Canada: A court that treats us like children

John Robson

Ottawa Sun

Canada’s Supreme Court is poised to rob us of our last shred of free speech, said John Robson. It ought to be a given that “free speech includes the right to be loathsome.” Yet the justices are “seriously pondering” whether anti-gay flyers distributed by William Whatcott in Saskatchewan a decade ago constitute hate speech. Whatcott’s flyers called gay sex “filthy” and “sick.” That was certainly impolite, but was it really hateful? Even if it were, the best way to combat false or malicious speech is for rational people to rebut it in open debate.

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Our top court, though, doesn’t think Canadians are capable of having such a debate. In the last major ruling on free speech, in 1990, the court said that because “individuals can be persuaded to believe almost anything,” the government can’t simply allow an “unregulated marketplace of ideas”—some must be suppressed. So what is the harm that is so grave that it justifies suppressing this idea? The complainants have alleged nothing more serious than hurt feelings. Please. If you crumble “at a rude word from some random loser, you have problems no hate-speech judgment can begin to address.”