I gave the keynote address at the Centre for Inquiry Canada’s Annual General Meeting in March. That address is today’s special episode of Podcast for Inquiry. I talk about the principles underlying the podcast, the rules and guidelines they led to, and some of the difficult decisions those working on the podcast had to make. I also delve into freedom of expression, applying how different levels of censorship have affected Podcast for Inquiry.
Philippa Carter (@PhilippaCarter) has her PhD in Religious Studies, is a professor within McMaster’s Society, Culture & Religion degree program, and teaches a course called, “What on Earth is Religion?” Yet there is no simple answer to this straightforward question. The conversation ranges from religions to cults, philosophies, creeds, and worldviews, with stops at free expression and secularism along the way.
Andrew Copson (@andrewcopson) is the president of Humanists International, which published its Declaration of Modern Humanism earlier this year. Andrew describes the content of the Declaration and the process by which it was created, and we talk about how it differs from its 1952 and 2002 incarnations.
Brandon K. Gauthier (@bk_gauthier) wrote Before Evil, about the childhoods of six of the twentieth century’s most notorious dictators, to show that even the most vile among us share a basic humanity. We must remember that if we are to avoid becoming like them. The two of us discuss the impetus for writing the book and Brandon reads a couple of excerpts. The passionate conversation ranges from the importance of democratic norms and structures in avoiding sliding into autocracy (reminiscent of PfI S01E05 with Miriam Mufti) and the importance of free expression while recognizing the difficulty of determining where its limits lie (echoing a discussion in PfI S01E06 with James Turk). Brandon emphasizes that we are all subject to ideologies that view others as less than human, and implores everyone to approach complex subjects with humility.
On February 20 2020, I gave a public talk at Nerd Nite Toronto called Stab Everyone You Love. It was about the "ZYX of Vaccine Denialism" (because anti-vaxxers get everything backward). At the time, we knew that there was an outbreak of some disease in China, but not that it would soon become a global pandemic.
My son recorded my speech, which debunked several myths about the supposed dangers of national immunization programs. I uploaded the video to YouTube one day after my talk, and posted the video (and the subsequent Q&A session) to this blog the following month.
One pandemic and two years later, on April 26, 2022, I received a letter from YouTube. It stated that they think my presentation violated their "medical misinformation policy", and thus removed my video from YouTube.
YouTube has an appeals process. I clicked on the link, and wrote that my presentation debunked medical misinformation - I explained several erroneous beliefs about vaccines in my presentation so my audience would be more effective at rebutting them.
Seconds after submitting, YouTube sent a second email stating they had "reviewed your content carefully, and had confirmed that it violates our medical misinformation policy. [...] We won't be putting your content back up on YouTube." Clearly, this was an automated process - there was no time for a human to read my appeal before I received the email stating it had been denied.
This experience highlights several problems with any censorship (or "moderation") regime:
Who decides what's acceptable?
How do you ensure none of the bad stuff escapes your filter?
How do you ensure none of the acceptable stuff gets caught in your filter?
I'm pretty sure I'm an accidental victim of 3). I doubt that anyone at YouTube watched my presentation. It probably contained enough keywords that an algorithm determined it was "medical disinformation" based on a machine-generated transcript. I wasn't peddling medical misinformation, but no one at YouTube will watch the video to find out. And now, nobody else will, either.
I presented Stab Everyone You Love for the Centre for Inquiry Canada and Toronto Oasis virtually later that year. Those videos are still online - so far. It may just be a matter of time before they are taken down as well, for the same reason.
Take care before endorsing censorship regimes. They tend to target the very communities they were ostensibly set up to protect.
Howard Doughty has been a college professor for over 40 years and has grave concerns about the changes he’s seen in colleges and universities. Howard describes the nature, scope and limitations of academic freedom, and how that has changed over the decades. The increasing corporate influence in universities has in some cases supplanted the original purpose of the university, according to Howard. We discuss how students are different today than when he started teaching, and whether they should view their post-secondary endeavor as an educational opportunity, or a glorified job training program.
I speak with James Turk (@jameslturk), Director of the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University, in Podcast for Inquiry's sixth episode. James and I discuss the importance of free expression in a democratic society, the futility and counterproductive nature of censorship, and what limits on expression are reasonable and justified. We also talk about the “marketplace of ideas” and how it informs free expression, and the surprising connection between monopolies and the stifling of speech.
The fourth episode of Podcast for Inquiry features Caroline Russell-King discussing the secular case for Bill 21, in the second instalment of a two-part series. Caroline describes the harms Bill 21 is intended to mitigate, and whether they justify the nontrivial limitations it places on religious expression. Caroline and I discuss why Bill 21 has so split the secular community in Canada, and whether she sees any room for improvement.
In its third episode, Podcast for Inquiry begins a special two-part series about Quebec's Bill 21, which prohibits most government employees from wearing religious symbols. This issue has split Canada’s secular community like no other. The divide is largely geographic; most secularists within Quebec support Bill 21, while a majority in the rest of Canada oppose it, calling it an act of discrimination or racism. In this episode, I speak with Catherine Francis, a Toronto lawyer, about her opposition to Bill 21. Starting with a history of the bill, from its introduction in Quebec's National Assembly through to its eventual passage, Catherine summarizes the numerous legal challenges it has overcome to date and the likely course of future court cases. Catherine explains why she does not consider Bill 21 to be a "secularism law" and why the legislation is bad for Quebec and Canada.
The Centre for Inquiry Canada'sPodcast for Inquiry has released its second episode, a conversation about culture and responsibility with Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson (@LloydHawkeye7), a retired Indigenous psychologist and scholar and president of the New Enlightenment Project. Lloyd and I discuss the NEP and what he hopes to accomplish with it. We also talk about the moral obligations one has to advocate for change from within one's culture, and whether such critiques should only come from within. Our conversation includes how he would like to improve aboriginal culture and broader Canadian society, as well as how to deal with the scourge of online misinformation.
The Canadian Commission for Democratic Expression is a project of the Public Policy Forum, which seeks to "study and publish advice on how to prevent and mitigate the negative effects of illegal and other forms of harmful online content on democracy in Canada while encouraging robust democratic debate and dialogue."
The Role and Responsibilities of Digital Platforms
The Effectiveness of Existing Legal and Regulatory Provisions
The Balance Between Countering Hate and Disinformation and Safeguarding Free Speech
The Canadian Secular Alliance was invited to provide a written submission, based on our contribution to the House of Commons Committee on Justice and Human Rights study on online hate. We were limited to 1,000 words, so our submission focused on the CSA's area of expertise, addressing the fourth and fifth items on the CCDE list, and leaving the other important issues to other organizations.
