Andrew Lawton
Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“They will claim full coverage, as we see across southwestern Ontario in particular, when everyone who lives there knows that is just a joke. I thank my colleague across the aisle from Compton—Stanstead for introducing this very important discussion. I have actually spent some time in her riding in the past, and I know it is very rural.”
“I want to see us identify ways to ensure accuracy in telecom coverage maps in rural Canada, but I also want to see us fix and expand those areas where we know the coverage is not there.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege, as always, to rise and speak on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. It is a particular privilege to speak to a bill such as this one, which speaks directly to one of the most persistent concerns I hear from people in the rural communities in my riding, scattered across Elgin County…”
“We still have the same problem, which is that we have people looking to a new technology, but that not solving the problem, which is applicable to not just the farmers in my riding, but all the people who live in these rural communities who want to work in these communities, want to study in these communities and, as my colleague for Aval…”
“As technology evolves, we see farmers incorporating more and more technology into their work that requires cellular connectivity, especially if they are out in the field, far from the Wi-Fi routers they may have in their homes or, increasingly, in their barns.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. It is with great pride and pleasure that I present a petition on behalf of representatives of the Elgin County Drowning Prevention Coalition, including Briar McCaw, Linda King and Nathan MacIntyre of the RIP Current Information Project.”
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“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I agree that no family should have to go without healthy, affordable, fresh food. Why is a school food program necessary, in the government's eyes, after 10 years of the Liberals?”
“Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the hon. parliamentary secretary, he may have been getting his talking points mixed up. I was asking about grocery store prices. I was not asking about new home construction, which is a very important issue. If we had more time, we could talk about other areas in which the Liberal government has failed to serve the needs of Canadians. However, I was asking about food costs. I was asking when the government is going to stop pretending that there are not regulations and taxes embedded in the prices of groceries that Canadians are forced to pay. This remains a live issue, but since the parliamentary secretary wants to talk about everything other than that, I will latch on to one thing he mentioned, which is the school food program.”
“My question for the government is very simple: Will the Liberals stop their gaslighting and get serious about reducing costs for Canadians at the grocery store?”
“We know that people are skipping meals because they cannot afford the grocery store hauls they used to. Is this the new normal? Is this what Canadians are going to be forced to contend with? We have not seen from the government anything resembling a plan. In fact, when we talk about very real, very demonstrable driving factors that push up the cost of food, the Liberals try to gaslight Canadians and say they do not exist. They try to say there are no clean fuel standards that make it more costly to move goods around. They are saying there are no costs to the packaging requirements. The government is gaslighting Canadians, and in doing so, it is ignoring that it has access to mechanisms and solutions that we are happy to give them and that would make life more affordable for Canadians and reduce prices at the grocery store.”
“We do know, contrary to what I am sure the parliamentary secretary is going to say tonight, that there are a number of hidden taxes on food costs in this country, including the industrial carbon tax, which actually taxes the producers of food, which then trickles downstream to consumers; and regulations on plastics and packaging, which make it more expensive for producers and packagers of food, and then that gets passed along to consumers. These are hidden taxes on groceries that, along with other inflationary pressures, are driving up for Canadians the cost of buying groceries. I have heard from constituents who have had to make difficult choices from week to week about whether they fill up their car so they can get to work or whether they buy groceries.”
“We know that grocery store food prices have risen by a staggering 40% since the Liberals took power. Now there is a report from Food Banks Canada showing that hunger is being “normalized”, which is a word from the experts. Now food bank usage for Canadian families has not become something that is an extreme situation or just a temporary stopgap; rather, it is part of what life is for them. That is a tragedy; it is a crisis, one that has been aggravated and exacerbated by Liberal government policy.”
“We are building homes and building projects in the national interest, with Canadian lumber, Canadian steel and Canadian unionized workers.” I am not sure what the affordability plan for groceries is, but I do not believe Canadians are going to be eating Canadian lumber. I do not believe Canadians are going to be eating Canadian steel. I certainly hope they are not going to be eating Canadian unionized workers. The government, in its response, did not even address groceries or food costs, and I understand why. I know full well why the government is not interested in talking about grocery prices, because it would have to acknowledge what has happened to them on the Liberal government's watch. We know that food bank usage is up 142% since 2015.”
“Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to rise in the House not long ago to ask the government what it was doing about what has very clearly become a crisis that has made it so that Canadians cannot afford food. We know that food bank usage across the country is experiencing record highs. Food banks all over have huge demands, including in my riding, where the St. Thomas Elgin Food Bank will have to feed 30,000 mouths this year. This is the third straight year of record increases. I asked the government about this, and I am going to quote directly from the Secretary of State for Labour , who responded. He said, “We are going to be building.”
“Mr. Speaker, if this is what the Liberals see as an exceptional job, I would hate to see what they view as poor work. With 3,000 workers in Brampton, 1,200 in Ingersoll, 700 in Oshawa and 300 in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, that is the Liberal record of just a few weeks. The Prime Minister promised he would protect auto jobs. I wish he had been more honest and said that he meant in the United States. The Liberals have handed out billions of dollars in subsidies with no job guarantees for Canadian workers. Last night, the Prime Minister told Canadians we would have to make sacrifices. We already are, and it is not clear for what. When will he do his job and stop selling out Canadian workers?”
“Mr. Speaker, the retooling of the CAMI plant at Ingersoll was supposed to be a great success. Taxpayers kicked in hundreds of millions of dollars. The finance minister said this was “proof that Canada’s auto sector is here for the long term.” Now, 1,200 of the plant's hard-working employees, many of them in St. Thomas, Elgin and London, are out of work. This is all despite the Prime Minister pledging a deal with Trump by July to protect Canadian auto jobs. Today he says there will not be a deal at all. Auto workers' lives and livelihoods were on the line. Why did the Prime Minister dupe them?”
“Mr. Speaker, it has been rather enjoyable sitting in the chamber today. If we did not hear one of the Liberal member's questions, we can be assured they will ask it again five minutes later, maybe changing a word here or there. I enjoy how the member for Winnipeg North , in particular, continues to talk about the RCMP. I want to ask my colleague from northern Alberta if she agrees with the president of the RCMP union, Brian Sauvé, who said the Liberal government's gun grab will be “ineffective” at reducing gun violence. Would she agree with the RCMP, which has been very vocal in criticizing the government's approach to firearms regulations?”
“Mr. Speaker, I find this line of questioning from the government quite interesting. I will quote a member of this chamber who, when speaking about the RCMP, said, “there is systemic racism within its ranks”. That was the member for Winnipeg North in September 2024. Are the Liberals no longer convinced that the police are worthy of criticism now? I would be curious for my colleague to address that.”
“Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague had a blockbuster of a speech. She has been in this chamber for a long enough time that she can perhaps understand the member for Winnipeg North better than I, as a new member of Parliament, can, but it strikes me as odd that he insists on such urgency for this legislation, when the reason for the delay on Bill C-12 is that the Liberal government was trying to go after Canadian civil liberties with Bill C-2 by allowing the warrantless searches of mail, the surveillance of electronic equipment and the banning of large cash transactions. I am hoping the member could speak to whether it is, in fact, the Liberals who have obstructed very real border security measures, on which we would have loved to co-operate with the government if it had presented them.”
“That is enough of the bloviating from the government about how it is going to be the saviour of the problem it created. Will it repeal the principle of restraint, yes or no?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is rich for a representative of the party that claims it wants to rein in and regulate misinformation to peddle so much of it in such a short period of time. I have only a minute, so I will say that the law enforcement officials whom the parliamentary secretary claims to be respecting are the ones who have been sounding the alarm about what the last 10 years of Liberal policy have done to handcuff them and prevent them from doing their jobs as effectively as they want. The greatest respect in the House for law enforcement comes from Conservatives, who have been calling members of law enforcement across the country to the justice committee. They have all been saying the same thing, which is that the Liberal government has failed them and, by extension, has failed Canadians.”
“Therefore, my question for the government is this: Will it, once and for all, put public safety first and repeal the principle of restraint to fix Liberal bail?”
“This Criminal Code provision says that they must be released at the earliest opportunity and under the least onerous conditions. There is no meaningful bail reform if the Liberal government does not commit to repealing the principle of restraint. That is the commitment that Canadians, who are looking at rampant criminality on their streets, deserve to hear from the Liberal government. The reason this is so important is that crime has victims. Even non-violent crime, property crime, is a menace to communities. Businesses are dealing with the consequences of people addicted to drugs; those people absolutely deserve treatment and support, but this cannot come at the expense of looking at public safety as the first priority.”
