Canadians need to wise up and fight, or shut up and cower
Under the online harms act, those guilty of hate speech could face up to life in prison.
Author of the article: Amy Hamm Published Oct 04, 2024
British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal (HRT) — the same forum that achieved international notoriety in 2019 for considering if the state should force women to handle male genitals against their will — is at it again. This time, the quasi-judicial body has ruled in its own favour that it has the authority to regulate the online speech of B.C. residents.
Hearing Date: Nov. 25 2024
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We should all be alarmed.
In an August ruling released last month, the tribunal considered “whether the province has the ability under the Constitution Act, 1867 to regulate discriminatory publications made on the internet.” Their conclusion: Yes, they believe they do possess that authority.
Previously, the tribunal generally behaved as though online publications were outside of its jurisdiction — and that online speech was under the purview of the federal government. Not anymore. This changes with the release of Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld — a case in which former school board trustee Barry Neufeld stands accused of making discriminatory statements about school curricula on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Since the tribunal has ruled that they are authorized to police Neufeld’s online speech, the complaint against him will go to hearing.
Neufeld, like many of us, does not accept a “born in the wrong body” gender doctrine and does not want impressionable children to be proselytized to about how exciting and creative it is to change one’s gender. In B.C., sharing this sentiment publicly is interpreted by our resident activists as seditious, harmful, hateful, and discriminatory. Take activist group Lawyers Against Transphobia, who’ve asserted in a newly-published handbook on alleged — and wholly imagined, as far as I’m concerned — transphobia in B.C. schools that a “common transphobic belief” is that “there are only two sexes: male and female.” They go on to encourage any victims who land within earshot of a transphobic thought criminal espousing such basic scientific knowledge to lodge human rights tribunal complaints.
It’s a rigged system. The activists in our province know full well that our provincial human rights tribunal is in ideological alignment with their fringe views.
One of the intervenors in Neufeld’s case, for instance, was the province’s Human Rights Commissioner, Kasari Govender. She argued in favour of the tribunal increasing their powers: “The Tribunal’s decision… will help to ensure that many people in B.C. who have been targeted by online hate speech are able to access justice. As the Tribunal has acknowledged, the internet is a significant part of our daily lives and a medium where harmful content can spread quickly and with profound consequences. I am glad to see that complainants can rely on B.C.’s human rights law when discriminatory content is published online,” Govender said.
No ruling has been made as to whether Neufeld’s online speech was discriminatory — but the commissioner, by all appearances, has suggested that a guilty verdict is the foregone conclusion. That is chilling, both of spines and speech.
It’s obvious: Malicious and vexatious activists will use this new jurisdictional ruling to either intimidate or bludgeon political opponents into silence. It is an intolerable attack on the free speech of Canadians — and must be overturned. We already know that our human rights tribunals are staffed (primarily) by the remotest fanatics of the political left, and that they hold a proven track record of ideological bias. They’re likely salivating over the Neufeld ruling — like foxes granted managerial powers over a hen house.
Notably, one of the tribunal members who issued this ruling included Devyn Cousineau, the same member who ruled on the infamous testicle waxing cases. Back then, Cousineau referred to transwomen having their male bits stripped of hair as “critical gender affirming care.” (To hell with the women who did not want to touch the hairy things.) With all due respect (none), Cousineau and her ilk are a threat to us all. The power they now wield over British Columbians is far too great.
When the Trudeau Liberals proposed the Online Harms Act, swathes of Canadians saw it for what it is: a dire threat to our freedoms and pocketbooks (with fines upwards of $70,000 CAD, or life in prison, for speech deemed “hateful” by government censors). The backlash was swift and loud. The B.C. HRT, meanwhile, is sneaking the same authoritarian censors in through the back door. We can’t live like this. We cannot allow government bureaucrats to insert a ball gag into our mouths under peril of financial and reputation destruction.
Lawyer Lisa Bildy, who defends Canadians’ civil liberties, told me in an email interview that she is concerned that other provinces could enact legislation to follow in B.C.’s footsteps. As per Bildy, the recent ruling “suggest(s) that the federal Online Harms Bill is not a limited threat that could be neutralized by a future Conservative Party of Canada government stepping in. This decision may encourage other provincial legislatures to pass amendments to their human rights laws to bring online speech under their remit, if they don’t have such clauses already. Personally, I think this is a huge mistake. If we must have human rights tribunals at all, their jurisdiction should be limited to discriminatory acts in the provision of services, and not to speech. It is far too ripe for abuse,” Bildy said.
Whether you agree with Barry Neufeld on gender identity curriculum in schools or not is irrelevant. For it is not his freedom of speech that is at stake here — it’s all of ours. Canadians are now facing a choice about our freedom to express ourselves: wise up — and fight — or shut up, and cower.
What kind of Canada do you want?
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