Debates of March 23rd, 2026

Motions in Amendment

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, members should read what the charter says. It guarantees religious freedom.

When members want to talk about division, I wish they would look in the mirror. The division that is being caused today on Bill C-9 is being promoted to the nth degree by the Conservative Party of Canada. What used to be a party that had some ounce of integrity has lost it under its leadership. We see that demonstrated by the tactics it is using with Bill C-9. Whether the Conservatives like it or not, that is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Questions and comments, the member for Drummond.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, imagine the quality of the debates we could have had if the Conservatives had not filibustered during nine meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We could have discussed a great many matters as interesting as this one.

I want to go back to the issue of disinformation and the misrepresentation of facts in which the Conservative Party engaged in order to incite anger around Bill C‑9. Has my colleague from Winnipeg North had any discussions with his constituents about the fact that the bill would not really infringe on their freedom to practise their religion? I personally had a number of conversations with people in Drummond who were rightly concerned because, when people hear fearmongering like that, they call me and want to know what is going on. Obviously, I reassured them by telling them that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to practise their religion.

Has my colleague had the same type of conversation to reassure his constituents? In my case, my conversations were quite successful.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. Those residents of Winnipeg North who took the time to contact me expressed some genuine concerns about what the government is doing and what Bill C-9 is all about. I believe those concerns were addressed. In fact, I have had not one, but two virtual town hall meetings. I can count on one hand the number of people who attended the virtual town hall meetings I had because of concerns about Bill C-9.

At the end of the day, it is about knowledge and understanding what Bill C-9 would do. Bill C-9 is a good, substantial piece of legislation that would deal with hate crime in Canada.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this has been a challenging issue, to say the least. We heard from the Liberal government as to what it claims Bill C-9 is and what it would do. Then we read the bill and looked at what the Liberals are doing and how they feel about people of faith in this country.

I think about the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and comments he has shared in the House, in which he said very clearly that he believes that there are some books of holy scripture that, in his view, are clearly hateful, so much so that he thinks prosecutors should be able to criminally charge the people who utter them, criminally charge people who read from the Bible, the Torah or the Quran.

This is very concerning to people in this country. There is a reason that more than 350 Muslim groups, more than 700 Christian groups and dozens of Orthodox Jewish leaders have called on the government to walk away, to backtrack on Bill C-9, specifically the removal of the long-standing protections for religious speech.

We listened to them. I have had the opportunity to go around the country and do the consultations the Liberal government never did with the people who would be directly affected by the bill. People feel hurt. They feel assaulted by a government that claims to be protecting those very people with this legislation. I would like to provide a couple of examples of what happens when this power goes unchecked.

We have all seen, from the United Kingdom, images, videos and stories of police knocking on people's doors over things they have posted on social media. This actually has a name in the U.K. They call it a non-crime hate incident. It is the arm of the state, weaponizing its power against people because of their opinions or because they wrote something that might be off-colour or that hurt someone's feelings. That does not mean it rose to the very high threshold of incitement, which is really what we are talking about when we talk about criminalizing hate.

We have a balance in Canada that has worked for many years. That balance was upheld in part because the Criminal Code has the religious defence, which says that someone cannot be prosecuted for wilfully promoting hate if in good faith they were expressing a religious belief or citing a religious text.

The news reported the other day that there is a priest in Iceland named Jakob Rolland who is under police investigation for expressing in a radio interview his church's view on matters of sexuality. The police are investigating him.

There is a long-running case in Finland with respect to a member of Parliament, Päivi Räsänen, who was a cabinet minister. In Finland, cabinet ministers do not try to throw people in jail for quoting holy scripture. However, this member of Parliament has now been in court case after court case for seven years over a tweet in which she quoted the Bible and affirmed what she believed is a biblical teaching. The mechanism being used against her in Finland is very similar to what we hear from members of the Liberal Party right now, not just in the context of Bill C-9 but also in the online harms act, the legislation the Liberals have tried to pass twice in previous parliaments and have said will be coming back again.

We are here today because we have been listening. We have been listening to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is a body that does not often get into matters of politics, but it felt so strongly about the removal of the religious defence that it spoke out and said that this would jeopardize religious freedoms in Canada.

