The U.S. Department of State reports on human rights activities in foreign countries, including Canada.
The March 6, 2007 report on Canada is quite matter-of-fact in disclosing limits on freedom of speech:
Freedom of Speech and Press . . .
The Supreme Court has ruled that the government may limit free speech in the name of goals such as ending discrimination, ensuring social harmony, or promoting gender equality. It also has ruled that the benefits of limiting hate speech and promoting equality are sufficient to outweigh the freedom of speech clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the country's bill of rights incorporated in the country's constitution. . . .
Inciting hatred (in certain cases) or genocide is a criminal offense, but the Supreme Court has set a high threshold for such cases, specifying that these acts must be proven to be willful and public. The Broadcasting Act prohibits programming containing any abusive comment that would expose individuals or groups to hatred or contempt. Provincial-level film censorship, broadcast licensing procedures, broadcasters' voluntary codes curbing graphic violence, and laws against hate literature and pornography also impose some restrictions on the media.
A 2001 Report on Human Rights in Canada trumpeted how much easier it is to bring a human rights complaint to a Human Rights Commission than to a regular court:
Canada’s domestic human rights protections can be divided into two categories:
1) traditional civil liberties and due process rights, fundamental freedoms, and political rights, which consist essentially of constraints on governmental and legislative action; and
2) anti-discrimination laws, which prohibit discrimination on various grounds in society generally, and which apply to both public and private actors.
The application of the first category of domestic human rights protections is largely entrusted to the courts. The second category of rights, by contrast, is at least in the first instance enforced by specialized administrative bodies (i.e., the various human rights commissions).
Both the ordinary courts and the human rights commissions offer adjudication on individual complaints regarding human rights violations as well as various judicially enforceable remedies where violations are made out. However, in theory at least, the human rights commission model offers a number of advantages over the traditional courts. Typically, human rights commissions:
·are comprised of persons with expertise in human rights;
·have a broader institutional mandate, which includes promotion of and public education about human rights;
·are more accessible to complainants (they have less formal procedures and, more importantly, if they accept the complaint, the commissions will usually investigate and pursue it on behalf of the complainant);
·can initiate their own reviews of policies and practices, even where no complaint has been filed, and can issue public reports accordingly; and
·are obliged to report regularly to Parliament or to the provincial or territorial legislature, as the case may be, not only on their own operations, but also on the state of human rights in their respective jurisdictions.
Related Posts (on one page):
Frankly, I find these reports from our neighbor to the north rather unsettling, eerily so.
According to the biographies on the site, ten of the eleven members have law degrees. Most have background in such things as civil liberties, employment law, etc., but not all. The
Canadian Human Rights Commission has five full-time members, of whom two have law degrees.
What I find profoundly disturbing about the "discriminatory publication" clauses of the human rights statutes is that, as in the case of British Columbia, they are worded in such a way as to criminalize even unequivocally true statements that do nothing to incite any particular action. The statement that "Members of the Watchtower Bible Society interpret the biblical prohibition against consuming blood as prohibiting blood transfusion." is absolutely true and would not be disavowed by JHs and recommends no action for or against them, yet it can reasonably be construed as exposing JHs to contempt. This post may therefore violate the BC Human Rights Act. That is insane.
I'm thinking everyone on this blog should just take a deep breath and consider that the weighing of different human rights is inherently difficult. In the US, the rights protected by the Bill of Rights don't clash very often, because there are so few of them. However, countries with a more exhaustive human rights catalog often find themselves in a situation where both the plaintiff and the defendant can point to a protected right to support their claim. In such a situation, judges and legislators have to make a judgment call that may turn out very differently between countries.
That is, after all, the chief objection to "positive" rights: That once you admit their existence, it becomes possible to get direct conflicts between what one right and another demands. They're the moral/ethical equivalent of division by zero in math.
They believe that government should allow the greatest amount of freedom that's compatible with good order. Which, ultimately, is 'none' since freedom intrinsically involves the possibility of disorder.
What's happening with speech in Canada is just one instance of their very different idea of good government. Don't expect anything from them except 'pleasant authoritarianism', or possibly less-pleasant authoritarianism as time goes by.
@PersonFromPorlock: I'm afraid there's been some kind of misunderstanding. You seem to believe that everyone outside the US is somehow suffering under oppression. Instead, allow me to make a slight modification to your dichotomy:
"They (which presumably means everyone outside the US) believe that goverment should impose the least amount of order that's compatible with liberty, equality and fraternity."
Which, of course, is exactly my point: once you admit other goals than only liberty, things get more difficult. However, that should not necessarily dissuade anyone from trying it.
So by holding that the statement can be "construed as exposing JHs to contempt" isn't the Human Rights Act (or Commission) saying that the belief is contemptible? Therefore the Act is in violation of itself.
I thought the whole idea behind free speech was that it realized a given person's speech would often be against social harmony.
