The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a government agency, decreed that the township of Emo must pay damages to Borderland Pride, a Canadian LGBTQ+ activist group, for refusing to proclaim “Pride Month” in 2020. Borderland Pride had “requested” that Emo declare June of that year as Pride Month—now it is clear that this was no mere request— and display a rainbow flag for one week. The township refused, the bigots. How dare they! Now it must pay the organization $10,000 with the other $5,000 coming from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker. The tribunal also ordered McQuaker and the Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality to complete a “Human Rights 101” training course offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission within 30 days.
In case you missed a class or two, the damages are called “compelled speech,” a cornerstone of totalitarianism. The “Human Rights 101” training course is called “re-education,” or “brain-washing.” In the United States, such a result would be unimaginable, or at least is right now, since Kamala Harris wasn’t elected.
Whew! Close call, eh?
Doug Judson, a lawyer and one of the directors on the board of Borderland Pride, said that the decision sends a message to other townships and municipalities “why it’s so important” to love Big Brother, be on the right side of history, always engage in goodthink, and to subjugate individual liberty to the greater good.
Okay, the part after “important” was me, not Judson, but it’s a fair summary of what happened.
“I hope that it emboldens and strengthens people in communities like Emo and other places like that across Ontario to know that they have entitlements from their government,” Judson continued. “Entitlements,” in this case, means mandatory government-enforced special status.
Over to you, proud Canadians. Defend this decision if you can.
Ethics Alarms 
Or over to the Americans to find cases in the United States that are as egregious as this. I might argue that the SPLC and the FBI working together against “Hate Groups” has caused similar damage to all kinds of organizations in the United States. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse runs a Catholic group call the Ruth Institute, which focuses on healthy (according to Catholic teaching) sexual behavior. The Institute has given voices to people who lived for a time with homosexual lifestyles and over time became convinced that they needed to live a heterosexual lifestyle; to those who transitioned, regretted the transition, and detransitioned; to those are retain their same-sex attraction but are committed to a celibate lifestyle; and to psychologists, therapists, and other professionals who also firmly believe that human sexuality should be ordered to marriage (one man, one woman) and the procreation of children. Like her work or not, once the SPLC turned its baleful glare upon her, she found her institute de-banked, and it was a fight (at huge financial loss) to reestablish support, donation channels, and the like. And while this was not directly at the behest of the federal government, the SPLC could not have the influence it does without having at least tacit approval from federal agencies like the FBI.
On top of that, we have seen the weaponization of the IRS, FEMA, the judicial system, and other federal agencies against conservatives. I believe Michael R recently commented on a number of other groups that have been debanked, or were cowed into towing the line in order to avoid being debanked. Let’s not forget the sheer amount of pressure the Federal Government can exert over states by threatening to withhold federal funding if the states do not conform to the government’s control. Consider the effort to bring states into line with the No Child Left Behind Act, or the Adam Walsh Act. The first threatened to withdraw funding from states that did not get on board with the federal vision of curriculum and standardized tested. The latter threatened to withdraw funding if states did not severely crack down on sex offenders. Not all states caved to these demands, but many did, even with analysts shouting to the heavens that these programs would ultimately be more expensive than just losing the federal funding.
The on thing I’ll say in defense of the United States is that we have a founding document that is supposed to safeguard against an overweening federal government (which seems to be honored more and more in the breach at this point). If we have people who want to curtail the federal government, it might still be possible here through peaceful, legal means. I don’t see that in Canada. But then, I’m not well-versed in Canadian law, so my judgment there is hardly trustworthy.
Melania and Barron Trump were also debanked.
Well, I guess this is somewhat off topic to the post but…
I found this statement – “Banks generally have discretion to determine to which parties and under what conditions they provide their products and services.”
That leads me to ask then why a bakery cannot have discretion to determine to which parties they provide their products and services?
How can a bank refuse to provide its services to you based on political affiliation? If it isn’t illegal, why not?
They are using their discretion against Republicans, the baker used it against Democrats. Laws are for little people and Republicans.
More on the insidious phenomenon of debanking and how the Feds have weaponized yet another area of our society/commerce to cancel those who are politically inconvenient. It only takes five minutes for this guy to explain how debanking works while the legacy media ignores because forcing females to compete against bio-males is juicier.
Trudeau is wondering: “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Tech Legend Makes Joe Rogan Go Quiet with Never-Before-Told Details of Debanking
In the examples you cite, were any required by the government to pay fines and sent to mandatory reeducation camp?
Bad Bob,
The answer is technically no. But would you argue that the US is more free than Canada because what the US Federal Government has to do by proxy the Canadian government can do directly?
Unquestionably.
Actually, I agree that the United States being forced to use proxies gives the US the slight edge in the debate of which nation is more free. But the sake of arguing for argument’s sake, I want to push back a little bit.
I am alleging that the US federal government can achieve the same results as Canada by going through proxies, which makes the United States no more free than Canada. Is your rebuttal that the US cannot actually achieve the same results, or is it that the United States is still more free because theoretically wronged parties can still work through the courts? Or is there a more complex argument you would make?
