Tag: canada

Bill C-9 against quoting Bible verses could turn Canada into police state: pro-freedom group

A Canadian constitutional freedom group warned that the imminent passage of a bill that threatens religious expression when it comes to quoting from certain Bible passages after it becomes law will turn Canada into a “police” state.

The Democracy Fund (TDF) alerted Canadians that Bill C-9, or the “Combatting Hate Act,” will expand the “legal definition of hatred and removes key free expression safeguards in the Criminal Code.”

“TDF will continue to oppose the Bill and all attempts by the government to censor Canadians,” the group warned.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, all debate on Bill C-9, a bill that could open the door to the criminalization of religious expression and belief when quoting certain parts of the Bible, was stopped last week.

Bill C-9 passed the committee phase last Friday and will soon pass third reading in the House of Commons.

TDF was invited to testify before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding Bill C-9. In a brief it filed, the TDF outlined its reasons for opposing the bill.

“Ironically, the government has moved to end debate on issues of public concern for a bill that would end debate on issues of public concern. The Bill empowers prosecutors to bring charges based on the merest suggestion that the impugned conduct is motivated by an ill-defined concept of ‘hatred,’ massively increasing potential jail time and legal jeopardy for defendants,” the TDF noted.

“In our experience, these types of offences tend to be laid against marginalized and working-class people rather than powerful elites and political insiders. However, all Canadians can expect greater digital censorship and increased online police surveillance if the Bill becomes law. We only have to look at the UK example, where police make approximately 12,000 annual arrests for online ‘hate incidents’ under similar legislation.’”

Bill C-9 is a Liberal Party censorship bill that has attracted massive backlash from religious Canadians of many faiths. Once it becomes law, certain protections for sincerely held religious beliefs, particularly regarding LGBT issues, could be removed.

In comments to LifeSiteNews, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) campaigns manager David Cooke warned that Bill C-9 would result in the “prosecution of Canadian Christians” when quoting the Bible on issues of life and family.

The federal government, under Prime Minister Mark Carney, recently passed an amendment to the bill removing a religious exemption, prompting condemnation from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who issued an open letter calling for its removal.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Bill C-9 has been blasted by constitutional experts as allowing empowered police and the government to go after those it deems to have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way. The bill was introduced by Justice Minister Sean Fraser last year.

CLC had earlier warned that Bill C-9 would open the door to the “criminalization of religious expression and belief” when quoting the Bible

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‘Hateful’: Lawmakers push dark scheme to make certain Bible verses illegal

Lawmakers are pushing an agenda right now that would threaten free speech and make some of the verses of the Bible illegal to recite, under the guise of “Combatting Hate.”

The work on Bill C-9 in the Canadian parliament has been outlined in a report from the RAIR Foundation, which recorded speeches from a recent rally against the misnamed plan.

While the bill does contain some things that could be helpful in a free society, such as actions targeting displays of terror symbols, limits on “intimidating people” trying to access religious sites, and restrictions on intentionally obstructing someone from entering a place of worship, there remains a problem.

That’s the agenda to strip out a decades-old religious rights protection provision in Canada’s Criminal Code. Under that precedent, there is a “good faith” religious defense, meaning that those expressing sincere religious expression are protected from prosecution for “hate” even if those views offend “prevailing cultural norms,” the report said.

The removal “collapses a critical constitutional firewall and opens the door to politically motivated prosecutions of pastors, rabbis, religious leaders, teachers, parents, and ordinary citizens who refuse to affirm state-mandated gender ideology or other government approved narratives,” the report said.

Transgenderism has become a hot button topic for Democrats and other leftists in the United States since Joe Biden spent his four years in the Oval Office pushing the agenda that fails on basic science. Being male or female is embedded in the human body down to the DNA level and the administration of chemicals or access to body mutilating surgeries does not make that change.

Hundreds rallied, in an event organized by ARPA Canada, against the agenda.

“Speakers at the rally made the stakes unmistakably clear: this debate is not about ‘balancing rights.’ It is about whether Canada will remain a country where citizens can speak biological and theological truths without fear of state punishment—or descend into a regime where government authorities determine which scriptures, facts, and moral convictions are deemed ‘hateful,'” the report said.

