Justice Committee on Dec. 9th, 2025

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

During your debate in the morning, in the statement you made, you said you don't speak Indian and that you have a mandir. Sikhs go there. Hindus go there.

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

Yes.

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

“Indian” is not a language.

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

I actually did not say—

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

Yes, you did. You actually did say that.

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

Do you have the transcript?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm going to stop this right now.

Ms. Dhillon, I think you've made your point. I'm grateful for that.

Mr. Lawton still has the floor.

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

There are 120 different dialects in India—yes, languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

In terms of people not speaking up, I was always taught that listening is a far better use of your time than talking sometimes.

Your point is understood.

Please carry on.

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

Mr. Chair, I have not reviewed the blues. I don't know if the member is going from memory, notes or the blues. I would welcome anyone here to please send them to me.

In the comments she's referring to—which, interestingly enough, were speaking about an incredible and incredibly successful institution in my riding in which Sikhs and Hindus worship in the same building despite being of different faiths—I was apologizing because I do not speak any Indian language, as in a language spoken by—

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

You said “Indian”.

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

What I was saying, Chair, was that because I do not speak any of the many languages spoken by Indian people, including—

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

That's not what you said, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Ms. Dhillon, you've made your point.

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

—Malayalam, Punjabi and Hindi, I did not want to offend anyone by mispronouncing this incredible Hindu temple in my riding. I have had the great privilege of attending and visiting it, and speaking to the people who go there.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Okay. I think we've addressed this point. If anybody wants to pursue it further, they're free to go back and look at the blues.

Perhaps you can just carry on, Mr. Lawton.

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

This is precisely why I do not support legislation in which the Liberals get to police language. We've seen the tremendous misrepresentation of language, the misrepresentation of intent and the projection that comes from people who do not have respect for differing beliefs, opinions and views. It's actually quite shameful that this debate has to exist.

The point I made, before I was interrupted on a false point of order, was that we need to wonder why there has not been a desire for Liberals who supported this very dangerous amendment to speak up and say they do believe in religious freedom and that they will support this amendment because they want to make sure Bill C-9 is minimally impairing.

[An hon. member]

There's silence.

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

It's silence that I do not—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We've established that somebody is on the speaking list. I think that point has been addressed.

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

I'm talking about interjections to date, and I look forward to hearing from whomever it is. You'll notice, Chair, as all members will, that we have had a long list of speakers. This has been an opportunity in which many members—Liberal, Conservative and, I believe, Bloc as well—who are not regular members of this committee have been in this room, and we welcome them. We have had people share very heartfelt interventions on how this is relevant to their ridings, their professional experiences and their personal faith traditions. That is incredibly important.

I note that all members of Parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege, which is a very unique right that I've tried to learn more about as a member of Parliament. I hope I will continue to learn more about it. However, I understand that parliamentary privilege protects what we say as members of Parliament because of the understanding of how important it is that we can represent our constituents and speak our minds. In a way, we have a privilege that a lot of Canadians are denied.

Canadians have been targeted for their speech. Canadians have been targeted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which, up until the Stephen Harper government repealed it, had a very Orwellian provision called section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which went after online speech that the government found offensive. That's why I was so piqued when Minister Fraser, in his only appearance at this committee to date in this Parliament, acknowledged that there is going to be an online application of Bill C-9. It will police what people say and post on the Internet. That is, to me, an incredibly chilling concept.

The Liberal government has, in its defence of adopting this amendment and removing the religious defence from the Criminal Code, leaned on the idea that it has never been successfully used. Mr. Baber made the point incredibly effectively earlier that law sends a signal. What is on the books versus what is not on the books sends a message as to what type of speech is acceptable and what type of speech is not.

People who have reached out to me from my community and from across the country, who have come from markedly less free countries than Canada, have talked about how the threat of prosecution is the greatest tool of censorship. The threat of prosecution is a tool because it prevents people from speaking about something. It leads to self-imposed censorship where debate has been chilled, even without the state having to lay a single charge.

If you compound this with some of the other changes that have been discussed, proposed and debated and will soon be debated, possibly, on Bill C-9, like whether the Attorney General's consent is required for this or that, there's an interesting point there. We could have a situation in which police looking at a complaint they have—which may have been made in bad faith about someone who, from a religious perspective, shared an objectionable point of view or a view that someone found objectionable—could say that members of Parliament removed this religious defence, so that must mean it is something they now need to investigate and lay charges on.

Then you have, in the legislation, the removal of a safeguard for that, which is what was going on here. Now you've basically deputized every police officer in Canada, including some from very small police services that might not have a dedicated hate crimes unit like the one we heard from in the course of our very minimal Bill C-9 study, the Edmonton Police Service.... They're forced to decide whether someone's religious expression is hateful or not.

A point that I think often gets obscured by this.... There are the comments made by Minister Miller, which have become so contentious across the country. He said that prosecutors should be able to “press charges”—his direct words were “press charges”—in the event that someone uses words or scriptures that the government finds offensive. The point I would raise there is that he was saying that, under the existing law, there is no way to quote those scriptures “in good faith”, as the religious defence requires. The Liberals believe that quoting scripture is already illegal, possibly, which is why we need to take this effort so seriously.

We have brought this up time and time again. I'm hoping that after the few hours we have been in question period and suspended and whatnot, we can let cooler heads prevail, because our belief is that thought crime should not be a priority for the Government of Canada. It certainly should not be a priority for the justice committee when we have so many other pressing issues to deal with. I note that we have our study on bail, which I do not believe, to my knowledge, has been completed, and we have bail legislation that has been put toward us.

I move, understanding that the passage of time may change perspectives on this and that there have been side conversations, that we proceed to consideration of Bill C-14, the bail and sentencing reform act.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You're seeking unanimous consent to see if you can move that—

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

I would love to seek unanimous consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Is that what you're asking for? Otherwise, you can't move the motion. We're debating a motion. You can't introduce a new motion. You can seek unanimous consent.

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

What I'm proceeding to is a dilatory motion.