Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on Bill C-41. This bill is important. It takes the necessary leadership role to set standards of fairness and equality for all Canadians in our criminal justice system.
Perhaps because of the campaign or the crusade by the member for Central Nova we have missed some of the other principles of the bill. We have forgotten that it codifies the principles of sentencing, that it formalizes victim impact statements and that it brings about changes which help to restore the balance in domestic disputes.
Last summer I met with lawyers from my community and over the past year I have met with many people in Burlington about the bill. Their conclusion is that with the increased attention to the law by lay people we need to spell out clearly the goals in sentencing. The bill clearly codifies those principles.
Sentencing should denounce unlawful conduct. It should deter offenders from committing crimes. It should work for rehabilitation. It should promote a sense of responsibility in offenders and it should make reparation to individual victims and families and acknowledge the harm done.
This bill will work to make sure fewer Canadians will be imprisoned for non-payment of fines, fines which in many cases were assessed at a level prohibited to the individual.
Section 718 formalizes the victim impact statement process. Victims groups such as CAVEAT have long supported this section.
An exciting initiative out of the backbench of the government and from a member of the Liberal women's caucus is the change to section 738, the restitution section. I am pleased the amendment moved by the member of Parliament for Brant, which was accepted by the government, will allow for much broader consideration of the impact of domestic disputes when making restitution orders. In tabling her amendment my colleague stated that victims of domestic violence should not have to deal with economic hardship in addition to the obvious physical and emotional trauma that is the result of a violent situation.
The amended section 738 of Bill C-41 will empower judges to order compensation to battered spouses forced to move out of their homes. This would cover costs such as temporary housing, food, child care and transportation as a result of the crime.
On section 718.2, the hatred section, the debate on this has exposed some of the depths of hatred in Canada and I find that unfortunate. I think the support the bill has received from many church organizations and from many individual Canadians says something about the real value of Canadians. Although we like to believe we are a tolerant and moderate society, it is harrowing to find out that in Canada we have active groups whose philosophies are based on hatred of others.
Names of groups which are recognizable to all of us, Aryan Nation, the Heritage Front, Church of the Creator and the Aryan Resistance Movement are actively recruiting today in Canada and they are particularly targeting young Canadians. There are over 40 organized hate groups in Canada. They are using techniques they perfected in the United States and they are accessing Internet in the most evil way.
In 1993 youths were charged in Montreal for beating up a man. They admitted they were engaging in an activity called the game, seeking out homosexuals with the intent of beating them up.
Police across the country are setting up crime units to deal specifically with hate crimes, responding to a concrete reality and need to end this violence. They adopt these units not because they approve of the gay lifestyle or they want to promote homosexuality but because in the exercise of their police functions they recognize there is violence and it is their job to protect and provide security for all in our community, particularly those who are members of groups most vulnerable to hatred.
From B'nai Brith we learned that in 1993, 256 reported incidents of anti-Semitic harassment and vandalism occurred. That represents a 31 per cent increase since 1992, the most incidents ever reported by the league in the 12 years since it has kept statistics.
In Ottawa-Carleton in the last two years there were 387 cases of hate based crime. There were 105 charges laid; 215 of the cases were based on race, 110 on religion and 45 on sexual orientation. We must use education, community action, intercultural coalitions. We must use all of these techniques, where hate crimes need to be addressed and where we can make a difference as well is in our legislation.
This bill has two goals: first, to send a strong message to persecuted communities that violence against any person or group is unacceptable and that our laws will take action in that regard; second, it encourages victims to come forward, allowing the police to get a true handle on the extent of the problem, work on educating people and work against this hatred.
Committee members who were listening learned from B'nai Brith that at its base a hate crime is not like a robbery for the purpose of obtaining goods. Hate crimes target not only the physical victim but the entire group of persons who share the same skin colour, the same language or the same religion. These acts are intended to violate, intimidate or isolate. They are intended not against just the victims but against the entire group.
When a rock comes crashing through someone's house in the middle of the night with a bomb threat simply because that person is a Muslim, other Muslims in the neighbourhood are terrorized. That is the goal of the hate monger, to terrorize whole communities. When survivors of the Holocaust see a swastika painted on a synagogue, and they thought they were safe in their Canadian community, suddenly those community members are fearful.
Reform members need to remember that when hate groups target what they perceive to be minorities their intention is to divide those minorities and separate them from the rest of the community. They isolate them in order to make them easier targets for attack. Once they have targeted one group they never stop with that group. They keep adding to them, to their targets. They never stop with Jews. They never stop with gays. They enlarge their sphere of activity.
To allow hate motivated violence and hate propaganda to go unpunished or uncontrolled through personal or collective indifference on the part of community leaders or public officials is simply to allow hate discrimination and violence to become acceptable norms of behaviour and standards of contact. On page 86 of the red book the Liberals campaigned on equality for all Canadians, including freedom from hatred and harassment.
The list of characteristics in section 718.2 identifies those groups, those people most frequently targeted for hatred as per the information from the justice department. It does not confer special rights to any one group because every person in Canada is covered in this list.
We all have a sex, we all have a race, we all have a nationality, we all have a religion and yes, we all have a sexual orientation. To say including sexual orientation in Bill C-41, particularly in this section, is encouraging a lifestyle is like saying that because we have included religion we are encouraging people to become Catholic or that including gender is to encourage members in the House to become women instead of men.
Remember, Bill C-41 takes effect when a crime has been committed. The proposed section comes into full force only after a criminal conviction has been registered. The bill does not create new crimes. It only requires judges to consider it as an aggravating factor if the crime was motivated by hatred.
I quote from Martin Niemöller, the German theologian: "When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew and therefore I was not concerned. When Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic and therefore I was not concerned. When Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church, and there was nobody left to be concerned".
For the sake of all Canadians, for the sake of all children in Canada, based on the values of fairness, equity and justice taught to me and my family and in my church I encourage colleagues to enact Bill C-41 as soon as possible.
