TO: Each judge of the Supreme Court of Canada
March 4, 2013
Your recent decision regarding the Whatcott case is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING in that it further restricts freedom of speech in Canada.
Your decision indicates that a claimant is allowed to make a complaint to the Human Rights Commission or the courts if that person is “offended” by something I may have said to him/her. That is so broad it is Gestapo-like fearful to us.
On the Supreme Court website, beside a photo of Justice McLachlin, she makes a statement about Canada’s Supreme Court philosophy: “accommodation of differences”. These three words clash with what your decision amounts to. You make no “accommodation” for people of faith to freely express their beliefs with full religious conviction.
i.e. I talk to my neighbor and tell him about God’s Word as recorded in the Bible and he gets offended. I cannot and will not apologize for having quoted a direct quote from the Bible. He then can, with the endorsement of the recent decision, lodge a complaint about me having offended him.
Does this not justify the common perception that comes from the public that you judges are really “activists judges”?
All evangelical churches exist to proselytize, and due to the diminished interest in religion, many people who don’t want to hear what the Bible has to say are offended. And that will enable them to have the opportunity to lodge a complaint. Then the complainant has no legal expenses, but the defendant might have some hefty legal bills.
You have set Canada on a path that is vastly different from what freedoms we have had in the past. This is not merely disappointing, it is highly offensive to us. Would this now be grounds for us lodging a complaint against the judges of the Supreme Court because we are deeply offended?
You are playing alarmingly loose with our freedoms.
~ Leonard Remple
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