Axing section 13 of the "human rights" act would be only a first step, Mark Mercer suggests
in his article. The article, published in the Chronicle Herald (which is itself
under the police investigation for
merely publishing a cartoon) provides a great overview of section 13, thoroughly explaining how does it abrogate our freedom of speech.
Canadians heard a long time ago, at least as long ago as 1990, that they are not free to speak their minds as they see fit. 1990 was the year the Supreme Court of Canada ruled constitutional Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Section 13 says that it is "a discriminatory practice" to communicate "any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination." It is under s. 13 that a complaint against Maclean's magazine has been filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It's indirectly because of s. 13 that provincial and territorial human rights commissions see fit to consider complaints about what people have said or written or drawn - as in the current complaint against The Chronicle-Herald for publishing an editorial cartoon that offended some readers.
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