Justice Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2025

[Brandon Silver]

As I referenced in my opening remarks, in the last five years alone, the number of hate crimes has increased to 20,000. There's been an exponential growth, and there needs to be a concerted effort to address it.

This legislation is certainly not a panacea. It won't provide all the answers, but I think the important signalling that it does, the deterrence effect that it may have on would-be criminals and the prioritization by law enforcement that it would encourage will make a meaningful impact in trying to tackle what is indeed a crisis. Not doing anything would be far worse.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you very much.

My next question is for Ms. Hallett.

From your perspective, how does legislation like this complement the effort teachers are already making to create an inclusive, welcoming learning environment in Canadian schools?

[Cassandra Hallett]

I believe I touched on this earlier, insofar as the legislation, as we've reviewed, really only focuses on day care centres in terms of a specific education focus.

While the Canadian Teachers' Federation welcomes that aspect of the legislation, there's not a lot in it that's specific to the K-to-12 school system, from our perspective.

That doesn't mean it would be unhelpful, but we are really eager to see much more being done, at all levels of government, to ensure that schools are safe for, as I've said before, students and all of the education workers in the school.

It's not necessarily counter to making schools safe, but it doesn't go very far in terms of K-to-12 schools.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

This will be my last question.

How can this legislation empower our communities to respond more effectively when a hate instance occurs, not just through the justice system, but through education and prevention?

[Cassandra Hallett]

A piece of legislation, again, if I speak on behalf of educators, will only go so far. However, if we can make strides in Canadian society to condemn hate in all its forms, that will be something that has a trickle-down effect for our educators and for their students, because as a society we will be improving in terms of ensuring that we know hate in all its forms, whether it is anti-Semitism, anti-2SLGBTQ rhetoric, etc., is not acceptable.

Certainly legislation that promotes safety and freedom could be helpful, but regarding the specifics of how Bill C-9 would help in K-to-12 schools, I think it would take some time, respectfully, to see how that would bear out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Thank you.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

We'll have about another 10 minutes of questions, starting with Mr. Baber and then Mr. Chang for four minutes each, and then Mr. Fortin for two minutes to close things off.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Sandler, I appreciate my friend MP Gunn's exchange with you on the equal application of the rule of law. Every Sunday in my riding in North York, a bunch of thugs show up in keffiyehs and they scream for intifada. The basic translation of the word “intifada” is violent resistance, yet no arrests ensue.

Let me ask you something. Do you believe that calling for intifada on a Canadian street is incitement to violence?

[Mark Sandler]

I believe it definitely can be. The only reason I put a qualifier on it is that I always, as part of my training, instruct police to look at all of the circumstances and all of the words said in determining whether the requisite intent exists, but it is definitely capable of that, especially when coupled with other language that is clearly either genocidal or hate filled.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

If they have a character dressed and role-playing Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7, would you call the chants for intifada incitement to violence?

[Mark Sandler]

I've taken the position that some of the demonstrations that you're describing did cross the line into hate speech.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Yet there were no arrests by the Toronto police.

[Mark Sandler]

It's been very challenging to address situations where they do not involve traditional forms of hate.

When you're doing the intersection of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, there has to be a better understanding of what's being said and when it crosses the threshold into hate. When people are chanting that all Zionists are evil, genocidal and racist, without distinction, that crosses into hate speech. That's very different from criticizing Israel, its conduct, its policies, its government and the like. Those distinctions have to be better understood.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Sandler, it's okay for us to politely disagree. All I ask is for equal application of the rule of law, something that regretfully we're not seeing in this context. We're hearing deafening silence from my friends the Liberals across the aisle on this. This bill does not do anything to address any of that, because all of that is already contrary to the Criminal Code.

I heard you say in your opening remarks that you're disappointed that wilful promotion of terrorism did not make it into this bill. I'd take the opportunity to remind you that the former Conservative government passed promotion of terrorism into the Criminal Code as a criminal offence, and that in 2017 the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau diluted that law and in fact repealed some portions of that law, leading it to remain as only a counselling terrorism offence.

Please talk to us a little bit about wilful promotion of terrorism. What would you like to see added? Do you believe it will survive constitutional scrutiny if framed correctly?

[Mark Sandler]

I have no doubt it will survive constitutional scrutiny because I've drafted the legislation for the consideration of this committee. It's contained in my written submission. I've drawn upon words that have already been constitutionally protected, “wilful promotion of”, and then instead of “hatred against an identifiable group”, “dealing with terror activities or the activities of a terror group”, both of which— “terror activities” and a “terrorist group”—are defined already under the Criminal Code. For me, there can be no constitutional protection for the wilful promotion of terror activities or the activities of a prohibited group under the Criminal Code.

You can look to my written submissions for some of the language. For me, this would solve a number of the issues that currently exist.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Like what?

[Mark Sandler]

For example, when there's a fight about whether or not it's wilful promotion against an identifiable group, namely Jews or Israelis, as opposed to whether it's political speech against Zionism, that shouldn't be the focus in all instances. The focus should be on whether you're promoting terror activities. This would put the focus where it belongs for some of these cases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Sandler.

Ms. Dhillon, you have four minutes.

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

My questions will be directed to Mr. Silver.

First of all, thank you so much for your incredible testimony today. You actually got to the bottom of something that hasn't been mentioned thus far, which is that it takes words. It takes hateful literature and propaganda to start something, and you gave the examples of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. That was very important to the work we're doing here today.

It was not 10 and not 15 but six million members of the Jewish community who were subjected to the Holocaust. This all started with words, and thank you so much for pointing that out today.

During the previous panel, I was actually having the same thoughts as you. Symbols are used to emphasize these things, like the Nazi symbol and the Confederate flag. These were symbols used during the convoy right here in Ottawa: the Confederate flag, the Canadian flag being hung upside down, and the Nazi sign painted on the Canadian flag. Conservative members of Parliament were serving coffee and donuts to these people.

[A voice]

That's not true.

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

Everything that happened was done to intimidate and harass citizens. It was an attack on democracy.

Can you please talk to us more about words, propaganda and hateful literature, as you mentioned in your opening statement?

[Brandon Silver]

Without opining on any particular instance within Canada, the legislation itself is incredibly important in identifying specific symbols that are used in the wilful promotion of hatred. It's a very narrowly tailored and elegant piece of legislation that tackles a growing problem.

We see that the incitement you so eloquently referenced in your remarks underpins attacks against vulnerable minorities. These hate rallies that MP Fortin referenced are oftentimes accompanied by very specific symbols that have a specific context and a specific and wilful goal, and that is to intimidate vulnerable minorities and ensure that some Canadians do not have equal access to their places of worship, their schools and their community centres so they cannot live their lives fully and equally as Canadians. These symbols are part of that process, and this legislation makes an important point of pointing that out.

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

Thank you so much for that.

I'm running out of time. Quickly, there was something said about assaulting somebody because of how they look.

The other thing is there are Holocaust deniers, and they use that as freedom of speech. Brian Mulroney said something very interesting in 2023:

[I]n the wake of the Holocaust…firewalls were thrown up, and the bonfires of antisemitism were for a time reduced to flickering embers. But those firewalls, weakened by the passage of time and willful neglect, have been breached. Cloaked in the armour of free speech, fuelled by hate and stoked by the oxygen of the internet and social media, those fires now burn out of control.

This applies in this context, but do you believe that this applies in other contexts where there are minorities and there are people from the LGBTQ community? Do you see these fires being stoked once again, and are you seeing the slow erosion of the civil liberties and all these rights of those who are vulnerable being violated?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

We won't have time for an answer, Mr. Silver.