We have been listening to the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, who similarly said that he has no desire to preach hate but that he can have the freedom to preach the gospel of love only if he has the freedom to decide for himself, not have the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, the Minister of Justice, the Prime Minister and not some backbenchers in the Liberal Party who have had egregious things to say about people of faith in the past, decide. The primate, members of his church and his fellow clergy should decide.

There is the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Rabbinical Council of Toronto and the United Church of Canada. If we put all these groups in one room, they will disagree on so many things, but what they agree on is more important, which is that they all benefit from religious freedom. They all benefit from freedom of expression. If we do not protect religious freedom for every individual faith denomination and religious organization, we have not done our job as parliamentarians in upholding the charter values of freedom of expression and freedom of religion for all Canadians. Religious freedom for one is religious freedom for all.

I have no doubt that we are going to hear from the Liberals that this is all a load of hooey because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of religion. I am going to give the member for Winnipeg North a bonus question, which I will answer before he even asks it. That protection does not stop a government in real time from violating rights. If he wants proof of that, he need not look further than the decision made last week by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice to appeal once again the decision that the use of the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional. The Federal Court ruled, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled, and now the Liberals are taking it all the way to the Supreme Court.

However, when Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, he used the very same language we hear from Liberals right now to defend Bill C-9, which is that we need not worry about our charter rights' being violated, because the charter protects our rights. Well, a load of good that does. If there is four-plus years of litigation, only to, at the end, have a declaration that maybe we were right, it did not stop the violation from taking place in the first place.

In fact, even the debate we are having right now has been limited to just one single day because the Liberals did not want to hear on record the concerns I have been sharing and the concerns that have been conveyed to me by faith leaders in my riding and around the country, including Manitoba, the GTA, Newfoundland, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

Many of the people who came out to our town halls were not even political. In fact, many of them said they never wanted to get involved in politics, because they believe in the idea that church and state should be separate. That is what we are actually protecting. We are protecting the church from the state. We are protecting all faith institutions from a world in which government decides which religious scriptures we can cite and which ones we cannot, and which religious beliefs are legitimate and which ones are not.

I cannot stress enough that the people of faith in this country, including the hundreds of Muslim groups and the hundreds of Christian groups, representing among them literally millions of Canadians, do not want the right to preach hate. They want the protection that the state will never weaponize the definition of hate to silence them. That is key. No one is asking for a hall pass to commit a crime under a religious pretext. One cannot rob a bank, run down the road yelling “God is good” and expect the police will not follow them, but the religious defence does protect against overzealous and politically motivated prosecutions to silence people because of a hatred and contempt for what they believe, for who they are.

As I said in my last speech on this subject, hate is real. In London, a Muslim family was killed because of its faith. Just this past week there was another church burned, the 124th in the last five years in Canada, this one in New Brunswick. We have seen the brazen anti-Semitism. Hate is real, but no community is protected by legislation that infringes on its right to believe what it wants to believe.

Bill C-9 must be defeated.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite actually sent me an email.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I did?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

You did, and I will share it with you after the question.

Mr. Speaker, here is what the member said: “The Liberals and Bloc want to prosecute people for quoting scripture.”

Ten minutes ago, I did a quick search on YouTube, and I googled the member's name. I do not think I can show it, but there is a picture of the member, and in big, bold letters it says on it, “arrested for quoting Scripture?”

The member is a point person for the Conservative Party of Canada. The misinformation out there is real, and it is tangible. Does he take any responsibility for spreading this misinformation?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Before I go on, I just remind the member to direct his comments through the Chair. He is an experienced member.

The hon. member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture: “Clearly, there are situations in [religious] texts where statements are hateful.” Prosecutors should be able to “press charges”. I fail to see where the misinformation is, when a Liberal cabinet minister is on record wanting people criminally charged for quoting scriptures he disapproves of.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has just given a fantastic, passionate speech.

The chief of the largest police service in this country says that the laws that govern hate crime already exist and that they just need to be used. Would the added legislation help this process any further, or would it make things more confusing for law enforcement officers who are out there in the middle of the country and may not know the entire context of what they are seeing?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from just down Highway 401, not just for his question but also for his service, and I thank other law enforcement members in this country who have been very clear that the support they seek from members of Parliament is not the right to go in and arrest people for preaching religious texts. They want us to get serious about fixing Liberal bail. What is interesting is that we have an enforcement problem. There have been a number of cases across the country in which existing laws concerning people calling for violence and people inciting genocide have not been enforced.

