Flags, Insignia, and Hate Speech: When Speech is Not Linguistic

Presenter Information

Allyson Lunny, York University

Location

Littlefoot B Room 124B

Start Date

21-4-2023 1:00 PM

End Date

21-4-2023 2:15 PM

Publication Date

2023

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Law | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

In response to the public display of several swastika and Confederate flags on vehicles assembled under the so-called Freedom Convoy that occupied Canada’s national capital for over 2 weeks during the Covid pandemic restrictions, a member of Parliament authored a bill to ban symbols of hate. This private member’s bill would expand Canada’s hate speech laws by including the wilful or reckless public displayof visual representations that identifies, or is associated with, a person or organization that promotes or incites, or has promoted or incited, hatred or violence against an identifiable group. The bill’s Preamble noted, in particular, Nazi, Confederate States of America and Ku Klux Klan symbols, emblems, flags and uniforms.

This paper will interrogate a number of questions that arise from this bill: do the Nazi swastika, the Confederate flag and other historically specific insignia, emblems and uniforms of political regimes rise to the level of hate speech, particularly under Canadian law? What protections to the expression of speech, as a Constitutional right, do this bill address? Can visual signifiers be equated with speech? That
is, does the flying of a Nazi flag equate with the expression of hateful Nazi ideology?

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Session Title

The Complexity of Hate and its Study: What Constitutes Hate Studies and Hate?

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Apr 21st, 1:00 PM Apr 21st, 2:15 PM

Flags, Insignia, and Hate Speech: When Speech is Not Linguistic

Littlefoot B Room 124B

In response to the public display of several swastika and Confederate flags on vehicles assembled under the so-called Freedom Convoy that occupied Canada’s national capital for over 2 weeks during the Covid pandemic restrictions, a member of Parliament authored a bill to ban symbols of hate. This private member’s bill would expand Canada’s hate speech laws by including the wilful or reckless public displayof visual representations that identifies, or is associated with, a person or organization that promotes or incites, or has promoted or incited, hatred or violence against an identifiable group. The bill’s Preamble noted, in particular, Nazi, Confederate States of America and Ku Klux Klan symbols, emblems, flags and uniforms.

This paper will interrogate a number of questions that arise from this bill: do the Nazi swastika, the Confederate flag and other historically specific insignia, emblems and uniforms of political regimes rise to the level of hate speech, particularly under Canadian law? What protections to the expression of speech, as a Constitutional right, do this bill address? Can visual signifiers be equated with speech? That
is, does the flying of a Nazi flag equate with the expression of hateful Nazi ideology?