James "Jim" Keegstra (March 30, 1934 – June 2, 2014) was a public school teacher and mayor in

Eckville, Alberta Eckville is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is west of Red Deer on Highway 766 just north of Highway 11. History Eckville gets its name from A. E. T. Eckford, a pioneer citizen. Eckville relocated to its current location in 1912, af ...

, Canada, who was charged and convicted of hate speech in 1984. The conviction was overturned by the

Court of Appeal of Alberta The Court of Appeal of Alberta (frequently referred to as Alberta Court of Appeal or ABCA) is a Canadian appellate court. Jurisdiction and hierarchy within Canadian courts The court is the highest in Alberta, Canada. It hears appeals from the A ...

but reinstated by the Supreme Court of Canada in ''

R v Keegstra ''R v Keegstra'', 9903 SCR 697 is a freedom of expression decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the court upheld the ''Criminal Code'' provision prohibiting the wilful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group as constitutional u ...

''. The decision received substantial international attention and became a landmark Canadian legal case upholding the constitutionality of Canada's hate speech laws.

Life

Keegstra was born in

Vulcan, Alberta Vulcan is a town in southern Alberta, Canada that is surrounded by Vulcan County. It is on Highway 23, midway between the cities of Calgary and Lethbridge. The population of the town was 1,917 in 2016. Now known as the "Official Star Trek Capit ...

, March 30, 1934, to Dutch immigrant parents who were devout members of the

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

. Keegstra was an auto mechanic, mayor of

from 1974 until 1983, and a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

teacher until he was fired in December 1982. He died in

Red Deer, Alberta Red Deer is a city in Alberta, Canada, located midway on the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. Red Deer serves central Alberta, and key industries include health care, retail trade, construction, oil and gas, hospitality, manufacturing and education ...

, on June 2, 2014, and was survived by four children.

Legal issues

Initial trial

In 1984, Keegstra was stripped of his teaching certificate, after having been fired in December 1982, and charged under the

Criminal Code A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

with "wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group" by teaching his social studies students that

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

was a fraud and attributing various evil qualities to Jews. He thus described Jews to his pupils as "treacherous", "subversive", "sadistic", "money-loving", "power hungry" and "child killers". He taught his classes that the Jewish people seek to destroy Christianity and are responsible for depressions, anarchy, chaos, wars, and revolution. According to Keegstra, the Jews "created the Holocaust to gain sympathy" and, in contrast to the open and honest Christians, were said to be deceptive, secretive and inherently evil. He taught his students the myth of a Jewish world-conspiracy whose blueprint allegedly came from the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

. Keegstra expected his students to reproduce his teachings in class and on exams. If they failed to do so, their marks suffered. Keegstra attempted to have this charge quashed as a violation of his freedom of expression; this motion was denied, and he was convicted at trial. Many of his former students testified against him. Publicly stating that Keegstra had brought their town into disrepute, locals were unable to impeach Keegstra as mayor and instead overwhelmingly voted him out of office at the November 1983 election.

Appeals

Keegstra appealed this conviction to the

, claiming that it was in violation of Section 2(b) of the

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part ...

. This section guarantees "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication". Keegstra also challenged his conviction on the grounds that Section 319(3)(a) of the

, which states that a person cannot be convicted of promoting hatred if she or he establishes that the statement is true, but only where the accused proves the truth of the communicated statements on a balance of probabilities, was a violation of Section 11(d) of the Charter. That section guarantees "the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal". Keegstra was not able to demonstrate the truth of the many antisemitic statements he made to his students, on a balance of probabilities. In the CBC News presentation ''Canada's Hate Law: The Keegstra Case'' (1991), Keegstra himself displayed the material in which his views were obtained, admitting that none of it came from mainstream historical sources. Keegstra's appeal ultimately reached the Supreme Court of Canada, in the case of ''

''. In December 1990, the Court upheld Keegstra's conviction, ruling that the law's prohibition of hate propaganda and suppression of Keegstra's freedom of expression was constitutional. The majority of Justices looked at hate speech as not being a ''victimless'' crime, but instead having the potential for psychological harm, degradation, humiliation, and a risk of violence.

