A future law in Canada will lead to a new persecution of Christians, according to a Romanian publication citing a Canadian website well-known for promoting conspiracy theories
The fight for faith never stops
NEWS: “If Canada's Parliament passes Bill C-367, Christians could be arrested for publicly expressing their opposition to sin”, writes LifeSiteNews. “Should Christians be arrested for quoting parts of the Bible in public? Should pastors be charged with "hate crime" when they preach against certain sins? Should churches be closed if the government disagrees with their beliefs? You may think these are ridiculous questions. After all, we are in Canada - "the true north strong and free"! However, with the introduction of Bill C-367, all of these questions are on the table”. LifeSite calls this bill the "Closet the Christians Bill" “because that is exactly what it intends to do – put Christians in the closet. Under threat of jail-time, it will silence believers who oppose the woke ideology that is overrunning our country.”
NARRATIVE: Canadian Christians risk jail time if they publicly promote their faith and quote religious texts.
CONTEXT: Conspiracy theories fueled by disinformation campaigns launched primarily by Russia attempt to lend credence to the idea that there are various occult plots to subjugate humanity and turn it away from Christianity. Narratives along these lines can be found in conspiracy theories like PizzaGate and QAnon, in the Russian propaganda discourse on Gayropa, in the fierce opposition to biological passports (or to vaccination certificates and QR codes during the Covid-19 pandemic), in the fake news about the EU banning Christmas , in populist speeches advocating for the "traditional family". Almost any event, no matter how insignificant, can be linked to the "persecution of Christians", through ambiguous and allusive wording or omissions of information. In January 2023, for example, a narrative was circulated claiming that in Great Britain a woman was arrested for praying silently .
Theories of this kind could obviously not bypass Romania, a still deeply religious and conservative country, marked over time by tendencies towards extremism. The last three years have been a veritable festival of fake news, many with Moscow origins, adapted to local ethe by opinion leaders in ultra-conservative extremist circles. The ultra-religious discourse in Romania goes hand in hand with the pro-Putinist one: Archbishop Theodosius does not consider the Russian president to be doing anything wrong and Senator Diana Șoșoacă, a self-declared defender of the Romanian people’s Christianity and a supporter of Moscow, pleaded in the midst of the pandemic for the Russian anti-covid19 vaccine, Sputnik, and was convinced that there’s no war in Ukraine .
The site that originally carried the narrative is an ultra-conservative Catholic publication in Canada that mainly runs a strong anti-abortion campaign, but also openly opposes contraception or homosexuality. LifeSiteNews has published, over time, disinformations and conspiracy theories, and in 2021, the organization's accounts were banned on several social media platforms for spreading fake news related to the covid19 pandemic.
PURPOSE: To defend the false theory that the Christian religion is the preferred target of the world occult, raise the followers' confidence that we are in the midst of a "holy war", incite hatred and social disobedience, demonize the West.
Under the new law, faith could no longer be invoked to motivate a crime
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Section 319 (b) of the Canadian Criminal Code currently provides that no person shall be convicted of an offence if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text. The purpose of this provision is to protect individuals who invoke religion in public speech, as long as this is done in good faith. In no way is the law made to provide a justification for inciting religious hatred and promoting actions that flagrantly infringe on the individual liberties of those who do not share the same faith.
The law seeking to repeal this paragraph , which the material in question referred to, has been debated by parliament since November 2023 and seeks to remove "religious exemptions" from legal provisions that condemn hate speech. In this way, the bill only seeks to reinforce the principle that all citizens should be held accountable for promoting hate speech, regardless of their religious affiliation. It is not directed against Christians, but against all those who use religion to promote anti-Semitic, anti-immigration and anti-individual freedom ideas.
In fact, a survey carried out in the middle of this month shows that two thirds of Canadians (66%) support this bill , and in Quebec, the Canadian province where it was proposed for the first time, and whose population is predominantly Catholic, the percentage of supporters stands at 75%.
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