September 20, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Veteran journalist Doug Collins wrote more than 2,000 columns for the North Shore News of British Columbia - and never once was there a need to have them examined by an attorney. Then he committed the crime of all crimes: He said the Jews ran Hollywood and spoke of Schindler's List as Swindler's List. Oy vey!

Here is the formula: Subtract two consonants, add one - and you are in very hot water. You are "exposing Jews to hatred or contempt." You are a "Holocaust denier".

According to University of Calgary law professor Kathleen Mahoney, described as an "expert in human rights" who has served on several international human rights panels and even as a delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission, practicing Holocaust denial is ". . . the most dangerous and undermining form of hate propaganda."

(As quoted in "Hate bill brought chill" by Andre Ramshaw, North Shore News, no date given in the clipping sent to me)

I briefly met Doug Collins last year - and forever will I remember him with nothing but the fondest feelings for having stated, a little later, that

". . . (i)t ain't easy, bein' me. The rage of the politically correct and the journalistically gutless knows no bounds. So they denounce 'hate literature' while writing it. . . "

And, while he was at it, in that same column, he described Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre as "a propagandist from the Simon Wiesenthal Institute who dines out on the Holocaust." (North Shore News, June 4, 1997)

As is well known by now, the Human Rights Gestapo kicked in and hauled Collins before a "Tribunal" of one - a woman by the name of Nitya Iyer.

The hearing into the Collins Thought Crimes began on May 12 of this ear and concluded on June 27. A decision is expected sometime later this year - and is also expected to go against Collins.

This will mean that it will be appealed by the paper, and will drag on through the courts until it ends up eventually before the Canadian Supreme Court - most likely sometime in the next century.

Against that calendar and that game plan, read the following Collins column, titled: "Retiring, not quitting." (North Shore News, Sep. 3, 1997)

"Put out more flags. Collins is retiring. My last regular column will appear in two weeks' time.

It will be said that I am throwing in the towel, that the heat has been too much for me.

Not so. Heat keeps me ticking.

For the benefit of liars in the media, here are the facts.

I 'retired' from the North Shore News in 1989. Even got a gold watch, courtesy of supporters. But on being asked to return to the paper, I did so. I owed it.

When I wrote my $200,000 column on Hollywood Propaganda in 1994, however, I had no idea that such a harmless piece would make history.

In that same year the censors and bigots of the Canadian Jewish Congress laid their complaint before the Human Rights Gestapo. Jewish groups brook no questioning of their orthodoxies.

I thought the whole thing (would be) over within a year. So I planned to leave by the end of 1995.

As I wrote on December 31 of that year:

'This column was to have been my swan song. I had planned to quit today and start writing The Diary of a Redneck. But the Bill 33 thing still bubbles. To leave now would be desertion in the face of the enemy.'

Ever optimistic, I then thought that the Inquisition would be done with in 1996. But the inquisitors love to keep people on the rack as long as possible, in the hope that they will plead for mercy.

The process forces victims to spend fortunes on legal fees if they want a decent defence, and is a warning to others not to be too bold.

By October of 1996 it looked as though the Great Heresy Trial would not take place until I was 105. Would I live that long? So I told the paper I would be leaving in March 1997, come what may.

But lo, the Beast in Victoria suddenly stirred. Galileo Collins would face his accusers in June, three years after committing his 'offence.'

It would not have been proper to leave before the hearing, so I hung on once more. I would not run out on the bravest publisher in the country.

My friends all knew I was planning to retire. Southam correspondent Ian Haysom also knew about it when he did a write-up on the case in May. I asked him not to reveal the secret, and he didn't. Charles Maclean knew, too, but said nothing.

Why the secrecy? Because if my intention had been known while the 'trial' was pending, it would have looked as if I were running away.

I have stayed the course, no matter what you may read in the gutter press to the contrary.

Another thing: Next week I will be 77. (...)

My departure may disappoint some people. I gave them something to distort.

There will probably be another up-bubbling when Glen Clark's NDP court brings down a decision. I have little doubt what that will be, but am always willing to be surprised.

I am leaving now, regardless, because the 'wrongs' die is cast and I will now have to wait and see what the real courts do.

In the court of public opinion, meanwhile, it is my accusers who are seen as guilty. . . The man - and woman - in the street have certainly acquitted me. The mountains of letters show that. And it enrages my critics that the Defence Fund has reached $121,919. Nothing like it has been seen before.

Meanwhile, I still have two weeks in which to annoy the nice people . . . "

In a previous column, Collins warned:

"Perhaps Canada will wake up to the fact that the forces of censorship are a bit more dangerous than I am. . . "

On more than one occasion, he also let it be known that even if his censors were to hang him by his heels on a hook, he would not apologize.

They did - and he didn't.

Canada will miss you, Galileo Collins!

Ingrid

Thought for the Day:

"It seems incredible that in a so-called democratic society someone could be taken through a court-style system and forced to pay huge legal costs for speaking his mind."

(A reader in Letters to the Editor, commenting on the Collins Inquisition)

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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