Barbara Kulaszka said: “The judgment means you can defend your Christian religion and you can question the holocaust and not be called a Nazi.” Lawyer and author, Barbara Kulaszka In his decision, Mr. Justice Creaghan “said that Mr. Ross’s views were founded on his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and not on Nazism … To take as a fact that Malcolm Ross is a Nazi goes too far.'” (Globe and Mail, April 20, 1998) Further,the judge ruled: “Malcolm Ross’s reputation was hurt as a result of the defamation against him.” (New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, April 20, 1998) “This judgment is long overdue,” says Paul Fromm. “For too long the forces of censorship have relied on lies, vicious defamation and character assassination to marginalize and isolate intended victims. To question immigration is to risk being smeared as a ‘racist’ or ‘white supremacist’.
To be a 19th century traditional Christian is to risk being smeared as a Nazi. The organized opponents of free speech and, all too often the lemmings in the press, spread the libel of ‘hatemonger’.” To question the current immigration invasion, to express and traditional objection to homosexual practices or to question the Hollywood version of World War II is to risk being smeared as a ‘hatemonger’, warns Fromm. “This charge, in almost all cases, is defamatory and false. Wilfully promoting ‘hate’ against privileged minorities is contrary to Section 319 of the Criminal Code. None of those regularly labelled “hatemongers” has ever been charged or convicted,” he adds. Malcolm Ross receives Free Speech award from Doug Christie Even today, this same type of smear continues. Fromm noted the headline of the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal (April 21, 1998) — “Ross’s libel victory grist for Zundel’s internet hate mill.” Perhaps, said Fromm, “some in the press still haven’t learned. Whatever one might think of publisher Ernst Zundel and his efforts to rehabilitate his people’s reputation after World War II, he has never been charged or convicted of promoting hate.
Therefore, to smear his Internet site as a ‘hate mill’ is as false and defamatory as to call him a rapist or a car thief.” Hal Joffe, “a lawyer with the Canadian Jewish Congress, said … the decision significantly curtails the ability of both individuals and media commentators to criticize public figures.” (Globe and Mail, April 21, 1998) “This is a breathtaking display of hypocrisy,” says Fromm. “The Canadian Jewish Congress has laboured mightily to gag free speech in this country. Now to see them trying to hoist the mantle on their shoulders reminds me of Shakespeare’s line in Macbeth that it ill becomes them: ‘like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief.'” There is no chill on spirited debate and lively commentary, he contends. Fromm, who is one of Canada’s most outspoken civil libertarians, explains. “What Mr. Justice Creaghan’s ruling did say is that commentary must be truthful. It is neither just nor fair to try to ‘get’ an ideological opponent by pulling out the worst labels in the book and attaching it to him, when the labels are false. Malcolm Ross is no Nazi. To have suggested he is is to have lied. That is wrong and the judge so ruled.”