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Combatting Hate Act

2026-06-15 Sitting 136 Showing 1–12 of 12

A bill to change hate speech laws. It would remove the requirement for the Attorney General's consent before laying hate propaganda charges, create new offenses for hate-motivated crimes and intimidation to impede access to religious or community sites, and criminalize displaying hate symbols in public. In debate, the Bloc pressed for Attorney General oversight to prevent abuse and misuse. The Conservatives argued it was performative and that existing laws suffice. The Liberals emphasized rising hate crimes and the need for this law to protect minorities and places of worship.

Official Hansard ↗

Andrew Lawton

Conservative 11:00 p.m.

“There aren't enough MPs here to keep debating this late at night. Let's stop for now.”

Frank Caputo

Conservative 11:10 p.m.

“I want to make a tribute to someone who died in my riding. Now, about the bill: I'm not sure this bill won't hurt religious rights. The Supreme Court ignored what Parliament said it wanted before. What if they do that again with this bill?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the residents of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. Before I begin, I want to recognize the life of Joan Loehr. She was a prominent resident of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. She and her family have given a lot to the community. She leaves behind her children Geoffrey, Regan, Kent, Joel, Jarett and Mary. May perpetual light shine upon her. The member for Winnipeg North just talked about religious liberty and not being worried about this impacting religious rights and speeches. My colleague talked about legislative intent. Well, the Supreme Court of Canada grappled with this issue of legislative intent, I believe it was this year, in a ruling, where Parliament specifically said it wanted the legislation to say this. It was in debate, and it was in an amendment, and the Supreme Court of Canada still went against that. With that in mind, the uncertainty that this bill would create is part of the issue. What does the member say to that?

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Jacob Mantle

Conservative 11:15 p.m.

“I don't like the Bloc's position. They keep using the example of Mr. Charkaoui to defend removing the good-faith exemption. But inciting hatred against Jews is already against the law. Police chose not to charge Mr. Charkaoui even though they could have. The good-faith exemption didn't stop them. So the Bloc's example doesn't make sense. I want my colleague to explain their real reason for wanting to remove the exemption.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have been troubled by the Bloc's position, and I am hoping my hon. colleague can help me a little. One of the examples that Bloc members have continually used to defend the removal of the good-faith exemption is the example of Mr. Charkaoui, who quite rightly was condemned for inciting hatred against Jews in Quebec. My colleague spoke about reading the law carefully, and if he were to read the Criminal Code carefully, he would see that this type of activity is already prohibited. It was not because the religious exemption is in the law now that police were prevented from charging. It was that the police chose not to. I am confused about why the Bloc has continually used this example, which has been shown to have nothing to do with the good-faith defence.

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Tamara Kronis

Conservative 11:20 p.m.

“I want you to admit this bill won't let police arrest any new people. It's just words. It won't stop hate like you claim.”

Andrew Lawton

Conservative 11:30 p.m.

“I'm asking you a question. You talk about bad things that happen to the Jewish community. I agree that's bad. But we already have laws against those bad things. We don't need more laws. We need to enforce the laws we already have. Why don't you do that?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful the minister is here. He and I worked at the same time in Canadian media, and I have a good relationship with him. However, his government's record on civil liberties and freedom of expression could not be worse. He talks about the horrors that have been inflicted upon the Jewish community, in particular, and I share those concerns. I have been sounding the alarm about those concerns when there has been a failure to act in enforcing existing laws. It is illegal to incite genocide. It is illegal to obstruct someone from entering a house of worship. It is illegal to threaten violence and harm. If existing laws are not being enforced, why does the minister think these ones will be?

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Frank Caputo

Conservative 11:40 p.m.

“I want to look good to a recent immigrant. I don't like this bill. It won't change much. It threatens free speech. Why do you insist on pushing this bill?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. Before I begin, I want to recognize Hafiza Zalmay and congratulate her on her Bachelor of Business Administration. She and her husband came from Afghanistan. It is a huge accomplishment, so my best wishes go to Hafiza. My colleague is part of a government that is intent on bringing this bill forward. Everybody wants to protect people with their religious institutions, but as my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith just pointed out, as I was listening to the minister's speech, it is the exact same thing. Right now, nobody can obstruct someone from going into a place of worship and not break the law. Dare I say, I do not know that there is much in this bill that, if one were to do it, they would not already be breaking the law? However, there are so many controversial elements. Why are the Liberals insistent on this when free speech and civil liberties advocates have spoken about the potential dangers—

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Jacob Mantle

Conservative 11:40 p.m.

