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At Wednesday's House of Commons Heritage Committee hearing on freedom of expression, chronic house flipper Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed attempted to sidestep key issues surrounding free speech and government censorship by introducing a series of unrelated and divisive social questions.

The hearing featured Christine Van Geyn, the litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), as she testified about the impacts of Bill C-63 on freedom of expression in Canada. However, instead of focusing on the critical matters at hand, Noormohamed's questioning took a sudden and puzzling detour into social issues unrelated to free speech.

When Van Geyn raised concerns that Bill C-63’s new penalties for hate speech could lead to subjective overreach, Noormohamed shifted the focus away from the substance of her points, questioning her views on hate speech, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and ultimately, controversial topics such as women’s right to wear religious clothing and abortion. 

The repeated digressions intended to cast aspersions on the CCF’s free speech stance and align the witness with contentious social issues without relevance to the specific legislative measures being debated.

Van Geyn repeatedly redirected the discussion back to the hearing's core topic: the protection of free expression and the limits of government intervention. She clarified that violence and incitement to violence are already criminalized under Canadian law, pointing out that any correlation between speech and physical violence is already addressed within existing statutes. 

In a final, confusing turn, Noormohamed questioned Van Geyn on her stance regarding provincial pronoun policies for children—a subject entirely disconnected from the federal bill in question. Van Geyn declined to offer a personal opinion, emphasizing her role as a representative of an organization focused on constitutional rights.