Bill C-9

Combatting Hate Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) repeal the requirement that the Attorney General consent to the institution of proceedings for hate propaganda offences;
(b) create an offence of wilfully promoting hatred against any identifiable group by displaying certain symbols in a public place;
(c) create a hate crime offence of committing an offence under that Act or any other Act of Parliament that is motivated by hatred based on certain factors;
(d) create an offence of intimidating a person in order to impede them from accessing certain places that are primarily used for religious worship or by an identifiable group for certain purposes; and
(e) create an offence of intentionally obstructing or interfering with a person’s lawful access to such places.

Bail and Sentencing Reform Act

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege and an honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for York Centre.

When I was first elected, I was shocked at how quickly crime became the issue I had to contend with as a member of Parliament, because it was the significant issue that galvanized the community of St. Thomas this summer, in many respects. A rather historic building, which happened to be my campaign office in the last election, that was 140-some odd years old was burned down by a serial arsonist out on bail. This was a symbol of a problem that Canadians have seen in communities large and small across the country, which is rampant repeat offenders unleashing what police have called chronic criminality and prolific offending onto the streets.

If we talk to any police service across the country, as I have with the police chiefs in my riding and others through my work on the justice committee, we will hear that a small number of offenders, sometimes 100 people or maybe even fewer, are responsible for 80% to 90% of the calls the police must respond to. A small group of prolific offenders is taxing communities, taxing and straining police resources, and terrifying and terrorizing communities.

They are making it so people do not feel safe walking streets they once could comfortably, safely and freely walk down at any hour of the day or night. People do not feel comfortable letting their children go out to a mall. People are forced to take other forms of transportation because they do not feel safe on public transit.

Just this morning, I saw that London, Ontario, is promoting police officers being on public transit. I am grateful to the brave men and women in the London Police Service, the St. Thomas Police Service, the Aylmer Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police who are forced to deal with this, but they have had to deal with a problem that has by and large been a consequence of federal government policy.

We have heard testimony for several weeks now from police associations, police chiefs and victims' rights groups, and almost all of them have pointed directly to Bill C-75. This was legislation from the Liberal government that, among other changes, codified something called the principle of restraint, a provision of the Criminal Code that makes it easier for repeat offenders to get out on bail under conditions that are very lax.

I bring this up because for months, when we have raised these issues in this House, the government has said not to worry and that bail reform legislation is coming, but this was not a significant priority to the extent that other bills were. We saw Bill C-9, which was the first priority, as far as justice legislation goes, of the government. That came out and was tabled in this House weeks before the bail legislation was. Now we see Bill C-14.

I will say first and foremost that I am grateful the Liberal government recognizes there is a crisis unfolding in our criminal justice system. I am grateful that the Liberal government has finally responded to the calls from law enforcement, municipal governments, victims' rights groups, ordinary citizens and Conservative members of Parliament that action is needed.

What the Liberals have delivered falls short in some very key areas, and I think this is important because they said they needed time because they wanted to get it right. They needed time because they wanted to cover all the bases. We had before the justice committee on Tuesday the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, Thomas Carrique, a very decorated officer. He is also the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and commissioner Carrique said that he was disappointed the legislation did not tackle sentencing in a meaningful way.

The bill was supposed to tackle bail and sentencing, and with the exception of beefing up the penalty for contempt of court, it has not really touched sentencing head-on when we are talking about sentences for violent offences. That is a key shortcoming of this bill.

On the principle of restraint, we have another key issue, which is that the bill offers, and I will read it precisely, the following language on the principle of restraint:

For greater certainty, section 493.‍1 does not require the accused to be released.

The Liberals are basically giving a little asterisk for judges and police officers to tell them not to worry and that the principle in the Criminal Code that says we must release people at the earliest opportunity and on the least onerous conditions does not mean they have to release them at all.

Everyone knows that. No matter how critical someone is of the justice system, they know that 100% of people do not get bail, although the Liberals have certainly tried to get as close to that figure as possible it seems. This is a clarifying note; it is not a meaningful change. The Liberals are just saying that it does not mean what we think it does, that this section does not mean what police officers have been saying it has done to them and what attorneys are saying it has done to the justice system.

