Freedom of speech in Canada is protected by Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press. That protection covers almost any activity meant to convey meaning, but it stops at violence and threats, and it sits alongside criminal laws, civil defamation, and human rights rules that make certain speech punishable. The Charter also only binds government, so private employers and social media platforms can restrict your speech in ways the state cannot.
What Section 2(b) Actually Protects
Section 2(b) reads: “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: … (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.”1Government of Canada. Guide to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Courts read “expression” broadly. Any activity that attempts to convey a meaning qualifies: spoken and written words, art, film, commercial advertising, picketing, and physical gestures meant to communicate.2Department of Justice Canada. Charterpedia – Section 2(b) – Freedom of Expression
The Supreme Court set that boundary in Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec. Content does not have to be political, artistic, or scientific to count.3Supreme Court of Canada. Irwin Toy Ltd v Quebec (Attorney General) There is one categorical exclusion: violence and threats of violence are not protected expression, no matter what message they carry.2Department of Justice Canada. Charterpedia – Section 2(b) – Freedom of Expression
How the Government Can Limit What You Say
The Charter is not absolute. Section 1 says the rights it guarantees are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”1Government of Canada. Guide to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms When a speech law is challenged, the government has to prove the restriction is aimed at a pressing objective and is proportionate to that objective, a test set out in R. v. Oakes.4Department of Justice. Charterpedia – Section 1 – Reasonable Limits The laws below have all survived that scrutiny.
Speech That Is a Criminal Offence
Advocating Genocide and Promoting Hatred
Section 318 of the Criminal Code makes it an indictable offence to advocate or promote genocide against an identifiable group, with a maximum sentence of five years. An identifiable group is any section of the public distinguished by characteristics including race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or disability.5Department of Justice Canada. Criminal Code – Advocating Genocide
Section 319 covers two related offences. Publicly inciting hatred against an identifiable group in a way likely to lead to a breach of the peace carries up to two years on indictment. Willfully promoting hatred through statements communicated outside private conversation carries the same maximum.6Department of Justice Canada. Criminal Code – Public Incitement of Hatred Offensive or distasteful language alone is not enough. The Crown has to prove the speech was intended to promote hatred or was likely to disturb the peace.
Section 319 also builds in four defenses against the willful-promotion charge. You cannot be convicted if your statements were true, if you were expressing a good-faith religious opinion, if the statements related to a matter of public interest and you reasonably believed them to be true, or if you were pointing out hatred-producing matters in good faith so they could be removed.6Department of Justice Canada. Criminal Code – Public Incitement of Hatred
Related provisions let a judge seize physical copies of hate propaganda held for sale or distribution under Section 320, and order online hate propaganda deleted from computer systems under Section 320.1.7Justice Laws Website. Criminal Code – Warrant of Seizure8Department of Justice Canada. Criminal Code 320.1 – Warrant of Seizure
Criminal Harassment
Speech-based conduct can also be prosecuted as criminal harassment under Section 264. Repeatedly communicating with someone directly or indirectly, or engaging in threatening conduct toward them or their family, is an offence when the person knows, or is reckless about whether, their conduct is causing the target to reasonably fear for their safety. It is a hybrid offence, with a maximum of ten years on indictment.9Government of Canada. Criminal Code – Section 264 Physical contact is not required. Persistent unwanted messages, online or off, can be enough.
Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent
Under Section 162.1, knowingly publishing, distributing, or making available an intimate image of another person, while knowing they did not consent or being reckless about their consent, carries up to five years on indictment. An “intimate image” is a visual recording in which the person is nude or engaged in sexual activity, made in circumstances where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy and still retain it. The only statutory defense is that the conduct served the public good and did not go beyond what serves the public good.10Justice Laws Website. Criminal Code – Section 162.1
Breaching a Publication Ban
Courts can order the public not to publish, broadcast, or share information that would identify a victim, witness, juror, or other protected person in a case. Some bans are mandatory on request: a victim of a sexual offence, a witness under 18 in a sexual offence case, or any victim under 18 who asks for a ban must be granted one. Others are discretionary, weighed against the right to a fair and public hearing and the risk of harm from disclosure.11Department of Justice Canada. Publication Bans for Court Cases Violating a ban can lead to contempt of court, and this applies equally to journalists and to anyone posting on social media.
Speech That Can Get You Sued: Defamation
Even lawful speech can trigger a civil lawsuit if it damages someone’s reputation. Canadian defamation law is largely common law. A plaintiff has to show the statement was defamatory (it would lower their reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person), that it referred to them, and that it was communicated to at least one other person. Libel covers written or recorded statements, slander spoken ones, though the distinction matters less online. Awards range from a few thousand dollars for isolated statements to well over $700,000 in aggregate damages for sustained online harassment campaigns, with aggravated and punitive damages available where the defendant acted with malice.
Defenses You Can Rely On
Truth is a complete defense. If you can prove the statement was substantially true, motive does not matter. The burden of proving truth falls on the defendant.
Fair comment protects opinions on matters of public interest. The statement has to be recognizable as opinion rather than fact, it has to relate to a matter of public interest, it has to be based on provable facts, and a reasonable person has to have been able to hold that opinion on those facts. Malice defeats the defense.
Responsible communication on a matter of public interest, recognized by the Supreme Court in Grant v. Torstar Corp., protects published statements that turn out to be false when the publisher was diligent in trying to verify them. Courts look at the seriousness of the allegation, whether the publisher sought the plaintiff’s side, and the reliability of the source. It applies to anyone publishing on matters of public interest, not just journalists.
Privilege covers specific settings. Absolute privilege applies to statements in legislative proceedings and court testimony. Qualified privilege applies where the speaker has a legal, social, or moral duty to share information and the recipient has a matching interest, such as an employer giving a reference; it is lost if the dominant motive was malice.
Anti-SLAPP Laws
Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec have laws designed to shut down defamation suits brought mainly to silence public criticism. Under Ontario’s Protection of Public Participation Act, a defendant can ask the court to dismiss the case early if it arises from expression on a matter of public interest. To keep the case going, the plaintiff must show the claim has substantial merit, that the defendant has no valid defense, and that the harm they suffered is serious enough to outweigh the public interest in protecting the expression.12Government of Ontario. Protection of Public Participation Act, 2015
Discriminatory Speech Under Human Rights Law
Provincial human rights codes prohibit discriminatory harassment in employment, housing, and the provision of services. Persistent discriminatory comments at work based on race, sex, disability, or other protected grounds can be the subject of a complaint to the provincial human rights tribunal, which can order compensation and require changes in practice. The federal Canadian Human Rights Act addresses harassment on prohibited grounds in areas of federal jurisdiction. The government introduced Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, in 2024, which would have added duties for online platforms and prohibited online hate speech under the Canadian Human Rights Act, but the bill did not pass before Parliament was dissolved.13Department of Justice Canada. Bill C-63 – An Act to Enact the Online Harms Act
The Charter Does Not Bind Your Employer or a Social Media Platform
Section 2(b) constrains government. It does not apply to private actors. The Supreme Court settled that in R.W.D.S.U. v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd., treating the exclusion of private activity as a deliberate constitutional choice.14Department of Justice. Charterpedia – Section 32(1) – Application of the Charter15Canadian Human Rights Commission. About Human Rights Practically, that means an employer can set speech policies and discipline or terminate employees who breach them, a social media platform can remove your content under its terms of service, and a private property owner can ask you to leave for speech they object to. None of these are Charter violations because no government action is involved. Private-sector speech disputes can still find legal traction through human rights complaints (if the speech is discriminatory harassment) or through employment and contract law (if a firing was mishandled), but not through Section 2(b).