When Loving Good Becomes Illegal: Bill C-9 and the Criminalization of Moral Conviction

Canada has long claimed to value freedom of conscience, belief, and expression. Yet legislation like Bill C-9 suggests those freedoms are becoming conditional. Framed as protection against “hate,” the bill risks criminalizing something much older than modern legal categories: the duty to reject evil and uphold what is good.

For Christians and many other faith traditions, morality isn’t merely opinion. Scripture doesn’t treat good and evil as abstract debate topics. It gives direct instruction:

• “You who love the Lord, hate evil.” (Psalm 97:10)
• “Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9)
• “Hate evil, love good, and establish justice.” (Amos 5:15)

This is not hatred directed toward people. It is a rejection of actions, systems, and behaviours that harm human dignity. In the Christian worldview, opposing sin is an expression of love because sin destroys what God intended to flourish.

Bill C-9 collapses that distinction.

Its broadened definition of “hate” is based not on intent or incitement, but on whether someone feels demeaned, vilified, or emotionally harmed. By removing historic safeguards, such as requiring Attorney General approval before prosecution, Bill C-9 shifts enforcement from measured legal review to reaction-based policing.

Under this redefinition, public moral disagreement—especially when rooted in Scripture—can now be interpreted as criminal hostility.

We have already seen previews of this pattern across Canada:

• Teachers disciplined for expressing long-standing faith-based ethics in calm, academic discussion.
• Sermons investigated because someone outside the faith disagreed with the morality being taught.
• Students expelled from debate spaces for stating theological positions shared globally by billions.
• Peaceful prayer gatherings framed as intimidation—not for actions taken, but for beliefs expressed.

Under previous law, these events fell into the category of civil disagreement. Under Bill C-9’s structure, they could be prosecuted.

This is the legal shift: when moral conviction becomes indistinguishable from hatred in the eyes of law, the mere act of speaking what one believes can be treated as a threat.

A free society doesn’t require citizens to agree. It requires citizens to be allowed to disagree.

But there is another layer—one that many believers cannot ignore.

For Christians, the possibility that this legislation may lead to increased hostility toward their beliefs is not surprising. Scripture doesn’t merely permit the idea of opposition—it predicts it.

Jesus warned:

“You will be hated by all nations because of me.”
— Matthew 24:9

And the apostle Paul wrote:

“All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
— 2 Timothy 3:12

So how do we stop this?

The difficult truth is: we may not be able to.

If this is the trajectory Scripture foretells—a world increasingly hostile to truth, conviction, and absolute morality—then legal, cultural, and political pressure against Christianity is not a policy accident. It is part of the pattern.

Christians are not called to prevent prophecy. They are called to remain faithful within it.

So the response is not fear, retreat, or silence.

It is clarity.

It is courage.

It is refusing to exchange truth for cultural approval.

Opposing evil is not hatred. Calling behaviour sinful is not violence. And a government that punishes belief is not defending the vulnerable—it is defending ideology.

Bill C-9 matters not because believers are fragile, but because freedom is.

If moral conviction can become illegal simply because someone finds it uncomfortable, then faith is no longer free. And a nation that criminalizes conscience is not progressing.

It is repeating history.

And history has never been kind to societies that try to erase truth instead of wrestling with it.

-Christopher Scott