OTTAWA — Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Tuesday he will introduce new hate crime legislation in the coming days, with reforms on bail and violent crime sentencing to follow.
The legislation will go beyond the Liberals’ election campaign promise to protect religious institutions from “obstruction and intimidation,” Fraser said.
“We intend to take it a step further to address hate more broadly in our communities,” he told reporters on Parliament Hill.
During the election, the Liberals promised to make it a criminal offence to obstruct access to or threaten people visiting a place of worship, school or community centre.
Fraser said he heard during consultations this summer that hate is not limited to the “steps” of religious institutions but “happens in real time for people in communities more broadly.”
“And we want to ensure that we reflect changes in the criminal law that will offer protection to people who are subjected to crimes of hate, no matter where they take place,” he added.
The number of police reports of hate crimes has been rising since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Fraser said parts of the new bill “may reflect” hate crime provisions first introduced in the Online Harms Act, which did not pass before the election reset the legislative agenda.
That legislation included hate-related amendments to the Criminal Code and Human Rights Act, including stiffer penalties for hate-related offences. The bill would have added online hate speech as a form of discrimination under the law and would have allowed people to file complaints against individuals posting such content to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Advocates and some legal experts expressed concerns about the legislation’s effect on free speech and the Liberals ultimately agreed to split the hate provisions from the rest of the bill.
“There are certain features that we will borrow and to the extent that there were concerns raised around them, we are seeking to accommodate the very real concerns that we heard,” Fraser said Tuesday.
“This is not a wholesale reintroduction of a piece of legislation.”
Fraser added he plans to introduce legislation on bail and sentencing reform in October.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2025.
— With files from Anja Karadeglija
David Baxter, The Canadian Press
