PENTICTON — Tanya Gaw posted an eight-and-a-half-minute doorstep recording Thursday of two Surrey RCMP officers telling her they are investigating her website and her X account under section 319(2) of the Criminal Code, the offence of "wilfully promoting hatred.".Gaw, founder of the Surrey-registered advocacy group Action4Canada, wrote that the officers arrived with no written particulars. She called the visit lawfare aimed at shutting down criticism of Islam.The clip is shot from a covered porch. A male officer in a tan jacket stands in the foreground with a badge on a lanyard. A female officer in a black jacket stands behind him with her own badge also visible. The male officer identifies himself as "Surrey RCMP" with the general investigation unit. "The complaint is about some of the material you're posting," he said, citing section 319(2) of the Criminal Code."We received a complaint. I have to action it. I have to go talk to you," he said..Gaw asked for a letter naming or identifying the posts so she could take it to counsel. She added that hate-speech complaints have become an easy route for people who disagree with her, and that she has watched the same door-knock pattern in Britain and Europe.When she pressed him on the subject matter, he said the posts at issue were "specifically against Muslims and Islam."Gaw denied any hate. Rather than the promotion of hatred, she said the site deals with medical procedures for children, mass migration, and people she described as involved in terrorism. Gaw further said she checks her research. "There's nothing hateful on my website. 100%," she argued with the officer.The officer nonetheless pointed her to section 2(b) of the Charter, to the limits in section 1, and to what he called the "11 hallmarks" of hate. Those hallmarks come from a 2006 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision, Warman v. Kouba. They also appear in an RCMP investigator's guidebook..Section 319(2) makes it an offence to communicate statements, other than in private conversation, that wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group. On indictment the maximum sentence is two years. No proceeding under that subsection can start without the consent of the Attorney General.The Code lists defences. A person is not to be convicted if the statements were true; if they were a good-faith religious argument; if they were relevant to a public-interest discussion and believed on reasonable grounds to be true; or if they were made in good faith to point out, for removal, matters producing hatred.Gaw told the officers Canada is a Christian nation and that a police oath tracks King Charles III's 2023 coronation oath to maintain the Protestant faith. She said Surrey is "the extortion capital," that "Sikhs that are out shooting weapons" form part of the violence she is describing, and if police are at her door they will have to visit "a million other doors.".The officer took an email from Gaw for follow-up, and said he would take the request for written particulars back to his "team." He offered an interview. She said she wanted the complaint on paper first."I'm just here because I've received a complaint," he said. "I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I didn't come talk to you and investigate."Action4Canada incorporated in August 2019 and lists a Fraser Hwy. mailbox in Surrey as its registered office. Gaw has spent years campaigning against SOGI programs in schools, COVID public-health rules, and what the group calls political Islam.The Surrey Police Service became the city's police of jurisdiction on November 29, 2024. RCMP members remain in Surrey on the provincial operations support unit and still hold a share of investigative files..Influencer Mario Zelaya quoted the clip and wrote that the RCMP is "now knocking on doors investigating 'hate speech' against Muslims," that the officer mentioned posts on X, and that "we are becoming the UK.".Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong quoted the officer's line that "there is stuff that you cannot say." She wrote that Canadian police are "now investigating citizens who disagree with the government about Islam and immigration" and called Prime Minister Mark Carney "an enemy of our freedom.".By Thursday afternoon the post had passed 1,000 likes and 27,000 views. Neither the RCMP nor the Surrey Police Service had issued a public statement on the file.
