The Combatting Hate Act, the controversial piece of legislation that abolishes the longstanding sincere religious text defence from Canada’s hate speech laws, completed final passage on June 17.

After teaming up to vote down the Conservatives, NDP and Green Party MP Elizabeth May’s final attempt to discard Bill C-9, the Liberals and Bloc Québécois jointly approved the lone Senate amendment to the bill.

The only change the upper chamber made was adding the noose to the list of hate-motivated symbols that will be prohibited in the civic square 30 days after Bill C-9 receives royal assent. The other core provisions of the Combatting Hate Act are creating indictable offences for acts of intimidation and obstruction outside places of worship and establishments used by an identifiable group for a specific purpose.

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These central measures have been overshadowed in the public discourse about Bill C-9 since early December when the then minority governing Liberals agreed to a late-breaking Bloc Québecois amendment to scrap Section 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code, a narrow safeguard that stood since 1970.

Faith groups fear someone could be prosecuted under the new law for holding a sincere religious belief based on their faith's teachings.                                                                 

Upon reflection, the encapsulating quote of the Combatting Hate Act’s nine-month journey through the corridors of power in Ottawa may belong to Senator Andrew Cardozo of the Progressive Senate Group.

“If people of good faith and people of goodwill hate the law to combat hate, have we failed as a Parliament and can we not do better,” asked Cardozo on June 4 during the debate preceding the Senate’s third reading vote.

The expungement of the religious text defence indeed attracted widespread backlash from faith leaders, legal experts, civil society organizations, labour groups and concerned citizens.

Paul Lawton, director of grassroots action for the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada, expressed displeasure at how the government ultimately disregarded the wishes of this unprecedented coalition.

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“We are disappointed by the government’s insistence on removing the religious defence clause in the face of so much public opposition,” said Lawton. “Canadians logged hundreds of thousands of phone calls to MPs and Senators, sent them hundreds of thousands of postcards and attended countless rallies and events to express their opposition to Bill C-9. This is a sad day for freedom of speech and freedom of religion, not just for Christians, but for all Canadians.”

Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Sean Fraser has strived to downplay the significance of Section 319(3)(b)’s removal by asserting that “freedom of religion is already fully and robustly protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Many have challenged that statement by suggesting freedom of religion and expression Charter rights were undermined during the COVID-19 pandemic (parish restrictions) and the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests.

Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops president Bishop Pierre Goudreault underscored the importance of the sincere religious speech defence in a Dec. 4 letter primarily addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“This narrowly framed exemption has served for many years as an essential safeguard to ensure that Canadians are not criminally prosecuted for their sincere, truth-seeking expression of beliefs made without animus and grounded in long-standing religious traditions,” wrote Goudreault. “Courts have made clear that only the most extreme forms of speech fall within the scope of hate-propaganda offences.”

Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto also called for better protection of religious freedom in the bill. He told Senators in a March 27 letter that “it is vital, therefore, that an unequivocal clarification be added to the bill making it abundantly and unmistakably clear that the reading of religious texts, as well as teaching and preaching, are not in any way considered the intentional promotion of hatred of any kind.”

The for-greater-certainty clause added to Bill C-9 by the Liberals to pacify concerns did not satisfy any of the concerned entities. Catholic Civil Rights League president and general counsel Phil Horgan suggested there is ambiguity about what constitutes a “statement on a matter of public interest,” and that a hate charge could conceivably be levied against a person of faith.

Goudreault warned in his letter that “eliminating a clear statutory safeguard will likely therefore have a chilling effect on religious expression, even if prosecutions remain unlikely in practice.”

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John Sikkema, ARPA’s director of law and policy, echoed those concerns.

“Our concern isn’t so much that Christians or others will be prosecuted immediately after this legislation passes. Rather, we are concerned about the gradual erosion of fundamental freedoms through legislation like this.”