“I don't like that the government is stopping debate on this bill. Everyone wants to stop hate speech, but I don't trust the government to protect liberty. They made summer jobs hard to get for religious groups. They tried to punish pro-life charities. The minister said parts of the Bible and Torah were hateful. He never took it back. The government shouldn't decide what's true in religion. Adding symbols to the hate list opens a can of worms. It will be selectively enforced based on what the government disagrees with, not what's actually hateful. The government is afraid of freedom and wants to censor citizens. This bill is tyrannical and just the beginning.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, while the hour is late, it is always a privilege to get up and speak in the House, especially on an issue that is so important. I rise with a bit of a heavy heart, though, because I realize this will likely be the last time I can speak at substantive length to this bill and express my concern with, first, the government's heavy-handedness in dealing with this debate. It is unfortunate that the government moved to end this debate only a few minutes after it began. The irony of cutting off and censoring debate on a bill that deals with expression is not lost on me, nor is it lost on Canadians. I want to say at the outset that I understand the laudable goal that exists with Bill C-9. I think it is one that is shared by all members of the House. It is certainly shared by me. However, we know what is said about good intentions and the path that they lead to. The laudable goal, of course, is the elimination of hateful speech and conduct in our society. We all share that goal. After 11 years, Canadians just do not trust the Liberal government to preserve and protect their liberty. Quite the opposite is true. There is a history and a pattern that proves this suspicion that people of faith across Canada have. There was an ideological test to receive summer jobs funding, which I did not forget, and I do not think Christian communities, Jewish communities or Muslim communities across Canada forgot that either. There was the removal, or proposed removal, of charitable status for organizations that defend and promote life. These are still the avowed positions of the government opposite. I will note that I am splitting my time. In the Senate debates, Professor Haskell said, “Past experience shows that when Liberal governments promised that devout Christians would not be harmed by their new laws, those promises were broken.” History has a way of teaching us not to believe the Liberal government when it says, “Just trust us.” That is why Bill C-9 united Christians across all denominations, from the United Church to the Catholic Church to the Anglican Church to the evangelical churches across Canada, but it was not just Christians who were united against this bill. One of the most fascinating things about this is that the Liberal government succeeded in uniting all faiths against their proposition. We have heard tonight, numerous times, that “Canadians were asking for this” and “Communities were asking for this,” but actually the opposite is true, and we have the letters from those communities to prove it. We have letters from the rabbinical council of Toronto, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada to prove it. The reality, as I understand the evidence, is that every faith community opposed this legislation. Rather than asking for it, they opposed it. I want to focus a bit on the most troubling part of Bill C-9, which is the removal of long-standing protections for religious freedom and the ability to have civil and substantive discussions about matters that go to the core of belief without the government's interference in that. Unfortunately, a Faustian bargain was struck between the Liberals and the Bloc to remove that protection from the Criminal Code. Now, it is not my opinion that this is what was taking place. This is the opinion that was held by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who said that certain passages of the Torah and the Bible are categorically “hateful” and that prosecutors should have “discretion...to press charges.” What is deeply troubling about this is that in this whole debate, over the entire months that we have been discussing this, the minister has never resiled from his comments. He has never sought to clarify his comments, and he never sought to add nuance to those comments or explain to religious communities what he meant by them. To add insult to injury, not one member of the Prime Minister's cabinet has said anything about them. In fact, no member, to my knowledge, of the Liberal Party, despite being asked in debate after debate, has resiled from those comments. What should we take from them? The only logical conclusion to take is that they believe them. If that is the case, then our fears are well founded. The reality is that Canadians should be allowed to discuss and debate controversial issues, even if we do not like them, even if we think they are repugnant. It does not matter. That is what living in a free society allows us. Government should not decide what religious truth is. I do not want the minister of culture being the arbitrary arbiter of whether Jesus Christ was the Messiah, and I do not want them to be the arbiter of whether in fact there is no God other than God, “and Muhammad is his messenger”. That is not the government's role. However, perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of this amendment that removed that protection was that it was predicated on a completely false fact. It was predicated on the idea that there was an instance in Quebec that could not be prosecuted because of this religious protection. That is categorically false and, no matter how many times the Bloc want to bring up that example of Mr. Charkaoui , it does not make it true. I want to note this as well about the Senate amendment, because that of course is part of what we are discussing tonight. The Senate amendment seeks to add an additional symbol to criminalize in the code. Let me start with the obvious. The use of a symbol can, of course, be hateful, but I would respond that if it is, it is already a crime. There have been several examples where police across Canada have prosecuted individuals for expressing their hateful conduct through the use of a symbol. Of course, a noose could be used as a hate symbol, undoubtedly. However, to me this is a bit of an odd inclusion. To me this sounds like the importation of an American problem into Canada, and the use of that problem to divide and fearmonger. Canada does not have the same history as the United States does with this symbol. Moreover, discussing symbols opens a Pandora's box. Who would decide what symbols are hateful? Well, according to the bill, the government could decide to add any new entity to a terrorist list, and therefore its symbols would become hate symbols. Is display enough to warrant prosecution, or does intent matter? These questions remain unanswered. If we were to go down the path of selecting symbols, I would have several to offer. How about the hammer and sickle? If we want to talk about a hateful symbol that Canadians fought and died against, for example in the Korean War, the hammer and sickle would be one of them, but this just proves the point about the selective nature of what the Liberals think hate is. Burning churches is understandable. Conservatives had to drag the government, kicking and screaming, to list Samidoun as a terrorist organization. This tells us that it is not about hate. It is about things the Liberals disagree with, and that is the problem with this type of censorship. There is a creeping culture of censorship that pervades the Liberal government: Bill C‑9, the Liberal censorship law; Bill C‑22, the Liberal surveillance law; Bill C‑35, the Liberal law on digital ID for all; Bill C‑36, the Liberal digital Stasi commission. We are sliding backwards into self-imposed immaturity, lacking the ability to use our own understanding without the guidance from another, in this case the state. Why is the Liberal government afraid of freedom? When a government lives in fear of its citizens, it seeks to censor them. Let me close with a quote from the great Frederick Douglass, a great abolitionist, who said: Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. We have the beginnings of tyrannical government in Canada, and that is the problem. Bill C‑9 is only the beginning. It is not the end.

