Greg Wycliffe - Everything wrong with Bill C-9 - WATCH before voting

00:00:01.000 Over 130 churches have burned to the ground in Canada in recent years.

00:00:06.720 Crimes like arson and vandalism were targeted toward an identifiable religious group, Christians.

00:00:12.980 If we go by the number of places of worship burned to the ground,

00:00:16.540 then Christians would be the most hated identifiable religious group in Canada.

00:00:21.160 Sean Fraser's Bill C-9 is meant to strengthen hate crime laws.

00:00:24.880 We are moving forward with a piece of legislation that will create four new criminal offenses.

00:00:30.000 The first two are aimed at protecting religious institutions.

00:00:33.060 So the Canadian government introduced Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, which just passed the House of Commons.

00:00:39.980 They say it will protect religious groups.

00:00:42.440 But here's where things get strange.

00:00:44.680 Not a single major Christian organization in Canada supports this bill.

00:00:48.860 In fact, the vast majority, hundreds of Christian groups, strongly oppose Bill C-9, along with hundreds of Muslim groups.

00:00:55.700 You're going to be prosecuting religious leaders in every mosque, in every church, in every synagogue.

00:01:03.420 And the only religious groups who vocally support Bill C-9 are Jewish advocacy organizations, specifically CJA, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

00:01:12.500 So the question has to be asked, who is this bill really for? And what does it actually do?

00:01:18.640 My name is Greg Wycliffe. I'm a filmmaker, journalist, and citizen concerned about free speech in Canada.

00:01:24.200 What you're about to watch is a short documentary about Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act.

00:01:29.580 In a nutshell, this bill gives Crown prosecutors the ability to prosecute people for expressing

00:01:35.260 intensely held emotions and beliefs.

00:01:37.760 Not crimes, not threats, but prosecuted for intense emotions.

00:01:42.840 I've drawn from my upcoming feature documentary on free speech in Canada where I interviewed

00:01:46.840 Canadian citizens who believe they've been persecuted or prosecuted not for committing

00:01:51.240 a crime but for their political opinion.

00:01:53.500 I also draw from public parliamentary record and relevance news items.

00:01:57.680 I'm asking you as a senator to watch this before you vote and debate on Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act.

00:02:04.260 The Senate is the last line of defense.

00:02:06.700 You are the sober second thought in this country.

00:02:08.920 And when it comes to Bill C-9, as it's written before you today, we need to think twice.

00:02:13.960 in october 2023 weeks after the hamas attack on israel montreal imam adil sharkawi stood before

00:02:23.580 thousands of supporters in downtown montreal and led a prayer calling on god to quote kill the

00:02:30.060 enemies of the people of gaza and to spare none of them he called for the extermination of quote 0.95

00:02:36.280 Zionist aggressors. The RCMP investigated, the Quebec Crown reviewed the case, and no charges

00:02:43.720 were laid. The reason was because Zionist aggressors was not a sufficiently defined

00:02:49.860 identifiable group in the criminal code. You see, Bill C-9 primarily bolsters Canada's existing

00:02:56.880 hate speech laws that are over 50 years old, with 319-1 and 2 charges being public incitement of

00:03:05.000 hatred, and willful promotion of hatred, respectively. Prosecution is only possible

00:03:10.460 with these charges if it's against an identifiable group, which also has a specific definition.

00:03:16.640 Any section of the public distinguished by color, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age,

00:03:23.320 sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.

00:03:29.820 Aside from adding sexual orientation and gender ideology to this list in the 2000s,

00:03:35.000 This definition has not changed since it was first introduced in 1970.

00:03:39.840 More specifically, political belief for opinion, ideology is not included.

00:03:44.080 And it's specifically because of this insufficient definition in our criminal code

00:03:47.860 that the imam preacher in Montreal was not charged with hate speech.

00:03:51.400 The case of Adil Charcawi...

00:03:53.260 They're defending people like Adil Shaqari.

00:03:55.200 Preacher Adil Shaqari, the director of public prosecution,

00:03:58.820 stated that he could not prosecute.

00:04:00.760 And that is why this change is being made.

00:04:03.160 And despite this case being significant in building the political will to make these hate speech law changes with Bill C-9, as it's written before you today, Bill C-9 does not even change the definition of identifiable group.

