James Keegstra, Dedicated Christian, Free Speech Martyr and Free Thinker Dead at 80
James Keegstra will some day be recognized as a sincere, gentle man, whose politically incorrect views resulted in his being crushed by a media frenzy, a frightened citizenry and a judiciary sharpening the barbs of Canada’s speech repression laws. When, in 1990, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction under Canada’s notorious “hate law” (now Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code) by a narrow 5-4 margin, it became clear — and has with each passing year — that Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a fraud. Far from guaranteeing traditional rights Canadians had enjoyed under Anglo-Saxon Common Law — rights like freedom of speech, — the Keegstra case helped Canadians see that they had been granted certain privileges by their government which could quickly be snatched away by government, for a good reason, of course.
The year 1985, one year after George Orwell’s year of apocalyptic horror, brought Canada into the eerie age of thought-crimes trials. Three convictions that year – Ernst Zundel in February under the archaic “false news” law, later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, James Keegstra in July, and Don Andrews/Robert Smith in December, under the “hate law” – saw Canadians tried, convicted, and, in two trials (Zundel’s and Andrews/Smith) sentenced to prison for nothing more than the non-violent expression of their political their or religious views which is, incidentally, how Amnesty International describes a political prisoner – a fact that puts Canada in a somewhat embarrassing situation.
Born in 1934 in Vulcan, Alberta of Dutch immigrant parents who were dairy farmers, James Keegstra earned a university degree in education. He moved to Eckville, Alberta in 1968 and began teaching high school social studies. He was also a mechanic. Jim’s quiet demeanor and shyness, seen in many of the photos of his trial, won him a following. Both in his school and the larger community, James Keegstra was well liked. His easy going informality appealed to small town Albertans who soon elected him to the Eckville council and then elected him as mayor.
The Calgary Sun (June 13, 2014) reported that, after a 13 year successful teaching career, Mr. Keegstra ran afoul of his board of education: “Keegstra remained unmoved after being ordered to stop teaching Jewish conspiracy as a fact in social studies class and was canned from his teaching position in December, 1982. While some of his students felt betrayed by the Holocaust denier, most of his pupils rallied around Keegstra, who was then Eckville’s mayor.But that was only the beginning of a 12-year courtroom odyssey that would test the country’s limits of free speech.Soon after being dumped as Eckville’s mayor, Keegstra was charged in January 1984 with willfully promoting hatred. …
While Keegstra insisted he was defending free speech and the truth, prosecutors argued his poisoning of young, captive minds couldn’t be ignored. After a 70-day trial, the ex-teacher was convicted and fined $5,000 — a decision that was to be overturned by the Alberta Court of Appeal in 1988.
That same year, an arsonist using cans of gasoline tried to torch the ex-teacher’s Eckville home, a move he called “an act of terrorism” and an attempt to muzzle his views.
In December 1990, the country’s supreme court upended the lower court’s ruling by insisting the law was constitutional and the case was sent back to the court of appeal.
A retrial was ordered in April 1991 — a decision many in Keegstra’s hometown decried. ‘I think it’s a silly waste of money … Eckville has been taking lumps for this for the past eight years,’ said the town’s then-mayor Bill Scott. …
Said Keegstra: ‘There’s no freedom of speech in the world — we’re all under Zionist and communist control.’ In the summer of 1992, Keegstra was found guilty and handed a $3,000-fine but the defendant appealed by arguing the judged erred in responding to jurors’ questions. But the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the second conviction and again sent the case back to the Alberta Court of Appeal for sentencing.
By now, Keegstra made his living in Eckville as an auto mechanic —a man his lawyer said had been punished enough, impoverished and vilified by the media. In 1996, he was given a one-year suspended sentence and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service — preferably for victims of discrimination.”
In opening his final summation in James Keegstra’s first trail, July 11, 1985, his lawyer Douglas H. Christie, the Battling Barrister, said: “Mr. JamesKeegstra is a man of 51 years of age. His life’s work and chosen vocation for 21 years was teaching. He is the man who served as Mayor of his town for several years. He was described by all but Robert David as a sincere and honest man. He served what he believed to be God, Queen and country. He was fired from his job. He has lost his career, lost his right to practice his vocation. He has been destroyed as Mayor. He has seen his reputation destroyed, and so has his family. He has suffered all this as a sincere and honest Christian.”
