This video courtesy of Guy Earle Trial website. I did not shoot this.
Well, nobody will ever give me the nickname “Scoops” for my cutting edge reporting skills. I decided to go and cover the Guy Earle kangaroo court in Vancouver at the Human Rights Tribunal this week. The only problem I had was figuring out what time the hearings would actually take place. I looked it up on the Human Rights Tribunal website, but that was no help. So I emailed Guy Earle himself.
As it turned out, the hearings were set for 9:30-4:30 at the BC Human Rights Tribunal offices on Robson Street, but there were two other defendants on the docket. So I decided to try my luck and head down there for 9:30am.
When I arrived, I went to the 11th floor and found a tiny waiting room with a receptionist sitting behind a very odd kind of shingled plexiglass. I told her I was there as media [a little white lie], and she handed me a slip with a password and told me to head upstairs. A positive beginning to the proceedings.
I went up one floor, the elevator door opened, and I almost jumped back inside. There were three cameramen with large video recorders from CityTV, CTV, and CBC, and another couple of photographers with large cameras. Realizing I wasn’t anyone special, they went back into waiting mode.
I sauntered around behind them and asked what the situation was. Neither the defendant or the complainant had made a showing yet, though I knew that Guy Earle wasn’t going to make it since he’d already told me as much in his email. So we waited for the complainant, lesbian Lorna Pardy, the heckler who is accusing Mr.Earle of being a homophobe and is seeking $20,000 in damages.
After some waiting, the elevators finally opened and Ms.Pardy stepped out with her lawyer. The cameras began rolling, and the photographers rushed forward with the whirring clicks of several photographs being snapped off per second. I had my camera on me, but I had already been beaten to the front of the line by the cameramen who were jostling like paparazzi, and besides, the last thing I wanted to do was whip out my four-year-old 4.0 megapixel Olympus in front of these $10,000 cameras.
The lawyer and the lesbian were stopped at the door by a password that is required to enter, at which time the newsmen finally asked if she were indeed Ms.Pardy. It was obvious that the stocky, butch, short-haired woman and the suit standing next to her were, indeed, the main event, but the woman denied being the complainant. Nobody bought it.
I followed her inside, and once inside the office there was another waiting room, followed by labyrinthine corridors and rooms. People were already waiting in the overflow, and I knew at once this was not good. I had definitely erred in strategy by hanging out in front with the cameramen.
I tried to get into the hearing room, wherever it was, but was told it was full. Equally disappointed was a CityTV reporter who asked me if I were a BCIT student, before shrugging and opening a book to read. I sat in the waiting room for a few minutes, as a Human Rights Tribunal employee explained that the room was full and that only those who had a “number” would be allowed in. How would one go about getting a number? He didn’t know. How appropriately Kafkaesque an answer.
The HRT employee got on the phone and spoke to somebody on the other end for a few moments, before announcing everyone was present and that the hearings had commenced. Would we be allowed to to hear what was going on inside? The employee smiled and shook his head with a somewhat sympathetic no.
With nothing more to do than wait eight hours in order to see if I could get in, with or without a number, I realized that as the only person there who probably wasn’t getting paid for it, that it was time to bail. If I wanted to sit in a waiting room for hours with nothing to do, I’d make an appointment with my doctor.
I honestly don’t know if I’ll be going back tomorrow for episode two of the gong show. I don’t know how early the people who actually got into the room had to arrive to get in, nor did I ever find out how one acquires one of these magical numbers. If you were thinking of heading down, here’s the information you’ll need:
Location: BC Human Rights Tribunal
1170 – 605 Robson Street
Vancouver, BC
Hearing Dates: March 29, 30, 31, April 1, 2010
Hearing Times: 9:30-4:30
UPDATE
Via Twitter, from a 24 hours reporter who actually got in:
“Guy Earle’s lawyer said homophobic remarks part of show – artistic expression – amounts to “heckler smackdown” not unlawful discrimination.” 11:22am
“Comedian Guy Earle’s, accused of discriminating against lesbian in act, lawyer walks out on human rights tribunal b/c it has no jurisdiction.” 11:19am
“Well this is different, a whole bunch of reporters are locked out of a human rights tribunal hearing b/c the TINY room is full.” 10:26am
UPDATED
Looks like I should have stuck around for that media scrum which took place outside the elevators in the above video. I could have gotten my unshaven mug on the evening news. So you can get oriented, the elevators are to the right where the CBC cameraman is, while the hallway behind the cameras just leads to a washroom. To the left where the glass is, is where the waiting room and the front desk for the HRT rooms are.
