C-373 – An Act to amend the Criminal Code (promotion of hatred or antisemitism) – removes certain defences for hate speech and spreading antisemitism from the Criminal Code.
The defence that’s being removed here is the one that allows you to promote hate as long as you’re expressing an argument or opinion in good faith based on a religious belief. So preaching hatred of a protected group as part of religious teachings will now be considered hate speech.
If this sounds familiar it’s because it is, the Bloc Québécois are also the ones behind C-367 which does the exact same thing. The only difference being that C-373 takes effect 30 days after receiving Royal Assent while C-367 is immediate. I reached out to Alexis to see if I could get some insight on why he’d sponsor a duplicate Bill but haven’t heard back from him. It looks like Alexis is next up to get a Bill on the Order of Precedence, so this was probably done so the Bloc Québécois could make this a priority and get it presented to the House before the next election.
Progress of C-373
C-373 is currently waiting for its Second Reading vote.