Names Some Hate Symbols. Why Not Communist Ones?

Bill C 9 Names Some Hate Symbols. Why Not Communist Ones? By Dale Jodoin Columnist Canada is writing a hate symbol law, but one of history’s most feared symbols is missing. The Nazi Hakenkreuz is named. The Nazi SS bolts are named. Symbols tied to listed terrorist groups are named. The Senate has now added the noose. But the hammer and sickle, a symbol tied to communist regimes from Russia to China, is not named. Why not? That is the question Parliament should answer before Bill C 9 moves any further. Bill C 9, the Combating Hate Act, passed third reading in the House of Commons on March 25, 2026. The Senate later added the noose, so the bill has to return to the House before it can become law. The bill is aimed at the public display of certain symbols when they are used to wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group. That is serious. It should be handled with care. A noose is not just rope when it is used as a threat. Nazi symbols are not just old markings when they are used to frighten Jewish Canadians or promote Nazi hatred. Symbols can carry fear. They can carry memories. They can say something ugly without a person saying a word. So why did Parliament stop there? For many Canadians, the hammer and sickle is not harmless politics. It is not just a poster, a flag, or a shirt worn by someone trying to look rebellious. It is tied to regimes that jailed people, silenced churches, watched neighbours, punished farmers, broke families, and made ordinary citizens afraid of their own government. For some Canadian families, this is not old history. It is the reason their parents or grandparents came here. The numbers are not small. Historians argue over the exact totals, and they should, because truth matters. But the scale is still awful. Estimates tied to Stalin’s rule reach into the millions, including deaths from labour camps, forced collectivization, famine, and executions. Millions also died in the Holodomor period. In China, estimates for the Great Leap Forward famine also reach into the tens of millions. That is not a small footnote in history. Canada already knows this. The federal government opened the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa in 2024, saying it honours victims of communism and recognizes Canada as a refuge from injustice and persecution. So how can the same country honour victims of communism with a national memorial, but leave the hammer and sickle out of a national hate symbol debate? Was it missed? Was it political caution? Was it because some people still romanticize communist symbols? Was it because the government did not want to upset activists who treat the hammer and sickle like fashion? These are fair questions. They are not wild claims. We do not have proof that anyone high up ordered communist symbols left out. Without proof, that should not be stated as fact. But citizens have every right to ask why it happened. The Che Guevara image raises a related problem. Some call him a freedom fighter. Some wear his face on a shirt and probably know very little about him. His image has been turned into fashion, but for many people who fled communist rule, it carries a very different meaning. It can mean prisons, executions, fear, and the loss of freedom. Does that mean every young person wearing a Che shirt should be charged? No. Ignorance is not hatred. But when that image is used to glorify communist violence, mock people who fled communist rule, or celebrate political terror, why should Parliament pretend it carries no weight? This is where common sense matters. The swastika proves why the law must be careful. Long before Nazi Germany stole it, the swastika had religious and cultural meaning. It remains important in Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions. Under Nazi Germany, it became the Hakenkreuz, a symbol tied to hatred and genocide in the West. That difference matters. Canada should target the Nazi Hakenkreuz when it is used to promote hatred. It should not punish a Buddhist temple, a Hindu home, a Jain symbol, an old Chinese restaurant, a museum, a history book, or an old building where the symbol had peaceful meaning long before Hitler poisoned it. Hitler stole that symbol. The law should not let him own it forever. Bill C 9 includes protections for legitimate purposes, including education, journalism, art, and public interest use. That matters. A reporter must be able to show a symbol in a story. A teacher must be able to show one in class. A museum must be able to tell history properly. But protections for history do not answer the bigger question. Why were communist symbols left out? A hate symbol law cannot play favourites with suffering. It cannot say one group’s pain matters while another group’s pain is too inconvenient to mention. The noose belongs in this debate. Nazi symbols belong in this debate. Terrorist symbols belong in this debate. And yes, the hammer and sickle belong in this debate too. If Parliament is brave enough to name Nazi terror, racial terror, and terrorist symbols, then it should be brave enough to debate communist terror as well. Anything less is not courage. It is a selective memory.