Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[Nusaiba Al-Azem]

Absolutely. Thank you for the question.

This committee has heard many people in other sessions, such as Dr. Yipeng Ge, provide first-hand accounts of some of what we call Palestine suppression.

In my role at NCCM, I hear from Muslim Canadians and other Canadians across the country. I've seen instances regarding Palestine suppression from disproportionate police response at protests—including physical force against pregnant women who were doing nothing more than peacefully participating in a protest, as is their right—to the censorship of Palestinian content online, whether that's being shadow banned or censored through other forms of online suppression, to such egregious suppression as folks losing their jobs, as you made reference to, and their livelihoods for either being Palestinian or speaking in support of Palestine.

I've seen some cases of literally just quoting scripture or speaking in Arabic and they lost their jobs as a result. These are real cases that we've seen here in Canada. That's what's happening on the ground. We've seen lawyers publicly advocate that students shouldn't be employed. We've seen forced attestation letters to make students distance themselves from student movements.

The Superior Court of Justice found earlier this year that the fears around the risk of a new form of McCarthyism are not without foundation. This has serious implications for the robustness of what our expression freedoms mean and what they mean for people who hold them.

This is all linked into this greater—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. Can we wrap up?

[Nusaiba Al-Azem]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

The second round is a five-minute round.

We'll begin with Mr. Kurek for the Conservatives for five minutes.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Father de Souza, thank you for your testimony. I know you've written extensively across a whole host of different topics.

I'd ask for your input about how, as Canadians, we ensure that the public sphere in this country is one where we can have robust dialogue, debates and discussions, and be able to sometimes—to use the old expression—just agree to disagree. I would suggest that is one of the foundational elements of what a free and democratic society should look like.

Could you comment on that?

[Father Raymond de Souza]

There are parts of our common culture where that's not unusual, like in our newspapers and airwaves. It's been mentioned by other speakers. Online, almost everybody can say anything they want. There's very little restriction, although some concerns have been raised in some legislation.

There are areas of our common culture and common life where that is shrinking. We've had two professors talk about the environment on campus. There are the professional bodies that I spoke about. There are other places where the freedom to speak out is under pressure or even restricted.

You have to figure out which part of the culture you're looking at. I mean, I'm a newspaper columnist. There's no problem. I write whatever I want. I don't have any obstacle to that. There are places and professionals in our country—professors, university professors in some circumstances, medical professionals and so forth—where there's a problem.

There's this other issue of people feeling chilled or under pressure. Depending on the issue, that can be more of a cultural thing. It doesn't have a legal expression.

Are there concerns? I think there are concerns, but they're not widespread. We don't have to worry about the freedom of the press disappearing in Canada, but there are important places in our common life together, especially professional places, where it's under restriction.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you for that.

As a man of the cloth, you're walking this line. Your faith is a big part of your public life and the opinions that you share in that regard.

You mentioned the prioritization in the charter about freedom of religion and conscience and then freedom of expression.

I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on how key it is to ensure that—in this case, it's lawmakers sitting around this table, but there's the larger context of Canadians who might be engaged in this subject—when we talk about freedom in Canada, it not be lost in the need to take into account that freedom of religion and freedom of conscience and how that impacts freedom of expression.

[Father Raymond de Souza]

There's a list in the charter. They could have written it in a different way, but that's how they chose to write it, that the first freedom is of conscience and religion. As Professor Le Blanc mentioned, conscience and religion are where those ideas often form, which are then expressed in thought, belief, etc. If you don't protect the inner sanctuary of the person, it's very hard to protect the outer expression of the person. That's why it's not accidental that they're in there first. They're not optional. There is a hierarchy. I mean, they're all fundamental freedoms, but there's a reason that was chosen.

When it comes to our public life together, people of faith should not feel that, because their views on a particular public issue are formed in their faith, they're somehow secondary or less worthy of consideration, as if a secular idea, somehow, has greater validity because of its origin. That's not usually a legal problem. However, it is often the case that, even in our public debates, arguments that proceed from conscience and religion are sometimes treated as second-class arguments.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I appreciate that.

I have one quick question. I think I have about 30 seconds.

When it comes to discussions surrounding faith, I hear from pastors, priests and other faith leaders that they're worried there are some within our society who would say that you're free to say what you want within your church but not to take it outside the doors of that church.

Is that what the charter means?

[Father Raymond de Souza]

That's not what the charter means. That would be like saying that you're free to think what you want in your classroom, barbershop, bar, tavern or house, but you can't bring that into public life. People don't say that. There shouldn't be a special category that says if that's what you think in your temple, church or mosque, it's not allowed. That's not what freedom of religion or conscience is, and that's not what freedom of expression means.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I do not know which Liberal member I have next.

I think it's Mr. Noormohamed, but I will stand corrected.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

That is correct, Madam Chair. Thank you.

I was struck by a number of comments made today about the importance of freedom of expression, particularly when it comes to matters of faith.

Ms. Al-Azem, when you spoke, one of the things you didn't touch on—and I'm wondering if you could—was the chilling impact on the freedom of expression of Muslim women during the time Conservatives proposed a ban on the niqab. It was not long ago.

Can you share your views on the propriety of a ban like that and what it does when it comes to freedom of expression nationally?

