It was only a matter of time after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld civil law controls on hate speech as constitutional in the Whatcott case, but Marc Lemire has finally admitted that his parallel attack on the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibition on Internet hate-speech (s. 13) has been gutted (‘please ignore my legal arguments found at paragraphs 84-115 of my previous Federal Court of Appeal factum’).
[...]
Mr. Lemire caves on the now legally (even more) entrenched facts that civil controls on hate speech are reasonable limits on freedom of expression, are justifiable in a free and democratic society, and are a pressing and substantial objective to avoid the serious damage caused as history has shown. Reading bumps on people’s heads to know what their intent was is still out. Hatred and contempt as narrowly defined by the Supreme Court in Taylor have been properly interpreted by human rights tribunals.
Relevant court docs have been supplied through the link.
I keep writing about this issue because the courts have essentially rejected the various Speechy arguments against S.13 and against hate speech laws in general. So, even if bill C-304 passes the Senate, a new clause can be inserted into the Canadian Human Rights Act under more favorable circumstances without worrying about constitutional issues.
At the moment, incidentally, C-304 seems pretty thoroughly stalled in the upper house.
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