Steyn complaint exposes flaw in human rights laws
Commentary
While the Canadian Human Rights Commission has concluded that Mark Steyn’s controversial October 2006 Maclean’s piece was “calculated to excite and even offend certain readers,” the commission ruled that doesn’t make it hate speech. Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew says the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal should reject a similar complaint against Maclean’s and, like its federal counterpart, initiate a study of the hate-speech section of its enabling legislation. Haroon Siddiqui, writing in the Toronto Star, argues that hate laws are a reasonable limit on free speech and what’s needed is to exempt media reports from human rights laws — and for the media to exercise self-restraint by refusing to publish “racist cartoons and anti-Semitic rants.”
Read Mulgrew’s column.
Read Siddiqui’s column.
Read the CBC report on the commission’s ruling.
Commentary
While the Canadian Human Rights Commission has concluded that Mark Steyn’s controversial October 2006 Maclean’s piece was “calculated to excite and even offend certain readers,” the commission ruled that doesn’t make it hate speech. Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew says the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal should reject a similar complaint against Maclean’s and, like its federal counterpart, initiate a study of the hate-speech section of its enabling legislation. Haroon Siddiqui, writing in the Toronto Star, argues that hate laws are a reasonable limit on free speech and what’s needed is to exempt media reports from human rights laws — and for the media to exercise self-restraint by refusing to publish “racist cartoons and anti-Semitic rants.”
Read Mulgrew’s column.
Read Siddiqui’s column.
Read the CBC report on the commission’s ruling.
