The Christian Institute has warned that planned changes to hate speech laws in Canada could lead to the criminalisation of quoting Scripture.
Proposed changes to the Combating Hate Act remove exemptions that prevent being convicted for making supposedly hateful statements in “good faith” based “on belief in a religious text”.
While allegedly meant to defend Jews from antisemitism, concerns are mounting that the amendments could be used against Christians.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops have also spoken out against the planned changes, telling Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, “The proposed elimination of the ‘good faith’ religious-text defence raises significant concerns.
“This narrowly framed exemption has served for many years as an essential safeguard to ensure that Canadians are not criminally prosecuted for their sincere, truth-seeking expression of beliefs made without animus and grounded in long-standing religious traditions.”
The proposed changes are being put forward by the Minister of Justice Sean Fraser, and the Bloc Québécois party.
Paul Carter, writing for The Gospel Coalition Canada, warned that the removal of the “good faith” defence, while headline grabbing, may not be the main threat posed by the bill.
“The ‘good faith’ exemption has never been used successfully. The greater danger in Bill C-9 is the proposed plan to eliminate the need for a provincial attorney general to sign off before any charges could be brought involving a purported hate crime," he said.
“This may allow local law enforcement to take action against citizens even where there is no reasonable prospect of conviction. The bill would also allow for complaints from private individuals, which could draw churches and pastors into costly and distracting legal action, however unlikely it would be to result in significant fines or jail time.”
Hate speech laws have become of increasing concern to Christians across the Western world. In one high profile case, Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen has spent the last seven years fighting charges against her relating to a tweet in which she quoted the book of Romans on the issue of homosexuality.
