Canada’s Bill C-9 is receiving a new burst of attention more than three months after becoming law, with an Oklahoma state senator and US religious-freedom activists bringing their opposition to the legislation directly to Ottawa.
Oklahoma State Sen. Shane Jett is scheduled to participate Monday evening in an Ottawa event titled “Are Canadian Christians Safe?” at Capital City Bikers’ Church for October 5.
Intercessors for America, a US-based Christian advocacy organization, said Jett and filmmaker Brent Larsen are travelling to Canada during the first week of October to participate in the event and work on a related documentary project.
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The trip has revived debate around the Combatting Hate Act, although there has been no new legislative action on Bill C-9 itself. The law received Royal Assent on June 18 and came into force July 18.
It created a specific hate-crime offence, new offences involving intimidation or obstruction around certain community spaces, and an offence covering the wilful promotion of hatred through certain terrorist and hate symbols.
The provision driving the latest controversy is the repeal of a Criminal Code defence covering good-faith expression of opinions on religious subjects or beliefs based on religious texts.
Jett argues that removing that defence puts religious expression at greater risk. In comments published by Juno News on October 4, he said, “A free country does not require its pastors to edit the Gospel to satisfy the state.”
The federal government disputes the broader interpretation of the change. Justice Canada says the repeal does not criminalize preaching, scripture readings, religious teaching, peaceful political advocacy, disagreement, or criticism. The offence continues to require proof that a person wilfully promoted hatred, while the Criminal Code now defines hatred as an intense and extreme emotion associated with “vilification and detestation.”
The enacted law also contains an explicit clarification that statements on matters of public interest, including religious and political statements, are not prohibited when they do not wilfully promote hatred.
Jett has also pointed to former British Columbia school trustee Barry Neufeld, who was ordered in February to pay $750,000 after the BC Human Rights Tribunal found that public statements made during his campaign against sexual-orientation and gender-identity education violated the province’s Human Rights Code.
That case was not prosecuted under Bill C-9 and predates the federal law taking effect.
