“New standalone hate crime offence that would apply to every offence in the Criminal Code and in any other Act of Parliament, allowing penalties up to life imprisonment to denounce and deter this hateful conduct as a crime in itself,” the technical briefing explained.
The bill would also raise “the maximum punishments for the four hate propaganda offences from 5 years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide and from 2 years to 5 years for the others when persecuted by way of indictment.”
Also, the bill would add a definition of “hatred” based on the past decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to the Criminal Code.
Anybody will also be able to file complaints against others for “posting hate speech online” that is discriminatory against protected categories such as gender, race, disability and others.
Amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act will let anybody file complaints against persons posting so-called hate speech with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. If found guilty, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal can order those found to violate the government’s definition of hatred with fines up to $20,000 and takedown orders for content.