What was James Keegstra’s sin? In their headlines, like the Globe and Mail’s (June 14, 2014) “Holocaust denier who waged lengthy battle dies at 80”, the media flagged him as a “heretic.” The new secular religion of the West is the “holocaust.” To challenge or question it in any way is heresy and heretics must be punished with total destruction. “Holocaust denier” is a vague term that simply connotes evil or heretic. Virtually no one denies that Jews were killed in World War II. However, the term suggests the person so labelled does adopt this absurd view.
Most people accused of “holocaust denial” see the Hollywood version of WW II as a vast exaggeration and, worse, unlike most accounts of history, one that is used today to extract huge sums of money from Germany nearly 70 years after the war and to influence public policy. For instance, in 1999 when six rusting shiploads of Chinese illegals slithered into British Columbia waters, Canada’s Jewish Minister of Immigration Elinor Caplan said she was not going to be a gatekeeper and invoked the holocaust. Thus, if you want to keep out queue-jumpers and gate crashers, you’re a Nazi and want another “holocaust.”
The “holocaust” story is Jewish tribal history. It is, like all tribal histories, self-centred and self-focused. However, under huge pressure, the political elite in the West has adopted it as their own religion. Religion is, essentially, a matter of faith. Those who point to contradictions in the tenets of the “holocaust faith” — for instance, the claim that it was the greatest crime in history, in a century that saw the deliberate extermination of 8-10-million Ukrainian farmers in Stalin’s efforts to break the resistance to collectivization — are branded as “holocaust deniers” or heretics. Debate over. Fire him. Make it impossible for him to earn a living. Off to prison with him.
James Keegstra was a deeply religious man and a stubborn Dutchman. These were both his salvation and his curse. Mr. Keegstra firmly believed that there had been various conspiracies, including ones heavily influenced by Jews, that explained much of the history of the past 300 years. As a committed Christian, he felt obliged to convey these truths to his students. He did not compel them to accept his views but sought to challenge them. After some parental complaints, the school board told him to stick to the curriculum. His faith and determined nature led him to continue offering these alternative ideas to his students.
Much is made of Mr. Keegstra’s unusual curriculum. As a former teacher, eventually fired due to Jewish lobby pressure, not for my classroom behaviour but for my political views espoused on my own time outside school property, I knew of many teachers who injected a strident leftist political agenda into their English or history classes. One Catholic high school teacher. in the early 1980s, insisted that his senior religion class attend and participate in leftist “peace demonstrations.” Some English teachers I knew indoctrinated their students with White guilt and strident “anti-racism.” [What this political agenda had to do with teaching grammar, writing skills and English literature, who knows, and the authorities didn’t care.]
Once the complaints against James Keegstra went public, the media, egged on by self-interested minorities, went into a frenzy. The small town of Eckville didn’t know what hit them. Few journalists adopted a balanced perspective. Like pirhanas in a feeding frenzy, they smelled blood in the water and razor-teeth flashing raced in for the kill.
James Keegstra’s lawyer, Doug Christie, described the process that would be visited upon many of other politically incorrect dissidents — Ernst Zundel, Malcolm Ross, Terry Tremaine, to name just a few: Demonize, isolate, criminalize. First there is an orchestrated media campaign of denunciation. The victim is isolated. Friends go silent. Would-be supporters note the treatment meted out to the heretic and decide to draw back. They don’t want the same fate for themselves — friends of the heretic are as bad as the heretic himself. Now with the victim thoroughly isolated and virtually friendless, it is safe for the state to move in for the kill with criminal charges.
The people of Eckville who had liked and supported James Keegstra were appalled at the publicity and apparent vilification of their town. They began to draw back. James Keegstra retained a small but loyal following of supporters, many of them Social Crediters. Many of his former students and townspeople stood by him. But others sought a way for this whole thing to go away.
Even if one agrees that a school board could fire James Keegstra for not sticking to its curriculum, what happened next resembled a witch trial. It was not enough that Mr. Keegstra was fired, a vindictive province took away his teaching certificate, and, therefore, his ability to support his family as a teacher. Frightened townspeople voted him out as mayor.
