Several religious groups and civil liberties organizations are expressing concerns about Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, which the House of Commons passed in its third and final vote on March 25.
As this article was being written in late April, the bill was undergoing review in the Senate, which must study and approve C-9 before it becomes law and can suggest changes to the legislation. Critics say the bill introduces vague and subjective language that compromises the religious and civil rights of Canadians disproportionately to any benefit it may serve in combatting hate.
C-9’s content and rationale
Introduced by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government and supported by the Bloc Québécois, C-9 removes religious expression as a defence against hate speech charges, a feature added in an amendment by the Bloc. It creates new criminal charges for displaying hate symbols, obstructing access to places of worship or places used by an “identifiable group,” and intimidating a person to impede their access to such a place.
The bill also creates a specific offence to be added to charges for any other crime if courts deem that crime to have been “motivated by hatred,” with an additional maximum penalty of up to life imprisonment. Before C-9, a hate motive was considered an aggravating factor at the sentencing stage of criminal proceedings.
An earlier version of the bill also removed a requirement for police and prosecutors to seek the provincial attorney general’s consent when laying charges for hate propaganda offences like wilful promotion of hatred or advocating genocide. This change sparked significant criticism from religious and civil liberties groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).
In a statement on its website in October 2025, the CCLA said the change removed a key institutional check, putting much more power in the hands of police and prosecutors to decide what did and did not constitute grounds to lay hate speech charges. By the bill’s second reading in Parliament, however, this component was deleted, restoring the requirement for attorney general oversight in such cases.
Ian McLeod, senior media relations advisor for the Department of Justice, says in an email to the Anglican Journal that the Liberal government is “firmly committed to protecting freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and religion.” A strong Canada should both safeguard the freedom to protest peacefully and worship freely, he says, “while ensuring that no one is subjected to criminal acts of hate and intimidation that threaten public safety.” Accordingly, he says, changes to the Criminal Code in C-9 are intended to strengthen Canada’s ability to counter hate and protect access to religious and cultural places.
Among the bill’s supporters is a coalition of Jewish organizations including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism, B’nai Brith Canada, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center. Several of these organizations endorsed the bill in consultations with Parliament’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
In a joint statement on the bill in December 2025, these organizations said that the Jewish community has faced “a wave of fear and intimidation unlike anything in recent memory” since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas. “We believe the incitement to violence against Canadians we have witnessed since October 7 by some radical groups and individuals must be addressed—without undermining religious freedoms,” the statement reads.
Anglicans weigh in
In January, Archbishop Shane Parker, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, released a statement asking the government to reconsider the clause in C-9 removing the religious defence against hate speech. This defence, found in section 319 of the Criminal Code, exempts expressions of religious opinion or opinion based on a religious text in good faith from prosecution for hate speech.
Parker expressed concern that the removal could introduce uncertainty as to the legal boundaries of religious expression and education. The clause may “deter the kind of open and healthy discourse that is central to spiritual and religious communities—including some of the communities the Bill intends to protect,” he wrote.
A letter to the Anglican Journal from the Rev. Geoffrey McLarney, a member of the Anglican Church of Canada’s Communications Coordinating Committee, points out that the religious exemption has never been successfully used in a hate speech trial to date.
Meanwhile, Canon Jeffrey Metcalfe, canon theologian in the diocese of Quebec, says he is more concerned about offences the bill introduces which critics say leave room for interpretation. He acknowledges a noticeable rise in expressions of hatred in his area in Quebec.
“I see the hate … just in the signs within the city,” Metcalfe says. “And by signs, I mean literal signs, like people’s graffiti. You can see the trend by the kinds of symbols and words that are painted on bridges.”
In its most recently released numbers, Statistics Canada reported that police-reported hate crimes increased by one per cent in 2024 following a sharp increase of 154 per cent between 2021 and 2023. Metcalfe says an ongoing rise continues to be visible in 2026, especially targeting Jewish people.
Still, he questions whether Bill C-9 is best suited to handle that problem. Metcalfe says he’s not convinced the new offences it introduces will be fairly applied to groups already disproportionately targeted by police. Growing hate must be repudiated, he says, but that should be weighed against new vulnerabilities created for marginalized people.
“My question to those who would support [Bill C-9] would be, what work can this do … that can’t be done with the current laws that we have? And to what degree does it make new vulnerabilities possible for legitimate protesters and marginalized people who might actually be fighting for their rights in some cases?”
Criticisms from other religious groups
Like Metcalfe, other religious organizations in Canada highlight concerns about how the bill’s new offences will be interpreted and applied.
Louise Smith is a member of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), which often criticizes and protests the Israeli government’s policies. She says she is aware of a concerning rise in antisemitic rhetoric and action in the past few years but has also seen a disturbing trend for protest and criticism of Israel to be conflated with antisemitism or labelled as intimidation or hate speech, whether fairly or not.
Smith finds aspects of the language in Bill C-9 unclear, like the components that deal with intimidation—and who makes the call about whether a protest is intended to intimidate. It’s easy to say that one feels intimidated, she says, but much harder to determine whether someone else is at fault for that feeling.
