Madam Speaker, the “guillotine” or the “hammer” is generally how these motions are referred to when the government shuts down debate. It is shutting down speech, ironically, on a bill that deals with speech and the issue of free speech. The Liberals are saying there has been enough debate on Bill C-9. Yes, there has been a lot of talk between politicians on it, but the Liberals are refusing to hear from witnesses and from Canadians.
I want to tell Canadians not just about Bill C-9, but about what the Liberals did to shove this terrible piece of legislation down our throats to the point that today they have to drop a nuclear bomb to stop me from doing my job at the justice committee.
We have heard from a handful of witnesses on one of the most consequential pieces of legislation this Parliament will take up. We were supposed to hear from B’nai Brith and Simon Wiesenthal. They were scheduled to testify, but the former head of the committee suspended witness hearings before they were able to testify and ordered the committee to proceed to clause-by-clause consideration. I had witnesses calling me personally. Canadian Women Against Antisemitism called me. I had Imam Tawhidi call me to ask why he was not permitted to testify on this piece of legislation. The former committee chair, the same committee chair who asked how certain scriptures could not be hate speech, is the same committee chair who refused to hear from multiple witnesses who wanted to make submissions on this piece of legislation even before the amendments.
We proceeded to the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-9. I was there and had a front row seat for all of it. We were working in good faith. I worked with my Liberal colleague from Mount Royal. We agreed to fix the definition of “hate speech”. My concern with respect to the removal of the consent of the Attorney General was also dealt with. Even better, I was surprised to see in the proposed amendments that my private member's bill, Bill C-257, against the wilful promotion of terrorism, in one form or another, made it into the proposed amendments by the Liberals. That was one of the best days of my career.
We could have potentially fixed this bill. Then I learned about the Bloc's amendment from the news media. The Liberals did not have the courage to tell us what they were doing. They had agreed to the Bloc's amendment to remove the religious defence to hate speech from the Criminal Code. The entire exercise had been a fiasco.
However, the amendment that the Bloc passed with its Liberal friends is predicated on false pretenses. By moving this amendment, the Bloc is saying that people should not be able to hide behind a religious exemption to hate speech. As we know, it is because an imam in Montreal named Charkaoui called for the extermination of the enemies of Gaza. The Bloc is saying that because he was not prosecuted, we need to remove this religious exemption. That is just not true. To avail oneself of the religious exemption, the words one utters need to be in good faith. When one calls for the extermination of people, that is not in good faith. If we look at the law, the religious defence does not apply to incitement. It applies to the second category of hate speech, which is the wilful promotion of hatred. One cannot hide behind the religious defence when one is inciting violence as incitement is not protected.
I read a statement at committee from the Quebec prosecutors that said that they did not lay charges against Charkaoui not because of the religious defence, but because the “enemies of Gaza” was not an identifiable group of people. Apparently, one can call for their extermination, according to the Quebec prosecution, but this had nothing to do with the amendment or the religious defence. The Bloc knows this. The Liberals know this. This is a charade.
I will be splitting my time.
