The gavel fell in Ottawa and, with it, the next 10 years of Patrick Gordon MacDonald’s life were spoken for. He had produced propaganda for Atomwaffen Division — the most violent brand of neo-Nazi extremism — and the court convicted him on every count: promoting hate, participating in terrorism, facilitating its work. Read MorePeople expect consequences for such crimes. But a sweeping federal bill gives government too much power over free expression.
People expect consequences for such crimes. But a sweeping federal bill gives government too much power over free expression.
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The gavel fell in Ottawa and, with it, the next 10 years of Patrick Gordon MacDonald’s life were spoken for. He had produced propaganda for Atomwaffen Division — the most violent brand of neo-Nazi extremism — and the court convicted him on every count: promoting hate, participating in terrorism, facilitating its work.
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The RCMP called it a national first. Jewish advocacy groups called it overdue. In this city, where the courthouse sits a short walk from Parliament Hill, the judgment reverberates beyond one man’s fate. It signals how this country will wield power when hatred collides with law, and how, in Ottawa, the next move belongs to legislators.
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That verdict landed less than two weeks after the city was left reeling from a hate-motivated attack at a grocery store, where a Jewish woman was stabbed in broad daylight.
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Hatred here is prosecuted in courtrooms and felt on city streets. The demand for consequence is real, and it will not subside.
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Yet, the Charter protects expression because democracies are brittle without it. Limits can be justified, but only when the state proves they are necessary in a free society. When law stretches past necessity into convenience, punishment ceases to be justice and collapses into authority without legitimacy. A statute that grows beyond its justification does not disappear when the outrage fades; it survives as a tool, threatening to be turned toward dissent that merely irritates.
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… the Charter protects expression because democracies are brittle without it.
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The MacDonald case itself shows how categories can expand. A prosecution that once would have rested on hate propaganda alone was fused with terrorism provisions. The outcome may be justifiable — but it sets a precedent. Categories stretched today against the violent fringe can be stretched tomorrow against speech that is less clear-cut. This is the temptation now embedded in Bill C-8, a proposed statute framed as cybersecurity reform but cloaking executive reach in the language of online harm reduction.
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C-8 would grant ministers sweeping new powers, enabling them to order telecom carriers to cut suppliers, block equipment and issue directives across national communications infrastructure. Its stated purpose is resilience against foreign interference. Its practical effect is to place the switchboard of Canadian speech inside the executive’s control. Such orders would bypass ordinary legislative scrutiny, issued from cabinet tables rather than parliamentary chambers, and take effect long before judicial review was even possible. A courtroom convicts after proof, whereas C-8 would intervene before a word was ever spoken.
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Ottawa will absorb the first impact: the courthouse that convicts, the departments that draft, the agencies that enforce. What is tested here becomes precedent everywhere.
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The attack in the grocery aisle only a few weeks ago shows why communities press for stronger action. However, if Parliament answers that pressure by drafting powers without restraint, it risks building tools that will be turned to purposes far beyond the outrage that created them.
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