Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, not to diminish the very good work of Brian Storseth, the former member of Parliament for Westlock—St. Paul, who did introduce Bill C-304 and was supported in the Senate by the late Senator Doug Finley, but it was the Liberal member of Parliament Keith Martin who first called for repeal of section 13 in 2008, and we thank him for that.

Justice committee  Okay. Thank you. I'm not sure I got an answer.

Justice committee  Could you just confirm that you attended a July 19, 2014, rally in front of the Royal Ontario Museum?

Justice committee  Were you at a July 19, 2014, rally in front of the Royal Ontario Museum?

Justice committee  At that rally—

Justice committee  I can confirm that you were at that rally in which pro-Hamas chants occurred, where there were such anti-Semitic slogans as "from the river to sea, Palestine will be free". I'm looking at an image in which there's a sign saying "stop the Palestinian holocaust now. Fascist Israelis will be brought to justice.”

Justice committee  Right. I thank you for that, and I take your point and appreciate that you might not want to give an opinion on Mr. Warman. I will read into the record that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal did characterize his actions as “disappointing and disturbing”. Mr. Arnot, you just stated, as you did in your earlier testimony, and Madam Landry, you did as well, that when section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was repealed, that took away an important tool.

Justice committee  Mr. Arnot.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses. I'll begin with Mr. Arnot. Mr. Arnot, you made reference to the Ahenakew case. That particular case was based on a complex set of facts, including whether the conversation was a private one, which it was ultimately determined not to be, and also, whether Mr.

Justice committee  I was speaking of Richard Warman. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to conflate the Ahenakew facts with the facts of Mr. Warman. I just noted that in Ahenakew there was an issue of intent and the question of whether someone was prodded, so the court went through and made findings of fact applying the law.

Justice committee  Maybe you said subsection 319(1), but perhaps you meant subsection 320.1.

Justice committee  I raise that because you did cite section 13, but section 320.1 is an interesting section of the Criminal Code, one that, for whatever reason, has been completely underutilized. It provides a judge with the authority, on reasonable grounds, to order the removal of something on a computer system that constitutes hate propaganda.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. While I certainly find the comments made by Mr. Suri to be deeply offensive and objectionable and vehemently disagree with them, I will withdraw saying that he should be ashamed. That was not unparliamentary, but I understand it made some members of the committee uncomfortable, so in the spirit of moving forward, I withdraw those specific comments, but certainly not the rest of what I said.

Justice committee  He said conservatism and conservative commentators.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, Mr. Suri, I take great umbrage with your defamatory comments to try to link conservatism with violent and extremist attacks. They have no foundation. They're defamatory and they diminish your credibility as a witness. Let me, Mr. Chair, read into the record the statement of Brenton Tarrant, who is responsible for the Christchurch massacre.