Canada’s federal government says it has no intention of re-establishing Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the provision that, until 2014, addressed hate speech on internet platforms.
Section 13 prohibited online communications that were “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” on the basis of characteristics protected under human rights law, including race, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation and disability.
The government also said it will not move forward with Bill C-36, a 2021 proposal that would have reinstated those protections and allowed people who experience online abuse to report it as a human rights violation. The bill died when Parliament dissolved in August 2021, and no timeline has been set for any replacement legislation.
Instead, the government has pointed to a proposed ban on social media for minors as sufficient protection for Canadians. That ban does not yet exist as federal law. Liberal members voted in favour of restricting young Canadians’ access to social media at their April 2026 convention in Montréal, but no bill has been tabled.
I have spent a decade studying online abuse. The evidence shows that Canada needs legal provisions beyond a ban on social media for minors to protect the most vulnerable Canadians from online violence.
A gap Parliament flagged years ago
Under Section 13, people targeted with hateful messaging could file complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which could order a respondent to cease a problematic practice or even award damages to the complainant.
A repeal of section 13, sponsored by Conservative MP Brian Storseth, received Royal Assent in 2013. In a government press release, Storseth said Bill C-304 was “an important step towards increasing freedom of expression in Canada.”
Then-Justice Minister Rob Nicholson welcomed the repeal on the same grounds, saying Section 13 was “an overly subjective and ineffective limit on Canadians’ freedom of expression.” The repeal took effect in 2014.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Parliament acknowledged the gap left behind five years later. In 2019, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights tabled a report recommending the government create a civil remedy for online hate complaints, either by reinstating Section 13 or introducing an equivalent provision.
That recommendation went unimplemented for two years. In June 2021, then-Justice Minister David Lametti introduced Bill C-36, which would have restored a version of Section 13 with a definition of hatred based on Supreme Court of Canada cases.
The current government has declined to revive it.
The freedom of expression argument
When Bill C-36 was being tabled, it was critiqued by the Canadian Constitution Foundation as potentially limiting the ability of Canadians to engage in debate, and eroding fundamental rights of free expression.
Conservative minister Rob Moore said in a statement that the bill would “subjectively restrict the rights of Canadians.” However, research suggests that the use of freedom of expression arguments to justify a lack of action against online hate speech is both disingenuous and, more importantly, dangerous.
The freedom of expression argument against restoring Section 13 is difficult to reconcile with the existing structure of the Canadian Human Rights Act itself.
Section 12 of the act already states that publishing or displaying “any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that incites or is calculated to incite others to discriminate” is a form of discrimination.
This suggests the Human Rights Act does not consider signs, symbols or notices to fall under freedom of expression protections if they result in discrimination towards diverse groups. Section 13 would be similarly interpreted. Any electronic communication that does not incite discrimination would not be considered subject to a human rights tribunal.
Some provinces have recognized the need to protect discriminated groups from online hate speech. British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal issued a decision in 2024 affirming its jurisdiction to hear cases about allegations of online hate speech. In Québec, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse accepts cases involving online hate speech.
This does not mean these provinces are against freedom of expression. Rather, they believe hate and discriminatory speech should not be included in freedom of expression, since they have the power to hurt others.
This is similar in Europe, where the European Union Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online was developed to fight online abuse that targets protected groups.
What the research shows
In October 2023, my colleagues at the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University and I published a report titled “The State of Anti-Social Behaviour in Canada.” Our research found 31 per cent of Canadians have experienced anti-social behaviour such as harassment and abuse on social media, and that individuals from protected groups are more likely to be subject to online harassment.
Research shows hate speech causes documented, measurable harm. My team’s previous research showed that exposure to online abuse can create professional, emotional and psychological negative impacts for the people who experience it. These impacts range from the loss of job opportunities and wages as a result of harassment induced burnout, to long-term psychological harm caused by sustained harassment.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Online toxic and extremist speech against protected groups can also cause extremism to grow across Canada. A 2020 study conducted by sociologists James Hawdon and Matthew Costello found that repeated exposure to extremist views increases the likelihood that one will adopt similar views.
This is backed up by a 2018 research brief from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. It found that content on social platforms is playing a role in the radicalization of domestic extremists.
The spread of hate on social media is unchecked
In Canada, broadcasters have long been prohibited from promoting hate speech against protected groups. That standard has never been extended to social media.
Now that social media is a more popular source of news than broadcast, the government must enact laws to curb hate speech online. This not only protects the targets of such abusive speech, but also will help protect individuals from falling down extremist rabbit holes.
The proposed social media ban for minors will not stop hate speech against targeted groups. As a result, it will not be sufficient to address the problems that Section 13 or Bill C-36 once accounted for.
This is a corrected version of a story originally published on June 8. The earlier version said B.C.’s office of the Human Rights Commissioner introduced an online hate speech protection in 2024; it was the Human Rights Tribunal that issued a 2024 decision affirming its jurisdiction to hear such cases.
