Freedom of religion in Canada is under threat.
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Summary
In this episode of The Brock Prince, we bring on Larry Brock, MP for Brant South Six Nations, to talk about the Bloc's attempt to strike down the Combating Hate Act, and how the government has dealt with it in the past.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to the Brock Prince. I'm your host at Jamie Schmael,
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Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps of the Lakes, with new content for you every single
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Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program.
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You probably know who our guest is. And we are going to talk about today,
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the Conservatives are fighting for religious freedoms at committee, and the filibuster
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continues. It's C9 we're talking about, and we bring on Larry Brock, probably guest at the
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Brockinator, Member of Parliament for Brant South. Six Nations, thanks for coming on the show.
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Thank you, Jamie. You know it's always a pleasure to appear on the show.
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What the heck is C9? Because I know my phone in my office is ringing off the hook, I'm getting emails.
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Sure. What is C9? So those that aren't paying attention to it know what it is.
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Sure. So C9 labeled the Combating Hate Act. Notwithstanding that we had two years of rising
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anti-Semitic demonstrations from coast to coast to coast. We had people openly breaking laws right in
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the presence of police officers who largely stood idly by, not making any arrests, causing fear,
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chaos, and corruption on our streets, directly targeting Jewish Canadians right across this
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particular country. For two years, under the Trudeau government, and to a certain degree under
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the Kearney government, we had a government that was playing both sides of the dispute. We had those
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of his caucus who were clearly supporting Israel and its right to defend itself, and we had those
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who were supporting a Palestinian state. And you never really had a clear direction, sending one
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message to one group, another message to another group, largely sitting by, not introducing any
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legislation or providing a clear direction to law enforcement, that we already had laws. And we've
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had laws in the criminal code for decades, dealing with a multitude of examples that have been on our
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streets literally for the past two years. So park that aside for a moment. We've had four plus years,
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in fact, I would some say 10 years of lawlessness on the streets, rising crime levels through the roof.
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I got into Parliament 2021, and I had been advocating for change to our criminal justice system, particularly
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as it relates to bail, ending the revolving door system, ending the catch and release. We've all been
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very vocal in the House of Commons, outside the House of Commons. One would have thought that given four
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years of intense pressure by all the major stakeholders in the country, premiers, mayors, police chiefs,
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presidents of police associations, victim advocacy groups, that the message might want to get through
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loud and clear to the government, you need to address this. But they chose not to. They chose to focus in
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on the Combating Hate Act, which is C9. C9 broken down into three areas. New offence, they create a brand
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new offence by amending the Criminal Code for a hate-motivated intimidation offence. They also deal
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with obstruction of religious or cultural sites and a new offence of criminalizing public displays of
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hate symbols or symbols belonging to an identified terrorist organization as defined within the Criminal
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Code. So those are largely the three key areas. There were some other little areas
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that were really non-disputable by the majority of the members of the Justice Committee. But that's the
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act itself. So we got into committee not too long ago. We set aside, I believe it was eight meetings.
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And then over the course of the last about a month or so, we had a number of distractions that largely were
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manmade in terms of the Liberal government literally obstructing and filibustering their own pieces of
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legislation. So all throughout this debate, we were also prioritizing our bail and sentencing reform study.
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And we had meetings set aside, one meeting for bail, one meeting for the Combating Hate Act under C9.
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So that progressed reasonably well until such time as the Bloc continued to pursue their own amendment.
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And that really is the heart of what we want to discuss today. And that amendment
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is to remove a defence under Section 319, which is the intimidation or creating an incitement to hatred
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defence. And it's been an offence in the Criminal Code, as I said, for decades. There are four clear
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defences under Section 319 of the Code. The Bloc is attacking one of those defences to remove
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the expression of a religious opinion made in good faith. That is the defence. That defence, Jamie, has been in
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the books for 55 years, introduced by former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, studied at committee,
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debated in the House, debated in the Senate, passed Royal Assent in the year 1970. And by and large,
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it has been an unsuccessful defence, because the standard is extremely high. The Bloc cites an example,
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not too long ago, of a radical iman in Montreal. His name is Chukari. And he literally called for
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the extermination of Zionists. Zionists could be called for Jews. He didn't use the word Jews,
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he used the word Zionists. But it was interpreted as such to mean the elimination of an identifiable
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group. That is a criminal offence. Anyone that believes in a Jewish state, an independent Jewish
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state. But what he said already constituted a criminal offence. The police service in Montreal
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took an interest, they investigated it, brought it to the attention of the Quebec Prosecution Service.
