Amy Hamm: The zealotry of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal must be exposed |
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Amy Hamm: The zealotry of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal must be exposed
Appalling $750,000 ruling was motivated entirely by ideology
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It’s clear, after former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld was ordered by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) to pay $750,000 to LGBTQ teachers in the district, that I do not have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning my own complaints, for discrimination on the basis of political belief, at the same tribunal.
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The two complaints I lodged at the BCHRT in 2025 have yet to be reviewed or accepted. With lawyer Lisa Bildy, and the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, we hope to obtain a ruling that would discourage discrimination based on gender critical political beliefs. (Like Neufeld, I’ve been slapped with outrageous costs for stating biological facts.)
Amy Hamm: The zealotry of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal must be exposed Back to video
I’ll take my fight (against the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority) into that den of woke zealots, regardless. They need all the exposure they can get.
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This month, the BCHRT decreed that Neufeld violated sections 7 and 13 of the B.C. Human Rights Code with his critical commentary on gender ideology and SOGI123 (sexual orientation and gender identity school “resources” for B.C. teachers).
At the root of Neufeld’s supposed heresy is his insistence that biological sex is real and immutable. The BCHRT has proclaimed that anyone who dares to say this aloud, as Neufeld and me both have, is spewing discriminatory hate speech that can “erase” the existence of transgender-identified persons. (Never mind the BCHRT’s contradictory assertion, written in their latest ruling, that Neufeld was simultaneously guilty of erasing trans existence and weaponizing trans persons’ “very existence (as) a threat to children, families, and social order.” How can both be true?)
It appears that the BCHRT couldn’t resist temptation to insert digs at Neufeld into their ruling wherever possible. Parts of the ruling read as a confession of the tribunal’s personal vendetta against him. First, they assigned pronouns — and therefore a “gender identity” — to Neufeld’s witnesses, who were there to argue against the very metaphysical, unfalsifiable nonsense that constitutes a “gender identity” to begin with. When the tribunal wrote a list of witnesses called, they included “he/him” or “she/her” in parenthesis after each name — a wholly unnecessary move that signals their fealty to the gender doctrine.
Neufeld’s loss was a foregone conclusion.
Lisa Bildy: Human rights rules on gender ideology are just blasphemy laws
Michael Higgins: Human rights tribunal seeks to bully and punish trans heretics
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The BCHRT members note, early in the ruling, that Neufeld once publicly apologized for offending persons with his opinions and said he wished to hold a respectful public debate. “Unfortunately, Mr. Neufeld’s commitment to respectful discussion and dissent did not last,” they snidely wrote.
Later, the tribunal suggests that Neufeld might view himself as a martyr. They argued that even while he “may have been ineffective and politically isolated as a trustee,” he remained responsible for the work and learning environment of his district.
They also found it pertinent to mention that Neufeld “unsuccessfully” sued one of the claimant’s witnesses, Glen Hansman, for defamation. There is no legal analysis offered regarding this case, nor was the defamation case relied upon by the BCHRT in reaching this latest decision. It was — without a doubt — adduced purely as an insult.
The ruling also states that Neufeld “frequently invoked his status and self-proclaimed credentials.” Well, were they credentials or were they not? Had Neufeld “faked” any professional credentials, we would surely never hear the end of it. The tribunal members were going out of their way to denigrate Neufeld, full stop. (For the record, Neufeld holds a degree in adolescent psychology and spent many years in corrections, as both a probation officer and restorative justice facilitation officer.)
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There are more examples, including a description of a media interview in which the BCHRT rates Neufeld’s performance as “verbose and meandering.” (Why go there at all?) His concern for children is not real, they wrote, but a “purported concern.”
The members wax on about how Neufeld, in their opinion, is impervious to logic: “Mr. Neufeld’s views appear rooted in deeply held assumptions and beliefs rather than a lack of access to information.” (I recommend that the BCHRT members all take, and fail — as they undoubtedly would — a course in basic biology, or the scientific method — and only then may they cast aspersions about just who is unable to think critically.)
That this degree of passive-aggressive contempt for Neufeld made its way into the tribunal’s ruling is manifestly absurd. The BCHRT envisions hatred and contempt all around them — even in places where it does not exist — and yet they fail to see it bursting from their own star chamber. They are drunk on what they believe is their righteous power to enforce their own woke dogma.
We cannot expect any reasonable or just rulings from the BCHRT. There are two things we must do: expose them, and then abolish their farcical tribunal entirely.
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