Justice minister says he will 'personally' try to understand concerns over religious defences removal in anti-hate bill

OTTAWA — The federal justice minister says he will personally be involved in trying to understand concerns religious groups are expressing over the removal of religious defences from a section of the Criminal Code on hate speech. 

Sean Fraser says his team has already begun that work, as Liberal MPs on the parliamentary justice committee voted late Tuesday to accept an amendment from the Bloc Québécois to remove the defence from two sections of the code that target the promotion of hate. That change has not yet been passed into law. 

“I’m personally, over the next number of weeks, going to be engaging as well to make sure that we fully, first, understand the nature of the concerns being addressed,” the minister said on Wednesday.

He said those conversations would also be “an opportunity to share our perspective as to what the Bloc amendment would do, would not do.”

Organizations representing Christian and Muslim communities have spent the past week expressing concern over the Liberals’ support of the Bloc move to remove religious defences from Canadian criminal law, by way of amending Bill C-9. The government legislation presented earlier this fall would make it an offence to obstruct or intimidate around places of worship and criminalize the display of terror and other hate-related symbols.

That bill is being studied at the parliamentary committee for justice, where the Bloc brought forward its amendment. The Liberals had struck a deal with the Quebec party to support it, in exchange for helping pass its bill through the minority Parliament.

“When the Bloc proposed this amendment, it created a path forward for the bill to survive,” Fraser said on Wednesday.

Religious groups, including the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, have spoken out about the change, saying it has the potential to chill the promotion and teaching of religious texts by clergy and other faith teachers.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims posted on X that it was “deeply troubling” to see the amendment passed and called on members of Parliament to oppose the change, as the bill makes its way through Parliament.

“That protection of religious speech, be it with reference to the Bible, the Quran, or any sacred text, is now in serious danger,” the organization wrote.

The minister says his own interpretation of the change was that removing religious defences would do no such thing, saying Charter protections already exist for freedom of religion.

“This was a path to actually make good on the campaign commitment,” Fraser said.

The change itself would see religious defences removed from the sections of the Criminal Code dealing with the “wilful promotion of hate” and antisemitism, the latter defined in law as the denial or minimizing of the Holocaust.

The Criminal Code currently states that no one should be convicted of either offence if the speaker expressed “in good faith” an opinion “based on a belief in a religious text.” 

While MPs from different parties at times asked witnesses who testified before the justice committee about the idea of removing this defence, Fraser said doing so was not part of the initial consultations the government had when the bill was first introduced, as it “wasn’t part of the intended policy from inception.”

“It wasn’t part of that initial consultation,” Fraser said. He did point out that during his own testimony earlier this fall, he invited committee members to study the question of removing religious defences.

The Opposition Conservatives, who mounted a fierce campaign against the change and argue that it endangers freedom of religion and free expression, also point to the lack of dedicated study on the question.

“Ideally, you do your study before you put something like this forward,” Ontario Conservative MP Andrew Lawton, who sits on the justice committee, said Wednesday.

“This was rammed through so quickly we never studied this amendment, and now we’re hearing from every religious community in the country, effectively, that they will be targeted by this.”

He added: “This is not a bill that will protect religious communities. This is a bill that will risk prosecution for them expressing their faith.”

Before the Bloc amendment was adopted, five major Jewish advocacy organizations released a statement calling for the bill to pass, saying its measures around creating new intimidation and obstruction offences were needed to protect Jewish community members, who have been dealing with a police-reported rise in antisemitism.

The joint statement signed by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B’nai Brith Canada and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, addressed the Bloc amendment by saying they know different opinions exist, but believe the Charter ensures the rights to freedom of religion. 

National Post

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