4 - Sunday, September 4, 1994 — North Shore News edia hunt witches OUR MEDIA should do a bit of investigative reporting on 20th-century witch-hunting. Insicad, they support it. Or are too scared to touch it. We are dealing here with the infa- mous Malcolm Ross case. Infamous, because although there is no longer a Devil’s Island to which Ross can be sent, as the French sent Dreyfuss, some place like that is where he would end up if his critics had their way. As itis, Ross was taken out of the classroom and dragged through “human rights” proceedings that have nothing to do with human tights. He has also been put through the stress of making costly court appeals. His case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada. Ross's crime is that he has written books that Jewish organizations don’t like. A devout Christian, he has been branded anti-Semitic. Worse still, he is one of those dreaded “holocaust-deniers.” But he has never uttered a word in the classroom on his beliefs and according to th Moncton school board he is an excellent teacher. The media have bayed against him from Vancouver to St. John’s. They wring their hands over the Islamic fatwa on Salman Rushdie, yet rush to join in the burning of a politically incorrect Canadian. What they have failed to do. New Brunswick professor Martin Yaqzan has done, brilliantly, in the booklet The Legal Fraud against Malcotm Ross. (Yaqzan is the man who made national news when he took an unorthodox view on “date rape.” He has since retired.) The booklet shows how “human rights” can be stretched, frightening- ly, to mean something they were never meant to mean, There is noth- ing in the New Brunswick Human Rights Act, for instance, that says anything about controlling a person’s religious beliefs. What it savs is that accommoda- tion, services or facilities available to the public shall not be denied to any- one because of race, color, or reli- gion, and that discrimination against Doug Collins OWN THE OTHER HAND The cost to the taxpayer of this fiasco has been at least half a million dollars (the case has been in progress, if that is the right word, since 1987) and there have been countless hours of “tribunal” and appeal court time. It has cost the Jewish com- plainants nothing. But Ross has had to finance his defence and has suf- fered the modern version of book- buming. The University of New Brunswick bookstore felt obliged to take his books off the chelves. The owner of a private bookstore was “harassed by Jewish vigilantes and had to remove them after two weeks.” “Then,” Yaqzan quotes Rass as saying, “my wile tried to sell them herself after obtaining a valid ven- dor’s licence, But the Mayor of Fredericton... illegally stopped her Free Initial Consulration Douglas W. Lahay CLARK, WILSON PARRISTERS & SOLICITORS 800-885 West Georgia Street, Van. 687-5700 fron seNing them, as was later estab- lished in a court of law.” Freedom of speech and writing in Canada, 1994, Or should that be 1984, as in Orwell? Such a compuarison is valid. 1 reported six years ago that the then attomey general of New Brunswick, James Lockyer, had said there was “no place in our society for the pro- motion of wicked thoughts.” Which is itself a wicked thought. In the same year, Premier Frank McKenna did his bit for the wrch- hunt. “f want him out of the class- room,” he stated. You bet. Ross and his wife are only two votes. His opponents are many and have clout, “Jewish Council applauds move to muzzle Ross,” read the headline in New Brunswick's Times-Transenpt. Human Rights Commissioner Noel! Kinsella gloated that “Ross could be out of the classroom before he corrects his Christmas exanis.” Yaqzan asks how books can be an act of discrimination as specified in the New Brunswick Human Rights Act. An interesting question put by Yagzan is, “Could Jesus Christ be a teacher today? On the busis of what has happened to Ross, would they not find him violating several sec: tions of the Human Rights Act?” “The Canadian Jewish Congress and B'Nai Brith of Canada would have no problem barring him from any school in Canada,” he concludes. Can't wait to hear what the Supreme Court makes of this. A lower court has said that Ross should be allowed (o return to the classroom and that he can publish. But the witch-hunters have appealed. So Ross waits. In limbo. Take advantage of Early Bird Specials with Grouse Mountain’s new Four-Season’s Pass. 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