Most people have heard the term “hate speech” sometime in their lives. And while certain activists may push that its meaning is clear and obvious, “hate speech” is anything but. In fact, not only is the term largely subjective and not clearly defined, but no international human rights treaty even uses the term “hate speech.”
In the U.S., what is often labelled as “hate speech” is, for the most part, constitutionally protected. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that hateful speech remains protected unless it crosses specific lines—such as true threats or incitement. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Snyder v. Phelps (2011),
“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
Such a principle isn’t an oversight of the First Amendment, but rather a core feature of it.
In Canada, where no First Amendment exists, the legal landscape is far less clear. While “hate speech” is nowhere to be found in its Criminal Code, the country instead uses far broader phrases like “hate propaganda” or just “hatred” to encompass speech. And now, Canada is introducing a new bill to expand these rules and remove what little protections exist for religious Canadians.
What is Canada’s “Combatting Hate Act”?
At first glance, Canada’s so-called “Combatting Hate Act” (formally known as Bill C-9) sounds unassailable to some. Who, after all, would defend hate? But that moral framing is precisely what makes the legislation so dangerous.
Citing a rise in “antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia,” Canada’s Bill C-9 would:
- “Make it a crime to intimidate and obstruct people from accessing places of worship, as well as schools, community centres and other places primarily used by an identifiable group;
- “Make hate motivated crime a specific offence, ensuring such conduct is more clearly denounced and that offenders are held accountable; and
- “Make it a crime to wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group by displaying certain terrorism or hate symbols in public.”
While these things might sound good on the surface, the language of protection and tolerance conceals—and ultimately invites—sweeping speech restrictions. Behind its noble-sounding purpose lies a fundamental shift in how the law treats both belief and due process, stripping away protections that have shielded people of faith from prosecution simply for expressing sincerely held religious convictions.
Bill C-9 doesn’t just expand Canada’s hate-speech regime—it fundamentally alters how speech is policed.
How Canada’s attempt to target “hate speech” erodes religious freedoms
Alarmingly, a proposed amendment to Bill C-9 seeks to remove the “good faith” religious defense that has protected sincere expressions of belief from criminal prosecution, which is found in section 319(3)(b) of the Canadian Criminal Code.
That statute states that “No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text…”
As The National Post first reported, this vital protection is now poised to be removed from the Canadian Criminal Code. And Liberal Canadian lawmakers made clear just how much they don’t think these protections should exist.
“Nobody should be committing a hate crime in the name of religion,” Marc Miller, Canadian Heritage and Official Languages Minister, said. Miller further claimed “people of faith and even religious leaders” would probably agree with him. But that’s not the case.
“Bill C-9 was already dangerous as far as freedom of expression and civil liberties are concerned, but if the proposed amendment is adopted, it will amount to an all-out assault on religious freedom as well,” Conservative Member of Parliament Andrew Lawton told The Daily Signal. “The state will be able to jail people who express religious beliefs or quote religious texts the government finds offensive for up to two years.”
The removal of the good-faith religious defense is a direct threat to freedom of conscience. For decades, this provision served as a narrow but critical recognition that religious beliefs and expression—even when unpopular or countercultural—are protected. It acknowledged that quoting Scripture, teaching doctrine, or expressing moral disagreement could be done sincerely and without malice. The amendment discards that distinction entirely.
What replaces that safeguard is not clarity, but uncertainty. Without a good-faith defense, intent becomes irrelevant, and meaning is filtered through subjective perception. Clergy, faith leaders, and other believers are left to guess whether a sermon, a classroom discussion, or a statement of belief might be interpreted as “hatred” by a hostile audience.
That ambiguity is not accidental—it is a feature of laws that chill speech without formally banning it.
Canada’s “hate speech” laws also target the judicial process
Worryingly, Bill C-9 additionally eliminates the requirement that Canada’s attorney general approve hate-propaganda charges before they proceed. Taken with the removal of the good-faith defense, these changes dramatically lower the threshold for prosecution while stripping away safeguards that once prevented ideological enforcement of the law.
This amendment is proffered under the guise of “streamlining” the legal process. The Canadian government clearly states that this “law would streamline the process to lay hate propaganda charges by removing the requirement to obtain the Attorney General’s consent. By removing this step, law enforcement would be able to act quickly to counter hate speech and protect communities.”
This consent requirement helped to prevent politically motivated, frivolous, or ideologically driven cases from advancing. “Hate speech” laws are inherently subjective, and requiring high-level oversight acts as a brake on overzealous enforcement. Removing it invites a flood of complaints and prosecutions driven less by justice than by ideologically driven activism.
Once that gatekeeping function disappears, enforcement dangerously shifts downstream—to individual prosecutors, law enforcement, and even complainants eager to weaponize the law. Combined with the loss of the good-faith defense, the result is a system where belief can trigger investigation, accusation becomes punishment, and speech is regulated by whoever shouts “harm” the loudest.
Canada’s “hate speech” laws should concern everyone
Bill C-9 should be understood as a warning, not an isolated Canadian experiment. Sadly, this thinking is already becoming the norm in Europe. And that should concern U.S. citizens as well.
“Canada already fails to protect freedom of speech, and now some Canadians are proposing to give up on the freedom to exercise one’s religion,” ADF senior counsel Philip Sechler told The Daily Signal. “Canada’s descent into government censorship underscores why it’s crucial that the United States fully protect free speech.”
Americans specifically should care. The U.S. is not likely to lose freedom of speech or religion overnight. Thankfully, the First Amendment remains a formidable bulwark upholding those principles. But the pressure to weaken the First Amendment is constant. The government doesn’t need to abolish free speech outright to hollow it out; it only needs to reframe “hate speech” as “harmful” or “violence” and narrow protections incrementally.
Canada’s Bill C-9 shows how quickly “combatting hate” can become a pretext for regulating belief itself—and how easily safeguards fall away once fear leads people to empower the state to impose its view on fundamental matters by labelling dissenting speech as “hate.”
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