this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2025
26 points (96.4% liked)

Canada

10431 readers
1307 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Related Communities


🍁 Meta


🗺️ Provinces / Territories


🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.


🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.


💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales


🗣️ Politics


🍁 Social / Culture


Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca


founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] numeral_paver555@lemmy.ca 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Although the exact wording hasn't been released, the news coverage says

To avoid infringing Charter rights, the source said, there would be an exemption so people can advocate and protest as long as it's lawful.

So unlike the Ontario one, it seems that protests are not prohibited?

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I wish I shared your optimistic view of this theoretical exemption. "Lawful protest" is already a trap word thanks to the last 30 years of anti protest laws. Police can declare any protest unlawful based on vague laws, then suddenly you're guilty of the new hate crime. Many municipalities require protest paths in order to qualify as lawful. This law can be used as an excuse for the municipality to reject the plan and move you to a place where protesting is pointless. Here is a straightforward guide to your rights and the limitations commonly used to regulate, restrict, and extinguish lawful protest: https://lawshun.com/article/what-is-a-lawful-protest-in-canada

We already have hate crime laws. They're effective. The only thing that's ineffective is that police never want to investigate to find the people committing hate crimes, calling in bomb threats, vandalizing with hateful messages. This is 90% of the hate crime problem. This law does NOTHING to help identify and indict people who commit hate crimes.

So the only question left is what existing group of people who weren't targetable by existing hate crime laws can be targeted with these laws. And the answer is pretty straightforward: people who protest the genocide in Gaza. And I'm sure other groups will be targeted.

[–] numeral_paver555@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The literal meaning of the law disclosed by the coverage only emphasizes the prohibition of blocking the access to a religious or community center. That's what's added. If they are still using the word "hatred", it won't include more groups unless they have this overt action.

Conversely, I concur that the police's response to hate crimes has been severely inadequate.

Moreover, while the lawfulness of a protest will not be changed by the law if the protesters don't block the access, the right to protest is disproportionally restricted by the existing legal system.