In Canada, where biblical speech can now mean jail, expulsion, or burned churches, Christians are learning that safety requires silence—and that true freedom is only tested by the courage to speak anyway.
Rev. Dr. Devin Seghers hosted the question, “Are Christians safe in Canada?” at Capital City Bikers’ Church in Ottawa. The panelists who answered it included a state senator from Oklahoma, a former Canadian federal MP expelled from his own party for opposing COVID mandates, a grandmother who spent eleven years in jail for refusing to stop protesting abortion, and a man who has been arrested in four countries for holding a sign against ‘transitioning’ children.
Derek Sloan answered the question directly, which was the topic of the evening at Ottawa Biker’s Church. “Safe” does not mean hunted in the streets, he said. It means free to speak, free to believe, free to preach, free to teach your children, free to quote the Bible, free to disagree with the government. “Freedom is tested when you say something, and people in power don’t want to hear, and that’s where Christians need to wake up.”
Sloan was a Conservative MP for Hastings, Lennox and Addington from 2019 until January 20, 2021, when he was expelled from the Conservative caucus over a donation from a white nationalist he said he never knew about. The donation was the pretext. The “pattern of destructive behavior” that party leader Erin O’Toole cited was a man who refused to fall in line on COVID. Five months later, on June 17, 2021, Sloan held a press conference on Parliament Hill with doctors and vaccine experts who dissented from the government’s pandemic policy. It became the most-watched video in CPAC history.
Sloan named the legislation. Bill C-4 made so-called “conversion therapy”, which is any speech at a person who is uncertain of their “gender identity” not directly encouraging them to get surgery and hormones, a criminal offense, and the bill, written with language so broad it could cover a pastoral counseling session where a believer seeks help with temptation. Sloan voted against it at second reading with only six other MPs nationwide. By final reading, 63 voted against. The bill passed with 263. “Most chillingly,” Sloan said, “it declared illegal, at least in the realm of sexuality, what Jesus has been doing for thousands of years: converting hearts and minds and redeeming fallen humanity through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, passed recently and repealed the existing Criminal Code defense for expressing opinions based on religious texts. The religious defense is gone. In other words, Canada’s previous ‘hate-speech’ laws made an exception for quoting canonical religious texts. During the committee discussion, a liberal minister cited passages from Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Romans as examples of “hatred.” When challenged, he denied it on Twitter. “They do exactly what we say they’re doing,” Sloan said, “and then they deny it. And most people believe the denials, but they mean exactly what they say.”
He named the human cost. Over 100 churches burned in Canada and more vandalized. Pastors arrested and jailed. Teachers silenced and penalized. He also said he drove up to Ottawa with Linda Gibbons. More on her to come.
Oklahoma State Senator Shane Jett gave the keynote. Stockwell Day, former leader of the Canadian Alliance and a federal cabinet minister under Stephen Harper, introduced him. Jett is a full citizen of the Cherokee Nation, a former Navy intelligence officer, a Trump appointee to the U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Advisory Board, and the founding chair of the Oklahoma Freedom Caucus. He came to Ottawa because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms opens by acknowledging “the supremacy of God and the rule of law,” and Bill C-9 sits in growing tension with that inheritance.
The keynote was a sermon about courage. Jett is a Bible-believing Christian, and he preaches like one. He told the story of Gideon, the coward in the wine press whom God called a mighty man of valor. He told the congregation they were not alone. He quoted Revelation 21:8 on the fearful and the cowardly. He said courage is contagious.
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