Mr. Speaker, I rise today for the second time this week to speak to Bill C-9, after the Liberals rammed it through committee and this House and are censoring debate on their own censorship bill. At third reading, we are no longer deliberating intentions. We are deciding consequences. The consequence of Bill C-9, as it now stands, is clear: a fundamental change to Canada's Criminal Code that the Liberals have never been able to properly justify, even today.
Let us be clear at the outset: Conservatives believe that hate is real. We believe that Canadians of every faith deserve to be safe in their communities and free from intimidation, violence and harassment. However, what we are dealing with today is not simply a bill about protecting communities. It is a bill that has been altered mid-debate in a way that raises serious legal, constitutional and moral concerns, and we have a government that still refuses to explain why.
The central issue before the House is the removal of the religious defence from section 319 of the Criminal Code, a protection that has existed for 56 years. The government did not campaign on removing it, nor was it in the original bill or even introduced after broad consultation. It appeared late in the process through an amendment supported by the Liberals and the Bloc, and since that moment, Canadians have been asking one simple question: Why?
To this day, not one member of the Liberal Party has been able to give a clear answer. What we have heard instead are shifting justifications, vague references, and an inability to articulate why a long-standing defence, one that has formed part of the legal balance in Canada's hate speech laws since 1970, should suddenly be removed.
Meanwhile, outside this chamber, Canadians have been speaking, and they have been speaking so loudly. Civil liberties organizations, legal experts and faith communities across this country have all raised concerns. We are not talking about a narrow group or a fringe issue. We are talking about millions of Canadians, constituting Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and others, who have spoken out against this change and directly written to every single Liberal MP on the other side of the House.
As was noted at committee and in submissions, Canadians hold a wide range of beliefs that some may not agree with, but in a free society, disagreement is not grounds for criminalization. That is the principle that has guided our law for decades, yet the government is now proposing to remove one of the key safeguards that protects that principle.
Christine Van Geyn of the Canadian Constitution Foundation put it clearly in her analysis of this bill. She warned that what is being proposed here is not simply a technical adjustment but rather a fundamental shift. She wrote that removing the religious defence would gut the defence that protects good-faith religious opinion or speech rooted in religious texts, and cautioned that the Liberals do not have justification for dismantling a safeguard that protects millions of Canadians from state intrusion into matters of faith. That is the core issue. Parliament does not legislate for the most extreme example. It legislates for the millions of ordinary Canadians whose rights depend on the clarity and balance of our laws.
Van Geyn also pointed to something even more significant: the constitutional foundation of the law itself. In the Supreme Court's decision of Keegstra, the hate propaganda provisions were upheld because of the statutory defences, including the religious defence. She notes that the court viewed these defences as essential to ensuring that the law minimally impairs freedom of expression. If we remove that safeguard, we do not simply change the law. We risk undermining the very basis on which it was upheld.
That is not a theoretical concern. That is a constitutional reality, yet, despite these warnings, these concerns and the clear need for careful study, what did the government do? It shut down debate. Through its programming motion, the government forced this bill through committee. Clause-by-clause consideration resumed under conditions where no further debate was permitted, no amendments could be meaningfully examined, and even the reading of the amendments themselves was curtailed.
This is legislation that would affect the Criminal Code, the most serious law we have, and it was rushed through without the scrutiny it demands, for political reasons only. This raises a deeper question. If the government is confident in this change, why not defend it? Why not allow it to be debated? Why not hear from Canadians and test the arguments openly? Instead, what we have seen is a government that has chosen speed over scrutiny, process over principle and politics over clarity.
We also need to be clear about what this change would actually do. Calls to violence and incitement of hatred are already illegal in Canada and have been so for decades. They are not protected by the religious defence. They never have been. What this defence does is protect good-faith religious expression.
As Van Geyn wrote, “religious expression is messy, symbolic and deeply human.... These are precisely the areas where the criminal law must not tread.” That is a line we are now being asked to cross, and once crossed, it is not easily redrawn. This is not about protecting hate. It is about protecting the boundary between the state and the conscience of the individual. It is about ensuring that in Canada, the government does not become the arbiter of theology.
This debate ultimately comes down to a question of principle. It is not whether hate should be condemned, as it should be, and not whether Canadians should be safe, as they must be, but whether Parliament is prepared to remove a long-standing defence for freedom of expression and freedom of religion without clear justification, without proper debate and in the face of widespread concern from Canadians. This is exactly what this bill would do. It would remove the safeguard that has existed for more than 50 years. It would do so after limiting the very debate meant to test such a change.
Today, Conservatives are offering the Liberal government one more opportunity to get this right. Through our motion, we are asking that Bill C-9 be sent back to committee for one simple purpose: to restore the religious defence in section 319 of the code, which are protections that have long safeguarded good-faith religious expression in Canada.
That is a reasonable, targeted fix that would respond directly to the concerns raised by the broad range of religious communities and civil liberty advocates across this country. It would preserve the ability to combat hate while maintaining the constitutional balance that has guided Canadian law for decades.
The question now is simple: Will the Liberal government listen? Will it listen to the legal experts who have raised constitutional concerns? Will it listen to the millions of Canadians who have spoken out, or will it continue down a path of rushed legislation, limited debate and unnecessary division?
Conservatives will always proudly stand for freedom of expression and freedom of religion, full stop. Today we are giving the Liberal government one final opportunity to stand with us to restore these protections, to respect the concerns of Canadians and to ensure that our Criminal Code reflects both justice and freedom.
Therefore, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places), be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for the purpose of reconsidering clause 4 with the view to amend the Bill so as to restore paragraph 319(3)(b) and paragraph 319(3.1)(b) of the Act, in order to preserve longstanding safeguards for good faith religious expression, address concerns raised by a broad range of religious communities across Canada, and protect freedom of expression and religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
