Roman Baber
York Centre, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, part 2 of Bill C‑22 would force providers to retain the metadata of all Canadians. Liberals say the data is no different than the phone book, but the phone book did not log every phone call in every location of every Canadian for the last 12 months.”
“They are heckling me because they cannot handle what they are doing here. I welcome their heckling. I wear it as a badge of honour. The only thing the Liberals would do is eliminate the religious defence to an allegation of hate speech, and it is all because the Bloc says a guy named Charkaoui was not charged for calling for the extermina…”
“The Liberals wanted to eliminate the Attorney General's ability to consent to prosecutions. They realized how bad an idea it was and rolled it back. They wanted to redefine the term “hatred”. It is a definition that the Supreme Court used for 40 years. I am proud of this.”
“For example, people could violate the digital safety act or the human rights code, and that may attract criminal prosecution. The Liberals are turning our democracy into a banana republic. (1155) Earlier, I heard the member for Whitby ask my colleague why she is opposed to a new hate-motivated offence.”
“It does not excuse incitement to violence. A religious defence does not apply to statements that are not spoken in good faith. Calling for the extermination of people is not good faith. This is a charade. The main operation of the bill is predicated on a lie.”
“This would be a Liberal government appointee reigning over what we do on the Internet, with unlimited powers over how we communicate and how the world's most innovative companies do business. Surely by coincidence, the same thing is now happening in England this week, and it just happened in Australia. I was trained in the common law.”
The complete record
Every one of 260 lines we hold for Roman Baber, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 6.
“Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Liberals are trying to address problems they created, but they never address the actual problem. Instead, all they do with their proposed programs is create more bureaucracy. We can think about what they have done to date. They proposed to build more homes, but instead of doing that out of the Ministry of Housing, they created a new agency, Build Canada Homes. They proposed to build more projects; they talk about four pre-existing projects out of the first five, and, instead of running them out of the PMO, they built a new agency called the Major Projects Office. They talked about helping Canadians with defence procurement, and, instead of doing that out of the Department of Defence, they created a new agency for defence procurement led by someone who has no military experience whatsoever.”
“Mr. Speaker, last year, we imported oil from Russia. We are importing oil from Kazakhstan and Venezuela. We have some of the highest proven oil reserves in the world. We should be the wealthiest country in the world instead of relying on other countries for energy.”
“Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the member is saying. In 2008 and 2009, we had a global financial crisis that the former Conservative government handled with flying colours. That is what happened in 2008 and 2009. Just 10 years ago, Canada had the wealthiest middle class. This is according to The New York Times. Ten years ago the Liberals came into power, and now we have two million people at food banks and 700,000 of them are children. Shame on you.”
“The lady at the cash register told her the price, and the shopper said that she would not need it and returned it. The sales clerk politely smiled at her. I can imagine how many times a day this person sees this, when Canadians come from the grocery aisle to check out, but they have to leave items behind because they cannot afford them. How dare the government members be proud of the budget? With the endless taxes and inflation, they are making Canadians broke. I say shame on them.”
“It is building a couple of thousand shoeboxes for apartments, which comes to $3 million per apartment when we factor in the cost of the bureaucracy. The government is trying to fool us by separating the deficit into two. The Prime Minister is telling us that the actual deficit is not $78 billion, no, because $40 billion of it is capital investment, so the deficit is only $38 billion. The Prime Minister is living by his own accounting rules: Abracadabra, the deficit is not $78 billion; it is $38 billion. I say shame on the Liberals for the budget and for making Canadians broke. I was at the grocery store not too long ago, and there was a very kind lady in front of me. She had a small basket of groceries, among which was an English cucumber. I love cucumber. She asked the lady at the cash register how much the English cucumber would cost.”
