Linda Gibbons spent nearly 11 years in Canadian jails for holding a pro-life sign outside a Toronto clinic.
Now the one law that kept Canadian pastors out of that same system just got deleted.
And Canada just criminalized something your pastor does every Sunday morning.
Canada Bill C-9 Removes Religious Freedom Exemption That Protected Bible Quotes
For decades, a single provision in Canada's Criminal Code kept faithful Canadians safe.
Section 319(3)(b) protected anyone who expressed sincere religious belief "in good faith" based on a religious text – pastors, priests, grandmothers, teenagers quoting scripture in a classroom.
The Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney just deleted it.
Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, passed the House of Commons 186–137 on March 25, 2026, and cleared the Senate 45–13 on June 4.
The bill makes "wilful promotion of hatred" a standalone criminal offense – and without the religious exemption, scripture quoted in the wrong context can now meet that definition.
Every Liberal and Bloc Québécois member voted yes.
Not a single Conservative supported stripping that protection.
The Bloc made the religious exemption's removal a condition of their support – and the Liberals agreed without hesitation.
Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and chair of the House Justice Committee, made clear exactly how the new law will be applied.
Responding to witnesses during committee hearings last October, Miller said: "In Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Romans, there are passages with clear hatred towards, for example, homosexuals. I don't understand how the concept of good faith could be invoked if someone were literally invoking a passage from, in this case, the Bible."
That is a cabinet minister of the Canadian government declaring that the Word of God is hate speech.
Canada Christians Already Jailed for Scripture Before Hate Speech Law Passed
A 16-year-old Catholic student named Josh Alexander said in a classroom that there are only two sexes.
He was suspended, then barred from school for the rest of the year, then arrested for trespassing when he returned to campus.
UK army veteran Adam Smith-Connor was convicted by a British court for bowing his head in silent prayer 100 meters from an abortion clinic.
A retired biomedical scientist named Livia Tossici-Bolt stood near the same clinic holding a sign reading "Here to talk if you want to" and was ordered to pay £20,000 in court costs.
These weren't fringe cases – they were the system working exactly as designed.
And the Canadian government just removed the last legal barrier that stood between ordinary believers and that same system.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation, which analyzed the bill's final text, warned that under the new law, reading Leviticus 20:13 aloud – depending on context, setting, and what else is said – could now trigger criminal charges.
Pastor David Cooke of Campaign Life Coalition said with the religious defense gone, Christians and pro-life advocates will face "an entirely new level of hostility" under "a cloak of supposed legality."
Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto wrote directly to senators warning that stripping the exemption creates deep uncertainty for Canadians expressing sincere theological conviction.
The senators voted 45–13 anyway.
The Left Always Tests Its Censorship in Canada Before Pushing It Here
The Left always road-tests its most aggressive censorship in Canada and the UK before pushing it into American law.
Canada ran this playbook before – Bills C-63 and C-367 proposed life sentences for hate-motivated crimes with "hate" left deliberately undefined.
Both died when Parliament prorogued in January 2025.
Their framework became Bill C-9.
The British version is already fully operational: UK police logged more than 13,200 "non-crime hate incidents" in a single year – recorded against accused citizens' names with no investigation required and no crime committed.
The Crown Prosecution Service argued in open court that parts of the Bible are "simply no longer appropriate in modern society."
The UK government later called that argument "inappropriate" – but the preacher had already been dragged through the courts.
Americans watching this need to understand what they're seeing.
This is about governments deciding that 2,000-year-old scripture is incompatible with their preferred social agenda, and writing criminal statutes to enforce that preference.
The Canadian bishops, the civil liberties associations, the constitutional lawyers – all of them warned Parliament this was coming.
Parliament voted yes anyway.
When a government removes the only legal protection believers had, it's not because they want to protect people from hatred.
It's because they want to decide what truth is allowed to sound like.
Sources:
- Quinton Amundson, "Bill C-9 Advances to Senate: Combatting Hate Act Continues to Raise Concerns," The Catholic Register, March 27, 2026.
- Quinton Amundson, "Religious Speech Protection in Bill C-9 Fails to Pass Senate," The Catholic Register, June 4, 2026.
- Kristine Parks, "Canada Hate Bill Could Be 'Weaponized' Against People of Faith, Conservative Lawmaker Warns," Fox News, April 7, 2026.
- "Bill C-9 Has Passed. Here's What You Need to Know," Canadian Constitution Foundation, June 2026.
- Staff, "Proposed Canadian Legislation Marks Bible as 'Hate Speech,'" LCMS Reporter, June 3, 2026.
- OIDAC Europe, "Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe Report 2024," 2025.
