Juno News - Canada’s lead negotiator QUITS as trade talks stall

00:00:00.000 The man who is next in line for the job of Canada's chief trade representative to the

00:00:09.780 United States is a sharp critic of Canada's regulated dairy industry. The Globe and Mail

00:00:16.020 is reporting Kristen Hillman, Canada's lead trade negotiator and ambassador to the United States,

00:00:22.340 to leave post in the new year. The Prime Minister had this to say about her departure.

00:00:27.300 The ambassador has done a fantastic job for Canada for six years, four as ambassador,

00:00:39.780 a little more than four as ambassador, and then two before that, across a huge range of issues.

00:00:45.180 Obviously, we always have a huge range of issues with the United States, and particularly in the

00:00:50.520 most recent time, during an intense period of discussions, as everyone knows, with the US.

00:00:55.680 There's a window now. We've finished our consultations on Kuzma. The Americans are 1.00

00:01:02.940 just starting. The review process will gather for us in the new year. So there's a window.

00:01:09.600 And an exceptional public servant, we're all in our debt, and I just want to thank her again for

00:01:16.080 her contribution. Now, the Globe also reports that Mark Wiseman, a friend of the Prime Minister,

00:01:21.660 could replace her. He's been an advocate for pushing Canada's population to 100 million by the year 2100.

00:01:28.920 In the past, he's also been a harsh critic of Canada's regulated dairy industry, says Wiseman.

00:01:35.760 Looking to our agriculture sector, the sacred cow of supply management, through its import restrictions,

00:01:43.860 production quotas, and price controls, secures the market for a protected group of settled players,

00:01:51.140 impeding innovation and keeping prices artificially high for Canadian consumers.

00:01:57.200 Is it possible his appointment might signal the Karni government is ready to ditch supply management

00:02:04.460 in order to get a trade deal with the Trump administration? During the election campaign,

00:02:09.080 Karni said he would defend supply management, which was critical to his voter support in Quebec.

00:02:14.660 The Karni Liberals also denying they are out to criminalize Christianity and other religions.

00:02:21.580 faith leaders are worried about plans to strip the criminal code of protections for free religious

00:02:29.820 speech in Canada. They fear being prosecuted simply for practicing their faith, that it opens the door

00:02:38.020 to criminalizing prayer and religious texts. Justice Minister Sean Fraser was asked about Bill C-9.

00:02:45.880 I'd like to know why are government MPs going to be supporting the amendment from the bloc to remove

00:02:58.200 religious defenses from the willful promotion of hate in the criminal code when the government has

00:03:03.080 heard loudly from Muslim and Christian and other religious groups that this could insert uncertainty

00:03:09.000 into their teaching and preachings of religious texts and potentially children's speech?

00:03:13.320 Thank you. And look, I will address the question head on. I do think it's important that we reflect

00:03:20.600 on the reason we're here today to address a piece of legislation targeting gender-based violence,

00:03:24.200 but I appreciate there are multiple priorities, all of which are important. So let's be clear about

00:03:31.240 what's being proposed and what's not. The amendment that the bloc is proposing will, in my view,

00:03:37.480 in no way, shape or form prevent a religious leader from reading their religious texts. It will not

00:03:43.880 criminalize faith. And to suggest otherwise, in my view, is a perversion of the values that the major

00:03:50.120 religions in this country and around the world stand for. As somebody who grew up in the Catholic

00:03:54.760 Church and read scripture on Sundays my whole life, I can tell you that I don't remember any messages

00:04:00.760 about religion telling you to hate thy neighbor. But according to Mark Miller, Minister of Culture,

00:04:05.880 certain biblical passages could run afoul of the hate laws and be subject to prosecution. Let's listen.

00:04:13.160 If someone were literally invoking a passage from, in this case, the Bible, but there are other

00:04:18.520 religious texts that say the same thing, and somehow constantly say that this is good faith, I mean,

00:04:23.960 clearly there are situations in these texts where these statements are hateful, they should not be used

00:04:29.080 to invoke or be a defense, and there should perhaps be discretion for prosecutors to press charges.

00:04:36.760 Now Christine Manguin is Litigation Director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. She'll be joining us

00:04:42.040 shortly. Conservative leader Pierre Polyev ridiculed a Calgary Liberal MP over his opposition to a motion

00:04:49.640 supporting pipeline construction. Liberals voted down a motion to build a pipeline to the Pacific, and MP

00:04:57.240 Corey Hogan was among them. I welcome the progress made in the amendment, but I am very, very curious how

00:05:04.040 it did not mention industrial carbon pricing and the increase of the industrial carbon price as part of

00:05:09.400 this amendment, one of the most important parts of the MOU. Would the member be willing to consider

00:05:15.160 further amending his motion to do the entire MOU, rather than again cherry picking the things that his caucus

00:05:21.080 seems to be willing to support? Madam Speaker, I think we just saw the member for Cal, the Liberal member for

00:05:26.120 Calgary Confederation saying that he opposes a pipeline to the Pacific unless it includes a massive

00:05:34.600 crippling carbon tax on his own province. Madam Speaker, Conservatives want a pipeline without a tax,