[Nusaiba Al-Azem]

Certainly, and I thank you for the question.

In many ways, it builds on what we were just hearing about how freedom of conscience is the beginning. There is inward thought. Then freedom of expression is how that ends up manifesting. That's in fact what a Quebec court found on Bill 21. It violated not only freedom of religion but also freedom of expression.

Any legislation that seeks to prevent, effectively, Muslim women or folks from being able to express their religious identity while participating in public life is certainly something NCCM feels very strongly about. We are against it, particularly in a robust democracy, where everybody has the ability to participate, as full members, in all facets of public life.

On that, I will note that NCCM successfully supported the challenge to that legislation at the time, in 2015. Were we ever to see something like that in future, we would, of course, also look to litigate and challenge it, because we think it's fundamentally contrarian. We had many conversations with, at the time, the Conservative government that passed it.

We've also had many conversations with Conservative MPs whose views, as I understand, have really evolved on that matter since then, which gives us some reassurance. We're happy to continue to work with all members on all sides to make sure everybody has the ability to fully show up as themselves in all areas of public life.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you.

Father de Souza, would you agree that something like a niqab ban would be ill advised?

[Father Raymond de Souza]

You're referring to Bill 21 in Quebec. My view is that it was not a legitimate restriction of religious liberties. It didn't apply principally, as the witness mentioned, to Muslims, Jews and Sikhs. It actually applied to everybody. Christians have less prominent symbols, but it applied to everybody. I think, for example, the police force in Montreal, in the last few years, prohibited some of their presumably Catholic members from wearing a St. Michael emblem, or something like that.

I think you should be accommodating to people's religious expressions. There might be some things where, in very specific circumstances, there is a need for limitation, but I think that would be hard to imagine. It's certainly not on a general level. On limiting people's religious expression in terms of clothing, I am against that.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'd like to go back to Ms. Al-Azem for a second.

One thing that becomes more and more pervasive as we are seeing the Gaza-Israel war continue is the idea of freedom of expression, regardless of which side of this conflict you sit on, and that somehow we need to do a better job of policing what is reasonable in terms of expression and in terms of how people respond to the tragedy and horror that is currently unfolding.

What are your views on those restrictions on freedom of expression?

[Nusaiba Al-Azem]

I'm sorry. Can you clarify your question? Is it their expressions for protests?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Whether it's in the workplace, whether it's peaceful protests—and I'm not for one moment condoning violence, just so we're clear because we seem to conflate these things—whether it's positions that are taken, or whether it's conversation.... By the way, this applies equally to members of the Jewish community who feel afraid to express who they are, and certainly members of the Muslim community and others who have been speaking out for the Palestinian cause.

How do we navigate this in a very fraught environment? How do we hear each other?

[Nusaiba Al-Azem]

I think we're coming to the heart of the question that people have been raising at this session and in other sessions. It's about how do we agree to disagree or how do we have conversations. There is a legal framework for when speech crosses a boundary that we have all determined to be criminal, to incite hate, or speech that otherwise needs to be regulated.

For the most part, most people are aware and alive to the fact that speech can be, for example, hurtful but not necessarily hateful. It can be lawful but awful, right? That is something—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Al-Azem, I'll ask you to wrap up, please.

[Nusaiba Al-Azem]

Okay.

Responsible leadership is where I was going with that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Who will we go to next? I keep chopping and changing this list.

Martin, go ahead, please.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Le Blanc, I saw you react earlier when we talked about Bill 21. There's a lot of misinformation and propaganda being circulated about the Act respecting the Laicity of the State in Quebec. This makes me wonder, since you yourself spoke of freedom of conscience. Earlier, Father de Souza also talked about the fact that this legislation applies uniformly to all religions. Some religions have more conspicuous signs than others, and their followers are more concerned.

Could you tell me whether freedom of conscience can or should take precedence over a society's values, over democratically voted laws? I'd like to have your point of view on this, because every possible nonsense has been said, over the last few months and years about this law.

[Charles Le Blanc]

I think we should welcome the broad use of freedom of expression in this committee. I'm going to say two things, quickly.

I'll come back first to the notwithstanding clause. I'd like to tell you right away that there is no derogation provision in Saudi Arabia, Iran or China. Do you know why? Because they are dictatorships. We have a notwithstanding clause in Canada because we're a democracy. So we're not going to start saying that the notwithstanding clause is bad in itself. We can argue about its use, but, in and of itself, it's not bad.

In answer to your question about Quebec's Bill 21, the Act respecting the Laicity of the State, personally, having had a Christian training, being a son of the Jesuits, I feel that conscience is fundamental. It's an inviolable place. However, we live in society and we have to know where we stand. I've just come back from a month's teaching in Poland, where I sort of bent to the cultural customs and taboos found there. In a society, when there's a broad democratic consensus, the thing to do is to bow to that democratic consensus if you're a democrat. If you're not a democrat, that's another story. But if you are, you have to go along with the democratic consensus, and you may not like everything in a given democracy. That, however, is the game of democracy.

As for Bill 21, I think it's a concession to make. It's not true that people are fired for wearing the hijab. Those who already had a hijab in school had a grandfather clause, and could continue to wear it. What's more, it's only limited to very specific categories of employees who represent the state. For the rest of the employees, there's no problem.