Mr. Speaker, before I begin my formal remarks, just over a week ago, an old folks' home in my riding, the Chartwell residence on 7th Avenue in Mission that is located right beside the church, burned to the ground. It was my church, St. Joseph's, that organized help for all of those displaced seniors. It was community members, the Mission Gurdwara and other faith groups that came forward and helped all those displaced residents. I want to thank all of them for standing up for what community means and helping people when they are in trouble. I want to thank all those individuals for their hard work and giving me hope for Canadian society.
Those same people in my parish who woke up in the middle of the night to help those displaced from their burning residence are the same people who are concerned about Bill C-9. I rise today thinking about the people I represent: the families in faith communities who expect Parliament to defend their freedoms and not erode them.
Bill C-9 raises serious questions about whether the government is in fact still prepared to do that. Removing the good-faith exemption from the Criminal Code was completely unnecessary. It was not what the Liberals said they were going to do. It is not what the Liberals campaigned upon. It only happened because of a political circumstance.
Removing the good-faith exemption from the Criminal Code, as I said, was completely unnecessary. The provision ensured that individuals cannot be convicted of wilful promotion of hatred if they are expressing in good faith an opinion on a religious subject or a belief based on a religious text.
These safeguards were not incidental. They were deliberately included in Canada's Criminal Code to ensure that laws remained consistent with the charter. There has been a sharp increase in hate crimes and violence in Canada. Mosques have been shot up, businesses have been vandalized, churches across our country have been burned and Jewish Canadians are facing a lot of hatred right now, which is completely unacceptable.
However, we have not reached this point due to a lack of legislation. Many parts of this bill, whether they are banning hate symbols or protecting access to places of worship, are already covered under current law. Rather, the refusal to enforce our existing laws has created a sense of security for those who actually seek to promote hate, to sow fear and to create violence in Canadian society. The answer is not to weaken fundamental freedoms for the vast majority of Canadians who just want to go about their everyday life and go to their church or synagogue or mosque on a weekend and worship.
This is why the Conservatives today are proposing to restore the good-faith exemption to listen to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have overwhelmed Parliament with their fear of what the government is doing. Canadians of all faiths are raising legitimate concerns about the impact this decision would have.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council emphasized the “[d]isproportionate impacts on minority communities whose scriptures are more frequently politicized or scrutinized”. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops highlighted that it “risks creating uncertainty for faith communities, clergy, educators, and others who may fear that the expression of traditional moral or doctrinal teachings could be misrepresented as hate speech”.
Over the course of this debate, the government has framed these concerns as unfounded. However, comments from the Minister of Identity at the justice committee a few months ago suggesting that parts of religious texts themselves could be considered hateful and open to prosecution should give every member of the House pause, because once the state begins to interpret belief as potential criminality, we are heading down a very different path in this nation.
Faith groups in Canada are not asking for the right to spread hate. They are asking if they will still be free to speak openly about what they believe. What unites us in this country is an understanding that in a free country, people must be able to speak about their beliefs, even when others disagree, without fear of criminal prosecution.
One of the most troubling consequences of the amendment is the uncertainty and division it would create in our justice system and across our country. The proposed Liberal amendment claiming Bill C-9 would not infringe on freedom of expression or religious freedom offers no robust protection for charter rights. That uncertainty fosters a climate where Canadians feel they must walk on eggshells rather than engage openly and respectfully in a robust civil society. Even the Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged that protections like this are essential to keeping our laws balanced and constitutional. Removing this safeguard introduces legal ambiguity and increases the risk of constitutional challenge. It also places a greater interpretive burden on courts and prosecutors without clear statutory guidance.
As confirmed by the Minister of Justice, these rules would also extend to digital spaces. This would significantly broaden the scope of enforcement. Without the good-faith exemption, individuals expressing religious or political views online may face increased legal uncertainty and greater exposure to investigation or prosecution. This reinforces the need for clear statutory safeguards, not their removal. Canadians are left wondering not just what they can say in a place of worship but what they can post, share or discuss online in good faith. That level of uncertainty is not healthy in a democracy and is contrary to the way Canadians have lived.
The government could have achieved every goal they set out originally in Bill C-9 without the amendment. Conservatives offered to split the bill into two parts to swiftly pass uncontentious sections of the legislation. This approach was rejected. I hosted a town hall on this issue with my colleagues, the member for Abbotsford—South Langley and the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, who spoke earlier, and we heard a clear and consistent sentiment.
Over the past decade, Canadians feel that the government has increasingly tried to dictate how they live and what they should believe. Canadians expected a different approach under the Prime Minister from Nepean. However, my constituents raised that, within the last year, they were afraid not only of their freedom of expression but of churches and synagogues and all religious institutions even maintaining charitable status under CRA laws. Combined with the introduction of online censorship measures, the government is continuing restrictive policies that we thought it was supposed to have rejected. Liberals did not campaign on this.
In my riding, I have one of the largest Sikh populations in Canada. Abbotsford is home to one of the first Gur Sikh temples in Canada. It is a national historic site. We are all very proud of that. Constituents have come forward to me and asked what they are going to do with their kirpan now. If a prosecutor reads in their holy book about the role of a kirpan and a sword and sees them wearing it, how will they be impacted? How will they be impacted as a member of the Sikh faith?
As other members of the Conservative caucus have raised, what will happen if someone, like the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, decides to prosecute someone for an interpretation of an Old Testament text?
The government was elected with a mandate to strengthen the economy yet, as The Globe and Mail reported yesterday, Canada's GDP growth has been flat for the past three quarters and remains below the G7 average. We also face an affordability crisis. Instead of working collaboratively on measures that everyone in the House could agree upon, the Liberals decided to side with the Bloc Québécois on something that is so divisive and so fearful for the average Canadian. I do not get it. This was not part of the government's mandate.
Conservatives are not even proposing to dismantle Bill C-9. We simply want to maintain the Criminal Code exemption that already exists and was never part of any political discussion during the last campaign until the Liberals felt that they were not going to get what they wanted and made a deal with the Bloc Québécois. Every member of the House agrees that hatred, violence and intimidation have no place in Canada. Those who target individuals or communities, whether in person or online, must be held accountable under the law. The good-faith exemption has served as an important safeguard, ensuring that Canada's hate speech laws target real harm without capturing sincere expression or leaving religious texts up to interpretation from bodies outside of those religions.
At a time when Canadians are already so divided, we should not be advancing measures that deepen uncertainty or cause people to second-guess their ability to speak openly about their beliefs.