00:04:16.580 It's the same definition, so it doesn't even solve this problem.

00:04:20.440 So the question must be plainly asked, if Bill C-9 would not have stopped the incidents or enabled the imam preacher to be charged with hate speech, then what is Bill C-9 actually for?

00:04:30.980 One of the most contentious elements of Bill C-9 that was talked about a lot in the House of Commons

00:04:36.260 is the removal of the good faith religious expression defense from the section of the criminal code.

00:04:42.300 Now, some would argue it's okay to remove this good faith religious defense

00:04:46.400 because this defense has never been successfully used in Canadian court over the years.

00:04:51.280 If you look at every conviction under 319, our hate speech laws, in Canadian history,

00:04:56.520 it's always involved a neo-Nazi, a Holocaust denier, or a white supremacist.

00:05:02.380 Not an imam, not a rabbi, and not a pastor.

00:05:05.700 So pastors, imams, and some rabbis are now concerned that they're simply being set up to be the next category of Canadian citizen

00:05:12.760 who commonly gets charged with hate speech laws in Canada,

00:05:16.700 now that there's no good-faith religious exemption to defend themselves.

00:05:21.200 And it's not hyperbole.

00:05:22.440 Liberal minister Mark Miller has stated publicly that portions of the Bible would, under this framework, constitute hate speech.

00:05:30.640 There are clearly passages in religious texts that are clearly hateful.

00:05:34.820 And there should perhaps be discretion for prosecutors to press charges. 0.51

00:05:38.620 And you might say, no way, this law won't be used to throw Christians in jail for simply practicing their religious beliefs. 0.94

00:05:44.900 Well, similar legislation has passed in the United Kingdom, and that's exactly what's happening.

00:05:50.580 My name is Roger Kiska. I'm legal counsel for the Christian Legal Center.

00:05:55.500 I've worked historically before the European Court of Human Rights

00:05:57.780 on a lot of religious freedoms and free speech cases.

00:06:00.960 I've litigated at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

00:06:03.600 We've had a number of high-profile cases against free preachers

00:06:07.800 who have been arrested, in one case prosecuted.

00:06:12.700 We've had abortion protesters prosecuted.

00:06:15.720 We've had students from universities thrown out for posting Bible verses.

00:06:22.720 We're now investigating a crime that's been committed.

00:06:25.720 Well, a crime, right.

00:06:26.720 Yes, essentially a breach of the peace with homophobic aggravation.

00:06:29.720 We're preaching direct from the scriptures.

00:06:31.720 But to see as much as you're preaching from the scriptures, people are still offended by that.

00:06:35.720 I could be here all day giving examples.

00:06:38.720 It's definitely real, it's prevalent, and it's on the increase sadly.

00:06:43.680 So what exactly is Canada about to write into law?

00:06:46.720 Passing Bill C-9 would officially define hatred in Canada's criminal code.

00:06:51.600 It would read like this,

00:06:53.360 Hatred means an emotion of an intense and extreme nature

00:06:58.240 that is clearly associated with vilification and detestation.

00:07:04.080 In 2026, political polarization has never been more intense and extreme in Canada and abroad.

00:07:10.720 Whether it's foreign conflicts, literal wars, feuds that are decades or centuries old,

00:07:16.480 naturally these conflicts are going to trigger deeply held emotions on all sides.

00:07:21.700 So what Bill C-9 tries to do, and it's almost comical, it says that to mock, insult, ridicule,

00:07:30.100 discredit, offend somebody or hurt their feelings is not hate speech. Dislike and disdain are not

00:07:36.940 hate. However, detestation and vilification are hate. And so they are trying to put into law

00:07:46.020 some words of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling. And it's almost comical. They twist themselves

00:07:54.380 into contortions and do triple backflips trying to define hate. The Supreme Court can't do it.