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As the story unfolds, three senior members of the Quebec Prosecution Services reviewed the entire
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scenario. Not once, not once did they consider the applicability of the religious defence under Section
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319. Not because of the potential successful defence that Mr. Chukari could have used. That was not
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satisfactory for the Bloc who are continuing to pursue this. So it begs the question, why is there an
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interest now by this Liberal government to support the Bloc Québécois? Good question. When clearly,
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Minister Fraser never saw a fit when he introduced C9 into the House. That was never included. In fact,
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all of the witnesses that have been called over the course of six meetings, no member from the
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Conservative Party ever questioned the use of the religious defence. To the best of my recollection,
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Jamie, no one from the Liberal bench questioned the utility of the religious defence. Our Bloc colleague
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definitely did. But again, there was no advancement of that argument. We didn't call for specific
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witnesses to perhaps provide some additional information to the committee as to whether or
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not what are the dangers of removing this particular defence. So here we have a bill that has been
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languishing in committee that by the actions of the Liberal members have been filibustering their own bill.
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We've had chairs who simply cancelled meetings or did not schedule meetings where witnesses were
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actually en route to Ottawa to testify and they showed complete disrespect by not even scheduling the
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meetings or gaveling out before the end of our allotted time. Those are the antics of the Liberal government.
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So what had happened basically in the last week, we were forced literally on maybe 48 hours notice,
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we were forced to go clause by clause on C9 without continuing the study, without recalling the witnesses who
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did not testify, without completing our eight scheduled meetings. All of a sudden in the last two weeks,
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we all read about in the paper that over a particular weekend, Minister Fraser brokered a deal with the
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Bloc that the Bloc would support the passage of C9 and get it back into the House if the Liberal government
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also supported the removal of the religious defence. Do not take it away. Do not amend it. The fact that it's
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never been used successfully ought not to be a political or legal argument for its removal because there
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could be a point in time in the future where that defence could be justifiable depending on what passage
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is read, how it was delivered, what commentary the individual, the religious person put on that, and what
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the response was from the audience. So I don't want to speculate. I don't want to give you a hypothetical.
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The Supreme Court does that very well with their hypotheticals. But that really is the core issue.
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It is a real fight to preserve freedom of expression, freedom of religion, core charter elements that have
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been around since 1982. We will continue this fight. We will continue the filibuster no matter how long it
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takes. It is a red line that the Conservatives will not cross. We are hoping that we will simply convince
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this Liberal government that this is a pathway to no return for this Liberal government. And I'm sure
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I'm getting hundreds, hundreds, if not thousands of emails in the last two weeks. I can only imagine
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that those Liberal members, the four members on this committee, are receiving the very same thing.
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And we'll continue to receive the same thing until we return to Parliament in January.
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All right. So this is another clip from committee. This is Andrew Lawton, our colleague from London area.
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He's having a little fun in committee, just trying to get the Liberals to back off of their campaign
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here along with the bloc. Play cut two. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression are incredibly
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important issues. And I've said on the record, and I will say again, that Conservatives will stand firm
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and defend these fundamental liberties for as long as it takes. But I want to reiterate, in the interest of
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working across party lines, in the interest of collaboration, that we would much rather focus
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on issues that are not so divisive and toxic, and quite frankly, unconstitutional. We would love
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nothing more than to not have to debate my amendment to Bill C-9, that a specific carve-out is needed
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defending freedom of expression and freedom of religion. So at this time, I move to proceed to
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clause by clause or move to a consideration of Bill C-14. So this committee can do work that is
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far more relevant to Canadians in fixing the broken Liberal bail system.