The damage already has started, the report said, with a recent case involving former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld who was ordered to pay $750,000 for publicly affirming that there are only two biological sexes.

The bill has been debated by the House of Commons and sent to committee. From there it will return for a final vote before going to the Senate.

The foundation report warned there would develop a “state-narrative enforcement—a system where dissent from ideological orthodoxy is punished while genuine threats or acts of hatred are ignored.”

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Christian Teacher Fined $750,000 for Refusing to Agree That There Are More Than 2 Genders – Persecution in the First World

At this point, Canada hasn’t just done away with common sense. It’s dumped gasoline on it and set it ablaze for the world to see.

For example, former Chilliwack, British Columbia, school trustee Barry Neufeld must pay $750,000 for violating the Human Rights Code.

What exactly did Neufeld do for such a massive fine?

A Tribunal concluded he “invoked negative and insidious stereotypes about LGBTQ people, especially trans people, which denied their inherent dignity and, in some cases, reflected the hallmarks of hate against them as a group,” as the CBC reported Feb. 20.

“For five years, he publicly denigrated LGBTQ people and teachers and associated them with the worst forms of child abuse,” the Tribunal said further.

Neufeld had a complaint brought against him by Chilliwack Teachers’ Association and B.C. Teachers’ Federation after making Facebook posts, a speech, remarks at school board meetings, and comments to the media that the sentencing body felt would make those groups the target of hate.

One unnamed teacher said his comments had family members urging this person to reconsider career paths. The Tribunal said Neufeld “poisoned” the workplace.

He is a Christian, and his comments were relayed by The Christian Post. They aligned with historic Christian teaching on sexuality to which millions still subscribe today.

“It dawned on me that for a Christian, there are two approaches to take. The pastoral approach is one of compassion and empathy while firmly refusing to buy into their client’s delusional thinking. As one pastor said to a transgender person: ‘it is my responsibility to love you: but it is God’s job the [sic] change you’. However, while helping me grasp a better understanding of gender Dysphoria, the [issue] is so complex that it is hard to apply these insights in a debate at the political level, especially on Facebook,” Neufeld wrote.

He said his mission is to try “speaking out to the lawmakers in Victoria and trying to motivate lukewarm Christians who are sitting idly by as all of Society ‘Slouches towards Gomorrah.’”

Further, he spoke about the political ramifications of gender ideology, noting that it has “demonized people of faith who believe that God created humans male and female: In the Image of God.”

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Canada’s Bill C-22 Mandates Mass Metadata Surveillance of Canadians

Canada’s Liberal government has introduced Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, 2026, a surveillance bill that compels electronic service providers to store Canadians’ metadata for a year and hands police and intelligence agencies new tools to access it.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill follows a failed first attempt, Bill C-2, which collapsed under the weight of near-universal criticism from opposition parties, rights groups, and the tech industry.

This is a mandatory data retention regime that forces companies to hold location data, device information, and other sensitive metadata on every Canadian, not just those suspected of crimes, ready for law enforcement retrieval via warrant. The logic is familiar: build the haystack first, search it later.

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They censored debate on the censorship bill

On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice is joined by our old friend Andrew Lawton, former independent journalist and current Member of Parliament for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. Andrew sits on the Justice Committee, where they just shut down debate on Bill C-9, the Liberal government’s latest censorship bill.

They are literally censoring debate on a censorship bill! You can’t make this stuff up.

Andrew walks us through his attempts to amend the bill that removes religious exemptions for sincerely held views, which were shut down and rejected by the Liberal government. Andrew discusses the committee process and how the Liberals were able to push this through.

Candice and Andrew discuss the various attempts by the Liberal government to censor Canadians and crack down on free speech, which historically aims to silence their critics rather than address real concerns of hate and violence in Canada. On that topic, they discuss the terrifying string of terrorist intimidation currently aimed at Iranian dissidents and Jewish Canadians in Toronto, where Liberal laws have done nothing to protect these communities.

