Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize for being late, but my colleague and I participated in the debate on Bill C-26 and we have been running around.
Mr. Storseth, thank you for being here to talk about your bill. It has caught my attention for some time now. Ever since we started talking about it, we have realized that it is not so simple. We keep going back and forth between various protections that we want to provide. I am an advocate for freedom of expression. It is very important to me. I have spent my life on the radio and on TV, so for me, freedom of expression is a fundamental concept protected under the Charter and I am well aware of that. But, at the same time, I have always known that it is our responsibility to understand that each right can have limits that we set as a society. So it is always a question of finding the right balance.
I don’t think anyone around this table is in favour of hate speech, whatever the extent may be, and I don’t believe that such is the intent of your bill. As I said, once again, it is a matter of finding the right balance.
Mr. Sandhu raised a point that interests me and that would be worth exploring a bit further. I have been a lawyer my whole life and I am going to explain how I see the issues related to the Charter and to human rights under the Canadian Human Rights Act and under current provincial charters, such as the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. As a lawyer, when people came to my office, we could sometimes end up with circumstances that might have led to various types of legal situations. That could entail criminal offences, civil remedies, and so on.
My concern with your bill is that we are taking away an existing remedy. I also met with various interest groups on the issue and some of them felt a certain degree of defeatism. We all pretty much share the same point of view on the issue. Cases before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal—and in Quebec—sometimes take so long that it is discouraging. But a case that takes a long time does not mean that it is a bad case. Some people have opportunities and they sometimes take advantage of the system. Some people file all sorts of complaints for a yes or no. It has often been the case with section 13. Wouldn’t we be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we passed your bill? Shouldn’t we work more on improving things and perhaps adding some powers? I think Mr. Moon referred to this bill and said that we should perhaps find a way to allow the Canadian Human Rights Commission to have a specialized tribunal that deals with abuses of the system and with those who sue for whatever reasons in order to protect the right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we have to keep a recourse that is completely different from that of the Criminal Code and that does not minimize the serious nature of the complaint. I don’t agree with your argument that, if it is at the criminal level, it is more serious. Some people don’t go to criminal court and they file civil suits because it is about the burden of proof.
I said a lot of things, but I wanted to share all this with you.