Canadian Hate-Speech Law Violates Charter of Rights 651
MrKevvy writes "The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has found that federal hate-speech legislation violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equivalent of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights. This decision exonerates Marc Lemire, webmaster of FreedomSite.org, but may have farther-reaching consequences and serve as precedent for future complaints of hate-speech."
"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:2, Interesting)
And if you don't like it, move back where your grandfather came from!
We shall do just FINE here, in the company of Voltaire and Jefferson.
Re:What is hate-speech? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a very slippery slope when defining what is hate-speech, and what is just parlance/slang. Even though my above statements could be construed as ignorant or hurtful, they can only be classified as hate-speech if they are delivered with the intent to hurt.
What the fuck is so harmful about speech delivered with the "intent to hurt"? Are people really so thin-skinned that they need protection from being called bad names? Please tell me that I'm not the only one that's sick of this politically correct nonsense.
Call me all the bad names you want. If you want to go the racial route you can call me a kike, kraut, polack, limey or mutt (probably your best bet). If you want to go the non-racial route you can call me fatty, geek, pimple-head, etc. None of those things are going to make me run crying to the police for protection from you.
Re:Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:3, Interesting)
What if I said women shouldn't be infantry because they are weak and can't handle it?
As a sidenote, I don't believe either of the above statements, I am just trying to prove a point.
Re:The tide is turning against lefties (Score:3, Interesting)
Trudeau was incredibly popular with a large section of the Canadian population in the East and in Central Canada for his policies and his attitude. He's pretty much only reviled in Western Canada- and there was more than enough assholeish behavior on both sides of that relationship to go around. "Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark", remember?
Re:Hate speech serves no purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
Oh really? During the 1790s several Americans who criticized the John Adam's presidency were called a "hate speakers". Well they didn't have that term then, preferring to call it "seditious speech", but it was the equivalent - they labeled those criticisms as having no purpose and therefore people were jailed for exercising their opinions, including Benjamin's Franklin's grandson.
If you give government power to stop hate speech (or seditious speech), then you give government the power to stop ANY speech that they don't like - such as saying Bush's War is bogus (hello jail) or Obama's Healthcare is monopoly (hello jail again). The Democratic Party was born when Jefferson and others decided to take power and reverse the Sedition Act.
I find it ironic that the same party is now trying to restore the Sedition Act - a different name but still the same effect.
Some characteristics of the Human Rights Tribunal (Score:3, Interesting)
- A single judge presides and decides. There is no jury and no multiple opinion.
- There are no rules of evidence. Anything can be presented.
- There is no right for the accused to confront or question the accuser.
- The person charged must prove their innocence. There is no "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" principle in effect. If the person charged does not show, he loses.
- All legal costs of the accuser are paid by the commission whether he wins or loses. All legal costs of the accused are paid by himself, whether he wins or loses.
- If the accused loses, the potentially life-destroying fine is given directly to the accuser.
All in all, a sick and twisted example of Kafkaesque evil.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:5, Interesting)
Humanity is divided on this issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Advocates call the law a necessary control on hate speech in an age where the Internet makes the spread of messages easier and faster. Opponents say it's censorship and has no place in a free society.
Not only are we divided on whether it should be legal, we are divided on what it should be.
Is it hate speech to call other races subhumans, but legal to note in a scientific paper that there IQ differences [news-medical.net] between [wikipedia.org] races [halfsigma.com], moral evolutionary differences [edge.org], or even that statistically, crime is not distributed evenly [colorofcrime.com] between all groups?
Half of scientists say race doesn't exist [pbs.org], the others [goodrumj.com] keep quiet.
The bigger issue here is what we're obscuring the pursuit of truth with all sorts of social pretense. Let's look at the facts and keep emotion (true hate speech) and censorship out of the debate.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is hate-speech? (Score:4, Interesting)
Call me all the bad names you want. If you want to go the racial route you can call me a kike, kraut, polack, limey or mutt (probably your best bet). If you want to go the non-racial route you can call me fatty, geek, pimple-head, etc. None of those things are going to make me run crying to the police for protection from you.
Well, that was the problem.
Let's say I called you a kike, kraut, polack, limey mutt. In Canada, you could file a complaint with the HRC and they would fine me $10k - $100k in fines because I hurt your feelings as a ... you know, your parents got around. Anyway, the kike part would be enough to ruin my life financially.
You don't have the right to not be offended, but in Canada, up until yesterday, that right was being granted by the HRC.
A famous case was two women who went to an adults-only comedy show and heckled the comedian there. He shot back with some adult-themed comments including calling them dikes. They cried to the HRC and the comedian was dragged about the court for yelling at two people who were heckling.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080626/comic_humanrights_080626/undefined [www.ctv.ca]
Re:aha (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You Cannot Give Offense (Score:4, Interesting)
If I remember correctly, a woman got away from hitting one of them with her car in a fit of rage about a year ago. And, if it were your kid, I'll bet the jury would be pretty sympathetic with you if you went spider-monkey on them. (Not going to weigh in on whether that's human compassion or a perversion of justice).
