You run a local newspaper that is delivered free of charge to residents in your community. One of the community members who submits articles often writes on topics that you see as edgy and unconventional. However, you receive complaints from community members saying that his articles target Asians and Jews and spread conspiracy theories and hate about both groups. The complaints say that the articles claim that these groups of people are subhuman, compare them to animals and claims that they are a danger to the community. The author often references well known hate groups and conspiracy theories about both groups that advocate for violence against both groups. You respond to the complaints by saying that, while you do not share this man’s views, you believe in freedom of speech and that you will not remove the articles or stop publishing this man’s articles. When you continue to publish these articles, a community member brings a complaint to the BC Human Rights Tribunal against you and the author.
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No, you are not meeting your responsibilities under the Code. As the publisher, you are responsible for making these articles, and the hate speech within them, public. By publishing articles that contain hate speech or discriminatory speech, you are not meeting your responsibilities under section 7 of the Code. Your newspaper and the articles within it are public, the articles that you published target groups of people based on their protected characteristics of race and religion, and the articles caused harm to the targeted group.
Freedom of expression is a constitutional right in Canada. But like all constitutional rights, freedom of expression is subject to reasonable limits. The Supreme Court of Canada has found that laws that prohibit hate speech are reasonable and justified because hate speech is a threat to society. Hate speech harms the people and groups of people who are targeted and can make it harder for them to take part in society and democracy. Hate speech also damages society as a whole by undermining tolerance, respect and understanding between people. It can make people less sensitive to the harms that hate has on targeted people. It can lead people to see affected groups as inferior or even less than human. This can result in those groups experiencing discrimination, exclusion, segregation, deportation, violence, and in extreme cases, genocide.
You can read more about rights regarding hate speech and discriminatory speech under the Code.
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