00:00:00Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
00:00:20of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, August the 14th. I'm joined today by John Carpe,
00:00:26president of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms. He founded the Justice Center in 2010
00:00:32to focus on defending Canadians' constitutional freedoms, especially charter rights through
00:00:38litigation and education. And he has been a fearless advocate for free speech rights in
00:00:45all of his career as a constitutional lawyer. We had an interesting incident the other day,
00:00:52A story that the Western Standard reported in which the Edmonton police were checking on people who made non-criminal hate speech remarks.
00:01:07The sort of thing that you might, you know, read a story and put a comment on, send them all back.
00:01:12You know, it's not against the law, but it's probably a little insensitive.
00:01:17But at any rate, it's not against the law.
00:01:19So, John, welcome to the show. Tell us about what seems like a very English approach to non-hate crimes.
00:01:32The English approach hits the nail on the head.
00:01:36Before I dive into the Edmonton police, I will say that they started around the year 2000.
00:01:42The police started recording non-crime hate incidents.
00:01:48And what started out, you know, with good intentions, it was to, I guess, stop the spread of hate in society, I guess, use the law or law enforcement to get people to be nicer to each other.
00:02:03Almost all laws have good intentions, but it got to the point where just last year, thousands of people, 25 years later, we've got thousands and thousands of British people who've had the police knocking on their door because they sent an anti-immigration tweet.
00:02:28In March of 2026, so roughly half a year ago, they've now formally abandoned.
00:02:35At least they've announced that they're abandoning.
00:02:37I don't know what's happening in practice.
00:02:38But after 25 years of non-crime hate incidents, the United Kingdom is backing away from that model at the same time that we seem to be embarking on it here in Canada.
00:02:55you're talking about a non-crime hate incident why do the police trouble themselves with non-crimes
00:03:03well this is the big problem that i see with the edmonton police and apparently there are police
00:03:09forces all over canada anecdotally that are saying uh if you have a non-hate uh a crime if
00:03:17there's a racial slur if there's an offensive joke if there's a you know you people should go
00:03:22back to where you came from or all of the worst drivers on the road, you know, belong to this or
00:03:28that racial or ethnic group, that those types of comments should be reported to police. The big0.88
00:03:33problem with that is that police already have limited resources to do law enforcement in relation
00:03:41to actual crimes. I hear anecdotally that if your car is stolen or you come back to your home to
00:03:46find it broken into and family heirloom jewelry taken away, the home is ransacked, that your car
00:03:54is vandalized. Police practically shrug their shoulders. You can fill out a report, but they
00:04:00don't have the resources to investigate, to go looking after this. So they're already shorthanded
00:04:05in relation to real crimes. So if you have a speech that is offensive, hurtful, unkind, ugly,
00:04:17false, that is not criminal, police should not be inviting people to report any non-crimes simply by
00:04:26virtue of the fact that their resources are limited and they don't have enough resources as it is now
00:04:31to to fight actual crimes well again i i think the question is still if it's not a crime and
00:04:41they're short-staffed anyway why do they do this i think it's the woke neo-marxist ideology of
00:04:50equity diversity inclusion that has infiltrated uh canadian culture canadian institutions the
00:04:56police, the crown prosecutors, the judiciary, the universities, certainly the government-funded media,
00:05:03and this woke neo-Marxist ideology of equity, diversity, inclusion basically says that society
00:05:11is in a state of war, oppressors versus oppressed, and the oppressors are men and straight people
00:05:19and light-skinned people and the victims of oppression are women and dark-skinned people0.92
00:05:25and lgbtq people and so we're in a state of war this ideology is what gets the groups an
00:05:33institution like the edmonton police to put on its website uh send us non-criminal you know
00:05:41send us report speech that that you find offensive that is not criminal and by the
00:05:48the way, the Edmonton police and every other police force in Canada, they do have a responsibility to
00:05:53enforce the criminal code hate speech provisions. So if somebody said that a certain identifiable
00:06:00group, you know, based on their religion or race, that they should all be massacred, we're advocating0.98
00:06:06for genocide, we're saying that these people are, you know, horrible. When you have willful1.00
00:06:12promotion of hatred police have a right and an obligation to investigate okay the problem here
00:06:19they're not saying report hate speech and then define hate speech and make it clear what it is
00:06:25they're saying just deport uh report to us racial slurs and you know offensive jokes and what are
00:06:33they going to do about it it's not illegal well they keep the information on file which is creepy
00:06:40and it lays the foundation for becoming more aggressive in the future because in the united
00:06:46kingdom starting in the year 2000 the you they were not the police were not immediately at that
00:06:53point arresting people and locking people up over there or threatening people over their
00:06:59tweets on social media but over time that's where it led to and so what the edmonton police are
00:07:05doing right now and other police forces that lays the foundation for moving towards a place where
00:07:12you have police knocking on your door because they don't like what you said about canada's
00:07:17immigration policy so to be clear if you if a person makes a comment about canada's immigration
00:07:25policy that somebody reports as being hateful but non-criminal the police knock on the door they
00:07:33then what? First thing you do when you've got police knocking on your door is take out your
00:07:39cell phone and hit the record button or have a family member record the interaction. That's very
00:07:44important so that you don't become a victim of bullying and intimidation just in case there's
00:07:49a bad police officer that's going to bully you, threaten you and intimidate you over what you've
00:07:56said. So first response, turn on your cell phone and start recording the incident. And then listen
00:08:04to what the officer has to say. And you can say, look, am I being charged with criminal hate speech
00:08:10under section 319 of the criminal code? And if the answer is no, you say, okay, what do you want?
