Debates of Dec. 4th, 2025

Instruction to Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member can provide his assurance when he talked about telling the truth. I think it is important that we tell the truth because misleading information causes a great deal of fear.

Could the member provide his thoughts on that issue?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier, in my speech, I spoke at length about how facts are being distorted and twisted in order to make people who are sincerely concerned accept the position of a political party. I find that unacceptable. I believe we have a duty to be honest. We have a duty to speak responsibly to voters and tell them the truth, the real facts.

In this case, I get the impression that a message of fear has been spread to make people of faith, people who practise a religion, feel threatened. That is completely wrong, and I agree that we have a responsibility to hold debates that respect the truth and the facts.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretaries of State for Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak very forcefully against Motion No. 219, which was brought forward by the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, that seeks to instruct the justice committee to drop its work on the combatting hate act, Bill C-9, and instead launch a taxpayer-funded, cross-country tour as a means of delaying the committee's work.

Let us be clear from the start that this motion is not about hearing from Canadians. This motion is about delaying justice. It is about freezing the combatting hate act.

After weeks of Conservative obstruction, after hours of procedural games, after filibusters, points of order and challenges to the chair, when clause-by-clause analysis of the combatting hate act finally began, Conservatives panicked and pulled the emergency brake on this study and the committees work. This motion is that emergency brake.

Canadians deserve to know exactly what has been happening at the justice committee. For weeks, members opposite have used every trick in the procedural playbook to stall this bill, including points of order, challenges to the chair and attempts to reopen settled motions, which were efforts to drag the committee backward every time it tried to move forward. They were wasting time to block participation by witnesses, who wanted to testify to this bill. When the very first committee meeting on this bill was scheduled, when Canadians expected serious debate, the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South shamelessly filibustered for hours, talking for two hours about dogs and cats, not about hate crimes, not about anti-Semitism, not about attacks on LGBTQ Canadians and not about threats against women.

While Canadians are being targeted by hate, Conservatives are entertaining themselves in gumming up the work of this committee and stalling the progress of this bill. They should be ashamed of themselves. Now that this procedural stalling has finally failed, Conservatives are trying a new tactic. They want Parliament to authorize a nationwide tour with flights, hotels and staff entourages, with no timeline to return to the bill and full authority to shut down the clause-by-clause analysis.

Let us call this what it is. It is not consultation. It is not accountability. This is instead a taxpayer-funded Conservative road show that is designed to kill the bill through delay. Canadians have asked us for protection from hate and intimidation. Conservatives have answered with a travel itinerary and an invoice.

I think about the reasons behind Bill C-9 to combat hate, and why this was one of the first bills the government brought forward in this parliamentary session. It is because of the imperative of addressing hate in Canada.

I have heard from people across my community about the importance of this issue and about how hate is on the rise. We have seen 5,000 hate crimes reported in 2024, almost double the number from 2018. Those numbers are probably under-reported compared with the number of Canadians who are actually facing hate crimes in this country. Why are these crimes going under-reported? It is because Canadians believe that the criminal justice system is not currently equipped to deal with the type of hate crimes we are seeing in this country. That is what the bill seeks to address. That is what the committee should be working on, ensuring that we get the bill back into Parliament to pass it so we can increase public safety for Canadians.

Hate is not an issue that is felt by a single community. Jewish Canadians, Muslim Canadians, the LGBTQ community, women and many other communities have all been subject to this rising tide of hate and bigotry, but particularly over the last two years, the Jewish community has felt this acutely and disproportionately, especially in Toronto—St. Paul's and other major cities. Religiously motivated hate crimes are the most reported category of hate crime in Toronto. Of those, 81% were committed against Jewish Canadians last year. Taking action against this rise in hate was a central promise that I made to the people of Toronto—St. Paul's in the recent election.

I firmly believe that the legislation we are debating, which we should be debating and moving forward, will be a critical first step in that direction. Where does that lead us? We are overdue for a conversation in this country about the legitimate boundaries of free expression.