But that was still not enough for the politically correct. A heretic must not just be exiled; he must be destroyed. As burning at the stake had gone out of fashion, a political trial under Canada’s “hate law” seemed the next best thing. By now, Mr. Keegstra was being subjected to triple jeopardy.
An amazing incident recounted by Doug Christie illustrates this point. After the guilty verdict in James Keegstra’s first trial was announced, the foreman of the jury approached Doug Christie and gave him a substantial cheque: “I want to be the first to contribute to Jim’s appeal,” he said.
Doug Christie was flabbergasted. “Why? Why?” he asked. “You had the power to acquit him.”
The foreman replied: “We liked Mr. Keegstra, but all the publicity. You know what it’s doing to this town.” So, convenience led otherwise good people to toss James Keegstra, a man they liked, under the bus.
I heard much the same thing from my district union leader during Peel Board of Education hearings into my firing. He told me: “Mr. Christie, your lawyer is brilliant. His speeches on freedom of speech are powerful and eloquent, but you’re going to lose.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” he answered,” the day after they fire you, the phone calls stop.” In other words, it was not a matter of high principle but merely convenience. If the censors and thought control fanatics can raise enough noise about the heretic, convenience will dictate the sacrifice of the heretic to shut them up.
The long trials reduced James Keegstra to penury. He eked out a modest living as a mechanic and later as a custodian. He died June 2, 2014.
The Calgary Sun (June 14, 2014) reported Mr. Keegstra saying on the eve of his first trial: ““I don’t want to be a martyr, I just want justice,” Keegstra told reporters in February of that year as his case began. “He did not get his wish: He was a martyr to political correctness and he never received justice.”
James Keegstra, as even his tormenters acknowledged, remained unbroken — again his strong Christian faith and Dutch stubbornness. As the great French chanteuse Edith Piaf sang: “Je ne regretted rien.” So too, James Keegstra: “It’s been a long fight and I think it’s been worth it,” he said.
What sustained him? As one who knew James Keegstra on and off for 30 years, I can say that it was the loyal love of his lovely wife Lorraine who stood by Jim through all the abuse and punishment and his abiding faith in God. And, yes, that old quiet Dutch stubbornness and resolve.
My fervent hope is next time bossy boots Canada lectures Russia about outlawing homosexual propaganda and proclaims our attachment to freedom of speech, that President Putin scoffs and whispers in Harper’s ear: “What about James Keegstra? Free speech, ha!” — Paul Fromm
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For a copy of Doug Christie’s brilliant summation at the first Keegstra trial, read Thought Crimes: The Keegstra Case(available from C-G\FAR Books, P.O. Box 332, Rexdale, ON., M9W 5L3, for $5.00 posdtpaid.)
Terry Long’s Appreciation of the Life of James Keegstra
Canadian patriot and school teacher Jim Keegsta was prosecuted in 1983 under Canada’s then existing Hate statute for claiming the so-called “Holocaust” was “exaggerated”. He subsequently became the first nationally vilified martyr for Canadian freedom of speech in Canada. That claim was subsequently substantiated when the world Jewish Congress in conjunction with the Auschwitz State Museum in Poland lowered the number of gassing victims at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1 million in 1990. So for any apologist who says the numbers don’t matter, it did to patriot Jim Keegstra who lost his job as a teacher and mayor of the town he lived in and was continuously vilified and slandered by the national media ever since. As a result, he was defunctionalized socially, politically and economically. Like heretics in the middle ages who denied that the earth was the center of the universe, you don’t deny the state religion of the west and get away with it. The only difference between then and now is that they’ve found a more civilized way of burning people at the stake.
There were other Canadian martyrs before Jim, people like my good friend and mentor John Ross Taylor from Toronto who spent a year in jail in the late 1970s for a telephone message talking about the Jews and their machinations, but Jim Keegstra was the first to really go national in a big way. I guess THEY figured at the time that Canadians had been dumbed down enough that it didn’t really matter what kind of outrage was perpetrated against traditional freedoms, notwithstanding that those freedoms went all the way back to the Magna Carta, and they were right. In fact the Keegstra case was the first one to my knowledge where a Canadian judge in his final address to the jury stated, “The truth is not an issue in this case”. If the truth is not an issue in a court of Law, then what the hell is? I still haven’t figured that one out and obviously Jim Keegstra hadn’t either.
