It was an original part of Canada’s hate law regime, which also prohibits hate propaganda and advocating genocide. It was developed in the post-war heyday of human rights legislation, based on the work of a special committee on hate propaganda, and the four defences were debated in Parliament before the law was given royal assent in 1970. It has survived the transition from an era of communicating by print and telephone to the era of the internet. It has been challenged and tested many times. The very definition of hate has also been repeatedly challenged, and the new Liberal amendment also proposes to add a definition of hate to the Criminal Code, using the language of Supreme Court precedents. Hate is not simple dislike of a group of people, or disapproval, or causing them offence or humiliation. The “hate” in Canadian hate crimes is “detestation and vilification.” It used to include “calumny,” which means malicious misrepresentation, but that has fallen out of favour as an archaic word.






