Is "Section 13" doomed?

There is much ballyhoo about Liberal MP Keith Martin's private motion. In it Mr Martin call on the Canadian Government to:

M-446 — January 30, 2008 — Mr. Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca) — That, in the opinion of the House, subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be deleted from the Act.

While this is an ideal solution, I think exposure and time will doom the current application of Section 13 if not it's place in our constitutional order.

Let's consider that for one thing, the HRCs of this country have been benefiting from public apathy. Nothing you could attribute to any overt maliciousness, merely one of disconcern for what seemed a required function of government. The HRCs began flexing some new found muscles and with that came greater public scrutiny. The result is that Canadians know more about thier Human Rights Commissions and some will learn how to play them. Some will file frivolous lawsuits and others will attempt to supplant a higher ruling against them and use these HRCs to extract a legal victory where denied by a higher court. And yet still, others will rail against the system devising ever more clever traps by which to expose alleged biases and shenanigans. We can't forget the serially offended, either.

The nattering nabobs of the left comfort themselves in the preachy veneer of limited-speech and suggest from on high that a grown-up democracy, one that has excepted the virtues of limited speech, can overcome these challenges to human rights. But that's doubtful. Eventually the document load will get too big, too many complaints will be lodged, more layers of beuracracy, more subsections, more lawyers and presumably more HRCs.

Whatever they do, the ease with which one can lodge a Human Rights complaint will change. How meaningful it will be or can be remains to be seen. Charging money to the plaintiff would breach the tribunals mandate to afford access to minorities. There might be some promise in requiring the state to pick up the tab for aquitted defendants but would require more state oversight. And with it more partisan oversight, too.

Eventually, this gets to the Canadian people and I think that because of the free speech issues that currently sit at our doorstep we'll see an increase in advocacy for free speech heretofore unheard on the snow-baffled landscape of Canada. Which will of course add to that heavy load on the back of limited speech.