Canada’s House of Commons has passed a bill that would make it possible to criminalize religious expression, including the quoting of certain passages from the Bible on issues such as homosexuality and gender.
According to media reports, the legislation, titled the ‘Combatting Hate Act’ (Bill C-9), now heads to the Senate for review. Despite a rare show of unity from Conservative, New Democratic Party, and Green Party MPs, the governing Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois pushed the bill through in a 186–137 vote.
A last-minute effort by the Conservatives to amend the wording of the bill failed. According to Canadian pro-life outlet LifeSiteNews, Liberal MPs forced the bill through the report stage earlier this week after shutting down all debate on the proposal at the committee stage.
The bill is an amendment to the country’s Criminal Code, proposing new offences to ‘better protect access to religious, cultural and other specified places’ and to ‘address hate-motivated crimes’. However, the proposal also repeals the defence based on the expression of opinions on religious subjects or texts in relation to hate speech offences.
‘The proposal also repeals the defence based on the expression of opinions on religious subjects or texts in relation to hate speech offences’
This provision has emerged as the most controversial element of the legislation. Conservative MPs and religious groups argue that removing the good-faith religious defence could expose believers to prosecution for expressing views rooted in scripture, warning that it risks undermining freedom of religion and opening the door to state scrutiny of religious texts.
‘With the passage of Bill C-9 in the House, Christians and pro-life advocates will almost certainly face an entirely new level of hostility, as the door swings open to actual persecution under a cloak of supposed legality,’ said Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) Campaign Manager David Cooke. He added that while the bill is framed as targeting hate, it could, in practice, lead to hate-related charges against believers and ‘empower ideologically driven police officers and judges to target, for the first time, the very word of God on matters of life, family, and faith’.
The removal of the religious exemption also prompted condemnation from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which issued an open letter criticizing the amendment and calling for its repeal.
Tragic State of Western Religious Freedom
The bill passed the House on Wednesday, 25 March, just one day before the Finnish Supreme Court convicted former interior minister Päivi Räsänen of ‘incitement against a minority group’ over a booklet she published in 2004. The publication critiques homosexuality from a doctrinal and moral perspective, arguing that same-sex relationships are incompatible with Christian teachings and citing passages from both the Old and New Testaments.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court noted that Räsänen’s publication described homosexuality as ‘a disorder of psychosexual development’ and a ‘sexual abnormality’, concluding that these statements were derogatory toward homosexuals as a group on the basis of sexual orientation.
The court also ruled that the statements ‘must be removed from public access and destroyed’, prompting outrage among conservative figures across the Western world, who described the decision as censorship.
Chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan condemned the ruling as a ‘terrible decision’, stating that it is ‘censorship we should all be fighting’. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour Riley Barnes said the case ‘shows the tragic state of religious freedom in the West’, adding that ‘the United States stands opposed to these ideological attacks against the Christian faith’.
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