Canadian government repeals certain blasphemy laws, but not all

Western societies have long been on the march towards secularization. Keeping the power of the state in check is a tricky enough business, without allowing the government to claim some divine legitimacy based on a particular version of a particular religion. Just take a look at the current government of Iran for an example of how theocratic regimes can justify stomping on the rights of citizens.

Those who were born after the days of blasphemy convictions in the west often seem to take the modern secular state for granted. Even as recent as 1985, three years after Canada adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, five women and a man were charged and convicted for kneeling during communion. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

Nova Scotia prosecutors charged them, the court convicted them, the conviction was upheld on appeal, and it took getting to the Supreme Court for the convictions to be finally overturned. However, even the Supreme Court found that the Criminal Code section under which they were charged was not unconstitutional.

Even more recently, a 2017 investigation by Irish police famously accused Stephen Fry of blasphemy against Christianity.

Blasphemy Law "Repealed"

While the government takes credit for abolishing the (already unconstitutional) crime of "Blasphemous Libel", a term that was not even defined in the Criminal Code, they left certain other related sections untouched.

One section that the Liberals considered repealing but decided not to was Criminal Code section 176, which is the same crime that was used to charge the six kneeling Catholics in 1985 — the crime of "disturbing religious worship". Back then, it was called section 172, but the wording is identical to today's section 176.

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights considered repealing this section and specifically decided against doing so.

Another section, Criminal Code section 319(2) for the crime of "wilful promotion of hatred", was also not repealed. This section makes it an offence to promote hatred towards an identifiable group. It sounds harmless enough, until you read section 319(3)(b) which excuses individuals who: "in good faith...attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text".

So, anti-semitic hate preachers are off the hook. You might think that disallowing the incitement of hatred on religious grounds is an archaic loophole that would be covered in any "modernizing" and "secularizing" of the Criminal Code, but apparently, you would be mistaken.

Under our new modernized laws, you can only incite hatred if you can justify it based on a religious opinion.

Why Does This Matter?

New Islamic Parties emerging in our federal and provincial politics say that the Canadian Constitution, which nominally recognizes "the supremacy of God", should be interpreted to mean that all laws in Canada should conform to the Islamic faith, which in their opinion is the only reasonable interpretation of our constitution.

While religious special-interest parties never stood a chance of affecting our politics under the first-past-the-post system, just imagine the message that the existence of such parties would send to newcomers who are not used to democratic principles or who are used to voting for one of the countless religious parties in other parts of the world.

This only increases the dangers that come with "ghettoization", a lot of which we have already seen materializing in parts of Europe. Even without such ghettoization, which is already happening in parts of the country, having a party in which a section of the population can dump their votes will inevitably affect the political calculus of even the mainstream parties.

It would only take a generation to undo all of the progress that has been done

There is probably no need to further go into the dangers of allowing religious beliefs in our politics, but just take this one example.

The Islamic Party does not believe in interest on loans. This belief could have simply manifested by believers refusing to take any loans in our economy. Instead, they will seek to outlaw all loans with interest.

Consider what that would do to our economic system. No more credit cards, no more mortgages, no more student loans. Their answer to this concern?

"If a person is not ready to give, then he or she should share in profit and loss but should never lend money in interest."

Let's remember that it is our duty as responsible citizens to be vigilant against the countless bad ideas that our human minds are so good at creating.