Below is the submission of the Canadian Secular Alliance to the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression:
In June 2019, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights published its "Taking Action to End Online Hate" report. Several witnesses claimed "we must stop people trying to legitimize hate speech using freedom of expression as a disguise to do so." This view is echoed internationally, with organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation equating offending the character of the Prophet Muhammad with hate speech and referring to a cartoon contest as a "provocation on the pretext of so-called principle of freedom of expressions" in its 12th Islamophobia annual report (2019). While bigotry against Muslims (and other faiths) is real, this prejudice is not a valid justification to censor speech, even expression deemed offensive by some.
Religious beliefs are ideas, and should not be treated any differently than any other philosophical doctrine – political, economic, metaphysical, or otherwise. Disputing the ideas in a book should not be considered equivalent to an attack on the people who revere those words.
The Canadian Secular Alliance's fundamental position is: People deserve protection from harm; ideas do not warrant protection from criticism. This distinction is crucial and it is imperative that these are not conflated. Assaults on religious people must be deterred, prevented, and prosecuted. But criticism of religious tenets, no matter how vitriolic, must be fully permissible.
While legitimate constraints to unfettered speech exist - including libel, impersonation, threats and incitement to violence - any exceptions must be limited, well-defined, and serve the public interest.
The goal of hate speech laws must be to protect individuals from physical harm. However, they rarely achieve this aim. After studying the issue in many countries, Human Rights Watch stated "there is little connection in practice between draconian hate speech laws and the lessening of ethnic and racial violence or tension." The same conclusion was reached by the European Parliament and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Any proposal that seeks to further limit free expression must pass a high burden of proof in order to counter legitimate concerns about effectiveness, overreach, ambiguity, and selective enforcement.
The key problem with hate speech laws is that hate speech is impossible to define in such a way as to meet the twin goals of targeting a significant portion of unacceptable expression while respecting the principle of free speech. If its scope is very narrow and specific, any new law will have minimal impact on Canadian public discourse. But a broadly worded Act would necessarily encompass much speech protected by section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Additionally, in many countries (including established democracies) hate speech laws have often been disproportionately enforced against members of the very minority groups they were designed to protect.
Overly broad hate speech laws also have a non-trivial chilling effect on all public criticism. The Supreme Court has described "hatred" as speech "that is likely to expose" people to "hatred or contempt": "unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification"; and "enmity and extreme ill-will [...] which goes beyond mere disdain or dislike." How can a person know whether their strong negative opinion of an idea, person, or group will be considered "disdain" - permissible - or "detestation" - punishable? In a dissenting opinion on the Keegstra case, Supreme Court Justice McLachlin wrote, the "sanction of the criminal law may pose little deterrent to a convinced hate-monger who may welcome the publicity it brings; it may, however, deter the ordinary individual."
Hate speech laws leave three options for those inclined to engage in hateful, discriminatory speech: taking the forbidden expression underground; couching their ideas in more subtle rhetoric to evade punishment; or leaving the message unchanged (or perhaps make it even more provocative) as the speakers seek the publicity that results from prosecution. Perhaps that is why Canada has so rarely invoked its existing hate speech law.
Canada has made progress in recent years. Canada's legislature repealed its blasphemous libel law in December 2018, recognizing that treating religious ideas as a form of thought warranting special protection is detrimental to society. This action was a significant step forward. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada wrote in 2018 that “Accommodating diverse beliefs and values is a precondition to the secularism and the pluralism that are needed to protect and promote the Charter rights of all Canadians. State neutrality requires that the state neither favour nor hinder any particular belief, and the same holds true for non‑belief. Either way, state neutrality must prevail.” Our country should not retreat from its commitment to humanitarian values that apply equally to all Canadians.
There is still room for improvement regarding hate speech. Canada's Criminal Code currently contains a patently unjust provision that provides preferential treatment to religious individuals. Section 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code exempts a person, who would otherwise be subject to an indictable offense, if their hate speech is "based on a belief in a religious text". This is a clear violation of the principle of state neutrality in matters of religion. The harm suffered by vulnerable persons and groups is identical whatever inspired the hate monger. The victims of hate speech based on religious belief are generally the same groups hate speech laws are intended to protect. The Canadian Secular Alliance recommends that Canada repeal Section 319, subsection 3(b) of the Criminal Code.
This is the first such government report I have read, so I do not know how it compares with others. I found it dry, equivocating, lacking insight, and rather unhelpful into developing any understanding into the issues surrounding the intersection of hate speech, free speech, and online interactions.
Report Recommendations
The first five formal recommendations of the report are about information collection and dissemination. These are reasonable, if somewhat obvious, steps to take. One cannot address online hate unless one has good data about its prevalence, where and how it takes place, and effective means of countering it.
Though the report is about online hatred, hate speech is never defined in the report. The sixth recommendation is for the Government of Canada to "formulate a definition of what constitutes ‘hate’ or ‘hatred’ that is consistent with Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence" without any guidance or insight into what this definition should be (except by noting that it must acknowledge at least seven types of groups are "disproportionately targeted"). This makes it impossible to understand whether the many witnesses, who are quoted and referenced extensively throughout the document, are using the term in the same (or even a similar) way.
The seventh recommendation is for a "a civil remedy for those who assert that their human rights have been violated under the Canadian Human Rights Act", suggesting a reinstatement of the former section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (conveniently reproduced in an Appendix), updated to account for social media. Why the Committee saw fit to make this recommendation is unclear, as there was no consensus among the witnesses on this issue. As page 32 states, "On the one hand, some witnesses [...] argued that former section 13 of the CHRA [Canadian Human Rights Act] or any similar provision should not be re-instated." This section consisted of quotations from three organizations, including the Canadian Secular Alliance and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. On page 33, the report continues, "On the other hand, some witnesses expressed that the repeal of section 13 of the CHRA left a gap in the legal tool box to counter online hate." After quoting from testimony arguing for section 13 restoration, the report moves onto an entirely other topic without addressing or resolving the contradictory opinions from different witnesses.
Why and how the Committee recommends reinstating the former section 13 of the CHRA is left to the imagination of the reader. This is not the only case where the document describes the different (and at times incompatible) recommendations of various witnesses, but undertakes no analysis to determine which of various possible policy options would be effective.
