Local MP Brian Storseth introduced a private member’s bill to kill the hate speech section of the Canada Human Rights Act last week in Ottawa. The bill could pass in 2012 after debate.
Repealing the section would be a “huge step forward” for the country, he told the St. Paul Journal. The bill would kill section 13 of the Act.
“It infringes on our freedom of speech that is in our constitution,” Storseth said. Repealing the section would “provide for better freedom of thought and expression.”
Storseth said there have been “tons of cases” with federal and provincial human rights commissions that have created a sense of suppressing freedom of speech in Canada.
Storseth also noted employees of the human rights commission have been caught “trying to induce people to breach section 13” on the Internet.
“It has been so poorly done over the last several years that section 13 hasn’t been used for almost a year and a half. It’s pending the Lemire case right now.”
Mark Lemire won a constitutional challenge against section 13 in 2009. The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is appealing the decision.
Storseth said the best way to remove the “mistreatment of the freedom of speech is to shine a light on it, to allow people to have that open discourse.”
The recourse for people targeted by hate speech should be the judicial system, not in “some quasi-judicial court that nobody ever hears or sees,” he added.
The justice committee has studied the repeal of section 13 “extensively” in the last Parliament, on Storseth’s motion.
The CHRC hired Richard Moon to review section 13. Moon recommended repealing section 13 and that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.
Moon said hate speech should continue to be prohibited under the Criminal Code but confined to “expression that advocates, justifies or threatens violence,” according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission website summary of Moon’s recommendations. Prosecutors should make greater use of section 320.1 of the Criminal Code, where a judge can order an Internet service provider to remove “hate propaganda.”
One high profile case involved former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant, who was the subject of a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission for re-printing cartoons originally published in Denmark depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Another high profile case involved Mark Steyn, who published an article in Maclean’s magazine discussing his concerns with the influence of Islam in the world. Cases were eventually dropped against both the magazine and Levant.