00:08:16What are you doing here? And if the policeman was to say, well, you know, we're just concerned about,
00:08:22you know, what you said on Twitter yesterday, say, you know what, I don't want to continue the
00:08:29conversation. You can leave now. Police have no business knocking on your door unless there's a
00:08:36crime or they're investigating a crime. They can knock on your door and ask you for information
00:08:41to help solve a crime. But if they're there to intimidate you over what you've said,
00:08:46then no but record it record the incident okay but be polite of course absolutely okay
00:09:00so it is an exercise in intimidation when people use their free speech rights and to be clear there
00:09:06are limits to free speech but they are nowhere near as narrow as what the woke crowd would like
00:09:14you to believe. Certainly, telling an ethnic joke is not in the barred zone. Now, surely
00:09:31the government of Alberta has some influence in this. Daniel Smith, hearing about this incident,
00:09:40which just came out about 10 days ago, has directed the Alberta police to focus on violent crime
00:09:47rather than non-criminal hate speech. From a constitutional standpoint, how significant is that?
00:09:55Does she have any power here? Well, legally, the Edmonton police reports to the city of Edmonton,
00:10:02But they are also under the supervision of the Solicitor General, also the Justice Minister.
00:10:12So on a province-wide basis, the Solicitor General can formulate policy and can provide policy guidance.
00:10:24He shouldn't be in the business of, he should never be, neither the Premier nor anybody in Cabinet should be micromanaging
00:10:30and telling the police to go after so-and-so and not go after so-and-so.
00:10:33So there's not to be any interference whatsoever with the actual daily law enforcement
00:10:40and against whom charges will be laid or not, et cetera.
00:10:45But as a matter of policy, the province does have jurisdiction over policing
00:10:51And the province can order the police to refrain from recording non-criminal incidents of any kind, or more narrowly, they can tell the police you're not to spend resources on recruiting, asking for people to report non-criminal hate speech.
00:11:19They can't control what comes in the door, okay?
00:11:22The police would probably still receive, there would be people that would file complaints and say, you know, this joke I heard at the party last night, I think it's criminal hate speech.
00:11:31The police can't control what comes in the door, and they might have to look at it and go, well, no, it was a terrible joke, but it doesn't qualify as criminal hate speech.
00:11:42But what police should not be doing is actively seeking out
00:11:45and asking members of the public to report non-crimes
00:12:01because between the two of them stands a police commission.
00:12:04I mean, I think all the cities which have their own municipal police forces
00:12:09will have a police commission to supervise the day-to-day operations as the police force enforces
00:12:18the criminal code and other legislation that it's called upon to do. So when the premier of a
00:12:25province, I mean, it happens to be Danielle, but just in general terms, when the premier of a
00:12:30province says, we need to crack down on drunken driving, I would take that as an expectation that
00:12:38police would want to crack down on drunk driving whatever the police commission says but here we
00:12:45have a situation where the under the cover i must assume of the police commission in edmonton
00:12:53the edmonton police services is looking for these examples of non-criminal hate speech
00:13:00does the attorney general's office get involved here does it matter that the premier says
00:13:08cut it out well margaret thatcher once said never underestimate the power of making a statement as
00:13:17to what is going to transpire now that's not a law but it's it's an interesting point i mean
00:13:24often when when a premier or prime minister federally or the mayor of a city when they
00:13:30announce what their view is and what they would like to see done. It carries a political and moral
00:13:41and psychological impact. And so the very fact that the premier has said this, you know,
00:13:47premier's comments, whoever the premier is, whatever the province, they're not easily ignored.
00:13:54And so there is a certainly a political and psychological impact to it, which which is very positive positive.
00:14:02Now, in terms of the legislation, I have not had an opportunity to look at the Police Act, but the Police Act does empower the province to set general policy.
00:14:09policy. We've heard this some time ago where it was said that the confiscation of private property,
00:14:18namely the firearms owned by law-abiding people, I believe there's an announcement that the
00:14:26Alberta police in Alberta would not be spending a lot of time on that. So there is that provincial
00:14:35control over policing policy. All right. Well, critics will say, John,
00:14:42that Smith's position gives cover to genuine bigotry. How do you respond to that argument
00:14:49that de-emphasizes hate speech complaints that may endanger vulnerable groups?
