Ontario's Anonymous Hate Reporting Tool Sparks Free Speech Concerns
Durham Region, located just outside Toronto, has become the latest Ontario municipality to implement a controversial program for recording what it terms "non-criminal hate incidents" (NCHIs). According to the program's website, these incidents include activities such as telling offensive jokes, destroying religious texts, or sending discriminatory text messages.
The Community-Based Hate Reporting Program
The new Community-Based Hate Reporting program features an online form where residents are encouraged to report such "hateful" incidents anonymously if they choose. The stated purposes include connecting individuals with taxpayer-funded security or counseling services, enabling the region to better track hate incidents, and informing police about potential concerns.
Durham Region is not alone in this approach. Similar reporting tools already exist in Waterloo Region, Ottawa, Chatham-Kent, Hamilton, and Muskoka, creating a growing network of hate incident tracking across Ontario municipalities.
Free Expression Under Threat
Legal experts and free speech advocates warn that this program poses significant dangers to freedom of expression in Ontario. The fundamental concern centers on government collection of secret reports about speech that doesn't meet the high legal threshold for criminal hate speech and doesn't involve hate-motivated crimes like vandalism.
The very existence of such a reporting system is likely to chill protected speech across the province. Individuals may become reluctant to express opinions on controversial topics such as immigration policies or gender-neutral facilities if they fear the "thought police" might open a file on their comments.
The U.K. Precedent and Its Dangers
Perhaps most concerning is the potential for these reports to be shared with actual police forces. This concern stems from the program's inspiration: similar systems in the United Kingdom that Durham Regional Council cited as models.
In the U.K., police recording of non-criminal hate incidents has contributed to what some describe as a real-life version of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. According to reports from The Telegraph, 43 police forces in England and Wales recorded more than 133,000 non-criminal hate incidents between 2014 and 2024.
Police officers are now regularly dispatched to investigate controversial but lawful speech, creating what critics argue is both a chilling effect on expression and an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars.
The Harry Miller Case
A prominent example from the U.K. involves Harry Miller, a retired police officer who was reported to authorities in 2020 by a stranger for posts on social media platform X that were perceived as transphobic. One post stated: "I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don't mis-species me."
Police officers showed up at Miller's workplace to investigate, with one officer reportedly telling him, "I need to check your thinking," warning him to stop tweeting, and refusing to disclose the complaint's origin.
Miller sought judicial review and was vindicated by a judge who found that police had violated his freedom of speech. The court determined that national guidance on investigating non-criminal hate incidents failed to adequately address irrational complaints or mitigate the chilling effect on freedom of expression.
Lessons for Canadian Policymakers
Canada's politicians should heed the cautionary lessons from the U.K. experience. In free societies, most speech is not considered criminal for important reasons: democratic nations tolerate a broad range of views and expressions, even those that some might find offensive or controversial.
If governments continue down the path of creating what critics call "thought police" through programs like Durham Region's hate reporting tool, they should expect to face Charter challenges regarding freedom of expression protections.
Josh Dehaas, counsel with the Canadian Constitution Foundation, has already written to Durham officials warning them about the risks created by their program. As similar systems spread across Ontario municipalities, the debate over balancing hate incident tracking with fundamental free speech protections continues to intensify.