To be fair, the Liberals made some acknowledgement that there is a problem when they expanded the reverse onus. This is something I welcome, but when this bill goes before committee, it is incumbent on the Liberal government to accept the very significant measures Conservatives have already proposed in this House that would be genuinely and seriously tough on crime, measures that would provide real solutions, real resolutions and concrete reforms to fix the Liberal bail system.

For example, the principle of restraint needs to first and foremost be a principle that makes public safety its primary obligation, not the rights of the accused but the right of the public to feel safe and secure in their own communities. This is very important, and it is a direct response to months and months of consultation by Conservative members with law enforcement officials, who have said they feel ignored by the government and that morale has taken a massive hit. Officers feel it is not even worth arresting people, knowing that under the law on the books right now, they are just going to be released.

For years, Liberal government members, when we have sounded the alarm about this, have said that it is not really an issue. They have attempted to gaslight Canadians into thinking the problem is not as a bad as it, which makes me ask the question about Bill C-14 of why now. Are the Liberals finally acknowledging that they got it wrong with Bill C-75, Bill C-48 and Bill C-5?

With each of these bills, there has been a trend. Some members of law enforcement have looked at them and said they looked like they had some good things in them, but years later, when they see the application of them, they realize they did not actually deliver on the promises made and what the government said it would do. That is, of course, a concern I have with Bill C-14, as with any legislation. We need to make sure these are not just things that exist on paper that do not translate in the real world.

We have given the government the answers. We have provided three pieces of legislation in this House already. While the Liberals were still trying to figure out where they wanted to go with Bill C-14, my colleague from Oxford introduced the jail not bail act, Bill C-242. It would put front and centre the role of public safety when talking about bail. It would also prohibit someone from serving as a surety to help other accused offenders get out on bail if they themselves have been convicted of a serious criminal offence within the last 10 years. Reform of the surety system does not appear at all in Bill C-14, which is another shortcoming that has already been identified by witnesses testifying before the justice committee in its bail study.

We also have, from my colleague from Lethbridge, Bill C-246, which would put consecutive sentences in place for sexual offenders. Heinous criminals who have been convicted should be serving their sentences consecutively, which is a proposal we offered to the government. I ask the Liberals to please take our idea and put it in law if they are serious about these measures.

My colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola introduced Bill C-225, which would create new offences pertaining to intimate partner violence, provisions that Jennifer Dunn of the London Abused Women's Centre told the justice committee yesterday should be passed by the House of Commons to protect women. Victims are being failed by the justice system as it is now, and Ms. Dunn said in her testimony that many of the women she sees do not even refer to the justice system as the justice system anymore.

I am committed to working with government members if they are serious about wanting to reform and genuinely fix these problems, but they need to acknowledge their role in creating them. They need to acknowledge what law enforcement has been saying, which is that so much of what we are dealing with on the streets now, which has led to Bill C-14, is a consequence of Liberal laws, notably Bill C-75.

I am committing to the people of Canada, the people in my riding and the members of this House that I will work in the justice committee to beef this bill up to what it should be, but Canadians deserve more.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, it is not up to me to decide that, and I can say that we are currently very busy at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We are studying two issues at the same time and have extended our working hours.

We usually meet for two hours twice a week. Now we are meeting for three hours twice a week and we are studying the bail and sentencing issues concurrently. That is kind of what bills C‑14 and C‑9 are about. We are studying both at the same time. Are we going to add Bill C‑14? I would like to because it is important. However, when are we going to do that? Do we have access to meeting rooms? Do we have interpreters?

There are a number of practical questions that I cannot answer. In any case, it is not up to me to decide whether we should fast-track Bill C‑14. However, I do believe that this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, and I will leave it to those responsible for managing the business of the House to decide the pace at which we proceed with Bill C‑14.

Public Safety

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very important concern that Canadians have and that our government shares.

We have always stood up against gender-based violence. We currently have a bill in the House, Bill C-9, which addresses femicide and makes it a conditional first-degree crime. In that bill, we are also making bail harder to obtain for those accused of sexual offences, including those involving choking, suffocation and strangulation.

We are also going to be bringing in a gender-based violence bill later on this year. We are working on all fronts.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, he reaffirms it by saying “absolutely”.

