Thank you very much, Chair.
As I said, I'm aware that in standing up for freedom of expression, I am actually defending the right of people to say things that are very hateful about me and about things that I value. For example, there's the right of someone to say that verses of scripture are hateful. I would defend that right. I would defend that right because I believe it's important. I believe we should be able to defend our views and do so in an open forum. I believe wholeheartedly in the marketplace of ideas. I do not believe the government is capable or legally entitled to make that determination.
On religion, I don't know what amendments to Bill C-9 are going to come forward in the course of our clause-by-clause consideration. I do know that there is a private member's bill from the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Monsieur Yves-François Blanchet, that would remove the religious exemption, or rather the religious defence, that exists in section 319 of the Criminal Code. This defence is crucially important, for two reasons. Number one, it protects religious freedom. It talks about how you can use a defence, if you are facing a charge under section 319, that you were speaking in a manner listed under paragraph 319(3)(b), which says, “if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text”. I believe the private member's bill also engages paragraph 319(3.1)(b), which says, “if, in good faith, they expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text”. I'm happy to read that section in French, if members desire.
I bring this up because it was not only an attack on religious freedom to remove that, as the private member's bill from the Bloc would do and as has been suggested in testimony and discussion before this committee. More importantly, that was a critical part of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the existence of section 319 in the first place. Even when the Supreme Court decided that it was justifiable to have a section dealing with hate propaganda, even when they did that, they understood that it was necessary to have these limitations on that so that it would not be unconstitutional.
I think the dissent from former chief justice McLachlin in the Keegstra decision is probably one of the greatest pieces, even though it was a dissent, of legal writing in Canada, certainly when it comes to freedom of expression. We saw that section 319 itself was only saved because it had these carve-outs and because it had these protections.
Again, I do not believe you should have the right to say anything and everything simply because you hide behind religion. That is not what I am saying. More importantly, that is not what the law says. That is not what the Criminal Code says. A critical part of paragraph 319(3)(b) is that it's “in good faith”. You cannot call for genocide in good faith. You cannot call for extermination of the Jewish people in good faith. You cannot call for the mass disenfranchisement of people and violence in good faith.
This idea that we need to erode religious freedom and jeopardize the constitutionality of a section of criminal law that has been working in Canada because the threshold is so high.... To say that we're doing that for an objective that isn't even connected to that removal is crucial. It was proposed on this committee. It was not an amendment, but it was proposed as an idea.
Of all the times we did speak to witnesses, Mr. Chair, that was the only time you saw fit to intervene. That is your prerogative. I'm not disputing that, but it was very concerning to Canadians, who are of a variety of religious beliefs. It engages why people are inherently distrustful of any desire by the government to reopen issues pertaining to hate, especially when there is a lower threshold, a lower definition.
My goodness, why have we forced something like this? What is the hurry when there are so many live concerns, so many very real concerns, that we have not yet had the opportunity to really engage with as members of Parliament?
Again, I do not accept the justice minister's view that there was no change to the definition, that omitting the word “extreme” and changing “and” to “or” was purely coincidental or that maybe it was autocorrected. I don't buy that, and I don't think Canadians do either.
That suggests one of two things has happened. Number one, the government is trying to sneak in a lower threshold for what constitutes hate speech and, by design, it would literally lower the threshold by which you could be charged, which then means it's expanding the scope of who can be charged for something. That's the first point. Number two, they're so sloppy that they don't see that as being relevant, and the brightest legal minds in the country, who Canadians would hope are the ones drafting and introducing legislation, don't actually understand the difference between extreme manifestation and not. They don't understand the difference between “and” and “or”.
I mentioned earlier that I'm not a native French speaker, but even I, in French, a language I do not profess to be fluent in, could tell you the difference between “et” and “ou”, between “and“ and “or”.
There is a sneakiness to what Bill C-9 is doing, and I go back to the applicability of Bill C-9 not just to the Criminal Code, but to the Canadian Human Rights Act, the law that would have been changed by the online harms act, section 13 specifically, had that gone forward in the previous Parliament.
I am glad, with the news of Minister Guilbeault's resignation from cabinet, that he won't be around to table that. I know that was one he was very keen on, but I suspect there are going to be others lining up behind him to do it, because we have seen a very transparent desire by this Liberal government to rein in civil liberties, to rein in the constitutional freedoms of Canadians and, specifically, to rein in freedom of expression, which is sacrosanct not just in Canada but in all free societies.
We've just passed Remembrance Day. I know that many members of Parliament, from all parties, did videos for Remembrance Day that we could share with our constituents. When I did my video and when I spoke to members of my community, specifically to veterans at a number of cenotaphs I went to, in St. Thomas, in Vienna, Ontario, in Port Burwell and all of these places, it was a very chilly day, but it was important to be there. There was a general sense that those who have fought and died in wars wearing a Canadian flag—or before that, a British flag—did so because they wanted to stand up for the freedoms we hold dear in Canada. That includes—maybe not chief among them, but certainly at the top—freedom of expression, freedom of speech.
Whenever we're talking about this, we often hear people say, especially when they want to defend Liberal government incursions on speech, “Well, freedom of speech is an American concept. We have freedom of expression here in Canada.” I would agree that “freedom of expression” is the term in Canada, but if you read jurisprudence on this, freedom of expression is actually broader than speech. Speech is what you say. Expression is what you say and what you do. Freedom of expression includes art. Freedom of expression includes speech. Freedom of expression includes song. I would not be so hurtful to the committee as to engage in song. I will not use my freedom of expression for that.