Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice noted that at the justice committee the Liberal members did the right thing in supporting our Conservative amendments to amend Bill C-75.
Thus, serious indictable offences, namely terrorism and genocide-related offences, would not be reclassified as hybrid offences. In doing so, they listened to the testimony of, among others, Shimon Fogel from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who said that reclassifying such offences would send “a clear and unacceptable signal diminishing the inherently grave, even heinous, nature of these crimes.” Similarly, the member for Edmonton Centre said, “Let's be serious.... We're talking about very serious offences.”
Unfortunately, the government decided to double down on the reclassification of events such as impaired driving causing bodily harm and kidnapping a minor under the age of 14. What kind of message does that send?