Globe and Mail, Florida himself reviews the premises and thesis of the book Who’s your City?

Where we choose to live, argues the director of the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute , is crucial not only to how we live and who we share our lives with, but also to what kind of career we end up having.

In this passage, he describes how this “geographic clustering” is dictated by five basic personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

The choice to live in a certain city - essentially a situated culture with its unique set of circumstances - generates an enormous new set of options for the individual. It has taken us three years of continual learning and exploration to become Torontonians-in-training. However, even on the very part-time basis of one week a month, we have created a huge network of new friends by choice (all of them brilliant, smarter than us, well-informed politically, constantly culturally creating, attractive, socially engaged, etc.). We have recreated Toronto in our own idealized image of the place, and that has led to some extraordinary connections that could never have occurred in the US. These relationships have led to extraordinary opportunities as well - in business, research, and intellectual communities, as well as artistic, creative, and self-exploration opportunities.

Now, shift the unit of analysis of cultural ecology of the city to the cultural ecology of your career or business. I own and manage a small design research firm, Redesign Research, and we thrive on designing new information services, researching the ecologies of use for product innovations, and advising organizations on configuring their strategies and operations to best pursue innovation. I live in two cities now - hometown Dayton and newtown Toronto. Which one will better suit this business model in the future?

Focus the lens a notch deeper - where do you choose to work? Given the geographic traits of Florida’s thesis - openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism - which of these do you experience in your workplace? Which do you want more of, less of? To what extent does geography map these traits to the firm? So what organizations - and what cities - what nations - seem to hold these traits?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Richard Florida left the US (Virginia) for Toronto, where he is Academic Director of University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute which takes an integrative approach to the study and creation of jurisdictional advantage. (I am at U of T as a visiting scientist myself). When I meet Richard, I’d like ask him how and why he chose Toronto. Given his distinction as an American that explored and wrote about the evolution of North American cities, he’s quickly becoming a new century’s Jane Jacobs. Jane’s vision of a city of neighborhoods seems well (...read more...)