Hate Speech in C-13

Indeed, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act does contain several "tweeks" to Canada's hate speech laws.

(4) In this section, “identifiable group” means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, or mental or physical disability.

To me the only noticable change I can see is the addition of "national origin" to the list of identifiable groups. This is a holdover from when the bill was called the  Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, and had no pretence to being cyber bullying legislation.  I once wrote about that particular change being somewhat sinister, but was told to chill

There is also this:

320.1 (1) If a judge is satisfied by information on oath that there are reasonable grounds to believe that there is material that is hate propaganda within the meaning of subsection 320(8) or computer data within the meaning of subsection 342.1(2) that makes hate propaganda available, that is stored on and made available to the public through a computer system within the meaning of subsection 342.1(2) that is within the jurisdiction of the court, the judge may order the custodian of the computer system to [delete the material]

...which looks like a rehash of Clause 5 in Investigate Powers, which would mean that linking to hate speech becomes a crime.  Although how that would be workable post Crookes would be an interesting question.

Well, IANAL so that's the best I can do with it.  A real lawyer discusses the various issues raised by the new bill here.

Update: Laura in the comments notes that

The addition of age, sex, and mental or physical disability is also new. The inclusion of "sex" is particularly significant; women face gendered hate speech all the time, particularly online, and since the hate speech provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act were removed earlier this year, there's been nothing in law to address this.