Reintroduce hate crime legislation

The Canadian Bar Association urges the federal government to introduce legislation to combat the recent and dramatic rise in hate crime, in particular against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited, queer, intersex, and otherwise gender and sexually diverse (2SLGBTQI+), religious minority, racialized and ethnic communities.

The letter to Justice Minister David Lametti is signed by CBA President Steeves Bujold along with the chairs of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Community, Constitutional and Human Rights Law and Criminal Justice Sections.

“According to data released in 2023 by Statistics Canada,” it says, “hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation rose 64% from the previous year to a record high of 423 incidents. Hate crimes targeting a given religion rose 67% (884 incidents) and those targeting race or ethnicity rose 6% (1,723 incidents).” It is important to note that those are reported incidents and we assume there are many more that do not get reported.

To those numbers we must add reported increases in harassment, intimidation, threats of violence and hate-motivating protests, most recently targeting gender-neutral washrooms in public facilities and drag story time.

The CBA asks the government to re-introduce reforms contained in the previous Bill C-36, Criminal Code and Human Rights Act amendments on hate propaganda, hate crimes and hate speech. That bill died on the Order Paper when the 2021 federal election was called.

Specifically, the CBA wants the government to introduce measures that “would make it a discriminatory practice to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech on the internet that is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”