Now that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is effectively dead and gone, some folks are crawling out of the woodwork to celebrate its demise and to write rousing defences of hate speech in Canada. One such commentator is Andrew Coyne, former national editor for Maclean's, columnist for the National Post, and TV personality.
Such a defence of hate speech was published today in Full Comment column in the National Post entitled "Why does Canada still have a hate speech law?" In this column we see Mr. Coyne argue that Section 319.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada is somehow an affront to freedom. The column is a little muddy, as Mr. Coyne seems to equivocate quite a bit by presenting some arguments in favour of hate speech laws, and never really coming out and saying clearly what he means; but I think his main argument is that hate speech laws infringe on freedom of speech (guaranteed in Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,) but I maintain that hate speech itself violates Section 15 of the Charter, has no actual basis in fact, deserves absolutely no special protections and is a bad thing for all of society.
What's wrong with hate speech? To put it quite simply, hate speech creates an unequal society and contributes and expands already socially existing institutional hatred towards vulnerable groups. At its heart, the unbalancing of society is the very antithesis of what Canada was founded on and what it stands for today. After the Battle of the Plains of Abraham Britain had the opportunity to attempt to assimilate the French colonists in Canada, to force them to speak English and adopt British customs and culture. Instead, the British mandated that the habitants could keep their language, culture and even their own civil laws (which is why Québec does not use British Common Law, but instead uses French Civil Code of Laws to this day.) In that same vein, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 ruled that Indian lands could not be settled on by British settlers until treaties were signed between the Crown and the Indian nations who lived there. This was in contrast to the American treatment of Native Americans which essentially amounted to attempts at genocide, and while Canada's history regarding First Nations people is not spotless by any stretch of the imagination, the Royal Proclamation was another example of attempts to live in peace and harmony with all cultures and peoples within the borders of Canada. The rights set forth in the Royal Proclamation are even mentioned as still in force and protexted by Section 25 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Hate speech is often depicted as a difference of opinion, as one valid way to look at the world. It is often defended as political speech, or personal speech. However, if one examines the scientific and historical facts surrounding "race," one quickly discovers that there is actually no scientific basis for race, that race is an entirely social construct based on minor differences between groups of people and ingrained social and historical prejudices. When the human genome was mapped in the late 1990s, it was discovered that "there is the same amount of genetic variation among
individuals within a so called racial group as there is between individuals
in different racial groups" (Beckerman). Here is an interesting YouTube video that explains how "race" has no basis in genetics. The final nail in the race coffin is when we look how it was applied to group of people historically. For example, at one time the Irish were considered an inferior race, more akin to "Negros" than to Teutonic races. Such speculation ignores the fact that it is now thought that every human being is descended from ancestors in Africa. Another "proof" that some races are inferior to others is cited IQ scores, however this ignores the fact that it is impossible to make an IQ test that isn't culturally biased, and thus most IQ tests will measure how much of a middle-class white person one is rather than real intelligence. The curious phenomenon of one experiment showing that the IQ scores of black students improving after the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States and becoming statistically equivalent to white IQ scores suggests that positive stereotypes and negative stereotypes have an influence on IQ scores.
Why are people so eager to defend such garbage speech? It does nothing to advance society, it does not lead to enlightenment or answer any important questions. Indeed, hate speech actively damages society, it is like a poison that infects people's thoughts and creates a hostile environment towards certain groups in society that are already vulnerable simply because they are not the societal norm (i.e. white, able-bodied, male, heterosexual, etc..) Free speech is important, but there are far better examples of speech that should be protected without resorting to accepting and defending hate speech.
Hate speech is not a political speech, and it does not convey political ideas. Politics applies to all people, regardless of who they are, and I doubt you'd ever see a political party defending or espousing hate speech, unless they want to become unelectable to large swaths of the population (just as the Conservatives or the Liberals, both parties tussling over the immigrant vote in Canada.)
The purpose of the government in Canada is to maintain "Peace, Order and Good Government." (Section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867.) This is why we have the Criminal Code of Canada, it's why we have laws protecting consumers from dangerous products, it's why we have a court system that is tasked with settling disputes between people, it is why we prosecute murder and other crimes.
Hate speech is dangerous and actively damages society. It turns the powerful majority against powerless minorities, it undermines the basic idea that all people should be equal under the law (the Rule of Law,) it can lead to harm of minority groups, and it can perpetrate a cycle of hatred for vulnerable groups in society much the same way abusive parents can spawn generations of children who in turn become abusive parents.
If a product on the shelves in Canadian stores contains a dangerous ingredient that leads to the harm and death of people in Canada, then is it not the government's duty to ban that dangerous ingredient? The current government of Canada seems to agree with that sentiment when they declared Bisphenol A a dangerous substance, toxic to health and the environment. In that same notion, isn't it important for the government to make laws and rules to protect society from toxic thoughts and ideas that have the potential to harm and damage society? If a certain, vital, rich culture in Canada is targeted by those who spew hate speech, and that group is marginalized by society or damaged by that hate speech, then is it not the government's duty to protect that group just as they would protect any Canadian?
If I may, I'd like to speak from a personal point of view. I'm legally blind, and as an elementary school student, my fellow classmates felt this disability was a valid reason to marginalize and make fun of me. It didn't help that the school and CNIB furnished me with a special desk that put my schoolwork closer to my face to prevent straining my back and neck from being hunched over all the time. While this desk was a way to help me, it made me different from other students, no longer "normal," and made me an easy target for ridicule. This (very loosely defined) "hate speech" levelled towards me had a huge impact on my sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Those taunts against me made me feel worthless, abnormal, it robbed me of the sense that I had the ability to accomplish things. Someone who doesn't have a physical disability simply can't understand what it was like for me, they can't understand how psychologically damaging it is to be insulted and taunted for something you were born with and can never change about yourself. Likewise, white folks like Mr. Coyne and I cannot possibly understand what racism is like, what effects it has on those who are it's victims. I imagine it is something like what my classmates did to me when they bullied and harassed me for simply having poor eyesight.
Mr. Coyne argues that hate speech laws are simply a case of "hurt feelings," but that is a flippant and very inaccurate description. More accurately, hate speech is hating someone simply for the way they were born, it is invalidating a person's very humanity itself. Hate speech, and institutional racism in all its forms, accomplishes the same thing torture is meant to do on an emotional, mental, and (dare is say?) spiritual level: strip someone of their humanity. It has the effect of turning them into something not "normal" or acceptable to society, of "othering" people. And those who post their hate speech on the internet are using a public forum to broadcast these views and disseminate them to the public at large. By allowing people to engage in hate speech, we are allowing them to spread ignorance, hatred and fear of people for being who they were born as. It seems to me that the "hurt feelings" defence of hate speech is simply a way to minimize the experiences and feelings of those who are a target of hate speech. It hearkens back to the old lie that "sticks and stones may break my bones..." but the truth is that you have to be in a pretty high place in society (i.e. a white man in Canada who's also a public figure in the media) to never experience what real hatred and prejudice feels like or what affect it has on one's very mind and soul.
All this being said, I do not think Andrew Coyne is racist in any way. I also often really enjoy his writing (his recent piece "How Canada broke up with the U.S." is funny and interesting) I also do not begrudge him writing the piece I am responding to, his opinion in this case is perfectly valid, and I welcome the debate, which is why I wrote this rebuttal.
