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.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
I'm sorry. The matter at hand is where we are in the order of amendments. It fits into where we are now in the bill.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Okay. Maybe we can suspend for a moment or two so we can have a look at it.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
I can read it, and you can make a decision.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Why don't you read it? Then we'll suspend, because I assume you don't have it translated.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Yes, we do. This was prepared by legislative drafters.
By way of context, the reason it was not in our original amendment package is that we had not seen the Bloc amendment at the time. It only emerged when we saw that this was coming up.
The amendment asks that Bill C-9, in clause 4, be amended by adding the following after line 2 on page 3:
(6.1) Nothing in this section is to be interpreted or applied so as to interfere with the freedom of expression or the freedom of religion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I call this meeting back to order. I hope everybody got some food.
I believe, Mr. Brock, you were....
I'm sorry, Mr. Lawton. I missed Larry so much while he was away.
Conservative
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Thank you very much.
I want to be very clear. This amendment does not undo the harm that was just inflicted on Canadians by the Liberal members of this committee. This amendment does not undo the assault on religious freedom that we just witnessed moments ago, but it does provide a very important and very necessary opportunity for this committee to recentre its efforts.
I want to go back to my maiden speech in the House of Commons from, I guess, the tail end of May. In describing what I hoped to achieve as a member of Parliament representing the wonderful riding of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, I said that I wanted to make Canada a freer place. I was motivated in large part by some of the assaults on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly we've seen from this Liberal government in the last decade. I had hoped they had turned a corner.
We often heard from the Liberals the position that it is a new government. It was not the government of Justin Trudeau, which decided it would freeze the bank accounts of political dissidents. It was not the government of Justin Trudeau, which was going to attack the charitable status of places of worship. It wasn't that government.
Then we saw Bill C-9, a bill that had a lot of shades of Bill C-63, the online harms act, which had been introduced in the preceding Parliament, as well as Bill C-36. I warned a lot of Canadians who reached out to me and who agreed in spirit with what Bill C-9 was trying to do that there was a significant risk that if this bill were allowed to go to committee, it would come out worse than it went in.
We now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that that is exactly what is happening. If Bill C-9 is allowed to exit the justice committee with this baked-in deal between the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois—which the Liberals have held up their end of and I suspect the Bloc will hold up their end of—and proceed to the House of Commons, it will be a full-fledged assault on religious liberty. This is something that we as a party will not stand for.
Mr. Brock, at the very beginning of this meeting, said very clearly that what Canadians have cried out for is not a government that's going to police their tweets. It's not a government that's going to legislate what can be said from behind a pulpit. They want a government that's going to get serious about the challenges facing Canadians: affordability challenges and challenges with crime on our streets.
The Liberal government has finally—and I'm so grateful for this—acknowledged the problem they've created over the last decade of the revolving door bail system, and they've introduced a bail bill, Bill C-14. There are some good things in that bill. There are some things that are very concerning in the bill. There are things that are not in the bill that should be in the bill.
These are the kinds of conversations that members of this committee, in good faith, can deal with and I suspect would be able to. I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Brock that there is a lot more consensus around Bill C-14 than there is around Bill C-9, especially now—
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Chair, if you give me 60 seconds, it will become very clear where it is relevant.
Liberal
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Thank you. Of course.
The reason I bring this up about Bill C-14 is to give the Liberals an opportunity to do the right thing. We as Conservatives are not going to allow this assault on religious freedom and freedom of expression to become law. I am prepared to speak for as long as it takes to stop this from taking place and make good on the promise that I made to my constituents, to Canadians and, frankly, to—
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
On a point of order, I represent Burnaby, which is a very diverse community in Canada and—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Hold on. You haven't heard what he's going to say. Apparently, a long lead-ups to a point are acceptable.
Mr. Chang, go ahead.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
He's five words into his point of order. Allow the member to make his point, and then I'll decide whether it's a point of order.
December 9th, 2025 / 8:10 p.m.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Do you really want me to answer that question? Can I be candid? Make yourself comfortable.
