Justice Committee on Dec. 9th, 2025

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Okay. It's not a problem. Thank you.

In the charter statement your department tabled, there is actually a section, if I can find it—and this is specifically when dealing with a different section of the Criminal Code—that talks about some of the defences that exist in criminal law. It talks about specifically the religious defence.

The constitutionality of Bill C-9, or the constitutional assessment that your department did, was based in part on a defence that Bill C-9 would now remove, would it not?

[Joanna Wells]

Could I ask you to refer me specifically to the page so I can help, Mr. Lawton?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Yes, I can do that.

This is the new hate propaganda offence section of the charter statement. I'm looking at it in HTML, so I don't have page numbers. It says specifically, “The Bill would clarify that no person shall be convicted of this offence”—and I can see that this is section 319, but it's the principles I'm getting at here—“if the display of the symbol was for a legitimate purpose, including a legitimate purpose related to journalism, religion, education or art”.

Your assessment of Bill C-9 and some of the constitutional implications is tempered by the fact that this religious defence exists in the Criminal Code.

[Marianne Breese]

The charter statement provides considerations that support consistency with section 2(b), and it does identify that the two defences reinforce the understanding that the offence does not catch symbols for legitimate purposes. It helps to clarify the scope of the offence, which in itself would preclude legitimate purposes.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

If a bill is amended, as happens through clause-by-clause consideration, some amendments can fundamentally alter the assessment that's been provided ahead of time. How does that account for how we as lawmakers are supposed to rely on this when assessing whether we could be potentially passing an unconstitutional law?

[Joanna Wells]

As a matter of practice, the department does not update the charter statement. The charter statement accompanies the bill as introduced.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Okay. I appreciate that.

I know that the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents many employees of the federal government, including some employees of the Department of Justice, has joined an open letter, alongside, I believe, nearly two dozen other organizations, calling for Bill C-9 to be withdrawn. Some of the concerns that have been raised—and we've discussed a lot of them—are that we are going to see unchecked expansion of police authority and are going to see a direct threat to charter rights and public accountability—the criminalization of dissent through vague and subjective criteria.

This is not at all a shot across the bow at the witnesses who have been here. I'm speaking generally about some of the stakeholders who have signed this letter. Even employees of the federal government have rung the alarm about the dangers of Bill C-9.

I find it interesting that even as this issue has come up in question period the last few days, the Minister of Justice does not want to talk about Bill C-9. He does not want to respond to it. It took him eight days to address the report that the Liberals were considering passing this amendment. We had absolute silence from Liberal members of this committee, with one small exception—a small intervention from Minister Fraser's parliamentary secretary when the amendment from the Bloc Québécois was debated.

We have now been for hours and hours debating an amendment that I tabled, and now Mr. Brock's subamendment, to try to at least mitigate this harm, to mitigate this assault on religious freedom, and to include in Bill C-9 language affirming the importance of protecting, as I put it, “religious freedom and freedom of expression”, and as Mr. Brock puts it, all section 2 charter freedoms.

This morning, we had at one time, I believe, six attendees at committee who were Liberals, in addition to you, Mr. Chair, and in the time that we've been debating this since 8:30 this morning—correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Chair—not one single Liberal has added themselves to the speaking list, has intervened to make any substantive arguments—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

That is incorrect. I can tell you that.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Who has made a substantive intervention? Are there some on there now?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You said “added” their name to the speakers list.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Okay. Good. I'm sorry.

Not one single Liberal member has intervened on a substantive point about this. What I take from this is that discussing the fundamental freedoms engaged by Bill C-9 is not a topic of interest.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

I have a point of order.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I'll bet it won't be.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Go ahead, Ms. Dhillon.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

The member cannot make assumptions about what people are thinking or not thinking.

[An hon. member]

That's not a point of order.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

He cannot dictate how somebody can speak or cannot speak, or what they have to say and how they should say it.

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

That's debate.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

No, no. That's what they're doing. It's been hours we've been listening to it.

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

That's not a point of order.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

They said it this morning as well: Liberals have not been speaking up.

Through the chair, these guys are really embarrassing themselves. I'll give an example of that kind of embarrassment. This morning—

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

This is debate.

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

Chair, this is not a point of order.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

No, no, no. It's a point of order.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

It's not a point of order.