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Jacob Mantle

Conservative 11:55 p.m.

“Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said that. I'm not an idiot.”

Andrew Lawton

Conservative 11:55 p.m.

“The government should protect everyone equally. The Liberals are laughing when I say that Christians are facing hate crimes. Their reaction shows how the government is not protecting them. My colleague did a good job with this bill. He talked to people of all faiths who are worried.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I cannot thank my colleague from York—Durham enough, not just for his speech tonight but for his tremendous leadership on Bill C‑9, meeting with faith communities, members of the Jewish community, the Muslim community, the Christian community, all across the country, people who have raised concerns, people whom the government says it is protecting but who feel the opposite is true. One of the comments that stuck out from what my colleague said was with regard to the selective nature of how we define hate and how hate laws are applied. I will note that, earlier in the House, a member of the Liberals gave an enumerated list of people who have experienced hate in this country, and both times he did that, he left out Christians, despite the fact that 123 Christian churches have been burned or vandalized over the last five years. As I say that now, Liberals are groaning and laughing, which speaks exactly to what I am saying. What does my colleague think about the fact that, even right now, the Liberals are laughing at the idea that Christians could be the target of hate?

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Jacob Mantle

Conservative 11:55 p.m.

“I met with Jewish groups and Muslim groups about this bill. We agreed on it even though we have different views. The government is being selective about what they call hate. That's a problem. Some people get protection and others don't. The government shouldn't censor.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, being involved in this debate has actually been an amazing experience for me personally because it has allowed me to reach and speak with other faith communities, which I would not otherwise have had the chance to do. I met with Muslim groups in Toronto and Jewish groups in my own riding. I had a different faith and a different view of the world, but we were in complete alignment on Bill C‑9. It was actually quite amazing. My hon. colleague raises a great point, which is the selective nature of what the government considers hate. He points out a very good example, that regardless of which lists the Liberals use or which groups they identify, they seem to leave out some and include others. Unfortunately, that leaves us to conclude that some people, in their view, are more equal than others. This is why we are so concerned when they get involved in censorship, because we know which groups they think deserve protection and we know which groups they think do not deserve that protection.

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Jacob Mantle

Conservative 11:55 p.m.

“You don't need a new law. Use the laws we already have. I never said a noose wasn't a hate symbol. I said the way they showed it on TV was different from seeing it in real life.”

Jacob Mantle

Conservative 12:00 p.m.

“I want to say I'm being factual. I don't like how they criticize me.”

What they said. What they meant.

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