While Montrealers have been shocked by recent activity by accused Nazis over the past week, a lawyer specializing in Canada’s hate speech laws said it’s unclear what legal repercussions, if any, could be faced.
Last week, a Montreal Gazette investigation revealed a prominent white supremacist, going by the online name Zeiger, was living and recruiting in Montreal. On Saturday, an anti-fascist group posted 11,000 messages from a private, encrypted chat room that was started by Zeiger. The chat room included numerous racial slurs and plans for meetings.
Richard Moon, a law professor at the University of Windsor, said that while Canada’s Criminal Code does prohibit hate speech against religions, races and other categories, the law was adopted years before modern, online communication mediums were invented.
“One of the constraints on the application of this provision is it doesn’t include communication that occurs within private conversation,” he said. “The question is, what counts as private conversation? We’re not entirely sure what the line between private and public conversation is when we’re talking about the Internet.”
Moon said whether charges are successfully filed could hinge on whether a chat space was sufficiently public.
“I think there’s a pretty good argument to be made that if it’s accessible to a number of individuals, especially individuals who don’t have a prior relationship, it could well be viewed as sufficiently public it could fall within the scope of the hate speech ban,” he said.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that to be considered the promotion of hatred, speech must be extreme, which could be understood as vilifying a member of a group.
“The question again is, in the conversations that occurred, was that kind of extreme speech taking place?” he said. “Certainly, there are moments of very strong anti-Semitic and other forms of racist speech that could be considered extreme enough to count as hate speech.”
During a May Day protest, a man was seen waving a swastika flag from the top of a Hutchison condo building. Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante condemned the presence of fascist groups in the city and Montreal police said they’re investigating both that incident and Zeiger.
Moon said it could be possible for the flag-waver to face some form of hate speech charges.
“Simply to possess a flag light that, however odious or disturbing it might be, is not itself unlawful,” he said. “On the other hand, to stand on the top of a building in the sight of a lot of people and wave that flag, well that counts as communication in a public setting.”
