Canada bill on hate speech -- proposed revision (Church issues statement)

[Nofear]

https://news-ca.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/canada-area-presidency-statement-on-bill-c-9-and-religious-freedom

TLDR: the proposed revision would remove the "religious speech defence".

Potentially this could mean that the Church could be brought before the court as promoting "hate speech" by saying certain activities are sinful. At least that's what I am understanding.

[JVW]

1 hour ago, Nofear said:

https://news-ca.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/canada-area-presidency-statement-on-bill-c-9-and-religious-freedom

TLDR: the proposed revision would remove the "religious speech defence".

Potentially this could mean that the Church could be brought before the court as promoting "hate speech" by saying certain activities are sinful. At least that's what I am understanding.

I read this when it came out. I find it interesting that the area presidency is the one making a statement. Maybe it's because the church isn't headquartered in Canada so they don't have the same kind of weight to throw around like they did with the brief they filed on the supreme court trans case?

I have believed for at least 5 years that one day the words "Jesus Christ" will be regarded as the ultimate form of hate speech. A belief in Jesus inherently means a belief in justice and mercy, in right and wrong, good and evil, in accountability, in sin and repentance, and a belief in God.

The way society seems to be approaching evil is to pretend it doesn't exist, to celebrate whatever people do and encourage and support them even if they are being dumb. There is no such thing as sin, no such thing as bad guys, and if you tell me I'm wrong you are being judgmental and bigoted. If the trends continue then Christianity will be regarded as the most hateful institution one day. By many it is already regarded as such.

Hope isn't my strong suit, so I believe that CA will pass the bill and remove religious protections for speech. It's a bummer.

[Duncan]

My take is the Government here is trying to crack down on hate speech that leads to violence and/or hatred towards others, so you shouldn't use the Church's teaching or scriptures to justify your inciting violence or hatred towards others, which position I think is great. We are to be peacemakers so I am confused as to why the Church here is cautious against "preventing misuse" I have talked to others and we can't think of a single religious right taken away in our lifetimes being a member of church here in Canada, so what "misuse" they are thinking of is mind boggling. In fact the province here just put up a million bucks to help churches, synagogues, mosques etc. in cleaning up any hate symbols or vandalism etc. So, it's good the Government is cracking down on the cause of it

[bluebell]

20 hours ago, Duncan said:

My take is the Government here is trying to crack down on hate speech that leads to violence and/or hatred towards others, so you shouldn't use the Church's teaching or scriptures to justify your inciting violence or hatred towards others, which position I think is great. We are to be peacemakers so I am confused as to why the Church here is cautious against "preventing misuse" I have talked to others and we can't think of a single religious right taken away in our lifetimes being a member of church here in Canada, so what "misuse" they are thinking of is mind boggling. In fact the province here just put up a million bucks to help churches, synagogues, mosques etc. in cleaning up any hate symbols or vandalism etc. So, it's good the Government is cracking down on the cause of it

Are they worried that religious teachings against homosexuality etc. might be classified as hate speech?

[Duncan]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

Are they worried that religious teachings against homosexuality etc. might be classified as hate speech?

IMO, only if it leads to violence (the Government is worried or something), I say my opinion as I don't speak for the Government! Canada has the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and so you have the right to free speech, assembly, freedom of conscience but when you start advocating for criminal activity, as violence is, then you cross the line. The Church is worried about a potential misuse of Bill C-9 but I can't think of a single religious freedom that has been taken away, enshrined in the CCRF, that has been taken away by the Government so I am not sure what there is to be worried apart on the part of the Canada Area

[Duncan]

On 1/23/2026 at 9:54 AM, JVW said:

I read this when it came out. I find it interesting that the area presidency is the one making a statement. Maybe it's because the church isn't headquartered in Canada so they don't have the same kind of weight to throw around like they did with the brief they filed on the supreme court trans case?

I have believed for at least 5 years that one day the words "Jesus Christ" will be regarded as the ultimate form of hate speech. A belief in Jesus inherently means a belief in justice and mercy, in right and wrong, good and evil, in accountability, in sin and repentance, and a belief in God.

The way society seems to be approaching evil is to pretend it doesn't exist, to celebrate whatever people do and encourage and support them even if they are being dumb. There is no such thing as sin, no such thing as bad guys, and if you tell me I'm wrong you are being judgmental and bigoted. If the trends continue then Christianity will be regarded as the most hateful institution one day. By many it is already regarded as such.