“Other petroleum producers will not stop, but they pollute the environment. Canada has some of the best environmental practices in the world. Those who are passionate about the environment should want more Canadian oil instead of dirty oil from the Middle East. To free Canada's natural resources and Canada's oil and gas would mean a richer middle class. It would mean less people at the food bank and a better life. We need to lower taxes for real. The finance minister grandstands every day and yells at us about how he is making life more affordable for 22 million Canadians. The Liberals' income tax cut works out to $20 a month per family. An average family gets $280 a year; that is it. I could never imagine a budget that spends so much and does so little. What is the government building?”
“We should be the wealthiest country in the world because we are blessed with the greatest natural resources in the world. We have some of the world's highest-proven oil reserves and natural gas, which could satisfy the insatiable demand the world is experiencing for electricity. We have the rare earth minerals everyone is chasing. (1215) We should be living like Saudi princes. We should be like the Qataris. There are 400 pages in this budget, but surprise, there is no pipeline. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. Why do we not just get out of our own way? Why does the government not get out of our way and allow us to drill for energy, export natural gas and use this blessing of our natural resources to put more money in Canadians' pockets? We are actually importing oil from Russia. Members should think about how crazy that is.”
“Over the next five years, the Liberal government is projecting to add another $320 billion in debt. Over the next five years, Canada will pay close to $330 billion in interest alone to foreigners, to banks and to the Prime Minister 's cronies. To be clear, government has no money. It is our money. It either takes it from us in taxes or it prints it. Canadians are some of the highest-taxed people in the world already. An average Canadian family spends over 42% of its income on tax, on income tax, payroll tax, sales tax, fuel tax, alcohol tax. Everywhere there is a tax. What do we have to show for it? Do we have good health care? Do we have good infrastructure? No. We have a Prime Minister whose deficit is double that of Justin's. Justin is out there partying with Katy Perry, but we are all screwed.”
“There is a $78-billion deficit. To put that into perspective, that is $5,400 for every Canadian family. Just like that, they will owe $5,400 more to the banks and the bondholders, or he will print it on them, flooding the economy with more money to chase nearly the same amount of goods because we do not have any growth. That will raise, or inflate, the price of everything we buy. Can members believe that we have $55 billion in interest payments alone next year? That is more than $1 billion a week in interest. That is more than the federal government collects in GST from all Canadians. Let us think about that. The next time we see the GST on our receipt, or the HST, which lumps in the GST, all of it goes to service the interest on our debt. At the end of the year, our debt will be $1,347,000,000,000.”
“When Conservatives were in government, we had more money in our pocket and more ability to put our kid in hockey or music lessons. We had the ability to travel and to go out for dinner with our loved ones. We slept better at night because we had money. Then came Justin Trudeau, who promised to invest more. He said we needed an economy that worked for everyone and that to do this, he would run a few small deficits. Now, a decade later, we are broke. Now the current Prime Minister and the same old Liberal government are promising to do the same. When the Liberals say they will invest more, what they really mean is they will spend more. As I was sitting here two days ago, the page handed me the budget book, and I opened it. I do not care what the finance minister has to say, because I could not believe my eyes.”
“There are 700,000 Canadian children who are starving, and the Prime Minister and the finance minister are pretending everything is fine. I have spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. No matter where they are on the economic ladder, everyone is worse off, worse than they were six months ago, five years ago and definitely 10 years ago. The Liberals sit here in question period and pretend that criticizing our economy is unpatriotic. It is the opposite. Standing up for our country when it is in trouble is the most patriotic thing one could do. I will do that because I remember what it was like a decade ago. In 2014, The New York Times came out with a study, which found that Canada's middle class was better than its U.S. counterpart. Ten years ago, Canada had the wealthiest middle class in the world. That is what I remember.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Long Range Mountains . Everyone is depressed. Why? It is because everyone is broke. We are more broke than we think. Do others remember the old Scotiabank commercial, “You're richer than you think”? We are Canadians in the 11th year of a Liberal government who are more broke than we think. Two days ago, the government tabled a 400-page budget with a $78-billion deficit. The Prime Minister , who lectures us about economics and caused record inflation in England, is now going to repeat the same in Canada by spending more money that we do not have. What happened to our country? There are more than two million people visiting a food bank, more than 700,000 of them children.”
