The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Freedom of religion in Canada is under threat.

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to the Brock Prince. I'm your host at Jamie Schmael,

00:00:13.240 Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps of the Lakes, with new content for you every single

00:00:16.640 Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program.

00:00:22.220 You probably know who our guest is. And we are going to talk about today,

00:00:25.500 the Conservatives are fighting for religious freedoms at committee, and the filibuster

00:00:30.700 continues. It's C9 we're talking about, and we bring on Larry Brock, probably guest at the

00:00:35.460 Brockinator, Member of Parliament for Brant South. Six Nations, thanks for coming on the show.

00:00:40.160 Thank you, Jamie. You know it's always a pleasure to appear on the show.

00:00:43.180 And I always enjoy having you. Thank you.

00:00:45.400 Right now, it's C9. Yes.

00:00:47.780 What the heck is C9? Because I know my phone in my office is ringing off the hook, I'm getting emails.

00:00:52.340 Sure. What is C9? So those that aren't paying attention to it know what it is.

00:00:55.960 Sure. So C9 labeled the Combating Hate Act. Notwithstanding that we had two years of rising

00:01:06.320 anti-Semitic demonstrations from coast to coast to coast. We had people openly breaking laws right in

00:01:16.120 the presence of police officers who largely stood idly by, not making any arrests, causing fear,

00:01:24.320 chaos, and corruption on our streets, directly targeting Jewish Canadians right across this

00:01:31.200 particular country. For two years, under the Trudeau government, and to a certain degree under

00:01:37.140 the Kearney government, we had a government that was playing both sides of the dispute. We had those

00:01:43.120 of his caucus who were clearly supporting Israel and its right to defend itself, and we had those

00:01:48.720 who were supporting a Palestinian state. And you never really had a clear direction, sending one

00:01:54.780 message to one group, another message to another group, largely sitting by, not introducing any

00:02:02.000 legislation or providing a clear direction to law enforcement, that we already had laws. And we've

00:02:10.160 had laws in the criminal code for decades, dealing with a multitude of examples that have been on our

00:02:18.760 streets literally for the past two years. So park that aside for a moment. We've had four plus years,

00:02:26.380 in fact, I would some say 10 years of lawlessness on the streets, rising crime levels through the roof.

00:02:35.100 I got into Parliament 2021, and I had been advocating for change to our criminal justice system, particularly

00:02:42.540 as it relates to bail, ending the revolving door system, ending the catch and release. We've all been

00:02:48.540 very vocal in the House of Commons, outside the House of Commons. One would have thought that given four

00:02:54.780 years of intense pressure by all the major stakeholders in the country, premiers, mayors, police chiefs,

00:03:01.580 presidents of police associations, victim advocacy groups, that the message might want to get through

00:03:07.500 loud and clear to the government, you need to address this. But they chose not to. They chose to focus in

00:03:13.900 on the Combating Hate Act, which is C9. C9 broken down into three areas. New offence, they create a brand

00:03:20.700 new offence by amending the Criminal Code for a hate-motivated intimidation offence. They also deal

00:03:26.700 with obstruction of religious or cultural sites and a new offence of criminalizing public displays of

00:03:36.940 hate symbols or symbols belonging to an identified terrorist organization as defined within the Criminal

00:03:45.340 Code. So those are largely the three key areas. There were some other little areas

00:03:50.460 that were really non-disputable by the majority of the members of the Justice Committee. But that's the

00:03:56.860 act itself. So we got into committee not too long ago. We set aside, I believe it was eight meetings.

00:04:05.420 And then over the course of the last about a month or so, we had a number of distractions that largely were

00:04:15.260 manmade in terms of the Liberal government literally obstructing and filibustering their own pieces of

00:04:23.180 legislation. So all throughout this debate, we were also prioritizing our bail and sentencing reform study.

00:04:33.340 And we had meetings set aside, one meeting for bail, one meeting for the Combating Hate Act under C9.

00:04:41.980 So that progressed reasonably well until such time as the Bloc continued to pursue their own amendment.

00:04:50.060 And that really is the heart of what we want to discuss today. And that amendment

00:04:54.380 is to remove a defence under Section 319, which is the intimidation or creating an incitement to hatred

00:05:05.420 defence. And it's been an offence in the Criminal Code, as I said, for decades. There are four clear

00:05:11.900 defences under Section 319 of the Code. The Bloc is attacking one of those defences to remove

00:05:19.260 the expression of a religious opinion made in good faith. That is the defence. That defence, Jamie, has been in

00:05:27.900 the books for 55 years, introduced by former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, studied at committee,

00:05:36.780 debated in the House, debated in the Senate, passed Royal Assent in the year 1970. And by and large,

00:05:45.260 it has been an unsuccessful defence, because the standard is extremely high. The Bloc cites an example,

00:05:54.780 not too long ago, of a radical iman in Montreal. His name is Chukari. And he literally called for

00:06:03.420 the extermination of Zionists. Zionists could be called for Jews. He didn't use the word Jews, 0.99

00:06:10.940 he used the word Zionists. But it was interpreted as such to mean the elimination of an identifiable

00:06:19.660 group. That is a criminal offence. Anyone that believes in a Jewish state, an independent Jewish 1.00

00:06:23.180 state. But what he said already constituted a criminal offence. The police service in Montreal

00:06:33.340 took an interest, they investigated it, brought it to the attention of the Quebec Prosecution Service.

