Mr. Speaker, that is shameful, and we are going to put a stop to that. This would not criminalize the mere display of a symbol, but it would target situations where symbols like Nazi imagery are shown in public with the clear intention of promoting hatred against certain communities. This motion calls on the justice committee to put an end to the obstruction and delay tactics that have prevented progress on the combatting hate act, which has now been before the committee for over six months.
Canadians might be surprised by this delay. After all, much of what is in Bill C-9 comes directly from the December 2024 fighting anti-Semitism report of the justice committee. Many members took part in this committee's hearings. This was a special anti-Semitism report that called for these types of steps to be taken. It called on the government to introduce measures to define “hate”, create a stand-alone hate crime offence and criminalize intimidation targeting religious groups. As a news flash to many Conservative colleagues who took an active part in this committee, all of these measures are in Bill C-9.
Fast-forward from the Conservatives of 2024 to the Conservatives of 2026, and suddenly the very measures they once backed are now being blocked and delayed in committee. Canadians are left asking a simple question: Which Conservatives should they believe, the ones from 2024 who said Parliament must act against hate, or the 2026 Trumpian-style Conservatives who now stand in the way of legislating against the hatred and intimidation our most vulnerable communities are facing?
Parliament has already spent significant time debating this bill. Since September 2025, it has been debated in the House and studied extensively at committee with over 30 witnesses heard, amendments proposed and every clause examined. In total, more than 35 hours have been spent studying a bill that is only eight pages long. We have spent 35 hours studying eight pages. That is thorough scrutiny.
I recognize it may have been tempting for a small number of Conservative MPs to spread false claims that this bill would threaten religious freedom and free speech, and to use those claims to raise a few dollars from faith communities at rallies. Even in the face of that, the Liberals were willing to work with them. We were ready to find common ground and added a clause for greater certainty stating clearly that the right to pray, teach or quote religious texts would not be affected.
After all, we are the party that literally enshrined freedom of religion in one of the most important documents in this country: the charter. Unfortunately, even after we responded to concerns raised by a few Conservative MPs, and even after religious communities from across the country backed this new clarifying amendment and asked Parliament to move forward, Conservatives at the justice committee still kept obstructing.
Canadians see this. Canadians get frustrated when they see Conservative members like the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South spend hours speaking about his admiration for cats and dogs, instead of addressing the issue of hate in this country. The member is the Leader of the Opposition's designated champion on fighting hate, yet this is the same member who previously claimed that the observation of the Polytechnique shooting was a fake holiday, the same member who defended Holocaust deniers on the radio by suggesting that saying the Holocaust never happened is free speech and the same member who stood up for Pegida, a white supremacist organization, after the 2017 Quebec City mosque attack that left six men dead. They were fathers, sons and husbands who were killed while praying by a vile person who admired the same group.
Canadians get frustrated when they see the Conservative member for York Centre waste an entire committee meeting talking about what he had for lunch, while synagogues in his own country, in his own community, are facing threats and while CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, is asking him and Parliament to pass Bill C-9 quickly. The member for York Centre was elected to bring the voice of his community to Parliament. Many people in his community are asking him to support this anti-hate bill that would help keep them safe. Instead of bringing his community's voice to Ottawa, he is bringing his leader's voice back to his community. That is not the duty of a member of Parliament. I believe that the member supports this bill because I have seen him work constructively in committee. I know he appreciated the amendment we introduced to clarify that religious freedom would not be affected by this legislation. I believe he would like to move forward and represent his community, but his leader is telling him not to.
Page 19 of our platform made a clear commitment to Canadians. It promised to criminalize intimidation and obstruction targeting those who simply want to access their community centres and places of worship, and to strengthen protections for communities facing hate-motivated crimes. Canadians, including the people of Carleton, made their choice at the ballot box and want us to implement the commitments in the platform. Bill C-9 delivers on those promises.
For more than six months now, communities across the country have been waiting for Parliament to act. Jewish communities facing rising anti-Semitism, Muslim communities facing Islamophobia, Christians seeing their churches being burned and many other vulnerable communities who simply want to gather, worship and live safely have been asking us to move forward.
That is why this motion calls on the justice committee to finally complete—