The Railroading of Randy Hillier
Who appointed Paul Calandra the grand censor of the Ontario legislature?
On February 22, a motion was passed unanimously in the Ontario legislature condemning independent MPP Randy Hillier for “continued disreputable conduct.” You can read how this story was reported by Canada’s mainstream media (or “moribund media”, as I prefer to call them) here, here, and here.
Government House leader Paul Calandra, the MPP for Markham-Stouffville, accused Hillier of using social media “to make racist and discriminatory statements about a federal cabinet minister, and for publishing social media posts insinuating a call to violence.”
The outcome of the so-called unanimous vote was that the House “demanded” that Hillier make written apologies to Omar Alghabra, the federal transport minister, and to the House; that he publish the apologies; and that he desist from further inappropriate conduct. Finally, and most importantly, the motion authorized the Speaker of the House to not recognize Hillier in the House until the Speaker has received copies of the written apologies and “is satisfied of their sincerity.”
The Hansard transcript of the entire proceeding is only 175 words long from the moment Calandra began making his motion until the Speaker declared it carried. At normal speaking speeds of 150-160 words per minute, this means the whole thing must have happened in just over one minute.
This proceeding shows a blatant disregard for the principles of fundamental justice.
Calandra presented no evidence in support of his allegations. He never even specified the words that he alleged to be racist, discriminatory, or an incitement to violence. He gave no opportunity to the accused to refute them. Hillier was not in attendance that day and had been given no advance notice that his conduct would be the subject of any motion.
Much to their discredit, no member of the House then present asked any questions, and no debate was held.
Note that in order to be released from the penalties laid upon him in this charade, Hillier would first have to admit his guilt by writing letters of apology. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be allowed to make a peep in the House. What if the allegations made against him weren’t true in the first place? This vicious circle would demand that he confess to something he hadn’t done in order to have even the opportunity to deny having done them.
Who appointed MPP Calandra the grand censor of the Ontario legislature? By what right does he deprive the voters of Hilier’s riding (Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston) of their representative’s voice in the legislature? By what right does he deprive me, and thousands of others like me - Ontario voters who are not in Hillier’s riding, but who think that Hillier has done a far better job of representing our views over the past two years than any other member of the House - of the main voice speaking there for us?
And was the vote really unanimous? Did all 124 members of the House, of all political stripes, really sit there and vote in favour of compelling forced expression, a clear breach of Hillier’s Charter right to freedom of speech?
Definitely not. For starters, Ontario MPPs are taking turns being present in “cohorts” due to “social distancing” requirements. At most, only half could have been present that day. Furthermore, it turns out that a quorum in the Ontario legislature consists of the speaker plus only 11 other members. Procedurally, if nobody speaks up to voice any objection to a motion, the speaker is entitled to say that it has passed “unanimously”. Abstentions are not counted.
It’s entirely possible that the only people who passed this so-called unanimous motion might have been Calandra, the speaker, and ten other MPPs who might well have been sleeping or doing crossword puzzles. The Hansard time stamp shows that Calandra introduced his motion just before 6:00 pm, a time when the legislature is often almost empty. He had clearly got his ducks (or perhaps I should say his sheep) in a row in advance. He rose and said: “Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to immediately move a motion respecting the member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and that the question of the motion be put immediately, without debate or amendment.”
Note also that this took place on February 22, the first day that the House resumed sitting after a recess since December 9. The alleged misconduct of Hillier had taken place on January 24, so Calandra had had almost a month in which to organize his railroading of Hillier.
To the best of my knowledge, only one MPP (Belinda Karahalios) has come forward to say she didn’t vote to ban Randy Hillier from the House. Her husband Jim Karahalios tweeted that Calandra had actually waited until she had left the House before bringing his motion.
Why has nobody raised this in the moribund media? Why is the world left believing that Hillier is universally condemned by his colleagues when the truth may well be that many of them secretly admire him and wish they had as much backbone?
Finally, what did Hillier actually say that supposedly constituted racist remarks and a call to violence?
On the afternoon of January 24, Hillier retweeted Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s photos of empty grocery store shelves, adding his own comment that the Canadian prime minister was a terrorist for “intentionally shorting our food supply during winter,” and that both Alberta’s and Ontario’s premiers were complicit in terrorism. A few people responded with their own photos of empty store shelves, but nobody challenged the use of the word “terrorist”.
That same evening, Hiller responded to a news clip of Transport Minister Omar Alghabra saying that the vaccine mandate for truckers was “a solution to the supply chain issue, not a hindrance”. Hiller tweeted in reply, “A terrorist speaks out to condemn Canadians to starvation-In the name of being safe”.
Several people immediately called this “hate speech” and said they’d report it to Twitter. Others called the tweet “racist” despite the absence of any reference to Minister Alghabra’s race or ethnicity.
Reasonable people may disagree as to whether the prime minister, the provincial premiers, or assorted politicians deserve the label of terrorist. Hillier has subsequently posted this definitions from a Canadian government website, as well as this press release, showing why he thinks it’s appropriate. However, it’s pretty clear that there was no racism in anything Hillier said about Alghabra. He tarred all politicians who supported vaccine mandates for truckers equally with the same brush, regardless of race, colour or creed.
With regard to the alleged “call to violence” I have been unable to identify anything in Hillier’s social media that Calandra might have been referring to. So Calandra has succeeded in silencing a dissenting voice without having to prove that he ever did anything wrong.
I e-mailed Calandra’s office to see if I could interview him for this article but he did not respond.
Full disclosure: I’ve known Randy Hiller for at least twenty years, since the days when he headed up the Ontario Landowners Association and invited me to speak at conferences about property rights. I consider him one of Canada’s few politicians with any integrity, and I’m very sorry he has made the decision not to stand for re-election in Ontario this year.
Sadly, the unjust treatment he received at the hands of the Ontario legislature demonstrates what anyone else who might dare to thwart the establishment can expect. All that will be left in government will be servile flunkies.
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(Note that after this article was first published on Western Standard, Hillier was given a Twitter “suspension”, so some of the links in this article may not work when you read this. However, I’ve pasted in screen shots of anything that is no longer working.)
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