Showing posts with label Bill C-30. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill C-30. Show all posts

Saturday, March 31, 2012

What Will Replace Section 13 Of The Canadian Human Rights Act

Rob Nicholson responds to my email.  Comments below:

Correspondence from the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada‏


Thank you for your correspondence concerning the Government’s proposed amendments to strengthen the hate crimes provisions of the Criminal Code. I regret the delay in responding.

As you are aware, on September 30, 2011, Conservative Member of Parliament Mr. Brian Storseth introduced Private Member’s Bill C-304, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom), into the House of Commons. The Bill proposes to repeal section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which empowers the Canadian Human Rights Commission to deal with complaints regarding the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet.


Our government supports the repeal of section 13 as it has been found to be subjective and unnecessarily vague when it comes to informing Canadians about what can and cannot be said on the Internet. We firmly believe that the Criminal Code is the best vehicle for combating hate propaganda and we remain committed to the promotion and protection of free speech by all Canadians.

To that end, on February 14, 2012, the Government tabled in the House of Commons Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. Among other things, the Bill proposes to expand the definition of “identifiable group” for the crimes of inciting hatred in a public place likely to lead to a breach of the peace and the wilful promotion of hatred, which are found in section 319 of the Criminal Code. The criteria of national origin, age, sex, and mental or physical disability would be added to the current definition of “identifiable group” for these two offences. In addition, the criterion of national origin would be added to the definition of “identifiable group” for the offence of advocating or promoting genocide, contained in subsection 318(1) of the Criminal Code.


Thank you again for writing.
Yours truly,
The Honourable Rob Nicholson

If this is all they plan to do, some obvious problems:

1) The requirement that the AG must approve hate speech charges would appear to remain, which in practice means that such charges will be almost impossible to lay.  There were rumors going about that this requirement might be removed, but apparently no such luck.

2) Any expansion of the criterion can trigger a legal challenge to the criminal code provisions, which might mean section 319 falls and  the country's winds up being without any hate speech legislation.

3) The bill containing these new provisions is the infamous C-30, which the government appears to have already given up on.

So, not a very impressive response.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Stockwell Day to Constituents: How Do We Kill Our Own Green Legislation?

It's hard to imagine anyone buying Stockwell Day's quicky history of Bill-C30:

...Even though the Conservatives have more members than any one opposition party, all the opposition parties’ MPs can gang up together on a vote and outnumber the governing party members.

That means the opposition can totally change a piece of legislation at the committee stage of a bill.

And that’s exactly what has happened with our environment legislation on greenhouse gas and pollution control, known as Bill C-30.

For instance, our intention is that all industries in Canada must reduce their emissions by 20 per cent by the year 2020.

The opposition MPs have voted in a way that will make that impossible to enforce. They want to create back-door mechanisms to allow businesses of their choosing to be exempt from meeting those deadlines.

We don’t believe that MPs should be allowed to give exemptions to their friends on environmental rules.

They also want emission levels for some companies to be uncapped so that they can go on polluting. Added to that, they voted together on committee to knock out our list of standards on a number of other pollutants which clog up our air and our lungs.

[...]

We can’t support the way our standards are being altered and reduced and are at risk when this amended legislation comes back to Parliament for a final vote (third reading).

We may be forced with the dilemma of having a piece of legislation, that we will have to vote against but which may become law if all opposition MPs support it.

But I guess that's the government line and they're going to stick to it (Baird gave a similar spiel on CBC radio about a month ago). And since Stockwell is asking his readers for advice as to how the Tories should "work through" this situation, let me offer some: look at where you were the day before your government unveiled its green regulations (on the cusp of a Majority at around 40%) and look where you are now (about 33%). What do you think caused the precipitous decline in public support? Shane Doan, or your crap green plan?

Allow C-30 to pass and you will have taken a small step in restoring the trust of the Canadian people and positioned the CPC as legitimate custodians of the nation's environment. Let it die on the order paper and you will always be seen as a regional party upholding Alberta interests.

The choice is yours.