If you want to find out how bad it can be when police are allowed to decide what is hateful, look no further than the U.K., where an average of 30 people a day are arrested for offensive comments.

Then there are the people — about 13,000 a year — who are not arrested but put on a register for “non-crime hate incidents.”

Hanging out “soiled underpants” on the washing line can get you on that register if a neighbour “perceives” they are being targeted.

With a new bill, C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, the Liberals would hand over to the police the power to decide what is hate. The bill would repeal the requirement for the attorney general to lay hate charges, “streamlining the process for law enforcement to more effectively address such cases,” says the bill, rather innocently.

“By removi

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