Insulting  a  panhandler  can  be  punishable

Yes, even a man or woman begging on the street has the right to be treated with some semblance of respect. You can ignore these unfortunates and even speak harshly to them if their panhandling is aggressive but there are limits as to how far you can go when insulting them publicly.

In 2010, Robert Delisle was a regular customer at a branch of the Societe des alcools due Quebec (SAQ) which is no different that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario where in both provinces, liquor is sold from their branches.

On day he observed a panhandler sitting on the ground with her hand out, begging for some money. The panhandler was Ms. Beaumont, 63, who suffers from degenerative bone disease and lives on welfare because her disease makes it impossible for her to work. To augment her meager support by welfare, she begs for money. Let me say from the get go, I am not faulting this woman at all. She has every right to panhandle if there is a need to augment her welfare payments. She made between $15 and $30 a day panhandling.

Of course Delisle didn’t know why the woman was panhandling when he wrote his diatribe condemning her. I don’t know how he would have treated her if he did know so I won’t speculate. Delisle found her presence in front of the liquor store as a nuisance and he complained to the store manager in his letter to the manager. Let me say that it was one of the most outrageous statements ever said about anyone. He wrote:

“Your outlet is the last place I would want to go to and not be nauseated by the sight of homeless alcoholics begging. The SAQ on Henri-Bourassa Boulevard has just inherited a drunkard who begs when customers enter or leave. She is a 200-pound welfare bum enriched with trans fat [with] no apparent intellectual quotient. These beggars come from Montreal’s suburbs from downtown because it’s more profitable. There are four solutions to this problem. Solution (1) We could burn all this (the panhandlers) with napalm or flamethrowers. [The] Americans used that technique for much better people than this. Solution (2) Pick up these walking microbes in a garbage dumpster and burn them in the Carrieres incinerator. Solution (3) [which is the] Chinese solution: a bullet in the back of the head and send the bill to the welfare-collecting family of the dead. Solution (4) Drop all these people and their dogs over James Bay. Their chance of re-offending is quite slim.”

Quite frankly, anyone who writes that kind of diatribe and sends it to a another person is also capable of committing a violent crime against the person he is describing.    

When the email was opened by the manager of the liquor outlet that the message was directed to, the manager was shocked and worried about the safety of the woman outside the branch who panhandles there. First of all, he took the letter to the police. They told him that since there wasn’t a direct threat to the woman herself, there was no crime committed since Delisle was advocating the killing of panhandlers in a general sense rather specifically against the woman. They said that the letter should be brought to the attention of the Quebec Human Rights Commission. He then gave the letter to the woman and suggested that she file a complaint against the man who wrote the letter—which she did.   

The Quebec police were correct when they refused to charge Delisle under the law as written in the Canadian Criminal Code pertaining to hate crimes advocating genocide

In 2010, the Ontario Provincial Police announced hate crimes charges against a Bangladeshi-born Canadian man after he posted comments on a website calling for the extermination of Jewish people. Salman Hossain was charged with three counts of willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group and two counts of advocating genocide against an identifiable group. Panhandlers are definitely an identifiable group of people. Those charges were correct because under section 318(4) of the Criminal Code, the identifiable groups only distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin, and sexual orientation. It does not include begging.  

The Commission charged Delisle not with threatening but with making those outrageous suggestions with respect to his concept as to how panhandlers are to be dealt with in the province of Quebec. His first three solutions is clearly a form of genocide. Suggesting any form of genocide in public (and that includes sending the suggestions to someone by mail or by an email) is against the law in Canada.

Canada’s Human Rights Act states in Section 3.(1)  

For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

In Delisle’s diatribe, he didn’t complain about the woman being disabled. He complained about her begging and other people who beg on the streets. That isn’t covered under that particular Act. His proposal that they be killed although outrageous wasn’t in conflict with the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Canadian Criminal Code. Then why was Delisle charged by the Quebec Human Rights Commission?  

The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms is unique among Canadian (and North American) human rights documents in that it covers not only the fundamental (civil and political) human rights, but also a number of important social and economic rights. The protections contained in the charter are inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Furthermore, the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination included in the Quebec Charter is extensive; a total of fourteen prohibited grounds are enumerated, including race, colour, ethnic or national origin, sex, pregnancy and age.

The Quebec Charter gives the Commission the authority to deal with cases of discrimination (including exploitation of an elderly or handicapped person). Since Delisle was discriminating against beggars in general and the beggar at the entrance to the liquor store who was also disabled and was the butt of his complaint by suggesting that she and the other beggars be killed off, he came under the jurisdiction of the Commission for disposition of the complaint filed against him. Instead of bringing litigation in a court, victims of such a violation may file a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission or the Youth Rights Commission. The Commission has the authority to investigate any such matter and attempt to foster a settlement between the parties. It may recommend corrective measures. If those are not followed, the Commission may introduce litigation before a court (usually, but not necessarily, the Human Rights Commission). Victims will be represented free of charge by the Commission.