There is so much here. The member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner said, “there is a disconnect between upper management and [the rank and file]. There are operational issues that are not being addressed by...leadership.” The member for Peace River—Westlock said, “The actions of the leadership of the RCMP, I think, are indefensible in many instances.” The leader of the Conservative Party implied in a very strong way that the former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, would have gone to jail “[i]f the RCMP had been doing its job”.

How do bizarre, weird comments of that nature reinforce confidence in our institutions? Now Conservatives have come up with a conflict of interest, and they say they want X, Y and Z. They want to attack the Prime Minister and his character, because this is what they believe, and they start talking about the issue of perception.

Members will have to excuse me for not knowing the member's riding. He is the one who I think owns Giant Tiger. I would encourage every member of the Conservative caucus to read what he had to say about conflicts of interest just the other day inside the chamber. As the leader of the Conservative Party calls into question the integrity of the RCMP, they should read what their colleague had to say about conflicts of interest. If members want to study something, they should bring what he said to the ethics group of members of Parliament. Let us study that. That seems to be more of a legitimate study.

However, it does not fit the Conservative agenda. The Conservative agenda can be best described as character assassination, because the Conservatives have consistently done that. I will continue to argue, whether it is during a late show, question period or concurrence in reports, that the Conservative Party of Canada today under the current leadership is more focused on the internal workings of the Conservative Party, on spreading misinformation through social media and on attacking our institutions. At the end of the day, they do not recognize the genuine interests of Canadians and do not treat issues, like the budget, which is coming up on November 4, and the national school food program, with the respect they deserve. It is hard to say why.

Just so the record shows, the member I was referring to is the member for Lanark—Frontenac. That is the individual. Members should read what he said.

Having said that, with less than a minute to go, here is my recommendation to my Conservative friends opposite. I would suggest that they get out of the Conservative bubble. They do not have to follow what their leader is saying. If he was a little more practical and a bit more reflective of Canadians' interests, they could do that, but he is too far to the right.

My suggestion to you is to look at what your constituents are telling you and start supporting bail reform legislation, Bill C-3 or Bill C-9, and look—

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, and today we are talking about Bill C-12.

For those who do not know what Bill C-12 is, it is the Liberal government's attempt at a do-over of Bill C-2, the border security bill. When Bill C-2 first came out, there was an outcry from the Conservative Party and civil liberties organizations across the country because of the numerous infringements of the Canadian Charter Rights and Freedoms. It would have been violated by Bill C-2, so the government was forced to take out some of these offensive violations.

Part 4 would allow Canada Post to open mail without a warrant. Part 11 would ban cash payments and donations over $10,000. Part 14 would allow warrantless access to Canadians' personal information on reasonable suspicion, which is a very low threshold. Part 15 could compel electronic service providers to re-engineer their platforms to help CSIS and the police access personal information, like a digital snoop.

Part 16 would allow the government to supply financial institutions with personal information if the info was useful for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. Again, if there was a reasonable suspicion, they could get all of someone's financial information. What could possibly go wrong when the Liberal government gets someone's financial information? I think we learned that with the Emergencies Act when the government froze the bank accounts of Canadians. It is no wonder Canadians do not trust the government.

I am happy to see all of these violations of people's civil liberties were taken out in the do-over. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the government continues to go against people's charter rights and freedoms. We see a continual pattern of behaviour with the government. With Bill C-11, it tried to shut down people's freedom of speech. Bill C-18 tried to mess with the freedom of the press. The freedom of religion issue is constantly coming up, with the Liberals trying to remove charitable status from churches and the Canada summer jobs program. We have to get to the details of this bill to make sure no funny business has been snuck in at the last minute. It is clear the government continually wants to take away the freedoms of Canadians.

Some improvements could still be made to this bill, and I want to talk about a few of those. The first one is in part 1. Part 1 would amend the Customs Act to allow the CBSA to use facilities free of charge for enforcement and access to goods for export, as it does for imports. The dilemma for me is that with the size of the fentanyl issue, the crime issues and the lack of security at our borders, there is no limit on how long somebody's warehouse or space could be seized to use for this kind of enforcement. Of course, that would come at the expense of whoever owns a warehouse or storage space.