“Madam Speaker, this week, I heard the OPP commissioner, Thomas Carrique, agree with me that there are at least four, five or six serious concerns, which I have articulated today, with this bill. I respect the member opposite. I commit to working with him in good faith in trying to fix this bill at committee.”
“Madam Speaker, I am mindful of the member's concern. We need to remember why we are here. We are here because the Liberal government finally woke up to the fact that bail needs to be fixed. One of the challenges we have is the surety regime. I am here to say that we can look at how other jurisdictions address this, but if a surety is going to be meaningless, if there is no risk of forfeiting that deposit or collecting on that promise, then the entire component of bail in that respect loses all relevance and meaning. I can imagine situations where parents put up a bit of money, typically not a high amount, depending on the offence, and they do their job and honour their undertaking to supervise their child or sibling to make sure they do not breach their bail conditions. We have to make bail meaningful again.”
“Madam Speaker, I had my first legal gig as a young law student at the community legal clinic at the law school in London. I dealt with a lot of young offenders. This is what I really want to stress: We have to delineate, or separate, those who got into the system because of a good-faith error, such as those who broke a vending machine or those who stole their parents' car on the day of their prom. We do not want those folks in the system. However, there are also the hardened criminals, those who commit repeat violent offences or those who are participating in gangs, who are in the auto theft rings. They need to understand the concept of deterrence. It is something they do not understand right now. We accomplish deterrence by increasing the prospect of jail for serious offences.”
“Even he, a criminal defence attorney, thought it was lunacy that we see criminals sentenced to a custodial sentence do a third of their sentence, leave, reoffend, get sentenced again, do another third of their sentence and then leave again. That is a practice that we need to put an end to. This week, the justice committee heard from Meechelle Best and Ron Best from Manitoba, parents whose daughter was killed by an intoxicated driver in a car accident. He was out on bail and had breached his bail condition. There was a warrant for his arrest. That was not the first time. He had breached bail before and got out on bail again. It was one of the most moving and saddest testimonies I have ever heard. We cannot bring Kellie back, but we can prevent the next atrocity. We need to fix the bill.”
“The problem, specifically noted by the Police Association of Ontario this week, is that the ladder principle is not eliminated in reverse-onus offences. Just two days ago, my colleagues in the room with us heard testimony from the Police Association of Ontario asking for this very clearly. It said that we need to codify the fact that the ladder principle does not apply in a reverse-onus offence. Finally, Bill C-14 is completely quiet on parole. In Canada, one is, essentially, automatically eligible for parole after serving a third of their sentence. We heard from a criminal defence attorney last week in the justice committee.”
“What is missing is the burden of proof, a definition to direct the courts as to what the burden is that the accused must meet in order to be released. What is very important, also, is that, without such a burden, we do not have consistent application among courts. We have courts in different jurisdictions and different provinces. While they are directed to reverse the onus and place it on the accused, they are not sure what the burden they actually have to meet is. That is something every police force and every police association has brought up, and it is something that I sincerely hope we can address at committee. Another major problem with the bill with respect to bail reform is the ladder principle. The ladder principle basically directs the court that the accused must be released at the earliest opportunity.”
“Another major failure is not fixing a bail condition that every police association across the country is telling them to do: cash bail. I am going to explain this. Right now, in almost all cases, a surety is not required to post a cash bail. They just make a promise to pay in the event there is a breach of bail conditions. Often, they do not have the money and no one comes after them. It is meaningless. We now have this class of professional sureties that help criminals get out on bail. If they were made to post cash bail, this practice would end. A surety should have some skin in the game. Finally, on bail reform, here we go again. We already reversed the onus for a number of offences under Bill C-48 , but people are still caught and released even with those offences. Reversing the onus is not enough.”