The one point of consensus among witnesses is that the problem of online hate speech requires government leadership and regulation. No one was content to leave policing content to the social media corporations, which makes the report's eighth recommendation all the more baffling. The report suggests "online platforms and Internet service providers [...] monitor and address incidents of hate speech, and [...] remove all posts that would constitute online hatred in a timely manner". This recommendation, if implemented into law, would be problematic on several levels:
Internet Service Providers would be required to spy on their customers. I don't want my ISP keeping logs of all of my online activity. Anyone with the slightest concern for privacy should be concerned about this provision.
Censorship would become a competitive advantage for big online corporate entities. It is very expensive to monitor every online interaction; only the largest companies can afford to create (inaccurate) algorithms to determine what constitutes hate speech or pay for (tens of) thousands of people to manually read all flagged content to see if it runs afoul of Canada's (as yet undefined) hate speech provisions.
There are no provisions to restore content erroneously removed. Companies will default to a position that exposes them to the least liability. If they are given an obligation to remove all "hate speech", online platforms will likely take the simplest approach, as they have in the past: in addition to removing hate speech, they will also delete reports describing how individuals have suffered from hate speech, posts decrying the hate speech of others, articles about how to effectively combat hate speech, and more. Innocent bystanders, mostly likely disproportionately those groups that hate speech laws are intended to protect, will be caught in the hate speech dragnet and will have no recourse.
The final recommendation is worth quoting in full: "That online platforms be encouraged to provide optional mechanisms to
authenticate contributors and digitally sign content, and couple this with visual
indicators signifying that given user or content is authenticated, and provide
users options for filtering non-signed or non-authenticated content." This is an intriguing idea, worthy of exploration to determine if its implications would achieve its aims. Where it comes from, I do not know - it is not referenced anywhere else in the report.
Appendices
The Conservative and NDP members of the Committee each wrote their own response in an appendix.
The 1.5 page Conservative "Dissenting Report" was disappointing. Over half of it was partisan bickering (attacking the Liberals and Prime Minister Trudeau while bolstering the Conservatives and its leader Scheer). The content of its report relevant to hate speech was slight, but what little was there was reasonable.
The NDP's 5 page "Supplementary Report" highlighted a key weakness of the Committee's report, stating "it is essential that the government standardize the definition of hate speech and its interpretation by law enforcement". The NDP's five recommendations track closely to the first seven recommendations of the overall report. The NDP suggests increased funding for media literacy and several community groups, ensuring "that law enforcement at every level [...] reflect Canada's diversity", and reinstating "an updated version of section 13". The NDP supplementary report makes no mention of striking a balance between curbing hate speech and protecting freedom of expression.
Observations
Police reported 2,073 hate crimes in 2017 (many witnesses expressed dissatisfaction that our best information comes from police reports, and recommended a more rigourous and systematic way of tracking such statistics). There were 349 hate crimes against Muslims in 2017, or 16.8% of the total. There is clearly strong anti-Muslim bigotry in Canada, as Muslims represent 3.2% of the Canadian population according to Statistics Canada. What I found surprising, however, is that Antisemitism is an even larger problem in this nation. The are less than one third the number of Jews in Canada as Muslims, but were the target of more than 2.5 times the number of hate crimes.
I was pleased to see that the Canadian Secular Alliance's recommendation to repeal section 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code (which exempts “a person who would otherwise be subject to an indictable offence, if their hate speech is ʽbased on a belief in a religious textʼ”) made it into the report, quoting its position that this section “is a clear violation of the principle of state neutrality in
matters of religion.” This suggestion, however, was not among the nine recommendations made by the Committee.
My largest disappointment is that the central issue - how "to protect freedom of expression and to avoid censorship" - is stated as a priority, but left completely unresolved. Near the end of the first chapter, the report clearly states that, "None of the recommendations presented in this report derogates from an individual’s constitutional right to freedom of expression protected under section 2b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." But there is no way around the fact that regulating, deterring, restricting and/or deleting hate speech is an encroachment on free expression. Are such curbs justifiable in Canada, which purports to be a free and democratic country? How can the government curb hate speech while not also banning merely unpopular opinions? The report is utterly silent on these matters, which makes its ultimate utility on this important topic marginal.
In May, I testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as part of their investigation into hate speech on behalf of the Canadian Secular Alliance. You may read my testimony here, but if you prefer to hear how I sounded, below is an audio recording.
After the testimony of the Canadian Secular Alliance, the Cardus Institute, and an assistant professor from the University of Prince Edward Island, the Members of Parliament on the committee had the opportunity to ask questions of us. I have excerpted the audio that includes all of the questions directed to the CSA below (it also includes some responses from Andrew Bennett of the Cardus Institute).
The text of the questions directed to and the responses from myself and Greg Oliver, President of the Canadian Secular Alliance, are included below. The full text of all questions, answers, and comments made by MPs and witnesses can be found here.
Mr. Michael Barrett:
Instead of confusing a motion for action—and picking up where you had closed, Mr. Rosenblood—and understanding that at this stage of this Parliament we're unlikely to effect legislative change, what would you see as important recommendations that could come out of this committee?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
There needs to be recognition of how the way Canadians communicate with each other has changed. I think it is appropriate to take a look at a considered approach on how existing legislation might be amended to reflect that. Our concern is that we take a look at the alarming trends, and rather than take a well-thought-out approach that we feel, based on evidence and research, is likely to have the greatest impact to mitigate these harms, we instead take a knee-jerk reaction, an instinctive approach, that will most likely have little to no effect and could very possibly exacerbate the harms we are attempting to reduce or eliminate.
Mr. Colin Fraser (West Nova, Lib.):
Thank you to the witnesses for being here and giving your points of view on this. I would like to start with Mr. Rosenblood and Mr. Oliver.
Can I understand the position of your organization with regard to online speech or online content as it is now on Facebook and on other social media platforms? Do you think there is a problem?
