Rights Investigator Admits to Faking IDs

An investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission told an Ottawa public inquiry he used online aliases to track alleged hate messages, transcripts said.

The admission came as part of a complaint review against a Toronto-area man and Web site owner by an anti-racism campaigner in Ottawa, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

Richard Warman accused Marc Lemire of allowing individuals to post statements that promote hatred against identifiable groups on his Web site.

One of the witnesses was Dean Steacy, who said his role as a Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator led him to use fake e-mail addresses to communicate with neo-Nazi and other far-right Web site owners and users, the report said.

Lemire’s attorney suggested Steacy’s messages could have been used to entrap or entice others into posting incriminating messages, but Steacy said he was only trying to get names and addresses of those posting hateful messages, the report said.

No date was published for the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal’s findings on the hearing.