Legislation to outlaw all forms of hate incitement in Canada will be introduced in the House of Commons this week. The private bill, termed “the most comprehensive of its kind anywhere,” will be put forward by Milton Klein, Liberal Member of Parliament for Montreal Cartier.
In general terms, the proposed legislation is based on the Genocide Convention of the United Nations, which Canada ratified several years ago, and its provisions include a ban on both genocide and incitement to genocide. The provisions of the bill also include outlawing of all kinds of hate incitement–oral or written–and allow for the prosecution of the accessories, including, for example, the printers, mailers, carriers and distributors of hate literature. The bill is backed by representatives of all denomination and a number of ethnic groups in Montreal.
Canadian Jewish Congress officials commenting on the proposed bill, stated: “For the past ten years the Canadian Jewish Congress with the B’nai B’rith Organization has called upon Ministers of Justice in an almost annual pilgrimage representing that changes be made in the Criminal Code to cover the cases of distribution of such hate literature as could be defined as spreading false news and which by a newer definition in the sedition section would be prohibited. In our considered Judgment based on years of study and on the consideration of learned legal opinion, the changes in the Criminal Code which we have so continuously sponsored would be most useful.”
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