A federal appeals court has put the final nail in the coffin of Mark Lemire's constitutional appeal of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (the hate speech provision). You can read more about it here; I've written extensively on the matter here; and the court doc is here. I've only glanced at the latter, but its obvious that Marc Lemire has been defeated utterly. Even the act's penalty provision (section 54.1), severed in a previous ruling, has been judged constitutional.
Why worry about legislation that has already been repealed? Well, a Trudeau-led government that wanted to re-establish section 13 and 54.1 could do so knowing that they have passed constitutional muster. And remember, the Tories snuck their changes through the system as a private member's bill in the dead of night. Divided and leaderless as they might well be after 2015, they would not want to revisit these measures, especially since Mark Steyn, their strongest advocate on the file, might be playing piano for tips and cigarettes at some skeezy U.S. strip club by that time.
1 comment:
So proud are you to be for censorship?
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