00:07:59.760 The law can't do it. I'm going to show just a few examples of ongoing, very fiery disagreements

00:08:06.680 that are happening across the country and show you how the idea of combating hate sort of sounds

00:08:13.040 impossible. When pro-Palestinian protesters chant from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

00:08:19.120 Now, is that hatred? Or when pro-Israeli commentators make posts calling for the

00:08:24.780 mass deportations of Muslim Canadians, is that hatred? How does Bill C-9 answer both questions

00:08:32.440 fairly when Sikhs and Hindus in Brampton clash in a parking lot of a temple like in 2025 who is the 0.59

00:08:40.420 identifiable group who who is the aggressor who is the villain who's detesting who when Ukrainians 0.97

00:08:46.280 say I think Vladimir Putin is an evil man or Russians say I think Zelensky is a corrupt crook 0.52

00:08:52.620 killing his own people who's vilifying who how intense does the dislike have to be to be considered 0.99

00:08:59.720 criminal. As Canadians, we need to consider what is the lowest possible threshold to trigger a

00:09:05.880 hate speech prosecution with this new Bill C-9 legislation, since the government is showing a

00:09:11.440 desire to charge people with 319 hate speech charges more often. But the reality is that

00:09:17.640 there is an exception in the criminal code that are making people hesitate. When it comes to hate

00:09:22.940 crimes, there's a number of challenges that we need to overcome. Some of it is going to have

00:09:27.480 tougher laws on the books, including crimes that will actually make it easier to prosecute.

00:09:32.160 So let's look at the official definition of hatred that they want to write into the criminal code.

00:09:37.360 Detestation and vilification. The definition of detestation is intense dislike. And the definition

00:09:43.760 of vilification is abusively disparaging speech or writing. Bear in mind that this legislation

00:09:50.500 would apply to all publicly communicated statements, meaning everything on the internet

00:09:56.180 is fair game to be potentially charged and being thrown in jail for up to two years.

00:10:02.460 Is the Canadian government and Crown Prosecutors really prepared to play referee in all of this?

00:10:09.540 And no matter how well you think this might go, when you start playing this game of whose

00:10:14.940 hatred is criminal and whose is not, everyone is going to be yelling at the referee saying

00:10:19.700 that's not fair.

00:10:20.540 And the moment it's perceived that the referee or Crown Prosecutors are taking a side and

00:10:25.700 one of these conflicts? Do you really think that's going to lead to less hatred and less resentment

00:10:30.920 among Canadian citizens between these different identifiable groups who are at odds with each

00:10:36.260 other? We're already seeing this phenomenon of yelling at the referee play out very clearly with

00:10:41.620 the Israel versus Palestine or Israel versus Muslim world conflict. Here's a clip of NDP leader

00:10:48.100 from Manitoba, Wab Kanu, making a comment on the war with Iran. No American child from the blue

00:10:54.780 collar or the middle class should have to die in iran let the epstein class fight the epstein war

00:11:06.220 a jewish community leader in toronto said that this clip is incitement to hatred

00:11:11.340 archer wazinski former canadian ambassador and senior executive in security intelligence

00:11:17.020 also called this clip anti-semitic and you have the same thing on the other side

00:11:22.060 Here's a clip of a pro-Muslim or anti-Israel protester saying that someone simply wearing

00:11:28.300 a rainbow niqab is incitement.

00:11:38.380 Because of C9's broad definition of hatred, it opens up the doors to all types of arguments 0.89

00:11:44.300 like these I just mentioned. And I do want to give you just one more example that I really think

00:11:49.260 captures the absurdity of wanting to police an intense feeling of hatred in Canada.

00:11:55.420 Take this news article from the Toronto Star in 2012.

00:11:59.420 Six GTA hospitals won't reveal fetal sex during ultrasound.

00:12:05.180 These six hospitals are where a lot of South Asian communities live and members of the South

00:12:11.020 Asian community will decide to kill or abort their baby if they find out it's female.

00:12:17.740 So, are these health care institutions discriminating against South Asians, an identifiable group?

00:12:23.860 Or are South Asians discriminating against their female babies, females being an identifiable group?

00:12:30.560 I think both are happening, but with Bill C-9, it presents the question,

00:12:34.880 is it willful promotion of hatred if someone says the South Asian community is detestable? 0.93

00:12:39.700 They're an identifiable group, but I think they're villainous. 0.99

00:12:42.360 For committing femicide or routinely or traditionally killing babies if they're female? 1.00

00:12:46.780 Or is it willful promotion of hatred if a member of the South Asian community says these female babies will bring shame on our family and we need to kill them and get rid of them because they're female? 0.95

00:12:56.200 As Bill C-9 has written before you today, technically both of these things could be prosecuted as criminal hatred. 0.98

00:13:03.680 And here's where things get a little bit awkward.

