Mr. Chair, I very much accept your point. That's excellent. He is Dr. Geist.
My point is this: You cannot, on one hand, say that this legislation is crystal clear and that it clearly protects individuals and their use of social media platforms, while simultaneously saying that amendments are needed and that you're going to bring further amendments in order to create further clarification. If it's already perfect, if it's already crystal clear, then it's good to go, but I think what is being admitted here is that this bill isn't perfect and this bill isn't crystal clear in its protection of individuals and the content they post online.
Again, it is important that we put this forward for that charter review.
I think Ms. Dabrusin would like to move that we have the charter statement at the end of this study, and I've been made aware that perhaps Mr. Housefather intends to move a similar motion that we would move the review to the end of clause-by-clause. Ms. Dabrusin has indicated that she would like to bring forward some other amendments to the bill as we go through clause-by-clause.
No. The review needs to be done now, because we're wasting our time if we talk about a piece of legislation that is so deeply flawed and we wait until the very end to get that review. We need that review now. Canadians deserve to know now. Canadians deserve to have us stand up for their charter rights now. That's not something that you put off. That's not something you wait for. That's not something you get around to when it's convenient. No. We're talking about Canadians' charter rights. We're talking about the supreme law of the land. We're talking about contending for Canadians. We're talking about the Canadians who elected us to be their representatives here in the House of Commons. We're talking about the Canadians who have entrusted us to put good legislation in place on their behalf.
We're talking about people who trust us to protect as much of their freedom as possible and about being able to justify concretely every tiny ounce of freedom that we might legislate or chip away at. We had better be able to justify that, because if we are not able to justify that, if we are not able to show that it is with good reason, then we are on our way to becoming a propaganda machine. We are on our way to becoming like China. We are on way to doing away with free press. We are on our way to doing away entirely with free speech, free expression and the ability to have our own opinions.
Mr. Housefather shakes his head, but history tells me that I'm right.
It's incumbent upon this committee to stop the clause-by-clause. Proposed section 4.1 was removed. It's an extremely important clause. This piece of legislation, in its current state, needs to go to the Department of Justice, to the justice minister, and it needs to be thoroughly reviewed.
Ms. Dabrusin would suggest that we need to be co-operative, that we need to collaborate, but the definition of collaboration that is being implied there is to do what she and perhaps the others on her team want us to do. Collaboration doesn't equal getting your own way. Collaboration means we have the discussion. It means we engage in robust debate. It means that we disagree. I mean, for crying out loud, this is how innovation works, folks. Someone puts forward a hypothesis, someone puts forward an antithesis and then there is a synthesis of new information.
This is how we grow. This is how we engage. This is how we become more sophisticated as a society. To shut that down, to ask us to turn off our minds, to fall in line, that's wrong
As much as I've just spoken of what is required here at committee in terms of respecting the voices that are around this table and allowing for dissent to rightly take place here, the bill at hand is far more about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms held by the Canadian public. It's not just a piece of paper. It's theirs, their rights, their freedoms. Again, it's incumbent upon us to protect them.
I yield the floor.