Criminalizing Peaceful Protest?

Bill C-9 could make the 'denial of fundamental freedoms in Canada much easier,' says civil liberties watch dog

Last week, the governing Liberals introduced Bill C-9: Combatting Hate Act, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places) in Parliament.

The government says the new legislation would “better protect access to places of worship, as well as schools, community centres and other specified places, and to more clearly address and denounce hate-motivated crime.”

Screen grab of Justice Minister Sean Fraser speaking to reporters at a press conference after tabling Hate-Crime Bill C-9 in House of Commons on September 19, 2025. (Source: CPAC)

But according to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the use of criminal law may not always be appropriate when tackling social problems.

Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, Director of the CCLA’s Fundamental Freedoms program says that as drafted, Bill C-9 “risks criminalizing some forms of protected speech and peaceful protest — two cornerstones of a free democratic society — around tens of thousands of community gathering spaces in Canada.”

According to the CCLA, physical safety and the right to worship are already protected by existing law, and mischief, intimidation, threats and harassment are already seen as criminal offences, and can be prosecuted as such.

But the proposed legislation makes “willful intimidation” an offence, which the CCLA argues is “far broader than existing prohibitions and could criminalize peaceful protests simply because they are seen as disruptive.”

“The penalty of up to ten years in prison is very severe and could push activists into silence,” says Bussières McNicoll.

“The new offence criminalizing the wilful promotion of hatred through the public display of certain terrorism or hate symbols increases the risk of stigmatizing and criminalizing peaceful protesters, in part because listing organizations on Canada’s terror list is a highly political decision”, said Bussières McNicoll.

In the press conference that followed the tabling of the bill, Justice Minister Sean Fraser was asked by a reporter if he was at all concerned about the “precedent” he was setting by criminalizing the use of so-called terror symbols, since the designation of terror groups can be highly politicized.

“Are you not allowing future governments to just declare any group a terrorist group, and therefore you’re not allowed to fly their symbols?”

Fraser replied: “This touches on a larger issue and that issue is faith in our institutions. My own view when it comes to the process the government of Canada has in place— across previous Conservative and Liberal governments—is that we actually have an independent process led by the national security apparatus that has objective criteria that determines whether an individual group will be listed.”

Fraser’s assurance of independence—which he says set Canada apart from other countries—is only partly true.

I’ve shown in previous writing including in this 3-part series titled, “Sanctioning Dissent,” that the Canadian government under Justin Trudeau not only played a role in determining who should be added to the “currently listed entities,” but it broadened the definition of terrorism or national security threat to include economic disruption, and cyber-security threats—"informational activity” that can cause “minor or major harm” such as misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM).

Furthermore, during the Public Order Emergencies Commission, the prime minister’s security and intelligence advisor, Jody Thomas argued that the definition of “threat to security of Canada” under the Emergencies Act should change to reflect the times. As I previously reported here, Thomas told the commission that she was aware of CSIS’s conclusion that the Ottawa protests did not meet the threshold necessary to declare a national emergency but she felt the intelligence agency’s mandate needed to be “modernized.” Thomas told the commission that the definition of a threat to “national security” should be made in a policy and not in legislation, and that it should be crafted by Public Safety Canada.

Indeed, Public Safety Canada does have a much broader interpretation of what constitutes a national security threat, and it includes “economic-based threats” to national security, and the “intentional disruption” of “globalized supply chains.”

This is all just to say that Sean Fraser was not being fully transparent at the press briefing. According to Public Safety Canada, the recommendation to list an entity as being “terrorist” in Canada is based on a security or intelligence report, but this report can be prepared by either the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) or Public Safety Canada, or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Public Safety Canada is a government department, and if it has the power to prepare a security report and list an entity, then there is no doubt the process can, and will be, a politicized one.