SANDES: Lawton celebrates as Liberals pause 'divisive' Bill C-9 following widespread backlash

Jeff Sandes is a freelance contributor based in the Vancouver area.A Conservative Member of Parliament is celebrating a cautious victory lap this week after a whirlwind 14-day tour across Canada rallying support against the federal government’s Bill C-9, generating enough response to lead it to be paused on Monday.Andrew Lawton, the MP for Elgin-St. Thomas-London South, spoke at more than two dozen round tables and town halls from Deer Lake, Newfoundland to Langley, BC, before wrapping up at Hillside Christian Church in Cloverdale on January 23.Saying he was tasked by Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre to spearhead the effort to push back against Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, Lawton focused primarily on how the bill could affect faith communities and their ability to practice their religions, and encouraged Canadians to let Ottawa know their concerns.The response, he said, was resounding and served as the catalyst to delay its progress.“In December, we tried 19 times to get the Liberals to let us do this, and the 20th time was the charm,” Lawton said in an interview. “They finally allowed the [Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights] to do this at [Monday’s] meeting. And I think it was largely because of the pressure the Liberals have been feeling from Canadians about Bill C-9 over the last few weeks."He went on to note that "every day, I log into my inbox and I’d see e-mails from people expressing concerns with C-9, sending it to members of the Justice Committee, and I look and all of them were from whatever city I had just been in the day before.""We were seeing that people were taking the call to action very seriously," Lawton added. "I really credit Canadians for paying attention and understanding the urgency of this issue."Lawton said Bill C-9 had several flaws, highlighting the redefinition of “hatred” and its new introduction into the Criminal Code as being vague and discretionary, leaving interpretation open to abuse.He also called attention to a Bloc Quebecois amendment to remove the good faith religious defence in Section 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code: “No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2)[...](b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”Lawton argued this opens up texts like the Bible and the Quran to have portions interpreted as hateful, leaving law enforcement and the legal system wide goalposts to charge people with a hate crime for reading and teaching their scriptures.“It’s divisive, it’s toxic, and it will take aim at religious freedom and harm the very communities that the government claims it will protect,” he said.Among the several hundred in attendance at the Cloverdale event was Ed Berger. A university chaplain in the Greater Vancouver area, Berger sees the new, criminal definition of “hatred” as ground zero to target the Christian faith he preaches..“I actually laughed when I read their definition of hate because basically, now the government is going to try and legislate against experiencing certain emotions,” he said. “And to me, this is ridiculous.”Berger predicted that the bill is going to be ideologically driven, and a person who may not align with a moral conscience from God could easily misinterpret religious doctrine because they disagree only with the theological conclusion without understanding the nuance of why their faith teaches it in the first place.“Christians are very good at saying, ‘Hate the sin, love the sinner'," he said. "What if we were accused of a hate crime because we hate certain sins? Does it curtail our freedom to define our own values according to our scriptures? The sinner, we always love, but the sin we hate because sin separates us from God and destroys human lives."“So, are we going to end up fined or in jail, being accused of hate even though in our own understanding we are trying to love people?" Berger asked. "Our attempts to love people is going to be construed as hate?"Reverend Dr. Andrew Bennett, Director of Faith Community Engagement at the Cardus Institute took his concerns a step further, suggesting faith leaders and their followers will force themselves to self-censor, and effectively water down their teaching to avoid being charged under the new legislation.“Removing the religious exemption from Bill C-9 would have a chilling effect on religious speech,” he wrote in a statement to the Western Standard. “Without the exemption, police and other authorities would simply treat all speech identically in the face of bad-faith complaints about it. There are activists in Canada who unjustly and incorrectly label some traditional religious views as ‘hate speech.’ Without the exemption many religious Canadians would justly fear that activists’ complaints could land them in an expensive, multi-year legal battle. This could easily force them to self-censor, unjustly reducing the enjoyment of their constitutionally protected fundamental right to religious freedom.”However, in a statement provided to the Western Standard by Canada's Department of Justice, it said these concerns were addressed in the bill, and people of faith would not face prosecution despite the removal of Section 319(3)(b) from C-9.It said: “As part of its study of Bill C-9, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights adopted a motion to repeal the defence in paragraphs 319(3)(b) and 319(3.1)(b) of the Criminal Code, often referred to as the good faith religious opinion defence. The defence currently applies to two hate propaganda offences: wilful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group (subsection 319(2)) and wilful promotion of antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust (subsection 319(2.1)). It may be invoked where a person, in good faith, expresses an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text..“The motion has generated robust debate," it continued. "Independent of the defence, the threshold for hate propaganda offences is appropriately high. For the offence in subsection 319(2), the Crown must prove the accused intended to promote hatred against an identifiable group. As noted above, hatred is a high threshold involving vilification or detestation. Religious sermons, texts and teachings delivered in good faith would not meet this standard. Removing the defence does not change the scope of conduct captured by the offence. The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that good faith religious expression remains fully protected.”In October, 2025, Ombudsperson for the Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime, Dr. Benjamin Roebuck, made a submission to the House of Commons Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Bill C-9, endorsing the premise of the bill, and illustrating why he thinks Canada’s laws around hate need to be given more importance.Reporting of hate crimes, training law enforcement to deal with hate crimes, and resources toward victims remained low and needed to be strengthened, he said. As well, he added a new definition of a hate crime would help improve investigations.“I fully support the goal of Bill C-9 as an important step toward recognizing and responding to the harms caused by hate-motivated crime in Canada,” Roebuck said in his submission. “Hate crimes harm not only individual victims, but also entire communities that share their identity or faith. A specific hate-motivated offence will strengthen Canada’s ability to identify, track and prosecute hate crimes consistently and transparently. Recognizing hate motivation at the outset of an investigation affirms the justice system’s ackowledgment (sic) of harm and helps victims feel seen and supported.”Despite Roebuck’s support and the legwork from the Department of Justice, the Canadian Bar Association wrote to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights its concerns about the bill under its current format, particularly on undefined language about obstructing places of worship, or what constitutes a hate symbol.Published on its website, the CBA also emphasized the lack of clarity defining “hatred” could jeopardize much of what the bill hopes to accomplish, if passed.“We are concerned that the definition of ‘hatred,’ while derived from the case law, is confusing,” the letter read. “In particular, the proposed subsection (3) ‘Clarification’ clause includes confusing language that has been taken out of context from the source case law. Hate crimes will by their very nature discredit, humiliate, and offend victims. By stating that discrediting, humiliating, and offending alone is insufficient to meet the definition of hatred, we again think this clarification clause confuses rather than clarifies the definition.”The Liberals have not said when they plan to reintroduce Bill C-9 back into Parliament.Jeff Sandes is a freelance contributor based in the Vancouver area.