Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming forward today.
I'm going to reiterate something that I said at previous meetings. Last year, this committee studied anti-Semitism with a focus on anti-Semitism on campus. We put out a report from this committee last December, and the majority of items in this bill were recommendations from the justice committee in its report, which CIJA and other organizations testified on.
Mr. Shack, I previously asked this question today to the Edmonton Police Service, and I got an affirmative answer.
This bill does three things: One, it creates new offences to give police more tools in the tool box to tackle, for example, intimidation and obstruction in front of Jewish community buildings and other communities' buildings; two, it clarifies certain elements of existing laws; and three, even where there are existing offences and we've had a lot of trouble getting them prosecuted, this sends a message to police, to the extent that the federal government can send a message to police, that it is important for them to prosecute these hate crimes against all identifiable communities in Canada.
Would you agree with that?