Human Rights Commissions--The Babysitting Wing of the Welfare State

At Dalhousie Law School, first-year students are treated to an entire term of learning statutory interpretation through the Canadian Human Rights Act, as well as exposure to the litany of litigation emanating from human rights statutes throughout the country.

I am often amazed at the intellectual gymnastics that appellate courts in this country will use to ensure that Canada's human rights statutes regulate private behaviour as far and wide as possible. For example, an employee claiming discrimination, who can identify with a prohibited ground thereof provided for in a human rights act or code (exempli gratia race, disability, religion, etc.) is required to be accommodated to the point of undue hardship, which of course, the courts construe as meaning that some (often much) hardship (ie. financial) must be borne by an employer in order to accommodate employees with special preferences or "differences". Never mind the financially deleterious impact this might have on a business--no cost is too great to achieve the "Canadian values" of equality, love, happiness and non-discrimination.

But today's absurdity is not the result of a court ruling or a toughening of a human rights statute by one of our esteemed legislatures, it is the ridiculous pronouncements of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, with respect to a complaint which had recently been dismissed by the provincial Court of Appeal.

The complaint centred around the use of the word "kemosabe", uttered by an employer as an address to some of his employees at a retail store in Cape Breton. The phrase has its origins in the Lone Ranger TV series, in which a native character used the same name to address his caucasian collegues (the complainant in the case was a Mi'kmaq woman).

The complaint was eventually heard by the NS Court of Appeal, where it was dismissed as the word was not found to be "notoriously offensive."

Now, the NS Human Rights Commission wants to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada arguing that:

"We think it's time to clarify that and have some ground rules so people know what's permissible and what isn't."

It's sad that this has come to the point in Canada where an appeal to the SCC is seriously countenanced in order to determine what words are or are not offensive. But alas, I expect nothing less from our Human Rights Commissions, which bring their already abused mandate further into disrepute with their advocacy of nonsense such as this proposed appeal.