Canadian Hate Laws on Trial

[Elok]

Suppose I'm a very dignified person who's also very vulnerable to ridicule, such as a dog-show judge. Am I eligible for a state-sponsored bodyguard under Canadian law, to inspect everything I read for potential assault on my ego? Or should I be simply designated an endangered species?

[Asher]

Suppose I'm a very dignified person who's also very vulnerable to ridicule, such as a dog-show judge. Am I eligible for a state-sponsored bodyguard under Canadian law, to inspect everything I read for potential assault on my ego? Or should I be simply designated an endangered species?

The law is quite clearly not aimed at disparaging an individual. It makes things like proselytizing the killing of Jews, Muslims, Gays, etc illegal.

While you may see nothing wrong with that, most other countries in the world have decided those kinds of positions have no place in our society in the form of public speech, documents, and broadcast. And don't even think about whipping out the slippery slope fallacy. This has been the case for many decades already, this is not new.

[Elok]

Eh. It's still moronic. Try arresting him if he actually does something--or genuinely recruits and organizes people--instead of blithering like a bus lunatic.

[EPW]

14(1) No person shall publish or display, or cause or permit to be published or displayed, on any lands or premises or in a newspaper, through a television or radio broadcasting station or any other broadcasting device, or in any printed matter or publication or by means of any other medium that the person owns, controls, distributes or sells, any representation, including any notice, sign, symbol, emblem, article, statement or other representation:

The law is quite clearly not aimed at disparaging an individual.

Except it says "no person shall..." ???? What a crappy law.

[Asher]

I'm clearly referring to the target of the persecution. Before Americans keep obsessing over freedom of speech, perhaps they should grasp comprehension.

[Egbert]

Do you understand that people often feel the urge to harm pedophiles who prey on children...?

edit: Okay, think of it this way: if a mentally unstable person is incited to murder a homosexual, a life insurance company might lose some of its profits.

But a funeral company would make profit sooner. I think a calculus of the profits and the losses to the various companies is needed.

[Asher]

Eh. It's still moronic. Try arresting him if he actually does something--or genuinely recruits and organizes people--instead of blithering like a bus lunatic.

Again, you either don't know what is going on or you're being disingenuous.

He was fined for this behaviour. You act as if he was imprisoned and charged as a criminal for this. He wasn't. AFAIK he wasn't even ever charged for this under the criminal code, he only faced the tribunal.

He's only been arrested & jailed for his anti-abortion nonsense by violating the mandated perimeter around the clinics -- and that has happened in both the US and Canada for him, with the same laws applied.

[Egbert]

I'm clearly referring to the target of the persecution. Before Americans keep obsessing over freedom of speech, perhaps they should grasp comprehension.

I agree with uncomprehending Yanks.

Who decides the acceptable limits on "freedom of speech"? Every special interest group, crank and do-gooder would love to stick their oar in.

[Asher]

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/11/rights-tribunal-gets-it-right

Rights tribunal gets it right


On fliers and pamphlets he distributed in some towns and cities in Saskatchewan nearly a decade ago, Bill Whatcott warned that “homosexuals want to share their filth and propaganda” with that province’s children.

His pamphlets said “children will pay the price in disease, death, abuse — if we do not say no to the sodomite desire to socialize your children into accepting something that is clearly wrong.”

Some gay men in that province, rightfully horrified by Whatcott’s hateful, noxious screed, filed complaints with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.

The commission upheld the complaints and awarded damages totalling $17,500 to the complainants and ordered Whatcott to pay them.

Whatcott appealed the decision of the tribunal to Saskatchewan’s Court of the Queen’s Bench, but that court upheld the tribunal’s decision. Whatcott appealed again, this time to the highest court in that province, the Court of Appeal. This time, Whatcott won and the appeal court overturned the decisions of the lower court and the tribunal.

So the human rights commission appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and, beginning Wednesday, the court will begin hearing arguments in this case.

