Retired Winnipeg police officer starts petition to protect police from hate speech

A retired Winnipeg police officer has launched a petition, now authorized by a member of Parliament, that seeks to expand Canada's hate speech laws to include protections for police.

Stan Tataryn, who served with the Winnipeg Police Service for 35 years, launched a petition that seeks to add "vocation" to the Criminal Code of Canada's definition of identifiable groups, under its section relating to hate crime.

Tataryn started the petition after seeing police officers deal with negative public perception in the wake of the police use-of-force deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., and Eishia Hudson in Winnipeg.

A WPS officer took his own life last February, in part, because of the pressure and criticism brought on by social movements to reform and defund police services, according to numerous members of the force who spoke with CBC News at the time.

"My message is: police officers, by and large, are good people, but they don't feel that," said Tataryn.

"They're suffering. Morale is low. There's a lot of post-incident trauma there. People should appreciate that and somehow make it known… that we appreciate the job [they] do."

Eishia Hudson, a 16-year-old Indigenous girl, was shot and killed by a Winnipeg police officer on April 8, 2020, at the end of a police chase in which she drove a stolen car that police say had been involved in a liquor store robbery.

An autopsy found Hudson's death was a homicide caused by a bullet wound to the chest.

No charges were laid against the officer involved following an investigation by the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba, the province's main police oversight agency.

Amber Beaulieu, community organizer with Manitoba Harm Reduction Network and chairperson of the Indigenous Women's Council that gives guidance to Portage la Prairie's Bear Clan, said she doesn't see how conversation around police shootings could be equated with hate speech.

"I'm a little bit shocked, to say the least, that somebody would think that expressing the facts in police cases, and when things go awry with police, would be considered hate speech," said Beaulieu, who was speaking as an individual, not on behalf of the organizations.

"I feel like there's a very large divide between what hate speech actually is compared to calling out police for shooting people."

The petition is an unproductive way to respond to calls for police reform and reallocation of funding, she said.

"Right now, we're engaging in a very important dialogue where we're being able to call out police for their faults," Beaulieu said.

"I feel like this is a really inappropriate response to trying to build that bridge."

The Criminal Code of Canada outlaws speech that wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group, other than in private conversation.

An identifiable group is defined by the Criminal Code as any part of the general public distinguished by "colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability."

Tataryn's petition seeks acknowledgement that there are professions that are identifiable groups, and that some target those professions to imply "those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect, and made subject to ill-treatment on the bases of group affiliation."

Protecting police from hate speech with new petition

4 years ago

Duration 2:54

A retired Winnipeg police officer has launched a petition, now authorized by a member of Parliament, that seeks to expand Canada's hate speech laws to include protections for police.

It asks that the word "vocation" be added to Criminal Code's definition of an identifiable group. The definition would be broad and not specific to police, Tataryn said.

Police are not discriminated against in the same way as other marginalized people, and they shouldn't be treated equally when it comes to hate crime, he said.

But Tataryn believes the public should not be allowed to go so far as calling officers murderers, for example, because they would not be allowed to do that to another identifiable group.

He also said rhetoric used by some protesters in the year since undermines the moral authority of police forces.

If moral authority erodes, police officers may become stigmatized and people will either shy away from them or act aggressively toward them, and if the latter occurs, then police will likely have to resort to use of force, he said.

Kelly Gerkoff, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg, said actions by police spurred the flak they're receiving.

Eishia Hudson and two other Indigenous people were killed by Winnipeg police in April 2020, Gerkoff said.

"That's not the fault of protesters."

The calls for police reform and reallocation of funds are more about finding different ways to ensure public safety, based on legitimate concerns raised by the public, she said.

Gorkoff is also concerned that if Tataryn's petition actually brings change to the Criminal Code, there will be ramifications for freedom of speech.

Hate legislation is reserved for groups of people suffering from systemic discrimination, but "police are a dominant form of state power," Gorkoff said.

The petition would also "legislate particular groups to silence," because rallies are the only mechanism oppressed communities have to express their grief and fear of policing, she said.

Policing is at a critical juncture and the only way to build trust in the institution is through openness, Gorkoff said.

Daniel Friesen, organizer for Winnipeg Police Cause Harm, said jobs should not be protected under hate crime legislation because people choose their work, while people cannot change their race or sexual identity.

"No one is forcing them to stay in those positions," Friesen said.

Police forces also receive a lot of public money, so citizens have the right to speak up about the service they are paying for, he said.

Winnipeg North MP Kevin Lamoureux has authorized Tataryn's petition in Ottawa. This does not necessarily mean Lamoureux endorses the petition's content, but that he is allowing it to collect e-signatures on the House of Commons website.

"There is no question that marginalized racialized groups have been subject to tremendous historical disadvantage. They continue to be targeted by unfair policies and systemic racism. This is not up for debate," Lamoureux said in a statement sent to CBC News through a spokesperson.

Lamoureux told the Winnipeg Free Press, however, that he backed the petition because he believes negative comments toward police hurt the reputation of all officers, and that "just a few bad apples" are enough to make the rest of the force look bad.

Lamoureux told the Free Press he was speaking for himself, not on behalf of the Liberal party. 

Tataryn's petition was posted on the House of Commons website April 9 and had received 386 e-signatures when this article was being written.

The petition is scheduled to be taken down from the website on June 8. If it gets 500 e-signatures by then, it will be presented to the House of Commons.