Sentencing

At his original trial, Keegstra was given a fine of $5,000. A subsequent decision by the

Alberta Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal of Alberta (frequently referred to as Alberta Court of Appeal or ABCA) is a Canadian appellate court. Jurisdiction and hierarchy within Canadian courts The court is the highest in Alberta, Canada. It hears appeals from the ...

reduced that to a one-year suspended sentence, one year of probation, and 200 hours of community service work. While the Supreme Court upheld the original conviction and the constitutionality of the law, they did not restore the original sentence.

Social Credit Party

Keegstra was a long-time activist in the

Social Credit Party of Canada The Social Credit Party of Canada (french: Parti Crédit social du Canada), colloquially known as the Socreds, was a populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform. It was the federal wing of the Canadi ...

and was a candidate for the party in

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of we ...

in the

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

, 1974 and 1984 federal elections coming in last place in each attempt. In 1983, Social Credit leader Martin Hattersley suspended Keegstra's membership and tried to expel him because of his anti-Semitic activism; when the party voted to reinstate Keegstra, Hattersley resigned, saying "I simply cannot be leader of a party that has people accepted into its ranks that publicly express views of that sort." In 1986, Keegstra ran unsuccessfully for the party's leadership with the support of white supremacist

Don Andrews Donald Clarke Andrews (born April 20, 1942 as Vilim Zlomislić) is a Canadian white supremacist. He is also the leader of the unregistered neo-Nazi Nationalist Party of Canada and a perennial candidate for mayor of Toronto, Ontario. Early yea ...

and

Holocaust denier Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...

Ernst Zündel Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel (; 24 April 1939 – 5 August 2017) was a German neo-Nazi publisher and pamphleteer of Holocaust denial literature.

. He lost by 67 votes to 38 to Harvey Lainson, an evangelical minister from Ontario. Keegstra was elected as the party's acting leader on July 27, 1987, after the party's national executive ousted Lainson over his call to rename the party "Christian Freedom". Lainson refused to relinquish the leadership and Keegstra was expelled from the Social Credit Party and its successor the Christian Freedom Social Credit Party in September.

In popular culture

The 1988

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

television movie A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

''Evil in Clear River'' was based on the Keegstra case. The movie depicted a teacher and mayor of a small Canadian town who taught anti-Semitic ideas to his students, the efforts of the mother of one of his students to stop him, and the teacher's termination and prosecution.

Randy Quaid Randy Randall Rudy Quaid (born October 1, 1950) is an American actor known for his roles in both serious drama and light comedy. He was nominated for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award for his role in '' The Last Detail'' ...

played the character that was based on Keegstra, and

Lindsay Wagner Lindsay Jean Wagner (born June 22, 1949) is an American film and television actress, model, author, singer, and acting coach. Wagner is best known for her leading role in the American science-fiction television series '' The Bionic Woman'' (197 ...

played the mother. John J. O'Connor
"TV Reviews; 'Evil in Clear River,' With Lindsay Wagner
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' (January 11, 1988). Retrieved July 21, 2020.

References

Keegstra: The Trial, The Issues, The Consequences.
Book Review
Echoes of Auschwitz
News Report on Holocaust Education *Lee, Robert Mason. "Keegstra's Children". '' Saturday Night'' 100 (May 1985): 38–46. {{DEFAULTSORT:Keegstra, James 1934 births 2014 deaths Alberta candidates for Member of Parliament Canadian conspiracy theorists Canadian people of Dutch descent Canadian schoolteachers Canadian Holocaust deniers Mayors of places in Alberta People from Vulcan County Social Credit Party of Canada candidates in the 1972 Canadian federal election Social Credit Party of Canada leaders Canadian politicians convicted of crimes