00:13:06.080 The government wants to pass a bill that's going to help combat hate, but what if the hatred is justified?

00:13:12.700 You know, is it not natural for a Palestinian to some degree to hate the Israeli government

00:13:17.540 or for an Israeli to some degree to hate Hamas or Palestinians? 0.99

00:13:22.680 Is it not detestable and villainous to be genocidal? 0.97

00:13:25.360 Is it not detestable and villainous if an identifiable group wants to kill their baby just because it's a female?

00:13:32.080 If an identifiable group or member of an identifiable group is committing such atrocities,

00:13:36.720 do we not have the freedom to call it out in an intense and emotional way?

00:13:41.260 After all, isn't expressing our intensely held emotions towards someone or something,

00:13:46.460 isn't that what we should do instead of being violent?

00:13:49.400 And here's the other awkward question.

00:13:50.840 What if hatred is being promoted by the Canadian government and its institutions?

00:13:56.460 What if I told you that with this broad definition of hatred,

00:13:59.080 you could argue that government officials have been maybe guilty of willfully promoting

00:14:04.600 or publicly inciting hatred themselves?

00:14:07.240 After the Kamloops residential school announcement in 2021,

00:14:10.740 before any of the unmarked graves had been forensically confirmed, the government endorsed

00:14:15.620 a wave of grief and anger that saw now over a hundred churches burned to the ground or be

00:14:22.120 vandalized. Although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the time denounced the burning of churches,

00:14:27.060 he described the anger people were feeling as understandable. Is this our own Prime Minister

00:14:34.120 inciting hatred against Christians? Well, it's certainly telling the country that these intense

00:14:39.820 emotions towards Christians are justified. And given my previous examples of how people will 1.00

00:14:45.380 shout incitement, one could certainly argue that by Trudeau saying the Catholic Church has a

00:14:50.800 shameful history, that he did help incite hatred against an identifiable group as more churches 0.99

00:14:57.440 were set fire after Justin Trudeau made these comments, largely validating these intensely

00:15:02.720 held emotions of hate and resentment that led towards a breach of the peace. In this case,

00:15:07.960 arson. And it was not just burning churches. There was an ongoing campaign after this to cancel

00:15:13.480 Canada Day, to decolonize Canada. We saw the destruction and vandalism of countless Sir John

00:15:18.940 A. Macdonald statues. Also, the Sir Egerton Ryerson statue got torn down. A Queen Victoria statue got

00:15:24.600 ripped down. It's not an exaggeration to say that this was a mainstream vilification of Canadian

00:15:30.860 history as a whole. All of these individuals and statues are part of an identifiable group, by the

00:15:37.220 way. People who are white are of European descent. I interviewed academic Frances Widowson, a tenured

00:15:43.360 professor from Mount Royal University who could be considered an expert on indigenous issues in

00:15:47.820 Canada. And she's gone to countless campuses in Canada to talk about this issue of residential

00:15:53.000 schools. And she's ultimately been met with hatred and in some cases for her supporters, assault and

00:15:59.000 violence on university campuses. And for Frances, she may hold an unpopular political opinion. But

00:16:05.740 because political opinion doesn't make you part of an identifiable group in the criminal code well

00:16:11.400 you can hate on someone like francis as much as you'd like and face no criminal consequences

00:16:16.300 whatsoever under bill c9 and do we want a country where some forms of hatred are policed and

00:16:22.660 criminalized and then hating on people with unpopular political opinions well that's totally

00:16:27.520 allowed this is the canada we get when we pass bill c9 and people might say well these are

00:16:34.060 exceptional circumstances and in this case hatred is justified and if that's the case then it proves

00:16:40.520 my major concern which is these laws will only be selectively enforced based on whomever has the

00:16:47.700 most sway with the attorney general at the time with the line blurred between violent crime and

00:16:53.920 intense emotion everything becomes subjective and justice becomes increasingly unclear and speaking

00:17:01.040 Speaking of hatred that might be coming from the government and laws being used and abused

00:17:06.500 for political purposes, I would be remiss if I didn't mention what happened during

00:17:11.820 COVID lockdowns and the subsequent Freedom Trucker convoy in Ottawa.

