Justice committee  Happily, in cases of discrimination, Canada has a process that is less formal than the courts, which gives individuals the opportunity to come forward when they're extremely vulnerable. And of course section 13 cases are considered to be discriminatory.

Justice committee  Currently there is no provision to provide for costs to either party. We have recommended in our special report that in exceptional circumstances the tribunal be able to award costs at the tribunal level.

Justice committee  Pardon me?

Justice committee  The commission and its staff did no such thing. The allegations you are repeating are not true. They did not happen. The event did not happen. The book of documents I will be filing with the clerk will clarify that for you. I can clearly state that it did not happen. If I could just explain, we have a statutory requirement to investigate hate on the Internet.

Justice committee  We are public servants who are working to do our job, and I'd like to put this into perspective. The processing of complaints is less than 50% of what we do. The Canadian Human Rights Commission is also promoting the equality of Canadians, with a very broad mandate. With a lot of interesting, important, and exciting work, we are leaders and catalysts in advancing equality in Canada and in fact internationally.

Justice committee  Recent law has determined that the commission as an organization cannot bring a libel action or a defamation action. With respect, it's expecting a lot of individuals who are doing their everyday work as dedicated public servants to take on for themselves a civil liability action.

Justice committee  Entirely on their own. Of course we have tried to put the record straight, and we do welcome this forum as our opportunity to have the important debate that needs to be held, and that is, how do we balance two freedoms, if you will, or two rights? These two rights are the freedom of expression, which is a fundamental right for Canadians protected and guaranteed by the charter, and the freedom from discrimination, which is a fundamental right for Canadians protected in the charter and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Justice committee  There are more than 150 countries that have signed and ratified the various international conventions that require freedom from hate or hateful expression, or its equivalent, and many of these countries, of course, have created legislation accordingly. Canada is one of the very few that has a specific regulation against hate on the Internet.

Justice committee  As I was mentioning, we play a fundamental role in providing access to the administration of justice for individuals, and in order to do that, of course, we must be part of very clear processes that are fair, equitable, and transparent. A key point I'd like to make with you is that the employees of the commission do adhere to the strongest ethical values and codes of ethics, and have not erred from those codes of ethics or ethical values.

Justice committee  We have conducted detailed investigations internally, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Privacy Commission also did. These two latter bodies have found that the allegations were unsubstantiated and they have closed their files. I will be filing a book of documents with the clerk that clearly shows that.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  The commission has applied for judicial review of the decision based on two grounds. Part of the tribunal's finding was based on the fact that cases related to section 13 are not as often subject to settlement by mediation as other types of cases. This would be understandable. The ground of appeal relates to the fact that, in our submission, a statute can't be rendered unconstitutional by how an administrative agency that is part of that statute processes cases, and whether or not they're found to be mediate-able.

Justice committee  The case of Warman v. Lemire was decided by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The tribunal is an independent tribunal. The Canadian Human Rights Commission is a screening body. In the part of our work in which we process complaints, we are a screening body. We either dismiss the complaint or send it to the tribunal, where it will be heard.

Justice committee  At all times, we process cases based on our policies and procedures, and of course our responsibilities. These relate to our engagement as an administrative agency within the whole quasi-judicial framework. We do not have many open cases. I believe right now we have one case that is before the commission, and we will be presenting the public interest before the tribunal.

Justice committee  In June of this year we filed our special report to Parliament. All members have been given copies of this report, and we did bring some additional copies. In the report we do analyze, of course, Professor Moon's recommendations and we also went through another process where we had other consultations as well and did our own research.