We have seen protests turn more violent and hateful in recent years. We have seen this in Sikh and Hindu temples. We have seen it on the streets with people protesting on Israel and Palestine. We have seen it during COVID with the trucker protests and protests outside hospitals and vaccine clinics. We are grappling with an explosion of hate online that is moving off-line onto our streets and into our communities. Our right to free expression as Canadians is never, nor should it ever be, a shield against accountability. Canadian law has long distinguished between protected speech and wilful harm.

It was under the leadership of our 14th prime minister, Lester Pearson, my favourite, that the government of the day struck a special committee to review hate propaganda in Canada. That committee, which included a little known associate professor of law from the university of Montreal, subsequently our 15th prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, set out in its unanimous report a passage that our Supreme Court has cited:

This Report is a study in the power of words to maim, and what it is that a civilized society can do about it.... every society from time to time draws lines at the point where the intolerable and the impermissible coincide. In a free society such as our own, where the privilege of speech can induce ideas that may change the very order itself, there is a bias weighted heavily in favour of the maximum of rhetoric whatever the cost and consequences. But that bias stops this side of injury to the community itself and to individual members or identifiable groups innocently caught in verbal cross-fire that goes beyond legitimate debate.

When harm is done and injury occurs or violence ensues, we have an obligation to act on behalf of all citizens. The bill in front of the House and in front of the Standing Committee on Justice is a blueprint for action.

We have heard from communities, from law enforcement and from Crown corporations that first we need clarity in our law surrounding hate and speed with how it is enforced. To this end, our bill on combatting hate proposes to create new offences that would target exactly the sort of expression that is meant to terrorize a community rather than express policy or political disagreements, which are healthy in a democracy.

First, the obstruction offence would specifically go after behaviour that harasses users of community spaces belonging to identifiable groups. Blocking access to places where communities gather, such as schools, houses of worship and community centres, is not a form of free expression; it is bullying with the intent of terrifying a community into agreeing with one's views.

As I heard during a round table with community leaders that I hosted in my riding, hate is not limited to the steps outside a local school or synagogue. It can happen anywhere, as we learned in the hate-motivated stabbing of a Jewish woman in a grocery store right here in Ottawa.

Second, the intimidation offence in this bill would criminalize conduct that is done with the intent to intimidate. Speech in a vacuum is often innocuous, but recently we have seen groups of protesters, who are masked, yelling violent insults and hate at members of a targeted community. This is not free expression in a civil society. This is intimidation, pure and simple. Our laws are intended to prevent this. It must be stopped. Police must be empowered to intervene and make arrests before this hateful rhetoric turns into violence.

Third, this bill would create a new hate crime offence, one that could be applied against every offence in the Criminal Code or any other federal law. It would serve to explicitly denounce all criminal conduct motivated by hate.

Fourth, a new hate propaganda offence would prohibit the display of certain symbols associated with the Nazi party, such as the hakenkreuz and the Nazi SS bolts, as well as any symbols associated with a listed terrorist group, such as the flags of Hamas, Hezbollah or the Proud Boys. Importantly, this is an offence against the spreading of hate. It is not criminalizing symbols in an academic setting such as a text book. Our laws are sophisticated; they can distinguish between these things. For many communities, these symbols are deeply traumatic, and the public display of them is not only offensive, but also dehumanizing and terrorizing.

When a terrorist entity in the country is listed by the government and by Parliament, Parliament should prohibit the spreading of hate through the display of its symbols. The public display of these symbols is often done with the explicit intent, more often than not, of scaring people and spreading hate, leading to violence. Criminalizing the wilful public use of these symbols should be an opinion on which there is consensus in the House.

We introduced the combatting hate act alongside the bail and sentencing reform act to respond directly to what communities across Canada are demanding. They are demanding stronger protections against hate. They are demanding stronger consequences for intimidation. They are demanding stronger tools for law enforcement.

From day one, the Minister of Justice has said clearly that we remain open to constructive improvements to the bill in good faith. What we will not accept is bad-faith sabotage and delay dressed up as consultation, which is what we are getting from the other side of the House.

