One of the Criminal Code enhancements Mr. Nicholson referred to is a minor tweak to the criminal laws against wilful promotion of hatred and public incitement of hatred, clarifying that “communicating” means communicating by any means, and includes “making available.”
It's less of a big deal then it sounds, and was originally proposed as clause 5 of the Bill C-51(Investigative Powers For The 21st Century). It was explained here, which will have to do because I'm too lazy to write it up again. My question, though, is how if at all the SC majority decision in the Crookes Case--which seemed to make it OK to link to defamatory speech if the defamation was not repeated in the linking post--will effect this. After all, one can think of hate speech as group defamation.
More information will presumably follow, and I will be interested in seeing how closely if at all the legislation follows The Moon Report: a mandatory, nation-wide press council, anyone?
7 comments:
well, if more ministers are given the final decision on individual cases like Kenny has been for immigration cases, this would give the Justice Minister power to apply that vague line however he wants. CONs aren't worried about public backlash or court cases with immigration, it seems, so why would Nicholson's abuse of position be any different?
Public servants? Less and less. More are being forced to serve harper, setting an invitation for whoever follows to act the same.
and it all started with the guy pictured to the right here. Mulroney was a fucking prince in comparison.
The problem is that you can tweak Sn. 319 all you want, but it's still virtually inaccessible for most victims of hatred. Nicholson has taken away the one easy route those people had. Now you have to get the provincial Attorney General on your side even to get things started.
No doubt the Neo-nazis, homophobes and Islamophobes are already celebrating.
Dr. Dawg, interesting point.
Anyone surprised? The Conservatives are trying to serve two groups with different needs(people who're the target of hate speech and "free speechers" who want the freedom to say whatever they want with no consequences). One of them gets screwed.
Hudak backed away from this whole debate, and you've got to wonder if there will be political consequences if this current bill goes through.
and it all started with the guy pictured to the right here. Mulroney was a fucking prince in comparison.
Funny thing, Trudeau worked briefly as a public servant under St. Laurent.
As for Mulroney, he had his own problems. Stevie Cameron's book on the Mulroney years made it clear that the PCers wanted no interference from public servants and there were a number of conflicts between the government and the public service (the privatization of Pearson was a big one).
But both Mulroney and Trudeau are princes compared to Harper when it comes to the public service. Forging quotes from the auditor general and the chief statician at Stats Can, muzzling scientists.
The problem is that the mainstream media also strongly supports the elimination of section 13. I would also add that Richard Moon is no right wing cave dweller. He is known as being left of centre and a progressive.
Couple all the above with little outcry from anyone (with the exception of groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress and Bnai Brith) until now and even now no one is manning the barricades for a war.
Sorry folks, those of you who had something to say remained silent. We only have ourselves to blame.
Dawg, I don't disagree. But remember one of Moon's suggestions was to change teh AG requirement (or at least look at changing it). I don't expect this to end well, but I am nevertheless intrigued that they aren't going with a simple elimination of S13.
And, deboaned, the fight ain't over yet. What little polling that's been done on this suggests that the public is behind HRCs. Journos opinion carry little weight when what they are arguing for is so obviously a matter of crude self interest.
All I'm sayin BCL is that we have to be seen to be supporting those who have defended Section 13. If we don't why would anyone support us? I mean all they see are people sticking their necks out while everyone else turns their back.
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