Philosophical & Theological Reflections On Satirical Images: Summer 2019

Facebook: Many of British friends do not vote Conservative. This advertisement would support their case... 

Facebook: I am most impressed by the cat being willing to pose for the photo.

Facebook: I dislike the taste of diet sodas. That looks like two weeks lunch for me.

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Facebook: a) Survive earthquake b) Publicly display self as 'kool' surviving earthquake.

To be clear: I do not support racism or racist comments. I am for immigration and reasonable security measures within immigration and for the protection of national sovereignty. I do not support 'go back' comments.

Prime Minister Trudeau's comments that these 'go back' comments 'should not be allowed' in Canada, concern me.

I reason that there is at times a fine line between true hate speech and political rhetoric used to gain support for a politician. The difference between hate speech and political rhetoric needs to be parsed in an objective, non-heated, non-political, context.

Related, slander and libel laws handle defamation.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”, but this right, along with all rights guaranteed by The Charter, is not absolute. 

Some types of free expression in Canada are crimes, such as perjury, distributing obscene material, and hate speech. 

The right to free expression is subject to “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” Free expression crimes in Canada are constitutional issues, and the onus is on the government to prove that the infringement is justifiable. 

However, some limits on free expression in Canada have nothing to do with government restrictions or the right to free expression as defined in the Charter. 

One such limit is the civil tort of defamation. Defamation refers to harming another person’s reputation by making a false written or oral statement about that person to a third party. Defamation law is not about protecting pride; it is about protecting reputation and offering restitution to people whose reputations have been wrongly damaged. 

Although courts will very occasionally issue an injunction to stop defamation that has not yet occurred, almost all defamation cases involve one person suing another for damages from defamatory statements that have already been made.

CJFE Jube 15 2015