Canadians are not asking for a road show; they are demanding results. They are demanding that we not delay and that we pass the bill with expediency. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA, wrote publicly to the Conservative leader, urging him to work with the government to pass Bill C-9 in the spirit of collaboration. Police services, municipal leaders, religious communities and human rights organizations all want the bill passed now.

Let us be honest about what is really going on here. It is clear that the Leader of the Opposition has a divided caucus on the bill. It is clear that he does not want this to go to a vote before his leadership review next month. I ask the members opposite directly why they are more interested in saving the Leader of the Opposition's job than in saving the lives of Canadians who are being targeted by hate and intimidation. Why will they not move the bill forward?

We are hearing something even more reckless from the opposition. They are calling the combatting hate bill a censorship bill. Let me ask them plainly. Do the members opposite think it is okay to see synagogues firebombed? Do the members opposite think it is okay to threaten and target LGBTQ people because of whom they love? Do the members opposite think it is okay to wave a terrorist flag in public and call for the extermination of women and racialized Canadians? Of course not. That is why we need to get behind this bill. That is the type of egregious, hateful conduct that the bill targets. When the opposition screams about censorship, the real question is this: Which form of hate are they trying to protect?

Only Conservatives would call the bill censorship, while all of the following groups stand behind it. We have the Edmonton Police Service, B’nai Brith Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Hindu alliance and Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

It is no surprise that this latest outrage comes from the same political wing that has previously minimized real-world violence and spread reckless rhetoric. Every single delay to the bill right now, including this motion for instruction before the House today, is a delay that belongs to the Conservative Party.

Conservatives talked for two hours about cats and dogs instead of starting the clause-by-clause review of the bill. They challenged the chair. They tried repeatedly to pull the committee off the bill. When clause-by-clause finally started, they dropped this motion to try to shut it down. This motion has one purpose and one purpose only. It is to push the combatting hate act into the deep-freeze. It is not to improve it, not to strengthen it, not to protect Canadians and not to address the rising tide of hate and anti-Semitism we see in the country, but to stop it cold in its tracks and put it off, so that they do not have to face the division in their caucus, take a vote on it and get behind a bill that organizations and communities across this country support.

We will not allow that. We will not stand behind that. Canadians want protection from hate. Conservatives want excuses to stall. Canadians want laws that keep them safe. Conservatives want a trip across the country with flights, hotels and theatrics that they will manufacture.

We will defeat this motion and this stunt, and we will do everything in our power to pass the combatting hate act despite this stunt. It is noise on that side of the House. It cannot distract us from the important issues that have plagued this country. This bill is an important, overdue step forward in combatting hate in the country. This will be a proud part of our Canadian history and the lawful boundaries on freedom of expression when it crosses into a territory that is intimidating and causes Canadians to be fearful in their streets and their neighbourhoods. That is the scourge of hate.

Let us put an end to this. Let us vote down this motion. I encourage the members opposite to put their money where their mouth is, get behind their principles and support a bill that combats hate in Canada.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, many faith leaders and individuals in my community have reached out to me with concerns about Bill C-9 and the infringement on freedom of speech, and, in particular, the amendment that was brought forward that would remove the religious exemption and potentially target pastors while reading passages out of the Bible. The chair of that committee, who has since been promoted to Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, said that passages like those in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Romans would be considered hateful.

Does the member agree with the past committee chair's representation of those passages?

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with many issues like this, it behooves the members opposite to stand up and actually read the Criminal Code and its definition of hate. Their approach to these issues is to fearmonger and to shed light on situations that are unlikely to see the light of day in a court of law.

The Criminal Code defines hate as:

communicating statements in any public place, [inciting] hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace

We also have Criminal Code provisions preventing the “wilful promotion of hatred”. This bill would give clarity to the definition of hate.