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Sounds like a noble goal. Let's talk about the broken system.
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Let's put that in context. So Andrew's amendment was to the bloc amendment. So what he was proposing is,
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if we remove that amendment, the religious defense, Andrew's amendment would have included specifically
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that there was nothing in the deletion of that defense that would anyway impair freedom of expression
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and freedom of religion. Excuse me. So we talked about that to a certain degree during the filibuster.
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I brought then a sub-amendment to Andrew's amendment to literally take the exact language out of Section 2
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in the charter. Not, you know, elaborating in any great detail, not summarizing, using the exact verbiage
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in Section 2 was my sub-amendment to preserve those freedoms, to give clergy members, religious
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organizations, and religious leaders around this country at least some degree of protection because
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they are very fearful right now. And it is that fear that we are actually capturing in our debate right
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now. So that's what happened. We filibustered in total over two days, close to 17 hours. And just an
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outpouring of support from our Conservative colleagues. We probably had close to 30 members over the course
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of two days, subbing in, defending the right to expression, defending the right for religious freedoms,
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citing examples from religious leaders in their community, also citing their personal journey,
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their journey of redemption with God, with Christ and why this is important to them. So it was really
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personal for a lot of members. Personal for me as well. I shared stories about my upbringing as a young
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Catholic in my community, as well as the pursuit of justice and trying to create a law and order
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society, the reasons why I left a Crown Attorney system to pursue public life at the federal level.
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So, you know, we've got a lot more to say, Jamie, and you know, this debate will continue. And I'm just
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hoping that anyone who's watching this podcast, if they are living in ridings that are not Conservative
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held, or even Conservative held, reach out to your members, but particularly the non-Conservative
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members, those who are watching this podcast, and let them know how you feel about the Charter, how you
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feel about our freedom of expression, how you feel about freedom of religion. Let those members know
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exactly what is going on in your life and in your community. We can't do this alone without the
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community at large also supporting us. Yeah, and we don't want faith leaders, whatever, the faith to
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feel like the walls are closing in. Let's protect that religious freedom. Let's ensure that we are here
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to fight this government and we have pledged to do so. And while at the same time acknowledging that there
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are already laws on the books to deal with the incitement of violence towards others. So there
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are laws on the books that can deal with that. Let's protect the freedom of speech otherwise.
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As I've always said, you're giving me the last word. I do. I was going to cue you into that.
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This really is not a need of filling a void in our criminal justice system. We've had laws on the books
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for decades. So it's not an issue of substance. It's an issue of enforcement. We need police services
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from across the country to be unified in its approach to deal with hatred on our streets.
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If you had a zero-tolerant attitude, if you looked at it as black and white and not grey, we wouldn't
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be seeing what we're seeing right now in this country. And obviously what we discovered in Australia
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over the last two days is simply absolutely horrific. That's what happens. That's exactly
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what happens when you have a federal government that wants to be an observer as opposed to a leader.
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Yeah, good point. Yes, and to the people in the Jewish faith, we send our condolences,
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our thoughts and prayers to what happened over the past weekend in Australia. Absolutely horrific.
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Did you want that to be your last word, or do you have something else? That, and we will continue
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to fight as long as it's necessary. We have the passion, we have the drive, we have the resources.
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This is a war they will not win. All right, Larry Brock, the Brockinator, thank you very much for your
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time. Member of Parliament for Brantford, Brant South, Six Nations, also the Critic for Justice.
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Thank you again, Larry, for your time right before Christmas too, after the House rose. You're still here
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fighting away, and thank you for your time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share
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this program. We will have new content for you every single Tuesday at 1.30pm Eastern time,
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including throughout the Christmas break, so we hope you do tune in. And of course, we
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wind down the year on December 30th with the good, the bad, the ugly, and look back
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at the year 2025, so be sure to tune into that. Until next week, remember, low taxes,
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less government, more freedom. That's The Blueprint.