$8,000? Why, I’d say the guy should be locked up in a jail cell with a bunch of panhandlers and show them what he typed (Ha Ha Ha)
But I’m not saying that because I’m afraid I’ll get sued.
$8,000, hell that’s only about a buck and half American.
While community service might seem more appropriate, it looks like this was a civil, not criminal matter. I question whether community service can be ordered as compensation for a civil matter, unless agreed as a settlement.
Store owner is a government functionary.
This smells like he knew about what would have happened if the guy had made the “threat” to the woman. But he didn’t. If only he had said it to her, she could sue his ass… ummm… I’ll just insert myself in here and take care of that part of her needing to hear the threat - hey lady - wanna get rich? Read this and then act hurt and insulted! OK, now call these people, here, use my phone…S
It’s the manager who published the email to the victim - he is the one responsible.
First, to correct the OP, it was on the local CBC English news this morning. According to the news reports, she was handicapped and unable to work. She got social assistance which was insufficient for her needs and so she panhandled 4 hours a day in front of the liquor store. According to the reports, he called her (specifically, not panhandlers in general) a drunken bum (which she wasn’t) and said she deserved to be killed. I don’t think it could be interpreted as a direct threat. I think he was asking the manager to get rid of her (which he couldn’t do even if he agreed) and I think it should have ended there. For whatever reason (it is not all clear), he showed it to her and she went to the human rights commission on the grounds that he had insulted her because she was handicapped. They agreed and ordered the man to pay her $8000. It was not a fine. Both libel and defamation are severe limitations on free speech. I think her complaint was the latter, not directly the threat.
So the debate should be on the question of defamation, not the threat.
CBC News Link:http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/08/05/quebec-panhandle-saq-offensive-email-suit.html
Miss Elizabeth: As far as reading the actual letter goes, it’s in French. I’ve attempted a translation below the quote box. (Apologies if it’s bad form to post garbage in a foreign language directly on the boards)
The letter can be found here, along with the whole proceedings: http://www.jugements.qc.ca/ID=A580025A49BF2D0F864878C85F4F8A37
To give a very rough translation,
(Good virgin?)
So goes the last standing SAQ where I could walk in without being assaulted by the sight of a wino. The SAQ on Henri-Bourassa West now hosts a drunk hag who panhandles at the customer entrance/exit. She resembles Mme Loulou from “Et Dieux crea Laflaque” (edit: no clue on the reference) with her 200-odd pounds of high-density welfare-ness enriched in trans-fats. No measurable IQ.
I had to face her as I locked and unlocked my bicycle.
This was the last SAQ in the neighborhood I could get to by bike without taking the bridge to Laval.
I believe it was in 1993 that the city repealed the law prohibiting begging (under Jean Dore’s term if I recall). Easier to repeal the law than solve the problem.
The “Loulou” in question sits just barely outside the SAQ’s property line.
If nobody in the city or at the SAQ has the freedom to solve the issue of a city of indigents, of squigee kids, drunks and delinquents, what can an ordinary citizen such as myself do?? Hello “McFly”… there are no rules! Welcome to the city of the free-for-all, to the city of rottenness, mediocrity, crassness, of I-don’t-give-a-shit-ism, and of the unraveling of the social fabric as we know it. No political will exists at any level to change this.
I’ve been told that young panhandlers come from the downtown sector to Ahuntsic because it is more profitable! (surely they’re not walking all that way?)
Solution 1: Burn all of that with a flame-thrower or with napalm (Americans did the same to a far better class of people).
Solution 2: Pick up all these motile microbes with a garbage truck, and send them to the incinerator “Des Carrieres” (a useful vocation for an encumbering phallus (??))
I reserve especially this solution to all the punks on St. Catherine street with their Rotweilers and Dobermans.
Solution 3 (The Chinese Solution): A shot to the nape and a bill to the family for the bullet.
Solution 4: Parachute them over James Bay. Unlikely they’ll find their way back.
Solution 5 (aka Soylent Green): We do nothing but complain loudly to them until they leave town to get away from us.
Robert Delisle
Montreal
Thank you for this.
It appears to contain disparaging remarks about but no specific threat toward an individual panhandler. I thus believe the Human Rights Commission’s action is repugnant.
You can tell that the letter on its own doesn’t sound like a earnest threat. At the time I posted the thread I took it that there was probably some additional context, like threatening behavior. Also, the woman reported being afraid to go outside. However, from the CBC news link:
So Hari is correct in that it’s the defamation that’s the issue. However, I still don’t think the letter constitutes defamation since I don’t see how a loss of reputation plays into it. Who would read that diatribe and believe that the author had an informed, reasonable opinion about the woman’s character?
Gotta say, if you read this bit:
In the voice of the Ancient Booer (from *The Princess Bride *), it makes the letter vastly more entertaining.
And when it comes to human rights, surely freedom of speech is as nothing compared to the preservation of everyone’s dignity.
I’m not sure I would call it defamation, which is the right not to have untrue information that purports to be objectively factual spread about oneself. The Commission, whose decision is here, found the conduct sanctionable under Sections 4 and 10 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Those sections are:
Part of the decision pertained to Delisle’s use of the word “robineuse,” a French Canadian time for “drunk.” But overall, the Commission wasn’t so much interested in the truth or falsehood of that particular epithet (and still less the threshold question of whether the email could be read as purporting to aver objectively factual information rather than an expression of exasperation) as they were in protecting what they evidently believe Section 4 of the Quebec Charter to stand for: A right not to be offended.
It is not a coincidence that Quebec is considered the most corrupt province in Canada. When the government can expropriate $8,000 from you on the basis of some pretty arrant legal casuistry, you hardly need much more evidence of a government run amok.