00:17:17.620 Unvaccinated Canadians in 2021 and at the start of 2022 were excluded from restaurants,

00:17:23.320 planes, and employment.

00:17:25.320 A Quebec Premier proposed a special tax on the unvaccinated. 1.00

00:17:29.900 The Prime Minister publicly questioned whether that we should tolerate these people. 0.99

00:17:34.320 If you don't want to get vaccinated, that's your choice.

00:17:38.100 But don't think you can get on a plane or a train besides vaccinated people and put them at risk.

00:17:43.860 The anti-vaxxers, they're wrong.

00:17:52.220 They are wrong about how we get through this pandemic.

00:17:55.320 Everyone needs to get vaccinated, and those people are putting us all at risk.

00:18:01.660 The front page of the Toronto Star at one point said,

00:18:04.780 quote, I honestly don't care if they die. Let them die. I have no empathy left for the unvaccinated, end quote. 1.00

00:18:12.400 None of this would be prosecuted, though, under Bill C-9 because vaccine status or political opinion

00:18:17.880 does not fall under the definition of identifiable group.

00:18:21.960 Even though, at the time, you needed to identify yourself as being either vaccinated or unvaccinated

00:18:28.600 to even dine inside restaurants or get on a plane or a train in Canada.

00:18:33.760 Regardless of your bias, regardless of your intensely held feelings on these topics,

00:18:38.120 the Canadian government and its institutions have at least implicitly promoted hatred themselves

00:18:43.380 against certain groups in the past.

00:18:45.680 So who will determine if the hatred is allowed or not?

00:18:49.420 How do we know how the referees or crime prosecutors will determine what is criminal hate and what is not?

00:18:55.780 I mean, do we have experts on hate in Canada?

00:18:59.440 Well, actually we do.

00:19:01.420 We have or had a government-funded organization endorsed by politicians, senators, and the Canadian media who claim to be hate experts.

00:19:09.480 the canadian anti-hate network is a federally funded non-governmental organization whose

00:19:15.500 reports have been relied upon by law enforcement media and policymakers to define who counts as a

00:19:21.700 hate actor in canada and who does not the problem is they are also openly biased when it comes to

00:19:28.520 how they view hatred my first question is to mr balgord from the canadian anti-hate network

00:19:34.740 Mr. Balgord, would you suggest or would you say that your organization is an objective organization?

00:19:40.160 We wear our biases on our sleeves, right? We are very proudly anti-fascist and we focus on

00:19:45.460 the far right. They are not neutral. They focus on the far right, which presents some

00:19:51.840 very important questions. Who gets to determine what is a fascist? And I would ask that person,

00:19:58.720 what do you mean by fascist? Because it's the same thing as the Southern Poverty Law Center,

00:20:03.020 right? SPLC redefines the word hate, redefines the word fascist, redefines the word Nazi,

00:20:09.500 for goodness sake, and then applies it to people who disagree with their religious or moral views.

00:20:15.420 Calling someone a fascist, an oppressor, is not a neutral descriptor. It casts

00:20:21.340 them as the villain of history. It implies they deserve to be stopped by any means necessary.

00:20:27.740 this name calling is an act of vilification itself the reality is anyone can be a nazi

00:20:35.900 or smeared as a nazi and that's been my experience so you've been called a nazi before all the time 0.84

00:20:42.940 have you ever been called a nazi before yes ironically by a white person of course punching 0.82

00:20:49.980 nazis is a common phrase from anti-fascists the problem is anyone who supports immigration reform 0.89

00:20:56.460 or doesn't think trans women are women can quickly be branded as a Nazi and have hatred and violence 0.59

00:21:03.660 levied against them. And if you call someone a Nazi and then you commit violence against a Nazi,

00:21:08.600 isn't branding someone a Nazi or a fascist a public incitement of hatred itself that is likely

00:21:14.620 to lead to a breach of the peace? That was Billboard Chris, a dad who holds simple signs

00:21:23.740 that say children cannot consent to puberty blockers. He thinks it's unwise to teach children

00:21:29.380 about transgenderism in schools while they are still developing before they've hit puberty.

