The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that it has the authority to hear cases involving allegations of hate speech on the internet.
The court explains that provincial human rights laws against discriminatory or hateful publications fall under the jurisdiction of the respective province and not under the telecommunications control of the federal government.
The decision is part of an ongoing human rights complaint between the BC Teachers’ Federation and former Chilliwack School Board Trustee Barry Neufeld.
Starting in 2017, Neufeld published several online posts protesting against the province’s sexual orientation education initiative. Among other things, he compared the possibility of gender reassignment surgery for children to child abuse.
He argued that the Internet was the exclusive responsibility of the federal government in the field of telecommunications.
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The tribunal’s decision states that the merits of the allegations regarding Neufeld’s online publications will be decided when the hearing resumes in the fall.
British Columbia Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender, who is acting as an intervener in the case, said in a statement that it was a positive decision.
“The tribunal’s decision means that discriminatory or hateful statements are not protected under the province’s human rights laws simply because they were published online,” she said.
“The BC Human Rights Code will continue to protect people in this modern context.”
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