Hope isn't my strong suit, so I believe that CA will pass the bill and remove religious protections for speech. It's a bummer.

it's not just "speech" but a certain kind of "speech" If you are using the pulpit or classroom to instill fear or violence against someone else then yeah, you should be in trouble. Keep in mind to the Church already said that se@uality and politics should not be talked about over the pulpit

Edited January 24 by Duncan

[The Nehor]

My reading is that this was designed to protect Jewish groups from anti-Semitic attacks. There have been some attempts to intimidate Jewish groups using Nazi symbols. Also some harassment by Christian and Muslim groups.

On 1/23/2026 at 9:54 AM, JVW said:

I have believed for at least 5 years that one day the words "Jesus Christ" will be regarded as the ultimate form of hate speech. A belief in Jesus inherently means a belief in justice and mercy, in right and wrong, good and evil, in accountability, in sin and repentance, and a belief in God.

A belief in Jesus does not inherently mean that. At all. Ever. Westboro Baptist believes in Jesus.

It is also ridiculous to imagine that the words “Jesus Christ” will be a hate crime where Christianity is LITERALLY the most pervasive religious affiliation. This is paranoia.

On 1/23/2026 at 9:54 AM, JVW said:

The way society seems to be approaching evil is to pretend it doesn't exist, to celebrate whatever people do and encourage and support them even if they are being dumb.

No one thinks like this. You mean they are encouraging and supporting things that you think are dumb. If they were encouraging and supporting everything then……

On 1/23/2026 at 9:54 AM, JVW said:

There is no such thing as sin, no such thing as bad guys, and if you tell me I'm wrong you are being judgmental and bigoted.

……how are they saying some people are judgemental and bigoted? I thought they were celebrating everything people do. And if you think there is anyone out there that doesn’t believe they are evil people in the world then……LOL.

this is insane.

On 1/23/2026 at 9:54 AM, JVW said:

If the trends continue then Christianity will be regarded as the most hateful institution one day. By many it is already regarded as such.

There is an uptick in disapproval and disdain for Christianity. I ascribe a lot of this to Christian leaders defending, supporting, and backing horrible things. This isn’t just propaganda convincing people the poor innocent harmless Christians are haters. They are being called haters because they are out there hating. Many Christians scare me because they actively want bad things to happen to many of my friends. 

On 1/23/2026 at 9:54 AM, JVW said:

Hope isn't my strong suit, so I believe that CA will pass the bill and remove religious protections for speech. It's a bummer.

The speech that this bill criminalizes is actively calling for harm to groups. I have seen Christian leaders bravely proclaiming that this will not change what they say in their sermons and I wonder what the hell they are preaching in these sermons that this is some kind of brave risk?

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Duncan said:

. The first is that the government wants to make it illegal to harass, intimidate etc. anyone from accessing a religious site, place etc.

Does this affect restricted religious sites like temples?

I am not sure I understand you.

Edited January 25 by Calm

[Duncan]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Does this affect restricted religious sites like temples?

I am not sure I understand you.

so , yeah, if you are bothering or trying to prevent someone from entering a temple, like following people into the temple shouting nonsense at them then you would be held accountable for that

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, Duncan said:

so , yeah, if you are bothering or trying to prevent someone from entering a temple, like following people into the temple shouting nonsense at them then you would be held accountable for that

I was thinking of restricting access to nonmembers or members without recommends; this is instead more like protestors at conference not sticking to the designated areas, being too aggressive, etc

Edited January 25 by Calm

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I was thinking of restricting access to nonmembers or members without recommends; this is instead more like protestors at conference not sticking to the designated areas, being too aggressive, etc

that's right

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Does this affect restricted religious sites like temples?

I am not sure I understand you.

Yeah, the law was designed primarily to protect Jewish people who were being harassed or blocked from going to places of worship.

[longview]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yeah, the law was designed primarily to protect Jewish people who were being harassed or blocked from going to places of worship.

How about preventing moslems from glutting whole blocks bowing to Mecca in order to intimidate regular people or to inconvenience them? That is NOT done in moslem countries. Why is that?

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, longview said:

How about preventing moslems from glutting whole blocks bowing to Mecca in order to intimidate regular people or to inconvenience them? That is NOT done in moslem countries. Why is that?

We're talking about Canada and Bill C-9, Canada isn't a "moslem" country

The Jewish Foundation Provincial President, who was at the groundbreaking of the temple here, gets harassing phone calls every week from this one guy but none rise to the level of hate speech or wishing her personal death, aside from restraining orders this guy needs to stop but the police can't do anything 

[halconero]

As the other resident Canadian here, I'm of two minds on the law and statement, but generally come down on the side of the Area Presidency.

