Rule One For Not Having Your Character Defamed

Don't defame your own character

All the way back in January of this year, many many Canadians had a bone to pick with Erik Millett.

Millett, as some may recall, was the principal of Belleisle Elementary school, where singing of "O Canada" was scaled back to one per month. He had also been a Green Party candidate in the 2008 federal election -- apparently only the most recent of many to embarrass his party.

The reaction to Millett's decision was swift and uncompromising: Canadians were rightly outraged by his decision, in which he had sought to placate the parents of two students -- an extreme minority of students.

Millett's decision enraged one man to the extent that he threatened to beat him senseless. That man has since (quite rightly) been convicted of uttering threats.

Millett's decision prompted significant criticism, including by Conservative MPs Mike Allen, Keith Ashfield and Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson, who noted that Millett had proved that "he has no appreciation for the sensitivity of some issues."

Like the national anthem.

Thompson, who is so outraged over the response to his decision to scale back "O Canada" that he has reportedly taken issue to the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission,

"I have contacted the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission and I will be pursuing the question of accommodation around this issue of through the Human Rights Commission and hopefully some clarity will come from the ruling they provide," Millet said at the time.

Of course, considering the activist nature of Canadian Human Rights Commissions, Millett must full well expect that the ruling that is handed down will be in his favour -- even if it means that, paradoxically, his school will fail to accommodate the parents of the vast majority of students in his school.

Millett has apparently become so bold in his one man dissent-busting mission that he's threatening to sue Greg Thompson over his comments, complaining that they are defamatory.

Yet one can suspect that the parents of Belleisle elementary school who signed a petition to force the daily singing of "O Canada" back into their childrens' school would likely share Greg Thompson's opinion -- that Millett has been extremely insensitive to their views on the singing of "O Canada", all in the name of placating the tyranny of a minority.

If Erik Millett doesn't want his character defamed, he shouldn't defame his own character by making decisions that justify the criticisms made of him.


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