If we have a system in which there is a huge disparity between what the law says and how it plays out, new laws are not going to solve that problem. They are only going to give us more things to point to that are not actually being done. This is so key. What the Liberals would be doing would actually be to create a tool that could be weaponized against people for their core religious beliefs, and that is not what law enforcement wants.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from a speech delivered by Imam Adil Charkaoui in Montreal on October 23, 2023. He said, “Allah, take care of these Zionist aggressors. Take care of the enemies of the people of Gaza. Identify them all, then exterminate them. And don't spare any of them.” If that is not hate speech, then I would like my Conservative colleagues to tell me what is. No charges were brought against him after that speech. It was the federal police, the RCMP, that said we should modernize the Criminal Code to ensure that we wipe out hate speech.

I would like to ask my colleague a simple question: If he wants to crack down on hate speech, why does he not agree that we should put the legislative tools in place to do so?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals continue to misrepresent what happened in the Adil Charkaoui case. This man should be charged, because inciting violence is already illegal. Threatening violence is already illegal. I cannot say this clearly enough: Neither of those offences is subject to the religious defence. That is a bald-faced misrepresentation of the law.

By the way, the prosecutors in Quebec did not at all cite the religious defence for their refusal to charge Mr. Charkaoui. The religious defence and the protections that apply to good-faith religious expression have nothing to do with that deplorable man in Quebec who committed a heinous criminal act that should have invited prosecution.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a profound sense of responsibility that I rise today to speak at the report stage of Bill C-9.

This bill seeks to combat hate. It is an essential bill that is urgently needed to protect Canadians. We have all observed a troubling reality across the country, namely the increase in hate-motivated crime. These acts are not abstract. These acts inflict harm, cause trauma and, above all, divide Canadian society. Just think about the attacks on synagogues in the Toronto area. Just think about the father who was assaulted in my Montreal riding because of his identity, beliefs and background. These acts are not trivial. They are an attack on who we are and on Canadian values. They are an attack against us as a society. However, in response to this urgent problem, what are we seeing? We are seeing stalling tactics, filibustering and procedural stunts that put partisan calculations above Canadians' safety.

In politics, wasting time is a luxury we cannot afford when communities are living in fear. Hate crimes are on the rise, yet the opposition is responding by contriving procedural delays and would rather post clips on YouTube than provide our constituents with meaningful protection. I have watched people rise in the House just to get sound bites and spread lies about the bill, instead of prioritizing and promoting meaningful protection for our constituents. That is why I decided to speak today.

We need to go even further, because even the alarming figures cited by my colleagues on this side of the House do not tell the whole story. The reality is even more serious. Hate crimes are vastly under-reported. An estimated four out of five victims do not file a complaint. I repeat: four out of five victims. That means that behind every statistic, there are untold stories. Behind every statistic, there are fears that kill and, of course, invisible wounds. Those are the voices we have to answer to today. Bill C‑9 as amended provides a clear, firm and responsible response. I invite everyone to read the amendments. It strengthens the tools available to law enforcement, protects our communities' public spaces, and sends a clear message that there is no place for hate in Canada.

I want to commend the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for its hard work. Thanks to its efforts, this bill is now more specific, more balanced and more respectful of our fundamental rights. Let us be quite clear: Fighting hate does not mean giving up our freedoms. On the contrary, our approach has been guided from the start by one fundamental principle: We must protect Canadians while fully upholding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and all of our fundamental rights.

That is why Bill C‑9 is built on solid guarantees and high thresholds. Consider the provisions targeting certain hate or terrorist symbols, for example. These are not vague or random measures. On the contrary, they take aim at very specific symbols, Nazi symbols, symbols associated with known terrorist organizations recognized by Canada. These symbols are not harmless. They embody hate, glorify violence and are designed to intimidate. The communities concerned have clearly told us that they want protection and do not want to be taken hostage by politicians' debates ever again.

