Repeal section 14(1) of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code

To jus.minister@gov.sk.ca,

The Honourable Tim McLeod, K.C.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
Government of Saskatchewan
820 – 1874 Scarth Street
Regina, Saskatchewan, S4P 4B3

Dear Minister McLeod,

RE: Repeal section 14(1) of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code

I am writing to urge your government to repeal section 14(1) of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code, 2018, S.S. 2018, c S-24.2, which grants Saskatchewan’s human rights system broad authority to regulate lawful speech and political expression.

Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code plays an important role in prohibiting genuine discrimination in employment, housing, public services, and other areas of civic life. These protections are already addressed throughout the Code’s provisions governing discriminatory conduct in employment, tenancy, services, accommodation, and related matters.

Section 14(1) is fundamentally different. It prohibits publishing or displaying any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem, or other representation that tends or is likely to tend to deprive or restrict the enjoyment of rights by a person or class, or that exposes or tends to expose a person or class to hatred because of a prohibited ground.

Unlike the rest of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code, section 14(1) regulates speech itself rather than discriminatory conduct. In recent years, similar provisions elsewhere in Canada have increasingly been used to investigate and penalize citizens for expressing lawful opinions on controversial social and political issues. In one recent case in British Columbia, the BC Human Rights Tribunal ordered former Chilliwack School Board Trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 over comments criticizing gender ideology policies in schools.

Repealing section 14(1) would not legalize discrimination. Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code would continue to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, services, and public accommodations. Nor would repeal affect the Criminal Code prohibition on the wilful promotion of hatred under section 319.

I therefore urge you and all Members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan to support legislation repealing section 14(1) of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code.

Saskatchewan should lead the way in protecting both genuine human rights and freedom of expression.

Sincerely,