Uh, what? I don’t see the relation between the two.
That Québec is considered more corrupt has to do with the smelly relationships between private enterprise and the government.
Québec has a charter of rights that applies between individuals and a special tribunal for recourses concerning it. Is it a sign that the government is too big or overreaching? Maybe. (I’d say the toponymical commission and the civil servants in charge of approving babies’ chosen names are worse cases.) But corruption?
(Yes, on the merits, I do find the case silly, and that the commission had no business intervening this way. I call for formation of a new commission in charge of slaps on the wrist. 
)
I’m more afraid of a government that has the power to fine me for my opinions than I am of being offended by boors and bigots.
I’d say that one barometer of corruption is a government’s willingness conspicuously to engage in capricious behavior, which is what the Commission did here, as the decision is long hortatory calls for empathy and short on precedent. But that’s the thing, a judge’s powers of empathy are unpredictable and we want our rule of law to be generally predictable. (This is why it is so stupid to valorize “empathy” in judicial nominees.)
Anyway, conspicuous caprice tends to denote a government that understands its to be beyond being held accountable. It also has some similarities to a patronage system (those dependent on the province and likely to vote the way the current provincial government wants are being privileged at the expense of those who are dissatisfied with the current regime). Add to this the following facts: the chief witness (and provacteur of the litigation) was the provinical govermnet (SAQ) (and since when, by the way, can petitions to one’s government (here, an email to SAQ), however distasteful, be cause for an $8,000 fine — this is a serious black eye for civil liberties); the plaintiff’s representation before the was furnished by the provincial government. All this provincial involvement over some hurt feelings seems quite disproportionate. And more than a little suspicious.
Wow, I can’t decide if this commission’s very existence makes the country something to laugh at or something to cry about. Both I guess, to varying degrees.
If the letter genuinely starts with ‘good virgin’ I can totally understand why the manager passed that letter on to start the ruckus.
There are very few courts, I think, which would bother pretending that the fellow’s motivations and designs are hidden by switching from a direct, personal and identifiable description of a busker to general descriptions of what should be done to buskers. Had the email been printed as an article or sent to a newspaper I would have assumed it highly likely to be parodic or the self deprecating whine of a middle class problem, and would be astonished at it receiving opprobrium; sending it to the manager casts a very sinister light on the whole thing. The guy instead comes off as an unpleasant whackadoodle with morbid fantasies (and is highly suspicious to begin with for taking part in the mass Quebecois delusion of being French). I’m not sure it wouldn’t be actionable in the UK or US for that matter, albeit for different reasons and dependent on other factors, and am amused the nutter got nailed for it.
I cannot speak to corruption, but the decision is certainly (IMHO) capricious.
Understand, this was not a hearing in front of a judge in a court. It was a human rights commission’s decision, in front of people who are not judges, and may or may not even be lawyers. As such, it is “appealable” in the sense that it can be submitted to a real court for judicial review.
Based on the facts in the news report, I’m unsure if I see any kind of discriminatory or hate speech issue here; at least, as they are understood in Canadian law. At best, I see someone bothered by a panhandler; which, if you’ve spent any time in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, or anyplace else in Canada, is par for the course. They can ask, you can deny, and they cannot complain to the authorities if you deny.
Let’s just say the article doesn’t reflect everything the judge said.
The decision of the Tribunal des droits de la personne has not yet been translated into English. It takes a few months, apparently.
(The Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse acted on behalf of Mme Beaumont in representing her before the Tribunal des droits de la personne.)
Here’s my translation of the main points (keep in mind that IANAL and I’m probably not using the technically-correct English wording):
On the SAQ’s transmittal of the letter to Mme Beaumont:
-
The sector supervisor for the SAQ received the e-mail and consulted with the SAQ’s legal services and was told that the letter could be interpreted as a death threat and should be submitted to the police. (The law governing confidentiality makes an exception for potential death threats.) He told the branch manager to contact the local police.
-
The police refused to receive a complaint by a third party. The supervisor then told the branch manager to inform Mme Beaumont so that she could contact the police.
-
The judge says that the SAQ’s handling of the issue was proper and that the letter seemed sufficiently threatening to justify all this.
In her testimony, Mme Beaumont says she was really terrified, etc. upon reading the letter. She says the police would not take action on the e-mail, but referred her to the Commission.
On the fact that the letter wasn’t addressed to Mme Beaumont and thus wasn’t intended to insult, demean or threaten her: -
The judge says that, in such cases, it is not intent that counts, but effect. This is based on Canadian jurisprudence, including a few Supreme Court findings.
On whether the letter is in violation of the Charte: -
The judge says that it is, based on past Supreme Court interpretations of this *Charte *and of other Charters of Rights. It constitutes discrimination based on social status and diminishes Mme Beaumont’s dignity.
The Commission was asking for 15000$ in moral damages and 5000$ in exemplary damages. The judge finds in Mme Beaumont’s favor, but reduces the amounts to 7500$ and 500$ respectively.
Note that I don’t agree with the judgement, I just thought that translating it would clarify a few things.
The whole thing is still a big mess, with the letter having been given to the lady because (if you squint a little bit) it seemed like a death threat, and then having been brought before the tribunal because it’s insulting and demeaning to her.
Which doesn’t mean that charters of rights and human rights commissions have no value and should be thrown out. And also doesn’t mean that the *Commission *or the *Tribunal *are politically motivated or corrupt.
If this was a human rights adjudication, there was no judge. There was, at best, an adjudicator. An adjudicator is not a judge.
As I said before, the decision can be appealed into a real court for judicial review, where a real judge can handle it.