The Shotgun Blog
« McCain: Bring the war home | Main | Accommodating cultural conflict; or, why won't Muslim women wear pants? »
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Fed censorship powers to be reviewed
Well, well, well! MP Keith Martin's motion to review the censorious Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act may get nowhere, and the Commons' justice committee's review of the section may be bogged down forever, but it still looks like there's light at the end of the tunnel.
That's because the Canadian Human Rights Commission announced today that it has launched "a comprehensive policy review of how best to address hate messages on the Internet. Leading constitutional law expert Professor Richard Moon of the University of Windsor will conduct an independent study as an important part of this review."
Moon is to begin work immediately and report back by the fall. And lest you think a "no action needed" result has been predetermined, consider this statement from Chief Commissioner Jennifer Lynch: "Legislation must evolve - when necessary - to respond and reflect changes in society."
One big reason for optimism is the fact Moon "is a prominent expert on freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and religion, and the structural aspects of constitutional rights protection. He is the author of the seminal book, 'The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression'."
See the CHRC's entire release here.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on June 17, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200e5537649148834
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Fed censorship powers to be reviewed:
Comments
If you go to "google books" you can read all of chapter from "The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression". The chapter is called "The Regulation of Racist Expression". In the chapter he goes over the history of applications of the criminal law against hate speech and what the Supreme Court had to say about it. He then has a shorter section on Human Rights Acts and, again, challenges to the constitutionality.
In the end he does not take a position on these laws, but clearly delineates what he takes to have been the main considerations in creating these laws, rulings about their validity, and public debate over them. He argues that free speech issues in the US have been centred more on defending outlier speech - the lone nutter, as it were - but in Canada the issue has been more a concern with racist speech against a background of some level of acceptance or the realistic possibility of wide acceptance of such views. He has some things to say as well about assumptions about our abilities to rationally assess ideas presented to us or how we might be susceptible to persuasion.
It is worth noting that even though the book was written in 2000, he says not a word about the Internet in this chapter. This is likely because the chapter is esentially recycled from an earlier 1995 publication of his ("The Supreme Court of Canada on the Structure of Freedom of Expression" in The University of Toronto Law Journal). He also recycled the same basic work into a chapter ("The Regulation of Hate Promotion") in another book ("Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance", also published in 2000).
As best as I can tell he has not published on the subject of hate on the Internet. In 2002 he published an article called "Justified Limits on Free Expression: The Collapse of the General Approach to Limits on Charter Rights" ( http://www.ohlj.ca/archive/articles/40_34_moon.pdf ), but it also does not mention the Internet and is more a slightly different discussion. The abstract tells us: "The author argues that the apparent collapse or erosion of the Oakes test reflects the problem of fitting a right such as freedom of expression, which is social and relational in character, into a structure of constitutional adjudication, which is built on an individualist conception of rights."
His most recent work has been on religious freedom, but it seems he gave a presentation called "Hate Speech Regulation in Canada" at the First Amendment Discussion Forum at University of Louisville's Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in December 2007. I'd be interested to know what he had to say, but there is nothing online.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-06-17 5:43:42 PM
FACT CHECK:
Thanks for the background. I didn't do any checking up on the fellow because I wanted to get the news onto the Shotgun as soon as I learned about it. In light of your information, I remain hopeful that Moon's review will produce the sort of pressure/recommendations that will give Harper an "official" reason to rid the CHRA of Section 13. We'll see.
Posted by: Terry O'Neill | 2008-06-17 6:03:02 PM
2 quotes from Professors Moon's book:'The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression'."
"Access rights to the media may be too complex for constitutional definition. What we should hope for from the courts, however, is that they not interfere with legislative efforts to open up the media to a wider range of voices & views."
...
"Yet the compelled expression argument seems strained when applied to large daily newspapers, and it's often supplemented by general and unsupported claims that "autonomy" of the press is necessary to the free and open debate of public issues."
Posted by: Blazingcatfur | 2008-06-17 7:10:34 PM
the independent report from Moon will release in the fall and the internal one from da roos? 2 years?
I hope it has some impact, and gets the harpacrats off their precious majority seeking asses.
Posted by: reg dunlop | 2008-06-17 7:26:51 PM
Jennifer "Marie Antoinette" Lynch speaks:
That said, she conceded that the "velocity" of the public debate "took all of us by surprise. It's clear the public want to have the debate. Our job really is to animate and lead on the debate."
Lynch said she isn't "the least bit concerned" that the current law blurs the lines between hate speech and speech that is merely offensive."
http://tinyurl.com/6jmm9u
Posted by: Blazingcatfur | 2008-06-17 8:51:48 PM
"If it's possible to do so, it's more practical not to have legislative amendments, because that takes a long time to do."
She forgot:
...also, I might lose my job entirely if an outsider is calling the shots.
Posted by: K Stricker | 2008-06-17 9:54:43 PM
I have difficulty believing that this move by the CHRC is to limit their ability to censor so called "hate" speech on the Internet. These Commissions will only look for ways to ensure their survival and extend their power. It is the bureaucratic way. Sounds like a smokescreen designed to blunt the current criticisms and deflect scrutiny.
Posted by: Concerned Canadian | 2008-06-17 10:49:55 PM
Al little boy is chased into his back garden by another little boy. The chased's mother hollers at her son to not be a coward. The Mom's boy turns and confronts the chasee who turns and flees. Later the mom gets a summons to appear at a Human Rights Commission to answer a complaint of prejudice.
Posted by: Agha Ali Arkahn | 2008-06-18 12:12:34 AM
I could not care less about Mr. Moon or his background. The very fact that the CHRC picked him in order to do a review is insulting. We must demand a complete independent investigation - not review - of the CHRC. Let us not leave the fox in charge of the hen house.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-06-18 11:47:21 AM
Buchanan has as always insightful commentary on this subject.
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/06/pjb-return-of-the-censors/
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-06-18 8:21:14 PM
ohnmr lopwgv sdzgifxj gxbip luswjhk ogkrpa pkbz
Posted by: iqszd ygvptmxei | 2008-06-26 9:58:17 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.