(LifeSiteNews) — After a two-week reprieve, Mark Carney’s Liberals are back to pushing Bill C-9, a dangerous “hate speech” law that would remove protections for sincerely held religious beliefs.

On January 26, the Justice Committee voted to delay consideration of Bill C-9 while allowing other criminal legislation to proceed after a massive public backlash that included over 40,000 phone calls made to Members of Parliament.

At the time, one of Bill C-9’s prominent opponents, MP Andrew Lawton, warned that although the backlash was having an impact, the battle was far from over.

Last Wednesday, the Liberals returned to Bill C-9 and moved to limit debate on the contentious legislation to a mere two hours.

“Absolutely egregious,” Lawton stated on X. “Not only are the Liberals refusing to let us study Bill C-16 and protect women and children, they’re trying to ram their censorship bill, C-9, through committee with just TWO HOURS of debate on amendments, after which it would automatically go to a vote.”

UPDATE:

The Liberals backed off on limiting debate on Bill C-9 to two hours.

They still intend to prioritize it ahead of other justice legislation, however, starting on Monday.

— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) February 5, 2026

“I would note that in our study of Bill C-9, we never had the opportunity as a committee to even study the removal of the religious defence,” Lawton said in a passionate statement to the Justice Committee on February 4.

So to say that not only should we not be able to study that, but we shouldn’t even be allowed to debate it because we’re going to invoke this arbitrary cutoff point where if we can’t get to something by 1 o’clock that it’s debate over, we have to vote on all amendments – that is something that no member of Parliament can look their constituents in the eye on and tell them that they took the deliberative process of this committee seriously.

The Liberals, Lawton noted, apparently wish to make “censoring religious texts” a priority over the badly needed criminal justice reforms Canadians are clamoring for.

The Liberals ultimately backed off on limiting debate on Bill C-9 to two hours but still intend to prioritize the attack on religious liberty over other justice legislation. It appears that the Liberals want to get the fractious issue of Bill C-9 out of the way in hopes that the ongoing public backlash will quiet down, perhaps in advance of a federal election later this year.

MP Garnett Genuis posted a video Monday morning with Lawton, noting that Conservatives will be fighting Bill C-9 “every step of the way” despite the Liberals trying to “ram this bill through”:

C9 is back on at the Justice Committee this morning! @AndrewLawton and I discussed it on our ride in from the airport… pic.twitter.com/mdz1HtnmXB

— Garnett Genuis (@GarnettGenuis) February 9, 2026

Genuis later posted an update, noting that the Justice Committee meeting scheduled for 11 AM to 1 PM EST was cancelled.

Meanwhile, Faytene Grassechi – who spearheaded phenomenally successful campaign that resulted in 40,000 calls opposing Bill C-9 being made to MPs – is urging Canadians to stay involved, and take to the phones:

The campaign had been paused while movement on Bill C-9 had been temporarily paused but is now back on. “Time is very limited,” Grassechi said. “If they truncate debate… it could be back on the floor of the House of Commons next week for final reading. We don’t know. So this is the window. We are never going to get this window back, so very, very important to be making those phone calls.”

Canadians who want to assist in the pushback against Bill C-9 can join that campaign here.