Senate gives final approval to repeal of ‘hate speech’ law

Alberta MP’S private member’s bill to be phased in over a year

OTTAWA — A contentious section of Canadian human rights law, long criticized by free-speech advocates as overly restrictive and tantamount to censorship, is gone for good.

A private member’s bill repealing Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the so-called “hate speech provision,” passed in the Senate this week.

Its passage means the part of Canadian human rights law that permitted rights complaints to the federal Human Rights Commission for “the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet” will soon be history.

The bill from Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth passed in the House of Commons last summer, but needed Senate approval. It has received royal assent and will take effect after a one-year phase-in period.

An “ecstatic” Storseth said the bill, which he says had wide support across ideological lines and diverse religious groups, repeals a “flawed piece of legislation” and he called Canada’s human rights tribunal “a quasi-judicial, secretive body that takes away your natural rights as a Canadian.”

“(Section 13) had actually stopped being used as a shield, as I think it was intended, to protect civil liberties, and started being used as a sword against Canadians, and it’s because it was a poorly written piece of legislation in the first place,” he said.

Various human rights lawyers and groups such as the Canadian Bar Association say Section 13 is an important tool in helping to curb hate speech, and that removing it would lead to the proliferation of such speech on the Internet.

But critics of Section 13 said it enabled censorship on the Internet, and are calling its repeal a victory for free speech.

“We’re pleased with the repeal,” said Cara Zwibel, director of the fundamental freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), who testified before a Senate committee on the topic.

Zwibel said Section 13 had “some serious problems from a freedom of expression perspective.”

“This is a victory for hate speech … this is a protection for hate speech.” LIBERAL SEN. NANCY RUTH

“We don’t want there to be a chill on speech that is controversial but not necessarily hateful,” she said.

“We felt that given the impact that it has on freedom of expression, and given that it hasn’t really proven to be a very effective method for dealing with discrimination, that it shouldn’t be on the books anymore ... We really encourage countering hateful speech, rather than trying to censor it.”

Zwibel, at the CCLA, also said there’s not a lot of good evidence that marginalized groups have used the statute to curb discrimination.

“Section 13 is not something that minority groups were already embracing and making use of,” she said, noting that a large majority of the tribunal cases “were brought by a single individual.”

That person is Ottawa-based human rights lawyer Richard Warman, who has brought 16 successful Section 13 complaints before the human rights tribunal against neo-Nazis and white supremacists since 2001.

On Thursday, Warman said Section 13 had helped sideline neo-Nazis from the Internet because of its power to obtain cease-and-desist orders from Canada’s human rights tribunal and enforce them through the courts.

“Virtually every other Western democracy has these kinds of civil law controls on hate speech,” Warman said. “Now, Canada just moves one large step further out of line from realizing that these kinds of controls are necessary and imperative.”

Producing and disseminating hate speech remains a crime in Canada, but regulating it will fall to the courts, not to human rights tribunals.

Under the Criminal Code, spreading hate against identifiable groups can carry up to a two-year prison sentence.

But Liberal Sen. Nancy Ruth noted that while any citizen can file a human rights complaint, criminal charges for hate speech require the attorney general’s approval.

She said she left the Senate “heartbroken” after the bill passed, saying it creates a gap regarding discrimination based on sex, age and disabled people.

“This is a victory for hate speech. To remove protection from disadvantaged groups in society ... this is a protection for hate speech,” she said, accusing the Conservative senators who voted for the bill of “tribal loyalty.”

“It is not about freedom of expression. It’s about freedom to hate, in my opinion.”