TheCanadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE) is one of a number of groups run byneo-Nazi andwhite supremacistPaul Fromm. Established in 1981, CAFE states that it is committed to the promotion and defense of totalfreedom of speech, and publishes theFree Speech Monitor ten times a year. Although it began inOntario, it has also been incorporated inAlberta.
Opponents have accused CAFE ofracism, arguing that it does not merely support the free speech rights offar right groups, but also promotes their views.[citation needed]
CAFE has criticized what it considers injustices againstwhite people in Canada, and has argued that Canadian laws do not robustly defend the free speech of whites, and are too weighted in favour of minorities.[1] CAFE has campaigned (along with the defunct white nationalist groupsCanadian Heritage Alliance and Northern Alliance) for the release of Brad Love, who it claimed was jailed for expressing hisnativist sentiments. CAFE has also campaigned for the release ofHolocaust deniersErnst Zündel[2][3] andDavid Irving, and against human rights lawyerRichard Warman and theCanadian Human Rights Commission.
On November 23, 2007, Ontario Superior Court Justice Monique Métivier ruled that Fromm and CAFE had libelled Warman, and ordered them to pay $30,000 in damages and to post full retractions within ten days on all the websites on which the defamatory comments were posted.[4] TheOntario Court of Appeal upheld the judgment in December 2008 with damages being raised to $40,000, as Fromm was ordered to pay an additional $10,000 towards Warman's legal costs.[5] Warman said the appeal court's ruling "sends the message that those who try to use the cloak of free speech to poison other people's reputations through lies and defamation do so at their own peril."[5]
CAFE was an intervenor inOger v Whatcott, a hearing before theBritish Columbia Human Rights Tribunal regarding harassment of Ms. Oger by Mr. Whatcott, who Ms. Oger alleged ran a very public campaign of harassment against her on the basis of her gender identity. CAFE supported Mr. Whatcott's right to make those statements, and adopted many of Mr. Whatcott's statements in its submissions to the Tribunal. On March 27, 2019, the Tribunal ruled that CAFE's behaviour as an intervenor was "improper", and that its submissions were "inflammatory, derogatory, disrespectful and inappropriate".[6]