Criminal Code

Honourable senators, I rise to deliver a second reading speech on behalf of our colleague the Honourable Yonah Martin:

Honourable senators, at this critical time, I feel compelled to share my analyses and serious concerns that have also been raised by critics of Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places).

At its core, this bill responds to a reality that concerns us all. In my home province of British Columbia and across our country, we have seen a troubling rise in acts of hatred — vandalism, threats, intimidation and violence directed at individuals and communities because of who they are, what they believe or how they worship. These acts strike not only at their immediate victims but at the sense of safety, dignity and belonging that underpins our society. They leave lasting scars not only on individuals but on entire communities who begin to feel less secure in the country they call home.

Protecting Canadians from hatred and violence, especially in places of worship and cultural gatherings, is a responsibility we all share. Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras and community centres should be places of refuge, not fear. They are spaces where Canadians come together in faith, culture and community, and where bonds of trust and mutual support are formed. Measures that strengthen their protection deserve our serious and sincere support, and I believe there is broad agreement in this chamber on that point.

It is precisely because this objective is so important — because the stakes are so high — that we must examine Bill C-9 with care, clarity and a full appreciation of its consequences. When legislation touches both public safety and fundamental freedoms, it demands not only good intentions but careful drafting and thoughtful scrutiny.

This debate is not about whether we oppose hate — we all do — nor is it about whether those who incite violence or willfully promote hatred should be held accountable; they must be. The question before us is whether this bill, as currently drafted and amended, achieves its purpose while preserving the fundamental freedoms that define our constitutional democracy.

Honourable senators, when Bill C-9 was first introduced, it was presented as a focused and constructive effort to strengthen protections against hate-motivated crime and to safeguard access to religious and cultural spaces. Those objectives were widely supported, including by Conservatives in the other place, who signalled a willingness to work collaboratively to advance them in a timely and responsible manner.

However, in the final stages of committee study in the House of Commons, the bill was significantly altered. A last-minute amendment, introduced without public consultation, without expert testimony and without constitutional analysis, removed the long-standing good-faith religious expression defence found in paragraph 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code. No witnesses were heard. No constitutional scholars were invited. No civil liberties organizations were consulted. No opportunities were given for careful, transparent consideration of the implications of this change.

For legislation that directly affects the scope of criminal liability and the protection of fundamental freedoms, this absence of process is deeply concerning.

This is not a minor amendment; it is a structural change to Canada’s hate-propaganda framework, one that alters the balance that Parliament deliberately struck and that courts have relied upon for decades.

Honourable senators, at the heart of this issue is the balance between two fundamental commitments: protecting Canadians from hatred and safeguarding freedom of religion and freedom of expression. These are not competing values to be traded off lightly; they are coexisting principles that must be carefully reconciled in law.

I speak to this not only as a parliamentarian but as a person of Christian faith. My family came to Canada from Korea, seeking safety, freedom and opportunity. Canada welcomed us, and my parents taught me to cherish the freedoms that it offers: the freedom to worship, the freedom to speak openly and the freedom to live according to one’s conscience. Those freedoms are not abstract; they are lived, and they are what allows individuals and communities of different backgrounds to flourish side by side, contributing to the rich pluralism that defines Canada.

Across this country, faith communities play a vital role in the fabric of our society. They operate food banks and shelters, support newcomers and refugees, provide youth programs and care for the most vulnerable among us. Their work flows not from obligation but from deeply held convictions about service, compassion and human dignity. They deserve a legal framework that respects both their contributions and their beliefs and that provides clarity about the boundaries within which they operate.

For more than 50 years, section 319 has reflected a careful and deliberate equilibrium. When Parliament enacted Canada’s modern hate-propaganda laws in 1970, it did so with a clear understanding that combatting hatred must be balanced with protecting freedom of expression and freedom of religion. To achieve that balance, Parliament included explicit statutory defences: truth, good-faith religious expression and statements made on matters of public interest. These safeguards were foundational. They signalled Parliament’s intent that the law be applied with precision, restraint and respect for fundamental freedoms, and they provided clear guidance to those responsible for interpreting and enforcing the law.

Removing one of those protections alters that balance. It narrows the safeguards that helped sustain the law’s constitutional footing and replaces them with broader prohibitions and less certain interpretive guidance.

That change deserves careful study. It has not received it.

Honourable senators, by removing the good-faith religious expression defence, Bill C-9 introduces a greater degree of legal ambiguity. It leaves more to interpretation — by police officers deciding whether to investigate, by prosecutors determining whether to lay criminal charges and, ultimately, by judges tasked with interpreting the law — about where the line is drawn between lawful expression and criminal conduct.

