Recently, the Federal government introduced C-16, an act to amend the Human Code to add in to the protected classes, transgender, such that it will protect transgender persons from being discriminated upon. As well as adding this to the legislation for hates crimes. Something that made me feel proud to be Canadian. Helping these small minority groups be protected whereas in the United States they are looking for legislation to discriminate against them. So this was all good and great until it came to my attention that people were protesting this new bill. I was shocked yet intrigued to why they were upset. So of course, I studied their arguments. I found them to have one. This was a matter of free speech. They held that this new bill would curtail their freedom of speech in the things they were allowed to say. They are, of course, right in that. It is a limit on what can and should not be said. I waited for them to continue with more. Only there was no more to be had. This was their argument. The bill placed a limit on free speech and thus should be opposed. At which point, I understood all I need to know, which is, they do not understand free speech, freedom and or Canada. Said to say, but let me enlighten them upon this. The freedom of speech has always been to protect without limits the parts of speech that were political. So if the government passed a law saying that you cannot vote for party X then that would be a violation. Advertisers cannot lie to you in their ads and claim they have free speech. You cannot go into a crowded theater and start to scream “Fire!” Yet both of the latter two examples are speech that is curtailed. Why? Because the notion of free speech is not without its limits, and in this case, C-16 imposing rather limited extensions of speech. Not that this will stop conversation, or limit politic discussions. It will limit hate speech. Can we agree that hating is not speech we want to protect or even allow? Einstein did not write “E=mc^2, and die transgender die!” Why? It is because his argument only needed to rest on the physics of the matter, the science of this discovery, and upon the ideas themselves that needed no further elaboration. Sir Arthur Eddington who then was the first man to prove Relativity, happened to be gay, yet at no time did he mention that as part of his proof for major discovery at the turn of the last century. So then why should we allow for anything of the sort that we call protected classes to enter when discussing any issue. We limit hate speech because it is inherently not political; it is inherently not part of any discussion. It is an end to political speeches to gather support with arguments and words and the beginning of the call to violence, both verbal and sadly physical. Hate speech is a call to violence and attacks upon the person. So yes, C-16 does limit free speech, but is a narrowly construed limit that does not interfere with legitimate political speech. So the argument opposing C-16 on the grounds of free speech does not have merit. Freedom of speech is to be able to freely discuss ideas, not to be the siren song for discrimination. C-16 is a good law that needs to be enacted to protect a minority subject to violence and discrimination. Which is why we have subject classes in the first place, to protect minorities that have been discriminated upon in the past, but hopefully not into our future.