Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a pleasure to rise and speak in favour of Bill C-304, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom).
Freedom of speech is a fundamental right enjoyed in all free and democratic societies.
I have listened carefully to the three members opposite who have expressed concern about my friend's bill, the sponsor from Westlock—St. Paul. Parliamentarians enjoy unfettered freedom of speech. In fact, Parliament is derived from the French world “parler”, meaning to speak. In this chamber and in its committees, we parliamentarians and any witnesses who appear before those committees have unfettered freedom of speech. It seems to me somewhat hypocritical that we would not offer to society, to people who write, to blogs and websites on the Internet, which falls under federal regulation, the same rights and privileges that we here enjoy in the Parliament of Canada.
My friend from Mount Royal, for whom I have a great deal of respect, is correct when he says that there are limits to freedom of speech.
There is no doubt that members are aware of the already workable remedies and workable limits with respect to freedom of speech. There are laws against perjury, the torts of libel and slander and, most important and most germane to this debate, sections 318 to 320 of the Criminal Code. Those are all real hate speech protections.
A distinction must be drawn between hate speech and hurt speech or the so-called counterfeit right of hurt feelings. One does not have a right against having his or her feelings hurt. I am sorry but that is not a right that exists in common law and it is not a right that exists in free and democratic societies.
The Criminal Code sanctions regarding free speech found in sections 318 to 320 require something more than hurt feelings. They require real and actionable hatred. If a person advocates genocide, destruction of a group's property or harm or damage to the person of that group, then that person has fallen offside the hate provisions of the Criminal Code, and, I would submit, rightfully so. However, that is something quite different than the so-called freedom not to be offended, or what my friend referred to as hurt speech.
Free speech, if it is to exist, cannot be subject to some bureaucracy. There is no such thing as government regulated free speech. Either there is free speech or there is not.
It is the very offensive speech that requires legal protection. This debate probably would not be occurring if there were not situations where individuals have said things that were truly politically correct, offensive and sometimes abhorrently so, but individuals have attempted to avail themselves to the charter protected rights in section 2(b) of freedom of expression. I would submit that it is that very offensive speech that requires protection.
Everything in life that is provocative is controversial. If we were to get into an intelligent debate about religion, Christianity versus Islamism, abortion, gay rights or even climate change, it would be impossible to have a thorough and meaningful debate without running the risk of offending somebody somewhere along that process.
A free society requires freedom of speech so that we can have a fluid marketplace of ideas, so that we can have give and take and exchange. Some of the ideas in that marketplace of ideas will not be popular and they will not be politically correct but they are important to further the debate. Society is actually moved forward over time because of freedom of speech.
Some things were politically incorrect in their time. For example, hundreds of years ago, when Galileo opined that the world was round, that was thought of as heresy at the time. However, he said it, people debated it and argued it and eventually they proved it.
It is because of the very freedom of speech that we are fighting for today by repealing section 13 of the human rights code that society can enhance itself with respect to enlightenment and with respect to determining truth that may not appear to be true at the present time.
So the very human rights commission that--