00:21:33.700 Our so-called hate experts in Canada have never reported on violence or hatred like this against

00:21:39.460 Billboard Chris, presumably because they believe this type of hatred and violence is totally

00:21:44.640 justified because Billboard Chris at one point got branded a Nazi or fascist because of his

00:21:50.380 political beliefs. They're the fascists. Fascism is using violence and intimidation to silence your

00:21:56.700 political opponent. And that's exactly what they do. In a defamation lawsuit, by the way,

00:22:01.600 the Anti-Hate Network versus Jonathan Kaye, an Ontario court concluded, quote, that the Canadian

00:22:07.100 Anti-Hate Network did in fact assist Antifa and that the movement has been violent. This political

00:22:13.080 bias and one-sided version of hatred is reflected in Bill C-9 legislation. This leads me to my most

00:22:19.660 chilling hypothesis on Bill C9. What if Bill C9 simply equips the government and powerful

00:22:25.980 political factions with the legal tools to prosecute protest movements in individuals

00:22:31.080 that are becoming inconvenient for them? We already have strong evidence that our government

00:22:36.560 will pick and choose to prosecute people criminally for simply opposing certain agendas or government

00:22:43.380 narratives. And this is without even using Bill C-9 or the 319 hate speech charges. In February

00:22:49.800 2022, Pastor Archer Pawlowski in Calgary drove to the Coutts border crossing where truckers

00:22:55.460 had gathered to protest COVID-19 mandates. He gave a 20-minute speech or sermon encouraging them not

00:23:02.440 to leave and to stand their ground peacefully. For that speech, he was charged with mischief over

00:23:07.780 $5,000, and he was charged under the Alberta's Critical Infrastructure Defense Act, or CEDA.

00:23:14.540 The CEDA charge was eventually stayed by the Crown, but it's worth noting that this CEDA

00:23:20.380 Defense Act legislation was originally written to stop pipeline protesters who were blocking

00:23:26.320 railroads. Instead, this legislation was used against a devout Christian pastor.

00:23:33.520 And then there's Eve Engler. He's a Canadian author and left-wing activist.

00:23:37.780 in february 2025 he was arrested by montreal police and spent five days in jail his events

00:23:43.960 well he had responded to a pro-israel commentator's public posts on social media calling her a quote

00:23:50.980 genocide supporter and a quote fascist he had never met her never sent her a private message

00:23:56.380 never threatened her she complained to montreal's hate crimes unit a lawyer connected to a

00:24:02.020 conservative party candidate filed on her behalf he was arrested the common trend between these

00:24:07.520 two people is they opposed powerful political factions. In the case of Pastor Archer Pawlowski,

00:24:14.240 he was opposing vaccine mandates of the Canadian government. In the case of Eve Engler, he was

00:24:19.700 opposing the military operation in Gaza by the Israeli government. Both of these men faced

00:24:25.200 criminal consequences for speaking or tweeting. This is without Bill C-9 bolstering our existing

00:24:33.120 hate speech laws, giving crown prosecutors a whole bunch more tools to potentially criminalize

00:24:39.480 speech. Now with all of this in mind, let's take a look at the rest of the legislation in Bill C-9

00:24:45.160 and see how its incredibly vague language is very well suited to be used and abused by powerful

00:24:51.820 political factions. Bill C-9 introduces a new charge for intimidation. The law reads,

00:24:57.580 every person committed an offense who engages in any conduct with the intent to provoke a state of

00:25:04.880 fear in a person in order to impede access to a building or structure. Let's stop right there.

00:25:11.340 Protests are supposed to be intimidating. Are they not? They're supposed to be confrontational

00:25:17.820 and make people feel uncomfortable. A person or a group who protesters believe are doing something

00:25:24.400 wrong. But let's continue. A person committed an offense who engages in conduct with the intents

00:25:30.000 to provoke a state of fear in a person in order to impede their access to a building or structure

00:25:35.440 or part of a building or structure that is primarily used by an identifiable group for an

00:25:42.480 administrative, social, cultural, or sports activities or events. And federal MP Elizabeth

00:25:48.880 May pointed out in the House of Commons that the actual language here is incredibly vague

00:25:53.740 And the next comment was made by Mark Miller saying, you know what, I don't normally like to rush the debate on this.

00:26:00.320 I understand our concerns first about the limitation of debate, which is not normally the approach that I would like to take.