“I have no doubt that the Minister of Justice has sent a representative to address these questions with a prepared statement. No doubt the government will talk about the forthcoming bail legislation it has been promising for months. However, the more we learn about it, the more we learn that it does not deal with the root of the problem. It does not undo the principle of restraint that the Liberal government embedded in the Criminal Code in Bill C-75 , which is a provision that law enforcement officials have told us has directly caused the early releases of repeat, often violent offenders and, yes, drug traffickers on bail. They have told us this, by the way, every week as we investigate this at the justice committee.”
“We know that since 2015, there have been tens of thousands of opioid deaths, with a 255% increase since the Liberals took office. We know the Liberal government has rejected Conservative proposals to treat fentanyl kingpins as the mass murderers they are. When I first rose to ask this question of the justice minister , the public health officials in my riding had released an advisory saying that carfentanil, a substance multiple times more fatal than fentanyl, was being found by authorities with greater frequency in the community of St. Thomas and the surrounding areas. People are dying, and the people responsible are walking free. We cannot look at this issue in isolation from the other crime and justice issues that have been allowed to fester under the Liberal government.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South to ask the government once again to address a critical issue facing communities not just in my riding but across the country, which is the rampant lawlessness that exists on streets across this wonderful nation. Specifically, we are talking about drugs and people who are responsible for unleashing vast quantities of lethal, toxic drugs, yet still find themselves able to partake in the revolving-door bail system the Liberal government has allowed to blossom over the last 10 years. Just to set the scene, I want to give a couple of very staggering statistics. We know that fentanyl accounts for nearly two-thirds of opioid fatalities in Canada.”
“Will the parliamentary secretary clear things up right now and say that section 13 of the Canadian Human Right Act, under the so-called online harms guise, will not be coming back and censoring Canadian speech online?”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for what I am assuming was intended to be a response to the question. The Conservatives have zero objection to cracking down hard on online child sexual exploitation, and I hope the government will support the bill of the member for Calgary Signal Hill taking aim at that. However, the Liberal government, in Bill C-36 and Bill C-63 , lumped that in with its Orwellian anti-free speech censorship laws to do exactly what the parliamentary secretary is doing right now, which is to say that if we do not trust the government to weaponize the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal with a lower murky threshold for so-called hate speech, we are therefore okay with child sexual exploitation, which we are not.”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise to present to this House a petition by Canadians concerned with what has become of the MAID system in Canada. There is a grave concern, which these petitioners express, that allowing medical assistance in dying for people who are not already dying devalues their lives; it endorses the notion that life with a disability is optional and, by extension, dispensable. These petitioners are very alarmed that when MAID is offered because of a lack of available service or treatment, it is not actually a real choice. What the petitioners are seeking is that we protect all Canadians whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable by not having MAID available for those who do not have a natural death coming within the next six months.”
“while saying that Liberal anti-energy laws are making it impossible to do it here. Every time the Prime Minister faces Trump, he backs down: no deals, no progress, just more pain for Canadian workers.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is off to Washington today. Once again he is wheels up but elbows down. Remember when he promised to negotiate a win with Donald Trump by July 21? Well, since he took office, U.S. tariffs on Canada have doubled, thousands of jobs have been lost and Canada has the second-highest unemployment rate in the G7. Businesses in St. Thomas, Elgin and London are still seeing no end in sight to the trade uncertainty. If this is a win, I would hate to see a loss. However, the Prime Minister is not the only one heading to the United States; so are investors. We have lost nearly $54 billion in investment since he took office. Stellantis is pausing production in Ontario while investing $10 billion in the United States. Enbridge is building pipelines in the U.S.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to my colleague from Oxford for his work on this. When he was talking about the Bailey McCourt case, there was some groaning from the Liberal side of the aisle, which is very offensive to us, as it is to all victims of crime and their families, especially when we know that tangible changes in law could improve the situation and legitimately save lives. My colleague's riding of Oxford is right next to mine, and there are a lot of rural communities in it, as there are in mine. We have seen, in these rural communities, a decline in feelings of safety and security. Could the member speak to that, what that means and what the bill would do for them?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is my great privilege to present to the House a petition from concerned Canadians who are alarmed by the finance committee's pre-budget submission and recommendation that the government revoke charitable status from houses of worship and organizations that have a pro-life position. The petitioners are very alarmed by this encroachment on Canadians' religious freedoms and freedom of conscience. Religious institutions offer a range of philanthropic initiatives, and faith itself is invaluable to Canadians. The petitioners want religious freedoms to be protected and for the government to keep its hands off the charitable status of faith-based organizations.”
