The government's approach to ＂hate speech＂ and ＂Islamophobia＂
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Summary
In this episode, I discuss the federal government's new anti-Islamophobia strategy and the broad definition of hate speech that it has adopted, and the implications for the Muslim community, as well as the potential for hate speech, misinformation and electoral interference.
Transcript
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it's been very concerning in recent months to hear the federal government go on and on about
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dealing with hate speech misinformation electoral interference without defining any of those terms
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so a whole lot of energy and hanging has been put into these broad ideas that from a bird's eye view
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we all acknowledge well they don't sound like very good things so maybe we should do stuff to tackle
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them we disapprove of them but once you drill down into the specifics we realize well what is all of
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this stuff what what is fake news what is hate speech give me a specific example of it help me
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understand how current laws don't already govern it and help me understand how any broadening of
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these terms will actually be things governments should be doing as opposed to just well free
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speech or people governing themselves accordingly learning how to have good manners and being
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polite with each other that in itself is a big problem and we have not gotten over that but
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there is a new element that has been added into the mix just the other day heritage minister pablo
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rodriguez announced the anti-racism strategy that the government would like to unveil for the next
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three years it's a 45 million dollar project that will mostly include giving about 30 million dollars
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to a whole bunch of different community groups to promote their causes and promote multiculturalism
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and sport and stuff that quite frankly i'm not sure what it has to do with the original cause
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a lot of this is going to be about tackling racism and discrimination and so forth issues that were
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discussed in the m103 committee hearings a very controversial process where a lot of people were concerned that
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it was unduly focusing on islamophobia a very amorphous and undefined term there's a bunch of different
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definitions around and a lot of people are concerned that some of those definitions are a touch too broad
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well the federal government has now said we found out what definition of islamophobia we're going to be
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using and working with throughout rolling out these different programs and policies and boy they have
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picked a broad one they're mostly going to use something that the ontario human rights commission works with
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and let me read that definition to you right now islamophobia according to the new federal government
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policy includes racism stereotypes prejudice fear or acts of hostility directed toward individual
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muslims or followers of islam in general in addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling
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islamophobia can lead to viewing and treating muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional
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systemic and societal level what did i just read what does that mean that is broad enough to drive an
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18 wheeler through so many opinions that people would give on the religion of islam in general could
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probably fit this description of islamophobia that the government is now using federal taxpayer
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dollars to combat against think about prominent atheists like richard dawkins and christopher hitchens i think
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their books could be considered islamophobic by this incredibly broad definition we have a problem here
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now there's forms of hate speech that are already illegal incitement to violence death threats libel
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slander and if you're doing that for whatever reason against anybody for for any reason and if it's
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against a muslim person because of their faith well then you've broken the law and you should suffer the
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consequences as it should be but this broad definition this is very worrisome now the human rights tribunals
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and commissions have been criticized by people for many years for being too broad they're very quasi-legal
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quasi-judicial and a lot of what they do would not pass muster in real criminal code courts so why is the
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federal government which should hold itself to one of the highest standards when it comes to precise language
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and law making taking a definition from a quasi-judicial body one that's already controversial
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and then trying to really push it into the federal sphere i mean are we going to see this sort of
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definition encroaching on actual the criminal code provisions next it better not but it's alarming to
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see all of this canadians want to be able to discuss all sorts of issues some of them might involve
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religion and international affairs and so forth and it can get a a little messy hopefully they would be
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polite to one another and so forth but this definition i think it can ensnare a whole lot of people for a
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whole lot of reasons and the feds could and should do better