Speech codes in Canada

On its way to the USA

[Reprinted from Issues & Views July 9, 2001]

It's no longer news that the country north of the border is gradually turning into a repressive police state. Although the bureaucrats who run Canada still pay lip service to such rights as freedom of speech, there are a raft of topics that are off-limits to public discussion.

Here in the USA, politically incorrect types such as white nationalists can, in fact, be thrown in jail for their expressed views. However, the prosecution still has to come up with some other reason for the culprit's incarceration--"conspiracy to deny civil rights," for instance, is a favorite one, if they can't pin anything stronger on the targeted victim.

But, in Canada, the pretensions are few, as an actual Speech Code, designed to control and contain public discourse, has become law. Books and other publications are banned. Officers of Canada's Customs service regularly open incoming packages to check for literature that might be offensive to members of particular "protected" ethnic and "gender" groups. You can guess which ones they are.

Of course, whether in Canada or here in the United States, it all comes down to the same thing in the end. When some influential interest group has set the prosecution on you, and they're determined to get you, then no appeal to the Bill of Rights will aid you, as actions once considered protected freedoms are legally transformed into felony crimes.

The following is from a Washington Post report on the ongoing loss of freedoms in Canada:

Whether you call it over-sensitive political correctness or an abiding sense of fairness and decency, Canada has embraced it like a . . . well, never mind. Through its human rights laws and hate speech codes, broadcast standards and myriad "voluntary" industry guidelines, Canada makes no bones about its determination to impose liberal-minded limits on public discourse.

Although the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms put free speech and a free press into the bedrock of Canadian law, neither the public nor Canada's courts views these rights as absolutely as Americans have come to view the First Amendment. The Canadian Supreme court has ruled in a series of cases that the government may limit free speech in the name of other worthwhile goals, such as ending discrimination, ensuring social harmony or promoting equality of the sexes.

Canada's most powerful tool against politically incorrect speech is its hate speech code, which prohibits any statement that is "likely to expose a person or group of persons to hatred or contempt" because of "race, color, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age." Prosecutors are not required to show proof of malicious intent or actual harm to win convictions in hate speech cases, and courts in some jurisdictions have ruled that it does not matter whether the statements are truthful.

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