by Jane Stannus, Spectator
Easter is almost here – and Canada’s Liberal government has chosen this sacred season to display its utter contempt for Christianity. It is currently forcing through the outrageous Bill C-9, which could make it a hate crime to quote from sections of the Bible.
More than 40 civil and religious groups had asked that for the Bill’s language be clarified and its scope more carefully defined so that religious texts would not be subject to hate crime legislation. But all in vain. After a hot debate in the House of Commons, the Liberals highhandedly ended a Conservative filibuster and fast-tracked the bill. It has now been sent to the Senate to decide if Canada is the kind of country that wants to turn quoting St Paul into a criminal act.
The Combatting Hate Act is not just concerned with religious speech. It is a sweeping but vaguely-worded law intended to fight ‘antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia’. One of its new categories of hate crime is intimidation. This is defined so loosely that all kinds of lawful behaviour, including peaceful protest and religious expression, could be criminalised in consequence.
Intimidation, according to the bill, means ‘engaging in any conduct’ – any conduct, not necessarily threatening conduct – ‘with the intent to provoke a state of fear in a person in order to impede their access to a building or structure.’ Canadian police will have to get very good at mindreading. How else will they know if an idler on the pavement is simply gazing into space, or staring at someone ‘with intent’ to cause fear?