Hate Crime Definition:

Canada's Criminal Code (2010) does not refer to a hate crime per se; rather, it makes it an offence to promote wilfully hatred against any identifiable group (§319):

"Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years....

"No person shall be convicted of an offence if he establishes that the statements communicated were true; if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text; if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada."

In R v Keegstra, Justice Dickson of Canada's Supreme Court wrote:

"Noting the purpose of §319(2), in my opinion the term hatred connotes emotion of an intense and extreme nature that is clearly associated with vilification and detestation. Hatred is not a word of casual connotation. To promote hatred is to instil detestation, enmity, ill-will and malevolence in another. Clearly an expression must go a long way before it qualifies....

"Hatred is predicated on destruction, and hatred against identifiable groups therefore thrives on insensitivity, bigotry and destruction of both the target group and of the values of our society. Hatred in this sense is a most extreme emotion that belies reason; an emotion that, if exercised against members of an identifiable group, implies that those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill-treatment on the basis of group affiliation."

REFERENCES:

• Criminal Code, 1985 RSC Chapter C-46, §319 {Note 1}
• R. v. Keegstra, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 697