The Commission decided that Delisle was guilty of infringing on the woman’s right to dignity, reputation and recognition as a human being. 

 The Commission has the authority to award damages to victims for their pain and suffering and that is what this Commission did. The woman had asked for $20,000 in damages, It awarded her $7,500 in moral damages and $500 in punitive damages, all of which are to be paid by Delisle.

This obnoxious boob had the audacity to argue that he shouldn’t have to be  held responsible for the suffering experienced by the woman after she read the statement he wrote since he wasn’t the person who gave her the document. He said that he had every right to expect that his message which was only directed to the manager of the liquor outlet would not be turned over to the person that the message was written about.

That argument is about as weak as a newborn baby. Are we to believe that if he sent a message to another person in which he said that he was going to kill his neighbour, the recipient of the message doesn’t have the right to give the message to the neighbour in order to warn the neighbour of the threat?  Anyone who is the subject of a message that advocates the killing of beggars certainly should be warned of the danger that may befall all beggars—even the woman at the liquor outlet.

The message of the Commission is clear enough. Hurt feelings trump free expression. Now I know what you are thinking. Didn’t this obnoxious boob have the right to write what he wanted to write in the letter he sent to the manager of the liquor outlet? After all, the Canadian Charter of Rights guarantees that everyone has the right to exercise his or her freedoms of expression.

Section 319(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada is as follows:

Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, willfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

There are some who will say that that section of the Code protects all content of expression irrespective of the meaning or message sought to be conveyed, no matter how offensive it may be.  That will argue that the government's purpose in enacting s. 319(2) was to restrict freedom of expression by curtailing what people may say no matter how offensive of dangerous it may be.  According to them, s. 319(2), therefore, imposes a limit on s. 2(b) which is our freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression etc.

Freedom of expression is one of the most significant freedoms in a democratic society. Voltaire’s famous cry was; “I do not believe a word you say but I will defend with my life your right to say it.” Freedom of expression includes the right to communicate ideas, information and opinion through any medium, be it a letter, the internet or by radio and television. In Delisle letter, he was expressing an opinion. This right also includes the right to hold beliefs and the right of others to be informed of them. If we accept that right in the strictest sense, then this man had the right to form his opinion and express that opinion to someone else.

There is however, a limitation as just how far someone can go when exercising that right. Section 319(2) of the Canadian Criminal Code constitutes a reasonable limit upon freedom of expression.  Parliament's objective of preventing the harm caused by hate propaganda is of sufficient importance to warrant overriding a constitutional freedom. Parliament has recognized the substantial harm that can flow from hate propaganda and in trying to prevent the pain suffered by target group members and to reduce racial, ethnic and religious tension and perhaps even violence in Canada, has decided to suppress the willful promotion of hatred against identifiable groups. 

The words, ‘identifiable groups’ as defined by the Quebec Human Rights Code includes any form of discrimination and that includes a beggar who is suffering from degenerative bone disease that makes it impossible for her to seek employment.

There is obviously a rational connection between the criminal prohibition of hate propaganda and the objective of protecting target group members and of fostering harmonious social relations in a community dedicated to equality among its members.

Violence connotes actual or threatened physical interference with the activities of others.  Moreover, statements promoting hatred are not akin to threats or violence unless the promotion actually advocates violence as what was promoted in Delisle’s diatribe.

Section 319(2) of the Code does not unduly impair freedom of expression. Further, this particular section does not suffer from over breadth or vagueness; rather, the terms of the offence indicate that s. 319(2) possesses definitional limits which act as safeguards to ensure that it will capture only expressive activity which is openly hostile to Parliament's objective, and will thus attack only the harm at which the prohibition is targeted. It follows that any form of expression that advocates any form of hatred, further reduces the scope of the prohibition. There can be no doubt in the mind of anyone reading the diatribe in Delisle’s letter that the hatred he expressed showed its ugly head throughout the contents of his letter. 

The defence of truth in s. 319(3)(a) does not cover negligent or innocent error as to the truthfulness of a statement.  Whether or not a statement is susceptible to classification as true or false, such error should not excuse an accused who has willfully used a statement in order to promote hatred against an identifiable group.

Hate propaganda contributes little to the aspirations of Canadians or Canada in either the quest for truth, the promotion of individual self‑development or the protection and fostering of a vibrant democracy where the participation of all individuals is accepted and encouraged especially when they can enjoy the rights given to them under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We need the likes of Robert Delisle in our society like we need a finger needlessly inserted in our you know what. And when they send diatribes like the one that man mailed to the liquor outlet, they should be punished.