November 2008 Report By Professor Richard Moon
In 2008, University of Windsor law professor Richard Moon was commissioned by the CHRC to prepare a report on the CHRC's mandate under Section 13 of Canadian Human Rights Act which deals with hate-speech. In November 2008, Moon released his report in which he recommended that Section 13 should be repealed so that online hate speech is a purely criminal matter. Moon wrote that "The use of censorship by the government should be confined to a narrow category of extreme expression -- that which threatens, advocates or justifies violence against the members of an identifiable group." Moon argued that "it's not practical to deal with what one might generously describe as group defamation or stereotyping through censorship. It's just not a viable option. There's too much of it, and it's so pervasive within our public discourse that any kind of censorship is just overwhelming."
Regarding the current legal test for violations of Section 13, which is whether messages were "likely to expose" identifiable groups to "hatred or contempt," neither truth nor intent is a defence, unlike libel law. Moon recommended that intent to advocate or justify violence be made a requirement for Section 13, replacing the test of "likely to expose." However, he did not recommend that truth be allowed as a defence since it could result in tribunals becoming forums to debate, for example, the veracity of the Holocaust, the genetic inferiority of blacks, or the dangers of homosexuality."
Prof. Moon noted that the current complainant-driven system is unequal, in that only well-resourced and determined complainants can see their case through to a conclusion. In this, he was referring to Richard Warman, an Ottawa lawyer and former CHRC employee who has brought more than a dozen cases, far more than any other complainant.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Human Rights Commission Free Speech Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words november, report, professor, richard and/or moon:
“During my administration the most unpleasant and perhaps most dramatic negotiations in which we participated were with the various leaders of Iran after the seizure of American hostages in November 1979. The Algerians were finally chosen as the only intermediaries who were considered trustworthy both by me and the Ayatollah Khomeini. After many aborted efforts, final success was achieved during my last few hours in the White House.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“[In response to this question from an interviewer: “U. S. News and World Report described you this way: ‘She’s intolerant, preachy, judgmental and overbearing. She’s bright, articulate, passionate and kind.’ Is that an accurate description?”:]
It’s ... pretty good [ellipsis in original].”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“We’re definite in Nova Scotia—’bout things like ships ... and fish, the best in the world.”
—John Rhodes Sturdy, Canadian screenwriter. Richard Rossen. Joyce Cartwright (Ella Raines)
“When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will stay with that person as long as we live. From that time on, there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides, and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can. Our children are extensions of ourselves in ways our parents are not, nor our brothers and sisters, nor our spouses.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)