The House of Commons will now have just two days for the report stage and third reading
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has lambasted the federal government’s acceleration of the Bill C-9 (Combatting Hate Act) study being conducted by the House of Commons’ justice committee.
The House of Commons now has a maximum of two days to run the bill through the report stage and the third reading. Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program, said in a statement that the bill still had “numerous flaws” and pointed out that over 40 civil society organizations representing various communities had raised “serious concerns” about the legislation in the fall.
The groups suggested that Bill C-9’s “vague language” could lead to the criminalization of peaceful protests and stifle unpopular expression, McNicoll said.
“Instead of meaningfully addressing these concerns, the truncated committee process did very little to improve the bill and actually made the bill worse by removing the Criminal Code’s good-faith religious defense without putting anything adequate in its place,” McNicoll said in her statement. “Criminal law changes that affect freedom of expression deserve careful scrutiny, not procedural power plays. By forcing the committee to wrap up without addressing the concerns raised by dozens of faith-based and civil society organizations, the government is sending a message: getting this legislation passed matters more than getting this legislation right.”
McNicoll added that Bill C-9 “hands the government a blunt instrument that history tells us will be turned against the very people it’s supposed to help” and warned that it did not contribute to building trust with vulnerable communities.
“Punitive laws that criminalize expression don’t stop hatred. They hand governments a tool that, time and again, gets used against Indigenous peoples, racialized communities, protestors, and dissidents,” McNicoll said. “Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism are on the rise. Communities across this country are worried, and they deserve protection.”
McNicoll urged members of parliament to shoot down “any piece of legislation that undermines democratic norms and the civil liberties of people in Canada.”
The federal government had pushed the committee to complete its study of the law on March 11.