In this country, we should not stand up and permit hate. Those who spread hate need to be accountable for it, and law enforcement needs a tool to police it.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the situation is quite clear today. Religious lobbies are influencing both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The Conservatives are spreading disinformation to mobilize their religious base, while the Liberals have capitulated and withdrawn their support for removing the religious exemption for hate speech.

The Quebec National Assembly has stated clearly and unanimously that this loophole in the Criminal Code, which still allows hate speech on religious grounds, must be closed.

Will the Liberals stop dancing around the issue today? Will they clearly explain why they are turning their backs on Quebeckers at a time when hatred is on the rise in public places?

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my remarks, the Minister of Justice is open to considering good faith amendments to this bill.

The government does not hold a monopoly on great legislation. Let us move that legislation forward. Let us have those debates in good faith. Let us talk critically about the state of the law and what it actually is, not what the Conservatives want people online to believe it is. Let us look at what the Supreme Court has said about hate and how the law is intended to protect freedoms in our democracy.

When we recognize the scourge of hate, we allow people to live freer lives because they are free of hate, fear and intimidation. That is the purpose of the hate laws that we have had in this country for decades.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I really and truly appreciate the comments from the parliamentary secretary.

The unfortunate reality is that the Conservative Party of Canada's behaviour around this legislation is affecting two pieces of legislation. One deals with hate crimes, and Canadians are not going to be able to see the hate crime legislation before the end of the year. The other deals with bail reform, which is at the same committee. This is something the Prime Minister made a commitment on as part of our election platform.

Liberals want to see both bills passed before the end of the year. The victims here are Canadians and the safety of our communities. Could the member reflect on how selfish the Conservative Party is being by not allowing Canadians to have this legislation passed?

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is selfish, and the Conservatives should be ashamed of their behaviour in stalling this bill.

I have to tell members that I speak to constituents in my riding all the time who are affected by the hate on their streets and in their communities. They are scared of dropping their children off at day care or their young students going to university, going on campus or going to downtown Toronto to work, and having to walk through a protest. This is more than words; this is violence.

Our laws are intended to prevent this and protect Canadians from experiencing that fear and intimidation in their day-to-day lives. This is what the combatting hate act seeks to address, and the Conservatives need to stand up and get behind this bill.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a short question. The member opposite listed a number of groups that supported Bill C-9. Does that same list she recited in her speech support the amendment that was just proposed?

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it would have been great if the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights had been able to hear more witnesses, but because of the Conservatives' filibustering, those on the witness list were not able to appear in front of the committee. The Conservatives were too busy talking about their family pets and filibustering the work that needed to be done.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of religious freedom is in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees religious freedom, yet we have members of the Conservative Party providing, I would suggest, misleading information that is ultimately causing a great deal of concern for those who practise a faith. Unfortunately, as a result, people might receive misinformation and then bring it to their attention. In fact, the Conservatives know they are doing this, and it is causing fear in the minds of many.

I wonder if the member could provide her thoughts on that.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Christian. I am a proud Canadian. I believe in the tenets of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I believe deeply in our freedom of expression, but I am also a lawyer, and I understand that there is a boundary. When speech crosses a high threshold into hate, inciting fear, inciting violence and calling for the death or extermination of our fellow citizens, it is simply wrong.

Nothing should keep people from being accountable for that type of interpretation and those types of hurtful statements. Everyone is a contributing part of Canadian democracy. We need to uphold it. This is what these laws seek to protect.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I represent one of the largest Jewish communities in the country, and I will not take any lessons from the Liberals on safeguarding the Jewish community.

I am also tired of the other side accusing the Conservatives of slowing this down.

I would like to ask the member a very clear question. Last Tuesday, the justice committee was ready to sit and listen with respect to bail or to Bill C-9, and the Liberals cancelled the meeting. This morning, after I woke up, I was sipping on my cup of coffee and getting ready for Bill C-9 tonight, when I learned that the justice committee meeting tonight had been cancelled by the Liberal chair.

