Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with great patience to the debate unfold this evening. I have my speaking points here. As a matter of fact I even have the Liberal speaking points for Bill C-41, their strategy to try to win the debate and to out-talk the opposition. I have heard the arguments of all the lawyers on both sides of the House and on both sides of the issue. If anything, it has given me more of a prejudice or a bias against lawyers, perhaps because I am a bit troubled with this bill.
I see in the Liberal speaking points that it states: "Bill C-41 will not be the subject of a free vote". It concerns me that the Liberal powers had to send a note to all of their members suggesting that they dare not suggest a free vote on this issue. That is very disconcerting.
I probably have had just about as much mail on this issue as I have had on gun control. They have been running neck and neck. I think actually the gun control issue won the day, but hundreds of letters have poured into my office expressing concern. Most of the letters were handwritten or typed. Very few letters were duplicated, photocopied or photostatted. A lot of the letters expressed serious concerns about C-41. Unfortunately, it all bore down on this particular portion that deals with the hate section. This bill is rather large and I am sure there are a lot more weaknesses in this bill than just the area we are discussing in this section of report stage.
I want to talk a little bit about the whole process of hate, bias, and prejudice. Raised out in the prairies, I was taught that we were to love our enemies. I was taught that hate was wrong. I believe with all my heart that hate is wrong. It is very difficult to know when you are loved or hated. You cannot always tell. Mr. Speaker, when you look at me I do not sense that you hate me. I expect you do not, and I assure you I do not hate you. Perhaps I would and I was hiding it. This bill attempts to play god by looking into people's heads and deciding whether or not they hate and whether or not the crime they committed was based on their hate, prejudice or bias. The words prejudice and bias concern me even more than the word hate in this legislation.
A crime is a crime. If someone commits an assault against me it is a criminal action and the Criminal Code allows the justice system to deal with that action. Whether that person hates me or not, it is a crime and needs to be dealt with.
What is morality and what is immorality? That is very difficult to determine. What if somebody knocks me on the head because they want to see if I have some money in my wallet? That is a crime, an assault. It is immoral because that person wants the money in my wallet. That is just as immoral as if the person hated me because I am white or because I am a heterosexual.
It is wrong. There are laws in place to deal with that offence, whether the person is committing an immoral act of knocking me over the head to commit a theft of my money or whether he is knocking me over the head because he hates me for some reason. Put forward in the bill is my gender, my sexual preference, my physical disability if I should have any. It is a crime and our Criminal Code has to deal with crimes because they are crimes, not because of who committed them or why they were committed. If it is wrong, it is wrong.
The bill is causing great division and great concern that our justice system will begin to look into people's heads and convict them based on playing the role of god in determining whether or not they hate, are prejudiced or biased. That is wrong. That is why the legislation is wrong and it should be defeated.
The Holocaust was a hateful, terrible blight on human history. It was wrong and all the perpetrators should have been brought to justice for that terrible atrocity against humanity. It was wrong. It was criminal. It was hateful.
If someone kicks, beats or attacks a person because they are not white, that is wrong. There are provisions in the Criminal Code already to deal with that hateful, wrong crime and I applaud that. If a person is attacked for some other reason other than those on the short list in Bill C-41, it is just as wrong and needs to be punished just as severely.
This follows along the lines of the Charlottetown accord where winners and losers were picked. One group is especially set aside and included in the legislation. Somehow it is given more pre-eminence by the judicial system. Those who are not on the list are nobodys. They are not nearly as important. The justice system needs to deal fairly with criminal acts. So what if it was theft? Let us just give a light sentence; it was not a hate crime. That thinking is wrong. This legislation is wrong and should be defeated. It does not need to be passed in this form.
I have biases and prejudices and I do not make apologies for those. Some are positive biases and some may be considered to be negative biases. I have a negative bias toward the Liberal Party because of the legislation it put forward. I do not hate Liberals but I have a bias against them and that is why I did not run as a Liberal. That is fair and just. There is nothing wrong with that. I have a bias in favour of my wife. That is why I married her. I thought she was wonderful. I see other people I would never want to be married to. I may have a bias against them but I do not hate them. That is not a criminal action.
If this bill were passed, who knows how the courts might interpret the legislation? It is rather frightening because the bill is not just talking about assaults. It is talking about all criminal actions.
I could talk about a lot of issues but before my time runs out, I want to talk about whether laws like this create solutions or whether they exacerbate the problem.
There is another category of people who are not looked upon very highly. I happen to be one of them. That is the category we all fit into on these benches, the category of politicians. Politicians are not included in this legislation. I know all of us have heard people say that they should take all politicians, put them in a boat, take them to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and sink the thing.
That is terrible. I would be one of them. I would be sunk. That could be considered hateful and wrong. So what should we do? Should we include politicians in this legislation as well? Is that going to solve the problem? Will people suddenly think we are wonderful because we put a law in place that says you must not say that politicians should be put in a boat, sailed out to the middle of the ocean and sunk? That would exacerbate the problem. People would say: "Aha, we were right. They should be put in a boat, taken to the middle of the ocean and sunk". This is creating a worse problem because it is bringing these groups into prominence.
In summation, let me give an example. This House wants to pass a bill that will give MPs a special pension. Is that not wonderful, a special law just for MPs. That is going to endear us to the public, is it not? It is far richer than any pension in the private sector. Is that going to make people love us more? No, it will do the opposite. People are going to say: "Those politicians, they have to have a special pension plan just for them. They have to have special laws just for them. They want to be above the common people. They need special consideration". People then begin to have negative feelings. They have biases and prejudices, perhaps even hatred against politicians. That is wrong.
The philosophy behind this bill is wrong. It needs to be defeated and I will be voting against it.