Canada sets an example

Ian Bushfield of the BC Humanists Association writes:

Section 296 of Canada’s Criminal Code said:

Offence

296 (1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

Question of fact

(2) It is a question of fact whether or not any matter that is published is a blasphemous libel.

Saving

(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject.

As Jeremy Patrick wrote in his PhD dissertation, the provision has been part of the Code since 1892 and the last conviction was in 1927. Nevertheless, private prosecutions occurred throughout the 1920s and and 30s, with some happening into the 1970s. The most recent effort to invoke the law was in 1979 when an Anglican clergyman tried unsuccessfully to use it to censor a screening of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

Humanist and freethinking groups got together in 2016 to send a petition to parliament to get rid of the blasphemy law, aka section 296 of the Criminal Code.

Over 7400 Canadians signed that petition. As part of her response to the petition, Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould confirmed the blasphemy law was being considered as part of a broader effort of justice reform.

Almost a year after the launch of the petition, the Government included the repeal of section 296 in its bill to modernize the criminal codeBill C-51 repeals a number of archaic and unconstitutional provisions of the Code and make a couple other amendments.

Well done Canada!

The Governor General still has to bestow or pronounce something called Royal Assent, but it looks as if that’s a (quite literal) formality.

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H/t Kausik Datta

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