Andrew notes that C-9 would not have stopped these attacks, and notes the danger of having an estimated 700 members of Iran’s secret police force, the IRGC, active in Canada.

Finally, Candice and Andrew discuss the CBC, in light of the recent testimony from former host Travis Dhanraj. Andrew reconfirms the Conservative Party commitment to defund the state broadcaster.

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TDF sounds alarm over imminent passage of Bill C-9

Proposed “Combatting Hate Act” expands the legal definition of hatred and removes key free expression safeguards in the Criminal Code.

The House of Commons has closed debate on Bill C-9, the “Combatting Hate Act.” The Bill expands and codifies the definition of “hatred,” departing from the Supreme Court’s strict requirement of “vilification and detestation.” It removes the longstanding good faith religious speech protections for sincerely held religious opinions and expressions based on religious texts in the Criminal Code and eliminates the requirement for Attorney General consent before charging individuals with certain hate crime offences. The Bill also creates a new offence that applies when an underlying offence—even a non-criminal one—is motivated by hatred, potentially doubling the penalties for the underlying act.

The Bill has faced opposition from civil liberties groups and religious organizations. TDF was invited to testify before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and filed a brief outlining its serious misgivings. 

“Ironically, the government has moved to end debate on issues of public concern for a bill that would end debate on issues of public concern. The Bill empowers prosecutors to bring charges based on the merest suggestion that the impugned conduct is motivated by an ill-defined concept of “hatred,” massively increasing potential jail time and legal jeopardy for defendants. In our experience, these types of offences tend to be laid against marginalized and working-class people rather than powerful elites and political insiders. However, all Canadians can expect greater digital censorship and increased online police surveillance if the Bill becomes law. We only have to look at the UK example, where police make approximately 12,000 annual arrests for online “hate incidents” under similar legislation.” 

The Bill now moves to a vote at the justice committee. After that, it will proceed to the report stage and third reading before advancing to the Senate.

TDF will continue to oppose the Bill and all attempts by the government to censor Canadians.

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Canada set to surpass 100,000 assisted suicides — more than the country’s WWII death toll

Canada is set to pass a grim milestone in its medically-assisted suicide program with a total of 100,000 citizens projected to be euthanized by the government before its 10th anniversary on June 17.

The Great White North’s MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) program will soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold, according to The National Post.

Ottawa’s most recent data shows 15,767 Canadians were euthanized by the state in 2024 — 5.1% of all deaths in the nation that year.

About 45 Canucks per day are being euthanized, according to the report.

In 2021, a total of 9,842 Canadian people were euthanized.

Only 2,000 shelter dogs in Canada were put down that year, according to The Vet Desk.

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Arbitration victory for workers denied COVID-19 vaccine exemptions

During COVID-19 lockdowns many Canadian employers implemented vaccine mandates, forcing employees to choose between job loss or an unwanted COVID-19 vaccination. TDF lawyers met with many union members confronted with this dilemma, and explained their legal rights under human rights legislation and collective agreements

Many religious union members who opposed vaccination due to their sincerely held religious beliefs, filed religious exemption requests with their employers. However, these religious exemptions were often denied arbitrarily and superficially. Sometimes employers requested written proof of relevant spiritual doctrine from a religious objector. Sometimes employers summarily rejected claims of sincere religious belief.

In 2022, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), on behalf of 7 unionized Air Canada pilots, brought grievances against Air Canada for improperly rejecting their vaccine exemption requests. After their religious exemption requests were denied, the pilots were placed on unpaid leaves of absence. The union members alleged workplace religious discrimination under their Collective Agreement and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

A labour arbitrator has now ruled in favour of the pilots, as reported in Air Canada v. Air Line Pilots’ Association 2026 CanLII 16803 (CA LA).

Arbitrator Hayes ruled that denying these religious exemption requests was improper and resulted in workplace discrimination contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Collective Agreement. The arbitrator held that it was not appropriate for Air Canada to direct employees to justify religious exemptions with a “personalized, written, and dated explanation from your religious leader explaining the religious reasons why you are unable to be vaccinated against COVID-19.” Arbitrator Hayes reiterated that the law requires an employer to assess an individual’s subjective religious beliefs rather than making an overly objective determination of whether those beliefs objectively conform to the mandates of the religion.

