How Parliament Made It Legal for the Media to Lie to You

Bill C-39 Quietly Erased the Law That Once Made False Reporting a Crime in Canada By Stan McDonald Most Canadians have no idea there was once a law making it a criminal offence for the media to knowingly lie to them. Fewer still know that law was quietly removed from the Criminal Code of Canada—and that Parliament made it official in 2019. This is the story of Section 181, the “Spreading False News” provision, and the bill that buried it. The Law You Were Never Told About For over a century, Section 181 of Canada’s Criminal Code read: “Every one who wilfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he knows is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.”¹ Knowingly publishing false information that harmed the public interest was an indictable offence punishable by up to two years in prison. This was not a dusty technicality. It sat in the Criminal Code (originally as Section 177), rooted in centuries of common law meant to protect the public from deliberate deception by powerful institutions. Under this law, a journalist, broadcaster, or media outlet that knowingly published false news that harmed the public could commit a crime. The Zundel Case—and What Most Canadians Miss The fall of Section 181 began not with a reporter, but with one of Canada’s most reviled figures: Ernst Zundel, a neo-Nazi propagandist. Zundel published Did Six Million Really Die?, a Holocaust-denial pamphlet that allegedly misrepresented historians, fabricated “evidence,” and cited non-existent authorities. In 1985, Zundel was charged under Section 181 for willfully spreading false news. He was convicted. He appealed. In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada, in a narrow 4–3 decision in R. v. Zundel, struck down Section 181 as unconstitutional.² Justice Beverley McLachlin (later Chief Justice) wrote the majority opinion, holding that Section 181 violated Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—freedom of expression—and that the violation could not be justified. Three justices dissented. They argued that the objective of Section 181—preventing the willful publication of injurious lies—was pressing and substantial, that it promoted social and racial harmony, and that the burden on free expression was minimal because the Crown had to prove both knowledge of falsity and likely harm to the public interest. The dissent had a point, but the majority carried the day. Section 181 was declared inoperative. Here’s What Most Canadians Miss: Despite the ruling, Section 181 remained printed in the Criminal Code for another 27 years. Bill C-39: Cleanup—or Quiet Burial? In March 2017, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-39 in the 42nd Parliament.³ Its stated purpose was to “tidy up” the Criminal Code by repealing provisions already declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Among the provisions targeted: Loitering (paragraph 179(1)(b)), struck down in R. v. Heywood, 1994 Spreading false news (Section 181), struck down in R. v. Zundel, 1992 Unlawful object murder (paragraph 229(c)), partially struck down in R. v. Martineau, 1990 The Department of Justice framed the bill as a “rule of law” exercise—simply making the written law match reality. On June 21, 2019, Bill C-39 received Royal Assent and became law.³ Section 181 was formally erased from the Criminal Code of Canada. The “Spreading False News” Provision Was Gone. What This Means—and the Questions Worth Asking The official position is that Section 181 had been effectively dead since 1992, so repealing it was just administrative housekeeping. But is that the whole story? The law remained on the books for 27 years after Zundel. Only in 2017—amid rising public distrust in mainstream media, the growth of citizen journalism, and the spread of internet access that made media accountability a mainstream concern—did Parliament finally move to remove it. The three dissenting justices in R. v. Zundel believed Section 181 could have been saved with better drafting. A narrower, precisely worded provision targeting knowing, harmful, malicious disinformation by powerful media institutions might well have survived a Charter challenge. Parliament never attempted to re-enact such a law. If a revised Section 181 were in force now, any media outlet or broadcaster that knowingly ran a false story harming the public interest could, in theory, face criminal charges. Even if rarely used, the deterrent effect would be significant. Instead, the trajectory moved in the opposite direction. The same government that formally repealed Section 181 in 2019 has since provided hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to media outlets through programs such as the Local Journalism Initiative and the Canada Periodical Fund. Media that once faced possible criminal penalties for knowingly harming the public interest now receive taxpayer money—with no equivalent criminal accountability provision in sight. The repeal of Section 181 through Bill C-39 received virtually no public debate, no meaningful media coverage, and no public outcry. That silence raises questions. The media that might have informed Canadians about the loss of a law penalizing deliberate falsehoods were the same institutions whose legal exposure disappeared with its repeal. There is a certain irony in that. Section 181 descended from English common law going back centuries. Its core purpose was simple: powerful people and institutions should not be free to use the press to deceive the public for their own benefit. When they did, there was to be a criminal consequence. Today, there is none. You can ask your Member of Parliament why Parliament never tried to replace Section 181 with a narrower, Charter-proof version. You can ask your local newspaper why it never reported on the quiet erasure of a law that once criminalized deliberate, harmful lies. And you can decide for yourself what that means. What You Can Do You are not powerless in the face of this change. Here are practical steps you can take: Share this article. The story of Section 181 and Bill C-39 deserves to be known in every Canadian household. Write to your MP. Demand serious accountability legislation that holds major media and other powerful institutions to a criminal standard of truth when they knowingly spread harmful lies—drafted carefully enough to pass Charter scrutiny. Support independent media. Back outlets that operate without government subsidies and without the conflicts of interest that flow from them. Do your own research. Look up the original law. Read the court ruling. Review the bill. Don’t take anyone’s word for it—including this article. The primary sources are out there, and they’re worth your time. laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-181-20030101.html scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/904/index.do parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-39/royal-assent Stan McDonald is a Canadian entrepreneur and metalworker committed to community advocacy, legal reform, and honest public discourse. He writes on property rights, sovereignty, government accountability, and small business solutions.