NDP executive smears The Post Millennial before Justice Committee

Morgane Oger, a trans activist and the Vice President of the B.C. New Democratic Party, referred to this publication as an example of online hate. In front of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, Ms. Oger said: “Hate propaganda acts by stirring up anger or disgust against a specific person or group because of their identity. Hate speech leads people to discriminate. It incites them to violence by any means available. Canadian websites such as The Post Millennial, Feminist Current, Women Mean Something, Canadian Christian Lobby, Culture Guard, Transanity, publish incitements to discriminate through disinformation in articles aimed at turning public opinion against the transgender community.”

Oger provided absolutely no evidence to back up her assertion that The Post Millennial, the fastest growing news outlet in Canada, publishes “incitements to discriminate” nor did she provide any examples of violence “by any means available” that has occurred as a result of our news, culture, or opinion content.

It’s no surprise that The Post Millennial is on the radar of an identity politician like Oger. Just recently, Conservative MP Tom Kmiec asked the Finance Committee whether or not we would be eligible for the 600 million dollar federal media bailout.

Thankfully, Jay Cameron, a lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, steered the committee away from Oger’s hysterics and back towards sanity. Cameron pushed back hard:

Like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the starting point for this conversation is, or should properly be the Constitution of this country. That is Canada’s foundational document but it is not mentioned anywhere in the outline for this study committee, and most of the witnesses before the committee made no mention of it except to urge you to infringe it as fast as possible.

Set out in Section 2B of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the fundamental right to have an opinion and to express it. This committee is studying online hate and preventing online hate but it has not established parameters or definitions of what constitutes hate. I think it behooves the committee to ask what is hate, and what is the enticement of hate, because the reality is that crying hate has become one of the favorite tools in some circles to prevent dialogue and discredit disagreement. You disagree with my religion? That’s hate. You disagree with my politics? That’s hate. You disagree with my gender identity? That’s hate. You have concerns about immigration and the resources and security? That’s hate. What if you’re a single woman working out of her house as an aesthetician, and you aren’t comfortable waxing a pair of testicles. That’s hate. You want to peacefully express your views on a university campus regarding abortion? You can’t because that’s hate.

You just heard from a previous witness [Oger] who said Megan Murphy is hate, Feminist Current is hate, and The Post Millennial is hate, all without any examples whatsoever. Therein lies the problem. The same witness demonstrated in front of the Vancouver Public Library and compared the talk going inside to a Holocaust denial party, because the women were talking about the interests and rights of biological women.

From a constitutional and moral standpoint, Cameron is 100% right.

The Post Millennial caught up with Conservative MP Michael Cooper after the session ended. On the issue of The Post Millennial being referred to as online hate, Cooper said “I think it underscores the danger in censoring speech that one might disagree with. We have heard from witnesses that have more or less advocated, or even directly advocated suppressing speech or expression that they object to, that they personally find offensive. And that is clearly a very different issue that we should be focusing on and that  is the purpose of our study, which is to look at the issue of online hate and by online hate, what that constitutes is extreme speech or expression, the content of which is to incite violence against an identifiable group. So some of the testimony underscores what a slippery slope it becomes when consideration is given to suppressing any form of speech or expression.”

Dr. Jordan Peterson was scheduled to testify this morning as well, but apparently had to cancel due to a family matter. Tracey Ramsey, an NDP MP, had called the prospect of Dr. Peterson appearing before the Justice Committee “morally reprehensible.” Cooper said, “Dr. Peterson is a distinguished professor. He is a best-selling author. He regularly contributes to newspapers like The National Post, speaks at international symposiums, he is the guest speaker at universities, including Canadian law schools. He has consistently and unequivocally condemned violence and his views yes, they’re controversial. Yes, some people find them very objectionable, but he has never advocated nor has he ever committed acts of hate speech or hate propaganda as far as I’m aware.”

It is imperative that we, as citizens in a free and democratic society, push back against the insidious insistence by ideologues like Oger that speech equals violence. They make this claim not in the interest of public “safety” as they claim, but to shut down their political opponents. They wish to infringe upon the political, cultural, religious, and personal freedoms that are granted to all Canadians under the Charter.

The Post Millennial stands with our fellow Canadians against hate, intolerance, and bigotry, and it is for this reason that we unapologetically stand for freedom of expression and ideological diversity. Morgane Oger and her ilk would love the opportunity to take these precious freedoms away from you, but the standard of discourse to which they adhere, where no one says anything that offends anyone else, is unrealistic, unreasonable, and undemocratic. It will lead not to greater equality, but to totalitarianism.

The reason The Post Millennial exists is to ensure that never happens.