IN GENERAL, the business community has no guts. That’s
why corporations retreat before the onslaught of the ‘‘anti-
apartheid’? maniacs, and why most employers would rather
take poison than contest a human rights case.

It is astonishing, therefore, to see
that there is one employer who is
different. | refer to Mr. James Mer-
cier of West Vancouver, who has
refused to pay a woman $3,600
when ordered to do so by the B.C.
Human Rights Council. Yea, even
though it may cost him $10,000 in
legal fees to fight it out in court,

Mr. Mercier should be given a
medal.

accused, All human rights outfits
act as judge, jury, prosecutor and
investigator. ‘Behave yourself, pay
so much, and all will be well,"’ they
are told. ‘There will then be less
trouble for everyone. No need for
an inquiry, you know.”

It is an understatement to say
that the human rights process is ab-
surd. Who can forget the Hunky
Bill case, in which poor Hunky was

om

imposed on business.

The system is also an invitation
to) blackmail. If you are an
employer who has been accused of
bum-patting, even though you may

'G - Friday, December f2, 1986'- North Shore News

have patied no bum, you are on the
spot anyway. Far better to settle
without a hearing. Peace at any
price. Do you want your kids to be
laughed at and your wife to leave

you?

Anyway, | hope the pregnant
lady loses this one. Who got her
pregnant, after all? Not Mr,
Metcier.

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‘21

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SPREE TEAL

The case is a nutty one, as are
most human rights cases. It also
symbolizes the morass into which
our groping, tottering, half-mad
world has fallen.

A lady named Christine Marie
Davies applied to Mr. Mercier’s
firm for a job. But the person who
interviewed her didn’t notice she
was pregnant. Perhaps she was
wearing a big overcoat. But she was
very pregnant, and after getting the
job informed the company she
would need to take pregnancy leave
real quick, thank you very much,
and would Mr. Mercier kindly pay
her while she was adding to the
population.

He wouldn’t. Whereupon the
lady repaired with all speed to the
bosom of the B.C. Human Rights
Council and was awarded three
months’ money, or $3,600.

The enraged Mr. Mercier de-
nounced this as absurd, stating in
effect that he had only just begun to
fight, just like the late John Paul
Jones. ‘‘Too often,’’
“employers just pay. people off
because it’s easier than taking up
the challenge.’’ Exactly.

It is obvious that it was Mr. Mer-
cier’s rights that were being
violated, not the woman’s, and the
Human Rights Council should have
told her she was out of her mind.
But snyone who expects logic from
human righters, official or unof-
ficial, is expecting the wrong thing.

The game is loaded against the

he cried,.

told by a bunch of do-gooders that
he couldn’t call his chain of
restaurants Hunky Bill’s House of
Perogies?

Professors flocked from near and
far to expound on the evils of
racism and the indescribable suffer-
ings of Ukrainians tainted by the
term ‘‘hunky’’. The unhappy
target of their wrath won in the end

but it cost him well over $20,000 to -

do so. It cost his accusers nothing,
of course. We paid their bills
through our taxes.

In the “‘rights’’ world, incongrui-
ty abounds. A motel owner who
refuses to accommodate a bunch of
drunken Indians is likely to find
himself on the carpet. Colored folk
who are not promoted weep before
the tribunals, complaining of
discrimination. Respectable discos
that refuse to admit black pimps
find their business licences at risk.
It is illegal to advertise for a
“school-age boy to cut and rake
lawn.” In Vancouver, a club partly
owned by a Chinese is accused of
not admitting Chinese.

The system is a bonanza for
nosey parkers, busybodies, lawyers
‘and other enemies of the peo-
ple. Academics prosper in it, too.
They may never have met a payroll
themselves but they draw up
blueprints for employment which,
through their co-conspirators in
politics and the bureaucracy, are

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