Stephen Harper on Canada's Human Rights Commissions

I thought this was quite interesting:

" Well, first of all, on the - on the case in Afghanistan, this is obviously a case that is of some considerable concern to us. It has been raised with the government of Afghanistan at the highest levels. You do have to remember though that part of what is at issue here is that this is a process in a court system that does, in Afghanistan as in Canada, does operate independently of political decision-makers. So you know, we will continue to express our concerns and obviously there remain further levels of appeal in this particular case. So we hope that it will - that some of these decisions will be changed, but you know, the political actors in Afghanistan don't necessarily have any more control over that than I would in our country. In terms of the free speech issues and some of the activities of human rights commissions, I think that everyone has had some concerns about this. This is a complicated area of law, balancing what most people understand to mean by free speech with obvious desire to not have speech that would be intended to incite hatred towards particular groups or individuals. I think some of the most egregious cases, if you actually look at this, are in provincial human rights commission and obviously, you know I can't control or comment on that. I think there has been some - I think the Canadian human rights commission has been moderating some of what - some of its practices a little bit recently to respond to some of these concerns and I hope that will continue."

Here's the soundclip.


H/t to Kathy Shaidle.

Sounds like Harper isn't exactly a firebrand over the issue, but it doesn't sound like reform is out of the realm of possibility either. Perhaps we'll be playing the waiting game for a while longer yet. Oh goody, more to write about, I suppose.

Crossposted to NeoConstant