The Supreme Court of Canada struck down the 1988 conviction of Toronto publisher Ernst Zundel for spreading false news about the Holocaust. The court ruled that the Criminal Code provision violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech. It said the view of the majority had no need of constitutional protection, because it's tolerated in any event. Thus, a law which forbids expression of a minority, or "false" view, on pain of prosecution, violated the guarantee of freedom of expression. Zundel said if he had lost his case it would not have bode well for democracy in Canada. (The Supreme Court took great pains to differentiate between the false-news law and the law against spreading hatred against an identifiable group. The court upheld that law in 1991 in the case of Jim Keegstra, the former Alberta School teacher convicted of hate mongering.)

Date: 1992-08-27
Placeline: TORONTO, Ontario.
Source: The Canadian Press
Length: 11 seconds

Transcript Prediction: << although I might be unpopular in my viewpoint I was always law-abiding in the way that I presented it and so I think that I am the champion of freedom in Canada >>

Earbank_1992-08-27_Zundel_6958