Senate chamber is housed in a former train station in Ottawa. The postcards that were part of a mass mailing campaign protesting Bill-C-9’s removal of an existing religious exemption from hate speech.Blair Gable
When Conservative MPs opposed the federal government’s anti-hate bill in the Commons, they brandished Bibles to accentuate their argument that the proposed law could stymie religious freedom.
Now, as Bill C-9 nears the end of its parliamentary journey in the Senate, Conservatives are raising the alarm that hundreds of thousands of postcards protesting the bill, have not been delivered by the Senate authorities.
Instead, the 200,000 postcards were stored in a warehouse in Gatineau up until Wednesday, when they were moved to the parliamentary precinct, Senate authorities said.
Conservative Senator Denise Batters expressed outrage on the floor of the Senate in recent days about the undelivered postcards, sent in a mass mailing campaign protesting Bill C-9’s removal of an existing religious exemption from hate speech.
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This week on social media, MP Rachael Thomas, the Conservative heritage critic, said the failure to deliver the postcards to senators “is a blatant assault on fundamental rights.”
The quantity of the protest postcards was so vast, that on Wednesday, they were delivered stacked on pallets and given their own room for senators to sort through and retrieve.
A memo from the Secretariat of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, seen by The Globe and Mail, said the postcards received in bulk from May 19-22 “are unsorted at this point in time due to the large volume (approximately 200,000 postcards.)”
It said in the coming weeks, they will be delivered to the senators’ offices they were addressed to.
The postcards call on senators to oppose Bill C-9, which has already passed through the Commons.
On Thursday, it is due to have its third reading and final vote in the Senate, one of the last stages before becoming law.
The bill would make it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to obstruct someone from accessing a place of worship or other sites where Jews, Muslims and other identifiable groups gather.
It also criminalizes the willful promotion of hatred toward religious and ethnic groups by publicly displaying terror or hate symbols.
Conservatives have railed against the bill, which they have said would limit religious freedom, holding it up for months in committee with lengthy filibusters.
Their opposition focused on the bill’s proposal to remove a religious exemption in the Criminal Code allowing someone who quotes from a religious text to escape prosecution for hate speech. Bloc Québécois MPs have argued for years that the exemption can be used as cover for promoting homophobia, racial abuse and antisemitism and they tabled an amendment to the bill, which the Liberals supported.
Éric Gagnon, director of parliamentary affairs in the office of Senator Tony Loffreda, denied the decision to store the postcards in a Senate warehouse in Gatineau was an attempt to conceal correspondence. Mr. Loffreda chairs the Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.
“This decision was made for administrative efficiency, with the aim of avoiding potential disruptions or delays associated with regular mail processing. At that time, it was clearly indicated that senators and their staff could arrange access to consult or retrieve the postcards as needed,” Mr. Gagnon said in a statement.
He said the messages on the postcards were identical and that senators received both electronic copies and physical samples of the postcards directly in their offices, ensuring they were aware of the content of the correspondence.
“Senators and their staff were advised earlier this afternoon that authorized personnel may enter the designated room to retrieve the postcards,” he added in a statement.
“I would like to underscore that it has never been the Senate’s intention to withhold or conceal correspondence from Canadians. Throughout this process, the postcards have remained accessible to Senators and their staff, and arrangements have been made to facilitate their review and retrieval.”