It is, as Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Commissioner David Arnot said Tuesday in Ottawa, “a very, very important case” where the court will be invited to reaffirm or change some of the ground rules for freedom of expression in Canada.

As Arnot said, “Whatcott’s words and behaviour have crossed the line between critical speech and hateful speech, the type of extreme speech that has the potential to cause harm to others — and actively promotes discrimination.”

The case has drawn what is believed to be the largest number of intervenors for a Supreme Court hearing. In other words, all sorts of different advocates, from civil liberties groups to gay rights organizations, want to make sure the court hears their view.

Courts in Canada have already agreed that statements like “Jews are liars, cheats, criminals, and thugs” or “Aboriginals are primitive savages who have more value as fertilizer than human beings” are examples of hateful speech that rightfully deserve sanction by human rights tribunals or the courts.

In publicly attacking all homosexuals as predatory pedophiles, Whatcott is deserving of the same sanctions.

If it finds against Whatcott and overturns the decision of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada would not necessarily be making any new law or introducing new restrictions on freedom of speech.

It would not, as some fear, including me, that it is “clamping down” on free speech.

Quite the opposite: It would be upholding a narrow and precise definition of and tests for hateful speech set out two decades ago in what is known as the Taylor case.

But this Whatcott case also reminds us that, from time to time, the country’s federal and provincial human rights tribunals adhere to a troubling double standard, namely that they can be quick — some would say over-zealous — in pursuing alleged cases of discrimination against a minority group, but fail to act on cases where members of majority groups, such as Christians, for example, allege discrimination.

But if we seek to encourage human rights tribunals to adhere to a single standard for all Canadians, then we must also support them when, as in the Whatcott case before the Supreme Court, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission is doing the right thing.

[Asher]

I agree with uncomprehending Yanks.

Who decides the acceptable limits on "freedom of speech"? Every special interest group, crank and do-gooder would love to stick their oar in.

I'm not sure what you guys don't comprehend.

It's been like this for decades. This is not new. There is no slippery slope. It's been defined (and even narrowed over the years to be even more specific, not the opposite).

It's a very simple definition with a very specific case. This isn't about censorship any more than slander is about censorship. In both cases "freedom of speech" causes damage to individuals and/or society, and in both cases Canada (and most modern countries) have laws against this.

The US doesn't have laws against this in particular, but the US also murders its own citizens along with the likes of China, Iran, and North Korea. They are not to be used as an example.

Every country on this planet has limits on free speech. Time to realize that.

[EPW]

It's only a matter of time before you get a panel that has a wider interpretation of the law than you do.

And really, what's the point of the law other than: 1. Bringing public attention to the nutjob groups 2. creating indignation in the nutjob groups (who will now be able to claim they are being persecuted?)

[Asher]

It's only a matter of time before you get a panel that has a wider interpretation of the law than you do.

Which is precisely why there is a facility all the way up to the Supreme Court for appeals.

[Asher]

And really, what's the point of the law other than: 1. Bringing public attention to the nutjob groups 2. creating indignation in the nutjob groups (who will now be able to claim they are being persecuted?)

What is the point in any law?
What is the point of that post...?

If the law is inconsequential why does anyone care?

[Egbert]

Who gets to decide? Who weighs the costs and benefits to society? I would like that weighting very strongly in favour of letting idiots shoot their mouths off in public. The alternative is a very grave danger that the powerful, and/or special interest groups, place restrictions to serve their own interests.

Besides, libel laws that are too onerous can harm society. Wouldn't dare point out somebody was dumping toxic waste if it means you get sued and taken to the cleaners?

[Asher]

Who gets to decide? Who weighs the costs and benefits to society?

The laws are created by parliament, which is elected by the people. The laws can be changed by the parliament, at the will of the people.

The tribunals and courts just follow the law.

Again, this bull**** argument applies to every country. Every country has limits on free speech. Every single one.