“(1150) There is another issue I would like to flag, and this one is very special to me because we are a democracy and respect the rule of law. One of the big failures of Bill C-75 , the previous Liberal crime bill, was that it created a diversionary regime for offences involving failures to comply with court orders. For instance, offences such as failure to appear in court or breach of an undertaking, or even breach of bail, may go unpunished. That is what Bill C-75 by the Liberals provided for. It basically allows Crown attorneys to divert or remove such offences from the docket. Crown attorneys, unfortunately, often do this. Bill C-14 is completely silent on this. We had the OPP commissioner at the justice committee this week. He said that this is an affront to the rule of law, and the Liberals will not correct their own mistake.”
“In its current form, it falls very short. The prevalence of young offenders in crime and gang violence is very troubling. Participation in auto theft rings is just shocking. We would think the Liberals would want to do something about it, but no. There is no sentencing reform to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. They closed a loophole and clarified what violence is for the purpose of custody but did not increase any sentences. I want to be clear. I do not want a kid who breaks a vending machine to be part of the correctional justice system. However, for murder, for instance, custodial sentences for youth are limited to four years. They do pre-trial custody and get two-for-one. By the time they are sentenced, they are barely in custody for a year. Then they come out as much better criminals and terrorize the community.”
“It is for sure the economic decline thanks to the Liberals. That is part of it, for sure. People are hopeless. CTV reported, the other day, that young people cannot land a minimum-wage job anymore. I was told by a Toronto police officer that the going rate for stealing a car is $500. Imagine a young offender stealing one car per night and that is how they are making their living. It is not just because our economy is in the gutter. Young offenders know that there are no consequences for what they do. I remember first-year criminal law like it was yesterday. What is the purpose behind sentencing? What is the policy? First and foremost, it is deterrence. It is the threat of legal consequences and possibly jail. However, now there are no consequences. That is where I will start in taking this bill apart.”
“After a decade of the Liberals, I do not feel safe anymore in multiple neighbourhoods in the city of Toronto after dark, even in some of the safest neighbourhoods. North York in north Toronto is being terrorized by gang violence, gun crime and drug-related shootings almost daily. It is all done by criminals, and it is all done with illegal guns. The justice committee heard from the OPP commissioner this week that almost all gun violence is perpetrated by criminals with illegal guns, not the legal guns the government seeks to confiscate from law-abiding citizens. How did we go from being one of the safest countries in the world to this? How did Toronto, one of the safest metropolises in the world, lose that sense of safety? Toronto is becoming Gotham City. It is a combination of many things.”
“The criminals know they can get away with stealing a Jeep and take it to the port of Montreal, where, the very same night, it will be on its way to the Middle East. My provincial counterpart, the Solicitor General of Ontario, had his car stolen. I love our country very much. I remember what life was like before the 2015 Liberal government. We need two timelines like BC and AD. We need before Liberals, BL, and after Liberals, AL. I remember times before the Liberals, when Canada was one of the safest countries in the world. I often talk about my first love. My first love is the city of Toronto. In the time before Liberals, I felt safe walking anywhere in the city of Toronto, on any street, at any time of day or night. Safety and the feeling of safety add so much to our quality of life.”
“Madam Speaker, finally, after years of us pleading with the Liberal government, the Liberals are trying to do something about bail and sentencing in Canada. If the Liberals admit there is a problem, we know there is a problem. The problem is crime and chaos on our streets. Violent criminals, gang violence, guns and auto thefts are terrorizing Canadians. Like many Torontonians, I get up in the morning and wonder if I am going to see my car, which is why I had to buy one of those big clubs to lock my wheel. We used to see those only in the movies but not anymore. This is after my insurance company told me that, unless I install a tracking device at their expense, my insurance rate will go up. How is it possible that the Liberals cannot stop this?”
“We also heard from the OPP commissioner a couple of days ago in justice committee saying that he thinks the fact that BIll C-75 allows for this kind of diversionary regime framework for offences against court orders undermines the rule of law. Why does Bill C-14 not fix the travesty created by Bill C-75 ?”
