Background Information


In Canada, freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression (both of the press and of the media) are all fundamental rights and freedoms set out for us in Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. Furthermore, the freedom to peaceful assembly and freedom of association are also fundamental rights under this section of the charter. These are all basic human rights afforded to all citizens of Canada regardless of age, race, gender, or religion. However, in this day in age we see specific people groups afforded more freedoms than others, and others such as ourselves who increasingly get our freedoms stripped from us. Canada has become increasingly more intolerable to freedom of speech, expression, and even more to the fundamental rights of freedom of religion. We see more and more bills being passed and bills trying to be passed that look to silence Christians abilities to peacefully practice their beliefs and their ability to reject things that should not be legally mandatory. Below we can see just some of the different bills and laws being passed that look to silence and take away our fundamental rights:

Passed on June 17, 2025, Bill C-16 has become a greatly referred bill in regards to gender, pronouns, freedom of speech, and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. What changes, exactly, are in the new law?
The bill enshrines the rights of transgender or gender-diverse Candians by adding the words “gender identity or expression” under human rights and hate-crime laws. We can see this evidently in three places.
In our Canadian Human Rights Act, joining a list of identifiable groups such as age, race, sex, religion & disability that are protected from discrimination (Dragicevic, N.d).
In the Criminal Code that targets hate speech — “defined as advocating genocide and the public incitement of hatred — where it joins other identifiable groups” (Dragicevic, N.d).
In another section of the Criminal Code which deals with sentencing for hate crimes. “Should there be evidence that an offence is motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, it can be taken into account by the courts during sentencing” (Dragicevic, N.d).

With not only Bill C-16 coming into effect, we see there are many bills trying to be passed in Canada looking to take the rights and freedoms of our religious values. We see this through Bill C-4 which was tabled into the House of Commons on December 6, 2021, is an act made to prevent “conversion therapy” which when listed out is ANYTHING done to convince, coerce, or try to change or stop the expression or change of a person's gender identity or gender expression (Government of Canada). Although we agree one should never receive conversion therapy nor should anyone be forced to receive treatment for such actions, but we believe that for young children, parents should be able to have the authority to protect their children of what they do not fully understand yet and not have bills like this, defining parental guidance as “conversion therapy” and using the state to take away children and break up families.

Another Bill that is being introduced that looks to outright take away religious rights is Bill C-367 which looks to directly take away Christians abilities to quote the bible and if this bill is passed it will remove the Section 319 (3) religious defence of the Criminal Code, which would make quoting the bible or any religious texts for that matter to be considered illegal hate speech (Pelletier, 2024). This issue is not only a Christian issue but an issue of censorship for all. If our religious claims of sexuality and salvation become criminalized, then not just Christian beliefs but all beliefs and opinions will fall victim to censorship and will strip all people of their freedom of speech (Justice Centre of Constitutional Freedoms, 2024).

When schools are obligated to send parents exemption forms in advance (minimum of 20 days) to allow children Grade 1-8 to withdraw from health development and sexual health expectation in health and physical education curriculums set out by the Ministry of Education in Policy/Program Memorandum 162 (Appendix A), furthermore, schools also must give notice to parents to make them aware of such events. However, parents are met with no forms, and no knowledge of when, how, or what will be present to their children at their schools. Parents are being stripped of their rights to defend their children and even the children who wish to not hear such things due to their beliefs are met with hostility and made outcasts by their teachers, their peers, and their schools.

Furthermore, we see in Canada three provinces, Newfoundland, Manitoba, & Saskatchewan do not accommodate religious beliefs for public officials (pastors) and require them to resign their positions if they are unwilling to perform same-sex marriages (Lafferty, 2020). The rest of the provinces alongside Ontario, do accommodate religious beliefs for public officials however, only under the guise that public officials' refusal to marry are not based on discriminatory grounds and protected characteristics, in which same-sex falls under this category, and so all pastors can be legally challenged with not only human rights lawsuits, but also with their resignation on the line (Ontario Human Rights Commission, N.d).

We live in a country where freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation and freedom of discrimination from religion are not equally valued and one is clearly more absolute than the other.