Section 13(1) of The Canadian Human Rights Act
The controversy regarding the CHRC's practices comes from its enforcement of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which states that it is discriminatory to communicate by phone or Internet any material "that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt." Critics claim that CHRC adjudicators have limited legal training and poor investigative resources and allege that, as a result, the power of section 13(1) is being used for nuisance cases that would be tossed out if they were adjudicated within the judicial system.
Liberal MP Keith Martin has proposed a private member's bill in Parliament to rescind section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, upon which federal HRC hate speech cases are based. Martin described the legal test of "likely to expose" as "a hole you could drive a Mack truck through," and said it is being applied by "rogue commissions where a small number of people determining what Canadians can and can't say." Martin also asserted that some of history's most important ideas "were originally deemed to be sacrilegious and certainly in opposition to conventional wisdom. Who's to say that a commission cannot rule those ideas out of order and penalize people for saying or thinking them?" However, the bill did not become law.
Irwin Cotler, a Canadian human rights scholar and former minister of justice, (who has expressed support for prohibitions on the incitement of hate and genocide), floated (but did not endorse) the idea that section 13(1) cases should require the authorization of the Attorney-General, which is the requirement for criminal prosecutions for inciting violence or promoting hatred.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Human Rights Commission Free Speech Controversy
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