Most readers at BDBO have never heard of Hugh Hewitt and would have no idea why he thinks our neighbours to the south shouldn’t visit Canada.

(Our neighbours to the south aren’t coming to Canada like they used to - with the Canadian dollar at par or near par, it’s no longer a cheap vacation get-a-way)

Hugh Hewitt is a radio show host on a religious network called Salem Media as well as a law professor. He is an executive director of Townhall.com. A 2005 The New Yorker article said, “If one were to confer the distinction of Most Famous Conservative Journalist Whom Liberals Have Never Heard Of, a leading candidate would be Hugh Hewitt: author (of six books, most of which get to the point so efficiently that he brings a new one out every eighteen months or so); columnist (for the online edition of The Weekly Standard and the evangelical magazine World); blogger; and syndicated radio talk-show host.”
He operates out of California and is best known in faith blog circles for his support and appearances at GodBlogCon.
He is known in the US for his work with The Republican Party.

Hewitt is upset about Human Rights Tribunal complaints filed against Mark Steyn and Macleans Magazine and tells readers at the conservative online site Townhall it may be time to stay away from Canada.

I don’t resort to boycotts often. In seven years on the radio, I have urged exactly one: Against Target, for throwing the Salvation Army from its doorways. I still maintain my refusal to enter Target, and hope you do as well.

Looks like Boycott #2 is on the horizon. I thought the Human Rights Commission complaint against columnist-to-the-world Mark Steyn was a joke, or a nuisance filing that would be rejected by the Canadian bureaucrats in a nanosecond.

Many HRCT don’t go past the investigative phase, I’m not going to argue his point. I do however question this:

If Canada can’t defend the free speech of its most talented native son, then it shouldn’t be getting even our devalued tourist dollars.

Mark Steyn can write, but to see him as Canada’s most talented native son is to demean many of Canada’s talented women and men. I’m tempted to write Mr. Hewitt and ask if he has ever been north, ask him who he reads, watches or knows in and from Canada besides his friend Mark Steyn.

So what is the beef?
Hewitt picked up on this Steyn piece in The National Review, another conservative US publication.
Steyn’s work is syndicated globally and he is a weekly guest on Hewitt’s radio show.
He has published two books.

BigCityLib has been following the complaint against Steyn and Macleans magazine, which has been filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress. They have launched complaints against Macleans Magazine and Mark Steyn for publishing exerpts of Steyn’s book, (The Future Belongs to Islam). The complaints have been filed before the federal, Ontario and British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal Commissions.
I suppose the CIC filings were made with the hope something had to stick. The CIC has tried in civil courts and lost. Their complaint doesn’t begin to cover criminal issues. While Commissions were set up in the 1960’s and 1970’s to address minority discrimination (ie: housing, employment, hate publications, etc) they have become political battlegrounds. They were never meant to be political bludgeons, or weapons of censorship.

This is also being fought in the court of public opinion.

The BC Commission has accepted the complaint as has the federal commission. The Ontario Commission hasn’t made a decision.

While this has been making news in the UK, the US and Canada, two Canadian camera people were detained by police last week. In both cases, the cameramen were driving to other locations when they saw police activity and began filming. In BC Channel M cameraman Ricky Tong was held for several hours while police demanded his tape of a shooting. The station protested his detention.
The second incident in Winnipeg is more disturbing. CBC cameraman Don Scott has been charged with obstructing police. If he was on public property I see two problems.
Police cannot prevent him from doing his job, nor can they hold his camera and tape.
But they did.
Having been threatened by police in the course of doing my job, I know there are law enforcement officials who push the limits and abuse their authority.
While most journalists are aware of safety issues, and are well aware they are not above the law, media have learned from experience there are cops who who are itching to cross that line.
There will always be some who are willfully aggressive towards media employees and citizens. And yes, journalists and camera people can push limits also. But let’s not forget, most media personnel doing their jobs receive a salary, are not paparazzi and do not behave like buffoons.
Who crossed the line in these two incidents?
I don’t know.
In the second case, facts will come out in court, in the first case the cameraman made a good decision in asking for a warrant. It trumps his deadline. via: The Filter

As for Steyn, Macleans, the CIC and the Human Rights Tribunals, that too will play out.

In an ideal world Canadian faith bloggers; Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, any and all who’d like a blogging conference would have enough money to invite Mr. Hewitt to Canada as a guest speaker and give him an opportunity to be heard.
I have often wondered since the first conservative evangelical GodBlogCon what he’d be able to say to us and what we’d have in common.
I don’t think it would be a boycott.

CIC Press Release
CIC: Macleans Magazine: A Case Study of Media-Propagated Islamophopia
Kenneth Whyte - Macleans editor responds
Mohamed ElMasry - President of the CIC - wiki

update: I emailed Mr. Hewitt and asked him 7 questions, covering his connections with Canada, the HRC’s, his reasoning for a tourist boycott, and what he’d say to the niche of Canadian faith bloggers.
My hope is Mr. Hewitt will see this as an opportunity to address a unique audience - with an added opportunity for anyone in (what he has coined) ‘New Media’ who wants to run with his responses to do so.