Egale appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada today in the Whatcott case

Ottawa: The case involves William Whatcott who, in 2001 and 2002, delivered a number of flyers to homes in Saskatoon and Regina alleging that schools were attempting to corrupt children with lesbian and "sodomite" propaganda. The flyers were misleading and extremely offensive. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal found that the flyers constituted hate speech under the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal found that the flyers were not hate speech under the Code. In making that finding, the judges made some statements that suggested that the standard for a finding of hate speech was higher where the statements are about sexual orientation as these raised "issues relating to matters of morality", "the fact that it is the activity [sodomy] rather than the individuals themselves" who are the subject of the speech, and that at the time the flyers were being circulated there was a national debate about "the accommodation of sexual identities". The case was heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada and Egale's lawyer, Cynthia Petersen of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell, addressed the double standard seemingly posited by the appeals court judges.

The Supreme Court has reserved judgement.

Egale's oral arguments can be viewed online at time code 190:55 here.

Click here to read Egale's factum.

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