Justice Committee on May 9th, 2019

[Greg Oliver]

Yes, we do.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Bennett, would you like to comment on that?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I would broadly be in agreement with what Mr. Oliver had to say. My concern is that paragraph 319(3)(b), as it is right now, would need to be amended to capture the aspect of incitement of violence.

There are going to be people such as me who hold different views on questions of life and questions of marriage that some might deem to be intellectually violent, but I hold those views out of genuine belief in my Christian faith. I don't seek to harm anyone by those beliefs. They are the beliefs I hold.

If you were to do anything with that paragraph, I would suggest adding some appropriate text whereby the person, in establishing the opinion on a religious subject or an opinion on a belief in a religious text, must not incite physical violence against an identifiable group or a member of such a group.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Now I'd like to share the remainder of my time with Mr. Virani.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Ehsassi.

Let's continue on this theme.

I'll confess to you that I found a bit puzzling, Mr. Rosenblood, your opening submissions about paragraph 319(3)(b), first because the preamble of the Constitution talks about the supremacy of God and the rule of law, and second because it's well known in law that we carve out accommodation or exemptions for religious or conscience beliefs, most recently in the one issue that I think all of us will remember for our entire parliamentary careers—medical assistance in dying—wherein you had a direct conflict within people who felt, pursuant to their conscience, that they didn't want to be compelled to perform a certain type of medical procedure. That was enunciated in the penultimate paragraph of the Carter decision, since you're citing Supreme Court case law. It's also entrenched in Bill C-14.

I just put that forth as a talking point.

You also mentioned, Mr. Rosenblood, that you're cautioning us not to act quickly. I would actually say to you, if you were listening to the people earlier, that there's a real need to act quickly. I think the need to act quickly is that people are being radicalized towards violence online in Canada—that's part of the court record in the Bissonnette sentencing hearing—and around the planet. I think it is incumbent upon us to act quickly.

I was also a bit puzzled by your citation of a dissenting decision in Keegstra, rather than the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in more recent jurisprudence, which is Whatcott, in which Rothstein, writing for the entire court, upheld section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act as striking the appropriate balance.

There's no doubt that balance needs to be struck. The question I have for you, then, is this: Is section 13 of the CHRA, whose analogue was upheld in Whatcott in a unanimous 6-0 decision by the Supreme Court, the right balance? If it isn't, what's needed? Is what is needed what would effectively be a redundant but perhaps necessary political paragraph that simply says, “Nothing in the aforementioned passages derogates from the constitutionally held right to freedom of expression held by all individuals within Canada under section 2(b)”?

[Leslie Rosenblood]

It is because we feel that this issue is important that the Canadian Secular Alliance feels it is more important the government act correctly, over quickly.

Acting quickly may not achieve the goals we are trying to reach. That's why we believe that, because it's new and is unfamiliar territory for the vast majority of Canadians and parliamentarians, we need to consider what needs to be done properly and not simply do something for the sake of doing something.

As for your direct question on the repealed section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, we feel that the current law strikes a reasonable balance in terms of restrictions on free speech. We feel that existing provisions can be enforced more rigorously and more consistently across Canada and that the larger problem we face is not a lack of legislation addressing hatred in all of its forms but a lack of enforcement of existing provisions.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Virani. Thank you, Mr. Rosenblood.

Before we suspend to go in camera to deal with a very small amount of committee business, I would ask Assistant Professor Dennis, since I don't think he was asked any questions, whether he has anything to add, based on any of the questions that were posed by other members of the committee.

[Dr. Robert Dennis]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Speaking through you to the member who addressed my comments about representative Brian Sims, my [Technical difficulty—Editor] to be an attack on Brian Sims in his accomplishments as a politician. I think you may have read more into what I was saying than I actually said. The point simply is that when techniques such as doxing are used against any community that is otherwise—

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I have a point of order Mr, Chair.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

There is a point of order for Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Chair, what you've done is simply give the witness the opportunity to repeat his smears against representative Sims, and I believe it is quite out of order to do so as the chair.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Garrison, I'm going to agree with you. I would ask the professor just to address any of the substantive issues that were raised, if he could confine his remarks to those. I was merely trying to provide him with an opportunity to respond to the substantive issues, not an issue involving the state assemblyman.

[Dr. Robert Dennis]

My point would be that the virtual world and the online world are highly integrated and quickly evolving. Techniques such as doxing and things that we haven't even had the chance to consider fully as a society have very dangerous repercussions.

How the committee is able to account for fast-moving social media techniques will be a challenge for this committee and will be a challenge for existing legislation. I would urge the committee to keep a close eye on the things that take a legitimate disagreement, which is healthy, and create genuine discord or even, in some cases, violence.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, professor Dennis.

Thank you to all of the witnesses. Your testimony was helpful.

We will suspend for a few minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]