An Alberta woman is facing a human rights tribunal after distributing a flyer opposing a proposed rainbow crosswalk in the town of Westlock.
In 2023, Benita Pedersen encouraged local residents to contact town council and ask that the crosswalk be cancelled. Her flyer also raised concerns about gender affirmation and its effects on children. Whatever you think of those views, this was political advocacy aimed at elected officials over something the municipality was proposing to do.
A complaint was subsequently filed under the Alberta Human Rights Act, alleging that the flyer discriminated on the basis of gender, gender identity and gender expression. The Alberta Human Rights Commission eventually referred the matter to a tribunal hearing, where the question includes whether the flyer was likely to expose a protected group to hatred or contempt.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the way institutions created to protect equal treatment of Canadians are being weaponized against those whose beliefs fall outside the accepted political and cultural consensus.
The entire point of a human rights framework should be to keep the playing field level. It should protect the rights of people you agree with and the rights of people you do not. Instead, too often, the machinery appears to move in one direction: protecting the official narrative, the official value system and, increasingly, the official religion.
Pedersen may very well win her case. I hope she does.
But that is not the point.
She has already spent years inside a legal and administrative process because she dared to step into the public square to exercise her democratic right as a Canadian citizen. Calling for fellow citizens to contact their elected representatives is probably the kindest, most respectful way she could have approached this issue. Yet it was still seen as hate.
For the ultra woke crowd, nothing but complete submission is good enough. Inclusion and diversity be damned.
Even if she wins, the process was already the punishment.
And once ordinary people like you and me understand that speaking publicly may cost us years of stress, legal bills and hearings, you do not need to formally abolish freedom of expression.
You only need to make exercising it expensive enough.
— E.M.
The Human Rights Tribunals are an abomination. A quasi legal body filled with left wing liberal activists, acting as judge, jury and executioner.
Is opposing the Alphabet Brigade spraying their rainbows everywhere actually unpopular?
I wonder how many people would actually speak up if they were not afraid of facing exactly this kind of abusive process?