Justice Committee on Dec. 9th, 2025

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

I have a point of order. This is a very serious point of order and I'm getting to it immediately.

I was fully prepared to take to heart Ms. Dhillon's comments earlier. After our exchange, I went out and listened to the audio from this morning. I'm going to read exactly what I said—not what I intended to say.

These are the words I said: “there is a temple on Redan Street in St. Thomas. It is a Hindu temple. I apologize; my knowledge of Indian languages is not particularly great, but it's called the Shree Hari Har Mandir”.

Ms. Dhillon made an erroneous accusation. There was an implication that was incredibly offensive. If there is unanimous consent, I will play the audio into the microphone, but I'm hoping that she will just withdraw it and apologize and I can spare us that.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I've just been told you're not allowed to have external sources on the microphone. We can't do that.

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

I would invite her to review that herself. I would be putting at stake a lot of my reputation if I was misrepresenting that right now. I would ask her to apologize and withdraw it.

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

I heard it in the singular sitting in this room.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

That doesn't make it right.

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

You accused me of saying that I don't speak Indian.

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

That's what you said.

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

You didn't even acknowledge that I used the word “language”, let alone languages.

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

You didn't say “languages”. You said Indian.

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

I said, “my knowledge of Indian languages is not particularly great”.

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

I heard you say “language”.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Can I perhaps try to find a solution here?

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

Perhaps we can suspend for 15 seconds so she can listen to it and then apologize, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Hear me out first.

Sometimes people hear things or think they hear things.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Or they experience things differently.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Sometimes there's a misunderstanding.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I have the floor, Mr. Baber. I would appreciate you respecting that.

I don't think anybody in this committee, regardless of the temperature, which has risen over the last few days, intended to accuse anybody of anything like that. I'm assuming if—

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

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

All right, do you know what? If—

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

I was getting ready for the suspension.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

That was maybe a little cute, but okay.

I'm hoping we can chalk this up to a misunderstanding, because I will agree with you, Mr. Lawton, that at the end of the day, our reputations are our most important asset.

If Ms. Dhillon thinks she heard it that way, I suspect that's the reason she said what she said earlier. If the record reflects differently, I think we can find a compromise and just move past this. That's what I'm hoping for, without getting into a big kerfuffle about it.

I'm prepared to suspend for a moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I would like to call this meeting back to order.

Ms. Kronis, you have the floor.

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Lawton, go ahead on a point of order.

Oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Dhillon, go ahead.