Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, when you were speaking with my colleague Mr. Ali, you spoke about the impact of the conflict between Israel and Gaza here in Quebec and Canada, where quite a few serious anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents have occurred. It was mainly anti-Semitism.
As you said earlier that you wouldn't want their votes. You're right. No one wants people like that to vote for them.
Something unfortunate happened recently at a demonstration, when a well-known preacher openly called for the murder of Jews. According to the Criminal Code, fomenting hate against an identifiable group is a criminal offence, but there is unfortunately an exemption when it's based on religion. The wording is: “No person shall be convicted…if, in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument and opinion upon a religious subject…”.
The Bloc Québécois introduced a bill which explicitly addresses this. We simply want to amend the Criminal Code to remove this exemption. As you are the person who raised this matter in committee, I'd like to know what you think about the idea of removing the religious exemption from the Criminal Code.