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Prytulak Rejection of CHRC Censorship
 Lubomyr Prytulak to Sherri Helgason 09-Dec-2003
"The only discernible justifications for the CHRC attempt at censorship are illegitimate, for which reason the CHRC demand will not be complied with." — Lubomyr Prytulak

  09 December 2003

Sherri Helgason
Director, Investigations Branch
Canadian Human Rights Commission
344 Slater Street
Ottawa, Ontario    K1A 1E1

Reply to the 05-Dec-2003 Sherri Helgason letter to Lubomyr Prytulak regarding File no. 20031527.

Dear Ms Helgason:

Permit me to correct your statement that Len Rudner is the complainant in the instant proceedings.  He is not.  If this were Len Rudner's personal complaint, then he would have written it on personal stationery, and not on Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) letterhead.  You have before you, rather, a Canadian Jewish Congress complaint, with Len Rudner appearing as the Canadian Jewish Congress representative.  All those on the masthead of the CJC stationery on which the complaint is written are either parties to the action, or else Len Rudner acted improperly in attaching their names to the complaint that was delivered to the Commission — individuals such as Ed Morgan because he is identified at the very top of the masthead as Chair, and individuals such as Irving Abella, Bernie Farber, and Moshe Ronen, not only for their leading roles within the Canadian Jewish Congress over many years, but more importantly for their personal animosity toward Lubomyr Prytulak and the Ukrainian Archive (UKAR) for his impertinence in asking them questions to which they have been unable to find answers.

Permit me also to correct the impression conveyed by your wording which almost suggests that I happened across a copy of some complaint form or other which belongs rightfully to the Commission and which is none of my business, and decided out of an impulse of irresponsibility or mischief to publish it, to the injury of individuals whose personal data was disclosed on that Commission form.  However, a more accurate picture is that this is not merely some Commission complaint form or other, this is the indictment by means of which the CJC hopes to discredit me and suppress my work of six years; this is the justification for the book-burning of my collected works on a diversity of subjects that the CJC expects the CHRC to host on its front lawn.  As this CJC complaint contains the vilest lies about me and nobody else but me, then there is only one person who enjoys the privilege of demanding that it be kept private — and that is me — and I waive that privilege.  Neither the Suzanne Best letter to me of 27-Nov-2003, nor the CJC complaint, contain any information that might be considered to be private or confidential about anybody else.

You omit to cite your authority for demanding the right to censor my free speech.  I can only guess that it is the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) §§ 47(3), 48.3(6-8), and 52(1-2).  However, this authority is insufficient.  That is, CHRA § 47(3) is irrelevant because it addresses what a conciliator may do with the information that is disclosed to him.  CHRA §§ 48.3(6-8) and 52(1-2), on the other hand, not only fail to support the CHRA demand for secrecy, but instead expressly dictate that the work of the CHRA be public, except for good cause shown from among those listed, none of which apply to the instant proceedings.

CHRA §§ 48.3(3) does grant a judge of a superior court who conducts a CHRC inquiry power, upon condition of "appropriateness," to enforce confidentiality, but we have not here any judge conducting any inquiry.  Similarly CHRA § 52(2) bestows this same power upon a member of a panel conducting an inquiry, or upon the entire panel, to enforce confidentiality, again on condition of "appropriateness" — but again, this applies to the tribunal stage of proceedings, at which we have not yet arrived.  Both these sections are irrelevant to the instant situation because they apply to the "confidentiality of a hearing" (italics added), and in any case, "appropriateness" falls on the side of protecting the free speech of an individual who finds himself being flagellated by a powerful institution by means of frivolous, vexatious, and malicious prosecution.

As legal authority does not provide justification, and considerations of privacy do not provide a plausible rationale, for the CHRC attempt to suspend my Charter 2(b) right of free expression, alternative reasons such as the following might be hypothesized:

  1. The CJC fears that public scrutiny will reveal its prosecution to be frivolous, vexatious, and malicious.

  2. Publication of proceeding documents will attract notice to UKAR, and to its wealth of damaging material that the Canadian Jewish Congress is able neither to refute nor discredit.

  3. The disapproved-of UKAR publication of Commission-proceeding documents comes with links taking the reader to the contexts for statements complained of by the CJC, which contexts expose CJC misrepresentation of their meaning and significance.
In other words, the only discernible justifications for the CHRC attempt at censorship are illegitimate, for which reason the CHRC demand will not be complied with.

Upon the occasion of the CHRC seeking an ex parte injunction against publication of Commission proceedings, I demand that the CHRC provide the court with a copy of the instant letter.  For the CHRC to fail to do so would constitute fraud on the court and abuse of process.

This letter is being sent on 09-Dec-2003 to you by email c/o [email protected], and as well by standard mail to your above address, and also by standard mail to complainants Irving Abella, Bernie Farber, Ed Morgan, Moshe Ronen, and Len Rudner at

Canadian Jewish Congress
4600 Bathurst Street
Toronto, Ontario    M2R 3V2

The instant letter does not constitute my reply to the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) complaint, but only my response to the Sherri Helgason letter of 05-Dec-2003.


Yours truly,




Lubomyr Prytulak
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