In border towns like Sarnia, there is not always a lot of space available at the border, so that could be even more far-reaching. The same is true for Windsor and a number of the other border crossings we have. I think some limits should be put on part 1 to make sure we do not unduly burden private businesses.

Second, let us talk about fentanyl. Fentanyl is a huge issue in this country. About 50,000 people have died of overdoses. The RCMP and CSIS have indicated that there are 400 fentanyl superlabs. I do not know whether they are being shut down, but Justin Trudeau said a very small portion of our fentanyl goes to the States. The reality is we really do not know, because shipping containers coming in from China are not being scanned and are going through the port of Vancouver and down to Seattle.

The precursors of fentanyl are not controlled or tracked. We do not know where they are going, so the people synthesizing fentanyl in these 400 superlabs are getting those chemicals from somewhere. One thing I like about the bill is that it adds some controls to traceability so we would know where those chemicals are coming in, where they are going and who is buying them. That would be helpful to the police.

I think we should start doing what other ports in the world do, which is scan all the shipping containers. This is very important not just on the fentanyl issue but on the issue of people stealing cars. We definitely need an upgrade in our scanning capabilities.

One of the difficulties I have with putting laws in place in this country is the lack of enforcement of the rule of law. It is fundamental to our democracy, but the law is not really being enforced. We have people committing crimes in the country who are let out because the Liberals put in place Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. Bill C-75 says that we have to give the least restrictive punishment, which is really bail or a fine, at the earliest opportunity, which is right away. We have people trafficking fentanyl or creating it in these labs, and even if they get arrested, they are back out on bail. Bill C-5 lets them have house arrest. How convenient is that for drug trafficking? They have to stay home, but people can stop by.

We need better enforcement of the law, because we know the Liberals are going to create more laws like Bill C-9, for example, which is supposed to address the rise in hate crimes. There are already laws in this country that could help in that regard. There were 113 Christian churches that burned to the ground. There is a law against arson. It should be enforced. Illegally blocking the streets is against the law, but the police are not enforcing it. Death cries to Canadians and various religions are hate speech. They are against the law. Again, it is about enforcement. As for shooting up schools, stealing cars, home invasions and extortions, we already have laws on the books for these things, but if we are not going to enforce them, we are not going to cure the problem. That is exactly the problem with introducing this border security bill. If there is no enforcement of any of the things in it, then it is absolutely meaningless.

There are immigration measures in the bill, and we need to take action on immigration because it is out of control. Most Canadians would agree with that. We need immigration to build houses and for the nation-building projects we want. We have an aging population. We need more PSWs, nurses and doctors than can graduate from the educational institutions in Canada. We need people to come here and help build the country. I love the idea from our leader of the blue seal program, to take the 50,000 doctors and nurses who already live in Canada and get them accredited so they can help out. It is definitely a great idea.

For the last century, people have come here to work and to help build the country, and we want to continue that. What we do not need is more freeloaders showing up to claim asylum and have the Canadian taxpayer fork out $3,000 to $4,000 a month to put them up in hotels in Niagara Falls. That is more money than we give the seniors who built the country. It is more money than we give to Canadians living with a disability.

Then we see that the majority of these claims, after two or three years of putting these people up, are not eligible after we have spent a huge amount of the taxpayers' money. There are 300,000 of these individuals in the backlog. That is $15 billion a year taken out of the pockets of Canadian taxpayers for people we did not invite here. I think moving the IRCC office to the Toronto Pearson, Montreal and Vancouver airports to hear their claims right on the spot would be good. Then if they are not eligible, the cost of a plane ticket is a lot less than the cost of putting somebody up for three years.

At the same time, we need to reintroduce the fair and compassionate immigration system we had when the Conservatives were in charge, which did security checks so that we were not letting people into the country who were going to cause the kinds of crime and trouble we are sometimes seeing.

I think the immigration measures in the bill will help out. I do not think they go far enough. My colleague from Calgary Nose Hill has done a great job of defining what ought to be done to fix the immigration system we have. I encourage anyone who does not follow her to listen to what she has to say on that subject.

I want to talk a bit about making the border more secure. The Liberals have announced that they are going to hire 1,000 CBSA agents. The announcement was made months ago and nobody has been hired. We hear now that it might be done within five years. That is not the kind of response we need to get security in the budget.

