Madam Speaker, I do not know what was funny about Christianity being under attack, but nevertheless, Christian churches have been burned at an alarming rate. Between May 2021 and December 2023, thirty-three Christian churches were burned in this country, with the vast majority being arson-based.
For years, communities cried out for protection. What they got instead from their federal Liberal government was silence. Now, years late, the government has tabled a bill that, quite frankly, feels more like a political gesture than a serious plan.
Make no mistake, the numbers are alarming. Since 2015, police-reported hate crimes in Canada have increased by 258%. Anti-Semitic hate crimes alone are up 416%. Hate crimes against South Asians have risen by almost 380%. In 2024 alone, Canada saw almost 5,000 police-reported hate crimes, the highest number on record. In Toronto alone, hate crime occurrences jumped by 19% in a single year, with assault-related hate crimes rising by 42%.
These numbers are not just statistics. They represent real Canadians, our neighbours, our friends, our co-workers and our children, who all deserve confidence in knowing they are safe and secure. This is why Conservatives have been abundantly clear that we support stronger protections, but supporting that objective does not mean rubber-stamping a flawed piece of legislation.
What are the problems with Bill C-9?
The bill, as drafted, is vague and broad. Civil liberty organizations across Canada have already raised the alarm. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has warned that the intimidation and obstruction provisions risk capturing peaceful protest and legitimate dissent.
The BC Civil Liberties Association said the same. The poorly drafted language could criminalize demonstrations even when they are peaceful and lawful. These are independent organizations dedicated to protecting charter rights, and they are telling us loudly that Bill C-9 risks going too far.
We have heard, by way of questioning of the minister, that there would be removal of Attorney General consent for hate propaganda charges. Police officers and prosecutors I have spoken with view that consent as an important safeguard, a so-called safety valve that ensures that these powerful tools are not misused.
In response to a question from my colleague from York Centre, the minister, in my view, minimized the potential consequential impact of removing Attorney General consent from private prosecutions. His response was that they want to remove political influence. As a former member of the attorney general's office in the province of Ontario, I am rather offended by that, because he is indicating that my boss at that time, the provincial attorney general, was highly political, and that his consent or her consent to continuing a prosecution was made depending on what political affiliation he or she belonged to. That is nonsense, absolute nonsense. It is a safety valve that has been in place for some significant time. It is not an onerous requirement and it ensures that legitimate charges are prosecuted as laid by the police.
More importantly, the requirement for consent would limit and almost completely eliminate overzealous litigants, private litigants, who feel, for whatever reason, that they want to lay a private complaint against another individual for comments that they deem to be offensive in the circumstances. It provides a very important safeguard.
The third problem I identify is the definition of hatred, and I have raised this issue already with the minister.
Bill C-9, as drafted, as the government indicates and as the minister just indicated, would codify the definition of hatred found in the Supreme Court of Canada as “detestation or vilification”. On its face, this seems consistent, but by removing the word “extreme” from the definition as defined by learned justices in the Supreme Court of Canada, the government has lowered the legal threshold, enabling police to lay a multitude of charges at a lower level of inspection and investigation, which, in my view, could open up the floodgates for litigation. That is a concern.
When they codify, they should be using the exact same words as the Supreme Court of Canada. The risk is that speech that is protected in a free democracy could be swept into a different category as true hate. This is not what Canadians want. It is not what our charter says.
Let me be clear. Conservatives support the goal of keeping Canadians safe from hate-motivated crime. We support police and prosecutors having the tools they need to act. We support ensuring that synagogues, mosques, cultural centres and schools are safe, but we also support protecting civil liberties.
I am going to conclude with the following. Canadians deserve protection from hate. They need to feel safe wherever they may be. They deserve to live in a country where freedom of speech and peaceful protests are respected. Bill C-9, as drafted, does not get that balance right. It is flawed. It is late. It cannot proceed in its current form.
We support protecting Canadians from threats, intimidation, obstruction and violence, but we will not rubber-stamp a flawed bill. We will stand up for vulnerable communities and for civil liberties. We will push for a law that truly represents and protects Canadians without undermining the freedoms that define us as a country. That is our commitment, that is our responsibility and that is the balance Canadians expect us to strike.