Edmonton Police urge citizens to snitch on their neighbours for deportation talk

You typed a comment about Canada’s broken borders, and someone reported it as hate. According to the Edmonton Police Service (EPS), that’s an investigatory offence, even if it’s not a crime.

Last week, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) posted a dramatic video overlaid with censored online comments: “Send them back home.” “Canada needs deportation.” “Hang him.”

The accompanying message declared: “Online hate isn’t ‘just a comment.’ It hurts real people and harms real communities. Hate has no home here.” Viewers were then directed to a ‘hate’ reporting portal.

While the post has since been deleted after m***ive public backlash, the timing is no coincidence.

It follows Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, which received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026, with key provisions having come into force on July 18.

The legislation strengthens Criminal Code hate-propaganda rules, defines “hatred” as an “intense and extreme” emotion of vilification and detestation, creates a new offence for displaying certain terrorism or hate symbols, establishes a stand-alone hate-crime offence, and criminalizes intimidation or obstruction near places of worship, schools, and cultural sites.

EPS wasted no time in jumping on the new laws’ bandwagon with their video that blurred the line between actual criminal hate speech and everyday political opinion, while soliciting reports of non-criminal “hate-motivated incidents.”

Conservative MP and lawyer Roman Baber pushed back hard. “No, Edmonton Police, you have no jurisdiction to limit online speech unless a criminal law is broken,” he wrote in a widely shared post.

“The criminal offence of hate speech is limited to the definition articulated by the Supreme Court almost 40 years ago. Not what others find offensive.”

No @edmontonpolice, you have no jurisdiction to limit online speech unless a criminal law is broken.

The criminal offence of “Hate Speech” is limited to the definition articulated by the Supreme Court almost 40 years ago. Not what others find offensive! pic.twitter.com/NhIqdQDb2l

— Roman Baber (@Roman_Baber) August 3, 2026

According to Section 319 of the Criminal Code, mean posts, insensitive remarks or legitimate arguments about immigration policy doesn’t meet the threshold of a ‘hate crime.’

Such a finding would require proof of the wilful promotion of hatred through the deliberate encouragement of extreme detestation and vilification. It cannot reasonably be equated with advocating for the reform of an immigration system that has admitted illegal entrants, individuals with serious criminal records, and public-health risks, while overwhelming housing, healthcare, and social services, and calling for deportations to be prioritized.

However, this is nothing new for the EPS.

In fact, they’ve been collecting reports of “hate-motivated incidents” since 2023 – that is, non-criminal actions they say are motivated by bias.

Alberta’s taxpayer-funded Hate Crime Committee and police liaison Stephen Camp confirmed these include racial slurs and derogatory comments, which now receive a police file number if reported.

The Hate Crimes Unit reviews them, and a permanent record of lawful speech is created.

In 2025 the service logged 227 of these non-criminal incidents, marking an almost 80% increase. Meanwhile, actual hate crimes, declined.

This is the British model of “non-crime hate incidents” arriving in Canada: police databases of legal opinions and pre-crime surveillance of citizens.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has already warned that the province will not enforce laws that police hurt feelings. Yet city police are running “report hate” campaigns on buses, inviting neighbours to snitch on one another.

When certain patterns of crime – from trafficking, extortion, riots – are repeatedly linked to specific communities, why should Edmontonians, and by extension, Canadians, be forbidden from discussing the issues, especially deportation?

National Post columnist Jamie Sarkonak stated the obvious: Deportation is a valid democratic conversation. It is neither a hate incident nor genocide.

Yet under the Edmonton system, the conversation itself becomes the offence. Who benefits when police resources are spent building files on social-media comments while real crime persists? Who decides which opinions qualify as “hate”?

It’s the same institutions struggling to keep streets safe now claiming authority over what free citizens may think and say, of course.