Evidence of meeting #14 for Justice and Human Rights in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-9.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I have a point of clarification, actually. I just heard the member opposite speaking about Mr. Lawton's amendment. Maybe he should be reminded that we are on Mr. Brock's subamendment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you. That's a good reminder. We are dealing with Mr. Brock's amendment.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Yes, I know that, but I'm sharing some of the emails that I've received in the past few days, just for the information of the committee, so that you know where I am coming from when it comes to the discussion.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Mr. Chair, it was just a point of clarification so the member knows and so that I can appreciate whether his intervention is relevant or not.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Yes, I understand. It's just a general reminder to try to keep it focused on the matter at hand. I appreciate that.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Of course, and as I mentioned from the beginning, I am going to speak directly to the amendment and the subamendment.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
As I said, I'm going to give the background of the kinds of email messages I've received in the last few days.
Liberal
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Yes, okay.
I believe my colleagues on the other side may have received similar emails. You may also be struggling with these kinds of concerns, whether you support the amendment or not.
From what I heard and observed, I believe the amendment made the other night to remove the good-faith defence is a very dangerous move. It will lead Canada down a slippery slope, and once we get into that kind of path, there's no way we can come back.
As I mentioned, from the contacts I outlined earlier, the question that's been posed to me, and I believe to my colleagues, is that if passages of scripture can be deemed to be hateful or offensive, what is coming next? It is only logical to deduce that if parts of the Bible or a religious scripture are deemed hateful, in the end, maybe the whole book itself could be seen as hateful and be banned. It's not like we haven't seen this happen in other countries.
What will happen next? Are we going to have redacted versions of the Bible? Are we going to have “clean” versions of the Bible or other religious writings approved by the government? I think this is a logical question that people ask, and we need to address it in our debate on Bill C-9 and the amendment that has been passed.
Don't laugh at this. Don't say this will never happen in Canada. What we're already seeing is that in many school districts, books written by great authors such as Charles Dickens and Shakespeare have been banned because some school districts have deemed those writings and novels as discriminatory, racist, sexist or not up to the modern standard. It has happened. There's nothing to prevent, once we enter this slippery slope, this kind of thing from happening—to ban books or have clear, clean versions being approved by the government.
The other night, my colleague talked about the history of how we arrived at a good balance between protecting freedom of expression and freedom of religion and protecting people from hate crimes. That was a good lesson and a good history for us to learn. I understand that some of my colleagues don't want to hear that. They challenge it by saying, “You're giving me a history lesson,” but we need to learn from history.
One of the people who sent those messages to me said that this has happened before. Canada is not immune to religious oppression. Some of us here who have lived in Canada for a long time might still remember that sometime between the 1940s and 1950s, there was religious oppression against a faith community in Canada. At that time, as I was told and I learned, Jehovah's Witness communities were under oppression. Their homes were raided, their gatherings were banned and they were being persecuted. Don't say that this will not happen again if we do not learn from history.
I also agree with, as I mentioned, one of the messages that I received, which said that we need a safeguard against what's been approved in the amendment to Bill C-9. Again, that took away the good-faith defence. I believe one of the reasons the amendment was brought forward.... The intention was not to suppress or take away people's religious freedom.
I believe the amendment by Mr. Lawton and the subamendment by Mr. Brock are going to make this even more clear. They're not taking away anything that was passed the other night, but will clarify even further for the general public that it was not the intention to go on the path of oppressing religious freedom.
I don't see why the amendment and subamendment cannot be supported. They only serve the purpose of clarifying further to the people of Canada that clearly this was not the intention of the amendment or the bill itself.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I have a point of clarification, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I was just wondering if the member can maybe tell me if there is not a contradiction between the amendment and the subamendment.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I have a clarification. I just want to understand.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
He's talking about the amendment and the subamendment—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Ms. Lattanzio, you can address the chair. You can ignore Mr. Genuis.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
—and I'm trying to understand. Can the member tell me if he does not see that the two contradict one another?
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Thank you for the question.
I don't have Mr. Lawton's amendment before me, but I remember that his amendment was very clear. For the purpose of clarity, the amendment being passed was not targeting religious freedom or freedom of expression, and the subamendment being presented by Mr. Brock today is further clarification that this is not to target freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom of peaceful assembly.
It's directly relevant to the amendment and the subamendment. As I said, it's only to clarify further that this is not what we are trying to arrive at. For whatever reason the Bloc and the Liberals made their amendment, we are making a distinction that it's not what they want to do at the end of the day.
I also want to appeal to my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. I think in Canada, you are the community that knows best that when you give the government unlimited power, it can come back at you. You could be the victim of the power you gave to the government.
Again, I don't believe my colleague from the Bloc Québécois moved the amendment for the reason that they want to oppress religion. I hope they can support the amendment and the subamendment to make this very clear so that they will not be misunderstood by the rest of Canada or people who have questions about why that amendment was being moved.
With that, thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me the time to speak.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
It's my pleasure. Thank you very much, Mr. Au.
Mr. Brock, I believe you're next.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON
Thank you.
I would ask every member here to grant me the indulgence. I think what I'm about to share with you is going to please my Liberal colleagues, but I'm asking for indulgence.
After several days of debate on Bill C-9, I've lost track and I've lost count of the numerous motions and numerous requests for unanimous consent to prioritize Bill C-14. We're probably looking at a couple of dozen, conservatively—pardon the pun—over the last several days, or liberally.
It was important, because I think we've all heard from every major stakeholder across this country. Canadians, premiers, law enforcement, mayors and victim advocacy groups have been crying out for a government response to a crime epidemic that seems to be rising year after year. I'm not expecting my Liberal colleagues to agree with this, but clearly, for 10 years, ill-thought-out and ineffective criminal justice policies have contributed, to a very large degree, to a crime crisis. It's clear that any attempt to move forward with a unanimous consent motion to deal with Bill C-14 is not going to be met with approval. We understand that.
In the spirit of the season and in the spirit of addressing what every stakeholder I've identified asked us to address, I am asking...not to be accused any further of any obstructionist attempts. I know that we've made the same allegations with regard to the Liberals obstructing their own pieces of signature legislation. We've waited several months—in fact, almost eight months post-election—for our justice minister to introduce reforms to bail. While it is not a perfect bill, it does address issues that are germane and have been requested by law enforcement.
Chair, bearing in mind the comments and the request for unanimous consent that Ms. Lattanzio presented to this committee maybe an hour ago, I am now asking for unanimous consent from all the voting members at this committee that we move to Bill C-14 and report it to the House immediately.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I didn't think I'd be saying this today, but I think we have unanimous consent.
Mr. Fortin.
