The minister responsible for the Alberta Human Rights Commission says a complaint about an anti-gay letter to a Red Deer newspaper should never have gone before the commission.

"It's not there to mediate hurt feelings caused by some words or not," said Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett in an interview with CBC News. "If it's hateful, then that's a hate crime. And that's something for the Crown attorneys and the police services to investigate.

"But the goal of the commission is to make sure people are protected against discrimination where they work, or access to accommodation, access to government services."

'It's not there to mediate hurt feelings caused by some words'

—Lindsay Blackett, culture minister

In 2008, the commission ruled that a letter to the Red Deer Advocate in 2002, which compared gay people to pedophiles and drug dealers, broke a provincial law.

The Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act says no one can publish a statement that is likely "to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt" for reasons including sexual orientation.

The commission found that the letter, written by former pastor Stephen Boissoin, may have played a role in the beating of a gay teenager two weeks after it was published.

The commission ordered Boissoin to refrain from making disparaging remarks about homosexuals and to pay the complainant, former Red Deer high school teacher Darren Lund, $5,000 in damages.

But in December 2009 the Court of Queen's Bench overturned the commission's decision, ruling the letter was not a hate crime and is protected by Canada's freedom of speech laws.

Lund is now appealing that ruling. And he says Blackett's suggestion the case should never have gone to the commission is appalling.

"I really think that the point of this is standing on a principle," Lund said. "And that is, there should be some reasonable limits on hate speech in Alberta."

Lund also said the commission works too slowly, often taking years to make decisions, as it did in his case.

Blackett said the province is making improvements, with the addition of more staff and resources for training.