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Last
Thursday the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC)
released its preliminary findings in its report entitled,
“Inquiry into Assaults on Asian Canadian Anglers”.
For those who come to this country and don’t bother
to learn either French or English, the preliminary report
also became available in Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean.
It is interesting how the report was not released in
Urdu, Spanish, Sinhalese or any other language that
immigrants who come to this country speak. But then
again it doesn’t affect them; only Asians who are
all victims and the white evildoers need be concerned
about it.
During the summer of 2007, there was a series of attacks
on Asian fishermen (or as the CBC would say, fishers).
These attacks occurred primarily in Georgina on Lake
Simcoe and in Westport, just outside of Kingston although
incidents were reported in other Ontario locales. These
incidents included verbal threats and/or physical assaults
on Asian fisherman or throwing their equipment into
the water. The most serious of these incidents occurred
in Georgina where a young man was ejected from a moving
car that he and his friends were in while attempting
to escape their attackers. Nowhere in its 13- page preliminary
report does the OHRC mention the serious consequences
of this altercation. Perhaps that is because the victim
in question was just a white guy who was fishing with
some Asian friends.
The report admits that these
incidents are outside of the mandate of the Ontario
Human Rights Commission. On page 5 of the Report, it
states:
Not all manifestations of racism can be the basis of
a claim under the Code; some are beyond its jurisdiction.
Racially motivated conduct that takes place outside
of the social areas of employment, housing accommodation,
vocational associations, contracts, or services, goods
and facilities falls outside of the scope of the Code
and cannot be subject of a human rights claim.
The report goes on to say that these incidents involved
“encounters between individuals” that fell
outside of the Ontario Human Rights Code. So why did
the OHRC get involved? Well, according to the report,
these incidents led to “very grave human rights
concerns” and it is the Commission’s responsibility
to amongst other things, “educate” the public
even though what has happened does not give rise to
a claim within its jurisdiction.
The OHRC set up a hotline to hear from Asian victims
who were assaulted or threatened while fishing in Ontario
lakes and who never contacted the authorities. And,
of course they found some. But what the Commission didn’t
seem the least bit interested in was how many perpetrators
of these crimes there are out there. Although these
incidents took place in various areas, it is highly
unlikely that different attackers went after each of
the victims. We’re probably looking at a very few
attackers. Police have made some arrests and hopefully
will make more. As the OHRC acknowledges those who are
arrested can, if found guilty, be convicted of a hate
crime if, as seems to be the case the crime was motivated
at least in part by the race or ethnic background of
the victim. But this isn’t enough for the Commission
– they want to hold society responsible.
In their preliminary report, the Commission talks about
the Chinese head tax and the detention of Japanese Canadians
during World War II, strongly implying that we are all
responsible not only for those acts but for what is
currently taking place. It is a safe bet that many of
those who have gone after Asian fisherman have no idea
who Brian Mulroney is despite his picture being flashed
all over the place in recent days, let alone know about
those historical events. The Human Rights Commission
is simply trying to portray all Asians as victims of
a brutal society in order for the thought police to
feel good about themselves.
There will always be racism and no amount of reeducation
is going to change that. What is lost in the OHRC’s
preliminary report is the fact that these crimes, which
should be vigorously prosecuted, were committed by an
extremely small segment of the population with nothing
better to do – we are not all guilty
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