Liberals willing to amend hate bill to clarify reading religious texts isn't hate, Fraser says, accusing Conservatives of obstruction

OTTAWA — Justice Minister Sean Fraser said on Tuesday that the Liberal government is willing to amend its bill targeting hate to address concerns stemming from a change to remove religious defences from the country’s hate speech laws. 

Fraser made the comments as the governing party searches for ways to see the bill, known by its legislative title of C-9, passed as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s justice agenda.

After a meeting of the parliamentary justice committee was suspended Monday, with Liberal and Conservative MPs citing ongoing negotiations between the two parties, the justice minister emerged on Tuesday to accuse the Opposition Conservatives gumming up the bill’s progress.

“It’s immensely frustrating at this late stage in the process because we are trying to collaborate,” Fraser told reporters on his way into the Liberals’ weekly cabinet meeting.

Collaboration has been the theme of the first few weeks of the current parliamentary sitting, with the Liberals pressing Conservatives to allow more of the government’s agenda to pass, while Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tries to avoid providing Carney with a reason to trigger a snap election.

When it comes to C-9, Fraser said on Tuesday that the Liberals have proved willing to accommodate concerns around the bill — which was introduced to create new intimidation and obstruction offences around buildings where an identifiable group gathers — when it comes to the legislation’s proposed definition of “hate” and removing the need for provincial attorney general consent to lay a hate speech charge.

Nearly 40 civil society advocacy groups have nevertheless called for the bill to be pulled, citing concerns over its potential to infringe on legal protests and the ability of police to properly identify when a hate symbol was displayed in public to promote hate, an act which the legislation proposes to criminalize.

Further controversy was injected into the bill when the Liberals struck a deal with the Bloc Quebecois to remove the religious defences that exist for the sections of the Criminal Code targeting advocating genocide and the wilful promotion of hate, in exchange for the Quebec party to help pass it through the minority Parliament.

The Conservatives have launched a fierce campaign against the move, with several of its MPs hosting town halls warning that doing so would jeopardize religious freedoms.

Many Christian and Muslim groups have expressed their concerns directly to the government and other Liberal MPs about the change, with Fraser telling reporters he spent his holiday break hearing from them directly.

As he looks for ways to pass the bill, the minister signalled on Tuesday he was willing to try and address their concerns.

“We’ve seen calls to make clear that you’re not able to classify reading religious texts as hate. We’re willing to accommodate that and we would be willing to put text directly in the bill to indicate that the willful promotion of hatred is not including reading religious texts or ordinary practice of faith.”

Fraser added: “We want to ensure that as we move forward with a proposal from the Bloc, that we accommodate some of the concerns that we’ve heard from religious communities who don’t believe their religions constitute hate, but want to see that clearly reflected in the text of the bill.”

Major Jewish advocacy groups such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs have called for MPs to find a way to pass the bill, pointing to the need for added protections in the wake of antisemitic incidents spiking in Canada.

A response from Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office has not yet been returned about the party’s position on the bill.

One path the Liberals could take would be to strike an agreement with the Bloc to see the parties limit debate on C-9 when it returns to committee on Wednesday, to ensure its progress is not stalled.

The Conservatives have instead called for the Liberals to prioritize the study of Bill C-16, another piece of justice legislation the government announced, which seeks to address intimate partner violence by criminalizing patterns of controlling behaviour and restoring some mandatory minimum sentences that have been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.

National Post

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