MONTREAL — In a new and far-reaching attack on democratic freedoms, the Liberal federal government of Mark Carney has introduced in Parliament a so-called Combatting Hate Act. The proposed law makes a crime of any conduct “with the intent to provoke a state of fear in a person in order to impede their access” to a place of worship, school, or cultural and community center. The bill includes creating a new stand-alone crime of hate.
Civil liberties groups have spoken out against the threat this law poses to the rights of free expression and protest. The Canadian Constitution Foundation says it “would allow for up to life in prison for committing an act” the cops and courts claim was motivated by hate.
The government also seeks to make “willfully promoting hatred against any identifiable group by displaying certain symbols in a public place” a crime that would carry a two-year jail term. Criminalized symbols would include images identified with groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Proud Boys, as well as the Nazi swastika and the SS thunderbolt.
The proposed law is justified as a response to the growing number of attacks on Jews in Canada. For that reason it has been supported by a number of Jewish organizations. Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, called the bill “an important step toward making Canada’s Jewish communities safer.”
But no one is made safer by an attack on free speech. That’s why the Canadian Constitution Foundation said the government’s proposed hate crimes legislation would infringe on freedom of expression.
‘Online Harms Act’
The Liberals have also announced that they are considering reintroducing the Online Harms Act, which was introduced in 2024 but never adopted because of a public outcry. Ottawa claims it would protect children from online sexual predators by creating a Digital Safety Commission to police the web. “Don’t be fooled,” Joanna Baron, executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, warned, “most of the bill is aimed at restricting freedom of expression.”
In addition to implementing government censorship over the internet, it would impose prison sentences of up to life in prison for anyone a judge rules committed an offense “motivated by hatred” or who advocates “genocide.”
Israel and its defenders are the main ones being accused of “genocide” today, for taking steps to destroy Hamas, which insists it will organize more pogroms until all the Jews are gone.
Whoever the government of Canada uses the bill to target initially, it will end up being used to go after working people and our unions as we resist growing attacks by the employers and their government as the crisis of the world capitalist system deepens.
These new bills are the Canadian rulers’ latest moves in this direction. Over the past year, the Liberal Party government has used anti-working-class laws to shut down strikes by Air Canada flight attendants, postal and longshore workers, and freight rail workers at Canadian National Railway.
In 2022 when truckers and their supporters organized a three-week-long peaceful protest in Ottawa over COVID mandates, the government invoked the Emergencies Act to send 3,000 heavily armed police to break it up. It filed frame-up charges that are still being pursued against some of the protest leaders.
The Liberal government, then headed by Justin Trudeau, accused the truckers of being fascists, pointing to some who carried swastikas. However, they did so not because they were Nazis but because they were accusing the Trudeau government of acting like fascists. This new law would make that illegal.
Attacks on unions
Several cities in Canada have adopted or are discussing adopting so-called bubble-zone restrictions, forbidding protests close to religious institutions, schools and hospitals. Hospital workers organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees held a Sept. 9 protest against such a regulation in Ottawa where it is being considered by the City Council.
“For hospital workers, holding rallies and protests outside hospitals is critical to raise public awareness about key issues such as working conditions, patient neglect and workplace violence,” Michael Hurley, president of the hospital workers union, said.
“This sets a dangerous precedent for all citizens by violating our Charter-protected right to free expression” under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he said. “Health care workers are already deprived of the right to strike.”
Katy LeRougetel, Communist League candidate for mayor of Montreal, told the Militant, “Defending our democratic freedoms — free speech, the right to protest and for workers to strike — is crucial for today’s and tomorrow’s battles by the working class. The rally organized by the Ottawa hospital workers is an important example to follow. This is central to building a working-class party that can challenge the rule of the wealthy and fight for workers power.
“Moreover,” she added, “It’s total hypocrisy to claim that Ottawa introduced this bill because of its concern with the rise of Jew-hatred in Canada. Ottawa’s condemnation of the Israeli government for waging a defensive war against Hamas and its recognition of a Palestinian state that would be led by Hamas, fan the flames of Jew-hatred and violence.”