A provision governing hate speech in Canada is under the microscope this week, after a tribunal of the Canadian Human Rights Commission concluded that it violates the right to freedom of expression guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This body doesn’t have the power to strike down Section 13(1) of the Human Rights Act, but the tribunal’s reluctance to apply the section against freedomsite.org webmaster Marc Lemire has set an interesting precedent and kicked up renewed debate over the right to free speech.
Queer people being one of the groups that anti-hate speech laws are supposed to protect, the outcome of this debate could have consequences for LGBT advocacy organizations. Queer activists are divided on the subject of hate speech. Some believe that the kind of homophobic and racist rhetoric that appears on websites like Marc Lemire’s contributes to an unsafe environment for the groups it targets, and should be proscribed. Others, wary of censorship, are willing to let the haters say whatever they like and hope that in the process they expose themselves as irrational and crazy.
This has tended to be the approach of LGBT equality campaigners Egale Canada. In 2005, they refused to endorse a complaint before the Alberta Human Rights Commission against conservative pastor Stephen Boissoin, the author of a letter to the Red Deer Advocate newspaper denouncing the “homosexual agenda.” Egale’s Executive Director said at the time that the organization wanted Boissoin’s assertions “aired, debated and subjected to public scrutiny.”
On the face of it, the director’s statement sits a little uneasily with Egale’s ongoing campaign against “Murder Music,” Jamaican dancehall music that features violently homophobic lyrics. A letter Egale sent to HMV and iTunes asking them to cease sales of music by particular dancehall artists last year made specific reference to the Section 13 provision against hate speech.
