Legal expert outlines risks for Canadian employers if legislation passes
As Bill C-9 – known as the Combatting Hate Act – advances to the Senate after a 186-137 vote in the House of Commons last week, human rights and religious groups are sharply divided over whether it will protect vulnerable communities or undermine fundamental freedoms.
The Bill, which was opposed by Conservatives, the NDP and Green MP Elizabeth May, is now with the Senate, which may still propose amendments before it becomes law.
While targeted hate-speech offences already exist in the Criminal Code, the new bill, if passed, will create legal complications for employers, according to Faisal Bhabha, associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and academic director of the Anti-Discrimination Intensive Program.
“We already have laws on the books that criminalize hateful acts like incitement or the wilful promotion of hate,” he says.
“These are narrow exceptions to the general principle that Canadians are free to think and say they wish without threat of punishment by the state.”
Workplace implications for HR, employers
For employers and HR leaders, Bhabha draws a direct line between these legal shifts and day-to-day workplace decisions. He says the risks are not only theoretical but could influence how organizations respond to employee expression and internal conflict.
“In the workplace, the risk is that employers will treat legitimate expression by workers as potentially criminal,” he says.
“This could lead to unnecessary reporting to police as well as workplace repercussions, such as investigations or disciplinary processes.”
That could include, for example, treating heated but lawful debate about international conflicts or social movements as something that must be escalated outside the organization.
“The stated purpose of Bill C-9 is to combat hate. In so doing, it dangerously widens the scope of criminal law into constitutionally protected activity,” Bhabha says, explaining why the proposed legislation has generated so much heated debate among legal and civil liberties experts.
“It turns lawful protest and other expressive acts into crimes for no justifiable reason.”
Implications for employers at protests, strikes
For employers operating near faith-based institutions or other public venues, Bill C-9’s protest-related elements raise specific practical questions. The Catholic Register reported that the bill would create new Criminal Code offences including criminalizing intimidation or obstruction outside establishments used by faith-based groups and the intentional flaunting of “certain terrorism or hate symbols in public”.
In environments where protests against public institutions, including faith-based organizations, may occur just outside the workplace, and where strike picket lines or solidarity demonstrations can look and feel confrontational, employers may feel pressure to respond if employees feel unsafe or threatened.
But they should be careful to separate issues of safety and access, Bhabha says, as overreaction can carry its own legal exposure; employers who over respond to lawful protests or strike lines at or near their workplaces should practice caution.
“Employers may face liability for damages caused by false reporting,” he says, “including suits for constructive dismissal, defamation, wrongful dismissal and more.”
Bill C-9 was passed on March 25, with the final vote being supported by the Bloc Québécois due to the inclusion of a clause removing the religious exemption from Canada's hate speech law, CBC reported.
The Criminal Code’s current religious exception is for statements made “in good faith, [if] the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text."