Mr. Greg Oliver (President, Canadian Secular Alliance):
Absolutely. In particular harassment, things like doxing, and misinformation campaigns are real problems that we're facing.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
What do you mean by doxing?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
That would be the revealing of personal information like addresses and phone numbers to the public against the intended target's permission.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
Do you think, sir, that there are minority groups who are specifically being targeted and treated unfairly on social media platforms?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
One of our own members was a victim of this when he was promoting the idea of removing public prayers from his city council in Saskatchewan.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
Do you think there is a role for government to play in combatting what seems to be agreed upon as a rise of intolerance on social media platforms?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
Yes, we do. We just urge caution that any measures taken are done cautiously and judicially, and there's no overreach.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
When we're dealing with impressionable young people who are using social media platforms and, in their growing into adults, informing themselves about different world views, about different religious philosophies and about different ways to interact with other individuals, do you think there's a role for government to play in order to limit to a certain extent the abilities of individuals who are trying to exploit impressionable young people into certain hateful ideologies?
Do you think there's a role for government to play in order to try to curb that, or do you think it should be unlimited and up to the individuals...?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
No, we lean towards more of a civil libertarian position with respect to free speech, but we certainly acknowledge that there are limits. This is a great debate to have as to where that red line is. We don't object to government action when needed, if that's your question, and certainly there are a lot of ugly ideologies out there. Also, it's a brand new platform, the Internet. There are all sorts of complexities to this issue that I think we're all grappling with.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
If a certain religion is being targeted.... I totally understand the point and agree that you can attack a person's ideas, but you can't attack the individual's dignity or character or their right to hold those different views. Do you see that it can be a blurry area between calling into question a person's ideas and ideology, and attacking their character and demonizing that individual?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
Would you like to comment on that specifically?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
I think there is a world of difference between attacking an idea and attacking a person. One can attack Christianity without demonizing Christians. Similarly, you could insert Judaism and Jews or Islam and Muslims.
One can take a look at the sacred scroll of your choice and say, "This is why I believe this to be holy" or "This is why I believe this text to be vile”. This does not mean that people who follow the words of that text are necessarily more noble or inherently evil for having genuine beliefs about that scroll.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
On demonizing individuals, do you believe there's a role for government to play in combatting that type of demonization?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
The government already does have laws against the demonization of individuals, whether through slander, libel, defamation and so on. These are existing laws on the books, and we, as a secular alliance, do not object to the existence of these sections of the Criminal Code.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
Demonizing an individual because of their beliefs, would you think that's a problem?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
It becomes a personal attack and not one on the ideas of the faith, if it's about the individual, and then you have to take a look at the specific context of what is being is said. Saying, "I do not like you, sir” is not hate speech, but calling for violence against someone would be.
Mr. Colin Fraser:
Do you think that these sorts of attacks that can happen online to individuals based on their beliefs can lead some to perhaps see them as less than equal humans?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
There are a lot of hypotheticals in there. I find it hard to draw a connection with an attack on a belief leading directly to demonization of an individual. If you are already directly attacking an individual and it happens to be because of their faith, then it's the attack on the individual that matters and not the criticism of the underlying faith.
Mr. Randall Garrison:
I want to go back to Mr. Rosenblood. He was very careful to say that when ideas relate to individuals, he accepts that there has to be a limit.
In my community just last week, we had the rental of a public facility to a group and to a speaker who attack transgender people as threats to all women and threats to children. While in that speech that takes place, there's no identifying of individuals, it does promote hatred against a group. Since you focused on individuals last time, I'd like to ask whether you accept that there is a limit and that there should be criminal sanctions against promotion of hatred against a group and not just individuals.
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
Yes, criminal sanctions should not simply be against identified, named individuals. Saying that Leslie Rosenblood should be attacked because he's Leslie would be, or should be in our opinion, equally an offence under the law as saying that all members of the Canadian Secular Alliance, of which I happen to be one, should be attacked. Whether the group in question is one of voluntary membership as in the Canadian Secular Alliance, one of religious affiliation of any sort, or a member of, for example, the LGBT community, calling for attacks or violence against unspecified members of an identifiable group should be subject to criminal sanction to an equal extent as a named individual.
Mr. Randall Garrison:
It's not a federal jurisdictional question, but it's about the use of public facilities for promotion of hatred against groups. Do you believe public entities, whether it's a municipality or even, say, the House of Commons, should have policies in place that would prevent the use of public facilities for the promotion of hatred?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
There are a number of complexities in there. Whether the public facility is open to the public or whether it's reserved for certain specific purposes would have a bearing. Assuming, for the sake of this discussion, it's open to the public, there is no implied approval or endorsement by a municipal, provincial or federal government of the ideology or background of whoever is renting the facility, simply because they're using the facility.
If illegal acts are being conducted as a result of that, they must be prosecuted accordingly. However, should you fall short of that and they simply have highly distasteful or objectionable goals, the government should neither endorse nor condemn speech from people who rent those facilities. The government must remain neutral, again assuming that the facility is open to the public and that no criminal incitement is happening as a result of that transaction.
Mr. Ali Ehsassi (Willowdale, Lib.):
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To all the witnesses, thank you for your testimony.
My first question is for Mr. Rosenblood and Mr. Oliver.
Having heard your testimony, I understand you're saying we should be amending existing legislation. I also understand you're very much concerned about the overreach of the law. That said, you delved into paragraph 319(3)(b). I understand you're in favour of repealing it. Do you think any such action would restrict freedom of religion?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
Essentially, we don't. We strongly believe in freedom of religion, and of course, the freedom to hold no religion. We think all citizens ought to be treated equally under the law, and that should also include criminal proceedings. If one commits a hate crime, just simply being able to be exempted from prosecution due to the citing of a religious text is inappropriate.
It is not really going to have any impact on religious belief, but it would strengthen equality rights under section 15 of the charter. We think it would be beneficial.
I'll give you a tangible example, since we've been talking a bit about LGBT issues here. Let's say person A calls for violence against male homosexuals, and person B does the same but invokes Leviticus or passages from Hadith. In our eyes, both ought to be prosecuted equally. We think this is a moral principle that ought to be reflected in the Criminal Code.
Mr. Ali Ehsassi:
Speaking of hate speech, which is exempt from prosecution if it's derived from a religious text, do you think this constitutes a violation of equality rights?
Mr. Greg Oliver:
Do you mean as the law currently stands?
Mr. Ali Ehsassi:
Correct.
Mr. Greg Oliver:
Yes, we do.
Mr. Arif Virani:
Thank you, Mr. Ehsassi.
Let's continue on this theme.
I'll confess to you that I found a bit puzzling, Mr. Rosenblood, your opening submissions about paragraph 319(3)(b), first because the preamble of the Constitution talks about the supremacy of God and the rule of law, and second because it's well known in law that we carve out accommodation or exemptions for religious or conscience beliefs, most recently in the one issue that I think all of us will remember for our entire parliamentary careers—medical assistance in dying—wherein you had a direct conflict within people who felt, pursuant to their conscience, that they didn't want to be compelled to perform a certain type of medical procedure. That was enunciated in the penultimate paragraph of the Carter decision, since you're citing Supreme Court case law. It's also entrenched in Bill C-14.
