James "Jim" Keegstra (March 30, 1934 – June 2, 2014) was a public school teacher and mayor in Eckville, Alberta, Canada, who was charged and convicted of hate speech in 1984. The conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal of Alberta but reinstated by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Keegstra. 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, March 30, 1934, to Dutch immigrant parents who were devout members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Keegstra was an auto mechanic, mayor of Eckville, Alberta from 1974 until 1983, and a high school teacher until he was fired in December 1982. He died in Red Deer, Alberta, 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 with "wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group" by teaching his social studies students that the Holocaust 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. 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 Court of Appeal of Alberta, claiming that it was in violation of Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section guarantees "freedom of thought, belief, opinion