I would now like to address some other fundamental issues.

One of them is the requirement for Attorney General consent. I want to spend some time on this, because it is very important. This is a fundamental issue that really needs to be clarified, and it is important not to spread lies about it. This is a really important aspect because it is not merely incidental. It provides essential protection against abuse. It ensures that only legitimate prosecutions will go forward, thereby preventing any abuse or exploitation of the justice system. Once again, the committee was thorough and judicious in reinforcing this requirement.

The bill also provides a crucial clarification of the very definition of hatred. It is based on Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence, including the Keegstra decision. Hatred is defined as an emotion of extreme intensity, a deep loathing that goes far beyond mere offence or disagreement. Let me be clear. Criticizing, debating and expressing an opinion, however vigorously, remains protected and remains a right. However, inciting hatred, dehumanizing others and calling for violence are unacceptable. These acts have no place in our democracy and no place in Canada.

The bill also introduces a major step forward: the explicit recognition of hate crimes. Hate crimes are not like other offences. Yes, they target individuals, but they also target their identity and their entire community. When a synagogue or mosque is vandalized, it is not just the building that is under attack. The perpetrator is sending a message of fear to an entire population or group. When a person is attacked because of their religion, because of their hijab or kippah or because of their ethnic origin, it is not an isolated act. On the contrary, it is an attempt to undermine societal harmony. This bill clearly affirms that such acts will be recognized for what they are: serious attacks on Canada's social fabric.

Some have said that this is excessive. I am hearing members on the other side of the House saying that this goes too far. However, those who are living in fear do not feel the same way. They think that this bill is necessary. They think that it is crucial for their dignity and safety, for living together in harmony and upholding people's fundamental right to live without fear.

Bill C‑9 also contains measures to protect access to places of worship, schools and community centres. Again, let us be very clear. The goal is not to restrict the right to peaceful protest. It is to prevent intimidation, obstruction and fear campaigns.

I served on Montreal's city council for eight years. I was the vice-chair of Montreal's public safety commission for eight years. I worked with the Montreal police for almost five years. This bill is critical for law enforcement and the police because it will allow them to take action and provide protection. I am speaking from personal experience. I know that police officers face this limitation because they do not have any power to take action.

Incidentally, municipalities are on the front lines of these realities, and they have expressed support for our bill. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has made it clear that our legislative framework needs to be strengthened to combat hate, including hate speech and hate symbols. Municipalities witness the concrete impact of these acts on social cohesion every single day.

We should listen to what they have to say. This debate should not be partisan. It is about the safety of Canadians. It is about human dignity and our country's core values. Our government is committed to taking action, to protecting Canadians and to ensuring that everyone, no matter who they are, can live freely and practise their faith without fear.

I urge all members of the House to rise to the occasion, support Bill C-9 and ensure it passes third reading because, in the face of hatred, inaction is not an option.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked in his speech about needing new laws and new rules. We have already had good questions from many of my colleagues, who have spoken about how representatives of the biggest police forces in this country have already said they do not need more laws and rules to have to try to enforce. What they need is that when somebody is to be prosecuted, charges would be pressed and placed on these folks. Police officers do not need another tool like this.

I want to hear from the member here today whether, if this bill becomes law, he can guarantee that there will no longer be shootings at synagogues, shootings at Jewish schools and shootings at hospitals. There have been over 120 churches burned in the last five years. Can he guarantee that will all end? Can the member commit that all these crazy crimes, which have all been committed because of the lack of interest by the current government to do something, will end once this bill passes?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify two points that need to be understood when asking this sort of question.

Protecting freedoms does not mean tolerating hatred. On our side of the House, we do not want to tolerate hatred. We do not want to, nor can we, tolerate violence against any place of worship. We do not want to prevent anyone from exercising their right to free speech, regardless of their religious or non-religious beliefs. We think it is very important to make that clear.

Once again, I would like to mention my experience with the police and public safety services in Montreal. Yes, we need this lever. Yes, we need this regulation. We must take preventive action, rather than wondering whether there will actually be shootings as a result of this regulation. We must give the police the tools they need.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion the member for Bourassa brings to this issue.

