Media scan

The Globe and Mail weighs in with yet another editorial calling for the abolition of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act -- the "hate speech" section. An excerpt:

...Like its sibling in the B.C. Human Rights Code (at the core of the Maclean's hearing in Vancouver earlier this month), section 13 of the federal statute is aimed at what is "likely to expose" people to hatred or contempt because of ethnicity, religion and other specified factors. Evidence of such a likelihood - in the absence of a solid science of mass psychology on which to base expert testimony - is bound to be dubious, and there are no defences of the kind found in civil lawsuits about damage to reputation, such as fair comment.

Back in 1990, a case from the federal human-rights commission about the hate-message section made its way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. Khurrum Awan, one of the instigators of one of the trio of complaints against Maclean's, has portrayed the court's decision in that case as an active recommendation of section 13, in preference to the hate-speech sections of the Criminal Code. In fact, both the majority and the dissenting minority were troubled that the hate-message section is not limited to cases where there is hateful intent, though the majority was sufficiently comforted that the Human Rights Act's penalties were less drastic than the Criminal Code's.

Whether or not the future belongs to Islam, as Mr. Steyn fears, both the present and future belong in large measure to the Internet. A statutory provision that once restrained racist cranks who were putting telephones to wicked uses now threatens public debate in the press on matters of concern to all Canadians. It may well have been too broad in 1990, as three out of seven Supreme Court judges then thought; it is much too broad in the 21st century.

I like that argument a lot. It's philosophically principled. But it also refers to the pragmatic problem: in the era of the Internet, such vague and far-reaching censorship is bound to fail.

Here is Glenn Reynolds, professor of law and Instapundit:

When the stormtroopers wear clown shoes instead of jackboots, it's easy to forget that they're still stormtroopers.

I like that, too. Because it's right: when Canadians (and Americans) start to ridicule the human rights commissions, we're well on the way to reforming or abolishing them. But, until that change is wrought, they're still brutal censors.