As the federal government’s new anti-hate bill is now before the Senate and about to become law, faith leaders are warning that the elimination of religious defence from the Criminal Code could lead to “actual persecution under a cloak of supposed legality.”
“We could be investigated, arrested, and jailed for merely expressing the tenets of our faith and quoting the word of God,” Christian pastor David Cooke told The Epoch Times.
He noted that the “most alarming” provision in Bill C-9, also known as the Combatting Hate Act, is the elimination of the religious defence in section 319 of the Criminal Code, which protects Canadians from charges of wilfully promoting hatred when expressing religious beliefs in good faith….