Obviously I won't be visiting any time soon, but I wasn't planning on going to Zimbabwe, either.
That's a fair point. Whether to recognize something like "fraternity" as a competing good, for which individual liberty should sometimes be sacrificed, is a fundamental question of political philosophy. I'm personally opposed to doing so, but there certainly reasonable arguments in favor of it. My problem is this: if you're going to advocate such a tradeoff, you should do so openly. The entire concept of "rights" is fundamentally concerned with individual liberty. You can argue for limiting rights in the name of some other social interest, that's fine. But what I object to is the attempt to co-opt rights language in service of these competing interests and to the detriment of individual liberty.
It's not just a matter of balancing individuals' right to free speech with competing "rights," such as fraternity or social cohesion. Those may or may not be compelling interests, but they're not rights. It's really a question of balancing rights in general against these other interests. People shouldn't avoid that question by calling everything a "human right."
On the other hand, marijuana is legal in Canada, the drinking age is 18 and no one proposes constitutional amendments to ban flag burning so don't climb up on that high horse just yet.
People don't go to jail in Canada for violating the Human Rights Act, anymore than they go to jail here for being sued in a civil rights claim under Title VII.
So, what we're saying here is that persons may be sued by their peers simply for speech pointing out facts which might actually be publicly avowed by the offended party (never mind the example where they fail to deny it).
And there are those that think we need to "take a deep breath"???
Several commenters have hit the nail on the head, in that these sorts of problems appear when you start trying to make "human rights" out of things that probably don't merit the title. For example, look at all this "right to healthcare" tripe - I thought we already had a word for when someone claims a right to another's labor.
it starts with "speech codes" and workplace "harassment" rules, and spreads from there
Even within the realm of liberty, there are tradeoffs. For example, AFAIK current SCOTUS case law does not recognise a general right to privacy under the 4th, 5th and/or 9th amendments. Such a right does exist in many other countries, and it can easily clash with the right to free speech. For example, over here news media do not publish the names or pictures of people who are on trial for a crime, because to do so would violate their privacy in a way that is not justified by "the people's right to know".
L.S.,
"However, countries with a more exhaustive human rights catalog often find themselves in a situation where both the plaintiff and the defendant can point to a protected right to support their claim."
Ummm... NO... considering that most of us have been called racists, hate mongers, et cetera for years for not agreeing 100% with the left wing narrative and/or political goals.. or program.. we see in this an attempt to criminalize dissent. Re: our speech.
You can disagree or think whatever you want about my view / experience. But I doubt you've walked in our shoes and been subject to these kinds of outrageous claims. Had you, I have no doubt you'd see our point.
Unfortunately, I have increasingly little confidence that the Supremes (some of them) won't rely on foreign court rulings or law when engaging in judicial review.
And would the defenders of citing foreign law/courts like to respond?
Why? Because when you disallow the frank and open exchange of ideas and expression of one's beliefs, you close off the dialogue between groups or beliefs which are in friction. When that friction can't be relieved through speech, chances are it will eventually be taken out through other means.
In other words, we modern humans are supposed to settle our differences by talking them through. But if it's illegal to talk them through, how do we settle them?
It may be slightly uncomfortable to discuss some of these things, but healthier in the long run to do so, I think. After all "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me". If these people are so emotionally underdeveloped that they are harmed by mere discussion of religion, etc. then there is a serious problem that need to be resolved somehow. Personally plenty of things offend me but I would never demand people who say or do them to be silenced, except when they are a direct incitement to violence. Even them I'm not so sure - since free speech is, IMO, very important.
I think Canadians would find it hilarious that Americans think Canadians are the ones at risk of financial ruin from legal proceedings. The Canadian judicial system doesn't have lottery style civil jury verdicts and their "loser pays attorney's fees" rule makes people think long and hard before filing a frivolous lawsuit.
That was the thesis behind Jared Taylor's "Paved With Good Intentions", a much-maligned book which has been considered racist.
Problem with Taylor is he takes actual figures and puts them in a book and annoys some of the accredited victim groups.
His idea is being tested in Scandinavia where the enormous disproportion of crimes against persons are being committed by a "tiny minority" of a "broad strata of society" and the government has stopped breaking out the numbers. It's not as if the population doesn't know. They know. What annoys the population is that the government, by pretending otherwise, seems to be enabling the rape and assault and robbery which afflicts the general population.
Oh, no. My impression is that quite a few inside and outside the US glory in it, convinced that the government is putting it to 'the other guy'.
"Liberty, equality and fraternity" is fine as a standard for individual behavior. As a government program, it's an oxymoron. By the time your government has achieved 'satisfactory' equality and fraternity (not to mention other governmental wants like high tax receipts and a proper show of deference to its minions), your "least amount of order" won't leave any room for liberty... which was my original point. 'Ensuring liberty' is the only standard to which government can be held that won't eventually result in government's runaway growth.