“Madam Speaker, I do not propose to politicize this issue. I just want to speak about the shortcomings of the bill and ask the secretary of state specifically why there is an absence of any stiffer sentences for young offenders. Why is the bill silent on parole? Why is the bill silent on cash bail, something that police associations across the country are talking about? Most importantly, I am very interested in the diversionary framework introduced in Bill C-75 for offences involving failures to comply with court orders, such as failure to appear, breach of undertaking or even breach of bail. Basically, C-75 allows Crowns to divert, to remove those types of offences from the docket, as they often do.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member does not understand how bad it is out there. More than a quarter of Canadians cannot afford to eat, and now the Prime Minister is telling a roomful of students they will have to sacrifice even more. Young people have sacrificed enough; they have already sacrificed home ownership, and yesterday CTV reported that young Canadians cannot even land a minimum-wage job. Will the Liberal budget get spending under control so young Canadians can start affording everyday life?”
“Mr. Speaker, this year the Liberal government will spend $1 billion on interest every week, and while the Prime Minister is planning a record-breaking deficit, his accounting gimmick may put Canada's credit at risk. Last week the Prime Minister told students they will have to sacrifice even more. Canadians should not be made to sacrifice. After a decade of Liberal failure, they have sacrificed enough. They do not want more Liberal debt, Liberal waste and Liberal corruption. Why is the Prime Minister spending like Justin Trudeau on steroids?”
“Mr. Speaker, she should tell that to the 15% of young people in Toronto who cannot find a job. With $54 billion of net investment fleeing Canada, the Prime Minister is leaving Canada's automotive workers destitute. With job losses at GM and Stellantis, we now learn that auto tariffs are here to stay. Christmas is just around the corner, but thousands of Ontario's auto workers are on the chopping block. Why did the Prime Minister sell out Ontario's auto workers?”
“Mr. Speaker, just before the Prime Minister left Brookfield, he made sure that Brookfield's headquarters left for the United States. The Prime Minister loves creating jobs in the United States. That is why youth unemployment rose in September to 14.7%. In Ontario alone, 17,000 young people lost their jobs. In fact, the youth employment rate is sitting at a level not seen since 1999, with a brief exception for the pandemic. With young people unable to find work, the Prime Minister wants to send $1 trillion of investment to the United States. Why?”
“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.”
“Mr. Speaker, we will remember the babies sliced, the women raped and the fathers beheaded. It has been two years since October 7. We keep saying “never again”, but it happened again. I do not want the Liberals doing the Jewish community any favours. They rewarded the worst possible act of terror with a terrorist state, for votes. They are morally bankrupt. However, it gets worse. Today, at the University of Toronto, there is a celebration called “honouring our martyrs”, with thugs hiding their faces in keffiyehs, glorifying murder. They are inciting violence, but nothing is going to happen. A Jewish school in my riding has been shot at three times. The Liberals have done a great job. They can save their tweets. They must start taking action against the extremism brewing in Canada. They have been warned.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have very serious concerns about the legislation in its current form. We see a serious assault on free speech by virtue of the dilution of the definition of “hatred” and by allowing private prosecutions for hate charges to proceed without Attorney General consent. I am very concerned about essentially non-criminal statutes with prescribed offences being coupled with an allegation of hate, as it could result in criminal proceedings. This is a very problematic bill the Liberals have brought forward.”
“Mr. Speaker, since Friday, I have been in regular communication with various Jewish community groups, and essentially all of them have expressed one reservation or another about some of the contents of this bill, which I articulated earlier. The private prosecution concern is top of mind. One of the leading organizations, in fact, is generally concerned with respect to the removal of the AG's consent. At the end of the day, I think we would all agree it is important that we stick to the letter of the law when it comes to the codification of the word “hatred”. I do not understand why the government is intent on diluting 35 years of good Supreme Court common law. I urge it to go back and redraft that section.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to clarify. There is no question that our capable and professional Crowns are able to intervene in private prosecutions and stay or withdraw the charges. The problem is that, at times, a Crown may take a non-position. However, even if it would be appropriate to stay or withdraw, and the Crown did take that position and charges were stayed or withdrawn, an informant would be able to appeal to a judicial review, which means that the alleged accused would be subject to legal fees, reputational risks and travel restrictions. One of the common questions when we travel is “Have you ever been subject to criminal proceedings or ever been arrested?” Regrettably, even if the Crown exercises its due diligence, there is still the prospect of continuous prosecution, putting Canadians' well-being at risk.”
