Rights tribunal ends 2

News, Collins await ‘decision in latest case

Richard Skelly Contributing Writer

and the North Shore News.

Testimony ended _ last Friday in the second B.C. Human Rights Tribunal hear- ing in as many summers to consider whether the now- retired Collins and his long- time employer, News publish- er North Shore Free Press Ltd., published material that

was “tikely” to expose Jews to “hatred or contempt.”

though some wags joke thac these quasi-judicial proceedings could become an annual event, the outcomé of this latest attempt by a bureau- cratic entity. to mark the boundaries of free speech is no laughing matter. arry Abrams, the Victoria businessman whose 1994 com- plaint to the B.C. Human Rights Commission prompted the new hearing, wants the tri- bunal to assess 2 $10,000 ‘ penalty against the respon- dents. The sum would go to B'nai B’rith Canada.

Abrams, whose legal bills

¢ being, paid by the B.C tax- payers through legal aid, also wants an additional $2, 000 to - reimburse his time and effort ‘in pursuing vhe case.

“The News has thus far expended approximately $200,000 in_ defending itself ‘and Collins in the two ti- binals. -) Abrams’ lawyer = Tom : Bulmer urged the tribunal to ‘levy: the penalties “not as a punishment” but, rather, as a remedy” to help assuage fears

within the Jewish community’ -

-the columns nourish nco-

is and may recruit new fas-

cists.to the fold.

_“The pen is mightier than the: sword,”. said Bulmer in closing - stibmissions ~ Friday.

‘And in this society, we protect people from the sword.” “Several “expert wiznesses Avith. backgrounds in subjects “stich a8, linguistics and_ social ‘anthropology testified that Collins was a master at packag-

ig. codéd messages, plainly ‘understandable to confirmed Holocaust deniers, that could casily lure uninformed readers ._ into adopting anti-Semitic view ints.

‘¢ doesn’t come out and say the Holocaust didn’t exist” just that it was not as chroni- cled,” said Angela Westmacott,

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lawyer for the B.C. Human Rights Commission. “By repeating them (coded mes- sages) over and over again, he gives the subject credibility.”

Noting the testimony of Barbara Harris, a University of Victoria linguist, Westmacott said Collins’ repetition tech- nique parailels the communica- tion style of “TV evangelists.”

Balderdash, responds Gerald Porter, the senior instructor at Langara College's school of journalism. Porter heard similar theories advanced against Collins at last year’s tri- bunal.

Experts at thar hearing sim- ilarly teed off at the dispropor- tionate influence of a commu- nity newspaper such as the News in shaping public opin- ion.

“These experts all have their narrow niche with philo- sophical arguments about this, that and the other topic. But very few have ever been inside

@ newspaper operation,” said Porter.

Porter said that although

the News is a very good com-

“munity newspaper, it hardly

has a lock on the minds of readers.

“I guess people wiil take out of it what they will.”

Last year, as then-executive secretary of the B.C. Press Council, Porter oversaw the group’s $80,000 legal inter- vention on behalf of the News that opposed a section of the B.C. Human Rights Code lim- iting freedom of expression by publications.

“This is a terrible piece of legislation, a shameful docu- ment,” said Porter.

“As a Canadian and a British Columbian, I’ra embar- rassed by it. This exposes everybody — and not just

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Collins -—— to the arbitrary power of the state.

“At the same time it

deprives them (respondents) of

the typical legal defences that are available to people in civil cases. You can't plead truth as a defence, for God's sake. You can’t say you commented on true facts for the public bene- fit. Give me a break!”

Reporters flacked to the July 20 opening of the twi- bunal, well aware that Collins and lawyer David Sutherland, who is also representing the News, would dramatically exit the procecdings.

Collins obliged by hud- dling with journalists outside the tribunal’s $400-per-day conference room at the swank Ocean Pointe Resort.

Evening newscasts featured Collins denouncing the tri- bunal as a “kangaroo court” and accusing Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh of “harassment pure and simple” for sanction- ing de facto double jeopardy — the prosecution of an individ- ual twice for the same offence.

Most media members van- ished after the colorful scrum, convinced that the hearing would simply rehash argu- ments made against Collins and the News in the previous Vancouver-based tribunal. The two respondents won the 1997 tribunal, which was prompted by a complaint ‘om the Canadian Jewish Congress.

The tribunal’s sole adjudi- cator, Nitya Iyer, ruled that the content of a March 1994 coi- umn headlined Hollywood Propaganda was anti-Semitic but that it did not constirute hatred.

Iyer also upheld the validity and the vonstitutionslity of the amended code, which pro- hibits publication of material

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“likely to expose a person or a group or class of persons to hatred or contempt” based, in part on their race, ancestry or religion. She ruled that its infringements on free speech were Justified.

Lawyer Sutherland saw this a “reading down” of the NDP’s legislation, altering. its content in order to ensure its survival against the Charter challenge he'd earlier present- ed to Iyer.

“It passes Charter scrutiny (only) because she’s rewritten it,” said Sutherland.

Tribunal chairman Tom Patch queried Marvin Kurz, the lawyer for intervenor B’nai B’rith Canada, on Collins’ use of comments by Jewish authorities to buttress his argu- ments questioning Jews’ fixa- tion with the Holocaust.

At one point, Patch won- dered if those Jewish authori- ties could run afoul of B.C.’s hate-specch edicts, even if their comments were taken out of context.

Contacted Monday night,

Collins said his Hollywood-

Propaganda column merely advanced a theory and not his personal conviction.

“I don’t know what the true figure is. Nobody seems to know. What I do know is that the recorded estimates range from 300,000 to six mil- lion ... But that six-million fig- ure is now considered sacred.”

Meanwhile, despite media speculation that Patch may issue 3. speedy tribunal ruling, Sutherland cautions that 2 UBC study shows adjudicators of North American human- rights hearings take an average of 140 days to publish their decisions.

_Weanesday, July 29, 1998 - North Shore News — 5

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