Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 1, my amendment to the bill. I am pleased to see that we have a fairly sanguine, healthy attendance here today. I am also pleased to see interest to this extent in private members' business.
The bill was adopted in principle by the House and was sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The committee was very busy and had to delay its deliberations on this issue. Ultimately, with the approval of the member for Burnaby--Douglas, the matter came up in the justice committee and we had some time to deal with it. For reasons related to procedure and politics, the committee itself was not able to deal directly with clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, even though it is only a one clause bill.
There were some potential amendments that might have been considered, but the committee was not able to do that. The rules governing private members' business should be looked at for this reason. We found ourselves in a difficult position. Inevitably, there was no vote and no amendment at committee and the bill was deemed reported back to the House without a vote or without any effective deliberations, and here we are today.
I have moved an amendment which I believe will improve the bill. Currently, the sections 318 and 319 procedure exempts from hate crimes expressions of opinion based on a religious subject. As we all understand, sexual orientation is not in and of itself a religious subject. There are many differing views in our society on this subject, as has been pointed out today. Our objective here is to allow a lot of freedom in how we express ourselves in this country. Our charter is testament to that.
Some of our religious texts are quite old while others are quite new. We must admit that some of them have been quite negative on the subject of homosexuality. That view expressed in our religious texts is very real. Although many of these religious texts were written long ago, they are in fact today for many Canadians, living manifestations of their faith. We have to recognize that as well. Even though they might have been written 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, or 2,000 years ago, those texts, whether it is the Bible or the Koran or other religious writings of other faiths, are very much living manifestations of current modern day faith.
People are living their faiths based on a religious text which sometimes is negative on the issue of homosexuality. I have received mail, e-mails, telephone calls, representations from my constituents and people from outside my constituency who have said that the provisions of this proposed amendment would effectively criminalize the Bible or the Koran. One can differ on that conclusion, but the fact that this amendment might do that was enough to cause this member and perhaps other members in the House, and we will see how we vote on this, to take steps to protect the charter based freedom of religious faith.
My amendment ensures in fairly clear words that a good faith expression of an opinion based on a religious text is not, and cannot be, seen as any type of a hate crime or an expression of hate. In my view the amendment will protect all religious texts which are subscribed to and adhered to by many Canadians.
Having said that as briefly as I could, I commend the amendment and the bill into the hands of members of the House.