Mr. Speaker, first, as a preamble that really should go without saying, there is no disagreement in any corner of the House about the values that should underlie this legislation. We all value a safe Canada where every single human is free to live their lives as their fullest selves irrespective of their race, religion, ethnicity, language, physical or mental disability, etc. There is no member in this House who wants to see hate or the symbols of hate that the present legislation deals with displayed or promoted in any way in our country or in any other country. I think we remain unanimous in the House in condemning hate, hate crimes and hate propaganda.
However, a careful distinction must be brought to bear between condemnation and criminalization, and we must always note this. When we approach discussions of criminalization, it should be with humility. If I could wave a magic wand and stop anyone in this country from ever propagating any hate or committing a hate crime, I swear I would do it, but such magic is not one of the powers vested in us as elected representatives. We can only modify the criminal justice system, and we must be alive to the unintended consequences that such modifications could have.
In that spirit, I would honestly like to raise with the members opposite the following concerns I have with this legislation. Number one, would it drive hate organizations underground? It is said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. When the justice minister introduced this legislation, my thoughts immediately turned to the famous and thankfully aborted Nazi rally in Skokie, Illinois, of 1977. It is a very famous case, in part because the ACLU lawyer who fought for the right of those marchers to march was David Goldberger, who was a very proud Jew. Reprehensibly, the marchers chose Skokie, Illinois, because there was a high proportion of Holocaust survivors there whom they sought to terrify. On the date of the march, 20 broken and twisted individuals wearing Nazi hakenkreuzes were met by 2,000 counterprotesters shouting them down. No violence occurred, and the cowardly traitorous Nazis went home without marching.
A recent ABC News article quotes the current mayor of Skokie, Illinois, saying that looking back 40 years later, many positive things came out of that day. Previously, the Holocaust survivors in Skokie, he says, “were a very quiet group” who did not talk about their experiences, but he said these events “ignited a passion in them”, and they founded the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center within two years of that day. The ABC News article notes that both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have recognized the incredible work that museum does.
In many ways, John Stuart Mill can be thought of as the founder of the Liberal tradition that gives the Liberal Party its name. This is what he had to say about false and hateful opinions: “though the silenced opinion be an error...it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.” That is to say that no one wants to hear from hateful miscreants. No one in this House does, but when we do, we must take it as a solemn opportunity to perhaps not change their minds, but loudly and with facts and arguments disabuse whatever listeners they may have of the poison they utter.
With the words of John Stuart Mill and the examples of the Skokie counterprotesters in mind, I ask the justice minister this admittedly counterintuitive question: By driving hate into the fetid swamps of Discord or whatever website has replaced 4chan, does it deprive our communities the opportunity to denounce it in person and to show people in the real world that their views are not welcome and that their movement has no purchase among the 99.9% of Canadians who value each other's fundamental rights and freedoms? As a sub-concern, if it is allowed to fester in these dark corners of the Internet, when it does finally burst out, is it more likely to do so in a form worse than a flag or symbol? I do not ask this question lightly, and it brings me to my second concern with the proposed legislation.
In some comments I made following a speech about criminal justice, I expressed concern that the deputy government House leader seemed more concerned with abstractions rather than concrete occurrences. On this side of the House, we pride ourselves on our concern for concrete occurrences. As a Canadian, I am terribly upset, disgusted and disappointed that Jewish individuals have been harmed by criminal psychopaths because of who they are. A man was beaten up in front of his children in Montreal this summer. A few weeks ago, a woman was stabbed in the kosher food section of a local Ottawa grocery store. Less well known is that in the spring of 2024, a 15-year-old Israeli immigrant to Canada was attacked at school for her place of origin. In that case, I believe it took two weeks before the police even deigned to lay charges.
In my own circle of physician friends, I am sorry and ashamed to report that some Jews have left Canada permanently because of the lack of safety these concrete events demonstrate. I want dearly for my Jewish friends to feel safe to return to Canada.
Year after year, we have increases in violent crime in Canada. We have seen ongoing increases in every classification and every sort of violent crime. These increases, I am sorry to say, started in 2015. In every class of violent crime, we have seen a failure of the Liberal government to keep the bad guys in jail.
It is my understanding that the wilful promotion of hatred, whether with a symbol or a flag or a speech or a newspaper article, is already illegal in Canada under subsection 319(2) of the Criminal Code. It is furthermore my understanding that intimidating a person who seeks to enter a place of worship or any other place is already illegal under section 423 of the Criminal Code. However, we have seen very many infractions of these already-existing laws in the targeting of religious minorities. I may go so far as to say that every religious minority is dealing with more infractions of these laws in just about every Canadian city. In fact, every Canadian is dealing with more of every sort of crime. This is why I fear that the present bill is an abstraction and a distraction.
We need concrete measures. We need the violent and hateful people who do these sorts of things, who break our laws, to go to jail and stay in jail. Conservatives have proposed such measures to put the bad guys in jail. I earnestly beg the members opposite to take us up on it. Let us do these concrete things.
Those are my twin concerns. By removing the consent of the Attorney General and watering down the definition of hate, would the Liberals cast a wider net, driving cranks and loons underground, where they might become more hateful and, God forbid, more violent? Why would they cast a wider net when they are already refusing to use the smaller, more targeted net that they have? Why do they refuse to repeal their irresponsible bail laws that let violent psychos back on our streets again and again? I ask the questions in good faith.