With that, I will take questions.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to speak. I will be speaking to Bill C-12, an act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system. What a laughable title from a government that has made such a mess of both our borders and our immigration system.

Let me talk about the mess the government has made of immigration. I want to share three short stories.

The first is the case of Mr. Khant from earlier this year. He was a permanent resident, originally a citizen of India. He pleaded guilty to attempting an indecent act. That is a bit of a legalistic way of saying that Mr. Khant tried to purchase sexual services from a minor. Unfortunately for Mr. Khant, the person he tried to purchase sexual services from was the Peel Regional Police human trafficking unit, as part of Project Juno. Rather than a jail sentence, Mr. Khant received a conditional discharge. Why would that be? In the words of the court, “Mr. Khant is a permanent resident seeking Canadian citizenship and professional licensing. A conviction would not only delay his citizenship by four years but could also prevent him from sponsoring his wife and obtaining his engineering licence.”

If people commit crimes in Canada and they are not Canadian citizens, they should no longer be in Canada.

Just over two weeks ago, there was the case of Mr. Sajeevan, an Indian citizen in Canada on a student visa. He was a roommate with several others, including several female roommates at a home in Barrie. His bedroom was in the basement beside the laundry room, which was shared by all the residents. The laundry room was beside the bathroom, which was also shared amongst the roommates.

Over a period of many months, Mr. Sajeevan used a peephole in the laundry room to spy on his female roommates in various states of undress. In July of this year, Mr. Sajeevan pleaded guilty to voyeurism, despite some initial agreement on sentencing and some very troubling victim impact statements from those who had been spied upon. The court went on to say, “The emotional and psychological harm caused is palpable...Mr. Sajeevan's offending has had a significant and enduring impact on his victims.” The court called it “more than curiosity; it was sustained predation”.

Despite all that and despite the serious nature of the crime and its effect on its victims, which the court acknowledged, the court went on to accept “serious collateral immigration consequences”. The result was a jail sentence of only five and a half months. Why? That is a bit of a strange number. Why five and a half months, when in fact the court said the proper sentence should be somewhere between six and 12 months?

It was because a jail sentence of six months would have made him inadmissible to Canada. In other words, he would have had to leave Canada if he were to receive a sentence of six months. However, we did not get that because the Liberals have so screwed up our immigration system.

Last is the case of Mr. Biron, a permanent resident from the Philippines. In 2021, over four years ago, he pleaded guilty to sexual assault against a minor and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Beginning in 2022, he was advised that he could be inadmissible to Canada because of the serious nature of his crimes. For over four years, he has fought his deportation. How can it be that a non-citizen who has pleaded guilty to sexual assault against a minor is still in Canada after four years?

Bill C-12, despite being called a fix to our immigration system, does nothing for this. These are not isolated incidents, because we know that, despite the strong border rhetoric and the fix to immigration allegedly coming from the government, we have lost track of hundreds of serious criminals in this country. The cherry on the top of this is that the very minister responsible for our public safety is himself interceding on behalf of members of terrorist organizations.

Let me turn to the border and talk about what a mess the government has made of our borders. Fentanyl, of course, is still making its way into Canada. In fact, earlier this year, in the town of Georgina, in my riding of York—Durham, the York Regional Police broke up the largest drug trafficking ring in our town's history, under Project Madruga, through which 1400 grams of fentanyl were discovered. To put that into perspective, two milligrams is enough to kill a human adult. The York Regional Police said that they had never seen a drug trafficking problem or ring of this size or scope in Georgina.

The government promised during the election to hire 1,000 new border officers, but we have discovered that was just another empty Liberal promise. More than six months later, they have hired only a few dozen and, in fact, do not have a plan to hire any more. The CBSA says that it has turnover of between 600 and 700 officers a year, so even at normal speeds, it would take over five years to hire 1,000 new officers. The Minister of Public Safety himself admitted in an interview that it would take five years to hire 1,000 new officers, and that is not even talking about the backlog and vacancies the CBSA has. The Customs and Immigration Union says there is a 3,000-officer vacancy rate and shortage on the border force.

Last, I want to talk about civil liberties because, for all these messes, whether it is the mess on the border or the mess in our immigration system, for some reason, it seems the Liberals' response is always to attack our liberty. The monstrosity that is Bill C-2, from which Bill C-12 emerged, is just one more example of the pattern of the Liberal disregard for the freedoms and liberties of Canadians.