“When people see somebody wearing a keffiyeh”—a traditional scarf often worn by protesters at Palestine solidarity rallies—“and claim that it makes them feel afraid, is that fair? Is it fair to tell people they can’t wear a scarf that represents their cultural heritage because an outsider associates it with something scary?”
As a Jewish person herself, Smith says, it’s harder to label her or an organization like IJV antisemitic, but she adds that they do get called traitors and self-hating Jews. These internal differences are ignored by a public discourse that treats Jewish groups as a monolith, she says.
One stark example of that division was an event at the Pride of Israel Synagogue in 2024 when Smith and other members of the Jewish community arrived to a discussion of antisemitism wearing T-shirts that read, “Jews say no to genocide.” They were denied access to the synagogue, she says, with some members being dragged away by police.
Smith says if Bill C-9 becomes law, a similar incident might have been prosecuted as intimidating behaviour near a place used by an identifiable group.
“First they make everybody believe that those rallies are actually hateful, and then they ask to criminalize hateful [protests],” she says.
Though arrests made at protests often don’t result in convictions or even go to trial, getting arrested on hate crime charges and having that publicly known is a punishment in itself, Smith says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re convicted or not. Google your name and you’re now associated with a hate crime charge.”
Khaled Alqazzaz is the executive director of the Canadian Muslim Political Affairs Council (CMPAC), which advocates against Islamophobia and for civil rights. He and his organization echo Smith’s concerns about the clarity of the legislation’s new offences.
One such offence criminalizes the display of symbols “principally used by, or principally associated with” any entity that the Canadian government declares to have engaged in or facilitated terrorist activity. A joint statement by CMPAC and seven other civil and religious rights organizations says this offence leaves a concerning amount of discretion in law enforcement’s hands.
Some terrorist organizations use Islamic scripture in their symbols, Alqazzaz says, raising concerns that the cultural nuance of another Muslim displaying the same scripture—usually written in Arabic—might be lost on police. Muslims in Canada have been subject to discriminatory scrutiny and treated as threats to public safety, he says. “We really feel that our community feels the brunt of these kinds of legislation first.”
Such aspects of the bill threaten to criminalize otherwise peaceful and legitimate protests, risking a chilling effect on public discourse, he adds. The position of CMPAC, which Alqazzaz emphasizes spends much of its time fighting against hate, is that Canada has sufficient legislation in place already to address its problems with hate crimes, he says.
He believes it would be more effective to invest in on-the-ground education, awareness initiatives and bridge-building between different communities than to add more law enforcement tools.
“Hate should be combatted before we reach a point where people are committing crimes,” Alqazzaz says. “A lot of the tension that is out there is because people don’t know each other, don’t speak to each other, don’t address each others’ concerns.”
Many of the conflicts between groups in Canada stem from foreign policy issues rooted thousands of kilometres away, he adds. But there’s no need for the Canadian conversation to carry the same level of tension, he says.
Alqazzaz points out that much of the debate around the bill has specifically foregrounded the concerns of groups such as CIJA, which have been highly critical of protests against the Israeli government’s conduct during the war in Gaza. He notes that one key parliamentary supporter of C-9, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, has frequently named CIJA and aligned organizations as key groups whose submissions on antisemitism and policy preferences informed the bill.
As a result, Alqazzaz and Smith both say they are concerned that C-9 will be used to silence legitimate protests of Israel’s government and its actions, unless legislators make changes to incorporate the perspectives of groups with contrasting views.
The joint statement that CMPAC supports calls on the Senate to undertake broader public consultation, which Alqazzaz says should include a wider range of Muslim and Jewish voices, and to vote against passing the bill. Alqazzaz says he has met with Senator Kristopher Wells, who said he and other senators intended to seek that broader consultation. Alqazzaz says CMPAC will continue to exchange information and work with the Senate.
Response from the Liberal Party of Canada
Responding to the concerns of C-9’s critics as conveyed by the Anglican Journal, McLeod says the bill has been carefully calibrated to target criminal conduct while protecting charter rights and freedoms. The offence regarding intimidation to prevent access to a place used by an identifiable group, for example, is modelled after the existing offence of intimidation, he says, requiring that the accused wilfully intended to provoke fear.
“Importantly, peaceful assembly and expressive activity do not involve that kind of intent,” McLeod says. “In assessing whether the accused intended to provoke a state of fear, police, prosecutors and the courts will need to look at the evidence on its whole and its respective context.”
He also says that only symbols strictly fitting the bill’s criteria and publicly displayed for the intentional propagation of hate would be covered by the offence covering hate propaganda. The federal government will work with provinces to ensure C-9 is enforced appropriately, he says.
McLeod says the Ministry of Justice held roundtable discussions with religious groups in January 2026 to better understand their concerns about removing the religious exemption and to reiterate the government’s commitment to ensuring religious expression is protected. He did not specify any results from the discussions.
“Since its introduction on September 19, 2025, Bill C-9 has generated diverse views and robust debate,” McLeod says via email. “The Government of Canada continues to welcome feedback on the Bill during the Parliamentary process to ensure that it achieves its objectives.”
The Anglican Journal reached out to CIJA and B’nai Brith Canada for comment. They did not respond before this article went to print.
