Justice Committee on Oct. 30th, 2025

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for your participation.

Mr. Jain, I don't want you to feel left out. Is that okay? We appreciate your attendance today, so I'm going to ask you some questions. The first question I want to put to you, sir, is that you raised a lot of interesting points in your opening statement—and I thank you for that—and I want to talk to you about consultation. Now, the government speaks quite a bit about regularly consulting with all major stakeholders, and even minor stakeholders, when they introduce legislation. This legislation, known as Bill C-9, given its focus on the swastika, which closely, if not...almost mirrors the religious sacred symbols in your faith, I'm wondering whether you were consulted at all by the Liberal government.

[Vijaykumar Jain]

No, there was no such thing.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

It doesn't surprise me. It's very disappointing. In addition to what you described in your opening statement, in terms of the request for clarification, there really could have been an easy answer to this. Simply defining the hakenkreuz, the Nazi swastika, and that it does not relate to symbolism in your faith, could have been an easy answer. The government chose not to do that.

Is there anything else about this particular bill? There's another aspect of this bill about a symbol that closely resembles a symbol that's described in (a) and (b) and likely to be confused with that symbol. How is that going to impact your religion?

[Vijaykumar Jain]

Yes, I read points (a), (b) and (c) under that section, and point (c) mentions anything that nearly resembles a symbol in point (b) should be banned. Yes, that can be addressed, and in my submission I did mention that, if we remove the words “Nazi swastika”, just leave those words out of part (b), that's good enough. Under the defences section, you did include the sentence that, if you are using it for religious purposes, then that will be protected.

Besides that, in my submission—which will be translated, and then you will get it—we are asking for an explicit exception for the Hindu and Jain communities, which was done in Victoria state, Australia. They made an explicit exception—and there they used the word “swastika”—that it should be exempted if it is used for religious purposes, and they said that, sometimes, it is conflated with the Nazi hakenkreuz. They are making a very clear distinction.

Also, I have submitted educational material that was done by the education department of Oregon state, U.S.A. It's more a matter of an education. If we educate the media, officers of the law and police personnel, I think this can be very well addressed. People will not be charged for that as long as they know the intent here is religious in purpose and not to incite hatred against the Jewish community or any community.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Shack, you also raised some very interesting points in your opening statement, as well as when addressing questions from my colleagues.

On the issue of intent and, specifically, AG consent, you support the removal of the AG consent, but I'm wondering if you have some concerns with respect to the new hate offence that not only applies to the Criminal Code but actually applies to any other act of Parliament.

Do you see a space in that regard where Attorney General consent would be appropriate?

[Noah Shack]

In terms of the broad application of the new hate offence, I know there has been discussion about confining that only to criminal offences or to explicitly enumerated violations of acts of Parliament, and I think that's a logical and reasonable approach in order to ensure that people aren't being held criminally accountable for violations of the law where that isn't appropriate.

With regard to Attorney General consent, there are multiple ways we can address the deficiency. One of those ways is to ensure that there are clear guidelines and requirements for transparency, for what AGs should be looking at and considering and for timelines so that when one of these crimes is committed, it doesn't just go into a black hole and disappear. This would go a long way to ensure that these incidents are addressed and restore confidence in the justice system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Shack.

Mr. Housefather, go ahead for five minutes.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

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?

[Noah Shack]

This bill puts on the table a new offence to deal with the intimidation and obstruction that we've been experiencing, providing greater impetus for action.

We're beyond the need for reports; we're at a stage where we need action. I think that sends a strong message and an important message. No mother should be forced to endure hateful epithets and intimidation dropping her child off at day care, examples of which I've heard myriad times in meetings with local officials in Toronto.

We have a serious problem and we need to be sending the right messages in a unified way to ensure that these issues are being tackled effectively. It's important that moves forward.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I'm in agreement, but each of those three elements is true, and I think we've heard for a very long time that words aren't enough and action is required.

Amending the criminal law is the strongest action the government can take, and they're taking these actions straight out of this very committee's report related to anti-Semitism.

