Mr. Speaker, there is really not much point engaging Conservatives on this issue, because they take the crisis of trying to find peace between Israel and Palestine and habitually use it as a wedge issue.
We are being asked in the House to use the power of Parliament to condemn individuals for their right to dissent from the Conservative world view. That was made clear when the Conservatives attacked the leader of the New Democratic Party for failing to condemn a demonstration outside his office.
This morning I read the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the right to picket outside MPs' offices. That is a fundamental right. Therefore, when my colleagues in the Conservative Party ask us to condemn individuals for their right to dissent, I am absolutely shocked and appalled that the Liberal Party, the party of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, would go along with them, because they are playing into the Conservatives' continual attempt to wedge and divide Canadians.
I want to ask my colleagues how we can stand and say we are going to support academic freedom when we would use the House of Commons to condemn individual students for participating in debates about foreign policies in another country. What kind of Parliament will we be if we become some kind of monkey house for Conservative ideology? If we are not willing to stand up for the right to dissent, the right to protest, the right to engage in discussion about what is good policy in another country, then the House is a much shabbier place as a result of these really distasteful wedge issues.
I am looking at the Liberal Party and wondering if it is going to go along with the Conservatives one more time, just like it did on Bill C-51. It should show some backbone and stand up to this kind of game playing.