Public hearings began Monday into controversial anti-hate-speech legislation proposed by the Quebec government, with groups representing the LGBT community favourable to the law and jurists defending freedom of expression adamantly against it.
But the most heated debates took place at the end of the day with the Association des musulmans et des arabes pour la laïcité au Québec (the Association of Muslims and Arabs for a secular Quebec).
Bill 59 was one of a slew of initiatives presented June 10 by the Quebec government to combat radicalization leading to violence, as it pledged to work with the city of Montreal on a deradicalization centre — their concerted response to terrorist attacks last October and the phenomenon of youths leaving Quebec to join terrorist ranks.
But it was also an answer to how to deal with the growing problem of Islamophobia, and on both counts AMAL-Québec welcomed the initiative.
“It is obvious that when the call to hate, demonize, and dehumanize certain groups becomes commonplace, it has the effect of accentuating attitudes filled with prejudice and stereotypes,” said AMAL president Haroun Bouazzi, before the Commission des institutions at the National Assembly in Quebec City.
But the anti-hate-speech law would also be useful for combating violent extremism, Bouazzi said.
“First, in a direct way because extreme right-wing groups develop in a social environment where speech is coloured by hate, but second, in an indirect way, because exclusion, hate and Islamophobia drive certain people in groups subject to discrimination toward another form of extremism and violence.”
To be sure, prohibitions on hate speech in Canada already exist, notably in the Criminal Code.
Section 319, for example, allows for penalties from a fine to up to two years imprisonment for anyone who incites hatred against any identifiable group.
Julius Grey and Julie Latour, both prominent Quebec lawyers, argued before the commission Monday that Bill 59 was an unnecessary duplication of these prohibitions that would have a chilling effect on free speech.
But Bill 59 — “to prevent and combat hate speech and speech inciting violence” — would introduce a procedure for reporting hate speech to the Quebec human rights commission and would grant the commission new powers, including the power to investigate.
Public discourse would be targeted but not private conversations over the Internet.
The Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be amended to prohibit “engaging or disseminating” such speech. First offenders could be fined between $1,000 and $10,000 with the list of offenders’ names to be published on the commission’s website, while a repeat offender could face up to $20,000 in fines.
The legislation, tabled on the same day as Bill 62, which would ban the wearing of the niqab or burqa while delivering or receiving public services, comes at a time when Muslims are increasingly targeted for abuse.
According to a report released by Statistics Canada June 9, there has been an overall decrease of 22 per cent in police-reported hate crimes. But anti-Muslim hate crimes have increased by approximately 44 per cent since 2012, marking the only category that saw a significant increase.
"(Julie Latour) says it’s an imaginary problem,” Bouazzi told the Commission. “Our jaws drop when we see a blogger suggesting rape at home should be okay or rampant Islamophobia on social media. What’s imaginary here? There are thousands of comments per day where we treat the Muslim minority in particular as a sub-group who should have no rights.”
But the legislation also faced a lot of criticism, notably for failing to define what “hate speech” is, and leaving it up to the human rights commission to decide how much proof it needs to sanction someone.
Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Voltaire could all be found to have incited violence and hatred, said Grey. Should they have been censored?
He and Latour argued that the Bill was dangerous and invasive. It allowed for anonymous complainants and a public list of those found guilty — forever available online.
On that, Bouazzi agreed.
“We can imagine an 18-year-old who shaves his head and becomes a neo-Nazi and has unacceptable ideas about Jews or Muslims, and 20 years later, when that person has gotten out of his errant youth he finds himself on a list when he’s looking for a job.
“The objective here is to protect vulnerable groups, not necessarily to punish.”
Agnès Maltais, the Parti Québécois critic on secularism, questioned Bouazzi about his support for the controversial Imam Hamza Chaoui, who has said that women should be with their guardians when they leave the house, and, according to Maltais, supports stoning as a punishment.
“You defend the statements of Imam Chaoui when we wanted to stop him from proselytizing, and now you want a hate speech law,” she said.
“I explained the importance of amending the charter — that if we really believed this was hate then we needed new tools,” Bouazzi responded. “I don’t defend Mr. Chaoui’s ideas. I defend his rights to be respected as a citizen.”
Hearings are scheduled to continue until Thursday, and resume Aug. 31 into the first week of September.