A Step, Although Only A Baby Step, Towards Freedom

George Jonas: Saving the Canadian Human Rights Commission through amputation

Posted: October 31, 2009, 8:00 AM by NP Editor

Richard Moon is the law professor retained last year by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to write a report about the regulation of “hate speech” on the Internet. He didn’t strike people as a libertarian when he got his commission, so he surprised many when he recommended the repeal of Section 13, the controversial “hate speech” provision, from the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The other day, Moon outlined in the Saskatchewan Law Review Annual Lecture how he arrived at his recommendation, leaving little doubt he threw the dead ballast of s. 13 overboard to save the leaky vessel of the CHRC. He reasoned, he said, that speech should be prohibited only if it advocated, threatened or justified violence against an identifiable group, not if it merely defamed or stereotyped it, and that prohibition against preaching violence should come under the Criminal Code, not the Human Rights Act.

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