Mr. Speaker, what constitutes a free society? What are the identifying characteristics that separate nations whose people live in freedom from those whose subjects live under tyranny and fear?
I can think of no guiding principle more fundamental to this question than the existence, or lack thereof, of free speech and free expression: the legal ability to express oneself without fear of government coercion, oppression or use of force. This why I am so concerned by the Liberal government's Bill C-9, which would open the floodgates and abandon the guardrails on prosecuting and criminalizing speech in Canada, including the reading of sacred and ancient religious texts such as the Bible, the Torah and the Koran.
Make no mistake; once we cross this Rubicon, once we accept the premise that governments and politicians in the House have the subjective right to determine what we may or may not say, or what religious texts we may or may not read, we have lost the plot. Free speech is a western value, a Canadian principle and a human right, and we must always defend it.