I just put that forth as a talking point.
You also mentioned, Mr. Rosenblood, that you're cautioning us not to act quickly. I would actually say to you, if you were listening to the people earlier, that there's a real need to act quickly. I think the need to act quickly is that people are being radicalized towards violence online in Canada—that's part of the court record in the Bissonnette sentencing hearing—and around the planet. I think it is incumbent upon us to act quickly.
I was also a bit puzzled by your citation of a dissenting decision in Keegstra, rather than the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in more recent jurisprudence, which is Whatcott, in which Rothstein, writing for the entire court, upheld section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act as striking the appropriate balance.
There's no doubt that balance needs to be struck. The question I have for you, then, is this: Is section 13 of the CHRA, whose analogue was upheld in Whatcott in a unanimous 6-0 decision by the Supreme Court, the right balance? If it isn't, what's needed? Is what is needed what would effectively be a redundant but perhaps necessary political paragraph that simply says, “Nothing in the aforementioned passages derogates from the constitutionally held right to freedom of expression held by all individuals within Canada under section 2(b)”?
Mr. Leslie Rosenblood:
It is because we feel that this issue is important that the Canadian Secular Alliance feels it is more important the government act correctly, over quickly.
Acting quickly may not achieve the goals we are trying to reach. That's why we believe that, because it's new and is unfamiliar territory for the vast majority of Canadians and parliamentarians, we need to consider what needs to be done properly and not simply do something for the sake of doing something.
As for your direct question on the repealed section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, we feel that the current law strikes a reasonable balance in terms of restrictions on free speech. We feel that existing provisions can be enforced more rigorously and more consistently across Canada and that the larger problem we face is not a lack of legislation addressing hatred in all of its forms but a lack of enforcement of existing provisions.
Yesterday morning I testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. In April, the Committee invited Canadians to participate in its study of online hate, and asked the Canadian Secular Alliance to provide its perspective. Below is the statement I made to the Committee.
Good morning. My name is Leslie Rosenblood and my colleague is Greg Oliver. We are here on behalf of the Canadian Secular Alliance. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today.
The Canadian Secular Alliance is a non-partisan and registered not-for-profit organization whose mandate is to promote the separation of religion and state in Canada.
Our goal today is to provide a robust defense of three core principles that a central to all liberal democracies: government neutrality in matters of religion; equality for all under the law, and free expression.
Government Neutrality
People deserve protection from harm; ideas do not warrant protection from criticism. This distinction is crucial to today's discussion and it is imperative that these are not conflated. Assaults on religious people must be deterred, prevented, and prosecuted. But just as Canada’s political parties can (and do!) vigorously attack each other’s platforms and proposals, criticism of religious tenets, no matter how vitriolic, must be fully permissible.
Religious beliefs are ideas, and should not be treated any differently than other philosophical doctrine – political, economic, philosophical, or otherwise. Attacking the ideas in a book should never be considered equivalent to an attack on the people who revere those words.
Equal Protection under the Law
It would be ludicrous to for the law to treat two, say, burglars differently based on which party they voted for in the previous election. Yet our Criminal Code today does something analogous where the willful promotion of hatred is concerned. Religious individuals are given preferential treatment under the law. Section 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code exempts a person, who would otherwise be subject to an indictable offense, if their hate speech is "based on a belief in a religious text". This is a clear violation of the principle of state neutrality in matters of religion. The harm suffered by vulnerable persons and groups is identical whatever inspired the hate monger. The Canadian Secular Alliance recommends that Canada repeal Section 319, subsection 3(b) of the Criminal Code.
The majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada wrote last year that “Accommodating diverse beliefs and values is a precondition to the secularism and the pluralism that are needed to protect and promote the Charter rights of all Canadians. State neutrality requires that the state neither favour nor hinder any particular belief, and the same holds true for non‑belief. Either way, state neutrality must prevail.” Our legislature also recognizes that treating religious ideas as a form of thought warranting special treatment is detrimental to society and obsolete, as demonstrated by the repeal of Canada’s blasphemous libel law last year. This action was a significant step forward. Our country should not retreat from its commitment to humanitarian values that apply equally to all Canadians.
Free Speech
While legitimate constraints to unfettered speech exist - including libel, impersonation, threats and incitement to violence - any exceptions must be limited, well-defined, and serve the public interest. Any proposal that seeks to further limit free expression must pass a high burden of proof in order to counter legitimate concerns about overreach, ambiguity, and selective enforcement.
Therefore the goal of hate speech laws must be to protect individuals from physical harm. However, they rarely achieve this aim. After studying the issue in many countries, Human Rights Watch stated "there is little connection in practice between draconian hate speech laws and the lessening of ethnic and racial violence or tension." The same conclusion was reached by the European Parliament and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The key problem with hate speech laws is that hate speech is impossible to define in such a way as to meet the twin goals of targeting a significant portion of unacceptable expression while respecting the principle of free speech. If its scope is very narrow and specific, any new law will have minimal impact on Canadian public discourse. But a broadly worded Act would necessarily encompass much speech protected by section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Additionally, in many countries (including established democracies) hate speech laws have often been disproportionately enforced against members of the very minority groups they were designed to protect.
Overly broad hate speech laws also have a non-trivial chilling effect on all public criticism. The Supreme Court has described "hatred" as speech "that is likely to expose" people to "hatred or contempt": "unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification"; and "enmity and extreme ill-will [...] which goes beyond mere disdain or dislike." How can a person know whether their strong negative opinion of a person or group will be considered "disdain" - permissible - or "detestation" - punishable? In a dissenting opinion on the Keegstra case, Supreme Court Justice McLachlin wrote, the "sanction of the criminal law may pose little deterrent to a convinced hate-monger who may welcome the publicity it brings; it may, however, deter the ordinary individual."
Hate speech laws leave three options for those inclined to engage in hateful, discriminatory speech: taking the forbidden expression underground; couching their ideas in more subtle rhetoric to evade punishment; or leaving the message unchanged (or perhaps make it even more provocative) as the speakers seek the publicity that results from prosecution. Perhaps that is why Canada has so rarely invoked its existing hate speech law.