00:05:42.120 that Liberal member for Calgary Confederation wants a tax without a pipeline. The motion was defeated by

00:05:47.880 a vote of 196 to 139 with only the Conservatives voting in favor. I'm now joined by Christine Van

00:05:54.920 Gein, Litigation Director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having

00:06:01.080 me. Let's talk a little bit about the freedom to practice religion without fear of being prosecuted for

00:06:07.720 hate violations. Now you've identified some major red flags around this, thanks to a law that the

00:06:14.600 Liberals, the government is looking to amend. Could you talk about that? Yeah, so what is happening is

00:06:20.440 the Liberals proposed a piece of legislation called Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act. And this legislation

00:06:28.440 would increase the scope of the criminal law to regulate speech. But what happened at committee is the Bloc 0.53

00:06:35.720 Quebecois have made their support of this legislation contingent on the government removing from the

00:06:42.600 criminal code something that exists right now, which is under the criminal code right now, you cannot be

00:06:49.400 convicted of the willful promotion of hatred if you have expressed a good faith belief, a good faith

00:06:58.440 religious opinion or an opinion based on religious text. That defense exists in the criminal code right

00:07:06.920 now. The Bloc wants it removed and they've made their support of that bill contingent on removing that

00:07:15.240 defense, the religious freedom defense. And last night at committee, the Liberals agreed to an amendment that would

00:07:22.440 remove that defense. This puts millions of religious Canadians at risk of prosecution for expressing good

00:07:30.920 faith religious belief. It will leave the interpretation of religious opinion and speech up to prosecutors and

00:07:38.520 courts and judges, many of whom don't understand the nuances of religious speech. It's incredibly damaging.

00:07:46.600 It's very divisive. I think it is likely unconstitutional and puts the entire scheme of hate speech law in Canada

00:07:57.800 in constitutional jeopardy. According to ministers, Sean Fraser, for instance, there was no intention here to

00:08:05.880 restrict religious freedom. And, you know, if you're just suggesting that it's going to go beyond

00:08:13.240 anything that's going to criminalize faith and that's just wrong, do you disagree with his interpretation?

00:08:22.680 Of course. This wasn't even the Liberals' proposal. It was the Bloc's proposal and they are just trying

00:08:28.200 to get their legislation passed. The PMO originally did not even support this amendment based on reporting from

00:08:34.200 the CBC. It almost killed the bill. But I just do not take Minister Fraser at his word that this

00:08:42.200 will not have implications for religious Canadians because it's not up to Minister Fraser. It's up to

00:08:48.360 the text of the bill, which is interpreted by judges who I think, you know, it's really a roll of the dice

00:08:56.920 about what a judge will decide what this legislation means. I actually think removing the defense could 0.68

00:09:03.800 undermine the hate speech laws more generally. I think that it might make the whole scheme unconstitutional

00:09:10.360 because when they were first introduced, the hate willful promotion of hatred charges in Section 319

00:09:17.000 of the Criminal Code were challenged in a case called Arran Keegstra that went to the Supreme Court.

00:09:22.200 And the Supreme Court held that hate willful promotion of hatred as an offense is a minimally impairing

00:09:28.360 restriction on the right to free expression because there exists these defenses of truth and religious

00:09:34.280 opinion. Remove those defenses. And I think the constitutional floor on these offenses collapses and makes the whole

00:09:39.800 scheme liable to be struck down. Yeah, I think it's particularly cynical to hear people like

00:09:45.000 John Fraser and Mark Miller refer to their own faith, you know, as some kind of defense, you know,

00:09:50.520 that gives them a pass to push through this bill. Have you noticed that, that both Miller and Fraser referred

00:09:58.040 to their own past as, you know, devout Christians and those choir boys or whatever they used to do?

00:10:05.880 I mean, who am I to comment on the faith of another person? Only they know what's in their own heart.

00:10:11.880 But I would say that Chair Miller brought this issue up himself in committee when he said that portions of

00:10:20.600 the Bible are hateful and said this to a representative of a Christian organization. I don't think he would

00:10:30.600 say this to the member of any other religion. I think that it would only happen to a Christian. And I think 1.00

00:10:38.360 that his comment is incredibly misguided and misunderstands his own faith. I do not think

00:10:45.960 that it's correct to say that the Bible is hateful. It is not hateful. And his statements are quite offensive

00:10:53.160 to Christians. I think that it shows the danger in giving interpretation of religious texts to 0.65

00:11:03.000 politicians, police and judges, because these are individuals who generally don't understand faith very well,

00:11:10.760 including in Mr. Miller's case, his own faith. The only people who can respond correctly to the abuse of

00:11:17.880 scripture, because of course, scripture can be abused. But the only response to that is for people of

00:11:24.840 faith to rebut incorrect uses of religious texts, not for the government to do that. The government

00:11:31.480 should stay a million miles away from analyzing ancient texts aimed at the human soul.