“Mr. Speaker, we can go through the list, although not in the time we have tonight, and look at all the models that have been prohibited by the government and are used by hunters or, in some cases, by hobbyists. I will mention one firearm in particular. I do not know if the word translates well into French, but it is called the Plinkster. “Plinking” refers to shooting tin cans as a hobby. A model of the Plinkster, a .22-calibre rifle, has been put on the Liberal government's prohibition list. It has never been used in a shooting in Canada, mass or otherwise. I will ask the public safety minister's parliamentary secretary a simple question: Should the owner of a Plinkster who does not sell his firearm to the government be arrested and jailed?”
“I asked the Prime Minister why he has not fired the public safety minister , who does not even know what a firearms licence is, does not even know what the Canadian firearms safety course is and does not know the classifications of firearms but thinks he somehow has the credibility to tell Canadian gun owners who are vetted and trained that they should turn over their property to the government. Therefore I ask the government, when will it drop the pretense, drop the facade, get rid of this sham of a buyback and go after real criminals, not law-abiding hunters and sport shooters?”
“Even if we take at face value that it will cost three-quarters of a billion dollars, that is money that could be going towards beefing up law enforcement. It is money that could be going towards beefing up the border to cause us to be better able to intercept illegal firearms coming from the U.S., the firearms that genuinely end up in violent street crime in Toronto, Surrey and other communities across the country. There were police experts before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights last week, who were very candid, as candid as the Minister of Public Safety is when he does not know he is being recorded. They said there will be not minimal but zero effect on gun crime when the gun confiscation scheme goes forward.”
“It was not a spree that would have been prevented by the very measures the Liberal government introduced in the days that followed. The reason I bring this up is that the last time I spoke to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety about firearms, he invoked that tragedy to justify the Liberal government's gun confiscation scheme, a scheme that by its very design targets only law-abiding gun owners, because the criminals in this country are not the ones who will be lining up to turn over their illegal firearms to the government, regardless of whether there is any compensation. What we have here is something the government says will cost three-quarters of a billion dollars. By the way, with Liberal math, I believe we need to triple it and add 50% or something to get somewhere close to the real number.”
“Of course, when he is called on this in the House of Commons, he retreats back to the Liberal talking points that I am sure his parliamentary secretary will give us this evening. . I want to ask a very fundamental question about the buyback, because we know that the order in council prohibited what was at first over 1,500 models of firearms, many of them used quite regularly and quite routinely for hunting, some of them obsolete and non-existent in the Canadian market. The order in council, which launched the prohibition that has justified the so-called buyback, came after a tragedy in Canada, a killing spree in Portapique, Nova Scotia, to which every sensible, reasonable person in this country would respond with disgust and horror. The problem is that it was not a spree that involved legally owned firearms.”
“Mr. Speaker, I should probably say, on behalf of Canadian firearms owners and on behalf of the Conservatives, how grateful I am to the Minister of Public Safety for telling the truth about the Liberal government's sham of a buyback. Unfortunately he has not been so candid in the House of Commons when he knows the cameras and the microphones are rolling, but when he was speaking with a constituent, a tenant, an ordinary Canadian raising very legitimate concerns, he said that it is a waste of time. It is a waste of money. It is not going to go after the causes of gun crime in this country, which has run rampant after 10 years of Liberal government and mismanagement of the justice file.”
“Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague has had the opportunity, as I have, to take in some of the debate so far. We have heard the Liberals accuse Conservatives of being conspiracy theorists for raising very legitimate questions about freedom of expression, which by the way have been raised by civil society groups on the left and the right in the last few days. I want to ask my hon. colleague this: Has he heard from the Liberals, in their questions on the issue and in their own interventions, any explanation of how the legislation would differ from the powers that are already on the books when it comes to hate exhibited through hate symbols or through intimidation or obstruction, and in general from the stand-alone hate charge, which the Criminal Code already looks at as an aggravating factor?”
“Mr. Speaker, the question from our delightful colleague from Winnipeg seemed to indicate that the Liberal government, which put forward the bill, believes that there are no redundancies built into the bill and that the things they are criminalizing are not already covered by existing law. I want to ask my hon. colleague about this, because we know that intimidation is already a crime and threats are already a crime. We have several sections of the Criminal Code that would already apply to the very scenario the Liberals are claiming needs a new section. I am wondering what the member makes of that and of the fact that the Liberals do not even seem to understand the laws they are trying to amend.”
“Mr. Speaker, I do not need much time to say what I have already said, because I do not think the member was listening, which is that we need to enforce the existing laws where they already cover what is happening in this country on hate, but, moreover, we cannot allow the Liberal government to sneak into law a lower threshold for defining “hate” that will be used to curb free expression in this country.”
“Mr. Speaker, that is indeed one of the glaring issues with this. The parts of the bill that there is no objection to by me or my colleagues are about things that are already illegal in Canada, making this redundant in a lot of ways. I pointed to a recent case where someone was charged for displaying a hate symbol under existing hate laws. I have to draw attention to the fact that not half an hour ago, I pointed this out to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice , a lawyer herself, and she had no idea. She had no answer. The Liberals have not prepared for the most basic challenging of this. What else have they not investigated on their own legislation?”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his commitment to interrogating what is not in this bill. The reason I raised what I did about the lack of stiff penalties for people who assault places of worship in heinous ways is that this is not theoretical or hypothetical. We see it happening, sadly, on a regular basis in this country, and it is not covered by this proposed Liberal law. Liberals in the past have been endorsing or rationalizing some of these assaults on churches. This is an important discussion, and I want to see real action on real hate, not lowering the threshold on how we define it.”
“Mr. Speaker, I wish the member had spent less time working on what he thought was a zinger and more time listening to my speech, in which I detailed in excruciating and, I will argue, painful detail the real hate that is occurring against Christians and the Jewish community. I mentioned the firebombing of synagogues and shootings at Jewish schools. By the way, the member should be well aware that the Jewish community has looked at the Liberal government and has been absolutely ashamed to be represented by people who have cozied up to the very people who are responsible for Jew hatred in this country. I do not take any cues from the member, who wants to accuse Conservatives standing up for freedom of being conspiracy theorists. He should be ashamed of that.”
“It does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on protecting charter liberties. It does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on any of the problems that it has been instrumental in either allowing to fester or, in some cases, in causing outright. In Bill C-9 , the good is already done by additional laws. The bad should be a warning sign. The Liberals should be very ashamed of trying to sneak this through the back door with a lower threshold for hate in a country that needs to protect and double down on free expression.”
“It is no coincidence that hate crimes have risen as Canada has become less discerning and more reckless in its handling of the immigration system. This is a crisis of the Liberals' creation. I do not trust those who caused the problem to solve it. I think that all people who may agree with the motivation behind this bill should be very cautious about handing over this level of power to the Liberals, when they have already demonstrated where they want to go. They have already demonstrated what they want to do. I will return to another quote by former chief justice McLachlin. She says: [It] is not to say that it is always illegitimate for governments to curtail expression, but government attempts to do so must...be viewed with suspicion. The Liberal government does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on hate.”
“To be fair, we cannot confront the hatred that exists in Canada and in Canadian society without acknowledging some of the root causes of it. The crisis of hate is a direct consequence of 10 years of divisive Liberal identity politics and the reckless breaking of the immigration system by the Liberal government. We cannot talk about hate without talking about the breaking of the immigration system that has resulted in the importation of foreign conflicts, and, in some cases, very hateful ideologies into the country. Much of this happened under the watch of the justice minister who tabled the bill. He was the immigration minister who looked at the first six years of Justin Trudeau's government and how immigration was bungled there and said, “Do not worry; I can do worse”, and he did.”