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Canadian Hate-Speech Law Violates Charter of Rights
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."
...this sets an example for people that insist anything NOT PC speech in the US should be suppressed.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I have always been suspicious of hate speech legislation. It seems ideal for creating slippery slopes.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Future Canadian Ubuntu release names:
Busty Beaner
Crackhead Coon
Drunk Darkie
Flaming Faggot
Grumpy Gringo
Humping Homosexual
Jackin' Jiggabgoo
Klepto Kike
Limey Lobersterback
Morose Moonie
Nappy Nigger
Queefing Queer
Sleazy Spic
Transsexual Twinky
Weebly Wetback
Zany Zebra
Thank god this is done with at last.
Hate speech requires a hate listener. Let's work on that problem, because that one doesn't violate anyone's rights.
CHRT has no teeth on this. All they can say is "unlawful" and go on about their business about prosecuting people. If it was a real court we wouldn't be in this position now. What a pile of BS.
But...they can bury you in fines and ruin your life without ever having to be judged by the actual laws of the land. That type of stuff really pisses me off.
Om, nomnomnom...
I hate you all...legally.
You can only take it.
Is anyone really surprised that anti-hatespeech laws violate the basic 'free speech' right? I mean, either a person is free to say what they want or not.
I'm not condoning hate speech. I think it's still immoral and unethical... But it's still covered under 'free speech' no matter how much I hate it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Um, you do realize that lots of people bashing your exalted Dear Leader Bush were harrassed by the FBI
Citation needed.
Repugs
Repugs? Tell us what you really think of 33% of your fellow citizens.
Anti-hate speach legislation, while ill-founded, at least had at its heart the idea to stop the traditional practice of inflaming the mob's anger so as to go out and lynch minorities.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
That shouldn't mean you get to outlaw it though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If I remember correctly, Trudeau and his government were the architect for this legislation. Not only was he the largest asshole to ever come out of Quebec. He thought all of Canada his personal playground, reguarlly believed he was unstoppable, and in general an asshole to the Canadian public. All while...people loved him, while he fawned terms similar to "hope and change".
Yeah...if you don't know how far the liberals have gone to get power in Canada you don't know squat. Including collapsing the government on a friday, using a non-confidence motion, after everyone had already gone home.
Om, nomnomnom...
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.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'm not sure exactly what they're referring to in this decision, but the Supreme Court in R v. Keegstra and R v. Krymwoski that restrictions on hate speech were perfectly valid under S.1 of the Charter.
There are, however, a variety of differences between those cases and this; the primary one being that those were criminal complaints and this is not. That said, the Supreme Court and lower courts have long upheld the Human Rights Act and have often supported the decisions of the Human Rights Commission under that act, so I think the chances of this being overturned on appeal are slim. Any overturning would likely be procedural: the procedures do not provide sufficient safeguards, the Tribunal operated beyond its powers in this instance, etc.
I find it unlikely in the extreme that the Supreme Court would simply overturn the Act itself.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
The real issue is people worrying about giving censorship a foot and they'll take a mile.
Please define "hate speech" in a way that is objective and clear and does not require knowing what is going on inside the mind of the person using it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Freedom of speech requires we allow assholes to say offensive things. Even the idiots who hate free speech should have the right to speak their moronic opinions ;)
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
Because in the US that is what hate speech laws are being used for. Get off from a high profile case that "bothers" some politicians and you can be sure a hate speech charge will crop up. Been done in a few visible crimes around Atlanta, suddenly the Feds are brought in because there was enough to convict on the real accused crime.
The other point is that prosecuting under the guise of a hate crime can devalue the real crime. I don't care why they selected someone's house to rob/burn/etc, all reasons should be treated the same : equally bad. Yet we try to differentiate the crimes by assigning severity based on what they were thinking or what we think they were thinking?
Fortunately in both countries we can still each have our opinions, I just hope the Supremes start tossing the US version out as well... which reminds me, did the group who declared it wrong in Canada have the last voice on that?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
>>>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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I agree.. I think we ought to encourage MORE people to speak their minds to make it easier to figure out who the bigots, racists, and just plain jerks are.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
- 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.
