It certainly exists in the U.S., where the federal government fines any broadcast media that transmits language or terms it has deemed offensive. Whether you agree with them or not, hate speech laws, in contrast, are not about preventing offense, they are about preventing incitement to violence or harassment.

First Amendment freedoms in the US have been curtailed regularly almost since the moment of its passage, often in ways that would horrify us today (the Sedition Act), often in ways that make sense. Free speech absolutists are ideologues, therefore pointless to talk to.

What they say is, it’s not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear, and every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own action, because you deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words, your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved, in all these cases, as is the right of the other to voice his or her view. Indeed as John Stuart Mill said, if all in society were agreed in the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it would be most important, in fact it would become even more important, that that one heretic be heard, because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view.

Later in the speech he says this…

Bear in mind ladies and gentlemen, every time you violate, or propose to violate the free speech of someone else, you, in pretensia, you’re making a rod for your own back, because the other question raised by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is simply this. Who’s going to decide? To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful, or who is the harmful speaker? Or to determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the task of being the censor?

Whom to would you give the job of deciding for you, relieve you of the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear? Do you know anyone,…

Any proponent of any kind of speech limiting should consider the question, “Who decides?” A government should not be in the business of deciding what the citizens should say, hear or think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU&feature=related

http://www.alumninews.uottawa.ca/alumni/View.aspx?id=195828&q=194726803&qz=61ec9c

He is also the former Justice Minister for the federal government of Canada.

Ann Coulter is a liar (stop the presses). But I fully support her right to lie.

And yeah, Canadians strive for collective good in addition to individual rights…this opens up some opportunities for abuse but on the whole they have done an incredibly good job of balancing these priorities. Which is ironic, because chants of “USA BEST” are usually based on our COLLECTIVE military might and COLLECTIVE GDP, while by every possible standard of INDIVIDUAL quality of life and well-being, Canada is kicking our ass.

It should

>> That would be an outrage, wouldn’t it? I certainly hope you don’t teach your children anything as savage and barbaric as wilfully not causing offence.

I don’t.

I also will not teach them to PREVENT people from expressing views they (my children) disagree with.

Is this where Canada is going with this – The criminalization of offending people?

Or…the criminalizing of offending people who react violently to offense.

Here is my prediction. In order to mask the true motivation, Canada will criminalize ALL offensive opinions, or will attempt to do so.

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/sumner405.htm

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=995514

Although the relevant laws aren’t absolutist it’s far more limited than is presumed. Said laws may create a chilling effect but it’s pretty much limited to stupid race hate and other nonsense.