James Keegstra On Freedom Of Expression

Does freedom of expression mean you are permitted to utter any statement to anyone? If not, what are you allowed to say and to whom? James Keegstra took his freedom of expression to a limit, which forced the Supreme Court of Canada to answer these difficult questions. Keegstra was a high school teacher in Eckville, Alberta. In 1984, he was charged with the unlawful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group under s.319 (2) of the Criminal Code. These charges were based on his communication of anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) statements to his students. After being convicted of hate propaganda, the accused felt that his s.2 (b) and s. 11(b) rights of the charter were violated by his conviction under section 319(2) and s. 319(3) of the criminal …show more content…
This section deals with equality and multiculturalism, which is not supposed to be used as a limit upon the freedom of expression. If this were the case, a lot of citizens of the state would be affected as well as the exchange of ideas and beliefs would be limited. The prevention of racism should not have applied to section 2 of the charter. It is completely irrelevant because the value of equality and multiculturalism does not correspond to the values of freedom of expressions. Even if it was used in checking the s.15 and 27, that means the protection comments from the s.2 (b) would be excluded which is aimed at protecting anyone from having their freedom of expression infringed by the government. One of the reasons why the government implemented the s.319 (2) was to limit the freedom of expression by controlling what people are entitled to say. By doing this, the section deviated from its main objective by limiting lawful expression. In addition, s.319 (2) could cause prosecutions of racist expressions because it gets a wide media attraction. The minority found out that there is a weak relation between the consideration of hate speech as a criminal offence and its actual prevention …show more content…
The limitation of freedom of expression, which does not correlate with the Canadian concept of freedom of speech, should not be applied in this case though the statement made by Keegstra was negative to the public and the identified group. In this case, it could be agreed that the statement by Keegstra did not contribute anything positive to the society but experience makes it clear that it might be difficult to distinguish between speech that has value to social issues and speech that does not. Section 319(2) would have an effect on the public because it could prohibit defensive expressions. It could also prevent what should be lawful act because the law does not specify what is legal or not (http://ojen.ca/sites/ojen.ca/files/sites/default/files/resources/Keegstra%20English.pdf). For freedom of expression to be meaningful and guaranteed, it must be able to protect every expression even if it questions very basic notion about the society. A true commitment to freedom of expression demands nothing