Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for her eloquent and important words and her question in the House. I too have the honour of representing a Vancouver constituency with an immensely diverse cultural makeup.
Certainly all members of the government and the hon. member's party, and she has eloquently restated it, support the principles of multiculturalism that underpin the strength of our country. Diversity is our strength, but we also appreciate that that very diversity, where it is reflected in minorities, can sometimes put those minorities at risk from hate and discrimination in our society.
As the Prime Minister indicated in his reply to the hon. member's question, he has consistently condemned hate motivated threats and acts on virtually every occasion on which he has commented on the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11. He, along with the leaders of all parties in the House, has called on Canadians to demonstrate the tolerance and understanding upon which our multicultural and democratic society has been built.
The Prime Minister also referred in his response to the fact that the Criminal Code of Canada contains provisions which can and should be used to address the problem of hate motivated crime. Sections 318 and 319 of the code provide the offences of advocating or promoting genocide or public incitement of hatred against an identifiable group. These measures have been used effectively in prosecuting hate motivated crimes in the case of Keegstra and others.
In 1995 parliament passed what the Supreme Court of Canada called the most significant reform of the law of sentencing in Canadian history. One of the key elements of those reforms was the inclusion in the criminal code of a statement of the purpose and principles of sentencing.
Among the principles in the criminal code is found subsection 718.2( a )(i), which states that “evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor” shall be deemed to be an aggravating circumstance in sentencing. This means that if the court finds that the offence was motivated by hate based on one of these grounds, the sentence should be increased to reflect society's condemnation of that fact.
A threat, or in the case that the hon. member cited, an assault against one member of a religious group can be designed to have an impact on all members of that group by creating an environment of fear and intimidation among them.
This change to the law appears to be having an impact on sentencing patterns. The leading case on the interpretation of subsection 718.2( a )(i) comes from the hon. member's province and mine. In Regina v Miloszewski, five men, all self-proclaimed racists, who kicked and beat a Sikh man to death in the parking lot of a temple in Surrey pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The lengthy sentences imposed showed that this subsection had a significant influence on the sentencing judge. Judge Stewart said the subsection was “a direction to sentencing judges to give substantial weight to this aggravating factor as the section now reflects the will of Canadians as expressed by parliament”.
Just last week another hate crime was dealt with in a New Brunswick court. A 19-year-old man was convicted of placing a cross on the lawn of a black family and lighting it on fire. He was found guilty of willful promotion of hatred and sentenced to four months in jail. He was also placed on three years probation, the maximum permitted by the code, and ordered to undergo sensitivity therapy.
Cases such as these show that we have the tools in our law to respond sternly to hate based crime.