Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the private member's bill introduced by the member Westlock—St. Paul. I am humbled that the member would ask me to speak to his bill. It is not often that one gets a chance to speak to a private member's bill because of the procedural rules, so that the member would express his confidence in my views in allowing me to speak to his bill is humbling and an honour. I thank him for that. It means a lot to me that he would ask me to do that.
Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says that everyone in Canada has the fundamental freedom of expression. However, this freedom, while fundamental, is not absolute, as the member for Mount Royal has said, because in section 1 of the charter it states:
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
That is an important context in which to place this debate.
Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is an unreasonable limit in a free and democratic society on this fundamental freedom of expression. I believe there are three reasons that it is an unreasonable limit. First, section 13 is too vague. Second, section 13 subjects this fundamental freedom guaranteed in the charter to a quasi-judicial process. Third, section 13, in my view, is an overly expansive interpretation of the harm principle.
I will elaborate on the three reasons that section 13 should be struck from the Canadian Human Rights Act. First, section 13 is too big. The wording of section 13, such as the terms “hatred” and “contempt”, is not clearly defined in the act. I think this opens up section 13 to the possibility of an overly expansive interpretation that would unreasonably limit free expression.
The second reason that I think section 13 should be struck is that by placing a limit on free expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act in such a vague manner, we are subjecting this fundamental freedom enshrined in the Canadian charter to a quasi-judicial process. In my view, a quasi-judicial process such as this, with its vagueness, is too informal a place to arbitrate such a fundamental freedom. These fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the charter should be arbitrated in the courts with their checks and balances assuring an appropriate level of protection for these cherished freedoms.
The third reason I think section 13 should be struck is that it has an unreasonable limit on free expression in that it rests on an overly expansive interpretation of the harm principle. I acknowledge that there is no absolute right to free expression. That is why we have Criminal Code provisions, for example, on yelling “fire” in a theatre, on uttering a bomb threat in an airport, on perjuring oneself in a court of law and on libelling another in the public sphere.
Why do we have these limits on free expression in these four instances and many others? It is because they would harm others. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre of a thousand people could cause a stampede and could create deaths on the way out of people who are trampled underfoot. Uttering a bomb threat in an airport or on an airplane could put the lives of passengers and travellers at risk. Libelling another in the public sphere is also a reasonable limit on free expression. Perjuring oneself in a court of law, obviously, is a reasonable limit. Restrictions on perjury is a reasonable limit on free expression. Obviously we need people to speak the truth in court because we need to establish the facts.
These are reasonable limits on free expression. However, section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prevents someone from expressing something that is likely to expose a person or a group of persons to contempt or hatred is, I believe, an overly expansive interpretation of this harm principle.
I am not alone in my concerns about this section of the act. Many others have voiced concerns about section 13 and this bill addresses those very concerns.
For example, in 2008, the Canadian Human Rights Commission commissioned Professor Richard Moon to conduct an independent analysis of section 13. In his report he recommended that section 13 be repealed.
A year later the Canadian Human Rights Commission itself undertook an investigation. In its report of 2009 it found problems with section 13 of the act in that it was inconsistent with the charter.
Former Liberal MP Keith Martin voiced concerns about section 13. In 2008 he tabled Motion No. 446 to repeal section 13(1).
Organizations such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Journalists have also voiced concerns about this section, as have articles that have appeared in papers such as the Toronto Star and the National Post.
When we reach further back into the intellectual traditions that underpin our North American democracies both here in Canada and south of the border, we find that people like John Stuart Mill voiced concerns about unreasonable limits on free speech. In his famous book On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that free discourse is a necessary condition for progress. I think he would have argued that section 13 is an overly expansive interpretation of his harm principle.
I would like to quote what Mill said about how important it is not to unreasonably limit free expression:
[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
Free speech and free expression are fundamental to a free and democratic society. This is a reasonable bill that would remove an unreasonable limit on free expression. It is not by force but by free speech that we will counter hatred and prejudice. That is why this bill is so very important.
The bill would strengthen the fundamental foundation of a free and democratic society, the fundamental foundation of Canadian society, namely, freedom of expression. I urge all members in the House to support it.