On the one hand, Duncan has accurately described the intended purpose of the law and scope. In that regard, I was somewhat surprised when they released the statement.

On the other hand, I'm a bit skepitcal about the law because (a) Bloc Québécois shenangians (b) I'm not convinced it was necessary and (c) I do think there's been some scope creep at the Supreme Court of Canad over the past 10–15 years enabled by this sort of stuff.

Some pretext: The main area of controvery the proposed nullification of s. 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code. This is a provision for a defence against criminal conviction for, materially, willfully promoting hatred (eg printing and distributing material promoting detestation/vilification of an identifiable group, such as Canadian Jewish people). The defence is based on 'good-faith religious opinion / religious text'. In other words, if someone was promoting hatred of an identifiable group, based on their good-faith religious opinon or good-faith use of a religious text, they could be protect for doing so. An important caveat is that 'good-faith' actually does a lot of legal work here: Someone could not just use religion as a pretext for promoting hatred; there had to be evidence of long-standing religious conviction and opinion consistent with various activities and beliefs, not just centred around hating a group. Importantly, this defence is not applicable to crimes including threats, harassment, counselling violence, assault, etc. The provision, if nullified, would mean religious opinion would be treated as any other expression: Defendable if the religious statements were relevant to the public interest/benefit, and if they were believed to be true on reasonable grounds.

On a lesser note, the Bill also proposed to remove oversight by the Attorney General of hate crime provisions. Currently, prosecutors have to get the okay from the AG's office to pursue hate crime provisions to criminal activity. Bill C-9 would allow them to pursue these charges independently, with the purported purpose being able to more quickly apply hate crime charges.

With that pretext, let's address point (a) first (Bloc shenanigans):

There is a strong Quebec political culture focused around the concept of laïcité. There isn't really a good translation for the word, but 'public secularism' is probably the best (IMO). While others prefer 'state secularism', centred on ensuring that the state is areligious in its functions, applications of law, and symbolism, I think that's too limited. More strongly, it proposes that religion should not be protected, preferenced, or considered distinct from any other belief system or ideology. Weaker versions of laïcité focus on removing any distinct provisions for religious speech or belief that do not apply to other public speech or belief. Stronger versions seek to nullify it more completely from public life. While I don't hold to it personally, I do see the former as more internally consistent, at least. It allows for the public display of religiosity along side, lets say, political signage or apparel. The latter has a tendency to be okay with the latter, but not the former.

The Criminal Code presents one area of law, where, the 'ROC' (a term used to refer to the 'Rest of Canada', or the predominantly anglophone parts) still inserts itself into Quebec. Most other legal matters are governed by Quebec Civil Law, which itself is highly laicised. In other terms, while religion has been stripped of certain legal considerations under Quebec Civil Law, they persist in federal criminal law. The Bloc has long considered it a priority to laicize the criminal code to make it align with Quebec political culture.

On point (b), it's not particularly necessary:

Of all the parts of the bill, I think the most necessary parts are reforms around penalty maximums and bail considerations. Those, however, are probably the least contraversial parts and the only that would really add anything to what already exists.

Everything else, which primarily focuses on investigation and charging mechanisms, the religious defence, and oversight, is more-or-less already workable under the current Criminal Code. The key diference is that the Attorney General had oversight over applying hate crime considerations, and the existince of the religious defence provision for promoting hate speech. Even for the latter, the religious defence law was never a get out of jail free card. As mentioned, the defence only applied to the promotion of beliefs that might otherwise be considered hateful and liable. It did not apply to other criminal activity. It also had to be done in good faith. You could not create a whole movement whose raison d'être was hating another group and promoting said hatred against it. As to the former, I'm not sure the benefits of expediting prosecutions for hate crimes outweights the benefits of oversight by the AG.

On point (c), SCC creep:

Historically, the SCC was focused on refereeing disputes between the provinces and the feds regarding their division of powers and authorities. Since the establishment of the Charter, they've become increasingly focused on litigating rights. While this is in some ways laudible, it has had the effect of overloading the SCC with cases unrelated to its original mission of adjudicating disputes over federalism. It also introduces possibilities for them to act like quasi-legislative body, undermining the already somewhat diminished concept of parliamentary supremacy.

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Overall, I'm not a sky is falling type of person over Bill C-9, which I've seen in other members of my ward. Nor do I think the Area Presidency are acting as such. The Bill does actually contain some good provisions, which I think could be hashed out in committee. The big sticking points are the redundancies and protections from its laicizing tendencies.