With the increasing prevalence of social media in the lives of Canadians, the CSA recognizes that the way we communicate and connect with each other has changed and new challenges have emerged. The CSA recognizes that these are serious issues that require attention, but they fall outside of our mandate so we will defer to other experts for appropriate remedies. We urge the Government to avoid the fallacious reasoning of, "We must do something. This is something - therefore we must do it."
We urge this committee to maintain its commitment to crucial Charter values of free speech and equality for all under the law. This can only be realized when government neither supports nor suppresses religious expression, but remains neutral. Thank you.
Below is a lightly edited article I wrote for the January 2019 edition of Critical Links, the monthly newsletter of the Centre for Inquiry Canada.
It boggles the mind that Canada had, until late last year, a law prohibiting "blasphemous libel", punishable by up to two years in prison. Though it had not been invoked in decades, I believed this to be an unjustifiable restriction on freedom of expression, and played a minor role in ensuring no one will ever again be charged with blasphemy in Canada.
I am not a professional lobbyist. Though I try to stay informed about current events, I am not particularly politically active, nor have I ever been a member of any political party. My priorities in life are raising my four young children and doing well in my job. So how does a "nobody" like me go about repealing an obsolete law that no one seems to care about?
Here's my advice for those outside government seeking to improve the world through legislative change.
Wait for an opportune time. The road to repealing Canada's blasphemy law started in September 2016 when an Alberta judge cited a section of the Criminal Code that the Supreme Court had declared to be unconstitutional in 1990. In response to this embarrassment, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould announced she had ordered a review of Criminal Code provisions found to be unconstitutional. This was clearly the time to take action.
Build a coalition. Politicians answer to Canadians writ large. Bureaucrats answer to politicians. If you are speaking just for yourself, no one in power will want to speak with you. But when representatives from three of Canada's leading non-religious organizations - Centre for Inquiry Canada, Canadian Secular Alliance, and Humanist Canada, each of which had established institutional credibility over the years - presented a joint request, we were granted a meeting with the Senior Policy Advisor in charge of the Criminal Code at the Justice Department.
Marshall your arguments. Ensure you know your material. You will want to leave a positive impression with whomever you're speaking with, so do not waste even a minute of their time. CFI, CSA, and HC met in advance to agree on major talking points and the more detailed rationales for each position. Because everyone from the three organizations was familiar with everything we wanted to convey, there was neither repetition nor contradiction when any of us spoke.
Do your research. Stating a reasonable sounding philosophical position is a good start, but is not enough. If the benefits or harms are merely theoretical, it may make for an interesting chat, but it will not drive change. Ensure your carefully constructed arguments are externally validated - backed by evidence, references, and (especially with politicians!) media pieces. You needn't cite every article in conversation, but be sure to have them at the ready if asked or challenged, and offer to leave a full package behind before you leave.
Tailor your presentation to your audience. As much as possible, learn in advance about whom you will be speaking with and what they might want from you. This doesn't involve spying or any form of skulduggery. Simply by looking up someone's profile on LinkedIn and understanding where they fit in their organization's hierarchy, you can gain valuable insights into what might motivate them. You should be familiar enough with what you want to communicate that you can alter the planned order or emphasis based on the flow of the conversation. Our meeting in December 2016 was with a lawyer with impeccable credentials - so we ensured we demonstrated knowledge on the topic of blasphemy without claiming to have legal expertise. We tied our goal - repealing Canada's blasphemous libel law - to the (very public) review commissioned by the Justice Minister a couple months previously. While we acknowledged that it had never been tested by the courts, we argued Canada's blasphemy law almost certainly violates the right to freedom of expression enshrined in section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - which made it within scope of the review. The government could avoid a potential future embarrassment by removing a law before a judge referred to it in a conviction, only subsequently to have both the conviction overturned and the law struck down.
Be patient. The wheels of government (in fact, of any large organization) turn slowly. We met with representatives of the Justice Department on December 16, 2016. On March 8, 2017, the government introduced Bill C-39, which would remove from the Criminal Code only those sections previously struck down by the courts. After an initial bout of disappointment, we took heart from Minister Wilson-Raybould's statement that this was only a "first step". Sure enough, three months later, on June 6 2017, Bill C-51 was brought before the House of Commons. It was an omnibus bill that, in addition to repealing Canada's blasphemy law, removed sections related to (among other things) challenging someone to a duel, fraudulently pretending to practise witchcraft, and impersonating someone during a university exam. But the main changes in the bill were updating provisions related to consent and admissibility of evidence in sexual assault trials. For this reason, it was carefully studied by both the House of Commons and the Senate, taking over 18 months before it received Royal Assent on December 13, 2018 - nearly two years after CFI, CSA, and HC met with the Justice Department to press our case.
If someone like me - no one in particular, with zero public profile, no insider connections, and no experience trying to influence the legislative process - can play even a small part in repealing a manifestly unjust law, so - with appropriate prioritization and persistence - can you.
I wrote a short article for the June 2018 edition of Critical Links, the newsletter of the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Enjoy.
Canada is repealing its blasphemy law
Governments sometimes pass laws that violate their country's constitution. One purpose of an independent judiciary is to identify and strike down such laws when they are challenged. Since Canada adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, many previously valid laws have been found to be contrary to Canada's constitution. When the courts strike down a law, it has no longer has any legal force, but it remains on the books until such time as Parliament formally repeals it. Thus "zombie laws" accumulate in Canada's Criminal Code until a "cleanup" bill removes them.
In 2016, an Alberta judge, in his decision to convict a man of murder, "relied on section 230 of the Criminal Code, which was declared unconstitutional in 1990 case R. v. Martineau." This embarrassed the federal government, and in response Justice Minister Judy Wilson-Raybould released a statement she had instructed "officials in the Department of Justice to conduct a review of Criminal Code provisions found to be unconstitutional, with a view to updating the Criminal Code to reflect these decisions."
A broad mandate from the Justice Minister to update the Criminal Code presented a rare opportunity to make the case that section 296, Blasphemous Libel, should be removed as part of this modernization effort. Members of three prominent Canadian organizations dedicated to freedom of speech and conscience - Centre for Inquiry Canada, Canadian Secular Alliance, and Humanist Canada - took the opportunity to meet with the senior bureaucrats leading this review in December 2016.
We highlighted several reasons why Section 296 should be repealed. In short, we argued:
Canada's Blasphemous Libel law, while not tested by the courts, would almost certainly be found to be unconstitutional.