AC 'cuz I've been modding in here.
-gnick
This happened in the early nineties in Topeka. A woman tried to run over the Phelpsies, In fact, she had to swerve onto the sidewalk to get at them. "Phred" and his gang are not well liked in their home town. The judge reduced the charges from assault/battery/attempted vehicular homicide to "inattentive driving".
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:5, Interesting)
"you made your post in English."
You say that like it's a good thing. Let us all be grateful for these linguistic abortions:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce .
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse ..
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time
to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:3, Interesting)
Read the post [slashdot.org] to which GP was replying, and then repeat after me loudly:
"Whooosh!"
This is what happens when inference happens... (Score:1, Interesting)
All the Americans here seem to conflate all sorts of definitions for what hate speech is, failing to recognize that the legal term for hate speech in the Canadian federal legislation has a very very specific definition:
What it is (small wikipedia blurb - not legal advice):
In Canada, advocating genocide or inciting hatred[6] against any 'identifiable group' is an indictable offense under the Criminal Code of Canada with maximum terms of two to fourteen years. An 'identifiable group' is defined as 'any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.' It makes exceptions for cases of statements of truth, and subjects of public debate and religious doctrine.
What it is not:
Hate speech is not painting a swastika (as despicable as that symbol may be to many, especially when spray-painted on Jewish schools & synagogues)
Hate speech is not calling someone a bad word (even a racially charged one)
Hate speech is not insulting race
Hate speech is not as far as I am aware applicable to anything said within a private setting (again - careful with the definition of private. I'm using it in the sense of someone talking with family, not holding secret meetings about how to secretly commit genocide. I'm unsure about the former, but I'd imagine the latter still runs afoul of the law).
Hate speech is specifically targeted at preventing discussion of committing violence against an identifiable group. Right or wrong (personally I think it's a good idea since violence-inciting speech against minorities in no way, IMHO, contributes to the value of speech). Before you start jumping down my throat about freedom, also notice that racial tensions in Canada seem to be much lower as compared to our neighbours to the south (although I speak as a Jewish white male). Whether or not the laws contribute, the culture is significantly different when it comes to racial relations, immigration, etc.
Frankly, I think this is a loss for Canada. (Score:2, Interesting)
In Canada, we don't like morons who shoot their mouths off spewing racial epithets, and that's why we have laws to shut these people up. Yes, censorship! A bad word! It's not an inherently bad concept. We like it because it serves a purpose, which is not subjugation and silencing of the general public as the alarmists would have you believe. These laws don't get used on just anybody and frankly the government is too busy wasting money on General Motors...it doesn't have time to go around silencing anybody it doesn't like, so take off that ugly tinfoil hat. This is why Canada is a cultural quantum leap ahead of other western societies. Don't believe me? Travel. Oh but this kind of censorship's not in the Charter? Fuck that. The charter was written by a bunch of WASPs who had no inkling of what the country would become - i.e. sustained by hard-working immigrants while the existing population became, old, lethargic, unmotivated and allowed its birth rate to fall below 2 children per couple. Oh, and the "Canadian founding fathers" were racists too, living in a time when it was commonplace and acceptable. Today it is not, and if that means some 150 year old laws need amending, so be it. The government does need to meddle in people's affairs in this matter because quite obviously average people are just too ignorant or lazy to conduct themselves properly 100% of the time. Stop crying about "regulation this" and "communist" that. Don't like it? There's a country just to the south of us where you can say all the dumb crap you like, and possibly you will even inspire a crowd of inbred rednecks to consider you some kind of great thinker while you're at it. Take Alberta with you. You can write books and become the next Ann Coulter, the poster child for what defending "free speech" is all about. Idealistic "people should just do blah blah blah theoretical solution and then we won't need regulation" blather doesn't work. This is the real world, and real people are real dumb, and really need to be spoon-fed to be kept in line.
Re:"Hate" speech is Free Speech (Score:3, Interesting)
"Laws won't fix it either"
I disagree. So does Parliament and so does the Supreme Court of Canada. As for the CHRC, that tribunal has no expoectation of judicial deference on appeal when it is interpreting the Charter.
This is Canada. It's *not* the USA. We do not have absolute rights here when it comes to freedom of expression. Those rights are tempered by the reality that such expression can bring about great social harm. The right to freedom of expression can be infringed if is necessary to serve the goals of a multicultural, free and democratic society.
Warman is not my favorite litigant. I disapprove of some of his tactics.
That said - and I *am* a Canadian lawyer - I do not think this decision will survive an appeal. The fact that Canada's "hate speech" appear to violate s.2(b) of the Charter has never been in doubt; but the law that infringes those rights will be saved by Section 1 of the Charter, just the same.
S. 1 "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
Section 1 will have its day - and it will ultimately prevail.
citations (Score:1, Interesting)
I know this isn't wikipedia but if you have any references you can provide to back up these statements I'd greatly appreciated it. This is outrageous.
Thanks.