So, Martin Luther King, Jr. advocating and inciting the unlawful conduct of sit-ins, unlicensed Freedom Marches, and other demonstration actions directed at segregationist members of the U.S. South... is hate speech?
I would be certainly want to say "of course not", but your definition doesn't leave me much room.
No matter how well you want to codify it, much of the definition of "hate speech" is "I know it when I hear it."
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
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 between races, moral evolutionary differences, or even that statistically, crime is not distributed evenly between all groups?
Half of scientists say race doesn't exist, the others 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.
Futurist Traditionalism
No, what this finding is saying is that the HRC is going far above and beyond its scope and powers, and is violating Canadian Law. It is, quite frankly, the most important decision since the UK let us go in 1982.
The constitution is the overall ruling document in Canada, and NOTHING goes in front of it. The End. This finding means that, finally, the HRC agrees with the Constitution.
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
The HRC has been abusing its position for years, and this might be the end of the abuse. I have the right to say and write offensive things, and some would say it is my duty to offend at least one person a day AND be offended in turn.
There are criminal offences for dealing with inciting violence; the HRC was going after people for writing something down with no intention behind it except their own ignorance. We already have the lottery system for fining the stupid; we didn't need another one.
For the Americans:
We had a court-like thing called "The Human Rights Commission" that had a 100% success rate in convicting people of hate crimes. Basically, it was ignoring the equivalent of the 1st amendment and fining people any time you communicated in a way that offended anyone, anywhere.
They've just looked at themselves and said, "wait, what the fuck are we doing? We've been ignoring the constitution."
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Fascist, Warmonger, Hatemonger, Criminal, Deviant, Brain-Dead, Republican
You mean, like that?
If people are trying to have a civil conversation at a townhall or a speaking event, and someone attempts to drown out views they don't like through screaming, then the police should remove them. If the police won't remove them, then the police are morally responsible for any violence that the other people there visit on the censorious assholes who want to shut down others' comments.
The people who do this sort of thing (shouting down different points of view) are a significantly greater enemy to civilization and freedom than anyone who clocks them upside the head for being an asshole. People like that are just bourgeois brownshirts.
"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." --Noam Chomsky
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." --Evelyn Beatrice Hall (As a summary of Voltaire's beliefs.)
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
WTF? That is marked insightful?
It's slightly humorous, yes.
But to equate the Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party is patently ridiculous.
I'm not a huge fan of the Democratic Party, though I'm liberal. The Democratic Party is Corporatist, just like the Republican Party. It's nowhere near Socialist or Communist. Yes, there are *some* socialist aspects to the Democratic Party, but these are far outweighed by the corporatist (quasi-fascist) elements.
And Communism is about as far as you can get from the Democratic Party. When was the last time the Dems made any effort to put control of industry in the hands of the people working in the industry?
Wake up and smell the coffee.
The cash for buying houses? Handouts to the banks. The cash-for-clunkers program? Handouts to the car companies and the banks.
Socialized medicine? We don't even know *if* there will be a public option (which doesn't make it a socialized system anyway), and if there is, you can bet it will be like Medicare, which is a boon to practitioners, no matter how much some of them complain about it.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
CHRT has no teeth ... If [CHRT] was a real court ... [immune to] actual laws of the land ... pisses me off
Surprised you find the mechanism of the court so perfect in every way that no other judicial mechanism should even exist, even ones sanctioned by parliamentary legislation.
From About the CHRT
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) was created in 1977 by an Act of Parliament.
_...
Parliament finally enshrined the Tribunal's independence in law and the Canadian Human Rights Act was amended to formalize the CHRT's independence.
_...
As an administrative tribunal, the CHRT has more flexibility than regular courts.
One of the reasons given for this is that the defendant does not need to follow rules of evidence in his/her defence. Following the rules of evidence is an expensive process, maybe more so than the fines if convicted.
From Legal Definition of Administrative Tribunal
Between routine government policy decision-making bodies and the traditional court forums lies a hybrid, sometimes called a "tribunal" or "administrative tribunal" and not necessarily presided by judges.