Maybe if the room can be made tiny enough, this whole thing will blow over and Mr. Earle can get on with his life.
This case is SO absurd.Lesbian Lorna Pardy,I assume that’s her legal name, had NO right to interrupt an entertainer’s act. If anything, she should be charged with disturbing the peace,in a real Court, as I believe that’s exactly what she did.
Good work,Adrian,all you can do is make the attempt. The HRC probably made damned sure it was as difficult as possible to get into their star chamber.
Thanks for taking your time to keep us informed about this national disgrace.
Thanks and I feel a little better after being told that almost no reporters could get in, so I was hardly the only one who felt like he came late to the Pardy [ouch, lame puns today].
Thanks for the clear picture Adrian. I am sure by day’s end someone or the other on BT will bring in more news on how high the kangaroos jumped or didn’t.
Miss Purdy is a little cranky it seems,she’s probably just not getting enough meat in her diet.
How did you Canadians allow this Stalinist institution to take root? Canada was the LAST place I thought would jettison free speech…
Just a small nitpick: those cameras the video cameramen (EFP/ENG) are carrying are worth between 40 and 60 thousand or so (depending on lens). Which is better than a few years ago when the camera system they used cost about 100 thousand.
At that, the photographers are likely to be carrying between 15 and 25 thousand dollars worth of equipment.
My old man’s greatest fear when he was working in EFP/ENG was that he was going to get jumped. Now that he’s retired, he’s a calmer man in a lot of ways.
Although it’s only really gone super PC in the past couple of years, apparently the CHRC and tribunals have been around since 1977 when Prime Minister Trudeau created the Canadian Human Rights Act.
No, it’s a fair nitpick. I had no idea how much the cameras cost, only that there was no way I was gonna pull mine out next to em.
Actually, she threw her drink at him. Twice.
I belive that would be disturbing the peace AND assault.
Why do our gutless political leaders allow this BS to continue?
They don’t like the cold light of day shining on their Roo hearings, good because the days of the various HRC persecuting people in wee little rooms with no media coverage are over. Doesn’t matter if he loses, the appeals court will shred the ruling as a violation of his Chartered Rights.
Stan the gutless politicians know they can use the various HRCs as an arm of the state to persecute political ideologies that run counter to their marxists/socialists’ agenda.
Rose,
What you say may be true, but he says this thing already costing him $20,000 while it costs the lesbian nothing. That’s got to be the most offensive part of it all.
Let’s face it, these lesbian hags need a guy to give them a good servicing to straighten them out.
I just want to say for the record that I don’t endorse or agree with your last comment, Rob. Then there’s also sort of a disturbing insinuation that lesbians require a raping to make them straight.
Anyway, this kind of comment is what got Guy Earle into trouble. He suggested one of them needed a stiff one in her mouth to shut her up.
So why are all you defending this guy again? A woman (not just a lesbian, but a woman), sits down, kisses her girlfriend and gets verbally abused for a good amount of time and so she defends herself, gets abused some more, and there is something wrong with her? Freedom of speech does not allow one to attack another with hateful and violent words, such as “”dykes, bitches and c—.”
These HRC Inquisitions have to be shut down and damages paid to victims. The likes of Warmen and other inquisitors should be thrown in jail. It has nothing to do with Human Rights or justice. It’s a fraud get even policy for everyone except white males and Christians. It’s bigotry personified.
“Then there’s also sort of a disturbing insinuation that lesbians require a raping to make them straight.”
There was no insinuation of the sort.
I attended the Mark Styne kangaroo court last year and reading this is almost identical to last time. No room, no one seems to know anything, or care for that matter.
There was no insinuation of the sort.
Yeah, that wasn’t meant to be attributed to Guy Earle. Shoddy English there.
I love the headline. Excellent write up!
So why are all you defending this guy again?
Your characterization of what happened sounds inherently biased.
But I don’t see where I’ve defended Guy Earle here. Or are you referring to someone else?