Ever wonder what happened to the Canadian Human Rights Commission? While Section 13 is dead and buried the CHRC lives on attempting to justify its remit:
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) has produced a series of videos, now on its YouTube channel, to help people in Canada deal with discrimination and navigate the human rights complaint process.
Using live actors as well as animation, “Human Rights and You: A video series” tells the stories of Lily and Dan — two fictional characters using the CHRC complaint process to deal with workplace discrimination.
The two videos feature Lily, a victim of sexual harassment, and Dan, a victim of age and disability discrimination. Needless to say the videos have the production values one has come to expect from the federal government. As of writing the videos have received only a few dozen hits. Helpfully the CHRC's You Tube channel also features videos in various aboriginal languages explaining the work of the commission. There is even a French version of the channel, just to keep Graham Fraser happy.
It's the nature of government departments that, long after their original purpose has been served, they continue to exist as taxpayer dependent zombies. Having lost its role as censor of hurt feelings, the CHRC has moved onto playing national HR manager. The videos promise that the commission will offer assistance to those complaining on eleven different grounds of discrimination. Thing is that the labour relations are primarily a provincial responsibility. There is already a thicket of provincial laws covering exactly this sort of employment discrimination.
In Ontario the Ministry of Labour and the Ontario Human Rights Commission both offer similar protections for workers. Whatever you think of the role of government in protecting the rights of workers against abusive employers, the CHRC is merely duplicating the work of their provincial counterparts. Given the CHRC's track records of censorship and meddling in private affairs, the commission is not only redundant but often a threat to genuine human rights.
Herein lies an important lesson for those seeking to reform government. Simply scrapping bad laws isn't enough. The institutions that enforce those bad laws must be destroyed as well.
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