I think it is fair to at least say we have a serious problem in the United States. Maybe Trump will be able to address some of it, but I’m not holding my breath. We know that the federal government is a beast that is always looking for a way to slip out of its cage. What is terrifying right now is that are so many people in the United States and so many organizations that not only are not concerned about the beast escaping its cage, but they are sawing away at the bars and are trying to hold the door open for it to do so.
1. The US govt can try to act through proxies, but the proxies are not bound to cooperate. And there are political consequences of a government doing that, as well as business consequences for the proxies.
2. Every government has the ability to try to force private enterprises and individuals to do what they cannot do. But this country has a culture that condemns that practice, and ultimately it’s the culture that counts.
3. You last paragraph is the problem Canada and the US share.
The difference is the difference between communism and fascism. In communism, the state controls everything directly. In fascism, the state directs companies to control everything. Canada is communist, we are fascist.
“technically no” is sophistry.
I would disagree. The federal government could not simply seize Trump’s assets, but they could work behind the scenes with complicit judges and heavily prejudiced juries to inflict legal penalties on Trump that drained him of his assets. If the intent is to inflict monetary damages on a group, being forced to pay legal fees for a case that should never have been brought forward is sufficient. One doesn’t have to be sent to an indoctrination camp to get the message that if you don’t self-indoctrinate, you might be next. Why do think we had such a proliferation of DEI advisors popping up all over the place?
Has Trump been mandated by the GOVERNMENT to attend reeducation camp?
No.
Jack covered the rest of any arguments you make (much more ably than I could), but, the fundamental difference is the Canadian government DIRECTLY compels speech.
DEI appears to be dying, btw, because it’s been concretely revealed to be the joke any sentient being knew it would be. I’d have to look it up for specifics, but several large corporations have abandoned it. That can happen because it’s not mandated by the government. Yes, affirmative action is the lighter version, but even that was challenged in court, and beaten.
Because people could speak against it without being sent to reeducation camp by the GOVERNMENT.
Being able to speak freely is the first of all freedoms.
Variations on the theme of freedom or lack thereof for speach:
To me it seems most restrictive of speech to require only positive speech.
It occurred to me to look at the stupid FDA and my local DHEC. There are spectacularly stupid regulations at the state and local level which vary by state. For example, cottage industry law in S.C. allows me to produce and sell baked goods with zero oversight from DHEC yet the high carbohydrate diets are directly related to our obesity epidemic. However, to produce and sell kimchi would require a DHEC kitchen simply because of fermentation – kimchi is a phenomenal apetite regulator. Bias against fermentation is as stupid as bias against a dog breed. So, in this case my freedom is definitely factually limited.
Contrary to the DHEC example of kimchi, the FDA has a designation of GRAS(generally recognized as safe). Lucky Charms with its technicolor vibrancy in the U.S. uses food colorings which fall under the GRAS standard… Lucky Charms in Canada uses many fewer food coloring with less entertaining vibrancy. Isn’t this yeat another area in which Candadians have less freedom to produce and consume?
The U.S. criminalizes drug use for substances like cocain/heroin/fentenyl.
Canada “criminalizes” the use of a food coloring? When we speak of fewer freedoms or less freedom, are we speaking only of incarcerable illegal activity or fineable or reeducatable as well?
Who has fewer freedoms vs. who has less freedom are two distinctly different questions.
Do you have the right to speak out against the regulations and call them stupid without being sent to reeducation camp?
Freedom to disagree without being sent to government mandated thought control camp means any of it could change.
It may take a monumental or years long effort, ala the legalization of pot, but nobody was told they couldn’t think it.
We only narrowly avoided that. Think of all the ‘misinformation’ ideas they were considering during COVID. Putting people in concentration camps for speaking out against mandatory masking and medical experimentation was in there. I actually followed a link to a government website that still has the plans for that available. Basically, they were going to have the ‘health authorities’ diagnose you as ‘mentally ill’ if you disagreed with the policies. You were then going to be ‘quarantined’ with no legal appeal until the authorities deemed you ‘well’.
Yes, I believe that is the point of what we’re saying.
We do have that right, people in Canada may not, from what it appears.
———–
But there is a caveat. Does the Constitution allow the federal government to require states to set a specific speed limit on their highways? Well, no it does not.
Yet, the federal government did do that, and it routinely coerces states into doing a lot of things that the Constitution does not allow it to do directly.
It coerces them by threatening to withhold federal moneys to states who are impudent enough to resist the federal tyranny. In the case of the speed limits, that was federal highway funds. In matters relating to education it is federal funds from the Department of Education.
It is an insidious trend — I think it really started during the Roosevelt administration and it has progressed to the point where the feds can stick their noses into our daily life in any number of things.
I would like to believe that DOGE might do something to slow down this trend, but I am not terribly hopeful. It gives power to Congress and that’s a heady drug.
It’s my understanding that the town doesn’t even have a flag pole to fly the pride flag.
Flagpoles are patriarchal.
No flag pole, no problem… Lay the flag in the middle of the busiest intersection of town so that noone could miss it.
I’m just waiting to hear if HT prefers to become a citizen of the state of West Canada or East Canada 😉
How many of you have been seeing THIS VIDEO by Ontario running on US television channels?