To be clear, I want to make a point that our freedoms, my freedoms and everyone's freedoms in Canada do not emanate from Parliament or princes. We have freedom and liberty, because we are made in God's image and are human beings endowed with those by our creator, but Bill C-2 remains before the House. It would allow law enforcement to snoop on Canadians without judicial authorization. It would allow Canada Post to open mail without a warrant. As a lawyer, I know that a warrant is a basic protection that we, as normal, average citizens, have fought for hundreds of years to maintain to protect us from the arbitrary power of the state.

Bill C-2 is not the only attack on liberties that Canadians have endured under this government. Bill C-8, which we have discussed, would give unprecedented power to the government to kick Canadians off the Internet, on “reasonable grounds” in respect of “any threat”. What is “any threat”? I have been here for just over six months, and I have already been accused several times, by members from the opposite side, of spreading misinformation because they do not like my opinion. Am I now a “threat” to the government, and will I be kicked off the Internet? There would be no warrant, no trial and no due process.

Another example is Bill C-9, which has more unprecedented power for the police to control and to police speech on the Internet. Over all, it seems like, of the legislation the Liberals have introduced thus far, the majority trample on our liberties as Canadians.

This is the Liberals' pattern. They might have a new leader and call themselves a new government, but they exhibit all of the same habits as they had before. Whether it is with Bill C-2, Bill C-8, Bill C-9 or now Bill C-12, it seems for every societal problem, there is another Liberal bill ready to erode our freedom, my freedom and the liberty of all Canadians.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am so surprised to receive that question. I think I explained it to the member during my last two speeches on government legislation.

The Liberals violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they imposed the Emergencies Act, sections 2 and 8. That is not me, but Justice Mosley of the Federal Court who found that. I would love to hear the member apologize for that violation.

Bill C-8, Bill C-9 and Bill C-2 also violate our charter. I am not going to let it get through the net.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-12. This is the fourth time I am speaking to a piece of government legislation in this Parliament.

For the first time, I think it is the story of the bill rather than its content that I find most interesting. I apologize to those following at home if it seems a little bit like inside baseball, but in every Parliament, the government introduces bills and numbers them sequentially. After the pro forma throne speech, Bill C-1, came Bill C-2. The present bill, Bill C-12, is the parts of Bill C-2 that had to be salvaged from the flaming dumpster fire of that original piece of legislation. It is as though the Liberals set their own legislative agenda on fire and the Conservatives had to comb through the charred remains to find something salvageable. What an embarrassment it is for the government.

The new Prime Minister ran on his expertise in government, having spent most of his career as a bureaucrat. He had been waiting in the wings for 10 years to plant his legislative agenda. Do members opposite remember when he was asked if he would ever become prime minister? He said, “Why don’t I become a circus clown?” Well, now he has. He has beclowned himself.

Bill C-2 is the very first piece of legislation that the Prime Minister's government introduced, and it had to be split up in this manner. What an embarrassment that is.

Why did it need to be split up? It is because the forefather of Bill C-12 contained clauses that were so howlingly bad that no one on either side of the House, nor from any coast in this country, could bring themselves to defend it.

Bill C-2 includes a provision that would allow the police to ask a doctor, without a warrant, if their services had ever been used by an individual. This is reprehensible. I am a physician; frankly, this does not just offend me as a Canadian and as a person, but it offends my whole profession. It would violate not just our Charter of Rights and Freedoms but the Hippocratic oath. If a member opposite or their child went to see a doctor who specializes in addictions, mental health, sexually transmitted diseases or reproductive medicine, on what possible planet would they think it was appropriate for the police to ask that physician to disclose them as a client?

Again, I suspect members opposite are getting ready to say that I am somehow being outlandish in my interpretation of their proposed law. Here, once again, I will read them their own darned bill.

In part 14, clause 158, it reads:

A peace officer or public officer may make a demand...to a person who provides services to the public requiring the person to provide, in the form, manner and time specified in the demand, the following information:

(a) whether the person provides or has provided services to any subscriber or client

This is bananas. This is, once again, a Chinese Communist Party level of state overreach.

