Hate Speech in Canada: A Law With Two Edges

Hate Speech in Canada: A Law With Two Edges By Dale Jodoin Journalist and Columnist Hate speech in Canada has turned into one of those topics where people stop talking the second you bring it up. You can almost hear the brakes squeal. Nobody wants trouble. Nobody wants their name dragged through the mud. Some folks think you should be charged just for disagreeing with a belief. Others feel these laws are being used to scare people into silence. It leaves a lot of Canadians walking on eggshells every time they open their mouths. The government, mostly the Liberal and NDP side, keeps floating new ideas to expand hate speech rules online. They talk like they are trying to stop danger. They make it sound like they are protecting everyone. Most people know what real hate speech is. It happens when someone pushes others to the point where hurting someone becomes likely. It is when a person winds people up until violence feels close. That kind of threat is what the law should shut down fast. But the problem is staring everyone in the face. The rules do not hit everyone the same. If you insult or threaten certain groups, the whole system wakes up. Police get involved. Lawyers jump in. The media blasts your name everywhere. But if the same kind of hate is thrown at Christians, nothing happens. It gets brushed off like it is harmless. You can watch people mock their faith, threaten them, insult them day after day, and nobody steps in. So you start wondering. Why does hate count for some people and not for others? Why is hate towards Christians treated like a joke? There is a trend now where a small group of people from another faith show up at churches to pray loudly on the property. Some call it hate prayer. Some call it dominance prayer. It is not coming from all Muslims. Most Muslims are good neighbours who want peace. This is coming from a small number who use prayer like a tool. It is pressure dressed up as devotion. It sends a message. It says this is our ground now. And here is the part nobody wants to say out loud. If Christians tried this at a mosque, the whole country would break out in sirens. The media would shout hate. The government would call it a threat. People would demand charges. And honestly, they would not be wrong. Doing that would feel like intimidation. So why is it not intimidation when churches face it? Why does the government look the other way? Take a look at Europe. This stuff started there years ago. People walked into churches during services, prayed over everyone, refused to leave, and acted like they were in charge. Church leaders said it felt like a test. Anyone who has lived through conflict knows that feeling. A group pushes a little to see how far they can go. If someone walked into your house without permission and started telling you what to accept, you would not call it friendly. You would call it pressure. It feels the same in a church. When a place meant for peace is used like a stage for someone else’s message, that is intimidation. And intimidation is a form of hate. Yet the government and parts of the media pretend this is nothing. And this is where the double standard shows its teeth. Hate speech is supposed to work like a two edged sword. Both sides should be cut the same. But in Canada, only one side ever gets used. The media points one edge at people they do not like and calls them hateful even when they are just speaking plain truth. The other side stays buried when certain groups cross the line. Think back to all the churches that burned after false stories spread online. These were real places. Families prayed there. Communities depended on them. They went up in flames. Was it treated like hate? Not really. It softened. Explained away. Dropped from the news faster than it appeared. Or look at the threats shouted at Jewish Canadians. There are videos of people yelling about killing Jews in public. If a neo Nazi had done that, the country would have gone into lockdown. Headlines would be screaming. But when a different group does it, the tone changes. The media steps lightly. They call it frustration. They avoid using the word hate as if it might break their teeth. Hate should not depend on who you are. Hate is hate. If it only counts for certain groups, then we do not have fairness. We have a rigged system. Christianity being a majority faith does not make hate against Christians harmless. A bigger group can still be targeted. People are scared to talk about it because nobody wants to get labeled. One wrong word and you can get hit with names that stick to you like glue. That fear shows how messed up the meaning of hate has become. It is thrown around so much that nobody knows what it means anymore. Canada needs to reset the basics. Hate speech should mean real danger. It should mean real threats. It should mean pushing a crowd toward violence. It should not mean disagreeing with a belief or asking honest questions. A free country needs room for real talk. If people cannot speak without fear, freedom becomes a slogan printed on a poster. Silencing only one side is not protection. It is controlled. A healthy society protects Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and anyone else the same way. No special treatment. No turning a blind eye. No excuses. This is not about attacking anyone’s faith. It is about fairness. Hate is hate. Intimidation is intimidation. And the law should work the same for everyone. If we forget that, we lose a piece of the country we say we are proud of. As I see it, both sides of the blade should matter. Both sides should be sharp. Both sides should be equal under the law. That is the truth as I see it. I am Dale Jodoin, a journalist. I look at both sides of the news and I chase the truth even when it is not pretty.

Queen’s Park

Queen’s Park By Theresa Grant Real Estate Columnist If you’ve been paying attention to the recent news out of Queen’s Park, you’ll know that the extremely controversial Bill 60 has passed. But what exactly does that mean for the people of Ontario? Well, I guess that depends on whether you’re a landlord or a tenant. Believe it or not, even people that are neither have very strong opinions on this Bill. I guess it goes back to the fact that the vast majority of us at one time or another were tenants and almost everyone has had to deal with a landlord at some point. For as much as the opposition is shaking their fists and saying this is far too aggressive on the part the landlords’ rights, it really is just leveling the playing field somewhat. For many years the pendulum swung far too much to one side and that side was the tenant’s rights. For years now landlords have had their rental properties held hostage in a sense by tenants that won’t pay rent and won’t move out. All the while, the landlord has to fill out mountains of paperwork, meet strict deadlines for filing that paperwork and then sit back and wait. As usual, many people are reacting to headlines before they get the actual meat and potatoes of the story. I would say there have been adjustments more than real changes when it comes to the Landlord and Tenant Board. For example, the landlord now only has to wait 7 days after nonpayment of rent as opposed to 14 to file for eviction for nonpayment of rent (N4). In a lot of cases, if you are a good tenant and always pay your rent on time, your landlord will hold off on this procedure anyway. The key here is your past behaviour and your relationship with your landlord. Another notable adjustment has been the procedure for eviction when it comes to having a family member move in or if the landlord needs the unit themselves. The landlord no longer has to compensate the tenant and no longer has to provide alternative housing. The landlord absolutely still has to give the proper notice to the tenant though. The bill also states that if you are a tenant and you are not up to date on your rent and you choose to raise issues about your landlord during a hearing with the Landlord Tenant Board, you will have to pay at least half of the back owed rent prior to being able to raise those issues. I would say overall, this has been a recalibrating of power between landlords and tenants in the province of Ontario which has been lopsided for far too long. At the end of the day, there are red flags for bad tenants and bad landlords. Look for them and heed them when you see them.