The Minister of Justice, Sean Fraser, presented a new legislation on Friday that presented four crimes of the Criminal Code, including one that would become a crime to intentionally promote hatred against identifiable groups in public using certain symbols related to hatred or terrorism.
The full text of the invoice will not be available until later today.
If approved, the legislation would be directed to the symbols used to attack the Jews during the Holocaust or associated with the government List of terrorist entitieswhich includes the proud children, Hamas and the body of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran.
For example, it would make a crime to promote hatred against Jews who use Hamas Banderas or swastika signs outside a synagogue.
It would also take energetic measures against people intimidating and obstructing places of worship and other sensitive institutions.
Fraser said the legislation adds two additional measures that would facilitate the prosecution of people who have deliberately promoted: add a definition of “hate” to the Criminal Code; and eliminate a requirement for the consent of the provincial attorney general to process a crime of hate.
“This behavior is not only morally guilty, the impact has reverberations through the entire community. And, I would say, tears in the seams of the social fabric of the nation,” Fraser said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
The Government has promised to address a recent increase in hate incidents in Canada, including acts of anti -Semitism and Islamophobia.
The total number of hate crimes informed by the police throughout the country increased to 4,882 incidents last year, compared to 2,646 in 2020, according to Statistics Canada.
The conservatives, who have hit the liberals in the crime at the beginning of the parliamentary session of autumn, have criticized the government for taking too long to act on the issue.
Jewish and Muslim groups say that a federal response to acts of violence, vandalism and hate is very late.
