Senator Jim Munson On The Repeal CHRA Hate Speech Provisions

Thanks to our colleague Senator Nancy Ruth, many of us have also been made aware of a dangerous discrepancy between those groups protected against discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act and those groups protected under the Criminal Code. Under the Criminal Code, the prohibited groups include only those distinguished by race, religion or ethnic origin. It says nothing about those additional groups protected under section 13, including those distinguished by age, sex, sexual orientation or disability.

This represents a world of legal difference. As inconceivable as it may sound — that our anti-hate provisions could come to exclude protections for groups like women and homosexuals from the language and violence of hate — that is what we are facing. This will be one of the impacts of the passage of Bill C-304.

An argument mentioned briefly here, but not particularly widely circulated.