These operate as a government policy-making body at times but also exercise a licensing, certifying, approval or other adjudication authority which is "quasi-judicial" because it directly affects the legal rights of a person.
This authority does not amount to hard biting surfaces?
From About the CHRT - The Vice-Chairperson
Mr. Hadjis received his Bachelor Degree in Civil Law together with his Bachelor Degree in Common Law from McGill University in Montreal, in 1986. He was called to the Quebec Bar in 1987.
That's as much training as most judges prior to their appointment. How many lawyers have equal training in both of Canada's legal traditions?
When I was eight years old I rode my bike on my way to school across the corner of someones lawn which in my small town was rather indistinct from the gravel boulevard which surrounded it. An elementary school classmate witnessed this and and yelled at me "get off my lawn or my dad will sue you".
That has ever since been my psychological template for people who regard human rights as a "shout off my lawn" free card.
I believe in absolute protection against unpopularity. In my eyes "abortion should be permitted until halfway through the third trimester" is protected speech. "Jews are verminous scum and should be gassed by the millions" is not.
Somehow we need to define a line between these speech acts. It's not going to be an easy task, we'll make many mistakes, and there will be much wailing and outrage.
Nevertheless, suck it up: it must be done. The only question is how to do it better rather than worse. The courts surely aren't perfect, and neither are tribunals. A tribunal leaves more scope for fine tuning than the formal court system.
If a person is cursing the scope for fine tuning the system (the flexibility of the tribunal) in my experience it's likely because the person doesn't wish to see the job done right in the first place. It's a bit of a straw man tactic. Once you lock this up with the inflexibility of the courts under the rubric of fairness, it becomes a simple matter to advance the case that the courts in their rigidness can't ever get this right. And that would likely be true in a generational time frame.
The fallacy of the slippery slope is the presumption that objects only ever slide down hill. If nothing ever went up the hill, we'd have no traditions worth respecting whatsoever.
If anything is important enough to push uphill, for as long as it takes, this would be it.
"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?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Your comment is extremely misleading.
Firstly, the Constitution is the overall ruling document in Canada, but that does not mean nothing goes before it. In fact, public policy concerns often override Charter rights. This is entrenched in the Charter as S.1, and was elaborated on at great length in R v. Oakes and the subsequent follow-on cases.
The rights enumerated in S.2, specifically, 2(b), are not beyond constraint. They are constrained by S.1, which states, ultimately, that there are public policy rationales powerful enough to override individual rights, and the determination of whether or not they are sufficiently powerful is determined by the Oakes test.
Secondly, the HRT is not a court-like thing. It is a quasi-judicial tribunal, whose decisions are reviewable by the Federal Court and the FCA, etc.
Thirdly, the HRC's 100% conviction rate is incredibly misleading in and of itself. There is no way to be acquitted by a HRT. Complaints are either upheld or dismissed. Someone the subject of a complaint cannot be found innocent. That is not how the system works. In criminal justice terms, this would be vaguely akin to having a system where you were either convicted or had the charges dropped. Actually, of the complaints brought before the Human Rights Commission, 13.5% are referred to the HRT, and 86.5% are dropped. 60% of those complaints referred to the HRT are settled prior to the Tribunal issuing a decision. In total, all of approximately 8.1% of complaints are decided by the HRT, and the HRT has the legal authority, also, to dismiss complaints at that stage if it feels doing so is appropriate (but I haven't found statistics on that).
In short, you're either terribly misinformed or intentionally lying to significantly distort the facts of the case.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Yes it does!! Hate speech is spoken by racists, and sexists, and homophobes, and bigots, and all those other people I don't like.
They are nasty people. Everybody knows it. They say such mean things and hurt people's feelings and make people upset, and they just want to make more people nasty like them! People are vulnerable to what they say; they could be brainwashed!! People need protection from these kinds of bad influences!
It's just like child molesters. You wouldn't let them speak freely would you?! Nobody would! These people are wrong, just so wrong. No one has the right to be so wrong! So they shouldn't be allowed to speak or enjoy the freedoms the rest of us do.
It's only fair.
May the Maths Be with you!
As a white male it's not possible to claim "Hate Speech" in the US. It's a one-way street.