Imagine a faith leader reading from a sacred text in a sermon, addressing morality, human dignity or social conduct. Imagine a teacher in a religious school explaining traditional teachings. Imagine a community volunteer sharing sincerely held beliefs during outreach. These are not acts of hate; they are expressions of conscience and belief, rooted in long-standing traditions and shared in good faith.

Yet, without a clear statutory defence, such expressions could be subject, at least initially, to scrutiny under hate‑propaganda provisions. Even if no charges are ultimately laid or no conviction secured, the uncertainty itself has consequences. It shapes behaviours, influences what is said or left unsaid and gradually narrows the space for open and honest dialogue.

It is this “chilling effect” that many Canadians of faith are now expressing concerns about. In my home province of British Columbia and, indeed, across Canada, pastors, rabbis, imams, priests and lay leaders have written to my office asking a simple and reasonable question: “What can we say, and what can we not?” When individuals must second-guess whether their words, spoken in good faith, might expose them to legal risk, the space for open dialogue begins to narrow. A freedom that depends on uncertain interpretation is, in practice, a diminished freedom.

Proponents of the amendment argue that the Charter alone provides sufficient protection, but this overlooks the role that explicit statutory safeguards have played in guiding both enforcement and judicial interpretation. The Supreme Court did not assess these provisions in a vacuum; it relied upon the presence of clear defences as evidence that Parliament had struck a careful and constitutional balance.

Replacing a clear, court-tested defence with general interpretive language does not provide the same level of certainty, clarity or confidence. It shifts the burden from Parliament, where laws are meant to be carefully defined, to the courts, where meaning must be determined after the fact, often through lengthy and costly proceedings.

Honourable senators, this concern is part of a broader issue within Bill C-9. While the bill seeks to address real and serious harms, aspects of its drafting raise questions about it being overly broad and vague. Provisions relating to intimidation and obstruction, for example, may capture conduct that falls short of criminal wrongdoing, including lawful protest, peaceful assembly or legitimate dissent, depending upon how they are interpreted and applied in practice.

In areas touching upon fundamental freedoms, clarity is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Laws that are too broad or insufficiently precise risk uneven application and may lead to uncertainty for both citizens and those tasked with enforcement.

Our Criminal Code already contains provisions addressing threats, incitement, the promotion of hatred, the use of hate symbols and offences against places of worship. Hate motivation is already recognized as an aggravating factor at sentencing. When we legislate in this area, we must ensure that new measures are not only well intentioned but necessary, precise and workable. Otherwise, we risk expanding the reach of criminal law without providing clear guidance as to its limits, creating uncertainty not only for citizens but for those tasked with enforcing the law.

It is also worth noting that much of what is widely supported in this bill, strengthening protections for places of worship and reinforcing consequences for hate-motivated acts, could have been advanced independently and without controversy. Conservatives in the other place proposed splitting the bill to allow those measures to proceed expeditiously, while providing Parliament the time needed to study the more complex and consequential changes to section 319.

That proposal was not accepted, and that decision has contributed to the concerns we are now debating.

This chamber exists, in part, to provide sober second thought and to ensure that legislation is not only responsive but responsible and that it reflects both principle and prudence. Canadians are asking us to do precisely that.

Faith communities across this country have spoken with a rare and unified voice in calling for the restoration of the good-faith religious expression defence. Their concern is not rooted in opposition to combatting hate. On the contrary, many of these communities have themselves been the targets of hatred and violence. Their concern is that, in seeking to address one harm, we do not create another.

We should listen carefully when such diverse communities, with different beliefs and traditions, arrive at the same conclusion.

Honourable colleagues, I strongly believe that Bill C-9, in its current form, presents a contradiction: It seeks to protect communities from hatred and harm, yet it does so in a way that may leave those same communities less certain of their freedom to express and practise their beliefs.

Our Charter protects both equality and liberty. Our laws must reflect both — clearly, explicitly and without ambiguity.

This is not a call for obstruction; it is a call for deliberation, for careful study, for meaningful consultation and for the thoughtful consideration that legislation of this importance deserves.

I urge honourable senators and the committee to take the time to examine this legislation thoroughly. Let us hear from constitutional experts, from law enforcement, from civil liberties advocates and from the diverse communities who will live with the consequences of this law. Let us ensure that the measures we adopt are not only principled in intent but sound in design.

In confronting hatred, we must be firm. But we must also be careful. In seeking to protect Canadians, we must ensure that we do not erode the very freedoms that define our country.

Honourable senators, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of expression are not abstract principles. They are lived realities that allow Canadians of all backgrounds to coexist in mutual respect, even in the presence of deep differences.

Let us ensure that in strengthening our response to hate, we do not weaken our very foundation.

I urge this chamber to approach Bill C-9 with the care, balance and constitutional attention it deserves. Thank you.

Honourable senators, I want to add my own brief remarks on Bill C-9, mostly about the committee study of this bill.