I would also say that those folks, both right and left, who believe that free speech should be just that should try to stick together whereever they are.
SCOTUS does recognize the potential for conflict with an accused's 6th amendment right to an impartial jury trial. See Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966). I'd consider that a tradeoff within the realm of liberty.
I'm not sure I'd consider a conflict with a "general right of privacy" a liberty-for-liberty tradeoff though. It depends on the content of the "right." Any constitutional right to privacy here -- whether one thinks such a right can be found in the penumbras of those amendments or not -- is essentially a right to do certain things, e.g. use contraception or have an abortion, without governmental interference. It's not a right one could assert against fellow (private) citizens in order to get the government to restrict their actions.
We do have invasion of privacy torts that can limit freedom of speech and press, e.g. public disclosure of private facts. I'm not sure whether they really protect liberty interests though. But those torts do derive from an article entitled "The Right to Privacy."
It may also depend upon how long ago you were in Canada. Some provinces have increased the legal drinking age (from 18 to 19).
BTW, the bar may well have been breaking the law, too. That would hardly be the first or only time a Canadaian bar did that.
This is somewhat beside the point of this discussion. After all, wasn't it made rather clear in the original post that the government Human Rights Commissariat or Tribunals will undertake their own action, either self-initiated or upon receipt of a private complaint/referral, at taxpayers' expense? There is thus no need for the complainant to "think long and hard" at all, since what's under discussion is a species of administrative proceeding, not courtroom litigation. If anything, it looks almost too easy to harass those with opposing viewpoints.
I think if many Canadians (present company excluded) weren't so complacent about their government and looked at it as something more than a mildly amusing sideshow, they would be disturbed by the potential for abuse inherent in this system.
I know my offering here is less thoughtful than a number of those offered above by others (e.g., Brett Bellmore and PersonfromPorlock), but I do believe "cultural" values are reflected in all this. Greater civility would be nice, but I wouldn't trade what we have for what they have in order to get it.
for those expressing concern about potentially large damages awards, some excerpts from the statute in question:
In other words, even though we're talking about Canadian dollars here, the award can never exceed 40.000 dollars plus interest.
Because Canadians are attempting to silence U.S. persons, such as Mark Steyn, who have residence in the U.S., and because other far-off countries like the U.K. are letting their courts be used for the same purposes, and because all it takes is a little comity for a ruling in some obscure court in some obscure country to be used to silence you.
Under the expansive definitions apparently applied to "equality" and "fraternity", it looks like the appropriate aphorism is "liberty, equality, fraternity, pick any one."
I consider myself comfortably well off financially but I could not write a check for $39,710.
This works even more the other way. When terrorists cross the Canadian border to attack us here, Canada will need every bit of public support here it can get to avoid a closing of the border. Canadian supppression of freedom of speech will definitely affect the feelings Americans have concerning the suffering of Canadians when the border is closed.
As the late President Porofirio Diaz of Mexico said more than a century ago, "Poor Mexico. So far from God and so near the United States."
well, yes. the speech that NEEDS protecting is that speech which is offensive, even demeaning, and harmful to people's feeling all warm and fuzzy about themselves.
this is HARDLY something new. canada, most of europe, etc. through law such as the 'race relations act' etc. do not have anything remotely resembling the kind of free speech we have.
you cannot simultaneously protect people (via the heavy hand of govt.) from offensive, demeaning speech AND protect the rights of those who wish to espouse such speech. canada, long ago accepted that "civility" (defined as not allowing speech that makes people feel bad about their religion, race, etc.) is MORE important than the marketplace of ideas.
"progressives" who so wistfully look to canada and europe as so much more "enlightened" than us, fail to realize that these countries have sold people's rights for govt. protected nannystate feel-good'ism.
one of the previous posters was also correct to point out that even if the speech used can be shown to be FACTUALLY correct- that is not even a defense.
these positive rights (leftists use them all the time on college campuses to justify restrictive speech codes, get rid of affirmative action bake sales, etc.) believe there is a "right" to not be subjected to ideas that make you feel "icky". when yelling down the person doesn't work (summers at harvard), people can fall back to these speech codes.
you cannot simultaneously have freedom of speech (the right to be free of govt. interference in the expression of ideas ) and allow govt. to protect you from uncofortable ideas (and truths). they are as mutually exclusive as having a govt. that promotes equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. they are mutually exclusive.
i took a hate crimes investigator (train the trainer class) with some RCMP and Vancouver cops and they were amazed at the latitude we "allow" (their words) our citizens in regards to "hate speech". i was similarly amazed at how much power the govt. has to restrict "hate speech".
My experience trying to dissent on 'progressive' blogs suggests that they haven't so much failed to realize this, as realized it, and think it a good bargain.
:)