Of course! They are forced to have health care.
First, while the complaint did end up being dismissed, it was a long process and Mark Steyn had to marshal resources in his defense. Secondly, Steyn has made the point that all that really shows is that if you can defend yourself, you will probably win. If you can’t, then you need to watch what you say. Which is the definition of “chilling effect”.
I think you’re beign disengenuous with your description of the issue.
Reverend Boissoin of the Concerned Christian Coalition in rural Alberta wrote a call to warms to like minded individuals. Mixing exhortation like 'My banner has now been raised and war has been declared…" with mischaracterizations and scarcely veiled contempt for homosexuals. Two weeks later a Red Deer teen was beaten reported or being a homosexual. One of the attackers was a teen that attended a youth centre Boissoin apparently worked/attended.
The complaint was raised that the letter incited violence and contempt against homosexuals. Ultimately the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission agreed.
The AHRCC found that the tone, content and targeting of a vulnerable group was within it’s prevue, it found that the limitation of Mr. Boissoin and the CCC’s rights to be justified in the name limiting hate speech and incitement against a vulnerable community and finality that it, a provincial institution, had jurisdiction.
The issue moved to the Court of Queen’s Bench which overturned the panels judgment and laid out criticism of the panel’s review and findings noting that the panel is not court.
It then went to the Alberta Court of Appeal but I’ve lost track of it. Having read the Queen’s Bench’s decision and the AHRCC’s findings I can’t see why they would have problems with the Queen’s Bench’s findings. You’d want to get Spoons to speak to that.
We’re back to you making broad assertions of a 'chilling" effect but with no evidence.
Your problem will be numbers so here’s the StatsCanpage on Hate Crime over the past few years with a table linked to subsets of it. Since your assertion is that this chilling effect exists we should see a smaller number of reported incidents since no one wants to be caught.
Caveat - these are crimes, not complaints and so are a criminal matter not civil
So we see peaks in hate crimes in 2009…that’s after these 2 issues we’ve been discussing. Obviously no one sent out a memo.
Also note that the vast majority of the 3.5/100,000 incidents are mischief related. Only about 4% are linked to incitement.
The police note “Self-reported information from the 2009 General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization Note 6 suggests that about one-third (34%) of incidents perceived by victims to have been motivated by hate were subsequently reported to police (Dauvergne and Brennan 2011).”
So lets triple the counts/100k people from 3.5 to 10.5 and take only 4% so we get a WAG complaints rate of 0.42/100000 people per year. Say only 15million Canadians are in a position to cause/report these incitement crimes. That gives us 63 a year.
But we’re talking complaints, outside the reported crimes. Again, we’ll be generous and say that complaints to crimes is 10:1. That means there should be around 630 incitement complaints a year. That should be a big enough set for someone, or you, to wander through it and find a chilling effect.
What happens when the person in question is not an attorney?
Hey look I found some…
http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/publications/ar_2011_ra/dr_stats_rd-eng.aspx
Hate messages (Section 13) signed complaints:
2009 - 2
2010 - 0
2011 - 1
Interesting to note that the grounds of discrimination cited in signed complaints are dominated by Disability/Age discrimination (38% and 10% respectively) with 78% of types of Allegation Cited in Signed Complaints being employment related. In other words the commissions are primarily a vehicle for marginalized populations to seek redress outside the courts.
As I pointed out upthread, Mr. Steyn got into trouble for nothing. When he says HE was in trouble, he’s lying.
After reading what you linked to , wow, thank God I am not a canadian. The attorney general of Alberta believes that
Well then you’ll be thrilled by the Queen’s Bench findings
Perhaps it’s an outlier ruling in an otherwise blasted wasteland of shackled serfs. :rolleyes:
Honestly, I do not get the obsession Americans have with picking on obscure cases in Canadian law to prove Canada lacks freedom of expression. It’s bizarre.
The government overstepped its boundaries and the courts ruled in favour of free expression. I wonder if I can find American cases where the courts had to rule against thhe government and in favour of free expression? Would the existence of such a case prove that I should “thank God I’m not an American?”
Anyone want me to try to find such a case? Ten bucks say it won’t take me sixty seconds. Citizens United. Snyder v Phelps. Brandenburg V. State of Ohio. Commonwealth of Virgnia v Black. I win.
How about: “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,” … “habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless … in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”…“there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.”
80th United States Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, before the Senate Judiciary Committee January 18, 2007
Obviously the US is gulag filled dystopian failed state. :rolleyes:
Things are set up so that people can represent themselves.
Remember, complaints first go to the commission, and if that body decides that the matter is worth adjudicating, it goes before a tribunal. Both of these are administrative bodies, and neither is a court. Rules of civil or criminal procedure do not apply, as these bodies have their own sets of rules that are much easier for the layperson to follow. Much of the preliminary paperwork is done via forms that can be downloaded; these tend to be of the “use this space to tell us in your own words what happened” variety. An actual hearing usually takes place in a conference room, or similar, the adjudicator does not sit on a bench as a judge does, and there are no robes or formal trappings of a court to intimidate non-lawyers. Of course, complainants or respondents can choose to hire a lawyer if they wish, and some do. But it is not necessary.
Of course, a lawyer may be advisable if a matter is sent to a court for judicial review (the equivalent of an appeal), but to the best of my knowledge, most matters are settled at the tribunal level.
In an exchange during the Marc Lemire case, lead CHRC investigator Dean Steacy was asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” Steacy responded: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value. It’s not my job to give value to an American concept.”
Technically he’s right. Speech is a subset of expression which is guaranteed by section 2 of the charter subject to section 1. I mean you spent 2 days, scraped a quote from Wikipedia and managed to not include that part of the quote? Here, let me add that back in in italic.
“What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” Steacy responded: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value. It’s not my job to give value to an American concept.” *(The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to “freedom of expression” whereas the U.S. Constitution refers to “freedom of speech.”)
*
The context of the discussion would be nice though - do you have the transcript?
Ultimately your argument is that Canadian law is not American law and therefore is deficient. Given the resultant peace, prosperity and general harmonious co-existence of the population of Canada I’d have to say Canadian law works very well for Canadians. If you want to debate the differences between the 2 system that’s great but if you plan on coming to it as the “American legal tradition” is that to which all others must aspire I think I’ll decline.