A New Life for Section 13 of the CHRA?

The Online Harms Bill (Bill C-63) imposed on larger social media platforms a “duty to act responsibly,” which rested on a recognition that traditional legal responses were no longer effective in addressing hate speech and other forms of unlawful expression when they occur online. This recognition, however, made it all the more surprising that the Bill also included an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), adding a prohibition on online hate speech. This ban was a slightly revised version of a provision — section 13 of the CHRA — that had been repealed by the federal government in 2014. The proposed revisions to the earlier CHRA ban on hate speech addressed some of the concerns raised about the earlier version of the section and that led to its repeal, but fail to account for the fact that the communication landscape has changed dramatically since 2014. In this new landscape, traditional legal responses, including human rights code restrictions, are simply too slow and cumbersome to respond effectively to the problem of online hate speech.