Evidence of meeting #31 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was believe.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Past President, Canadian Jewish Congress, President, Canadian Peres Center for Peace Foundation, As an Individual
No, because I'm not persuaded that your assumptions are correct. I'm not persuaded that we are dealing here with punishment and I'm not persuaded that this regulatory provision in this legislation is aimed at redressing harm already done to victims.
To me, the better analogy is the analogy to prohibiting advertisements aimed at children or prohibiting advertisements of dangerous products.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
You all remember the great liberal philosopher John Locke, who said that my freedom to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. I think we all agree that if I'm alone on an island or in a theatre by myself, I should have the complete liberty to do what I want. We all agree with that.
Past President, Canadian Jewish Congress, President, Canadian Peres Center for Peace Foundation, As an Individual
Yes.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
But you agree that since I'm close enough to Mr. Jean, and his nose is in my arm's length, that compromises my liberty. You'll agree with that?
Past President, Canadian Jewish Congress, President, Canadian Peres Center for Peace Foundation, As an Individual
That's correct.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Okay. So do you see the need for actual victims? Sadly, Mr. Toews does not.
Past President, Canadian Jewish Congress, President, Canadian Peres Center for Peace Foundation, As an Individual
I believe that the perspective is the protection of society and the protection of the targets of the speech. So there are victims, certainly, if a specific group is singled out, is dehumanized, and is portrayed as having no redeeming virtues. This is, by the way, the definition that Mr. Justice Dickson articulated in the Supreme Court of Canada. In those circumstances we don't need to quibble about the concept of victim and define it. Yes, there is a target, and yes, you do need a target. Simply saying something in the abstract, without specifying that it is a given group that is being targeted—
Conservative
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me make full disclosure at the outset. I also appeared before the Supreme Court in the trilogy of cases that was referenced earlier by Kathleen Mahoney.
I think it's important that we appreciate the basic principles and propositions that were set forth and that can frame our understanding here. The court said, number one, that hate speech constitutes an assault on the very values that underlie free speech to begin with; number two, that hate speech should be seen as not just a speech issue, but an equality rights issue, as a discriminatory practice; number three, that it was a minority rights issue, the right of minorities to protect against group-vilifying speech; number four, that it was a harms-based issue, and they referred to the harms-based rationale; finally, number five, that it was an implementation of our international law undertakings in that regard.
So I think we need to frame it in terms of these basic principles and propositions, and I'd like to give Ms. Mahoney an opportunity to expand upon that, which she was about to begin, and that was why hate speech is a discriminatory practice and an equality rights issue.
Prof. Kathleen Mahoney
Thank you very much, Mr. Cotler.
I was thinking as I was listening that perhaps it would be important to give a couple of examples of how this works, as opposed to discussing it in the abstract. Chief Justice Dickson remarked when he was deciding these two leading cases way back twenty years ago--and I think the rationale is as important or more important today--that the Holocaust did not start in the ovens of Auschwitz, it started with words. The court was acknowledging that words that are hate words are much more than expression. Similarly, right today, if we want to use an up-to-date example, in Uganda, the parliament of Uganda, as of February, has reintroduced a bill to require capital punishment for homosexuals. They also want to criminalize anyone who knows of homosexuals who does not disclose who they are. And thirdly, they want to criminalize anybody who rents accommodation to homosexuals.
What led to this rather extraordinary legislation, which has been addressed by everybody from President Obama and Hillary Clinton to human rights organizations all over the world? In addition to Uganda, there are 37 other countries in Africa that are moving in the same direction. What has led to this?
What has led to this has been a concerted campaign in fact led by North American evangelical homophobic preachers who have gone to Africa and have stirred up through their words and through their preaching such virulent hatred of homosexuals that it has now led to legislation requiring capital punishment for anyone caught in a homosexual act more than twice.
I think these are two very good examples of how hate speech operates. It's not just a heated conversation about different opinions. It's targeting a group, it's saying they're less than human. It's saying that their living, their actual act of living, is no longer tolerable to people who don't live in the same way, and therefore drastic measures must be taken against them.
This is what our court has identified as extreme speech. This is what the Canadian Human Rights Act is addressing in section 13. This is what the courts have said upholds that legislation constitutionally.
There are hallmarks of hatred that the Supreme Court of Canada has accepted that make this section of the Canadian Human Rights Act very narrowly applicable to speech. It doesn't apply across the board. It's not offensive speech. It's not a speech that embarrasses or makes people uncomfortable. It's speech that harms people and puts them in danger, puts them at risk of further harm from people acting on that speech to hit people, to deny them employment, to actually murder them.
We've seen that. We've seen suicides as a result of hate speech of kids in school. We've seen murders of people in the U.S. like Matthew Shepard, for example, who was targeted because he was gay and was taken out and murdered. Those are the effects. And Justice Sinclair in Manitoba, in the Manitoba justice inquiry of the death of Helen Betty Osborne, an aboriginal girl who was murdered by three white boys and was targeted because she was an aboriginal so-called “squaw”, stereotyped as worthless.... These boys set out to find an Indian squaw to murder. That murder, Justice Sinclair found, was fed by hateful stereotypes of aboriginal women.
Members of the committee, it's my most respectful submission that you must very carefully contemplate these things. This isn't just speech. There are victims, there are many victims who are targeted by hate speech. Just because it's not a fist in the face doesn't mean they aren't harmed.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Toews, I read the submission of the Canadian Bar Association, and I find the statement that you wrote and you repeated to the committee today to be quite shocking. I'm going to read that statement.
What you're saying in effect is that if section 13 is removed, Canadians can expect to be subjected to a plethora of hateful messages and communications, and a corresponding loss of civility, tolerance, and respect in Canadian society. What you seem to be saying is that Canada is populated by a whole bunch of hateful people, and the only thing that is stopping them from unleashing this avalanche of hate is section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. I find that, quite frankly, to be a shocking statement.
I'd like you to tell me what empirical data you have for making that statement. What surveys have you conducted? What research have you done? Or is this just something you decided to throw into the submissions today?
Member, Canadian Bar Association
I think history is our best teacher to be able to answer that particular question. When hate messages are allowed to proliferate unchecked and without any accountability whatsoever, we see the effects—
Conservative
Member, Canadian Bar Association
Well, the Criminal Code, that's a whole other discussion. I have a question whether the Criminal Code can adequately keep in check a lot of the matters we're dealing with. Much of the speech is allowed unchecked, we would respectfully submit, without section 13.
Member, Canadian Bar Association
The empirical data is shown throughout history.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
So there's no current empirical data that you have that you're going to present to this committee to show that if section 13 is gone, that's going to unleash a horde of hateful speech and messaging. That's basically what you're saying today.
Member, Canadian Bar Association
We've already seen a significant increase, and we've already heard that from other submissions, with the incredible increase of what is proliferated on websites and so forth. We can only expect that it will increase if continued to be left completely unchecked.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
It's your expectation or opinion. It's not based on any kind of data that we have. I just want to make that clear. I mean, that's fine. I just want to understand that.
Member, Canadian Bar Association
We look at historical data and we do not ignore it. We do not allow history to repeat itself—
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
Then I find your argument today very incongruous. You're saying what we need to do is stop the hateful speech by having a cease and desist; that's what's going to do it. It would seem to me that if we have this growing and expanding problem, then in fact what you would be suggesting is we need to have stronger penalties to stop it. If you're just going to say there's going to be a cease and desist and no actual penalty, how's that going to stop people? Your argument is illogical. You're saying there's a huge problem but we should water down the provisions. I don't understand that.
