Justice Minister Sean Fraser tabled new legislation Friday introducing four Criminal Code offences, including one that would make it a crime to intentionally promote hatred against identifiable groups in public using certain hate- or terrorism-related symbols.
If passed, the Combatting Hate Act would target symbols used during the Holocaust, such as the swastika and SS lightning bolts, or associated with the government’s list of terrorist entities, which includes the Proud Boys, Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It would, for instance, make it a crime to promote hatred against Jewish people using Hamas flags or swastika signs outside a synagogue.
It would also make hate-motivated crime a specific offence and crack down on people willfully intimidating and obstructing places of worship and other sensitive institutions.
Multiple Canadian municipalities are currently grappling with the issue through the use of “bubble” bylaws that allow for buffer zones around certain locations, and Fraser stressed that the authority for regulating spaces “in general terms” falls with local governments.
Fraser said the legislation adds two further measures that would make it easier to prosecute individuals found to have wilfully promoted hatred: adding a definition of “hatred” to the Criminal Code; and removing a requirement for the consent of the provincial attorney general to prosecute a hate crime.
“This behaviour is not just morally culpable, the impact has reverberations through the entirety of the community. And, I would argue, tears at the seams of the social fabric of the nation,” Fraser said in a Friday afternoon news conference.
The government has promised to address a recent rise in hate incidents in Canada, including acts of antisemitism and Islamophobia.
The total number of police-reported hate crimes across the country increased to 4,882 incidents last year, up from 2,646 in 2020, according to Statistics Canada.
The Conservatives, who have hammered the Liberals on crime early in the fall parliamentary sitting, have criticized the government for taking too long to act on the issue.
Jewish and Muslim groups say a federal response to acts of violence, vandalism and hate is long overdue.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has raised concerns with the government’s use of the Criminal Code, referring to it as a “blunt instrument” that may not be best suited to addressing the goal of protecting identifiable groups.
“We are concerned that the government might move away from a strict public safety agenda, and instead use the bill to criminalize unpopular, dissenting and offensive speech,” said CCLA lawyer Anaïs Bussières McNicoll.
Fraser said the bill includes specific language exempting peaceful protest from persecution and would only apply to conduct where the “motivation” is to intimidate or prevent someone from practising their faith.
“We have included specific provisions to exempt peaceful protest,” Fraser said.