Recognizing the importance of combatting hate, which I think is one of the things that gets lost because of the misinformation the Conservative Party puts out on Bill C-9, the bill would deal with the issue of hate. It goes back to the last election when the Prime Minister was elected just under a year ago with a new government, and we had an emphasis on combatting hate. I wonder if the member would provide his thoughts on how important it is that we fulfill the commitment we made to Canadians through Bill C-9.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate something that my colleague mentioned and elaborate on it. It is important to remember that this bill does not target opinions; it targets acts of hatred and hate crimes. I will give a very simple example.

Let us remember what happened at the Quebec City mosque. The young man who opened fire on the people in that mosque had posted hate messages on social media. When the police asked him whether anyone had ever told him that that was illegal and that it was not right, he said that he had been doing it for years and that no one had ever tried to stop him. No one had ever talked to him about it. That is very important.

Horrific hate crimes and terrorist acts are born from hate that is, unfortunately, nourished by hate speech on social media. This bill seeks to destroy and eliminate this type of speech.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague another question.

The largest public sector union, PSAC, has come out and said that it wants this bill not just amended but scrapped entirely. It does not support anything inside this bill. I am wondering if the member has met with PSAC and whether he is willing to take its concerns or if he would tell PSAC that it is wrong and that this bill needs to be passed.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to once again clarify something. The bill has been amended, and I hope that my colleagues opposite have read the amendments.

I talked about Montreal, which is a large urban centre, but I could just as easily have been talking about Toronto or any other big city. The issue is that the police need this regulatory power so that they can take preventive action, so that they can eliminate the problems, the crime and the threats against these places of worship at their source.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to warn us today that I may reference and read from a very dangerous book, a book so dangerous that the government is moving to criminalize the very utterance of its words in public spaces, a book so dangerous that at least some Liberal members say it is full of hate, and a book so dangerous and so full of hate, the government says that it is seeking, through Bill C-9, to strip away protections that shield good-faith readings and teachings from the Bible and other holy texts Canadians read every day.

I am, of course, talking about the Bible, a book targeted by Bill C-9, like so many other holy texts that millions of Canadians read and rely on every day. What a sad irony it is that a book filled with the promise of the gospel is called hateful. It is another sad irony that just steps away from where we speak today, etched into the very rock of Centre Block, are more than two dozen scriptures from that Bible. The very motto of our country, “From sea to sea” is found in Psalms. How can a nation carved from biblical truths seek to criminalize those truths now?

The Prime Minister has shown his fondness for some great Athenian thinkers. The first, of course, was Thucydides, whom he quoted at length in his speech at Davos. I would ask the Prime Minister to reflect on that and reflect on that great Athenian's enthusiastic support for democracy. Not only was Thucydides a realist in some manner, but he was an ardent proponent of liberty and the liberty that served as the very foundation of Athenian democracy, including the foundational idea of free expression. In Greek, it was known as parrhesia, meaning frank, open and fearless speech.

Before Milton, before Mill, before Madison even, before all the Enlightenment thinkers and those who came after them were the ancient ones of western culture and civilization. In his histories, the great Athenian recorded how his people enjoyed personal liberty without constant surveillance and meddling by the state yet remained engaged in public affairs through open discussion, which was essential, he said, for wise governance, for civic virtue and for a vibrant society where citizens could advise the public.

The idea of open expression is foundational to our democratic strength and became a cornerstone of western thought. One translation of Thucydides puts it this way: “We alone do good to our neighbours not upon a calculation of interest but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit.” Another translation puts it slightly differently: “We Athenians...instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.”

Wise action requires frank, open and fearless speech. In fact, the very prayer that the Speaker offers at the opening of Parliament pleads with the Almighty for wisdom. I hope that the Prime Minister will reflect on this as his government moves to enact a law that would potentially significantly harm and erode free expression, including the religious expressions of Canadians.

I have a comment on Bill C-9 and the proposal itself. Combatting hate is a laudable goal. Combatting hate is a goal that I share. I know that each member of the official opposition shares that goal too, one that I am sure every parliamentarian here shares. The issue is not whether we share the same goal. The issue is the means by which the Liberal government has chosen to attempt to achieve its goal.

