Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to testify before the committee. Mrs. Potvin, Mr. Gaudreault‑DesBiens and I will all speak briefly.
We represent the Chaire de recherche France-Québec sur les enjeux contemporains de la liberté d'expression, or COLIBEX, which is funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec.
With me are Professor Maryse Potvin, co‑chair and head of the area that focuses on academic freedom, and Jean‑François Gaudreault‑DesBiens, co‑researcher and legal expert. I am a co‑chair and head of the area that focuses on religion.
We will briefly outline a few recommendations, which are described in detail in the brief that will be submitted after the meeting. I'm going to introduce the first part, which deals with religion. It includes two recommendations related to section 319 of the Criminal Code, which deals with public incitement of hatred.
The first recommendation is as follows. We agree with Bill C‑373, which calls for the repeal of paragraph 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code. The paragraph protects an opinion on a religious subject. In our view, that should not be the case. If any elected officials oppose the repeal of the paragraph, they should explicitly justify the reasons for their opposition.
The second recommendation is as follows. Given the complexity of the issues surrounding incitement to hatred and how it can be expressed publicly, we recommend that the government develop public guidance to better interpret the concept of “identifiable group”, a concept defined in subsection 318(4) of the Criminal Code.
I will now give the floor to Professor Maryse Potvin.