Thank you, Chair.
I'm grateful to once again speak to Bill C-9, the combatting hate act, and specifically to Mr. Brock's subamendment. It is an excellent subamendment.
I believe I can state without controversy that all members of this committee want to take action to combat the rise in hate crimes. We all want to help make our communities safer places for residents to live, to work and to raise families. We all want to give our law enforcement officials and prosecutors the tools they need to keep Canadians safe. This is important.
Soft-on-crime Liberal policies have created chaos in communities across Canada. Police have reported that since 2015, hate crimes in Canada have increased by 258%. Extortions are up 330%. Anti-Semitic hate crimes alone are up 416%. Hate crimes against South Asians have risen by almost 380%. In 2014 alone, Canada saw almost 5,000 police-reported hate crimes—the highest number on record. In Toronto alone, hate crimes jumped by 19% in a single year, with assault-related hate crimes rising by 42%.
Addressing the issue of crime is incredibly important to my community of Brampton West, and it is my duty as a parliamentarian to try to find a solution to make my community safer. However, instead of taking action on our shared objectives and finding solutions to address the explosion of hate crimes in our communities, we are stuck debating the Liberal-Bloc backroom deal that directly assaults freedom of expression and religious freedom.
I want to draw the attention of members to two recent news stories about hate crimes in my community. The first is from October 16, when men assaulted a victim with a replica firearm after hurling racial slurs in Chinguacousy Park. The second is from November 15, when a 22-year-old man was charged after he struck a pedestrian with his car after yelling racially charged comments.
Both of these reported hate crimes have been committed since the start of this committee's study of Bill C-9. This is what I mean when I say this is an incredibly important issue in my community. I am upset that we are wasting our time on the Liberal-Bloc plan to strip Canadians of their charter rights.
For a party that brags about being the party of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Liberals clearly have not read the document. The very first fundamental freedom laid out in our charter under section 2(a) is freedom of conscience and religion, followed by freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression in section 2(b). Those fundamental rights are what Mr. Brock seeks to further enshrine through his subamendment.
Paragraphs 319(3)(b) and 319(3.1)(b) of the Criminal Code exist to protect those fundamental freedoms in the charter. This committee heard just that from Derek Ross of the Christian Legal Fellowship on October 30. When questioned by the Bloc about repealing those two paragraphs, Mr. Ross stated that they “have been pivotal in demonstrating to the courts that the legislation does strike the right balance and doesn't intrude too far on citizens' rights to freedom of opinion and expression.” He went on to add that “If [the good-faith] defence, or the other defences for truth, as examples, were removed, we would be concerned that could undermine the constitutionality of this regime and the careful balance that has been struck.”
To back up their intent to undermine Canadians' constitutional rights, the Liberals and Bloc rely on extreme or made-up scenarios about how the good-faith defence could be abused. The only issue with that argument is that there is no evidence to back it up.
In the 2023 case in Quebec that the Bloc cites, there were never charges brought, and even if there were, advocation for the genocide of Jews is most certainly not good faith. Our courts have been consistently interpreting paragraphs 319(3)(b) and (3.1)(b) very narrowly. Mr. Ross spoke to that effect, stating that the example the Bloc often cites would be “a misuse of both the defence and, frankly, of religion.” Our courts are aware of that fact as well.
The committee heard from the Canadian Constitution Foundation on November 6 that these sections have never been successfully invoked, and that their existence is “central to the court’s conclusion that the law is constitutional as it is.” As Mr. Ross told us, “The courts have been very clear that this defence cannot be used to cloak hateful expression with impunity—the language they use is “as a Trojan Horse to carry the intended message of hate”.
Removing provisions of the Criminal Code that are central to our courts' interpretation of our laws and Constitution would be, to use another metaphor from Greek mythology, like opening Pandora's box. We have no idea what kinds of horrors could be released on our communities if the Liberal-Bloc proposal is passed.
Our system of good-faith protection is working. We heard that from witness after witness during this study. What we also heard from witnesses during this study is that after 10 years of Liberal soft-on-crime policies, there are many things in our criminal justice system that are not working and need to be fixed. We could talk about bail reform. We on this side of the committee have tried numerous times to get started on our study of Bill C-14.
