 Bill to end �hate speech' portion of human rights law gets mixed reviews but Senate approvalLaw & Order | 207653 hits | Jun 28 1:38 pm | Posted by: DrCaleb  A contentious section of Canadian human rights law, long criticized by free-speech advocates as overly restrictive and tantamount to censorship, is gone for good.
A private member�s bill repealing Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the so-calCommentsview comments in forum You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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Oh the first nations people are going to love this. That's about half of their petty lawsuits out the window.
Typical rhetoric..
That person is Ottawa-based human rights lawyer Richard Warman, who has brought 16 successful Section 13 complaints before the human rights tribunal against neo-Nazis and white supremacists since 2001.
On Thursday, Warman said Section 13 had helped sideline neo-Nazis from the Internet because of its power to obtain cease-and-desist orders from Canada�s human rights tribunal and enforce them through the courts.
�Virtually every other Western democracy has these kinds of civil law controls on hate speech,� Warman said. �Now, Canada just moves one large step further out of line from realizing that these kinds of controls are necessary and imperative.�
with no basis in reality.
Good stuff. Now if we could get he hate speech statute out of the Criminal Code we'd really be on to something.
Really? To which sections are you referring and why would you get rid of them?
Zwibel said Section 13 had �some serious problems from a freedom of expression perspective.�
�We don�t want there to be a chill on speech that is controversial but not necessarily hateful,� she said. �We felt that given the impact that it has on freedom of expression, and given that it hasn�t really proven to be a very effective method for dealing with discrimination, that it shouldn�t be on the books anymore . . . We really encourage countering hateful speech, rather than trying to censor it.�
Zwibel, at the CCLA, also said there�s not a lot of good evidence that marginalized groups have used the statute to curb discrimination.
Sounds good to me.
Good stuff. Now if we could get he hate speech statute out of the Criminal Code we'd really be on to something.
Really? To which sections are you referring and why would you get rid of them?
Section 319 specifically, but also 318 and 320. I would get rid of them because I'd prefer people who are hateful to be free to identify themselves as such so I can ridicule their small-mindedness openly. I think it's a benefit to society for the crazies to have as much rope as they want to hang themselves in the court of public opinion.
Section 319 specifically, but also 318 and 320. I would get rid of them because I'd prefer people who are hateful to be free to identify themselves as such so I can ridicule their small-mindedness openly. I think it's a benefit to society for the crazies to have as much rope as they want to hang themselves in the court of public opinion.
I think you're underestimating the severity to which these sections apply. These aren't meant to prosecute people who believe (and promote) that Islam is a violent religion; I agree that those beliefs are protected speech. However, the purpose of these sections is to eliminate foreseeable violent consequences, or those that could reasonably lead to it. That's certainly S. 318. It envisioned a hypothetical case where somebody here is communicating that all good Hutus have to stomp cockroaches in their homes. I don't believe calling for the mass death of an identifiable group falls within the parameters of free speech; it certainly doesn't add to the public discourse.
S. 319 is a lesser offence that criminalizes a "reasonable-to-occur" breach of the peace resulting from an incitement of hatred. It's the "I hate X and you should too" law. The seminal cases flowing from S. 319, R v. Keegstra and R v. Krymowski both show that the offence resulted from trying to get others to agree with the hatred. Keegstra tested his students on anti-Semitic statements and the neo-Nazis held a demonstration in front of a hotel holding Roma refugees calling for their expulsion simply because they were Roma.
I don't disagree with either of those two laws. There are sufficient protections imbedded in the statutes to prevent frivolous prosecutions. Where I think we would agree is that the "breach of the peace" part appears to be interpreted as more a theoretical consequence rather than a real one and I don't think that is right. I think that part needs to be more strictly enforced. If not, change the law.
I've read S. 320 and it appears to be an extension of S. 319; permanent communications of hatred shouldn't survive. I don't necessarily disagree with the statute, but I simply don't know of any cases where the law has been applied to see it in action. I have no comment beyond that.
Ultimately, the protections afforded in S. 318 and S. 319 are beneficial and have been adequately adjudicated by the courts such that they achieve their goals. I don't think they should be conflated with the idiocy that appears in Human Rights Commission charters across Canada. THOSE should be abolished as they are easily abused to allow groups to cause government censorship of ideas with which they disagree. That is an affront to free speech.
