Madam Speaker, it is finally sunny in Ottawa, but to me, this is one of the darkest weeks in the history of Canadian democracy. Bill C-9 is back in the House after a brief stint in the Senate that did not make a dent in the problems with the bill.
Predicated on false pretenses, the repeal of the religious defence to hate speech remains. The new hatred offence would still criminalize conduct, contrary to a civil statute. Nothing that minority communities are actually worried about in terms of security would be changed by Bill C-9. The Liberals are ramming it through at the end of the summer sitting as the government-subsidized media is already at the cottage.
In the same week, the Liberals are ramming through Bill C-22, a bill that would require telecoms and Internet companies to seize all Canadian metadata, including their geographic location and who they called or texted in the last year, without their having committed an offence and without a search warrant. Bill C-22 would allow the Minister of Public Safety to order Internet providers to break encryption, something that has never been done before, even though every security expert is sounding the alarm that the privacy of law-abiding Canadians would be at major risk.
In the same week, the Liberals are also introducing Bill C-34, the digital safety act. Of course, we have to protect children, but that does not mean that we have to deny children their charter rights to access media communications, which is an explicit right, or prevent them from communicating with each other through popular apps. It is a plan that failed in Australia and that will fail everywhere else. Unless we are prepared to implement a Beijing-style, authoritarian Internet surveillance regime, this is unenforceable. Are Canadians ready for that? Obviously, they are not.
In the same week, which is the last week before the legislature rises, the Liberals are introducing so-called privacy legislation, which would eliminate the Privacy Commissioner in favour of their so-called digital safety czar, who would regulate, enforce and judge all at the same time. This would be a Liberal government appointee reigning over what we do on the Internet, with unlimited powers over how we communicate and how the world's most innovative companies do business. Surely by coincidence, the same thing is now happening in England this week, and it just happened in Australia.
I was trained in the common law. It was the beacon of hope for any modern civilization. Anywhere the common law went, prosperity followed, but now we have these egomaniacs, career technocrats and misguided lefties who think they know better than everyone telling us how to live for our own benefit and how to keep us safe. I want to be safe from them.
Bill C-9 would do nothing to protect the Jewish or Muslim communities. It would not protect any community. This entire thing has been a major Liberal failure.
The Liberals wanted to eliminate the Attorney General's ability to consent to prosecutions. They realized how bad an idea it was and rolled it back. They wanted to redefine the term “hatred”. It is a definition that the Supreme Court used for 40 years. I am proud of this. It is one of the greatest accomplishments of my career that the Liberals have accepted my amendment to keep the old definition of hatred and not dilute it. People would not have to go to jail when they offend someone.
Just when I thought we were out of the woods, I saw the digital safety bill that attempts to regulate harmful conduct online. Surprise, surprise. Harmful content would include content that foments hatred. The bill states, “content that foments hatred means content that expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group”. The Liberals are at it again. We just fixed the definition in Bill C-9, and now they have come back with a digital safety bill to regulate our conduct online and they have a different definition for hatred. Why is it “detestation or vilification”, not “detestation and vilification”, as the Supreme Court says? Where is the extreme or intense emotion that is required by the Supreme Court, like we agreed on in Bill C-9? Where is that in the digital safety act?
Why do the Liberals hate freedom of speech so much? The Liberals hate it because they are afraid of the truth. The Senate was asked to fix the new stand-alone motivated offence in Bill C-9, because this new offence that the Liberals dreamt up would not target criminal conduct only. It would target any offence under any act of Parliament. For example, people could violate the digital safety act or the human rights code, and that may attract criminal prosecution. The Liberals are turning our democracy into a banana republic.
Earlier, I heard the member for Whitby ask my colleague why she is opposed to a new hate-motivated offence. Does she not want someone to be punished when they engage in hatred? First of all, hatred is already an aggravating circumstance in sentencing, so do not give us that. Second of all, if the Liberals want to introduce another offence, introduce it for criminal offences. Do not penalize civil conduct, thereby putting civil conduct at risk of criminal prosecution.
The Liberals tout all of these benefits for the Jewish community, which is my own community. Let me tell the House something about what has transpired here. Everything the Liberals have done to clarify any existing law is already in law. They say they will have to protect people's ability to enter synagogues and be free from obstruction. We are already free from obstruction in entering a synagogue. Nobody can obstruct me from entering a synagogue. That is called assault.
How about intimidation? People should be free from intimidation when entering a school. Of course, that has not stopped the multiple school shootings that have happened in my riding. Nothing is happening about those. It is already a criminal offence to intimidate someone entering a school. It is called intimidation contrary to section 423 of the Criminal Code.