At an anti-SOGI rally in downtown Kelowna, B.C., protesting against gender and sexual diversity education at schools, some of the words uttered by one of the speakers were shocking and appalling to some.
“It’s alarming and frightening at the same time.” said Wilbur Turner, chair of Advocacy Canada, which supports the LGTBQ2 community.
The speaker in question is David Lindsay, well-known in the city for organizing many anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protests, which eventually got dubbed as so-called “freedom rallies”.
During his speech at the rally, Lindsay said, “It’s a pretty sad day when you get queers coming out. You know, every society that has let the queers take over has self-destructed from within and if it continues, Canada will self-destruct.”
Turner said the comment amounts to nothing more than hate.
“I think it’s hate speech and it’s definitely hate-motivated speech,” Turner said. “And it’s intended to incite fear against marginalized communities such as the queer community. It’s very strong language.”
Global News contacted David Lindsay to provide a clearer explanation of what exactly he meant with the comment.
Lindsay however, declined the request for an interview, saying he will leave the words as they were said for people to interpret as they wish.
“This is 2023. Why are we listening to this garbage in Kelowna? This is not representative of Kelowna and why are we even platforming this? Why is it being allowed to happen in our city,” said Turner.
“It doesn’t belong here.”
Vancouver-based criminal lawyer Kyla Lee said the words could certainly fall into the hate speech category.
“The comments could be classified as hate speech under B.C.’s Human Rights Code as well as federally under the Criminal Code of Canada,” Lee said.
But hate-based offences are hard to prosecute because there are a number of defences to hate speech allegations, including that it may be a matter of public debate.
“The statement in this case, certainly the SOGI curriculum is something that is the matter of public debate,” Lee said.
“But engaging these notions about sort of destroying the world or destroying the country by allowing queer people to be out and live in the community is outside the scope of that public debate and falls more squarely within the definition of hate speech.”
Lee said there’s been a spike in hate-based cases making their way through the legal system ever since the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic.
“It seems that the prosecutions are being more successful. We’re hearing a lot more about them, especially here in the Lower Mainland, where we have a very diverse community and a very vocal community,” Lee said.
“So it’s good to see that the prosecution is taking it seriously and the courts are giving adequate consideration to the issues that arise.”
Turner is discouraged, saying it seems after making strides over the years, efforts to push forward rights and equality are going backwards.
“We’ve been struggling for human rights and equality for decades and we thought that we were, you know, getting somewhere and now it’s almost like the clock is the hands of the clock has gone backwards,” Turner said.
“So it’s really quite concerning.”
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