I think there are a couple of reasons. The main section you would use is section 175, causing a disturbance, but if you read it.... One thing you could do is to make subsections 176(2) and 176(3) part of section 175. But section 176 is about creating a disturbance in a public place, and you have to do it by doing certain things. It is entirely possible to seriously disrupt a religious service or one of these meetings without creating a disturbance as it's defined in section 176.
For a long time, perhaps we didn't have a lot of charges laid under this section. I grew up in Canada, and people had differences of opinion on religion, but religious intolerance just seemed almost to not exist. I think we went through several decades where arguably Canada was the most tolerant place in the world for different religious opinions. Unfortunately things sometimes change, and although I think the overwhelming majority of Canadians are religiously tolerant, we've had a lot of hate lately. Muslims, of course, are the primary objects of late, but as the professor pointed out, Catholics and of course Jewish people remain targets of hatred. I don't pretend to understand why, but it's so.
I think it's important to say that we view as important the right of people to go to their place of worship and to be free from being interfered with while they're there. I don't think you'll find anybody who actually thinks you ought to disrupt these things, but I don't think the protections are there.
With regard to the assaults, there are ways to deal with those; there's no question. It's less significant, although we have a section.... For example, if a policeman is assaulted because he's at a hockey game and he gets into an argument or something, he's not treated any differently from a plumber. But if he's in the course of his duties, he is, and I think there's good reason for that. I think there's a lot of good reason to protect clerics when they're in the course of their duties, because they can be, and I think of late they appear to be, special targets, so there's something to be said. Just because people don't know about the particular section.... I do think most people know that it's illegal to disrupt a religious service, and if you take it out, maybe people will find out it's not.