Debating Hate Crime: Language, Legislatures, and the Law in Canada

by Allyson Lunny

Debating Hate Crimes examines the language used by parliamentarians, senators, and committee witnesses to debate Canada's hate laws. Drawing on discourse analysis, semiotics, and critical psychoanalysis, Allyson M. Lunny explores how the tropes, metaphors, and other linguistic signifiers used in these debates expose the particular concerns, trepidations, and anxieties of Canadian lawmakers and the expert witnesses called before their committees. In so doing, Lunny reveals and interrogates the meaning and social signification of the endorsement of, and resistance to, hate law. The result is a rich historical and analytical account of some of Canada's most passionate public debates on victimization, rightful citizenship, social threat, and moral erosion.

248 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2015

Reviews

[Michael Asres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book discussing parliamentary debates regarding hate crime and hate speech bills. It was a nuanced take onto the specific models of argumentation used for and against such legislations and what it can tell us about the state of our priorities in Canadian politics. I especially liked Lunny’s analysis of how the spectre of “threat to free speech” is often invoked by bad faith actors who have no genuine interest in free expression, but rather use this fear mongering technique to resist legislative efforts to address hate and discriminatory speech.

Particularly prescient, as this exact line of arguments is being used in response to the Online Harms Act. A bill which, aside from issuing various obligations to online platforms regarding harmful online content, also proposes to reintroduce a law (section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act) which proscribes hateful expression communicated on traditional and online platforms. It is interesting to see how current debates on this issue mirror much of the same lines of arguments, hyperbole, and misinformation regarding the supposed threat to free speech that dates back to the 70’s when Canada formally introduced hate speech prohibition in both the Criminal Code and human rights statutes.

A well worth reading book if you find yourself interested in the inner workings of parliamentary politics in regard to this particular issue.

[Ally L · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging examination and analysis of the language of law makers.