Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Members, it's a pleasure to be here with you today to discuss the combatting hate act, Bill C-9.
Just to set the table.... One of the things I think we need to reflect upon as Canadians is that it's a great promise of this country that we have the ability to live freely, regardless of the colour of our skin, the god we pray to or the person we love. Sadly, too many Canadians are robbed of these basic freedoms, not necessarily by operation of law but, too often, by virtue of being subjected to hate in their communities.
One of the great promises we made as a country is that we would allow the citizens of Canada to live their lives freely. Unfortunately, many people face discrimination and hate.
This is a problem in Canada that's worsened, particularly since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it manifests itself in very painful and very human ways.
When you have the opportunity to talk to people who face discrimination.... Let's be specific; it's not just discrimination. There are firebombs on our synagogues. There are desecrations of our National Holocaust Monument. We have seen far too many people feel unsafe to practise their faith.
Although we've seen a troubling rise in anti-Semitism, it's not limited to any one particular faith. I have had the opportunity to speak with members of the Muslim community, the Christian community, the Hindu community and the Sikh community, who tell me the great pain they go through when they're unable to live their lives freely, be who they are and practise their faith in public.
It doesn't take long, when you start to have conversations with communities who are subjected to hate, to realize that it's not restricted to the religious context. When I talk to members of the queer community, they tell me that, of course, it's painful if they personally have been subjected to hate.
However, when we read the newspapers, we see that there is a lot of concern out there.
There are people who shared with me that they fear to even hold their loved one's hand for fear they may be subjected to violence in their communities.
It's important that we do more than offer our words, thoughts and prayers to people who have been subjected to hate, often violent acts of hate. That brings us to Bill C-9. We, of course, in the recent federal election campaign, made a commitment to add new offences to the Criminal Code, specifically to protect the ability, primarily, for people to participate in activities at their religious institutions—the buildings, churches, mosques, synagogues and mandirs.
It's important that we realize that hate is not limited to the doorsteps of our religious institutions. Though this bill includes the criminalization of intimidation and obstruction of those who would attend the buildings or structures designed for identifiable groups, we've decided to go beyond that initial commitment and introduce a stand-alone crime of hate. This is meant to recognize that hate is throughout our communities—in our parks, in our streets, on our university campuses and in our grocery stores.
As to the way this particular charge will operate, it will lay over existing criminal offences to recognize that there is an enhanced moral culpability when you commit a crime against a person on the basis of who they are. It also recognizes that it is not just the individual victim who suffers consequences when they face an act of hate. The impact reverberates throughout the entirety of a particular community, causing people to have extraordinarily difficult and traumatic experiences on the basis of the immutable characteristics with which they were born.
In addition to the intimidation and obstruction offence and this new stand-alone crime of hate, we've established an additional criminal offence—the wilful promotion of hate through the use of hate symbols. Of course, the wilful promotion of hate is an existing crime today, but this recognizes that sometimes the tool you use to commit a crime worsens the impact on the victim and, in this instance, on the entirety of a given community.
Beyond the specific measures we included among these new offences, we also heard loud and clear from law enforcement and from communities who have been subjected to hate that charges are not often laid. We know that there were just shy of 5,000 hate crimes reported in 2023, the last year for which I've seen complete data. We expect that the number is much, much larger.
We've heard very clearly that there are difficulties when it comes to understanding clarity in the definition and also with the administrative process. For that reason, we've added clarifying language to codify the definition of hate and remove the requirement for the consent of the attorney general.
I do not have much time to continue the conversation, but I do hope that you will have the opportunity to commit to studying Bill C‑9, which is very important for protecting minority communities and allowing all Canadians to live their lives freely in every community across our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.