If the Liberals are so determined to move forward with this terrible piece of legislation, why did they cancel tonight's justice committee meeting? I would like an answer, please.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Conservative bench to stand up and vote in favour of this bill, because I have yet to see evidence that they would support this bill and protect Canadians from hate and intimidation. In the two years since October 7, I have yet to hear a Conservative stand up in favour of safe access zones, for example, in municipalities across this country.

We know exactly where the Conservatives stand. We have heard their debates on this bill in Parliament and at committee. Canadians should know they are all talk when it comes to supporting communities and protecting them from hate. They will not put their votes behind supporting this legislation because they are divided as a caucus on the very measures this bill seeks to promote: protecting Canadians from hate and placing legitimate, lawful boundaries on hate speech.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to pick up on the issue of hate speech, which is very real. The member made reference to several examples of it. Unfortunately, as I pointed out, the legislation is not going to be able to pass, because of Conservative obstruction. I am wondering if she could once again provide her thoughts in regard to the sadness surrounding the legislation's not being—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too have had the experience of working during COVID, when there were protests outside hospitals and vaccine clinics. As a government, we took the same steps. We protected doctors and nurses doing their jobs. We protected Canadians wanting to get vaccines. The same things are happening in Canada today; we need to protect places of worship, community centres and other places where communities gather, because the same fear and intimidation are—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Bowmanville—Oshawa North.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Bowmanville—Oshawa North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today on behalf of my constituents of Bowmanville—Oshawa North to oppose Bill C-9 and to support efforts to further scrutinize and study the legislation.

I will be sharing my time with the member for York Centre.

There are many problems with Bill C-9 and the Liberal attempt to amend Bill C-9 to criminalize the reading and sharing of Bible verses in this country. We oppose this for many reasons, but I do want to draw attention to an area that has not gotten enough attention: the efforts of the Liberal Party to enact a form of cultural imperialism on Christians, Muslims and Jews in this country.

I want to share an academic definition of “cultural imperialism” because I am sure many members of the House probably are not used to hearing that term to describe what the Liberal Party is attempting to do to citizens of our country. This definition comes from EBSCO, a research database. Published in 2024, the definition reads:

Cultural imperialism refers to the imposition of one culture's values, beliefs, and practices over another, often leading to the erosion of the latter's unique cultural identity.... It manifests through various mediums, including education, religion, and media, where dominant cultures often shape and redefine the social and ethical frameworks of less dominant societies....

Cultural imperialism causes changes that are usually faster than would otherwise occur, and in a direction that benefits those from the dominant or influencing culture. The faster pace can mean that the changes have a destabilizing effect on other aspects of the culture, and the association of the changes with benefits accruing to members of the dominant culture, taken together mean that one party is benefiting from actions that are harmful to others.

I share this definition to provide some context for what I believe the Liberal Party is doing right now. It has been in power for over a decade and has tried its very best to exercise influence over every institution in this country. It has abused the power of the federal government to impose its values, beliefs and practices on as many institutions in our country as it possibly can. Today we see evidence of that through Bill C-9 and the Liberal effort to amend Bill C-9, an effort to exercise that cultural imperialism over churches, mosques and synagogues.

I have provided an academic definition of cultural imperialism, but I would also like to provide a pop culture reference. In the hit song from last year, Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us, Lamar uses some language to describe colonial thinking, in his diss track to Drake. He says:

...you not a colleague,
you a...colonizer

That is precisely what the Liberal Party is attempting to do to Christians, Muslims and Jews in this country. Liberals are not treating the diverse communities of our country with any degree of respect. They are not treating them like colleagues, listening to them, working with them and respecting their traditions and faiths. Instead they are behaving like colonizers, attempting to abuse state power to exercise undue influence by attempting to criminalize things that families in this country have believed in since the very founding of this nation by the English and the French.

The Liberals will make, of course, as they have made throughout this morning and afternoon, efforts to characterize our concerns over the legislation as theatrics, but I bring it back to the actual language used by the now Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who was promoted by the Prime Minister after he made the following comments. As chair of the justice committee, on October 30, he said that three books of the Bible, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Romans, are hateful.

