(Oakville, Ontario) Parts of Canada’s human-rights legislation are a punitive and gross infringement on free expression that have no place in a democratic country that prides itself on freedom, critics told a  tribunal.

The legislation, which targets hate on the Internet, has put Canada among a “sorry group of nations” that stifle dissent for political reasons, its critics told the hearing.

But supporters argued the Canadian Human Rights Act is a necessary restriction on free speech that protects vulnerable minorities.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is trying to decide whether Toronto resident Marc Lemire is responsible for material posted on an electronic bulletin board frequented by far-right users.

The postings mocked Jews, blacks, Italians, gays and other minorities.

“The law should not concern itself with jokes and trivia,” lawyer Barbara Kulaszka, who represents Lemire, said in closing arguments.

“Jokes hurt too,” countered Athanasios Hadjis, who is chairing the tribunal.

“This is a law that has gone mad,” Kulaszka replied. “There is no balance in this law whatsoever.”

Lemire is arguing that sections of the decades-old Canadian Human Rights Act are unconstitutional.

Section 13, initially aimed at telephone hate messages, was extended in 2001 to cover Internet communications.

Lawyer Steven Skurka, acting for the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, argued the case is not about suppression of legitimate dissent.

The legislation targets only the most “poisoned” forms of expression that have no redeeming value and cause enduring harm to its victims and therefore society at large, he said.

“We support the right to offend and to be offensive,” Skurka said. “(But) hate propaganda does nothing to advance freedom of expression.”

Lemire’s freedomsite.org website, started in 1995, became the subject of a hearing in 2003, after Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman complained that postings on the site promoted hatred or could subject a group to contempt.

Lemire, 32, shut down the message board in Jan. 1, 2004, but the case has continued to wind its way through tribunal hearings, proving, his lawyers said, that legislation intended to be remedial has become a punitive instrument that can impose hefty fines.

Critics of the act also noted the tribunal has never dismissed a complaint.

Earlier in the hearing, Hadjis mused that the legislation may be outmoded in an Internet age where almost anyone can post messages and any complaint can lead to a lengthy and cumbersome process.

But Marvin Kurz, speaking for the Jewish human rights group B’nai Brith, said the Internet has not changed the harm caused by hate propaganda. Nor has it minimized the right of people to be protected from exposure to contempt and hatred, he said.

Paul Fromm, of the Canadian Association of Free Expression, called the legislation “excessive.”

Those who have fallen afoul of Section 13  – Warman has filed most of the complaints – have been poor uneducated whites who hold far right-wing views and lack sophistication in making their opinions heard, Fromm told the hearing.

“We should all have an equal right to express ourselves,” Fromm argued. “That is what the Internet has enabled us to do.”

Canada is acting like China by “slowly gagging” dissent, he said.

“Any regime that condemns jokes is pretty far gone.”

Critics have also warned that mainstream media could easily become ensnared by the act.