Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser Hosts Q&A at StFX

Canada’s Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser stopped by StFX last Monday, giving a short lecture during Prof. Adam Lajeunesse’s Public Policy & Governance 101 class. Fraser, a StFX alumn, is the Member of Parliament for Central Nova, which covers all of Pictou County as well as parts of Antigonish County and the Eastern Shore, located north of Halifax.  

The speech started 20 minutes late as Fraser was on the phone with Prime Minister Mark Carney. In the meantime, StFX President Andy Hakin said a few words about StFX’s politics and public policy. ‘’Government is a big entity, and whether you do that or something else, there is a place for a myriad of skills within public service’’, Hakin said to the class. ‘’We’re trying to ensure that our country, through you, goes forward to do the things that are right for the population’’.  

Fraser began with a short introduction, then opened up the floor for a Q&A session. I asked him about the new Hate-Speech bill he announced on September 19. Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, has been criticized by several human right’s watchdogs such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.  

The proposed legislation would make it a crime to commit an offence and show a sign or symbol associated with a listed terrorist entity, as well as Nazi Symbols. I asked Fraser if the law was in place 35 years ago, would it have been a crime to protest Apartheid in South Africa with a poster of Nelson Mandela. Mandela was a leader in the African National Congress, which is now widely celebrated for its key role in ending apartheid, yet at the time were proscribed as a terrorist entity.  

Fraser defended the Combatting Hate Act, saying it criminalizes the willful obstruction of “the ability for people to go to a place of worship”.   In addition, it “addresses what’s being treated in the media as a ‘symbols ban’, but there’s more nuance to that’’. Fraser said that it wouldn’t be illegal to raise a Nelson Mandela poster because “the law doesn’t criminalize the display of any symbols, it criminalizes the willful promotion of hate through the use of those symbols’’. Since the willful promotion of hate is already a crime, using a symbol in the exercise of hate would be ‘’an additional layer of criminal responsibility over and above the criminal responsibility for promoting hate against an identifiable group’’.  

When asked about violence against Indigenous women, Fraser replied “In my view, [it’s something] we will need a whole of society effort to overcome centuries of discrimination to a group who’ve been here since time immemorial’’. More broadly, “What justice means more broadly, from my part, I think it’s hard to say that you can address justice vis a vis Indigenous People in Canada if you’re dealing with a community that doesn’t have access to clean water, or affordable housing, or is dealing with overcrowding and the related spread of diseases that may come with it, in addition to whatever challenges you may have on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, in addition to what challenges you may have with under policing or over policing, whatever the case may be’’.  

Another student asked about the difference between having Carney as Prime Minister instead of Trudeau. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist’’, said Fraser, “to figure out that after ten years in office, people want to see new perspectives emerge’’. Under Trudeau, if cabinet ministers wanted to explain “the emotional connection to an issue they or others may have had, they were always given that space. You would be finding yourself occasionally in meetings beyond the scheduled end time because people wanted to air all of their thoughts on the issue, and there’s value in that, but it’s different now’’.   

With Carney, “the meeting starts when the second hand hits the top of the clock... to the extent you have questions, you know what they are, and you’re not just making conversation. It got to a point during one conversation early on where a few colleagues were saying things like ‘I’d like to build on what so and so said, I’d like to echo the argument my colleague made’ and the Prime Minister literally stopped the meeting and said ‘folks, this is a meeting, arguably the most valuable two hours anywhere in Canada this week, and I want you all to know that speaking is for people who have something new or useful to say’. And when you hear that once, you make sure you are not the kind of person who is going to fill time with your thoughts on an issue unless it’s essential to the decision being made”.  

President of the StFX Liberal Society Kash Richards thought “it was a very good talk, he was a very good speaker’’. He met Fraser during the federal election campaign, saying “the impression I got from him... is that what you see is what you get. He’s not putting on a thick mask. He’s there because he cares’’. Richards, a second year English Major, said he’s “always aligned’’ with the Liberal Party. ‘’I’m more of left-wing person, I believe the role of government is to take care of people’’.