Canada’s Witchcraft Laws

When you think of witch trials, you probably picture Salem, the 1600s, and women accused of casting spells. But Canada had its own unusual connection to witchcraft and, remarkably, Canadian law once specifically mentioned it.

For many years, section 365 of the Criminal Code made it an offence to fraudulently pretend to practice witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration. The law also targeted people who charged money to tell fortunes or claimed they could use occult knowledge to find stolen or lost property.

But here's where the law gets strange. The actual practice of witchcraft or belonging to religions like Wicca has always been legal; the old law only targeted fraudulent claims or trickery.

So it wasn't actually illegal to practice witchcraft. The offence was pretending to practice it fraudulently. In other words, the law focused on deception and fraud rather than outlawing someone's belief or spiritual practice.

Parliament repealed the section, and the Justice Laws Website removed it because it was outdated and rarely used.

Now, this wasn't some forgotten law from the distant past. Section 365 remained part of Canada's Criminal Code until 2018, when Parliament repealed it as part of a broader effort to remove outdated offences.

The provision had its roots in older British laws that originally prohibited witchcraft outright. Over time, those laws changed and eventually focused on people who claimed supernatural abilities for fraudulent purposes.

So, the next time someone tells you that witchcraft was once illegal in Canada, you can tell them that is not true!

Canada did have a witchcraft offence, but it wasn't simply a law against being a witch. You just couldn’t pretend you were a witch.

And remarkably, Canada didn't remove that provision until 2018.

A law that sounds like something from a medieval courtroom was still sitting in Canada's Criminal Code in the twenty-first century.