00:06:40.300 As the story unfolds, three senior members of the Quebec Prosecution Services reviewed the entire

00:06:48.940 scenario. Not once, not once did they consider the applicability of the religious defence under Section

00:06:57.740 319. Not because of the potential successful defence that Mr. Chukari could have used. That was not

00:07:07.100 satisfactory for the Bloc who are continuing to pursue this. So it begs the question, why is there an

00:07:14.540 interest now by this Liberal government to support the Bloc Québécois? Good question. When clearly,

00:07:22.540 Minister Fraser never saw a fit when he introduced C9 into the House. That was never included. In fact,

00:07:36.060 all of the witnesses that have been called over the course of six meetings, no member from the

00:07:43.740 Conservative Party ever questioned the use of the religious defence. To the best of my recollection,

00:07:49.420 Jamie, no one from the Liberal bench questioned the utility of the religious defence. Our Bloc colleague

00:07:57.180 definitely did. But again, there was no advancement of that argument. We didn't call for specific

00:08:05.820 witnesses to perhaps provide some additional information to the committee as to whether or

00:08:12.700 not what are the dangers of removing this particular defence. So here we have a bill that has been

00:08:22.540 languishing in committee that by the actions of the Liberal members have been filibustering their own bill.

00:08:29.580 We've had chairs who simply cancelled meetings or did not schedule meetings where witnesses were

00:08:37.020 actually en route to Ottawa to testify and they showed complete disrespect by not even scheduling the

00:08:45.500 meetings or gaveling out before the end of our allotted time. Those are the antics of the Liberal government.

00:08:53.580 So what had happened basically in the last week, we were forced literally on maybe 48 hours notice,

00:09:02.460 we were forced to go clause by clause on C9 without continuing the study, without recalling the witnesses who

00:09:11.260 did not testify, without completing our eight scheduled meetings. All of a sudden in the last two weeks,

00:09:18.540 we all read about in the paper that over a particular weekend, Minister Fraser brokered a deal with the

00:09:26.220 Bloc that the Bloc would support the passage of C9 and get it back into the House if the Liberal government 0.75

00:09:36.700 also supported the removal of the religious defence. Do not take it away. Do not amend it. The fact that it's

00:09:45.900 never been used successfully ought not to be a political or legal argument for its removal because there

00:09:54.140 could be a point in time in the future where that defence could be justifiable depending on what passage

00:10:02.940 is read, how it was delivered, what commentary the individual, the religious person put on that, and what

00:10:11.740 the response was from the audience. So I don't want to speculate. I don't want to give you a hypothetical.

00:10:18.300 The Supreme Court does that very well with their hypotheticals. But that really is the core issue.

00:10:24.060 It is a real fight to preserve freedom of expression, freedom of religion, core charter elements that have

00:10:33.660 been around since 1982. We will continue this fight. We will continue the filibuster no matter how long it

00:10:42.940 takes. It is a red line that the Conservatives will not cross. We are hoping that we will simply convince

00:10:51.660 this Liberal government that this is a pathway to no return for this Liberal government. And I'm sure

00:10:59.020 I'm getting hundreds, hundreds, if not thousands of emails in the last two weeks. I can only imagine

00:11:06.300 that those Liberal members, the four members on this committee, are receiving the very same thing.

00:11:12.140 And we'll continue to receive the same thing until we return to Parliament in January.

00:11:15.980 All right. So this is another clip from committee. This is Andrew Lawton, our colleague from London area.

00:11:20.860 He's having a little fun in committee, just trying to get the Liberals to back off of their campaign

00:11:27.260 here along with the bloc. Play cut two. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression are incredibly

00:11:34.620 important issues. And I've said on the record, and I will say again, that Conservatives will stand firm

00:11:40.300 and defend these fundamental liberties for as long as it takes. But I want to reiterate, in the interest of

00:11:46.380 working across party lines, in the interest of collaboration, that we would much rather focus

00:11:53.260 on issues that are not so divisive and toxic, and quite frankly, unconstitutional. We would love

00:11:58.700 nothing more than to not have to debate my amendment to Bill C-9, that a specific carve-out is needed

00:12:08.460 defending freedom of expression and freedom of religion. So at this time, I move to proceed to

00:12:13.580 clause by clause or move to a consideration of Bill C-14. So this committee can do work that is

00:12:19.260 far more relevant to Canadians in fixing the broken Liberal bail system.