The RCMP even stationed armed snipers on the roof of the Red Deer, Alberta, court house when Jim was being tried. Canada it seems must be protected against heretics at all cost.
Jim Keegstra was a friend and patriot who went out like a man. He will be sadly missed.
Terry Long
![Photo: Huge Victory for Free Speech in Topham Case: Judge Refuses Crown's Demand that Bail Require Shutdown of Radicalpress.com
It is a sign of how degraded a country we have become that we must hail the fact that a British Columbia Criminal Court judge refused demands by the Crown to impose as a bail condition in new "hate law" charges against publisher and blogger Arthur Topham that he remove ALL content from his website Radicalpress.com and that he not post on ANY website.
In other words, before any trial as to whether the contents of a small portion of Radicalpress.com constituted "wilful promotion of hate" under Canada's notorious "hate law", Mr. Topham was to be gagged.
The case for new bail conditions was argued in Quesnel, British Columbia on April 9.
•Crown Counsel Jennifer Johnston acted as if it had already been established that some of the contents on Radicalpress.com, including a satire of the book Germany Must Perish, was "hate" and that some of Mr. Topham's recent writings are also "hate". Her say so was enough to make it so, in her submissions. She said: "There is strong evidence that Mr. Topham continues to promote hatred of people of Jewish origin, in such articles as Salute to Zionism, on his website. The Crown is asking for bail to prevent Mr. Topham from continuing to publish 'hate' and compound the same offence while on bail. " Then, with totally muddled reasoning, she continued: "The mere possibility that Mr. Topham might be successful with one of the defences is not enough to continue to publish 'hate.'" But, clearly, if the defence were successful, the publications would not be hate. Even she admitted that only a small portion of Radicalpress.com dealt with Jews or Zionism. "There's other stuff going on there, yes."
As a precedent, she cited the judgment in the "hate law" case against Bill Noble, who was self represented. He was sentenced to six months in jail for Internet postings and a three year gag preventing him from posting on the Internet or owning a computer or any device like a smart phone capable to accessing the Internet. This pretty piece of Stalinism was imposed, not in North Korea or Cuba, but in Canada.
Mr. Topham, although self represented, marched into court with a masterful submission which had been prepared for him and a three-inch thick Book of Authorities.
Mr. Topham's Memorandum argued that penalties were being imposed before an finding of fault. "Even if the order sought was capable of suppressing hate propaganda, it would not be justifiable in this case as it would not minimally impair the Respondent's Charter rights. The conditions sought by the Crown would not merely prohibit the Respondent from publishing hateful material, but would, in fact, prevent him from publishing any material."
A comment Judge Morgan made offered a clue to his decision: "Where the dividing line is between free speech and the limits on speech in society is the crux of this case."
Here are the key paragraphs of the decision refusing to impose a gag order bail condition on the beleaguered Quesnel publisher.
Decision:
[32] Considerations of bail in section 319(2) prosecutions (willfully promoting hatred) are somewhat different from the usual criminal prosecutions. This is because the central issue at trial will not be what occurred , but will be what effect resulted. The publicly communicated statements will have to be established by the Crown to promote ‘hatred’ as the word is defined in Canadian jurisprudence.
[33] The primary remedy sought by the Crown if successful at trial will be to prevent Mr. Topham (and thereby perhaps others) from posting hate promoted material. The Crown is, in effect, seeking the same remedy pre-trial through a cease and desist bail order. To be successful the court would have to be satisfied that on the test of a balance of probabilities all aspects of Crown’s case will be made out, including that the effect of the communications of concern will meet the threshold of promoting hatred. In effect, the court is being asked to decide the case on the balance of probability standard.
[34] On the other hand, it is an initially forceful consideration when dealing with material that is clearly repugnant and offensive, to ask what harm would result by simply shutting it down until the matter can be decided at trial. One can easily imagine situations where the material is so repugnant and offensive that even solely from the judge’s perspective and without direct evidence of harm, the likely risk of harm will be evident and outweigh a temporary curtailment of Charter rights.
