Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, I thank Mr. Cooper for bringing forward the amendment. Respectfully, I don't agree with the amendment and won't be supporting it.
The reason is again the rationale that I stated with regard to Mr. MacGregor's amendment, that we do recognize the higher threshold that the hate mischief is attempting to address. It doesn't mean that these other buildings—any property for any use—wouldn't necessarily be considered criminal activity. Obviously, it could be mischief and, again, it could be factored in during sentencing as an aggravating factor, if the mischief were motivated by hate.
My worry, though, would be about the overly broad aspect of it. Then, for example, if a religious group were the subject of hate speech or graffiti on somebody's primary residence, for example, or somebody's home that was used once in a while as a place of worship every month or something, it would have that use. I just don't know if that's where we want to go with this sort of criminal sanction.
I think we would be better served to have the higher threshold for buildings that are notoriously identifiable with that group and, therefore, to limit it to something that is primarily used by that group for that specific purpose as part of their worship, or any of the other identifiable groups for their meeting places. That's why I would not support this amendment.