Clearly, the most appropriate committee to study Bill C-9 is the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. After all, the bill proposes to amend the Criminal Code of Canada and involves significant analyses of sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Both areas are exactly what the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is mandated to study every week.

Several members of the Legal Committee are lawyers — a majority, in fact. We always consider the wider social context of the bills we study and bring experts in to testify about that perspective.

The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee studies big, complex government bills all the time. In comparison, the last time the Human Rights Committee studied a government bill was in 2018, honourable senators — eight years ago.

The Liberal government may want this government bill — with its very complicated and thorny legal and constitutional issues — to avoid the rigorous legal and constitutional scrutiny our Legal Committee would provide it. However, just because the government prefers something doesn’t mean we should yield to it, honourable senators. That choice is ours.

Sending Bill C-9 to a different committee than the Legal Committee would set a bad precedent, and I believe it could allow the government to avoid accountability. I hope you will consider this as this legislation moves forward.

Thank you.

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-9. I would like to thank the intervenors who have spoken so far on this bill. I also want to thank the bill’s Senate sponsor, Senator Kristopher Wells, for his measured speech.

I agree with his calls for listening to diverse voices and for vigorous, constructive and deliberate debate. In our system, no freedoms or rights are absolute, and there is no hierarchy. Our task is to find an acceptable balance of constitutional values.

I also share the sense of urgency that is felt about the increase of hate incidents in Canada. We are all concerned about what is happening to our neighbours and in our broader communities. Undoubtedly, today’s fraught geopolitical realities are affecting our domestic situation, but there are many other factors as well.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, in its brief to the House Committee on Justice and Human Rights, stated that “the most notable recent increases have involved hate crimes directed at Jewish and Muslim populations and their respective institutions.”

Between them, the Minister of Justice and Senator Kristopher Wells noted the significance of the new measures for Jewish and Muslim Canadians, for Black and Asian Canadians and for 2SLGBTQIA+ Canadians. We must have full regard for this, while also respecting that the new criminal law measures touch Canadians in many different settings.

The Minister of Justice signalled a broader perspective in his speech at second reading:

If we wish to build a stronger Canada, we need to adopt a whole-of-society approach to this challenging issue. This will involve different levels of government, including provinces’ investing in education that will ensure that people, from a young age, understand that hate is not acceptable in our communities. It will include investments in training law enforcement, prosecutors and judges to see hate and to call it out as such when they witness it in our courtrooms. Of course, part of the puzzle will involve changes to our criminal law to ensure that we punish bad actors and send a signal to ensure that hate does not continue to foment in our communities.

Colleagues, I do support the bill at second reading. I have specific concerns that I hope will be addressed by the Senate committee studying this bill.

First, Parliament has not undertaken a comprehensive review of hate crimes in Canada in the 56 years since the introduction of the hate-propaganda provisions of the Criminal Code. I recognize the excellent work of the Senate Human Rights Committee in their studies of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. I recommend that the committee consider how they might expand their research within a reasonable time frame and make recommendations from there. Just because we are studying a bill does not mean that we should stop studying this phenomenon. Instead, we must continue to study it intensively.

Second, I urge the committee to be vigorous and transparent in applying Canada’s constitutional equality lens to evaluating Bill C-9. The record so far leaves me with questions about how the bill’s provisions relate to equality rights guarantees and the historical and systemic discrimination addressed by the Charter.

We hear, in particular, with respect to this bill, about the Charter guarantees of fundamental freedoms, namely, freedom of conscience and religion and freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. We hear about this, and it is important that we do, but we hear very little about section 15 or the other equality guarantees. In fact, the Charter Statement for this bill does not even mention equality rights and their relevance to Bill C-9 in terms of advancing or limiting such rights.

The Criminal Code’s hate provisions, current and proposed, are intended to protect specific identifiable groups from hate that meets the criminal threshold. The current law, unchanged by Bill C-9, defines “identifiable group” to mean:

. . . any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.

I agree that these groups deserve such protection. However, how does Bill C-9 address the experiences of these many “identifiable groups”?

I urge the Senate committee to hear from additional groups on Bill C-9, including Indigenous, Black and Asian communities.

I am also concerned, in particular, that we have heard very little on Bill C-9 about women. A 2025 article in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law entitled “Treating Male Violence against Women and Girls as Hate in Canada,” by Myrna Dawson and Debra M. Haak, makes a number of points: Generally, crimes of male violence are neither reported as sex-motivated, nor treated as hate crimes. They are seldom prosecuted or sentenced under the hate crime provisions of the Criminal Code. And yet, a woman or girl is killed every other day in this country, a reality of “individual and systemic misogyny, coupled with racism,” say the authors of this article. Let me quote them further:

In our examples, we focused on lethal violence — femicide — to clearly demonstrate Canada’s failure to identify and treat even these extreme crimes as sex-motivated hate crimes. As expected, when examining non-lethal violence, research shows that police-recorded hate crimes motivated by sex are also one of the smallest categories documented, a consistent pattern over time in Canada. . . . Research shows that victims of [male violence against women and girls] and [gender-based violence] share many characteristics with other, more recognized targets of hate crime such as those victimized because of race and/or religion.