00:14:56It's a reasonable thing to ask. You know, hate is an emotion,
00:15:02and it's entirely subjective what somebody views as hateful or not. I'll give you an example that
00:15:11will resonate with a lot of people, something we've heard a lot in the last two years or so,
00:15:15is the slogan, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Now, some people hear
00:15:20that and they say it's hateful, anti-Semitic, genocidal, it wants to drive the Jews into the0.97
00:15:26sea and destroy the state of Israel. Other people say, no, no, no, it's just a political slogan,0.82
00:15:32it's about freedom, it's about justice, human rights for Palestinians. You know, there is an
00:15:36example, is that a hateful slogan? Yes or no? That really is a subjective assessment. And so the
00:15:45moment that you have hate speech on the books as a crime, as we do in Canada, you've got a political
00:15:53aspect to it, where politically vocal and politically powerful, influential minority,
00:16:00like the LGBTQ community. They're going to give, I'll give you a practical example. You've got two
00:16:07cases in Alberta, supposedly the freest province in Canada. We've got a human rights commission
00:16:13that is prosecuting a lady for saying that the crosswalk in her town should remain black and0.97
00:16:21white as public property, should not be replaced with a rainbow crosswalk because that is a
00:20:31All of those human rights provisions will stay on the books, but repeal Section 3, and you no longer have a threat to our free speech in Alberta.
00:20:43John, when I was growing up, and I suspect that when you were a much younger man, the common consensus was that everybody had a right to their own opinion and within certain very wide limits to express it.
00:20:58I wonder if that is still a widely held view these days.
00:21:06Do people actually care about free speech anymore?
00:21:10We've probably had a cultural shift away from appreciation for free speech and the same
00:21:17as if that's similar to we've moved away from a healthy appreciation of religious freedom,
00:21:24of Association, Peaceful Assembly, Travel Movement, there were an awful lot of Canadians
00:21:29who, you know, cheerfully and enthusiastically gave up their rights and freedoms in 2020
00:21:38Having said that, I think most Canadians still appreciate and cherish freedom of speech.
00:21:44One of the challenges is that people don't understand that if you give the state, the
00:21:50government the power to determine what is true or false and what you can and cannot say that that
00:21:55will be used against you and what i mean is you have uh you have people saying we can't we can't
00:22:03have uh hateful we can't have racist speech okay give you an example right people hear that and go
00:22:09well i'm not a racist i'm against racism i don't see i don't say racist things so yeah let's have
00:22:15a, let's pass a law against racist speech. Well, now you've got a problem because now the government
00:22:21gets to decide what is or is not racist. And somebody could say, you know, we need fewer
00:22:25immigrants in Canada, or we need to better screen immigrants. So we're only getting people who1.00
00:22:31love Canadian values. The government could say, well, that's racist. It isn't a racist statement,
00:22:37but the government could say it is, and now you're in trouble. So there's a practical example. People
00:22:43don't think it through. They think, well, you're just going to go after racist, sexist, homophobic,0.55
00:22:49transphobic speech, and I don't say any of those bad things myself. So you go ahead and you censor
00:22:56those people. Well, if the government can shut up one group because they are now, you know,
00:23:02politically weak or because they're unpopular, then government can shut up anybody else and
00:23:08everybody else as well i guess that's one of the reasons when all the famous free speech cases
00:23:13that you ever review uh you tend to sort of not like the guy who is charged very much
00:23:20those difficult cases are where these things are determined so i so i i do wonder john
00:23:30whether people care about it as much as uh we used to care about it days gone by that
00:23:37They're happier with control and knowing where the limits are
00:23:43and don't much care about that old saying attributed to Voltaire.
00:23:54I didn't actually say it, but somebody else much later.
00:23:58But, you know, I may not agree with your opinion,
00:24:00but I will defend with my life your right to express it.
00:24:04I don't think people think like that anymore, do they?
00:24:07You have fewer people thinking that way. We have to remember, and don't get me wrong, I mean, free speech is in trouble in Canada, absolutely. And all of our rights and freedoms, many of them are under very aggressive assault because of this woke neo-Marxist ideology that we have to fight back against tooth and nail.
00:24:28Well, peacefully, we fight back against it peacefully. We don't use violence, but we have to fight very hard against it.
00:24:36We have to remember as well, though, we compared to other countries in the world today and compared to other time periods in history,
00:24:44we Canadians in 2026 have an awful lot of free expression left over.
00:24:49The fact that you and I are having this interview, the fact that people are freely criticizing the government and government policy,
00:24:56The fact that there's this citizen pushback against police wasting resources on trying to keep track of non-criminal behavior, we have a lot of free speech left in Canada.
00:25:08So as long as we continue to exercise it, then that is the key to preserving it.