[35] However, court ordered prior restraint on a person’s s. 2(b) Charter right to freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, has the risk of being overbroad and should be granted only in clear cases.
[36] In the case before me, the material of concern is primarily material written by others and allegedly posted by Mr. Topham on his website. The one document I was referred to that involved a minor amount of originality is entitled ‘Israel Must Perish’ and is based on a document written many years ago by someone else entitled ‘Germany Must Perish’. In ‘Israel Must Perish’ the accused is alleged to have replaced all references to ‘Germany’ with ‘Israel’ and all references to ‘Germans’ with ‘Jews’. Mr. Topham has published both versions on his website. Mr. Topham says – and is not contradicted by the Crown – that all of the material of concern is available on other internet sites not controlled by him, including notable sites such as Amazon.com and Archive.org.
[37] There is some evidence that Mr. Topham uses his website to publish other materials that are not alleged to foster hate, and to use it for other reasons, such as providing a voice to other fringe persons or groups. As of late, he has been using his website in an attempt to raise money to pay for a lawyer to defend him against the present charges.
[38] Although I give Crown credit for being open to finding ways to minimally impair Mr. Topham’s rights while at the same time addressing the concern of the publication of the offensive material, I find that in this case, ordering Mr. Topham to shut down his website may well be an over broad prior restraint and that, based on the evidence before me, the effect on reducing any harm caused may well be minimal given the material is primarily not original and is available from other internet sources.
[39] I agree with Ms. Johnston that ordering Mr. Topham to remove from his website any reference to people of Jewish religion or ethnic origin would be like having him pick out pepper. What I foresee from this is any effort to carve a fine balance would very possibly lead to breach related charges arising from confusion and misinterpretation.
[40] The Crown’s goal of stopping Mr. Topham from putting on his website offensive material will of course depend on whether Crown is successful at trial in establishing the offensive material has the effect of promoting hate. If the Crown proves its case, the sentencing judge will be in a much informed position in determining the appropriate breadth of restraint orders and other sanctions.
[41] Although I decline to order as a condition of bail that Mr. Topham stop operating his entire website or to order that he cease and desist from posting any materials referencing people of the Jewish religion or ethnic origin, I am satisfied that his Undertaking should be amended to include a condition that he not post on any internet site or otherwise publish the names of the two civilian complainants already referred to in condition 2. of his present Undertaking, and that he immediately remove their names from any internet site he has direct or indirect control of . I find that there may be a risk of harm or intimidation in posting the names of these civilian complainants.
R.D. Morgan
Provincial Court Judge
This final condition is odd and one which Mr. Topham may appeal. Under his original bail conditions, he is already not allowed to contact or communicate (except through his lawyer) with the two chronic complainants. Thus, he is not to publish the names of Richard Warman or Harry Abrams on Radicalpress.com or "any internet site he has direct or indirect control of . I find that there may be a risk of harm or intimidation in posting the names of these civilian complainants."
Both these men are long-time antagonists of Mr. Topham. They are players and have repeatedly sought to silence people with whom they disagree or who, in their view, have hateful ideas. Why shouldn't they be named? Allowing for semi secret complaints would seem to undermine the openness of our legal system. Abrams was the original complainant in the case against Radicalpress.com in 2007 under the now repealed Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. When the case was adjourned sine die in 2009 and it appeared that the section was about to be repealed by Parliament, Abrams was joined by Warman in 2011 in making complaints to the B.C. "Hate" Squad under Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code.
No evidence was submitted to the Court of any "harm or intimidation" that had been done to the complainants as a result of their names being mentioned on Radicalpress.com over the seven year life of the efforts to gag the anti-Zionist dissident.
Mr. Topham notes: " I've had to file another application to question the new condition that says I can't have either Warman's or Abrams' name on my website. That would eliminate all the legal documents with their names on them. Rather weird. I can see removing the names from my own articles, commentary, etc. but not court documents."
Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION](https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/p480x480/10177507_295039177328996_5698668603404241241_n.jpg)