After Montreal shooting, Bill C-9 needs more than symbolism
Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, received royal assent on June 18 and will come into force on July 18, moving the country from legislative debate to implementation. Canada must decide whether C-9 will become a tool for action, or another example of our systemic failure to translate law into protection.
Laws, whether new or amended, do not protect people simply by being on the books. They must be turned into real-world protection for communities. The question is whether Canada is ready to build the institutional muscle required to implement the changes set out in C-9.
Past implementation failures give us reason to be cautious. Too often, commitments are made, expectations rise, and execution becomes uneven from police services through to prosecution. The communities these protections are meant to serve experience unpredictable support, which further erodes trust in the systems meant to provide safety. When they see missed cases and escalating harm, confidence in reporting erodes and disengagement deepens. Over time, the gap between what the law promises and what people experience widens, creating its own source of instability.
Laws signal values and tell Canadians what will be accepted or condemned, but protection depends on what institutions are willing to do with them. That requires operational readiness through thoughtful interpretation, consistent enforcement, sound prosecutorial judgment, clear communication, and strengthened public trust. As many activists and community members have noted, Canada already has legislative tools to address hate crimes and hate propaganda, but they are only as effective as the institutions using them.
A generic call for “more training” is not going to be sufficient to create lasting change. If it was, we likely would not have needed the Combatting Hate Act in the first place. What is needed is a commitment from institutions to go beyond one-off training sessions and into the harder, ongoing work of identifying threat escalation, evolving coded hate, legal thresholds, and community impact.
Police, prosecutors, and courts also need to understand that hatred does not arrive fully formed in a vacuum. It can move from grievance to hardened ideology and potentially violent actions in shifting environments and discourse.
The June 22 Montreal shooting illustrates this point. Early reporting on the alleged shooter’s manifesto and online activity points to a volatile mix of misogyny, conspiracy, anti-capitalist grievance, and incel-aligned resentment. That kind of à la carte extremism is exactly what institutions must be prepared to interpret effectively. If police, prosecutors, and courts are trained only to recognize well-worn hate symbols or tidy ideological categories, they will struggle with the complex and contradictory forms of radicalization increasingly shaping real-world violence, and they will keep arriving late.
These challenges become even more difficult in an environment where AI-generated content, private online spaces, and platform-driven amplification can accelerate grievance, distort reality, and move violent ideas faster than institutions are built to respond.
Given the diverse contexts and considerations required to effectively implement Bill C-9, community-informed application must be central and not just a “nice-to-have” addition. The urgency and caution expressed by affected communities to date must both be taken seriously and built into implementation.
The federal government’s new Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion is one place this work could begin. However, if it becomes one more silo, it will repeat the same problem C-9 now exposes. If it connects community knowledge, legal training, data collection, public safety programs, and evaluation across institutions, it could help turn legislative intent into co-ordinated action.
Communities will be watching how the Combatting Hate Act is explained, applied, and justified. When decisions appear inconsistent or opaque, the amendments will lose their effectiveness.
Despite the concerns and deep work required, Bill C-9 creates a unique opportunity for legal and procedural refinement. However, if we treat royal assent as the finish line, this bill will do what too many laws do: signal values without changing outcomes, and the communities who need protection will continue to wait.
Liz Moore-Frederiksen has more than 30 years of experience in human rights education and public engagement. She has testified before parliamentary committees on issues related to online hate, and has delivered keynotes, lectures, and workshops. Her writing on racism, radicalization, and institutional harm, which draws on both professional expertise and lived experience of radicalization, has appeared in textbooks, government reports, and mainstream media outlets. Moore-Frederiksen is the founder of GrowthShifters, where she advises organizations on values-driven AI adoption.
The Hill Times