Canada’s New Hate Bill & the Future of Religious Liberty

From reading the text of the bill, it appears that a key part of this is to prevent the display of the Nazi swastika and SS lightning bolts. OK, on the light side, the SS lightning bolts resemble the last two letters of the rock band "KISS", which has used a different logo in Germany for many years due to this. So if KISS comes out of retirement, do they need to use their German kit for concerts in Canada? (ironic, given that Gene Simmons and Eric Singer are Jewish!)

OK, on a more serious note, does Canada really have a huge problem with people displaying the swastika and SS logo? I'm not terribly against a law to prohibit that in religious spaces like synagogues, but I would hope that most Canadians would have the good sense to regard people who do that kind of thing as doofuses, or (given the national sport) choose to drop the gloves when people do that. The problem could well solve itself, eh?

Bert, the bigger concern with this bill is its criminalization of hatred, which the bill defines as "an emotion of an intense and extreme nature that is clearly associated with vilification and detestation." And while it ostensibly is only about hatred motivating criminal acts, the fact that a hatred motivation increases penalties for crimes suggests that the "hatred" itself may well be a prosecutable crime. And the clarification they add at the end does nothing to abet concerns that this bill will be used to target anything the government deems to be hatred:

"For greater certainty, nothing in subsection 319(2) or (2.‍2) of the Criminal Code shall be construed as prohibiting a person from communicating a statement on a matter of public interest, including an educational, religious, political or scientific statement made in the course of a discussion, publication or debate, if they do not wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group by communicating the statement." (emphasis mine)

Basically, you're welcome to say whatever you like unless they determine that it's hatred. This bill leaves much room for interpretation. But we pray that the Canadian Senate will take the time to review and amend the bill to remove these ambiguities in a way that would preserve Canadians' freedom of religion and speech.

Yeah, it’s crossing a line and creating a new category of “stuff punishable by the government”: beliefs/attitudes/emotions. I don’t know how this differs from the “hate crime” sentencing enhancements we already have in the US, though. I’m not saying it’s no different. I’m saying I am ignorant of the difference. Maybe someone can enlighten me (or I might get around to throwing it at Gemini or Claude… still, I’d like to hear what someone’s got on that.)

Here is an article that gives a good summery:

Bill C-9 was meant to curb hate. Why is it drawing controversy? - iPolitics

As with most legislation, there are ambiguities that will require judicial definition most likely, if anyone is ever charged under the bill.

From other reading, I think the motivation behind the bill was to curb the rising anti-Semitism that we see happening all over.

Christian's have loudly opposed the bill in Canada, but I think they have been whipped up by activists to oppose what they fear the bill might do rather than what the bill is intended to do. Time will tell, but I doubt that the "freak out squad" is correct.

In general, we do live in an increasingly secular society and it is not surprising that some in the secular majority want to curb religious expression in all its forms.

As it stands, I am personally not worried about this one.

OK, Don does let me know that there are at least a significant amount of dingleberries flying swastikas and the like in Canada, so apparently there are not enough enforcers ready to render them toothless, alas. And perhaps we should be more afraid of the Canadian judiciary's creativity than by particular laws actually on the books?

Still, while the main impetus is to crack down on Nazi regalia, it still makes me a bit nervous to see a bit of, well, "flexibility" in whether the law can be applied in other ways. When you have a creative judiciary, it's careful to give them as little room for creativity as possible.

I don't think the law is very well thought out and I am not sure that it will accomplish anything useful. But i think the "sky is falling" responses are over the top.

I think it could be used to do bad things. But our system has human rights commissions that can already do bad things against free speech

BTW, don't think that the law is aimed at random nazi flags and such. It is more aimed at the attacks on synagogues and Jewish people which have been reported too often up here.