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.