{"id":92651,"date":"2024-11-28T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=92651"},"modified":"2024-11-27T13:17:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T18:17:02","slug":"fly-the-flag-you-bigoted-rural-cis-scum-said-the-human-rights-tribunal-of-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/11\/28\/fly-the-flag-you-bigoted-rural-cis-scum-said-the-human-rights-tribunal-of-ontario\/","title":{"rendered":"“Fly the flag, you bigoted rural cis scum!” said the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently just failing to vote for a “voluntary” observation of Pride season is enough to get the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to impose fines and mandatory re-education sentences<\/a> on elected municipal officials here in the most tolerant province in Canada:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Emo is a township of about 1,300 people located in the far west of Ontario, along the border with Minnesota.<\/p>\n

In a decision handed down last week<\/a>, the Human Tribunal of Ontario ruled that Emo, its mayor and two of its councillors had violated the Ontario Human Rights Code<\/em> by refusing to proclaim June as “Pride Month”.<\/p>\n

The town was also cited for failing to fly “an LGBTQ2 rainbow flag”, despite the fact that they don’t have an official flag pole.<\/p>\n

The dispute began in 2020 when the township was approached by the group Borderland Pride with a written request to proclaim June as Pride Month.<\/p>\n

Attached to the letter was a draft proclamation including clauses such as “pride is necessary to show community support and belonging for LGBTQ2 individuals” and “the diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression represents a positive contribution to society”.<\/p>\n

Emo was also asked to fly an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag for a week of your choosing”.<\/p>\n

Borderland Pride then asked Emo to “email us a copy of your proclamation or resolution once adopted and signed”.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The claim of discrimination ultimately hinged on a single line uttered by Emo Mayor Harold McQuaker. When the proclamation came up for consideration, McQuaker was heard to say in a recording of the meeting, “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin … there’s no flags being flown for the straight people”.<\/p>\n

As Human Rights Tribunal vice-chair Karen Dawson wrote in her decision, “I find this remark was demeaning and disparaging of the LGBTQ2 community of which Borderland Pride is a member and therefore constituted discrimination under the Code”.<\/p>\n

Dawson also ruled that given the “close proximity” of McQuaker’s comment to his nay vote \u2014 that too “constituted discrimination under the Code”.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The Human Rights Tribunal ultimately ordered the Township to pay $10,000 to Borderland Pride, and for McQuaker to personally pay them another $5,000.<\/p>\n

This was lower than what Borderland Pride had been seeking; they wanted $15,000 from the township and $10,000 each from the three councillors who voted no.<\/p>\n

But McQuaker and Emo’s chief administrative officer were also ordered to complete an online course known as “Human Rights 101” and “provide proof of completion … to Borderland Pride within 30 days”.<\/p>\n

The course is offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and their latest edition opens with an animated video<\/a> telling viewers that the Human Rights Code “is not meant to punish”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently just failing to vote for a “voluntary” observation of Pride season is enough to get the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to impose fines and mandatory re-education sentences on elected municipal officials here in the most tolerant province in Canada: Emo is a township of about 1,300 people located in the far west of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,10,53],"tags":[186,46,196,87,417],"class_list":["post-92651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-law","category-liberty","category-politics","tag-freedomofspeech","tag-hrcs","tag-lgbt","tag-ontario","tag-victimlesscrime"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-o6n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92653,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92651\/revisions\/92653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}