Blasphemy laws are an indefensible infringement on freedom of speech in a modern democratic nation.
The law is demonstrably obsolete. It was last invoked in 1980 in an attempt to prevent a cinema from showing Monty Python's "Life of Brian", and the last conviction was over eight decades ago.
Authoritarian states use Canada's Section 296 as moral cover to defend their own blasphemy laws.
Human rights activists around the world have called for Canada to repeal its blasphemy law to strengthen their campaigns for freedom of speech in their own countries.
(The Canadian Secular Alliance has a brief policy position on blasphemy that makes a compelling case for its repeal.)
On June 6, 2017, the government introduced bill C-51, an omnibus bill that repeals 39 sections and subsections of the Criminal Code (including blasphemous libel), as well as modifying several sections pertaining to admissibility of evidence in sexual assault cases. In November 2017, Greg Oliver, President of the Canadian Secular Alliance, testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to affirm support for repealing Section 296.
Bill C-51 has passed all three readings in the House of Commons, and is currently (as of the end of May 2018) in committee with the Senate, having passed the first two readings there. Based on the speeches made at the second reading in the Senate, repealing Canada's blasphemous libel law is not contentious. Careful attention is being paid to updating evidence admissibility in sexual assault cases, which is entirely appropriate.
Though it cannot be known for certain whether blasphemous libel would have been included in bill C-51 without the intervention of Canada's foremost freethought organizations, I am confident that the meeting with Justice Department officials raised the profile of section 296 while they were crafting this legislation.
Though one cannot predict when a bill in committee will be presented to the Senate for a third reading, there is no reason to expect that bill C-51 will not become law in due course. When it receives royal assent, blasphemous libel will no longer be a crime in Canada.
Chill, but do not yet uncork, your favourite bottle of Champagne.
Last month I participated in the Chesterton debate. I have previously published my opening remarks (15 minutes) and my responses to Dr. Benson's threequestions (five minutes each).
Below is the entire debate, including my questions to Dr. Benson, questions from the audience, and a discussion guided by the moderator, Lorna Dueck.
I've only watched a few minutes so far, and can say that the picture quality is excellent.
Dr. Benson asked a third and final question of me based on my opening remarks in the Chesterton debate. His question is indented below; my answer follows.
Chief Justice Brian Dickson in Big M Drug Mart stated
that religious freedom is prototypical - meaning it has led the way to
other rights such as freedom of speech, assembly etc.. It would
seem then that once we have religious freedom of all including freedom
of politicians to live in accordance with his/her religious principles,
we have a greater chance of protecting all the other freedoms. This
being the case, as well as the strong evidence
(referred to in my opening comments) about various public goods (such
as charitable works, volunteerism etc.) being strongly correlated with
religious adherence, do you not agree that religion needs to be
protected from moves to narrow its public as
well as private influences?
Paragraph 123 in Big M:
Religious belief and practice are historically prototypical and,
in many ways, paradigmatic of conscientiously‑held beliefs
and manifestations and are therefore protected by the Charter . Equally
protected, and for the same reasons, are expressions and manifestations
of religious non‑belief and refusals to participate in religious
practice.
It
is my view that freedom of religion and its more general right, freedom
of conscience, are essential for a democratic country, as well as the
closely related principle of freedom of expression. So in that sense,
yes – religion deserves protection. But I do not think that it needs
additional, special privileges above and beyond those accorded to all
voluntary associations within society. Protecting the freedoms of
expression and conscience are sufficient to guarantee religious liberty.
Consider
this: religious liberty itself is constrained in countries where
citizens do not enjoy full freedom of conscience and expression. The
Economist reported in December that 19 countries punish their citizens
for apostasy - leaving their religion - and in 12 of those nations it is
punishable by death.
55 countries (including several
Western democracies) have laws against blasphemy; a conviction could
lead to a prison term in 39 nations and execution in six. Blasphemy laws
have been abused almost everywhere they are enacted, frequently to
suppress religious minorities, persecute political rivals, minority
sects, or stifle inconvenient speech. It is important to realize that
Canada is not exempt; we too have a blasphemy law, which was last used
to censor a Monty Python film, in a failed attempt to prevent its
distribution in Canada. I've never understood the rationale for
blasphemy laws; surely those who believe in an omnipotent God know He
does not need the support of a human law, while those who do not believe
in God view blasphemy as the ultimate victimless crime.
Mr.
Benson claimed in his opening remarks that "secular is a sort of
exclusionary violence to freedom and rights". Yet it is precisely the
devout, particularly those who belong to minority faiths, would should
be the most committed secularists. The principle of secularism -
government neutrality between and among faiths - is the best protection
for religious minorities that are persecuted in far too many places in
the world. Anyone genuinely concerned about religious liberty, and
freedom of conscience, must oppose tonight's resolution, for a secular
state is the only one that guarantees full freedom of religious worship
and expression. A secular state is not concerned with purported acts
heresy or apostasy. No one need smuggle a bible into a secular country; a
secular nation has no pogroms.
And let us not forget
that those that adhere to no religious tradition are equally deserving
of protection - and are often specially targeted for persecution. Even
in the United States, with its official separation of Church and State,
politics is so infused with religion that atheists are banned from
holding public office by the constitution of seven US states. Contrary
to Mr. Benson's insinuations, it is not the secular minded folk who lack
tolerance.
Regarding religious adherence and various
public goods, Professor of sociology Phil Zuckerman asks an intriguing
question: "Is a society to be considered moral if its citizens love the
Bible a lot (as in the United States), or rather, if its citizens
virtually wipe out poverty from their midst (as in Scandinavia)?"
More
generally, however, there are very good reasons for keeping God out of
politics. As lawyer and philosopher Ron Lindsay put it, "We can't base
our laws based on the word of God in part because we don't know what God
is saying. The Jewish and Islamic god says you can't eat pork; the
Christian god says that's okay. The Islamic god says Friday is a holy
day, the Jewish god says Saturday, the Christian god says Sunday. The
list of disagreements can go on and on and on. As soon as you introduce
religious precepts into a public policy discussion, you are essentially
shutting out of that discussion anyone who is not a follower of that
religion."
Let us ground our politics in evidence and
values accessible to all members of society. We can best protect freedom
of religion by keeping it as far from politics as we possibly can.
The indented text below is Dr. Benson's second question to me based on the text of my opening remarks in the Chesterton debate. My response follows.