00:26:05.880 So allow me to ask the questions that weren't asked in the House of Commons.

00:26:10.120 What about a protest near a mosque? A protest near a church? A protest near a community center used by a cultural group?

00:26:17.020 What about a protest in Chinatown? What about a protest on a university campus near a diversity office?

00:26:23.740 or a protest outside a government building but at the time part of the building is primarily

00:26:29.140 used by an identifiable group? What if a protest is going on that has a tent or small structure

00:26:35.380 as part of it that is representative of an identifiable group? One such example would be

00:26:41.160 international students who set up small camps and tents to protest Canadian immigration rules 0.88

00:26:47.340 so they can remain inside the country. They set up tents which are temporary structures.

00:26:52.860 So with C9, would it even be legal to have a counter-protest against these international students?

00:26:59.920 If it's determined that there's an intent to provoke a state of fear,

00:27:03.480 and it's determined that international students belong to an identifiable group,

00:27:08.180 well, with Bill C9, doing this protest against international students,

00:27:11.780 you could go up to jail for up to 10 years, according to how the legislation is written before you today.

00:27:16.860 The charge for intimidation is up to 10 years in Bill C9.

00:27:20.660 Do you think it's fair to send someone to jail for 10 years for protesting peacefully in the wrong location or against the wrong person at the wrong time?

00:27:29.720 Does that sound like a free democratic society to you?

00:27:33.140 Also, because of the vague language and limited definition of identifiable group,

00:27:37.600 this proves my point again that with Bill C-9, protesting certain causes will be much more costly and risky than protesting other causes.

00:27:46.600 Is that not evidence of political bias baked right into the cake of our criminal code with Bill C9?

00:27:52.700 It's a step in the direction of becoming like the United Kingdom where over 12,000 people have been arrested in a one-year period.

00:28:00.380 Some of them spending time in jail over an intemperate tweet, you know, saying something politically incorrect about immigration or immigrants.

00:28:09.220 So this is where we don't want to go in Canada, but it's a real possibility because we've got a lot of people in power politically, federally, provincially, that really don't respect free speech.

00:28:23.220 They kind of believe in free speech for me, but not for thee.

00:28:27.380 And when you criminalize hate speech, you see people getting prosecuted for speech that the powerful hate.

00:28:35.960 And speaking of bias, let's talk about the hate symbol offense in Bill C-9.

00:28:41.120 Everyone commits an offense who willfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group

00:28:46.380 by displaying in any public place a symbol that is principally used by

00:28:51.400 or principally associated with a listed entity.

00:28:55.440 It also says a symbol that so nearly represents a symbol

00:28:59.220 associated with one of these groups

00:29:01.440 or that is likely to be a symbol described in paragraph A and B.

00:29:05.960 So the criminal act is to display a symbol in public or online.

00:29:10.900 In February 2021, the Canadian government placed the Proud Boys on the same terrorist entity list as ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

00:29:19.100 They've never committed a terrorist action or any violence in Canada.

00:29:24.160 The Washington Post identified this as a signature polo t-shirt of the Proud Boys.

00:29:29.480 so according to c9 wearing one of these polo t-shirts is technically a symbol principally

00:29:35.700 associated with a listed entity so wearing this or posting an image of this polo t-shirt online

00:29:42.880 could technically get you criminally charged in canada if bill c9 passes to contrast this

00:29:49.840 the calistani movement in canada regularly calls for the death of indian prime minister

00:29:55.680 Modi or Modi politics. There are also direct connections between this movement and people

00:30:07.980 who had been charged with plotting to commit terrorism before, including connections to the

00:30:12.980 Air India bombing, which was the deadliest terror attack to come out of Canada. Kalistanis are not

00:30:19.600 a listed entity in Canada and their intense and extreme demonstrations go largely unnoticed

00:30:25.540 by the mainstream media this part of the bill also adds the nazi haken kruz or the swastika

00:30:33.380 as a criminal symbol um but this is also an ancient symbol from the hindu religion

00:30:39.780 but hindu canadians celebrated a landmark victory in parliament because

00:30:44.660 their version of the swastika has been removed from bill c9 as a reference to a hate symbol

00:30:50.340 as explained here by liberal mp anthony housefather and again we changed the name