Section 319 specifically, but also 318 and 320. I would get rid of them because I'd prefer people who are hateful to be free to identify themselves as such so I can ridicule their small-mindedness openly. I think it's a benefit to society for the crazies to have as much rope as they want to hang themselves in the court of public opinion.
I think you're underestimating the severity to which these sections apply. These aren't meant to prosecute people who believe (and promote) that Islam is a violent religion; I agree that those beliefs are protected speech. However, the purpose of these sections is to eliminate foreseeable violent consequences, or those that could reasonably lead to it. That's certainly S. 318. It envisioned a hypothetical case where somebody here is communicating that all good Hutus have to stomp cockroaches in their homes. I don't believe calling for the mass death of an identifiable group falls within the parameters of free speech; it certainly doesn't add to the public discourse.
S. 319 is a lesser offence that criminalizes a "reasonable-to-occur" breach of the peace resulting from an incitement of hatred. It's the "I hate X and you should too" law. The seminal cases flowing from S. 319, R v. Keegstra and R v. Krymowski both show that the offence resulted from trying to get others to agree with the hatred. Keegstra tested his students on anti-Semitic statements and the neo-Nazis held a demonstration in front of a hotel holding Roma refugees calling for their expulsion simply because they were Roma.
I don't disagree with either of those two laws. There are sufficient protections imbedded in the statutes to prevent frivolous prosecutions. Where I think we would agree is that the "breach of the peace" part appears to be interpreted as more a theoretical consequence rather than a real one and I don't think that is right. I think that part needs to be more strictly enforced. If not, change the law.
I've read S. 320 and it appears to be an extension of S. 319; permanent communications of hatred shouldn't survive. I don't necessarily disagree with the statute, but I simply don't know of any cases where the law has been applied to see it in action. I have no comment beyond that.
Ultimately, the protections afforded in S. 318 and S. 319 are beneficial and have been adequately adjudicated by the courts such that they achieve their goals. I don't think they should be conflated with the idiocy that appears in Human Rights Commission charters across Canada. THOSE should be abolished as they are easily abused to allow groups to cause government censorship of ideas with which they disagree. That is an affront to free speech.
I'm not underestimating the severity, you're overestimating. The hate speech laws carry a maximum penalty of 2 years. They are not serious crimes. We already have offenses in the criminal code relating to the uttering of threats, abetting and conspiracy to commit other offenses. The hate speech laws themselves are politically correct redundancies at best. As for Keegstra, it would have been better to simply deal with his actions under the Education Act. Ultimately, the only reason he was convicted was that he had a captive audience of students in his classroom, not for what he said per se.
Will Cracker, Trailor Trash, Honkey,and White Devil be considered hate speach now?
Of course not. Hating white people is perfectly legal.
Will Cracker, Trailor Trash, Honkey,and White Devil be considered hate speach now?
Of course not. Hating white people is perfectly legal.
And encouraged.
Great example today is how I saw advertising for an Indian institute of applied technology with the giant disclaimer. "Must be of Metis decent".
If any university ever tried that stunt...
I'm not underestimating the severity, you're overestimating. The hate speech laws carry a maximum penalty of 2 years.
S. 319 carries a two year max, S. 318 is 5. However, prosecutions under S. 319 are far more severe in their relation to S. 2 of the Charter, rather than something like B&E, which carries a lifetime imprisonment maximum (which will happen in a pig's eye).
Uttering threats doesn't apply to the situations envisioned in S. 319. Uttering threats carries everything from "I will knock your fucking teeth out" to "Nice shop here, crying shame if something were to happen to it..." It doesn't carry the "I hate X and you should too" connotation.
Abetting is cheering on a crime, conspiracy is an agreement to commit a crime, neither of which applies here.
As the SCC wrote in Keegstra:
That is a horrible analysis of Keegstra. He was convicted because of the content of his messages.
That it was to captive students was an aggravating factor.
So, S. 319 isn't redundant as there isn't another section of the Criminal Code which seeks to supress hate propaganda specifically.
To be fair, the arguments made in the dissenting opinion in Keegstra would be to your liking and shouldn't easily be dismissed. They're worth reading.