Françoise Boivin

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, December 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-32, Victims Bill of Rights Act, at report stage.

This charter codifies the federal rights of victims of crime to information, protection, participation and restitution. It also amends some related legislation. Basically, this charter is meant to grant rights to victims, who have often been the forgotten parties in our justice system.

We are at report stage, but it took eight years and countless photo ops and press conferences for the Conservatives to finally decide to introduce their bill. I would really like to believe the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice when he said that they consulted 185 groups and 300 online submissions, but I am not sure they actually heard the message.

All the parties represented on committee agreed on the charter, although we tried our best to improve the charter so that it would produce the desired results for victims. My heart breaks for these victims. However, this is a first step, so we will take it. It is important to be positive in life.

That said, we could have done so much better. We already spoke about this charter at length at second reading. The parliamentary secretary has already named a number of witnesses, and I will not repeat that. However, I will say that about 40 people appeared before the committee over the many days we spent listening, reflecting and presenting amendments that we felt reflected the concerns of victims.

At least we had enough time to hear all the witnesses we called in. As an aside, Saskatchewan submitted a brief in the form of a letter and Alberta's justice minister provided testimony via video conference to share his arguments.

It is too bad, because victims groups, victims rights groups, and legal groups all agree: the responsibility of enforcing this bill of rights will fall to the provinces. We all realize that. It is clear that the provinces will bear the burden of codifying these rights to information, protection, participation and restitution.

It is too bad that we did not get opinions from all the provinces, but at the same time, as one witness in committee said so well, this suggests that the provinces are not very interested in this Canadian bill of rights.

More often we were told that this bill of rights simply codifies federally what is already being done on the ground. The victims rights groups showed us that this is applied haphazardly and in different ways in various regions across our large country. That might be the good thing about this victims bill of rights, but the provinces still need to be on board. As a crown prosecutor who testified before the committee wisely said, if every tribunal applies these rights differently, then we are no further ahead.

We could have done so much better. The government rejected a number of sound amendments. I will read a few.

I am especially saddened to hear that victims rights groups, or the victims themselves, came before the committee to tell us that the problem with the charter is that there is absolutely nothing binding in it.

We often rise in the House to criticize the government for its mandatory minimum sentences and the fact that it basically forces the courts to go in a certain direction and does not let them be the judge or use their own judgement and experience to hand down the best decisions. We have a charter that offers too much flexibility, to the point that just about anyone can do just about anything with this charter.

The message for the victims is sad, but also positive. The positive aspect is that we are finally talking about the victims and we are all united in this. Something has to be done, something has to happen. A heartfelt plea has been made and heard. We must not allow this to be forgotten, so that in three, four, five or six years we will not have to go back to the drawing board and do things right.

I want to give some examples of how this is not very binding. The bill of rights provides for a complaint mechanism. We cannot tell the provinces how to do their job. At the federal level, no one is quite sure how this complaint mechanism will work. To whom do people complain? What we are being told is that if someone files a complaint, the decision will not be binding, so as not to create problems. This means that we have a complaint mechanism, but ultimately, it will not do much.

I also want to talk about the right to information. I think it is rather absurd to say that victims have a right to information, since victims will have to assert that right. The amendments that the NDP proposed in committee were basic amendments. They had nothing to do with how the processes work. They did not affect outcomes or protections for the accused. They were in full compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but at the same time, they made certain aspects of the bill of rights stronger, such as the right to information. All victims have the right to information, but not as it is currently set out in the bill of rights, which states that they must request it.

It is a matter of onus. The onus is still on the victims. Victims have to ask for their rights, whether it be the right to information or the right to be kept up to date. Things will be done only at the victims' request. In my opinion, the crux of this bill of rights is found at the very beginning of Bill C-32. That is the very heart of the rights set out in this much-touted bill of rights. Without that, it is just a bunch of statements of principle that do not amount to much.

The bill enacts a bill of rights and then states:

Information

Every victim has the right, on request, to information about...

In clause 7, it reads:

Every victim has the right, on request, to information...

Clause 8 indicates:

Every victim has the right, on request, to information...

If we want to do right by victims, if we want to really give them rights, if we want to give them their rightful place in the justice system, then at some point we need to do more than introduce a bill filled with platitudes.

We are not objecting to Bill C-32. I agree with everyone that it is a small step in the right direction. I am pleased that the government accepted an amendment from the opposition, one of the amendments that I proposed. I am not trying to flatter myself because I feel as though my proposal was completely watered down. We were asking for the House of Commons committee, the Senate committee or the committees for both chambers designated or established for that purpose to examine the application of the enacted Canadian victims bill of rights two years after clause 2 came into force. The Conservatives changed the timeline to five years.

That is rather unfortunate, as is the fact that they did not agree to listen to the provinces, which were asking for a little more time to apply the bill of rights.

Money will be the sinews of war when it comes to the application of the bill of rights.

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, December 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for quoting me.

Having said that, I still do not understand why Conservative members of the committee objected to a request from the official opposition that mirrored a request made by two justice ministers, neither of whom was on my colleague's list of witnesses who appeared.