The minister used the language of hate to describe verses in the Bible that people have prayed over, read to their children and shared in communities all across this country for a very long time. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which the Liberal Party pretends, and I emphasize “pretends”, to care about, enshrines the right to religious freedom precisely as a sign of respect for the fact that there are things the government should not have its fingerprints on.

The government should not make its way into churches, mosques and synagogues in an effort to bring Liberal values, nor use the criminal justice system to enforce Liberal values on the private religious lives of Canadian citizens, but that is precisely what a colonizer would do. That is precisely what a cultural imperialist would do. They would look at churches, mosques and synagogues and ask how the federal government can make its way in there. It is wrong, it is unethical and it is against the traditions of this country. It is an insult to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

One thing I have observed in the relatively short time I have been a member of Parliament is that the Liberal Party does something that I do not know what to name; perhaps it is mind games or false presentation. It is making an effort to convince Christians, Muslims and Jews of various cultural backgrounds that they respect them. The Liberals make an effort to show they want to hear them and welcome them into Canadian politics.

I have seen with my own eyes Liberals in the Toronto area running around at cultural events and holidays, eating samosas and jerk chicken and pretending they respect people from diverse community backgrounds. They run around offering people DEI slogans like “Diversity is our strength.” They say all kinds of funny things, like “diversity, vote for me”. I know the kind of attitude they bring around our communities.

What do they do when they come to Ottawa? They want to culturally imperialize the people of this country and their children. They actually have no respect for diversity at all, and any Christians, Muslims, or Jews whose ancestors come from any part of the world must be able to unite in recognizing that the Liberal Party has no respect for our religions, our traditions or our values. The Liberals believe that the federal government is superior to us, and they believe they have the right to impose their values on our churches, mosques and synagogues.

When we talk about the language of colonizers and cultural imperialists, we have to recognize that when they attack scripture, when they attack the Bible, when they attack our religions and when they try to justify bringing the criminal justice system into our places of worship, they are trying to strip away the things that make us well-rounded people. To them we are simply economic inputs. We should have no culture. They believe we should have no meaning in our lives.

They offer us nihilism. They offer us the chance to be a column on a spreadsheet used to calculate GDP. That is all they think of us and of the efforts we make to be well-rounded people, to be part of a community, to believe in something, to have conviction and to be connected to the traditions of our fathers, our mothers, our grandfathers and our grandmothers. They ridicule and they insult. They call it hateful to believe that we come from something.

However, we stand on the shoulders of giants who sacrificed for us to be here. They sacrificed for us to have the life we have today, and we will not denounce the very people who have made our lives possible. We will not denounce the cultures and traditions they come from. We will not sit here quietly and idly while the Liberal Party seeks to call our ancestors hateful. We will not accept that. We will reject their cultural imperialism. We will call them colonizers when they behave like colonizers.

In closing, I will suggest that one of the reasons the Liberals denigrate Canadian history, one of the reasons they keep the Canadian flag at half-mast for a year, and one of the reasons they support teaching our children in this country that our country should be ashamed of its own history, is that they are embarrassed by what they see in the mirror. They have not learned the lessons from history, and they repeat the mistakes made in history of colonizing and imperializing over other people.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, where does the member get off thinking he knows the first thing about me? How does he believe he knows what church I was baptized in, what church I visit every Sunday morning, what church my wife and I got married in or what faith my wife and I both practise? The member has no clue, yet he stands up in the House and decides to preach to us about who we are, when he has absolutely no clue.

Is it even possible, in the member's mind, that perhaps I am deeply faithful to my own religion? I just do not see the need to show that in the House of Commons to everybody else.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Bowmanville—Oshawa North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not pretend to know anything about the member for Kingston and the Islands other than what he shows me when I show up to work. What I see when I show up to work is a man with no respect for Christians, Muslims and Jews in this country and a man who supports efforts by the Liberal Party to colonize and imperialize people—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I know that the member for Kingston and the Islands is a Christian himself and to make the type of allegation that the member just made, I believe he owes—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!