Unfortunately, the path chosen by the government, Bill C-9, would not achieve that goal. Not only would Bill C-9 not achieve that goal of combatting hate, it would, in fact, impose harm on many of the very groups it seeks to protect. This is because, rather than working with the opposition to craft a useful bill, the Liberals instead made a Faustian bargain with the Bloc. The bargain was the removal of long-standing protections in the Criminal Code for Canadians who express, in good faith, sincerely held religious beliefs in return for the Bloc agreeing to support Bill C-9.

It is a dramatic divergence from where the government started with their proposal in Bill C-9. The good-faith defence has an important purpose. In the same way that our hate speech laws protect groups from hatred, the good-faith defence ensures that those protections are not wielded as a tool of hatred by those who find religious thought distasteful. Let me stress that the defence works both ways. It applies equally to expressions critiquing a religious view as it does to expressions espousing a religious view. In other words, one can be critical of religion without being found criminally liable for hate speech.

I also want to address several misconceptions that have been playing out throughout the House. Many have suggested that the good-faith defence can be and is being used to shield otherwise hateful speech, or put another way, that religious expression is being used to cloak hateful speech. This misrepresents the content and effect of the good-faith defence.

First, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that this defence is or has been abused since it was first introduced in the 1970s. Second, threats of violence are by definition excluded from protections of free expression. It should go without saying that a threat to violence can never be made in good faith. That is a complete answer to the question of Charkaoui so often posed by my Bloc colleagues. Whether it is a preacher, a madman or the Prime Minister himself, the good-faith defence does not apply when someone calls people to action through violence.

With reason and logic failing them, the Liberal response has increasingly resorted to a form of “just trust us”: Just trust us that the bill does not do what opposition members think; just trust us that the government would never harm or tread on the liberties of Canadians; and just trust us that prosecutors, courts and tribunals will protect and uphold free expression. I am sorry, but we do not trust the Liberal government. We do not trust the government because it has shown itself to be untrustworthy when it comes to defending the liberties of Canadians.

We can read the bill and see what it means. We do not trust the government because, when given the chance, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture told Canadians that certain parts of the Bible and the Torah contain clear hatred and that he could not conceive of how parts of the Bible could be expressed in good faith. His opinion was that prosecutors should have discretion to press charges. We do not trust the Liberal government because Canadians of all creeds and of no creed at all have agreed that Bill C-9 would harm free expression.

We do not trust the Liberal government because when confronted with protesters that the Liberals found distasteful, it invoked warlike powers to persecute them, because it remains the avowed aim of this government to revoke the charitable status of pro-life organizations, and because it was the Liberal government's approach to require applicants to Canada's summer jobs program to pledge fealty to its ideas to access government services.

Bill C-9 is not a serious response to hatred. The antidote to hatred is not censorship. The antidote to hatred is not government-approved truths. The antidote is and always has been more speech, more voices raised in truth, more ideas tested in public and more freedom to speak, to debate and to persuade. That is the bedrock of a free society. That is really the difference between us and them. On the other side, they believe in the benevolence of the state and that government can and should shield people from ideas and decide which ideas may be debated in the public square and even which people may participate. We, on the other hand, believe in people. We are not afraid of ideas. We welcome them.

In closing, there is another principle etched on the Centre Block of Parliament. It can be found on one of the south windows, the stained glass windows in Centre Block. It also comes from Thucydides: “Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have courage to defend it.” It is the courage to confront this censorship and the courage to protect and defend freedom and our liberties. We have that courage here. I hope the government does too.

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

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the member opposite and the other member from the Conservatives who just spoke to the legislation, I have a fairly straightforward question. What is his position in regard to the overall changes being proposed in Bill C-9? Is there anything in Bill C-9 that the member opposite or the Conservative Party supports?

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are several parts of Bill C-9 that we were willing to work with the government on, and I am glad to see that we did find some common ground. Putting back the Attorney General's consent to invoking prosecutions was a positive that we supported. Increasing back to the Supreme Court jurisprudence the definition of hatred was a change we supported. Unfortunately, all of these changes that could have been made, that could have been positive and that we could have worked on were entirely undermined by the government's tyrannical approach to revoking Canadians' free expression and free religious expression by removing the good-faith defence in the Criminal Code.