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Liberal deal with Bloc means hate-speech laws will lose exemption for 'sincerely held' religious belief
OTTAWA — The Liberals have agreed to remove religious exemptions from Canada’s hate-speech laws to secure Bloc Québécois support to help pass its bill targeting hate and terror symbols, National Post has learned through a source close to the talks.
Currently, the law exempts hateful or antisemitic speech if it based in good faith on the interpretation of a religious text, but that immunity is set to be removed. Additionally, the Liberals are expected to back off plans to eliminate the need for a provincial attorney general’s sign-off to pursue a hate-propaganda prosecution.
The removal of the religious exemption is expected to come via an amendment to the Criminal Code in the form of Bill C-9 at the parliamentary justice committee that will be supported by both the Liberals and Bloc, a senior government source confirmed.
The source was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss party negotiations publicly.
“We do have Bloc partnership,” the source said. “The bill is in a place now, even with those Bloc amendments, that everyone is happy,” they added in reference to Liberal and Bloc MPs.
Bill C-9, which fulfilled a campaign promise Prime Minister Mark Carney made during the spring election, was his minority government’s first major justice bill introduced earlier this fall by Justice Minister Sean Fraser .
It seeks multiple changes to the Criminal Code to confront the issue of hate, with the Liberals citing a rise in police-reported incidents in recent years, particularly in the wake of sustained anti-Israel protests over the last two years.
Chief among the proposed changes is creating a new offence for intimidating someone to the point of blocking their access to a place of worship or another centre used by an identifiable group, as well as criminalizing the act of promoting hate by displaying a hate or terror symbol, such as one tied to a listed terrorist organization or a swastika.
The Opposition Conservatives have lambasted the current effort as censorship, saying provisions already exist within criminal law to counter hate, and that the bill’s proposal to remove the requirement for a provincial attorney general’s (AG) consent to lay a hate propaganda charge took away an “important safeguard,” according to the party.
The Liberals are now expected to accept another amendment eliminating that change from the bill entirely. That, too, was a Bloc request.
When the bill was first presented back in September, the Liberals argued that removing the AG requirement would help streamline the process of laying hate propaganda charges, while critics said it was an additional check on a charge with serious implications for free speech.
Once the amendments are passed, the Liberals and Bloc are expected to vote the bill through committee and the House of Commons. However, it is unclear when the justice committee will debate clause-by-clause amendments to the bill.
The House is scheduled to rise on Dec. 12.
The original text of the bill did not contain changes to the existing religious defences for hate speech, but the Bloc has consistently raised the need for it to be addressed.
Currently, Section 319 of the Criminal Code contains an exemption stating no person shall be convicted of promoting hateful or antisemitic speech if they expressed “in good faith” an opinion “based on a belief in a religious text.”
The amendment eliminating the religious exemption defence is expected to reprise a bill tabled by the Bloc Québécois in November 2023 that proposed to erase it from the Criminal Code. That bill did not advance past first reading.
At the time, the Bloc Québécois argued that its bill was necessary to combat the outpouring of hate speech and antisemitism following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing war. They also pointed to comments by Montreal Imam Adil Charkaoui calling for the extermination of “Zionist aggressors” during a public prayer.
In addition to the Bloc, Jewish and LGBTQ groups have called for years for the Liberal government to remove the religious exemption from hate speech laws, arguing it has allowed for the proliferation of antisemitic and homophobic comments .
The Quebec government also called on the Liberals last year to remove the exemption because it was used to “legitimize discriminatory or incendiary comments under the guise of a faith.”
Many Christian organizations and certain civil liberties groups have supported the exemption, arguing that it serves as an important protection of freedom of speech.
In submissions to the justice committee, the Christian Legal Fellowship argued the defences “exist to protect Canadians against imprisonment for good faith expression of sincerely held beliefs.”
“To remove this defence would risk undermining the constitutional integrity of the entire … regime,” it warned.
The amendments were expected to be presented and debated during a Commons justice committee meeting on Thursday last week.
However, a clause-by-clause study of the bill was delayed when Conservatives filibustered the two-hour meeting.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the justice minister did not directly address the question of the amendments, saying it would be “inappropriate” to discuss changes to the bill before they are debated by the committee.
“Communities across Canada have been calling for stronger protections in the face of rising hate, and every Conservative delay means those protections are delayed,” Lola Dandybaeva said.
During a committee appearance back in October, Fraser expressed an openness to endorsing the Bloc’s proposal and welcomed committee members to hear from witnesses on the question of removing the religious defences.
He testified that, should “the majority of members agree to make this change, I see no problem with it.”
Bloc Québécois spokesperson Julien Coulombe-Bonnafous declined to comment.
Richard Moon, a law professor at the University of Windsor who specializes in freedom of expression, predicted the change would not make much of an impact because courts have interpreted hate speech as being speech that takes only the most extreme forms.
“For example, if someone believes that homosexuality is sinful, to describe it as sinful or unnatural or wrong in some way would not, almost certainly not count as hate speech, not be seen as sufficiently extreme in character,” Moon said.
“Now, on the other hand, if somebody says, and could look to the Bible for this, that anybody who participates in same sex intimacy should be put to death, then that would almost certainly count as hate speech.”
He suggested the defences around religious text “could be raised in very exceptional situations.”
Moon nonetheless says those who do not fully grasp the law’s provision against hate speech as applying to the most extreme forms of speech may be cautious about the change.
“I think it’s really important, if this exception is removed, that it be made clear that most, almost all of what religious folks might have to say about other religious groups or about LGBTQ community and so forth, would absolutely not be caught by this provision.
“The lay person’s understanding of what counts as hate speech can be pretty vague and pretty general. As you know, people often will attach the label hate speech to speech they just don’t like, or they consider to be objectionable or offensive in some way.”
National Post
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