Public Safety Committee on April 25th, 2018

[Douglas Breithaupt]

No.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Okay. If it's no, would prosecutors then not treat it currently as the law?

[Douglas Breithaupt]

The current section 83.221 is the law, but the proposal is to eliminate the “commission of terrorism offences in general”, which was regarded by some as being unclear. With regard to advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences, it was thought that could be clarified by using the term “counselling”.

Basically, we're looking at the proposal to have three counselling offences in the Criminal Code, section 22, which would apply in respect of counselling someone to commit a specific terrorism offence, including—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Excuse me, Mr. Breithaupt—

[Douglas Breithaupt]

Sorry, I don't want to get too far ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That's my point. We're dealing with amendment NDP-95. There might be something coming before the committee, just possibly, and I think what you're speaking to is what might possibly be coming before the committee.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

It'll just save time later.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I would prefer to stay with procedural order.

Are there any other questions or debate with respect to amendment NDP-95?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I'm sorry, I may be the only one here who feels as strongly as I do about the difference between promotion and counselling. I don't think they're the same. I feel that it is lighter. We heard testimony from officials who came to committee, experts who said these changes were not helpful to what the whole purpose was behind Bill C-59, and that they actually weakened the current legislation and the Criminal Code.

Again, I don't want to belabour the point, because I do want to complete.... This is for the record: I think we can get through all of this tonight. That's what I'm saying, but this is something that I think is critically important for us to deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We have a new witness.

Sir, could you introduce yourself and then respond to Mr. Motz, please?

[Glenn Gilmour, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

I'm Glenn Gilmour, legal counsel with the criminal law policy section of the Department of Justice. I work with Mr. Breithaupt.

The terms “promotion” and “advocating” are terms that have been judicially interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada. Promoting was examined by the Supreme Court of Canada in the well-known case of R. v. Keegstra. Advocacy was looked at by the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of Sharpe, which I think dealt with obscenity.

In both of those, the Supreme Court interpreted those particular terms to mean active encouragement. Active encouragement is also the actus reusof counselling. We don't see any difference between promoting and advocacy and counselling, but counselling is well known. There are very few cases involving the wilful promotion of hatred offences, for example, compared with the number for counselling offences in the Criminal Code.

It was felt that to be clearer in law and to avoid the confusion and avoid the possible misinterpretation that advocacy or promotion is broader than what counselling is meant to be, we moved to the well-known concept of counselling in criminal law in Bill C-59.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I agree with that statement; however, we had groups here during testimony.... We had a Jewish group here that said the changing of this legislation will be a problem for them when dealing with hate issues and hate crimes. That could be stretched to the extent—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Excuse me, Mr. Motz. Mr. Picard has a point of order.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

I would invite my colleague to keep his questioning relevant to the part that is coming to us shortly, since the amendment under discussion is about whether or not we have to repeal what is in the act.

Can we proceed with the exact amendment under study and then keep on going on this subject?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's actually not a point of order, but it's not a bad suggestion.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Keep it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Spengemann, do you want to be on for this?

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, I will defer to my colleagues, in light of your rationale, to be subsequent to whatever is coming our way shortly.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Dubé.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

I feel as if my amendment has gotten lost in relitigating the difference between C-51 and C-59. I just wanted to state, now that we've come back around, that the amendment I'm proposing that's before us right now is that I believe “promotion” is awful. I believe that the solution proposed by the Liberals of “counselling” is redundant, so I call for it to be repealed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Indeed, Mr. Dubé is right. It did get kind of lost.

With that call to arms by Mr. Dubé, is there any further debate?

Hang on a second.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Are we suspended, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We are not suspended, but we do have a complication. In order to vote on NDP-95, I had read a list, because I wanted everyone to know what consequential amendments would happen. The list included NDP-96, so that would eliminate NDP-96. If we defeat NDP-96, then the Liberals cannot move their amendment, which we now have in our possession, which would be quite awkward.

However, if I remove NDP-96 from the list, then NDP-96 is still to be debated and so NDP-96 would, therefore, take precedence over the Liberal amendment because they are identical.

Mr. Dubé.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

In the interest of trying to get one of my amendments passed, I'm a bit in a jam, so I'm going to state for the record that, because obviously out of principle for this issue that I think is very important for the bill, my preference would be to have a vote on my amendment.

If you're telling me the wording is identical to NDP-96, which I believe is what you're telling me, then I can withdraw my suite, stating on the record that I'll consider them de facto rejected, apart from NDP-96, because we're not going to see any of the other ones.

If we were going to see some of the other ones, they would have also been presented with this one that's identical to NDP-96, so I'm just going to restate that I believe the counselling offence is already built into the elements of the Criminal Code that talk about the counselling of an offence, so while this is definitely a minor improvement over what was in Conservative Bill C-51, it certainly doesn't go far enough.

In the interests of getting something out of that suite of amendments, I'll withdraw them and let the Liberals propose theirs.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Paul-Hus.