00:12:23.100 Sounds like a noble goal. Let's talk about the broken system.

00:12:26.540 Let's put that in context. So Andrew's amendment was to the bloc amendment. So what he was proposing is,

00:12:34.700 if we remove that amendment, the religious defense, Andrew's amendment would have included specifically

00:12:44.060 that there was nothing in the deletion of that defense that would anyway impair freedom of expression

00:12:52.220 and freedom of religion. Excuse me. So we talked about that to a certain degree during the filibuster.

00:12:59.340 I brought then a sub-amendment to Andrew's amendment to literally take the exact language out of Section 2

00:13:09.580 in the charter. Not, you know, elaborating in any great detail, not summarizing, using the exact verbiage

00:13:18.780 in Section 2 was my sub-amendment to preserve those freedoms, to give clergy members, religious

00:13:27.020 organizations, and religious leaders around this country at least some degree of protection because

00:13:35.740 they are very fearful right now. And it is that fear that we are actually capturing in our debate right

00:13:41.820 now. So that's what happened. We filibustered in total over two days, close to 17 hours. And just an

00:13:50.380 outpouring of support from our Conservative colleagues. We probably had close to 30 members over the course

00:13:56.940 of two days, subbing in, defending the right to expression, defending the right for religious freedoms,

00:14:05.340 citing examples from religious leaders in their community, also citing their personal journey,

00:14:11.580 their journey of redemption with God, with Christ and why this is important to them. So it was really

00:14:18.860 personal for a lot of members. Personal for me as well. I shared stories about my upbringing as a young

00:14:25.100 Catholic in my community, as well as the pursuit of justice and trying to create a law and order

00:14:34.380 society, the reasons why I left a Crown Attorney system to pursue public life at the federal level.

00:14:42.220 So, you know, we've got a lot more to say, Jamie, and you know, this debate will continue. And I'm just

00:14:48.860 hoping that anyone who's watching this podcast, if they are living in ridings that are not Conservative

00:14:56.060 held, or even Conservative held, reach out to your members, but particularly the non-Conservative

00:15:01.500 members, those who are watching this podcast, and let them know how you feel about the Charter, how you

00:15:08.220 feel about our freedom of expression, how you feel about freedom of religion. Let those members know

00:15:14.700 exactly what is going on in your life and in your community. We can't do this alone without the

00:15:21.900 community at large also supporting us. Yeah, and we don't want faith leaders, whatever, the faith to 0.98

00:15:27.340 feel like the walls are closing in. Let's protect that religious freedom. Let's ensure that we are here

00:15:34.060 to fight this government and we have pledged to do so. And while at the same time acknowledging that there

00:15:40.620 are already laws on the books to deal with the incitement of violence towards others. So there

00:15:46.940 are laws on the books that can deal with that. Let's protect the freedom of speech otherwise.

00:15:52.060 As I've always said, you're giving me the last word. I do. I was going to cue you into that.

00:15:56.060 This really is not a need of filling a void in our criminal justice system. We've had laws on the books

00:16:03.900 for decades. So it's not an issue of substance. It's an issue of enforcement. We need police services

00:16:13.820 from across the country to be unified in its approach to deal with hatred on our streets.

00:16:21.820 If you had a zero-tolerant attitude, if you looked at it as black and white and not grey, we wouldn't

00:16:29.420 be seeing what we're seeing right now in this country. And obviously what we discovered in Australia

00:16:35.580 over the last two days is simply absolutely horrific. That's what happens. That's exactly

00:16:40.780 what happens when you have a federal government that wants to be an observer as opposed to a leader.

00:16:46.860 Yeah, good point. Yes, and to the people in the Jewish faith, we send our condolences,

00:16:51.580 our thoughts and prayers to what happened over the past weekend in Australia. Absolutely horrific.

00:16:56.380 Did you want that to be your last word, or do you have something else? That, and we will continue

00:16:59.980 to fight as long as it's necessary. We have the passion, we have the drive, we have the resources.

00:17:06.540 This is a war they will not win. All right, Larry Brock, the Brockinator, thank you very much for your

00:17:11.660 time. Member of Parliament for Brantford, Brant South, Six Nations, also the Critic for Justice.

00:17:16.940 Thank you again, Larry, for your time right before Christmas too, after the House rose. You're still here

00:17:21.980 fighting away, and thank you for your time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share

00:17:26.060 this program. We will have new content for you every single Tuesday at 1.30pm Eastern time,

00:17:32.300 including throughout the Christmas break, so we hope you do tune in. And of course, we

00:17:36.860 wind down the year on December 30th with the good, the bad, the ugly, and look back

00:17:42.220 at the year 2025, so be sure to tune into that. Until next week, remember, low taxes,

00:17:47.340 less government, more freedom. That's The Blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - December 16, 2025

Freedom of religion in Canada is under threat.

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