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 curbing people from shouting “Fire!” in crowded theatres whenever there actually are fires in crowded theatres. Regard for truth must be understood to contradict allegations of hatred. Hatred entails some sufficiently reckless disregard for truth. Otherwise, if identity of speakers suffices for tribunals to conclude hatred absent any disregard for truth in speech, then tribunals assail the most basic fundamental values and principles of Canadian society.

Invulnerability of speakers? Vulnerability of listeners? For how long? If tribunals keep hinging hatred on identity, how long before Canadian society becomes stratified by systems of enforced deference? How long until regard for truth ceases to protect against allegations of hatred or defamation? How long until we cease daring expressing any truth to power?

Hinging hatred on identity is precisely contrary to human rights. Contrary to the basic fundamental rights of each, every and all Canadians. That’s why we must resist tribunals imposing obligations to not offend on Canadians. Guard against tribunals’ inquisitorial character. Because this is how the long and slippery slope to totalitarianism spirals. With initially isolated scapegoating and witch-hunting. But only to start with.

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

Image above screenshot from here.

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 and culturally -- it is obscene. And while I fear the pragmatic consequences like anyone else -- in principle, I am glad. Almost eager to observe the spillage from this tempest we’ve been brewing in each and all our cups. Just maybe we’ll learn something.

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

Image above screenshot from here.

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 loved (if institutional), in Toronto; now Richard is finding who lives in those neighborhoods (and why) makes all the difference.

By Peter Jones http://dialogicdesign.wordpress.com/

We all know the joke.

“How does one identify Canadians in international crowds?”
“Easy. Step on everyone’s toes. Only Canadians apologise when their toes get stepped on.”

Funny how true that is. Applies most remarkably to distinguishing Canadians from other North-Americans. The more brash, outspoken or vulgar our southern neighbours get, the less offensive we get. As if it were our job to make up for their exuberance. Provide countervailing balance to North-American culture. Be prim as proper church-ladies at Jerry Springer choir auditions.

No Jerry beads for us -– but thanks for offering.

Our correctness isn’t just political. It is by long and distinguishing cultural tradition that Canadians remain inoffensive.

Nevertheless, Canadians are fully committed to freedom of expression. Regardless what absurdities human rights commissions might consider. Absurdities so aptly summarised by Darren Lund:

Freedom of expression must be limited when it calls for hatred and violence against vulnerable people.

Nonsense, Mr. Lund. Freedom of expression must always be limited whenever expressing hatred, calling for violence or defaming. Always. No person is invulnerable to hatred, violence or defamation. And it is precisely the apprehension of bias such as yours that has brought tremendous public disrepute to human rights commissions proceedings.

Nobody should ever be presumed invulnerable to hatred, violence or defamation. Not in any free, democratic or minimally just society. Because societies turn totalitarian when rejecting human rights as fundamentally and inalienably inhering to each and every member. When basic human rights become privileges to which only some get entitled. Regardless whether those entitled to basic human rights on any particular day be deemed as sufficiently vulnerable, sufficiently powerful, sufficiently virtuous or whatever else. Either human rights remain fundamentally inalienable -– for all -– or we subject and subjugate human rights to expedience, to circumstance and to group dynamics.

Either basic human rights -– or special privileges. Not both. Either everyone gets protected from express hatred, violence or defamation. Or some get granted special privileges to not be offended while we open seasons to targeting the rest. As if the rest were either invulnerable or -– if vulnerable -– not human. Not entitled to having their human rights protected.

Why would Mr. Lund even suggest human rights commissions become special privileges tribunals? No doubt due to some confusion rather than any plain evil. Distributive social justice requires recognizing and assisting materially vulnerable people. Most likely, Mr. Lund went leaping from the concept of assisting some to notions of denying the human rights of everyone else. The sort of leaping so reflexive among those devoted to ideologies of gender, race and class struggling. But the justice of socially assisting some must not and can not mean denying the basic human rights of others. The very possibility of justice hinges on human rights enduring for all Canadians.

Mr. Lund might conceivably be correct that human rights commissions become special privileges tribunals. Thus, precisely due to our apprehensions of the bias entailed, Canadians have repeated affirming there is no right to not be offended –- and no obligation to not offend. And our apprehensions of bias must be vast indeed. Wouldn’t have been as surprising coming from other North-Americans. Or from Danish cartoonists. Or from Israeli troops. But from Canadians?

No right to not be offended? No obligation to not offend? What more terrifies us as Canadians than giving offence? We don’t really mean it. We can’t. Not as any sort of cultural principle. Canadians just aren’t ready to start seriously offending each other.