As did mid 19th
Century secularists you seem to suggest that "evidence based public
policy" favours the non-religious viewpoints. Many things that matter
to us in life and government policy
are not, however, susceptible to "evidence" assessments free of moral commitments.
Moral debates about such issues as euthanasia, gender-selection
abortion or certain kinds of tax policies are not resolved by "evidence"
cut off from competing interests
and beliefs. In short: we choose how to weigh evidence against a
moral background based on our beliefs. Your approach gives atheists
and agnostics the ability to have their beliefs effective in relation to
moral public policy formation but not religious
people's: how can that be fair?
Embedded in this question is a false assumption - that I am proposing we exclude the ability of religious politicians to use their moral judgement. I have never advocated for such a position, nor has any prominent secularist organization. However, all politicians, religious and non-religious alike, have a responsibility to express their goals and concerns in universal values, rather than in the terms of their particular creed. This allows all people, of all backgrounds, of all faiths (including those having none) - to fully participate in the political arena. Mr. Benson asks: How can that be fair? I respond: What could be more fair?
Mr. Benson is correct that I favour evidence based public policy. We both hold the view that while evidence must inform public policy, it cannot dictate it. One key role of elected officials is to determine the extent to which competing interests benefit from a proposed law or policy. There are often trade offs that lie at the heart of a politician's job - such as whether to raise or lower taxes (and which ones), increase or decrease spending (and where), run a surplus or deficit - all in an infinite number of possible combinations. We should use knowledge to foresee, as best we can, the consequences of various options, but ultimately a decision will be made due to priorities that come from a philosophical or moral foundation that is not based on evidence alone.
Religious groups are allowed to have their say in the public square, even if they give explicitly religious rationales for their positions. By the same token, however, politicians and judges are under no obligation to accept arguments whose only justification is religious in nature.
While same sex marriage was being considered in Canada a decade ago, religious voices were a significant part of the discussion and religious groups were very active in the debate. Canada's legislature, its courts, and society overall did not end up agreeing with the religious perspective – but all interested parties were able to express their moral beliefs about the topic.
More recently, in October, an interesting case was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada about whether it is legal for a municipality in Quebec to start its meetings with a prayer. The Court has yet to render its verdict.
Mr. Benson: I am here tonight because I am intensely concerned about fairness. To ensure justice and equal participation from all members of society, we need only apply the criteria that you yourself laid out just a few minutes ago - that we judge arguments based on their fairness, reasonableness, and general applicability. If we combine that with the ideas from my opening address - that public policy be based on the principles of human experience, objective evidence, reason, human empathy and compassion - then we have a way to determine which laws, actions, and policies are in the common interest, whether one's altruism is motivated by religious faith or whether the inspiration to public service stems from a humanist philosophy. This is democratic. This is just. This is fair.
The format of the Chesterton debate allowed Dr. Benson and I to read each other's opening statements in advance of the event and to submit three questions based on them. Below is Dr. Benson's first question to me (indented), and my response.
You say you are
opposed to theocracy because it forces religious viewpoints on a diverse
society and we don't disagree about this. However, you don't address
the existence of what Catholic philosopher
Jacques Maritain once described as "atheistictheocracy". Your view, which would exclude religious influences but not non-religious influences in the public sphere, thereby privileges atheism and agnosticism in direct contradiction
to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Chamberlain (2002). If
all citizens are to be treated equally, how would you guard against
"atheistic theocracy" if you don't allow religious beliefs in the public
sphere?
This question, interpreted literally, contradicts itself. The definition of theocracy is "A government ruled by or subject to religious authority." One cannot be both an atheist - one who looks at the thousands of gods humanity has worshipped over its history, and does not believe any of them actually exist - and be ruled by religious doctrine. A direct answer to a contradictory question cannot exist.
Therefore I hope you will indulge me if I take a figurative approach to Mr. Benson's words, and address instead what I think is the intended spirit of his question. His concern is about a state dogmatically and inflexibly ruled by an unbelieving autocrat, who also demands strict adherence from all public figures to an anti-theistic ideology. Mr. Benson is worried about the possibility of an atheistic dictatorship.
However, tonight we are not talking about atheism. This was last year's debate topic. We are discussing secularism - and the two are quite distinct concepts. Equal treatment among all citizens means privileging neither religious nor anti-religious voices. Supporting government neutrality in matters of religion, where the government neither supports nor suppresses religious expression, is the secularist stance. Secularists stand against government coercing people to abandon their religion as much as government enforcing religious dictates upon those who believe differently, or not at all.
Secularism does not privilege atheism or agnosticism. Secularism is the compromise position. Which Mr. Benson holds as well, since he has stated that he does not wish to force his (or anyone else's) religious viewpoints on society at large.
Let's examine the status quo in Canada, posit the secular stance, and imagine, for a moment, what a dystopian atheistic dictatorship would look like:
Today God is mentioned in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in our national anthem. A secular state would not mention God in either. An atheistic dictatorship would use both to promulgate the State's position that there is no God.
Today many legislatures and municipal councils in Canada start their official proceedings with the Lord's prayer, a Christian invocation, a generic theistic supplication, or with rotating orations from various faiths. A secular state would have elected officials spend their time doing their job, what they are paid to do - tending to the earthly interests of society. An atheistic dictatorship would have these governmental bodies start their proceedings with an explicit affirmation that God is an imaginary entity.
Today organizations whose only purpose and activity is to advance religious beliefs enjoy tax credits and subsidies of over one BILLION dollars per year. A secular state would grant no financial privileges to organizations promoting or discouraging faith. Charitable status would be granted to whichever groups perform charitable deeds, such as feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. An atheistic dictatorship would grant charitable status and other financial privileges to organizations whose only purpose is to denigrate religious belief.
Today exemptions are granted from generally applicable laws on the basis of religious beliefs, but are denied to those who object on other grounds. Examples include working on the Sabbath or other religious holidays; nurses handling I.V. bags; and students carrying weapons in schools. A secular state would either a) grant no such exemptions, or b) permit them for all deeply held philosophical commitments, whether their source was from religion, culture, or personal conscience. An atheistic dictatorship would grant exceptions only for those who ground their objections in their atheism.
Canada is a nation of considerable religious privilege. Secularists argue for government neutrality in matters of religion. Should an atheistic dictatorship arise, Mr. Benson can depend on me and all secularist organizations to fight against these hypothetical discriminatory policies. For now, our efforts are dedicated to combating the very real injustices that exist today.
