The Canadian Constitutional Approach to Freedom of Expression in Hate Propaganda and Pornography

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Constitutional law can be many things, but most of all it can be an agent of change. Ultimately, it determines the way we organize our lives, socially and politically. It provides us with insights to help us understand and define our society and where it is heading. It is intimately concerned with giving meaning to ourselves and our relations with others.' But on their own, constitutional guarantees are abstract concepts. They require judges, through their interpretations, to breathe life into them. The act of giving meaning to a constitutional guarantee, such as freedom of expression, requires an examination of its context, purposes, history, precedent, and the intent of the framers. 2 But guarantees are always open to competing interpretations because usually the sources themselves require interpretation. A reliance on one interpretation involves the suppression of another. It is at this juncture where we find either explicit or implicit reliance on the ways in which the interpreter imagines social and political life. This becomes

`Hate Speech' and `First Amendment Absolutism' Discourses in the US

“…ad hominem insults or the mockery of religious beliefs) and racist speech. He discusses a series of recent Canadian cases (see Mahoney, 1992) in which effective limits were placed on hate speech (see Delgado and Stefancic, 1997: 57-8, 123-8). His essay is a further prod toward the necessary comparative analysis of legal and public practice as regards hate speech.…”