Canadian Human Rights Commission Free Speech Controversy - Support For The Human Rights Commissions

Support For The Human Rights Commissions

Several leading lawyers and academics support restrictions on hate speech through human rights legislation. In 2008, law professor Jane Bailey published an Op Ed "Democracy suffers when equality is threatened" (Ottawa Citizen, December 11, 2008). She noted that " Section 13 places Canada at the forefront of democratic nations in addressing hate propaganda by treating it as a practice of inequality, a mechanism for perpetuating myths, stereotypes and calls for violence that are fundamentally inconsistent with the goal of ensuring that all of us are able to reach our potential and live the life of our own choosing regardless of personal characteristics such as race, religion and sexual identity."

Prominent supporters of hate speech laws include the Canadian Jewish Congress and several Muslim community groups. Haroon Siddiqi of the Toronto Star, former Justice Minister and MP for Mont-Royal Irwin Cotler ("The Principles of Free Expression"), lawyer David Matas (author of "Bloody Words"), and Toronto lawyer Mark Freiman all support prohibitions against extreme forms of speech.

At the Niagara-on-the-Lake conference of the Canadian Association of Statutory Human Rights Agencies in June 2008, Pearl Eliadis, a prominent human rights lawyer, defended the HRC's current mandate. Responding to Alan Borovoy's concern that he never expected they would be used against the free expression of opinion, Eliadis stated that what Borovoy thought 40 years ago should not determine the current state of human rights law. She also argued that arguments against human rights commissions dealing with complaints against media are premised on the notion that "new rights are bad rights." She added that the commissions are "strategically and uncomfortably poised" in "dynamic tension" among NGOs, government, voters, industry and other influences." In August 2008, Eliadis wrote an article in Maisonneuve where she argued that expressive behaviour has been the subject of human rights laws in since the 1940s. She also argued that critics of the commissions were causing Canadians to be "misled and lied to about the most basic aspects of Canadian law and human rights" and further stressed "the clear and present danger posed by discriminatory speech and the growth of e-hate."

Eliadis stated in a subsequent interview, that:

"There's a narrow band of intolerant bigots out there who are jumping on to this bandwagon and are using this debate to propagate particularly hateful views. What the free speech absolutists are saying is that, once you take that core element of speech and transport it into mass media, suddenly it becomes immune. I don't understand why speech should be immune from discrimination law. The media should not enjoy more rights or immunity than anyone else."

Wahida Valiante, national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, stated that the commissions are the only recourse available to minorities treated unfairly in the media since membership in press councils is optional and criminal hate speech charges require the consent of the federal Attorney-General.

In January 2010 the Canadian Bar Association released a statement which supported "retaining section 13 as a useful tool." However, it also called for the adoption of several recommendations for improving the Act "to ensure that the efficacy of this protection is not only enhanced but also accords with other fundamental human rights values," including the repealing of certain penalty provisions and "empowering the CHRC to dismiss at an early stage complaints that lack merit or have no reasonable chance for success."