For those who may not know, the Combatting Hate Act, put forth principally by Sean Fraser, the Minister of Justice, is a proposed piece of legislation that purports to safeguard against hate crimes and make our places of worship and community more protected. Chief amongst this proposed Bill is the criminalization of hate symbols. The Act offers examples such as the swastika, the double-sig rune, and other symbols that are associated with terrorist organizations and affiliates, as per the criminal code. .RUBENSTEIN: Special federal government Islamophobia representative exposed as lobbying for Palestine.This sounds great, right? Most Canadians, in their right frame of mind, are opposed to Nazism and its associated symbols and flags. But think for a moment. In your lifetime, on a day-to-day basis, how many swastikas have you seen? It’s likely zero. For those of you who are activistic, you may have seen the odd one from some very small, disorganized, fringe group at a counter-protest. Is that a shame? Of course. Flying a swastika is a horrendously offensive thing to do. Nevertheless, let’s think about the ways in which this act could go terribly wrong and why it appears not to be thought out at all, and might be a vainglorious effort to professionally posture and add said accomplishment to the CV of our Minister of Justice. Let’s begin with a couple of questions: who gets to arbitrate this? And outside of terrorist groups and their iconography outlined in the criminal code, what symbols are deemed hateful? A tool will be created for various governments in the future to begin censoring and regulating expression by deeming flags, hats, shirts, and other items that they dislike as illegal. It is a very dangerous precedent to set. In response to the latter question, let's engage in a simple thought experiment: If I am in power and I deem the Canadian flag to be a hateful representation of a nation built on colonialism, racism, and oppression, maybe I will enact this law to ban it. What about the Palestinian flag? Could the government deem it in association with Hamas and ban it? What about the Israeli flag? Might the government deem the acts of Israel genocidal and ban it? What about the LGBTQ flag? Could a government one day claim that the ideological framework of this community has led to politically motivated gun violence in North America? What about the Métis flag? Some have said that it represents a history of white men fetishizing indigenous women and an effort to “purify” their lineage. And what about the F-Trudeau flags? Should these be illegal if a government doesn’t like them? .See how weird this can get? Instead of framing our understanding of this bill as a benevolent attempt to reduce hate in our country, we should realize it as a strange tool of power that has the potential to be implemented in very undemocratic ways. It looks good for Sean Fraser, absolutely. It will look wonderful on his CV, but does it not simply create more divisiveness, division, confusion, and otherizing within our communities? Instead of trying to make these symbols illegal and infringe upon people’s rights, shouldn’t our social and professional marketplaces simply root out inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour and consequence accordingly?As Canadian citizens, it is our duty to think about how these decisions from our elected officials affect our rights and freedoms. It is our civic responsibility to also scrutinize the elected officials who endeavor to push these. Sean Fraser, statistically speaking, is arguably one of the worst, if not the worst, cabinet ministers in all of Canadian political history. .OLDCORN: Time to end the Alberta teachers’ strike now.From 2021-2023, he was the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship. From 2023-2024, he was the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities. Need I say anymore? Simply explore the current struggles that Canada is facing pertaining to these areas. I fear that our members of parliament make decisions that are more in their self-interest and professionally helpful than actually set out to effectuate real, meaningful change in the lives of Canadians. I mean, think about it, a bill like this passing with a minority Carney government would be shocking. Our Minister of Justice knows this and also knows that his “efforts” in putting it forward can be strategically used to prop himself up as someone who tried. It is a performative and frankly platitudinous attempt to virtue signal to his constituents, colleagues, and future business partners. While our cabinet members run around worrying about symbols, our indigenous communities still need clean drinking water. Some of our military bases also don’t have potable water. Our healthcare system is overrun, and people are hurting. Our economy is in shambles and continues to struggle with impending tariffs, and Canadians are working tirelessly to put food on the tables of their families. Yet, our government is worried about swastikas? Undoubtedly a gross symbol to fly, but do Canadians wake up with this in their top 100 concerns or needs for their day? Or are they working multiple jobs to support their families and save for the future? Our elected officials live in a different level of social stratification and appear to be concerned with the optics of the bills they propose and the performativity that comes along with it. Canadians deserve better.