We can’t mean it as any sort of cultural principle when saying there’s no right to not be offended. We might mean it as a common legal principle -- but so what? Legal principles become meaningless when too culturally dissonant. Archaic legal principles are meant to be ignored.

What do we mean by our unanimity against rights to not be offended, then? Simply this: that granting special privileges inconsistent with basic human rights would totally contradict Canadian cultural principles. It is necessarily corollary with our cultural principles that there be no right to not be offended. It means we stand against everything totalitarian –- and on guard for our free, democratic and multiculturally just society.

Protecting against express hatred, violence or defamation must never hinge on special dispensation, entitlement or privilege. Protection must not be restricted according to whom commissions, tribunals or Mr. Lund might deem deserving on any particular day. Let's always make certain to protect everyone. No one has the right to not be offended. Everyone has the right to be protected from hatred, violence and defamation.

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

[The image above is a screenshot of the Ontario Human Rights Code website, whose preamble reminds us that "The Ontario Human Rights Code (the "Code") is for everyone."]

With oil reaching the formerly unimaginable price of $110 a barrel yesterday, and the U.S. dollar sliding into global irrelevance, some Canadians of the political persuasion think this country is headed into a golden age of prosperity. Why? Oil sands of course. We have them, they don’t.

Our leadership in Ottawa seems all too ready to dig up half of Alberta, pump billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and happily perpetuate the oil gluttony that is part of the American way of life. Oil revenues at these levels mean power—lots of it. Power buys access to the political theatre in Ottawa. And absolute power, as the old saying goes, corrupts absolutely. Innovative energy use, on the other hand, is not even a second thought in this environment. It is the last thing we consider, and only then when the Canadian public comes out of its slumber to say wait a second, don’t we need clean water to drink and fresh air to breath? Isn’t this the land of glaciers, and pristine watersheds?

Not for much longer if we end our stewardship of local resources. Given the greed of the oil marketplace, I’m afraid things will get far worse for us before they get better. Our one hope is that escalating prices for post-peak oil will fuel the rise of alternative energy sources. If that happens, and if they are successful, market forces driven by efficient use of resources, may just disrupt the oil patch mentality we’ve embraced in Canada. But don’t hold your breath. Well, maybe you should.

This story from http://www.corproateknightsforum.com

Are you a fan of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"?

If so, then this reading is for you! At 7 p.m. on March 19, Ray Robertson will be conducting a reading at the Hart House Library. He will be reading from "What Happened Later" -- a fictionalized autobiography interweaved with a story of Jack Kerouac after writing "On the Road". The location of the reading is 7 Hart House Circle, in the library on the second floor.

Admission is free!

All are welcome!

Please RSVP to harthouse.readings @ gmail.com

My travels through the city yesterday were bracketed by two contrasting views of Toronto. The first—as depicted by the image above—embodied a Canalettoesque vision of a shining city on the horizon—one full of promise. Here the city is a calm thing. It finds its place in a comfortable landscape. Tamed. The fact of the place may not carry through on its promise, but we want it to.



The second vision is shown above. The human foreground space is gone. The visceral strength of the architecture dominates—which could be good if the architecture was as considered as the square it frames. But it isn't. The new building at the North-East corner of Yonge and Dundas is, perhaps, one of the worst examples of commercial building the city has had to endure in the past generation. Its placement at one of our most public intersections if not a crime, is as close as a designer can get to one without taking up mugging the unsuspecting people who walk by. What were the architects and developers thinking—if we clad the building in neon it will be beautiful?

Oh, here is what they were thinking:

Toronto Life Square has a number of exterior and interior signage opportunities available both for temporary advertising campaigns, as well as for permanent sponsorship placement. As a destination venue, Toronto Life Square is one of a kind. Media is an integral part of the Toronto Life Square experience. With outdoor, indoor, digital and static signs, each one is part of a media environment that attracts, directs and inspires visitors to Yonge-Dundas Square and to Toronto Life Square. Toronto Life Square promises to have all of the best elements of Times Square and Picadilly Circus, with the latest in video technology.

If there were one building in the city that should be leveled and rebuilt it is this one. It self-consciously alludes to Zeidler's Eaton Centre across the road, Times Square, and maybe the Pompidou in Paris (sorry to these buildings and places for relating them in any way to this). But those references are made in the most ham-handed way as to be laughable. What are those permanently fixed radiator fans for anyway? For the price the developer paid to mount them there they could have spent a few dollars more on someone who could design a building worthy of such a public square.

My day started off with a vision full of promise. Most of the city I embraced afterwords did not deny me that hope. This one did. It crushes the public space that is Dundas Square and will be a blight on the city for a generation to come.