Justice committee  That's been adjudicated, and I'm in the clear. I beat the rap in British Columbia, at the federal human rights commission and in Ontario.

Justice committee  No. It's the same. It's so stipulated, sir.

Justice committee  That my obnoxious— I sat in the Robson Street courthouse in Vancouver and heard an expert witness flown in from Philadelphia discourse on the quality of my jokes, some of which are indeed obnoxious and hurtful. I think that is better left to an article in the Literary Review of

Justice committee  I'm a great believer in first principles, sir. Clearly, things that are said in the course of public discourse are offensive, obnoxious and hurtful. The question before this panel is, should they be criminalized?

Justice committee  I regret many things I've said on many subjects—

Justice committee  —over the years. But here's the difference. Naseem Mithoowani, whom I like a lot.... I run into Naseem every couple of years. I like her enormously. I like Muneeza Sheikh. I quite like Khurrum Awan, who is the third of those Muslims who attempted to criminalize my writing. But

Justice committee  What do you mean by “improperly”?

Justice committee  I've read the Taylor and Whatcott decisions carefully, and nothing that people have complained about before this committee comes anywhere close to the narrow definitions of the Supreme Court of Canada in both those cases.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  As I said, the problem with section 13 is that Canadians aren't very hateful people, so there was a lack of real serious complaints. One man had his name on every complaint since 2002. A man called Richard Warman was the plaintiff on every section 13 complaint since 2002. It's

Justice committee  Thank you very much, monsieur le président, and also honourable members of the committee. I am honoured to be here. I would like to say a quick word—as much as I always enjoy seeing Ms. Raitt—about the defenestration of Mr. Cooper from this committee, which I understand is the b

Justice committee  I agree with what Ezra has said. There's a reason that the traditional protections of the common law arose over centuries. They were worked out as a balance to enable people to access the justice system in reasonable ways. It seems very attractive to think of a way that shortcut

Justice committee  I would agree with that. I wholeheartedly support laws against the incitement of violence, but what the human rights regime is doing now is criminalizing differences of opinion. There is a man in Saskatchewan who is under a lifetime speech ban. He cannot express an honest opinio

Justice committee  Yes, but as the tribunal judges both recently concluded, the very narrow approval to section 13 given by Chief Justice Dickson is not what's going on at the moment. Now, I disagreed with that Supreme Court decision at the time because it seemed perfectly obvious to me that, just

Justice committee  Ezra made the fundamental point that even if you have broadly written language there are the traditional protections the defendant has when he is called into a criminal court. There is a reason why section 13 is attractive essentially to politically motivated ideological crusader