"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we are sure, stifling it would be an evil still."

A free speech carnival is coming to town next month and we hope the above words by John Stuart Mill, the 19th century British philosopher, will hang heavy on those appointed to sit in judgment.

At issue is a complaint by a group of Canadian Muslims protesting the audacity ofMaclean’s Magazine to run an article based on journalist Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone, entitledWhy the Future Belongs to Islam.

The public face of the case is a group of four law students from Toronto backed by the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Together they claim that Maclean’s has fanned hatred and Islamophobia by putting forward the position that a global conspiracy involving Muslims is poised to take over the West and impose repressive Islamic laws.

They say that the Steyn article is not the first timeMaclean’s has crossed the line when it comes to matters of Islam and the incitement of hate. The group cites 21 other articles that apparently denigrate Islam and are racist in tone.

Complaints have been launched with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and at the federal level.

Another complaint by the same group was filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which adjudicated that the contents of press articles are beyond its purview, yet sternly rebuked Maclean’s for contributing to Islamophobia and promoting societal intolerance towards Muslims.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission did not allow Maclean’s to defend its views when providing its unsolicited scolding, much to the delight of the offended Muslims.

Central to this fight to be staged in B.C., are the issues of press freedom, what constitutes hate literature, and the use of quasi-judicial bodies to set limits on our freedom of expression.

First off, let’s get one thing straight: The Steyn article — love it or hate it — is a legitimate opinion. And those who objected to it were given abundant right of reply, which Maclean’s dutifully published.

The most troubling thing about this case is the use of human rights bodies to be the arbiters of what Canadians should be allowed to read and what can be published.

These bodies, mainly set up to deal with issues surrounding access to social housing and discrimination in the workplace, have an evidentiary threshold that revolves solely around the discretion of their appointed adjudicators.

They do not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If a case is made well enough, they will accept the complainant’s view. Just check their track record.

If the Steyn ramblings do indeed constitute hate literature, then the law students and the Canadian Islamic Congress should file a police report.

They should also pursue Maclean’s through a legitimate civil lawsuit.

But that would require them to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and provide documentation to show that Maclean’s has denied them due process — requirements they won’t have to fulfill at the human rights hearings.

How and what these tribunals decide in a case is secondary to how they have come in the first place to sit in judgment over what Canadian media can publish.

If we as Canadians truly value freedom of the press and free speech as the cornerstones of our democracy, we must protect them with the same vigor.

It is an unacceptable precedent to allow the limits of free speech to be decided by a bureaucratic panel of so-called human-rights experts.

Last week, the Canadian Islamic Congress and the offended Muslim students offered to drop the cases before the federal and B.C. Human Rights bodies in exchange for a 5,000-word article written by an author mutually agreed upon by both parties.

Maclean’s

rightly refused this 11th hour offer of conciliation, as it would be an acknowledgement that the magazine had done wrong, and a tacit nod to human rights commissions to regulate the content of print media publications in Canada.

We may not agree with everything that is said or published in Maclean’s.

But we must defend its right to say and publish it.

Maclean’s

should take this fight one step further — it should refuse to appear before these human rights bodies and, if need be, force the issue to the federal court for consideration.

Our freedom of speech and, more importantly, our freedom after speech, must be decided by a legitimate authority.