Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault

“Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time tonight. I am pleased to rise today to speak to the message from the Senate concerning Bill C-9, the combatting hate act. At the outset, I would like to thank all who have contributed to the development and the study of the legislation: the Minister of Justice, the members of the House and Senate from all parties who participated in the debate, witnesses who appeared before committee, community organizations, faith leaders, legal experts, advocates and Canadians who shared their experiences and perspectives throughout this process. Today we are considering a message from the Senate that includes an amendment to Bill C-9. Our government supports this amendment. I will speak to that shortly. I think we should remember first why the legislation was introduced in the first place. At its core, Bill C-9 is about basic things: protecting all Canadians from hate and making sure that every Canadian has the right to worship in safety, to gather at their community centre in safety, to go to a summer camp that is a religious camp in safety, and to be who they want to be and to worship whom they want in safety. This is a diverse country. In my riding of Toronto Centre, there are people of every different faith and people of different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, identities and beliefs, just as there are living together in communities across our nation, and that diversity is to be celebrated. That diversity is our great strength. It strengthens our communities, our economies, our values and our openness. That inclusion is part of who we are, but we have to be candid about what is happening. We have seen a startling crisis of hate, specifically a disproportionate and vicious rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the last two years, specifically targeting the Jewish community, but also all forms of hate. We should name them, and one does not diminish the pain of the other by naming anti-Semitism, by naming Islamophobia, by naming homophobia or by naming anti-Black racism. This does not diminish one or the other or group them together. What it does is identify groups, individuals and families who are experiencing disproportionate hate. Across the country, Canadians are witnessing these attacks against places of worship, threats directed at religious and cultural communities, acts of intimidation, hateful demonstrations and targeted harassment against individuals. The synagogue where I was raised, where I was bar mitzvahed and where I was confirmed, Temple Emanu-el, was shot with 20 bullets through the glass front doors, where I entered and so many families to this day enter in peace. There were people inside. Thank God no one was hurt. In so many synagogues across the country, this is happening. We know this, and it is one of the key reasons for Bill C-9. It is so sad that it is necessary for us to do this in Canada, but it is, and it is for the people who are directly affected. I have spoken to them. I know them. They are members of my own family. These incidents are not simply statistics. People are fearful. They have anxiety. They ask us, as a government, what we are going to do to protect them. They feel vulnerable. They want legislation to protect their community centres, their schools and their places of worship, and we need to make sure not just that they are heard but also that we act on that. That is what the bill is about, because no Canadian needs to live in fear. No Canadian should be intimidated when they are attending a synagogue, a mosque, a church, a temple, a community centre or a cultural gathering where people practice their faith or celebrate their heritage. I was recently in Quebec City with colleagues, and we went to the mosque that was shot up. We met two survivors. They had bullets still in their bodies. They remember that tragic act of Islamophobia, and they live with those wounds. Today it is anti-Semitic attacks on the rise, and that time it was Islamophobic attacks. Sometimes there have been attacks on the 2SLGBTQ community. Just recently it was the moment to mark the anniversary of what happened in the club where so many members of that community were massacred. Bill C-9 responds to these tragic realities. The legislation would create new, important tools within the Criminal Code to address hate-motivated conduct and better protect communities and better protect people, families and kids who are being targeted when they just want to live their life in this great country of ours. Among the measures, the bill would create new offences aimed at preventing the obstruction of access to places primarily used by an identifiable group and preventing intimidation of individuals seeking to access those spaces. If we go to a synagogue today, there are police cars around it. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Evan Solomon: Mr. Speaker, members of the opposition are chirping about that, but they can come to the synagogue where I was and try chirping, because we are there, there is fear and this bill would stop it. This is not a slogan and this is not something to be divided on and try to score points about. This is about supporting a bill that would protect people and prevent this kind of fear and intimidation. The bill would create new hate-motivated offences that could be applied when a criminal offence is committed that is motivated by hate towards an identifiable group. This reflects the sad reality that hate-motivated crimes do not only harm individual victims; they send a message to the entire community. They create fear, they create intimidation and they create communities that feel targeted. When someone commits a crime motivated by hatred towards a religious group, an ethnic community or another identifiable group, the impact extends beyond the single victim. Bill C-9 recognizes that reality and would ensure that our criminal law reflects the broader harm that hate-motivated crimes can cause. This legislation also addresses the public display of hate symbols used to promote hate, such as the symbols of listed terrorist organizations. These symbols have long been associated with terror and intimidation, persecution and discrimination, and they have been used throughout history to threaten, terrorize and dehumanize. On the purpose of the legislation, let us be clear, and let us not twist it to score a political point. I know that my hon. colleagues in the opposition, in good faith, want to protect Canadians like everyone else. This is not about regulating legitimate debate or limiting legitimate debate. This is not about limiting political disagreement. In fact, we protect that every single day. This is not about limiting academic discussion or religious expression. That is protected. Religious freedom is protected under section 2 of the charter. Canadians remain free to express those views, to disagree with one another and to engage in public discourse. Rather, this legislation is focused on conduct that promotes hatred and seeks to intimidate or target communities, and these are important. The Senate has proposed an amendment to include the noose among the hate symbols captured by legislation. We support this amendment, because at the heart of this, it is not about limiting religious freedoms. We have a protected charter right to practise sincere religious beliefs, but not to invoke hate or incite violence, and the right to be protected in any forum where one is inciting hatred or promoting violence against another identifiable group. Bill C-9 is necessary. Bill C-9 is urgent to protect our citizens, to protect our communities and to protect our schools, and to do it in a very specific manner and a very targeted way so that it does not limit freedom of expression or religious expression, but rather protects communities that are feeling threatened. My hon. colleagues from the opposition say they want to protect all communities. This is their chance to act on it in an expeditious way.”