By Susan Mohammad
The South Asian Post, an influential Vancouver-based weekly, ran an editorial this week supporting Maclean’s in its ongoing dispute with the Canadian Islamic Congress. In 'Why you should care about Muslims vs. Maclean’s,' the Post's editors wrote that “[i]f we as Canadians truly value freedom of the press and free speech as the cornerstones of our democracy, we must protect them with the same vigor.”
This debate stems from a complaint by a group of law students and the Canadian Islamic Congress who were offended by 'Why the Future Belongs to Islam,' an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone, published in Maclean's in October 2006. The Post's editorial describes Steyn's article as a "legitimate opinion" and adds that "those who objected to it were given abundant right of reply, which Maclean’s dutifully published.” The column also ran in the Asian Pacific Post, the South Asian Post's sister publication. The papers share an editorial board and have a combined readership of 295,000.
Instead, complaints have been launched with the BC Human Rights Tribunal and at the federal level. A complaint was also brought to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which announced last month that it would not hold a hearing because the case did not fall within its jurisdiction. But while dismissing the case the OHRC denounced Macleans. On that fact, the Post wrote, “the Ontario Human Rights Commission didn’t allow Maclean’s to defend itself.” The Post also wrote that Maclean’s was right in refusing to allow the group a 5,000-word article by an author agreed upon by both parties in exchange for dropping the complaints before the Federal and B.C. Human Rights Commissions.
