Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
It is a pleasure to be speaking in this chamber today on this very important piece of legislation. It is one of a trio of bills that we, on this side of the House, committed to and campaigned on when this was put in our platform, along with the other pieces of legislation around intimate partner violence and other crimes against women and children, and our bail and sentencing reforms. It added up, in my experience, to be the most ambitious set of criminal justice proposals that we have proposed on this side of the House in not just one generation but several generations.
The bill is coming from a place of real concern and need with respect to the growth in hate crimes in Canada. Statistics from Statistics Canada show that from 2022 to 2023, there was a 32% increase in the number of hate crimes. There were almost 5,000. There were 1,284 crimes targeting religion in 2023, which was a 67% increase. Nine hundred of them focused on Jewish people and 211 of them focused on Muslims. Hate crimes related to sexual orientation over that year, between 2022 and 2023, according to Statistics Canada, were up 69% to 860 such crimes.
We are in a situation supercharged by social media, supercharged by, I believe, some of the postpandemic effects on people and supercharged by, yes, things that are happening in the world that are motivating people to express themselves negatively. However, this is not just about negative expression. This is about hate crime. This is about crimes that are at the level of the Criminal Code.
There are a couple of provisions in this legislation that I think are really important in illustrating the myths versus what is actually in the legislation. For instance, I have been hearing from people in my riding of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park that this legislation would, in their view, potentially impede their right to peaceful protest. The right to peaceful protest is a clear charter right and something that everyone on all sides of the House agrees with, and it would not be subject to this legislation. What would be subject to it are intimidation and physical obstruction in the very targeted places and manners laid out in the legislation, where an identifiable group is gathered and it is a specific act of intimidation and physical obstruction, not peaceful protest. Peaceful protest would continue to be protected by this legislation.
On the other hand, I have heard on the other side of the House that a variety of forms of expression would be prohibited by this legislation. There is a very specific statement about hate speech in a recent Supreme Court decision, which we are merely bringing into legislation, around vilification and detestation. This is not about all those other forms of expression. This is very specifically about vilification and detestation.
We have added the incorporation of hate symbols from organizations that are on the list of terrorist organizations, which is a list of organizations that I believe is managed with great care. When an organization is added to that list, it is because, in the expert determination of those who follow it, that organization is a terrorist organization. We have good debates in the House about that. It is those symbols, displayed in those particular contexts, that then would rise to the level of this bill, whereby we would seek to criminalize the display of those symbols in those contexts.
The charter rights would continue to be protected in all respects, but the display of these hate symbols, unfortunately, is something we have seen more of and, I think, requires this level of extraordinary intervention. I have just cited some of the statistics about the rise in hate crimes. We know that synagogues in the greater Toronto area in particular are being targeted.
In recent weeks, I have had the chance to visit or be in conversation with leaders from the Jami mosque in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, Toronto's oldest mosque, along with the Albanian mosque on Annette Street and the Hamza mosque in Parkdale. I have also visited with and been in touch with the leadership of the Junction Shul on Maria Street, which I know has a special connection to the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. I have been in conversation with faith leaders.
I have not heard from them the kind of rhetoric that I hear from the other side. I do not hear any fear from them about their ability or opportunities to participate in the kinds of religious service and in the kinds of free speech that they continue to enjoy. It is important to be aware of the myths that are being propagated versus the very targeted interventions that we are doing here in response to a very evident rise in hate crime.
I wish we did not need this legislation, but it is an extraordinary set of events that are coming together, witnessed as recently as this weekend in the greater Toronto area, where we need to assert, not just as a legislature and not just as lawmakers, but as a House collectively, that we stand against this kind of vilification and detestation and that, yes, reasonable, targeted amendments to the Criminal Code are necessary to do so.
We have a programming motion that we are debating right now. The bill has seen over 30 hours of debate and over 30 witnesses at committee. It is time to pass the bill, to do our job as legislators, to be in receipt of the work of the committee and to bring the bill forward. It is a targeted piece of legislation that responds to the real needs and real concerns of our community, especially those who are vulnerable to vilification, hatred and detestation. We know who some of those groups are. They are asking us to act. My constituents are saying that we need more protection from hate, and we need to protect our right to free expression. The bill would do that.