A House of Commons committee on Tuesday (Dec. 9) removed “defense of religious beliefs” from a hate crimes bill, a move that Christian groups had warned would be detrimental to legal protections for religious expression by Christians and others.
The House of Commons Justice and Human Rights Standing Committee has approved an amendment to remove “defense of sincerely religious beliefs” from section 319(3) of Canada’s hate speech law, the Criminal Code. The committee was meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, on federal Bill C-9, known as the Anti-Hate Act.
In a blog post on Tuesday (Dec. 9), the EFC said before the amendment: “There is a disturbing debate taking place in the Judiciary Committee about the defense and whether Biblical texts and texts of other religions are hateful. This defense is an important protection for minority religious groups. We are very concerned about the possibility of the defense being removed.”
An EFC blog entitled “Hate Crime Bill Debate” expressed concerns about the bill following concerns raised by Canada’s Jewish community about anti-Semitism.
The committee vote on amendments to the bill was led by Quebec’s secularist federal party, Bloc Québécois, and the Liberal Party. The commission recommended that protections be legally lifted “if the person in good faith expresses or attempts to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on belief in religious scripture.”
The bill has nearly completed post-vote committee review and will be returned to the House and Senate for further discussion.
The EFC noted that the removal of the bona fide religious belief defense was not previously part of Bill C-9. According to the EFC, the Bloc Québécois has advocated for the removal of the defense line and announced on December 1 that it had reached an agreement with the Liberal Party to remove the line. According to media reports, the agreement was made without approval from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Evangelicals predicted that an amended bill that removed legal protections for religious expression was likely to pass.
The EFC actively campaigned against this amendment. This included meeting with members of the Legal Affairs Committee to discuss the importance of the defense and why it should be retained.
“Our communications to committee members and written submissions to the committee explained why this defense is important,” the EFC said. “We have highlighted the risk that EFC member denominations, organizations, higher education institutions, and churches will be stripped of their protection.”
EFC Chairman David Gretzke has written to the Prime Minister’s Office asking for defenses to be maintained.
The “good faith” defense of religious belief is one of four defenses in criminal law to the charge of intentionally promoting hatred. The EFC says this defense will only be used if a court determines that a person has intentionally promoted hatred. The group said it has been used very few times, has never been successful, has never been overused or abused, and has been applied very carefully by courts.
The EFC said this defense does not protect religious people from any criminal activity. As part of the criminal law, this only applies to the deliberate promotion of hatred and the deliberate promotion of anti-Semitism.
“This defense protects ‘good faith’ or honest belief,” the EFC said. “As we have explained, the court has made clear that the defense is not permitted to use religious expression as a Trojan horse to carry an intended message of hate. It is not permitted to use religious texts to conceal an intended message of hate within religious expression.”
EFC’s main concerns with the original version of Bill C-9 were that the definition of hate was watered down from that used in courts and that it would remove the requirement for the attorney general’s consent in hate crime prosecutions.
“Our submission to the Judiciary Committee recommended changes to the bill,” the EFC said. “The EFC brief also strongly recommended that the Commission reject any proposal to remove the defense of good faith religious beliefs.”
