The shortest time a case took to reach the point of a decision by the CHRC was a year and four months, while the longest time a case took was 12 years and nine months
The human-rights tribunal that would judge hate-speech complaints under the new federal online harms bill took more than 12 years to conclude a case resolved last year, raising fears that decisions on taking down hate posts could be long and arduous.
Bill C-63, tabled by the federal government last month, would give people the power to make complaints under the Canadian Human Rights Act about hate speech to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Last year, the CHRT made 15 decisions. The average time it took for decisions on cases referred by the CHRC was four years and five months, it said. The shortest time a case took to reach the point of a decision was a year and four months, while the longest time a case took was 12 years and nine months.
“Just having an allegation like that against somebody in itself has repercussions because it takes years for a final decision to be made. So even if the allegations are proven to be not substantiated at the end of the day, in the two or three or four years it takes for someone to clear their name, the damage has already been done,” he said.
Cases under the Canadian Human Rights Act do not have the same standard of proof as in a court of law. It would be “a discriminatory practice” to post online material likely “to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination” under changes brought back under Bill C-63.
Mr. Thomas, a lawyer who was chairperson of the CHRT from 2014 through 2021, expressed concerns that the bill would allow the tribunal to anonymize complaints, with a lower bar for hate speech than for other tribunal cases.
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