ARPA Action Item: Please send Mr. Blackett a thank-you note [email protected] for speaking up, and encourage him to make the necesary changes to the Alberta HRC (even getting rid of it) to correct this long-standing problem.

CBC.ca, April 8 2010: The minister responsible for the Alberta Human Rights Commission says a complaint about an anti-gay letter to a Red Deer newspaper should never have gone before the commission. “It’s not there to mediate hurt feelings caused by some words or not,” said Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett. “If it’s hateful, then that’s a hate crime. And that’s something for the Crown attorneys and the police services to investigate.” [Click here to keep reading]