Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House, especially on a Monday morning with a colleague who has the more beautiful riding, his with the Rocky Mountains and mine with Nose Hill Park. However, that unfortunately is not the subject of debate today.
I am here to support Bill C-309, which was introduced earlier in the year. As a representative of a riding in the core of one of our nation's larger urban centres, I sympathize with the residents and business owners impacted by the destructive activity that occurred during recent riots in the Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal areas.
One of the key priorities of government is to protect its citizens' security. In all of these three cities, the public servants who put themselves at risk to protect innocent bystanders and the homes and property of business owners conducted themselves in an exemplary manner.
As the member for Wild Rose and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice have noted during previous debates in the House, Bill C-309 would give our police an effective tool to better defend our communities against those who choose to engage in violence during a riot, while ensuring that Canadians who choose to express their views in peaceful protest are further protected under the law.
However, some in this chamber do not think police should have this new tool for protecting public safety. For example, on May 7 of this year the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands took to Twitter stating: “Minister of Justice announces full support for PMB [private member's bill] on criminal offence to be masked in protest. No more polar bears in climate marches”.
While there are so many things wrong with this statement, the tone being one of them, frankly, let me start by noting that the member in question seems to have trouble distinguishing between a riot, which is not lawful and the subject of the bill, and peaceful protest, which is lawful. For her benefit I will clarify.
As we recently saw in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, lighting objects on fire and projecting them at law enforcement officials and wilfully destroying public and private property are hallmarks of a riot or unlawful assembly. A gathering of people choosing to stand peacefully in a law-abiding forum in support of issues, for example, climate change, would not be classified as a riot or unlawful assembly. As I enjoy debating the member in the House and in other forums and know her well, I find it hard to believe that she does not understand this distinction and has chosen to be flippant about the true purpose of this legislation. Actually reading the bill clearly shows it would not target people who wear masks or costumes that may conceal their identity while they are engaged in lawful protests, marches, gatherings or other activities commonly associated with the exercise of freedom and expression of lawful assembly.
I will re-emphasize for extra clarity that this bill would not affect people who are protesting peacefully or are within the context of a law-abiding activity. This legislation would affect people when the riot act has been invoked or a gathering has been deemed an unlawful assembly, as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada, and who don a mask to conceal their identity for that purpose.
I will go back to clarifying some of my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands' further misconceptions about the bill.
On September 19 the member returned to Twitter and wrote: “If a peaceful event gets out of hand and it's winter and you have a scarf on. 20 years in jail?” This statement is false, blatantly misleading and hyperbolic. However, it is the perfect example of false arguments that have been used to attack the bill. As such, I will walk through the flawed logic of this statement as well as some of the other similar statements made in the House today.
As I said earlier, for Bill C-309 to apply the accused must be wearing a mask or disguise for the specific purpose of concealing his or her identity during a riot or unlawful assembly.
However, what about the case of a gathering that descends into a riot? To this I would say that the best way to avoid participating in a riot is to not participate in a riot. I do not make this statement in jest or flippantly, because I hold the hope that the majority of our constituents would profess to be able to distinguish between engaging in a peaceful, lawful protest and a riot, as I have outlined in my speech, particularly as our country has a proud and strong tradition of our citizens engaging in peaceful protest to effect change.
It seems that I must also address the member's issue with scarves. This legislation specifically states that the accused must be wearing the disguise without lawful excuse, which is at the core of some of the arguments that have been made in this place this morning. Wearing a scarf to protect oneself against the elements during a lawful gathering is a lawful excuse. Wearing a scarf to conceal one's identity while engaging in violent behaviour, such as wilfully damaging property or attacking police officers during a riot or unlawful gathering as defined by the Criminal Code of our country, would not be a lawful excuse.
The same day that this member made the statement on Twitter, she attempted to completely gut Bill C-309 by proposing amendment after amendment, not with ideas to improve the legislation or debate it, but by replacing clause after clause with empty pages. In doing so, the member failed to note that Bill C-309 would fill a gap in the current law.
To reiterate, at the present time persons who wear masks or disguises with the intent to commit an indictable offence, including taking part in a riot, are subject to an offence under subsection 351(2) of the Criminal Code and are liable to a maximum terms of imprisonment of 10 years. However, subsection 351(2) does not apply to summary conviction offences. This means that the Criminal Code does not specifically address the situation of persons participating in an unlawful assembly who wear masks or other disguises to conceal their identity without lawful excuse.
While some today have tried to argue that the current law adequately covers these offences, as I have just stated, our law enforcement officials have testified that this is not the case. They find this subsection difficult to apply because it was not created for this type of situation. Rather, it was primarily meant to cover situations such as armed robbery. As evidence, and this is absolutely key, out of 15,000 separate criminal acts that were documented in the Vancouver riot, many with video evidence of the perpetrator, only a handful, a very tiny number, of charges were laid under this section, as this section only covers indictable offences. That is why the bill is such an important tool for our law enforcement officials.
To be clear, what this means is that when someone participating in a riot knows that he or she would be captured on video or on a cell phone and puts on a mask during a riot, we will now have a way to hold them to account in a much clearer way than is currently outlined in our present common law.
Fortunately, many other members of Parliament have recognized the merits of debating this important legislation instead of merely gutting it, and I am not talking about government MPs only. For instance, the most recent member for Victoria voted in favour of Bill C-309 at second reading, as did 189 other members. These members recognize the need to address this issue as well as the merit in debating this legislation, rather than making flippant Twitter comments and attempting to gut the bill.
Approval at second reading allowed the House justice committee to further investigate the issue and to hear from one of the constituents of the former member for Victoria, Police Chief Jamie Graham. He called this legislation a progressive, measured and responsible step toward giving the police agencies the legislative tools they need to uphold the law and maintain public safety. That was a comment from one of our valued law enforcement officials who has over 43 years of experience working in the law enforcement field.
Police Chief Graham testified that New York State recently had similar legislation upheld by the courts, and similarly, the United Kingdom and France passed legislation, in 2001 and 2009 respectively, to address similar concerns.
It is a basic tool that Police Chief Graham believes we must give to law enforcement for the reasons I have stated earlier. Speaking to the committee, he said:
There are very specific tactics used to try to dissuade riotous behaviour. We'll do whatever you ask us to do. I provide training and equipment to the officers. The government provides the legislative tools. I am simply suggesting this is one additional tool that I think will be extremely helpful....
We watched the television coverage of the Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal riots. We saw wilful acts of violence. We saw people physically injuring our law enforcement providers, and we also saw the damage it caused to businesses.
Having seen all these things, I would like to believe that no member in this House would vote to deny police this tool to protect the public, the police and legitimate protesters, people who are upholding the Canadian value of peaceful protest.
As I have said before in this House, by denouncing behaviour that is the antithesis of lawful expression and assembly, the bill underscores the Canadian values of freedom, tolerance, respect and rule of law. It also provides additional support for the people who work on the front lines to ensure that these values are upheld. Because of that, I will ask all members in this House to support its passage.