Can I ask you about the Attorney General consent? I think your position is that, and I may be paraphrasing, you think there may be other ways to address it, but as you know, this committee can't address that in this bill in the ways you've just suggested to Mr. Brock. We as a committee can't give guidelines to how Attorneys General should or should not give consent or timelines to provincial Attorneys General. We can't amend the bill in that way.

What we could do, if we felt it was necessary, is remove it from private prosecutions and leave it for public prosecutions.

Is that essentially CIJA's preferred position?

[Noah Shack]

Removing the requirement for Attorney General consent on private prosecutions would go a long way to addressing the clearest area where there could be vexatious prosecution. As your colleague mentioned earlier, there are concerted campaigns across this country to vilify the Jewish community based on who we are and what we believe, and there have already been calls for Jews across the country to be prosecuted for criminal offences just based on who we are. That's something that we need to guard against, and retaining Attorney General consent for private prosecutions would be essential.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay, I understand that. I would just point out that, in the justice committee report from last December, that was one of the recommendations. I didn't see anyone actually dissent from that recommendation, but I understand the point.

[Noah Shack]

Absolutely, which is important because—

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Can I ask you one more thing? You were trying at the end of your five minutes to get to the request that we add a provision in the bill for wilful promotion of terrorism or wilful support for terrorism. Could you speak to that and why it's important?

[Noah Shack]

The way the bill is constructed right now, it's important to include reference to terror symbols, to clarify that those are indeed symbols of hate targeting communities, but I don't know if it meaningfully changes the challenge that the Ontario situation I mentioned in my remarks brought forward, which was that it was impossible for the Crown, in their estimation, to prove hateful intent on top of the display of those terror symbols. It's our position that the symbols of a listed terrorist entity are inherently hateful. They're inherently symbols of hateful violence, and they should be addressed outright.

The promotion of terrorism that we have seen that's driving radicalization, violence and extremism across this country needs to be addressed. That can be done in a straightforward way through the inclusion of a wilful promotion of terrorism provision that mirrors the other provisions. We've decided as a country—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Mr. Shack, we're out of time, so please sum up.

[Noah Shack]

—that promoting genocide and promoting hate are not acceptable. Promoting terrorism is no less evil.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Thank you for that. I didn't mean to interrupt you both.

We'll get a brief, final, truncated round, so we'll do this: We'll have Mr. Bailey for four minutes and Ms. Dhillon for four minutes.

Mr. Fortin will now have the floor for two minutes and a few seconds.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Shack, have a sip of water because I have one more question for you, and we have four minutes.

Your organization's letter proposed developing clear federal directives to guide the Attorney General's consent decision. I believe there were seven. Is that correct?

[Noah Shack]

There were seven recommendations, yes.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Could you take a few minutes to go through those seven with us? I think these directives should be published in the interest of transparency.

[Noah Shack]

I'm happy to provide those in writing to make things faster.

The challenge that we've faced in terms of the status quo is that cases will be brought forward where it's clear something criminal has taken place, and then they disappear. We don't know if there's a timeline for them to be considered. We don't know what considerations are being undertaken. There's no communication, no transparency and no process.

It's very difficult to retain confidence in a justice system where a plausible crime has been committed and there are no answers for how that's going to be addressed. We need to fundamentally change that dynamic. We need to make sure that when somebody is allegedly promoting hatred there is a clear path forward to have that addressed, have that considered and move that forward.

If we can't align on that, then we need to look at alternatives like removing Attorney General consent but retaining it for private prosecution to ensure that we don't have an onslaught of vexatious prosecutions that overwhelm the system.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Will you provide that list to the committee? Thank you.

I have one other question, please, for Mr. Sikkema.

The Attorney General consent requires acts as filters against frivolous politically motivated complaints. In Bill C-9, as written, what will prevent private complainants from weaponizing and politicizing the provision?

[John Sikkema]

Without any Attorney General oversight, and allowing private prosecutions especially, I don't see a filter.

[Burton Bailey, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Shack, would you like to chime in on that?