OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Canada has sentenced a notorious white supremacist to 30 days in jail for ignoring an order issued by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. And he could face more prison time if he continues to post hate messages on the Internet.
This week’s contempt sentence – imposed by Justice Sean Harrington on Terry Tremaine, the founder and national director of the far-right National Socialist Party of Canada – is believed to be the first time a Canadian court has ordered someone jailed for flouting a tribunal order in an Internet hate case.
In 2007, the human rights tribunal found that messages Tremaine posted on the Internet were likely to expose Jews, blacks and other non-whites to hatred or contempt. Tremaine described those groups as vermin, a disease, parasites, criminals, scoundrels, embezzlers and liars, and said they should either be deported or segregated. The tribunal ordered him to stop publishing such messages and pay a penalty of $4,000.
But not only did Tremaine fail to remove the offending messages from the National Socialist Party of Canada website and Stormfront.org, a far-right website in the United States, the court found, he continued to post similar hate messages.
In his decision, Harrington ordered Tremaine to remove the offending material from the National Socialist Party of Canada website. He also ordered him to ask Stormfront.org to remove his postings, along with a “vicious, untrue diatribe” about Federal Court Justice Judith Snider, who dismissed Tremaine’s application for judicial review of the tribunal decision in 2008.
He also ordered Tremaine, and anyone acting in concert with him, to stop spreading hate messages “telephonically,” including on the Internet.
But even if Tremaine complies with the order, that is “not sufficient to purge his contempt,” Harrington said, in imposing the 30-day jail sentence. And if he fails to obey the order, Tremaine will be imprisoned for a further six months, or until he complies.
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“This case is about law and order,” Harrington said. “It is a principle of the law of contempt that orders that have not been set aside must be obeyed, whether or not their foundation is unconstitutional.”
Tremaine, he said, “clearly intended to flout the law, to demean the tribunal and this court. and has not apologized.
“I do not expect Mr. Tremaine to apologize.,” he continued. “He is a true believer. He is free to flout the order I am about to issue, but he must remember that freedom has its price.”
In 2006, London, Ont. white supremacist Tomasz Winnicki was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for disregarding a Federal Court order to stop using the Internet to spread hatred, and ultimately served three months. But, said Douglas Christie, Tremaine’s lawyer, “I’ve never heard of a jail term imposed for breach of the tribunal order itself.”
Christie pointed out that the House of Commons voted earlier this year to repeal section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the section under which Tremaine was convicted. The matter is now before the Senate and has not yet become law. “It strikes me as profoundly unjust that a person should be held in contempt or an order that it’s no longer possible for the tribunal to make,” he said.
“I realize that some people might not like to see him avoid jail,” Christie said, “but some of us believe that it’s inherently wrong to put people in jail for their opinions.”
Daniel Poulin, the Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer who argued for the contempt conviction, said the case wasn’t about freedom of speech. “At issue is the respect of court orders. That’s why the commission brought the matter to the Federal Court.”
Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman, who filed the original complaint against Tremaine in 2005, called the sentence “tough but fair,” saying it makes clear that everyone needs to obey the law.
“It sends a strong message of deterrence to both Mr. Tremaine and any other Canadians who might be tempted to poison the communal well of the Internet with hate propaganda.”
He called the Conservative government’s repeal of section 13 “a betrayal of ordinary Canadians who have the right not to be demonized because of their religious faith or the colour of their skin.”
Warman said the case also demonstrates that the human rights act’s prohibition on Internet hate can be effective when criminal proceedings aren’t.
Tremaine, a former part-time lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan, was criminally charged with promoting hate on the Internet in 2008. But the charges were permanently stayed this September because it had taken too long to bring the matter to trial.
In his ruling, Harrington said Christie had used the courtroom as a “bully pulpit” to attack Warman. But the judge said Warman had every right to file his complaint. “It is ludicrous to attempt to portray him as the villain,” he said. “The villain is Mr. Tremaine.”
Harrington also said he was very disturbed when Tremaine testified at the October sentencing hearing that he had sold his website that very morning to an unnamed American.
“I immediately enjoined him from doing so,” he said in his judgment. “It is obvious that Mr. Tremaine was attempting to put his website out of this court’s reach.”
Christie said Thursday he has advised Tremaine to file an appeal of the contempt order. Even if he knew, he said, he would not disclose whether or not his client intends to comply with Harrington’s order.
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