Once again, if the Liberals do not trust my interpretation of their legislation, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's interpretation or the Canadian Constitution Foundation's interpretation, will they believe their own public safety minister, the one who introduced the legislation? He was quoted in The Globe and Mail in an October 9 article by Marie Woolf, entitled “Public Safety Minister says he wants to push through refined warrantless...powers to help police”. She wrote that the Minister of Public Safety acknowledged that the “provisions in Bill C-2, the original strong borders bill, [allowing police to ask a] doctor without a warrant” if their services had been used by someone, constituted “overreach”.

This is not the first time the Minister of Public Safety has had to throw the Minister of Public Safety under the bus. Who could forget that, just last month, he told his tenant that his own gun confiscation program was a bad idea that he did not support? I would love to believe that it is merely incompetence over there. It is incompetence; it is just not “merely” incompetence.

I am a physician. I do not sign prescriptions that I have not read. I do not give out prescriptions that I do not believe in, because prescriptions are important documents and I have a professional duty to read them. On the other side of the House, we have a Liberal minister who seems not to read the legislation that he tries to pass in the House. On other occasions, he executes a gun grab he does not believe in. This sort of conduct would not be tolerated from any physician in this country. I dare say it would not be tolerated from any professional under any professional body in this country. Why does the Prime Minister tolerate it from one of the highest office-holders in this land?

As I said, it is not merely incompetence over there. I take it that the public safety minister did not write the legislation, but someone did. I want to know who, because this is not a one-off oopsy doopsy in which a junior staffer wrote a law that would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is a clear pattern with the government.

The last three pieces of government legislation that I have debated in the House, Bill C-8, Bill C-9 and now Bill C-12 have involved significant power grabs by the Prime Minister. I want to know why.

Bill C-8 would allow the Liberals to kick people off the Internet without a warrant. Bill C-9 would allow the Liberals to police speech on the Internet. Bill C-12, in its previous iteration as Bill C-2, would not only violate patient-physician confidentiality but also allow the government to read letter mail without a warrant.

What is going on over there? Why is the Liberals' response to every conceivable social problem to violate our charter rights? Who is writing the legislation?

I know that as soon as I am done, the member for Winnipeg North will ask why we do not fix this at committee, to which I would say, yes, we are going to have to, but every member in this House should be protecting charter rights. The committee should not be the goalie. The Conservatives should not be the goalie. The Liberals should not be trying to get charter violations past the Conservative goalies. They are the Liberals. They are supposed to believe in liberty. I am honestly starting to wonder if they even know what their party's name means anymore.

Here is the Encyclopædia Britannica entry on “liberalism”:

political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty.

Do the members opposite see themselves at all in this definition today? It has been six months since I was elected to this House, and not once, in between their power grabs, have I heard them make even passing reference to individual liberty or to the fact that the government itself can threaten that liberty.

Conservatives seek to conserve our liberty. Liberals are supposed to seek to expand our liberty. However, this is three times in six months they have tried to get one past us. I am asking them honestly to reflect on this. Are they even Liberals anymore, or have they become something darker? How is it that they have betrayed the Liberal tradition again and again in this House?

I would ask the Liberal backbenchers, in particular, if this is what they signed up to do when they took out a Liberal Party membership and if the Prime Minister's Office ran any of it by them before it tried to ram it through the House. Why do they not do the right thing and withdraw Bill C-2 entirely instead of trying to get it passed piecemeal?

One piece of Bill C-2, Bill C-12, is going to go to committee, but we must not forget the omnibus monstrosity from which it came. We must not forget the questions of competence that the story of Bill C-12 raises, and we must also not look away from the authoritarian tendencies of the so-called Liberals that this story reveals.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague says, we campaigned on a promise to make our communities safer. This requires a series of measures, including legislation such as Bill C‑12 on border security and Bill C‑9 on hate crimes. It also includes our upcoming bail reform, investments to hire more RCMP officers, and strategies, including the one announced yesterday about combatting online fraud.

When we talk about making our communities safer, we are not just spouting slogans. We are delivering investments, concrete measures and bills and taking a holistic approach to improving safety for Canadians.

Justice

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-9 is currently before the Standing Committee on Justice. The Bloc Québécois is free to make proposals regarding this bill and we invite its members to do so.