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Liberal Carney government moves to end debate on bill that could criminalize quoting Bible

Conservative MP Andrew Lawton warned that the Liberal government intends force an end to debate on Bill C-9, the censorship bill that has attracted a massive backlash from religious Canadians because it would remove protections for sincerely held religious beliefs, particularly regarding LGBT issues.

“The Liberals have put a motion on notice in the House of Commons to cut off debate on Bill C-9 and force all amendments to a vote with no discussion,” Lawton wrote on X on March 5. “They are censoring debate on their censorship bill.”

The motion, tabled as “Government Business,” instructs the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to “immediately resume clause-by-clause consideration of the bill whereupon all remaining amendments submitted to the committee shall be deemed moved” and that “the Chair shall put the question, forthwith and successfully, without further debate on all remaining clauses and proposed amendments and subamendments.”

This means that votes will be called on all amendments, and the meeting cannot end until Bill C-9 has passed review. A report will then be sent to Parliament “no later than two sitting days after the completion of clause-by-clause consideration,” and the bill would then go through both the report stage and third reading in a single sitting day each.

“WOW,” Conservative MP Garnett Genuis responded to the news on X. “Carney is now trying to ram through C-9 ‘without further debate on all remaining clauses’ at committee. This is deeply disturbing. Call your MP now and tell them to oppose this attack on freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”

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Canada now offering SAME-DAY assisted suicide, with one elderly woman who changed her mind killed anyway

Canada performed thousands of same-day assisted suicides, as it was revealed one elderly woman was killed despite withdrawing her request the day before. 

The medical assistance in dying (MAiD) program was approved in 2016 and has since been expanded to include requests from patients whose deaths are ‘not reasonably foreseeable,’ and will soon include those with mental illness. 

More than 200 people in Ontario alone chose to die within 24 hours of their approval in 2023, a 2024 Ontario report found, The Free Press first reported. 

Of the 219 deaths, 30 percent of them chose a same-day procedure. 

In 2024 alone, across all of Canada, 16,500 people participated in the MAiD program, including a woman only identified as Mrs B. 

Mrs B had undergone a coronary artery bypass graft, which led to several medical complications afterward, including additional surgeries, forcing her to opt for a palliative care approach to treatment, the Ontario report said. 

The woman, who was in her 80s, later expressed to her family that she desired an assisted suicide. On her behalf, her spouse requested MAiD, and the following day, a MAiD practitioner assessed her eligibility. 

Mrs B told the practitioner that she wanted to withdraw her request after rethinking, citing religious and personal reasons, and that she’d like to continue with hospice care and palliative sedation, the report said. 

However, Mrs B ended up in hospital the next day, only to be released back home, but not before physicians noted her spouse had ‘caregiver burnout.’ A request was made on her behalf to have in-patient hospice care to help the spouse, but she was denied. 

The same day, her spouse contacted MAiD again and requested an urgent assessment. A different practitioner determined the elderly woman was eligible for the program, despite her withdrawing her request the day before. 

The practitioner, however, did not approve a same-day assisted suicide due to the ‘drastic change in perspective’ and the possibility of coercion. 

Despite the original evaluator wanting to speak with Mrs B again, it was denied due to the urgency of the request. A third person was sent to Mrs B’s home, where she was once again approved. 

Hours later, the assisted suicide happened and Mrs B was killed.  

A man, who was only identified as Mr C, made a MAiD request five days after he was admitted to the hospital for cancer. 

His condition rapidly deteriorated and he became delirious. Despite his mental state, a medical provider ‘proceeded to vigorously rouse’ him so he could mouth ‘yes’ when asked about his request, the Ontario report found.  He was then killed. 

Canada got rid of the 10-day reflection period following a request in 2021, leaving eligible patients to only have to prove their condition is ‘intolerable.’ 

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