Insulting a police officer or municipal official was already illegal in the town of Granby, Quebec, and could net you a fine of between $100 and $1000 (£65-£655).
But as of Monday, after a unanimous council vote, the already controversial bylaw was extended to include insults posted online.
Robert Riel, deputy mayor of the town, which lies 80 kilometres east of Montreal, said that online threats are no different from threats made to people’s faces:
In my opinion, if I threaten you via my keyboard, it's as though I am making that threat right in front of you. ... For me, it's the same thing.
CBC News ties the criminalisation of online attacks to the police having recently discovered a Facebook page dedicated to commentary on the town’s police force.
The page is titled Les policiers zélé de Granby, which translates to “the zealous police of Granby.”
The most recent post, from 25 April, sure seems to fall short of being “threatening”, particularly by internet troll standards (translated):
We will start to defend citizens, if the mayor continues with laws favoring censorship and intrusion on private life ... The ball is in his court. To be continued.
Another sample comment on the post that does, in fact, fall under the category of “insulting”, in a playground nyah-nyah way (all sic):
Sorry I do not speak or write french..but I seen this article...what a load of crap..you cops in that town can kiss my azz....if you don't like it..well..you could not read it or not watch or listen, otherwise, suck it up buttercup. ... here is something to help you out... [Link to "Hurt Feelings" report forms]
“Suck it up, buttercup”?! Whoa!
Not surprisingly, the bylaw has been interpreted as an attack on freedom of speech.
CBC News quotes Julius Grey, a constitutional lawyer:
What you're going to be having is a trial of speech every time a municipal employee or a policemen considers himself insulted. I think this is absolutely terrible.
I don't think it'll stand up — I hope it doesn't stand up — to judicial review. I hope it gets struck as soon as someone is charged under it.
It’s assuredly hard to be in the public eye, subject to slings and arrows and the written equivalent of rotten fruit.
And police do have to take potentially real threats seriously.
One example: last week, a Yik Yak message alluding to the date of a mass murder led to the arrest of the person who posted it.
But in these digital times, a police force must acknowledge that citizens videotape or otherwise record police interactions and comment about public servants’ performance or behaviour online.
In the US, that’s constitutionally protected activity.
Sometimes police have to be reminded of that.
In Granby, Quebec, it sounds like the city council needs to be reminded that the answer to “Who’s watching the watchers?” is, in this day and age, “Everybody.”
Image of Canadian policeman courtesy of Shutterstock/Tyler McKay
Derk
Good luck trying to enforce a local geographically limited speech ban on the worldwide anonymous computer network (internet).
just how exactly do they plan to enforce it? Once people figure out that using their real name and location gets them in trouble they will start using aliases.
B. Dobbs
You may be surprised how many people don’t make that connection or think that simply being on the internet is anonymous enough. (Sorry, just an alias won’t hide you either)
But yeah.. I think that’s more like one of those “We made this law. If you break another law and we can tie you to this, we can increase the punishment” deal. I don’t think they’re going to actively hunt down every rude comment spewed at them on the web (maybe threats). Waste of time and money.
John
Guess the police officers in that town get their feelings easily hurt eh?
RichardD
Someone somewhere seems to be confusing the words “insult” and “threat”.
If I call a policeman an incompetent idiot, that’s an insult, and should be allowed. If I threaten to punch him, that’s a threat, and should not be allowed.
Conflating the two in order to outlaw insults is absolutely ludicrous.
Stampy
The biggest problem here, funnily enough, is the enforcement. An un-enforceable or randomly or politically applied law is contemptible (in court), ergo the man-power required to “reasonably enforce this law” in the eyes of the Law, ie a Judge, would be so prohibitively expensive, probably requiring almost every local officer more or less full time on enforcing just this one law alone; otherwise every actual attempted prosecution would be ruled lacking in comparative evidence as to what constitutes an “insult”, does it have any precedence and the law would very likely be ruled as unconstitutional.
Freedom of speech does include freedom to insult someone, but not threaten them. Even in Canada.
Stampy
In the UK, if a local authority, like a Town or District Council, like this, takes an action that is later deemed to have been unlawful, and if the Councillors should have known or been informed by their employees, that this was (very likely) illegal, then here, they are held personally liable for all court and compensation costs involved, upto and including losing their homes, as well as being disqualified from elected or employed local authority membership.
Maybe Canadians have granted Councillors global immunity from their stupidity. Why not just let them print their own currency to finance the scheme?