“I would like the Liberals to insist on the enforcement of existing laws and not be thanked by Hamas every other month. They should go back and rethink the bill, and not make innocent Canadians fear being in legal jeopardy.”
“The codification of hatred in Bill C-9 omits the words “connotes emotion of an intense and extreme nature”. It also omits the Whatcott alternative, “extreme manifestations”. Why? The effect is to lower the threshold for the definition of hatred, making it easier to convict of hate speech. This is another attack on free speech by the Liberals. It would not protect Jews or anyone, but it would place every Canadian at a greater risk of criminal prosecution. This bill would lower the threshold for hate speech, couple criminal prosecutions with non-criminal proceedings, and allow private citizens to swear private hate information and lay hate charges without the consent of the Attorney General. In its present form, this bill is an assault on free speech. As I said, I am a Canadian Jew.”
“Finally, the government is seeking to dilute the definition of “hatred” as articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada. I do not understand why the Liberals are looking to lower the threshold for hate speech after 35 years of good common law. In Keegstra, the leading case on the definition of hatred, the Supreme Court defined hatred as “connotes emotion of an intense and extreme nature that is clearly associated with vilification and detestation.” In a subsequent case, Whatcott, the Supreme Court said that hatred is limited to the “extreme manifestations” of the words “detestation” and “vilification”. However, Bill C-9 defines hatred as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike”.”
“Another major concern is that the new stand-alone hate offence would apply to any offence under any act of Parliament, so an offence under the Canada Elections Act or under the Canada Labour Code could attract criminal prosecution. There is a significant risk of overreach, particularly in view of previous concerns regarding private prosecutions. I got into politics by counting votes and studying elections law. (1755) What if someday someone accuses a scrutineer of suppressing votes because of hate? Could they then be subjected to a criminal prosecution, including a private prosecution? If someone withheld wages contrary to the Canada Labour Code, should that give rise to a criminal prosecution if hate is alleged? We are talking about tacking on a criminal offence to non-criminal conduct. It is scary, and it is not necessary.”
“While the Crown could intervene to stay or withdraw such charges, the Crown might not take a position. Even if the Crown withdrew or stayed the charges, an informant would be able to appeal that by taking it to judicial review. Such persecution would cause distress to the alleged accused and result in legal fees, reputational risks and travel restrictions. The bill must be amended so that the Attorney General's consent would be required for hate crime prosecutions started from private information. What the Liberals propose is very dangerous, and I am rightly scared that political and ideological opponents would try to silence each other using criminal proceedings.”
“Despite the good work of our police heroes, the municipal, provincial and federal governments are refusing to protect Canada's Jewish community. What do the Liberals propose instead? They come up with Bill C-9 , which should concern every member of the Jewish community and every Canadian. The bill would repeal the requirement of the Attorney General's consent to lay hate charges. This could indeed simplify the process and reduce finger pointing, as we now see in Ontario between the Attorney General's office and the police, but the proposed repeal would also apply to private prosecutions. Vexatious informants would try to lay hate charges against political opponents every day, including, conceivably, against some members of this House. The bill would create a chill on free speech.”
“There was deadly mayhem everywhere that was perpetuated by the Islamic Jihad. What do Canada's Jews get from the Liberal government now? They get Canada's recognition of a terrorist state, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, without preconditions. The Liberals should not dare lecture me about anti-Jew hate. They were thanked by Hamas not once, not twice, but three times. There are enough laws on the books to stop this mayhem. It is already illegal to intimidate someone while physically blocking them from entering a facility. Hatred has been defined by the Supreme Court for 35 years, and we have settled on it. However, as we will hear in a moment, the legislation would water down that definition. To willfully promote terror is to willfully promote hate.”
