Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she is in active discussions about repealing a section in Alberta’s Human Rights Act prohibiting the publication of hate speech and display of hate symbols.
Smith made the comment during a “fireside chat” with Rebel Media’s Ezra Levant at the right-wing alternative media outlet’s Rebel Live event this weekend.
Rebel’s October 31 event was headlined by the premier and also featured speeches from Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms president John Carpay, Alberta separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre and Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner.
During their fireside chat, Levant cited one of his organization’s current advocacy campaigns calling for the repeal of Section 3 of Alberta’s Human Rights Act, addressing the publication or display of hateful and discriminatory messages.
“I want to challenge you to repeal section 3 in the Alberta Human rights commission,” Levant told Smith on stage, receiving applause from Rebel’s right-wing audience.
“This is something that’s another winner and it’s a way of saying to conservatives ‘Danielle Smith is the best freedom-loving pro-Western, pro-Albertan person out there.”
Smith said she is currently in the process of talking to Alberta’s justice minister, Mickey Amery, about making it a priority: “I am having an active conversation with my justice minister about prioritizing that,” Smith told Levant.
“We have thought that by making some of the changes that we were around woke ideology, cancel culture, DEI, we thought we were sending a message to all of our entities that we want them to focus on real issues,” Smith added.
“It turns out that maybe we need to be a bit more direct.”
According to Alberta’s Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Act “prohibits publishing, issuing or displaying notices in public based on protected grounds” that “indicate discrimination” or is “likely to expose a person or group of people to hatred or contempt.” The section covers “statements, publications, notices, signs, symbols, emblems or other representations.”
Levant and Smith made reference to a current case before the tribunal involving Benita Pedersen, a UCP organizer and anti-vaccine activist who played an early influential role in the Freedom Convoy in late 2021 and early 2022.
Pedersen was subject to a complaint under the human rights code in 2023 after distributing anti-LGBTQ+ flyers in Westlock, Alberta expressing opposition to rainbow crosswalks and encouraging local residents to contact municipal officials demanding they “cancel the rainbow crosswalk.”
The flyer in question claimed the “trans agenda” is linked to “Agenda 2030,” a conspiratorial plot that seeks to make children “infertile and unable to reproduce.” Pedersen’s flyer also features a cartoon of a child vomiting a rainbow.
“I’m watching the case with great dismay,” the premier told Levant. “Of course, I’m not allowed to comment on it because it’s before an independent tribunal, but we had thought that we were sending a signal and that we were appointing people to the commission where they would drop frivolous cases.”
Florence Ashley, a law professor at the University of Alberta, rejects the idea Smith is taking a principled stand for free speech, noting the premier has some credibility issues on that subject.
“It seems difficult to deny that this proposal has less to do with protecting freedom of expression than it has to do with empowering hatred,” Ashley told The Watchdog.
“This is a government that supports police violently shutting down student protests, adopts laws restricting the free speech of teachers who have trans students and wants to interfere in academic freedom by giving itself veto powers over federal research funding.”
Ashley pointed out that repealing this section of the province’s human rights code risks sending Alberta back to a time when vile expressions of blatant bigotry were more open and commonplace.
“It’s also important to remember that one of the functions of s. 3 is to prohibit signs such as the infamous ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs,’ that was prevalent in the UK in the post-war era,” Ashley pointed out.
“Is the government suggesting that we should go back to that time?”
The subject of the human rights complaint is no stranger to controversy. During the pandemic, Pedersen organized protests at hospitals, vaccine clinics and a children’s toy store inside the West Edmonton Mall. A few years later, Pedersen organized an anti-sex ed convoy targeting the Alberta Teacher’s Association.
During the last provincial election, Pedersen organized training sessions for unofficial election scrutineers, advising followers on how to infiltrate political campaigns and expose an alleged plot to bring in “busloads” of Ukrainian refugees to vote for the Alberta NDP.
Pedersen denies her flyers were discriminatory or hateful. She argues she was just trying to “have a discussion.”
