“I want to look like I'm against hate. This bill won't stop hate. It has too many words. Police need to act faster. Prosecutors need more money. The bill is too vague. It might stop legal protests. Many groups don't like the bill. The government should listen. The government ended debate. That was wrong. The bill won't make anyone safer. We should have fixed it. The government chose bad options.”
Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, hate is real, and it is doing damage in communities across this country. No Canadian should be intimidated because of who they are, how they worship, what they look like, where they come from or what they believe. The question before us is not whether hate should be taken seriously. The question is whether Bill C-9 would actually make Canadians safer. The problem we hear about again and again is not the absence of words in the Criminal Code; it is the failure to act when people break the law. Communities are not safer when Parliament adds more words. They are safer when police respond quickly, when charges are laid where evidence supports them, when prosecutors have the resources to move cases forward, when repeat offenders face real consequences and when victims have confidence that the justice system is willing to protect them. The number and range of organizations that have raised alarms about Bill C-9 are stunning. It is not just one political party, it is not just one faith community and it is not just one type of advocacy group. Civil liberties organizations across the political spectrum have warned that this bill risks sweeping too broadly and chilling lawful expression and peaceful protest. A broad array of community organizations from across the political spectrum have warned that vague criminal law can be used unevenly and can fall hardest on the very communities it claims to protect. Progressive and traditional faith groups alike have warned about the removal of long-standing protections for good-faith religious expression. Legal and constitutional voices have raised serious concerns about the balance between public safety and fundamental freedoms. That breadth of opposition should give every member of the House pause, because when civil liberties groups, religious organizations, community advocates, legal experts and grassroots coalitions from so many walks of life all tell Parliament it is on the wrong track, the responsible thing to do is to listen. It is not to push ahead and dismiss those concerns as being fringe, unserious or misleading. The people raising these concerns are not defending hate. Many of them work every day, tirelessly, against hate, racism and violence. Their point, when they came to this place and to the other place to share their views on this bill, was to tell us that bad law can make hard problems worse. Their point has been that criminal law must be precise, fair and enforceable. When Parliament writes vague laws in the name of safety, it can create uncertainty and the opposite of safety for ordinary Canadians, while doing little to stop those who are already willing to break the law. That is the core weakness of Bill C-9. It tries to show strength through wording rather than through action or results, and yet it is remarkably confusing and imprecise in its wording. In that, Bill C-9 risks blurring the line between hateful conduct, which must be punished, and lawful expression, which must remain protected even when it is controversial, offensive and deeply unpopular. A mature democracy can punish violence and intimidation without giving the state a vague mandate to police belief, scripture, protest or political speech. For the communities that are counting on this bill, the Minister of Artificial Intelligence failed just last night to answer the key question they are asking: Who would the police be able to arrest when this law is passed who they cannot arrest today? How would this bill help bring order to the chaos that has taken over the streets in some communities right now? How would this bill actually stop the bullets, the fires and the death threats? Instead of providing answers and safety, the government brought forward a bill that has divided communities, alarmed civil society and created uncertainty about how far the long arm of the criminal law would reach. That is not careful work. That is not the careful work that Canadians expect from the House. It is not the careful work that is required when fundamental freedoms are at stake. Opposing the bill does not mean accepting hate. What it means is demanding a better answer. I will be the last speaker on the bill, not because members of Parliament have nothing left to say, not because the concerns of the groups that have come to the committee to meet with members of Parliament have had their concerns answered and not because the communities that are so worried that they will be affected by the bill have been heard. I will be the last speaker on the bill because the government has chosen to end the debate. I have said, many times in the House, that just because the Liberal majority can do something, it does not mean it should. Power gives a government the ability to move quickly but it does not give it wisdom. It does not turn a flawed bill into a good one. It does not turn words into results. In the coming weeks and months, Canadians will see what the bill would not do. It would not make a synagogue safer when threats are not met with enforcement. It would not make a mosque safer when police do not have the tools or resources to act quickly. It would not make a church, temple, school or community centre safer if the justice system still cannot follow through. It would not reassure vulnerable Canadians if the government confuses passing a bill with solving a problem. When those failures become clear, no one on that side of the House should pretend they were not warned. They were warned by civil liberties groups. They were warned by faith communities of all kinds. They were warned by legal experts. They were warned by organizations from many different walks of life, many of whom rarely agree on much else but agreed on this. They agreed that Bill C-9 is not the careful, enforceable, unifying response that Canadians deserve. The government had a choice. It could have listened. It could have fixed the bill. It could have spent the time necessary to work with the provinces to truly hear what they need, not in terms of words but in terms of enforcement, in terms of resources, in terms of real support. It could have brought forward a measure focused on real enforcement, real protection and real accountability. Instead, the government chose closure. They chose more words on paper. None of us are safer or more united for those choices. If this government is not interested in meaningful debate, we might as well save our breath. I move: That this House do now adjourn.
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