By Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism.
Canada faces the possibility of another round of infringements on freedom of religion and freedom of speech with bill C-9, which proposes to amend Canada’s hate speech law (already an infringement of classical liberal freedoms), to remove the exemption in the law for speech justified from a religious text that one sincerely believes.
More generally, the amendment would endeavor to make prosecutions under the law easier, by removing the requirement of approval from Canada’s attorney general for each prosecution, prohibit the display of certain symbols used by extremist groups, codify hatred as vilification or detestation of an “identifiable group” (i.e., approximately a “protected class” in the United States), establish hate crimes as a separate offense rather than an additional charge to another offense, and make it a crime to obstruct entrance to a house of worship, school, or community center used by an identifiable group.
C-9 has been occasioned by rising antisemitism in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza. In particular, Montreal Imam Adil Charkaoui called for the extermination of “Zionist aggressors” in public prayer. Although Islamic activities seem to have given the bill impetus, as they did the proposed ban on public prayer in Quebec, the bill affects religious expression generally. It was introduced into the Canadian House of Commons on September 19, 2025, by the Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser, and proceeded to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Removal of the religious exemption was a demand of the Quebec sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois, whose support is necessary for the minority Liberal government to pass the legislation.