“Hate crimes against Jewish Canadians have more than quadrupled since the Liberals took office, but never mind the statistics. Two weeks ago, a woman was stabbed for shopping in a kosher section of an Ottawa grocery store. A father wearing a kippah was beat up in front of his children in a Montreal park. The Bais Chaya Mushka school for girls, which is a kilometre from where I live, was shot at three times. What would Bill C-9 do to address this? It would do nothing, or worse than nothing. If passed in its current form, the Liberal hate bill could be weaponized against every Canadian. I do not want to hear any lectures from the Liberals about anti-Semitism. I dealt with Soviet anti-Semitism, and I lived in Israel during the first intifada. I remember the suicide bombings of restaurants, hotels, markets and buses.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith . Would anyone like to come visit the intersection of Sheppard and Bathurst in North York on a Sunday afternoon? Every Sunday, a group of thugs shows up at Sheppard and Bathurst in my riding. Most of the thugs cover their faces, and they chant “intifada”, a violent resistance, in protest of a peaceful rally in one of Canada's most Jewish communities. Sometimes these thugs have a guy dressed and role-playing as Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7. October 7 was not just one of the worst terrorist attacks in modern history; it sparked global jihad, including here in Canada. For Canada's Jews, this is a sobering moment. My friends, my neighbours, members of my synagogue and fellow Canadians are scared.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my friend. First, why does the government appear to be diluting the definition of “hatred”? The language the Supreme Court articulated, language that we have been relying on for 35 years, includes the words “extreme manifestations” before the words “detestation and vilification”. Why have these been dropped from the definition of “hatred”, thereby diluting the definition and lowering the threshold? Second, is my friend not concerned that while removing the requirement for consent of the Attorney General, informants who lay charges by way of private prosecutions will be able to do so without any checks and balances, potentially politicizing the issue and targeting their political opponents?”
“Madam Speaker, to follow up on the concern articulated by the shadow minister, it was open for the government to lean on the subsequent definition in Whatcott, where the Supreme Court defined “hatred”. I cannot help but notice that the words “extreme manifestations” are missing from the proposed definition in Bill C-9 . To add to that, I have a further concern that I hope the Attorney General can address for us. The legislation seeks to remove the provincial Attorney General's consent to the laying of hate charges, which may in itself be explainable. However, the Attorney General's consent would also catch private prosecutions, which we know are a process where informants lay charges before a provincial magistrate. The consent there would also not be required, opening the process to vexatious litigants.”
“Canada's recognition of the Palestinian state will result in more deaths. The Liberals recognized the terrorist state on Rosh Hashanah. Shame on them.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals rewarded terror. Hamas started the awful war. It sliced babies, raped women and killed 1,200 people. It kidnapped over 250 people, and still holds 48 hostages. Listen to Hamas; it says that state recognition is a fruit of October 7, and they vow to repeat it again and again. The Liberals reward the barbarism by recognizing Hamastan without preconditions, not even a return of the hostages. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has been paying terrorists to slaughter Jews for 20 years. Is that who the Prime Minister wants in charge? Hamas is responsible for every death in Gaza by setting up military installations in schools, mosques and hospitals. Everyone knows that. The Islamic Jihad loves to cause civilian deaths because civilian deaths on TV advance its political causes like they do right now.”
“Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have been saying from day one that the gun buyback program is an awful idea. Law-abiding gun owners do not commit gun crime with lawfully purchased guns. Criminals commit gun crime, gun criminals who terrorize our streets because of the Liberals' failure on law and order. We know that the OPP will not participate in the program. Canada Post will not participate in the program. Local police will not participate in the program. Now we learn that the Minister of Public Safety does not want to participate in it either. Why is this minister going ahead with a program that he does not want to participate in?”