Does Bill C-9 change the treatment of femicide? Does it improve protection against sex-motivated violence, for example, for Indigenous Peoples and for women and girls in all their diversity?

In this regard, I have an additional concern about Canada’s lagging response to online hate, especially in respect of women and girls, as well as those who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+. Online hate may, in fact, be growing for all identifiable groups, but how does Bill C-9 address online hate? Online hate is a real phenomenon.

I ask you to consider the following: The internet hate speech provision was removed from the Canadian Human Rights Act in 2013. That bill promoted protecting freedom, but in the view of many, it was a victory for misogyny and other forms of hate. Since that time, the only remedies women have had for hate are to be found in the Criminal Code. Some 16 years later — an age in terms of digital development — we need to act on technology-facilitated gender-based violence and other forms of technology-facilitated hate.

Here is another point to consider: The federal-provincial-territorial National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, launched on November 9, 2022, says nothing about cyberbullying in respect of women.

Here is another point: Proposed federal legislation relating to online harms, which failed to address the full range of online sexual exploitation and sex- and gender-based violence experienced by Canadians, died on the Order Paper of the Forty‑fourth Parliament. And so far, it has not been improved or reintroduced.

Colleagues, I strongly recommend that the committee note the urgent need for adequate measures on internet hate speech, online sexual exploitation and technology-facilitated sex- and gender-based violence. That is my second point.

Third, while I agree in principle with the new intimidation and obstruction offences, I hope that the committee will consider whether they may be overly broad and vague and risk criminalizing peaceful protests.

Fourth, I do feel that more clarity is needed on the removal of the good faith religious opinion defence. I note the many hundreds of messages we have received from Canadians of religious faith who are alarmed by this change, with some even calling for the repeal of the entire bill. In my reading of the bill, the threshold to establish incitement to hatred is very high, and the way I read it, an accused’s rights to defend against charges are adequately protected, but I do believe that we have an obligation to better understand the concerns that have been expressed, which we just heard expressed by Senator Batters and Senator Martin.

To conclude, there is a sentence that I like, which came forward in 2025 from the Commissioner of the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions:

A healthy democracy is characterized by a vibrant and diverse range of voices and groups, engaged in a constant process of deliberation, discussion, negotiation and compromise. . . .

By virtue of our constitutional role, the Senate is a vital part of our democracy and a vital part of that constant process.

Colleagues, I very much look forward to the deliberations and recommendations of the Senate committee and of this chamber on Bill C-9.

Thank you.

Honourable senators, I want to speak to one point raised by our colleagues Senator Batters, Senator Martin, Senator Dasko and Senator Ataullahjan, and that is the matter of the removal of the good faith protection.

I ask the committee to consider this seriously and with an open mind. It was not there to begin with. It was added during the procedure in the House of Commons, and it may have been for procedural reasons or to garner enough votes for it to pass, but my concern is this: When we’re discussing legislation dealing with and combatting hate, it is important, apart from getting it in the law and having enough votes to pass it, that we get a broad consensus in society that this is an important issue. I’m talking about going beyond just the letter of the law and promoting broad consensus and understanding.

I learned this concept from former justice Rosalie Abella many years ago, when she headed the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment. She said that passing employment equity was not just about the law and the policy that it was creating — sorry, I want to ensure that I am looking at my colleague who is the sponsor of the bill. We have had some of this discussion, and you may ask why I don’t just talk to him —

We are.

What former Justice Abella said — and I’m paraphrasing here — is that when Parliament sets a law, it describes a societal value. In that case, we were talking about having equity in employment.

The same applies here. I am disturbed by the number of people of faith who are feeling, rightly or wrongly, that this bill is going to hinder their ability to be people of faith. It is not enough for me to have a debate with them and tell them they don’t understand it and it is actually okay. It is not enough, in my view, to include, as the House did, clarifications at the end of the bill, in subclauses 11.1(1) and 11.1(2). If you are inserting clarifications to say something is not a problem, then why include it in the first place? That’s my thought.

I leave it with the committee and ask you to please consider this point seriously and with an open mind. Think about how we not only legislate in this area but also build consensus broadly in society to the extent that the law would not be necessary in a world where enough people believed that hate was wrong.

If a lot of people don’t like this bill that is combatting hate, we’re not winning in terms of combatting hate. That’s the point I want to leave the committee with. Thank you.