Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is out of Control
Petition to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Attorney General Doug Downey
In 2020, the township of Emo held a free vote of its duly elected representatives: They decided that they did not want to celebrate LGBT pride or fly an LGBT flag. The Mayor, Harold McQuaker, expressed this fact: “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin… There’s no flags being flown for the straight people.”
They had the right to make that decision. That democratic decision represented the expressed will of the people of Emo.
However, on November 20, 2024, one solitary, unelected bureaucrat decided to overrule the will of the people, override democracy, and treat the citizens of Emo like serfs with no right to an opinion or a voice.
Adjudicator Karen Dawson decreed in a Human Rights Tribunal ruling that it was “discrimination” to even suggest that flying the LGBT Pride flag might be unfair to other groups in society. According to Adjudicator Dawson, it is “demeaning and disparaging of the LGBTQ2 community” to show “a lack of understanding of the importance… of the Pride flag.”
Apparently “a lack of understanding” warrants a punishing fine of $10,000 to the township of Emo, with Mayor McQuaker centred-out for extra chastening with an additional $5,000 personal fine. The Mayor and Council were also ordered to undertake a mandatory pro-LGBT re-education course.
This is clearly a violation of Canadian democracy as well as the Mayor and Council’s constitutional right to freedom of expression. Furthermore, this is a grotesque bully tactic to force the citizens of Emo to change their sincerely-held beliefs and values through punitive fines and forced indoctrination.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, urge you to review the Tribunal’s Emo decision and bring in legislation to prevent this travesty of justice and violation of democracy from ever occurring again in Ontario.
First, we ask that the unelected, self-appointed tyrants at the Human Rights Tribunal no longer have the power to overrule elected officials – at any level of government.
Second, we ask that the Tribunal be stripped of its ability to impose monetary fines for things that people say, effectively muzzling our freedom of expression.
Third, we ask that the Tribunal end its neo-Marxist focus on group identity politics over and above the protection of real, individual human rights and freedoms, such as the right to life, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of conscience.
Sincerely,
[ The Undersigned ]