Hate Speech

Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, is another piece of legislation with an Orwellian name that the Canadian political class periodically rolls out. Under current Canadian law, anyone convicted of “the wilful promotion of hate” can face imprisonment, but exemptions exist for statements made in “good faith” or based on belief in a religious text. Bill C-9 seeks to eliminate these exemptions and is likely to pass through Parliament. Beyond creating tension between the state and civil liberties groups, the bill exposes deeper fissures that threaten Canada’s already fragile national unity.

The Carney government is moving to tweak Canada’s hate speech laws so that biblical scripture could qualify as criminal hate speech.

The Criminal Code currently prescribes jail terms of up to two years for “willful promotion of hatred.” However, there is an exemption if that statement is a “good faith” opinion “based on a belief in a religious text.”

But Bill C-9 — the Carney government’s first major justice bill — is looking to remove the religious exemption for hate speech. It’s a reform that the Bloc Québécois has been seeking since 2023, primarily to make it easier to prosecute Islamists.

Prosecute Islamists? Well intentioned maybe but unlikely to translate into reality.

Christians will almost certainly face far more prosecutions than either Islam or Judaism.

The militant gays, trannies, liberal-left and DEI acolytes are salivating.

To all those who support “hate speech” laws, I ask one simple question: how would you define the term in law?

In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that there “is no universally accepted definition” of the expression “hate speech”.

A manual published by UNESCO in 2015 accepted that “the possibility of reaching a universally shared definition seems unlikely”.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner says her party will introduce a bill in the House of Commons next week to protect people from online harassment.

Rempel Garner says the Liberals have had “almost 10 years” and tried to pass two bills to address the growing problem of online criminal harm and have “failed.”

Remember the people who decided it was a good idea to ban tobogganing? Now they are coming for your internet.

That, sadly, is a realistic assessment of the Trudeau government’s new so-called online harms act. I say “so-called” because anyone who thinks the definition of harm is transparent and uncontroversial in 2024 hasn’t been online since the social media site was called “The Facebook.”

What does it tell you when Bernie Farber and the Islamists are both in favour of the so called on-line harms act?