We will hear from experts on this issue and we are ready to work with the Bloc Québécois and all parties in the House to ensure, once again, that hate speech has no place in our country.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I have said it before and I will say it again: Hate speech has no place in Canada. The Minister of Justice has offered to work with the Bloc Québécois on reforms that are before the House as part of Bill C-9.

We are prepared to work with the Bloc Québécois to improve the situation and ensure that hate speech has no place in this country.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I think those of us on this side of the House share the Bloc Québécois leader's concern. Hate speech has no place in Canada. That is why the Minister of Justice introduced amendments in Bill C‑9 specifically to address hate.

In the last Parliament, we introduced a bill on online hate. We will keep working to ensure that hate speech has no place in Canada.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the bill on online hate speech that we introduced during the last Parliament, Bill C-9, which is currently being studied in the House and will be debated in the coming weeks, contains a provision that specifically addresses the issue of hate speech.

The federal government is very proactive on this issue and will continue to be.

Military Justice System Modernization Act

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, something I took very much to heart from the hon. member's comments is the Liberal government's failure with regard to the justice system, specifically on bail and sentencing reform.

At the justice committee, we did a bit of math. We noticed that, in the last 557 days, the only two pieces of justice legislation the government brought forward have been the online harms act and Bill C-9. That is it. We have a crisis on the streets of Toronto. The government is not willing to get serious about the crime and chaos on our streets.

Canadian Heritage

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to rise in this House once again and ask the government a question that it has not been all that forthright in answering: What, precisely, are its plans when it comes to its long-standing desire to censor what Canadians see, say and do on the Internet?

Not that long ago in this House, I asked the Minister of Canadian Identity what he was planning to do. Actually, I asked him if he would cop to the fact that he was the minister tasked with online censorship, given that there seemed to be some doubt and some examples of Liberal ministers clamouring over precisely who got to take up that honour.

I need to give a bit of a history lesson for those who have not been following this. For the last two Parliaments, the Liberals have tried to bring in draconian online censorship bills. They tried it in the 43rd Parliament and failed; they tried it in the 44th Parliament and failed. Now, both the justice minister and the Minister of Canadian Identity have said that this still remains a very live priority.

When it comes to online censorship, the Liberals are saying, “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.” What Canadians are saying is to take the loss and sit down. Canadians do not want the government to regulate online speech; they do not trust the government to do it.

We are already seeing with Bill C-9 that the Liberals reduced the threshold of what constitutes hate speech. We have seen them, in that bill, water down a definition that has been working in criminal law in Canada.

Bill C-63 in the most recent Parliament, the online harms act, went far beyond this. Bill C-63 would empower the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to prosecute Canadians for saying things that offended people online. The Liberals were bringing back a much maligned and, I am grateful to say, formerly repealed section of the Canadian Human Rights Act, section 13. That is what is at issue when we talk about so-called “online harms.”

I have no doubt that tonight the parliamentary secretary to the minister will talk about all the examples of why this is so necessary, but the reality is that condemnation of the Liberal government's online harms proposals has come from left and right. It has come from civil liberties groups on the left and right, and it has come from Canadian luminaries such as Margaret Atwood, who I do not believe would ever align herself with those of us on this side of the bench, because Canadian free speech advocates, Canadian artists, scholars and journalists all realize the importance of being able to speak one's mind without the government weaponizing a definition of hate to censor what Canadians do.

I bring this up now because when I asked the minister the first time around, he started talking about Google trying to give money to pacify the government when it comes to local journalism initiatives. The minister was mixing up the many online censorship bills the Liberal government has put forward. I realize there have been a lot of them; it is tough to keep on top of them. I was not asking him about Bill C-11, which forced the government to mandate YouTube algorithms and streaming. I was not talking about Bill C-18, which the government used to ultimately pull local news and all journalism off the Facebook and Instagram platforms in Canada. I was talking specifically about online harms, a term that the government uses to cloak what it is doing in something that may make someone who does not pay attention to these issues feel that it is a good thing. In reality, it has no other objective but to reduce what is acceptable and permissible in the bounds of debate and free society.

I am asking the government, once and for all, will it commit to taking its so-called online harms censorship bill out of the playbook and not censor what Canadians say and do online?