Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has tabled a bill to remove the provision in the Criminal Code that allows religion to be used as a defence against hate speech charges.
When tabling Bill C-367 on Nov. 28, Mr. Blanchet said the change to the Criminal Code is needed, given the rise in hate that is particularly targeting the Jewish community.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel and the subsequent retaliation, Montreal has seen a string of attacks by firearms and arson against Jewish institutions, the latest being a Molotov cocktail thrown at the entranceway of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal on Nov. 27.
“We can fear that these acts were encouraged by an exception in the Criminal Code,” Mr. Blanchet said in the House of Commons on Nov. 28.
The text of the bill is very short, as it only seeks to strike two provisions in the Code relating to the “wilful promotion of hatred” and the “wilful promotion of antisemitism.”
The bill would “eliminate as a defence against wilful promotion of hatred or antisemitism the fact that a person, in good faith, expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or…
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