00:30:54.580 the swastika to the SS Hakan Cruz because we didn't want to offend the Hindu and Jinn community

00:30:59.540 who call out the swastika. We understand that. It's a different symbol. That would not exist. 0.98

00:31:05.300 It's a different symbol. The Hindu swastika and the Nazi swastika are different and only one

00:31:12.020 will be prosecuted. But the bill's own language says it covers a symbol that so nearly resembles

00:31:18.340 another symbol or is likely to be described as another symbol. The people who drafted Bill C9

00:31:23.940 are contradicting their own legislation before it even becomes law. They're adding exceptions that

00:31:29.640 are not even written into the criminal code. And this isn't going uncontested. The Kalistani

00:31:34.220 movement is arguing that the Hindu swastika should be included because it's a symbol of genocide.

00:31:39.640 So now different identifiable groups are literally warring over the scope of Bill C-9 before it's

00:31:45.420 even in effect. Yet another example of yelling at the referee. And for those paying attention,

00:31:49.740 here's what the scoreboard looks like. Hindu and Jewish communities lobbied and got the text of

00:31:55.000 the bill changed unanimously. Hundreds of Muslim and Christian organizations lobbied to preserve

00:32:00.560 long-standing legal protections that have existed for decades, and they were rejected. The government

00:32:06.020 says Bill C-9 is about protecting religious communities, but the evidence suggests it's

00:32:10.800 about doing favors for certain religious communities while ignoring others. You don't

00:32:15.860 need a psychology degree to know what favoritism produces. Favoritism produces resentment. Resentment 0.96

00:32:22.360 produces hatred. The government says it's fighting hate, but it's manufacturing the conditions for

00:32:29.280 more of it with Bill C-9. And the only way to stop this cycle before it starts is to stop this

00:32:35.000 legislation in the Senate. And last but not least, C-9 creates a new standalone hate crime offense,

00:32:40.960 a separate criminal charge that can be added on top of any other conviction

00:32:45.940 if the Crown argues the underlying offense was motivated by hatred.

00:32:51.080 In 2016, there was an assault that happened outside of a bar in Calgary.

00:32:56.200 The offender said, quote, 0.97

00:32:57.920 I hate white people and then punched the person. 0.99

00:33:01.600 The provincial judge determined, quote, 1.00

00:33:04.360 I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt

00:33:07.120 that this offense was even in part motivated by racial bias even though the person yelled 0.97

00:33:13.820 I hate white people right before punching a white person in the face. Everyone has a bias and given 0.65

00:33:21.540 that last example when it comes to intense emotion and intense speech clearly it's all open for

00:33:28.240 interpretation and it depends on the bias of the judges, the crown, the lawyers, the prosecutors

00:33:34.100 themselves. A crime is a crime. The only reason to add another charge to a crime is if there's

00:33:40.340 a political reason for it. It's extremely unwise. It's stupid to give this broad latitude to

00:33:47.200 government officials, give them broad powers, and then say, but hey, you know, I know they won't 0.99

00:33:51.420 abuse it. Stupid. Canada has always drawn a clear line between violent crime and intense emotion. 1.00

00:34:00.520 Bill C-9 erases that line and it hands the eraser to whoever holds political power.

00:34:06.620 We've seen how that ends in history.

00:34:08.600 The process becomes the punishment.

00:34:11.000 The law becomes the weapon.

00:34:12.620 Show me the man, I'll show you the crime.

00:34:14.300 Bill C-9, as it's written before you today, empowers the powerful and creates massive risks and disincentives for political activists of all stripes.

00:34:24.860 Does this look like a step towards more freedom and democracy or more authoritarianism?

00:34:31.060 Senators, you are the last line of defense.

00:34:34.440 Do not let Bill C-9 pass as it is written.

00:34:38.440 For Senators, please vote no on Bill C-9 as it's written or demand substantive amendments before passage.

00:34:45.760 For Canadians, contact your Senator today and urge them to watch this video and to think twice about passing Bill C-9.

00:34:53.240 And if you want to support more work like this or my upcoming documentary, please go

00:34:57.100 to GiveSandGo.com slash SaveFreeSpeech.

00:35:00.000 Thank you.

Greg Wycliffe - April 23, 2026

Everything wrong with Bill C-9 - WATCH before voting

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript