Minister of Justice [5], Sean Fraser, introduced [3] Bill C-9 [6.1], titled “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places)” [6.2], or the “Combatting Hate Act” [6.3], which, among other things [6], aims [7] to criminalize [6.4.3] the public display of symbols “principally used by, or principally associated with, a listed entity” [6.4.1], and the Nazi swastika [6.4.2].
Here is the text of the bill [6], and here is a video of the announcement [4].
References
- Type: Webpage. Title: “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places)”. Publisher: “Parliament of Canada”. Published: 2025-09-19. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:23Z. URI: https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/45-1/C-9.
- Type: Text. Location (XPath):
/html/body/main/div/section[1]/header/div/div[2]/div[2]/div[2]/div[2]/a
- Type: Misc. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:58Z.
- Type: Text. Location (XPath):
- Type: Document (File (Filetype: PDF)). Title: “WHAT’S IN A BILL?”. Publisher: “Senate of Canada”. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:33Z. URI: https://sencanada.ca/media/367004/com_wksht_sengage_whats-in-a-bill_e.pdf.
- Type: Text. Location: §“The Bill’s Progress”>§“WHO SPONSORED THE BILL?”.
The senator or MP who introduces a bill in their respective chamber is called the sponsor.
- Type: Text. Location: §“The Bill’s Progress”>§“WHO SPONSORED THE BILL?”.
- Type: Meta. Accessed: 2025-09-20T02:52Z.
- Bill C-9 was sponsored (ie introduced [2]) by the Minister of Justice [1.1][4].
- Type: Video. Title: “Liberals’ new hate crime bill targets ‘symbols’ of hate”. Author: “The Canadian Press”. Publisher: “YouTube”. Published: 2025-09-19T23:07:22Z. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:32Z. URI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if78GGwNyWQ.
- Type: Webpage. Title: “The Honourable Sean Fraser”. Publisher: “Parliament of Canada”. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:37Z. URI: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/sean-fraser(88316).
- Type: Text. Location: §“Offices and Roles as a Parliamentarian”.
[…]Minister of Justice[…]
- Type: Text. Location: §“Offices and Roles as a Parliamentarian”.
- Type: Document. Title: [“Bill C-9”, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places)”, “Combatting Hate Act”]. Publisher: “Parliament of Canada”. Published: 2025-09-19. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:39Z. URI: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-9/first-reading.
- Type: Text. Location: Title.
BILL C-9
- Type: Text. Location: Title.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places)
- Type: Text. Location: §“Short Title”.
[…]This Act may be cited as the Combatting Hate Act.
- Type: Text. Location: §“Criminal Code”.>§4.
- Type: Text.
[…] Everyone commits an offence who wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group by displaying, in any public place, […] a symbol that is principally used by, or principally associated with, a listed entity […]
- Type: Text.
[…] Everyone commits an offence who wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group by displaying, in any public place, […] the Nazi swastika […].
- Type: Text. Location: §“Punishment”.
- Type: Text.
- Type: Text. Location: Title.
- Type: Meta. Accessed: 2025-09-20T01:56Z.
- “Aims” is used as the bill has yet to be passed — it has only completed its first reading [1.2[8]].
- Type: Article. Title: “Legislative Process”. Publisher: “Parliament of Canada”. Accessed: 2025-09-20T02:02Z. URI: https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/our-procedure/LegislativeProcess/c_g_legislativeprocess-e.html.
- Type: Text. Location: §“Stages in the Legislative Process”.
Definition of listed entity
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-83.01.html
List of entities (laws about) §83.05
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-10.html#docCont
The actual list of listed entities
https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2024/2024-07-03/html/si-tr29-eng.html
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) (also known among other names as O’zbekiston Islomiy Harakati, Harakat ul-Islamiyyah, Islamic Movement of Turkestan, Islamic Party of Turkestan (IPT) and IMU-IPT)
IMU is fighting for Uyghur Muslims. They fought in Syria. In Syria, they are “terrorists”, in China, they are “freedom fighters”. Watch this entry closely.
It would be a boon for transparency if the government had to state why organizations are being listed. I’m not expecting list of evidence however an explanation would be good.
Too many would be “because my lobbyists said so.”
Wow, that’s crazy. I was telling people that Substack banning Nazis was a bad idea, because in any free thinking society the reaction when you tell someone you’re banning “hate speech” should be “fuck you people can speak even if it’s hateful according to the government.”
Yes I know Substack is not the government and yes I know the first amendment doesn’t apply in Canada. My point is that “hate speech” is allowed, full stop. If you don’t think so, then eventually some kind of speech you care about will be curtailed, because someone decided it was hate speech. You can’t have no Nazi speech and yes Palestine speech, you can (in the long run) only have yes both or no both, and unless you care more about protecting the Nazi part than the people who are going to be making the rules care about banning the Palestine part, you will have no Palestine part.
(In case it wasn’t obvious, because of course the Palestine Liberation Front and some similar entities are on the list.)
I realize I am in the minority in this. That’s what up in my book though.
You can’t have no Nazi speech and yes Palestine speech, you can (in the long run) only have yes both or no both, and unless you care more about protecting the Nazi part than the people who are going to be making the rules care about banning the Palestine part, you will have no Palestine part.
You make a good argument for governments and similar entities not banning hate speech, but none of this applies to Substack or any other private platform. To follow your example, you only need to go somewhere not interested in (or not willing to go through the effort of) banning pro-Palestinian speech. It’s not like Nazis will reciprocate if you allow them on your platform (and even if they did, nobody that’s not a Nazi would want to hang out on Nazi platforms).
Fair point. Human endeavors operate a lot by habits and mental models though. People generally will push back harder against government censorship when it happens if they’ve already got it firmly in mind that “hate speech” is a bullshit category that needs not to exist. Once you start to say that hate speech shouldn’t be allowed for example on Substack (which I think is the majority view now), it becomes a lot easier for the government to ban it (which I think is precisely what’s happening, both in the US and in Canada apparently).