00:11:39.800 What are we headed for here in terms of what the government has in mind down the road? I mean,

00:11:48.680 I'm asking you to maybe speculate. I mean, could the government deem parts of the Bible, you know,

00:11:58.440 prone to censorship? You know, could books be banned? I mean, is that where they're going,

00:12:04.760 do you think? Is there a possibility that we're opening the door to that?

00:12:07.880 I think that the road that we are going down is a dangerous one. I think it shows the problem from

00:12:13.960 first instance, which is that we should never have criminalized opinion to begin with.

00:12:20.280 The whole notion that we should be putting people in jail for their thoughts and that somehow makes us

00:12:27.720 safer is diluted. We are not safer because we don't know what other people think. Knowing what people

00:12:35.240 think actually keeps us safer. So the idea that we are removing this defense of good faith, religious

00:12:43.480 opinion puts millions of religious Canadians in jeopardy. And it does so for no good reason,

00:12:51.080 because the courts have interpreted this defense very narrowly. In the research that I did, I could

00:12:56.760 never find an example of an example of it actually being successfully invoked. And the court that did

00:13:03.800 interpret it, the Court of Appeal, rejected a use of that defense in a case called RN Herding, where the

00:13:12.440 accused had embedded a hateful message in religious language. And the court said, you know, the defense doesn't

00:13:19.960 operate that way. So it isn't even posing a huge problem, this defense. So it doesn't make sense

00:13:28.760 that it needs to be suddenly eliminated. The problem with these speech laws is that they only ever expand.

00:13:36.840 They only ever grow more and more. The limits on speech just continue to expand. The government never

00:13:45.480 repeals any of these things. So how long until we're back in parliament, because this wasn't enough,

00:13:52.920 C9 didn't go far enough, and the removal of the religious amendment didn't go far enough. How long

00:13:58.200 until we actually are talking about portions of religious texts that are being banned by the government?

00:14:05.080 You know, that's maybe not where we are today, but I see a really dark road that we're going down.

00:14:09.320 Yeah, thin edge of the wedge. Do you know what the bloc is thinking, you know, around this?

00:14:15.080 Why they're pushing this amendment, which the Liberals apparently didn't put up too much of a

00:14:20.040 struggle in pushing back against? Yeah. So the bloc has supported this for a long time.

00:14:26.680 You know, to give my best faith interpretation of the bloc's approach is it's a nationalist, secular

00:14:36.520 kind of movement that wants neutrality of the state. And they want to remove

00:14:42.200 special protections for religion. You know, some might say that there's an element of Quebec society

00:14:48.920 that has more than an emphasis on secularism, but it's more of a hostility to religion. I'll leave

00:14:55.640 that to others to debate. But the example that the bloc member at committee kept going back to

00:15:02.120 was this speech from a radical imam in Montreal who gave a group prayer where he prayed for Allah to,

00:15:15.000 I don't have the quote in front of me, but it was something like, strike down the Zionists wherever you 1.00

00:15:20.360 find them and to spare none of them. And, you know, we can say perhaps Zionist is a code word. 0.98

00:15:26.680 I think it very well could be. And we can say that it's evil and wrong and immoral to pray for the death

00:15:31.880 of others. But I don't think that we can, as a society, criminalize the prayer, the form of a prayer,

00:15:38.200 especially when many elements of many religions speak about sort of cosmic justice in a grand scheme.

00:15:49.720 I think where we need to limit speech is when you are calling specifically and making specific threats

00:15:57.160 of violence. That can be criminalized. I don't think it's appropriate to criminalize the form of a prayer

00:16:03.080 as worthy of that prayer may be if for condemnation.

00:16:07.160 So where are we headed going forward? I mean, you continue to oppose with your organization

00:16:12.520 the amendment?

00:16:13.640 Yes. So we're sending out an urgent action request for all of our supporters today to write and call their

00:16:20.520 member of parliament. You can do that at the ccf.ca slash withdraw bill C9. We are asking,

00:16:29.640 we have always been asking for the government to withdraw this piece of legislation, but it is

00:16:34.600 even more urgent now that we know that this protection for religious Canadians is being removed.

00:16:40.520 So please write to your member of parliament. The website is the ccf.ca slash withdraw bill C9.

00:16:49.560 You can pick up your phone and call your member of parliament.

00:16:52.920 Right now, it's just in a bill stage. So there's no law for us to challenge yet,

00:16:57.720 but I can guarantee you that we will be involved in litigation if this passes.

00:17:02.840 And how do people support the great work you do there at the Canadian Constitution Foundation?

00:17:07.240 Yeah. Thanks so much for asking. So we are a national charity. So any donations to us are tax

00:17:12.600 deductible. You can donate at the ccf.ca slash donate. And we do have a fund matching campaign going on

00:17:19.320 right now at year end. So any donation up to, I think it's $250,000 will be matched. It might be

00:17:28.200 $150,000. Donations will be matched up to that amount if you make that donation before the end of

00:17:34.760 the year. Fantastic. Christine van Gein, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:17:39.240 And that's it for this edition of Straight Up. Appreciate you tuning in, my friends. Let's do it

00:17:43.160 again soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.

Juno News - December 10, 2025

Canada’s lead negotiator QUITS as trade talks stall

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