Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, right at the outset, let me make it very clear that, from my understanding, restitution payments exist in law and can be paid to victims. After listening to the member opposite, I note that she seems to be very aware of that. What the member is proposing is a fairly significant change. I want to paint a bigger picture of what has actually taken place. First and foremost, I think it is universally accepted within the chamber by all members of Parliament that hate has no place inside the country. We all play a very important role to do what we can to promote tolerance and education and, where we can, to call out things that ultimately lead to hatred and acts of violence or vandalism, which cause a great deal of harm in many different ways to the communities we represent. I think of churches, mosques, gurdwaras, temples and synagogues, all of which have been victims of hate crimes. The issue of hate-motivated mischief is something the government has actually dealt with in its legislative agenda. Coming out of the last federal election, we had a Prime Minister who made a commitment to come forward with a legislative agenda to deal with the issue of crime and safety. That is the reason I posed the question I did to the member opposite. I sat on the government benches listening to Conservative after Conservative filibuster or speak in opposition to Bill C-9, so it is not because of the Conservative Party that the Combatting Hate Act is now law in Canada. Quite the opposite, it is because of the leadership of the Prime Minister and the government of the day in forcing through the legislation. It was substantial. It dealt with mischief and hatred, which are real, in several different ways. It was part of the overall crime, safety and community safety legislative agenda that the Prime Minister and the government have put forward over the last 18 months, because we take the issue so seriously. When we think of the core of that legislation, it deals with putting up with, for example, protesters who try to hinder, prevent or intimidate people from being able to attend a church, a synagogue, a gurdwara or a mosque. That legislation is there. It is tangible. We provided it. It is all part of the bigger picture of the agenda of the government. I provided the member the opportunity to give some clarification on the legislation. Has she changed her position in supporting Bill C-9? From what I recall, not only did the Conservatives vote against it, but they proactively promoted, I would suggest, a lot of hatred toward the legislation. Listen to the debates or read the debates on it from just a year ago. If we look at what the member is proposing, restitution payments exist today and are a part of our judicial system, not precisely in the way the member is proposing within this piece of legislation, but there is duplication within the legislation being proposed by the member today. That is because of the changes we brought in through Bill C-9 or because of the current criminal act, prior. Whenever I think of judicial changes and reforms, I often think about the stakeholders and how they feel about the different issues. It is because of Bill C-9 that I posed a question specifically on that issue to the member, but if I was able to provide a follow-up question, it would be on dealing with the stakeholders. Some of the stakeholders are our provincial and territorial jurisdictions. Has the Conservative Party consulted with or had any direct input from our provincial, territorial or even indigenous counterparts? They all have a very strong vested interest in the area. If we were to canvass our constituents, the average Canadian, we would find that an overwhelming majority, over 90%, of people understand hate-motivated crimes, including the issue of mischief or vandalism. The vandalizing of places of worship, sadly, is not new, and it varies extensively. The member cited specific examples from outside the province of Alberta and went into a number of jurisdictions. It does not matter. It happens in all regions of our nation and it varies. It varies from graffiti to burning things down, causing significant damage, all of which we are very much concerned about. Vandalism is something we all take very seriously, and I would encourage us to do so. At the end of the day, there is more we can do on the issue of vandalism that goes beyond our church facilities. I used to chair a youth justice committee, and through that, we had many different discussions about the issue of vandalism in our communities. At the end of the day, what we need in order to deal with a lot of the vandalism that takes place in our communities is to ensure that the offence itself is being better dealt with through enforcement. Often, we have the legislation that is necessary. Our law enforcement agencies, municipalities and provinces, all of which participate in the process, have something to contribute. The amount of graffiti in our communities, for example, or vandalism that takes place is significant. I think that co-operation among the different stakeholders and different jurisdictions could have a more positive outcome. Yes, restitution does play a role. I know that when we had discussions in regard to vandalism when I was the chair of the justice committee, we recognized that restitution plays a role, and our courts recognize that today. Having said all that, I question and hope to hear more from the members of the Conservative Party about whether or not they are now onside—
