Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The problem is exacerbated in my case because I tend to speak slowly.
I think that in view of the polemics that have preceded these hearings, it would be appropriate for me to begin by indicating areas of agreement that my organization has with the defenders of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. I can state these agreements in three points.
First, we agree that freedom of speech is not and cannot be absolute. Second, as far as a hierarchy of freedoms is concerned, there is no necessary priority that one freedom has over another in the abstract. The priorities are intelligently worked out in concrete situations, not as a matter of abstract principle. Third, we agree that the bulk of our human rights legislation ought to remain and that the agencies created to enforce it should be encouraged to continue doing so, because most of it is very helpful and very important.
Those are the areas of agreement. I turn now to the areas of disagreement.
While freedom of speech may not be absolute, it is nevertheless the lifeblood of the democratic system. It's the vehicle that enables any of us to mobilize, or attempt to mobilize, public support for the redress of our various grievances. My favourite philosopher once described it as a strategic freedom, a freedom on which other freedoms depend.
There are basically two problems with the anti-hate provisions of the human rights legislation. The first is that it's too vague, and the second is that it's too wide.
When it talks about exposing people to hatred or contempt, I submit that with all the definitions in the world, the problem is that it still remains vague. We know that freedom of speech is often most important when it expresses strong disagreement, but where does strong disagreement leave off and hatred begin? If, as Professor Moon recommended, they had talked about using violence as the focus, there probably wouldn't be the difficulty that there is, but hatred is a necessarily vague term.
Then, of course, we have the breadth, the width. It targets statements “likely to expose” people on various grounds, various consituencies, to hatred or contempt. It says “likely to expose”. There's no requirement that there be an intent to foment hatred, and there's no defence for truth or reasonable belief in the truth.
I want to refer to a recent controversy, because I think there has been a certain amount of facile discussion about it. I'm talking about the complaint that had been filed against Maclean's magazine over the article written by Mark Steyn. It has been said that, “Oh, well, that didn't rise or sink to the level of hatred”, as though it was perfectly obvious that it didn't. I submit that it's anything but obvious that Mr. Steyn's article did not rise or sink to the level of hatred.
I'm going to take one sentence from his piece. He said: “Of course not all Muslims are terrorists--though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network...”. What does that statement effectively say? That a significant number of Muslims “support”--support what: terrorism, including the kidnapping, torture, and beheading of innocent people? What worse can you say about people these days than that they support activity like that? I think it's anything but clear that a subsequent panel from the Human Rights Commission, or indeed the tribunal if they ever get to deal with it, is going to reach the same conclusion as the last one did.
We did a little research in our office about recent controversial issues, and I just want to read you a couple of extracts; they're quite short. An article written in The New Republic magazine, a respectable American publication, on the conflict in Kosovo said:
The conventional thinking...is that we have no quarrel with the Serbian people. It's their leader, Slobodan Milosevic, and his henchmen who manipulated them into waging so many brutal wars. ... But what if it isn't true? What if the Serbs...actually support ethnic cleansing...? In that case, we do have a quarrel with the Serbian people. ... I myself used to believe that ordinary Serbs have been deceived and bullied into accepting atrocities done in their name. But now, after five years...trying in vain to elicit expressions of remorse from the hundreds of Serbs I have met, I am convinced that the latter assessment is the accurate one. Whatever else we do in Kosovo, we must face the fact that, for all intents and purposes, many ordinary Serbs are--to paraphrase Daniel Jonah Goldhagen--Milosevic's willing executioners.
Is that not likely to expose all kinds of Serbian people to hatred or contempt?
We have Daniel Goldhagen's book, and here's what he says about the state of mind of the German people at the time of the Holocaust:
...the perpetrators, “ordinary Germans”, were animated by antisemitism, by a particular type of antisemitism that led them to conclude that the Jews ought to die. ... Simply put, the perpetrators, having consulted their own convictions...and having judged the mass annihilation of Jews to be right, did not want to say “no”.
Is that not likely to expose a whole generation of Germans to hatred or contempt?
I know that Daniel Goldhagen is a controversial historian, but no one questions his historical credentials. There has been literature that has attempted to document the collaboration, the cooperation the Nazis received from the indigenous populations in some of the countries they occupied. This leads to a very interesting question: To what extent could section 13 make it an offence to tell the truth about the Holocaust? This is a problem we see with this legislation.
As a result, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has taken the position that Richard Moon was very much on the right track when he suggested the focus should not be on expressions of hatred, but on the prevention of violence. We may have some quarrels with some of the details, but the direction of the Moon report, in our view, is the correct one.
All of which, Mr. Chair, is, as always, respectfully submitted.