The committee did hear from two justice ministers, the attorneys general of their provinces, Alberta's justice minister and Saskatchewan's justice minister, if I am not mistaken. Both called for an adjustment period given that, as Mr. Murie of MADD Canada said, 90% of the new charter falls under provincial jurisdiction. The two attorneys general of those provinces, and others I talked to, felt that three months to implement the bill following its enactment was not enough. They asked for six months, but their request was turned down. That seems like a very logical request to me, so I would like the parliamentary secretary to explain why it was refused yet again.

[Victims Bill of Rights Act, December 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech on the amendments.

The member indicated that Bill C-32 is a step in the right direction but that it does not do enough for victims. However, rather than talking about victims, he spent 10 minutes talking about other issues such as sentencing, the consequences of disclosing the name of a witness and restitution.

I am trying to understand. Are we trying to strengthen the victims bill of rights or amend certain principles of criminal law? If I understood correctly, the member seemed to say at the beginning of his speech that the bill of rights is rather limited. However, if I understood the amendment correctly, the member wants to scale back the victims bill of rights.

[Justice, December 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, clearly 35 seconds is not long enough to list all the measures the government has passed that have then been overturned by the courts. It seems the Conservatives do not really care whether their laws are constitutional or not.

The witch hunt continues. Those who dare to protest the Conservatives' agenda near a publicly or privately owned asset that provides or distributes services for the benefit of the public—basically almost everywhere—will face minimum sentences of two to 10 years in prison and fines of $500 to $3,000. Freedom of expression and demonstration now has a price, a very high price.

How can the Minister of Justice endorse such a bill?

[Justice, December 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is scary to hear.

Conservatives introduced a new law to ban protests which has obvious constitutional problems. It defines critical infrastructure as being just about anything. In this country, people have a right to lawful protest and assembly. Legal experts are already raising concerns about the constitutionality of Bill C-639.

How many blatantly unconstitutional laws are Conservatives going to bring forward before they realize that the Constitution should be respected?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 28th, 2014]

With regard to the closure of the Service Canada Centre at 85 Bellehumeur Street in Gatineau: (a) why was this point of service closed; (b) what studies or statistics support the closure of the point of service and how were they produced; (c) when was the decision made; (d) were the employees and the union affected by the centre’s closure informed of the decision and, if so, when; and (e) did the government analyze the impact of the closure of the Gatineau point of service on its clientele as regards the service location and the area (right to and nature of services) and, if so, (i) how, (ii) when was this study completed, (iii) when was the Minister informed about the study, (iv) what is the title of the study?

[Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, November 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that was an interesting—albeit sometimes strange—speech. One thing stood out to me.

There was one thing from the speech that makes me want to say to my esteemed colleague in front of me is that Bill C-42 is anything but a tough on crime bill.

I sense that even the Conservative base is starting to feel a bit used and abused by the attempts to always parade them when the government brings forward anything that is gun related. I want to read something to him. Some party stalwarts were saying that they are starting to feel taken for granted. I quote:

Dennis Young is a former RCMP officer who was the Reform Party's regional co-ordinator for Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the 1990s and then spent 13 years in Ottawa as an aide to Conservative MP.... Recently, when called by a Conservative fundraiser at his home.... Young told him not to bother calling back until the public safety minister responded to his letter about Bill C-42.

Young said he was “miffed” that after all his work for the Conservatives, he had received no real answer to his questions. “It all leaves us feeling a bit like we're just being used for fundraising,” he said. “If they have that attitude they're going to be disappointed”.

When he talks about tough on crime legislation, how does he respond to the minister of intergovernmental affairs from Quebec who said:

...this runs counter to the concept of public safety and security.

How does he answer that?

[Public Safety, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of women of merit in Quebec, and I am not including myself necessarily, before he says something about it.

Yesterday the Minister of Public Safety refused to give a clear answer about the constitutionality of his bill to expand the powers of CSIS. He refuses to say whether the government's lawyers have looked into this issue or even whether the Minister of Justice has declared it to be constitutional.

Why does the minister refuse to answer this simple question? Is this the result of ignorance or incompetence?

[Justice, November 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of flawed processes, Justice LeBel is preparing to retire, but the government still has not told us what process will be put in place to fill the vacant seat on Canada's top court.

What is more, since it is one of the three seats reserved for Quebec, the provincial government expects to be consulted, and rightly so. We hope that the Conservatives have at least remembered a little something about the fiasco surrounding Justice Nadon's appointment and will agree to broad consultations.

Will the Minister of Justice commit to consulting the Quebec government, and when will that consultation take place?

[Justice, November 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that justice delayed is justice denied for everyone, especially victims.

There are 31 vacancies for judges In Ontario. Some seats have even been empty for 18 months. The government needs to get a move on here.

The minister's inaction is having a negative impact on all courts, from the Superior Court to the Court of Appeal, not to mention the Supreme Court of Canada. Victims who are awaiting justice are the first victims of the minister's inaction.

When will he get to work and nominate judges in order to reduce wait times? The clock is ticking.