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One witness was a woman whose husband was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attack on the World Trade Center.

“One has to wonder if treating a terrorist in the same manner as someone who got a parking ticket is the best way to fix a broken system,” said Maureen Basnicki, co-founder of the Canadian Coalition Against Terror. “I would say absolutely not. It sends the wrong message to victims and to Canadian society as a whole.”

B’nai Brith Canada told the committee that “clear penalties” are necessary for deterrence. “We ask committee members to consider carefully the signals they would send by endorsing hybridization of those offences,” said Brian Herman.

“In recognition of the threat and danger posed by terrorism, these crimes should never be prosecuted as summary offences,” said Shimon Fogel of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

Colin Fraser, a Liberal MP on the committee, said in an interview that it took a lot of discussion to decide how to vote. He said it was the testimony from B’nai Brith and other groups that ultimately convinced the Liberals.

“I really think that (terrorism and genocide) are distinguishable from the other offences,” he said. “It wasn’t political pressure, it was more just feeling it was the correct thing to do … This is an offence against a community of people, and it’s viewed as a crime against society as a whole. And obviously there’s a historical context to these sorts of offences that needs to be taken into account.”