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R. v. Ahenakew
The Wilful Promotion of Hatred
David Wm. TrenholmSOCI 3743 X23/30/2009
 
P
REAMBLE
 
AND
O
VERVIEW
Legislation prohibiting the proliferation or incitement of hatespeech has caused a great stir among many Western nations inrecent years; in Canada, the balance between what provisionsexist within the
Criminal Code
, and the rights and freedomsenjoyed within the 
Charter of Rights and Freedoms
is a tenuousone, and the limitations prescribed by laws that prohibit hatespeech unquestionably violate the right to freedom of expressionwithin the
Charter 
.Other nations similar to Canada are not alone in this issue. TheUnited States, through the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled on anumber of cases (one being the1957
Yates
decision) that havetackled the issue of free speech and the incitement of hatred; howfar can a country reasonably censor the expression of its citizens?In both occasions the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that theamendment rights enshrined within the U.S. Constitution aremore important than the stifling of hate speech. Other countrieshave similarly followed suit, and with the recent DavidAhenakew ruling inFebruary of 2009, Canada is quicklyapproaching equilibrium with U.S. jurisprudence with regards tohate speech.The following brief will discuss the
willful promotion of hatred 
charge against David Ahenakew in2005, and the legal progression of that case through the Canadian courts. This discussion of theAhenakew case will involve the judicial interpretation of section 3 19 (2)of the Canadian
Criminal Code
, previous case law and previous judgments establishing judicial precedent, and the tumultuouscontroversy that defined the Ahenakew case in the media.
O
VERVIEW
 
OF
 
THE
A
LLEGED
C
RIME
 R. v. Ahenakew
traces its origins to a cold December day in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, at theBessborough Hotel. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations(FSIN) was hosting a conference to discuss the issue of the federal government requesting that aboriginal members sign consent forms,in order to receive medical treatment, something that the FSIN found objectionable. Attending theconference were many interested parties, including Amnesty International and the World HealthOrganization. As an influential member of the FSIN, David Ahenakew—a longtime politician andformer soldier with the Canadian Army—was invited to speak.Ahenakew spoke for just over forty-five (45) minutes at the FSIN conference; the provincial court judge who initially convicted Mr. Ahenakew at trial in 2005 described the speech as “wide ranging andriddled with profanity”. It was during this speech that Ahenakew mentioned briefly his tour in Germanyafter the Second World War; these experiences he related to the crowd at the Bessborough included theallegation that the Jews had caused the war. It was this remark that was later brought up by JamesParker, a reporter for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, who immediately approached Mr. Ahenakew after hisspeech and proceeded to interview him.
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