Michelle Rempel

[Public Safety, April 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the bill that my colleague opposite mentioned, with regard to child online sexual exploitation and extortion, requires that social media operators submit plans to a yet-to-be-created bureaucracy about how they will protect children.

Why would, at a minimum, the government not require these plans to be posted for everyone to see or for law enforcement to inspect? Why not have maximum transparency on it and why not do it now?

Also, why not close loopholes in the Criminal Code and strengthen the Criminal Code to prevent this from happening right now? Why a bureaucracy?

Why tell people to go to a complaints department instead of the police?

[Public Safety, April 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight on a very important issue.

In November of last year, a 12-year-old child committed suicide in British Columbia, after being the victim of online sexual extortion. The Liberal government has known that this has been a growing problem during the entirety of its nearly nine-year mandate and has taken no action to address this issue. It has gotten worse, and more children have been victimized. It is not just children who are the victims of extortion, and it does not just happen online, but I want to specifically address the extortion of children in Canada, particularly sexual extortion.

This is a federal problem. The gaps in the Criminal Code that allow these criminals to operate are in the federal jurisdiction. The RCMP, which is responsible for catching these organized criminals, is federal. The Prime Minister passed federal Bill C-5, which eliminated mandatory jail time for committing extortion with a firearm. On top of this, he brought into place very detrimental, very poor bail reform, with Bill C-75, which makes it easier for offenders to get back on our streets.

Instead of reacting in a way that would address these gaps, the federal government has proposed a very large bureaucracy that is extrajudicial, that has no costing associated with it, that does not have a set timeline for coming into force and that would be subject to regulations that would not be built for years down the road. That is opposed to supporting common-sense measures, like establishing increased mandatory sentences for criminals convicted of extortion; bringing in five-year prison sentences for any criminal convicted of extortion who is acting on behalf of gangs, and there could be modifiers for cases of children; also restoring mandatory four-year prison sentences for the offence of extortion with a firearm; making arson an aggravating factor for the charge of extortion; and reversing the damage done by Bill C-75.

There are other things the government could be doing as well. We know that the problem of bringing people to justice, for any crime in Canada, but certainly for serious criminal issues, has been a problem since the government took office because the government has not been appointing judges. Across the country, there is a lack of judges. That lack of the ability of the government to appoint judges, coupled with Jordan's principle, has created this system where essentially the criminals act without any sort of deterrent.

I am just wondering why the government has chosen this “kick the can farther down the road” approach to dealing with child online sexual extortion, as opposed to closing loopholes in the Criminal Code and ensuring that there are adequate resources and tools for law enforcement agencies and the judiciary to bring criminals to justice.

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 15th, 2024]

With regard to applications received by the government for federal judicial appointments, since 2016: (a) what is the number of applications received, broken down by year; (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by demographic and by region; (c) how many applicants who have completed and passed the Judicial Advisory Committee's process are currently in the pool of eligible applicants; and (d) how many applications have been denied or deemed ineligible, in total, and broken down by reason for denial or ineligibility?

[Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act, April 9th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot to say about the bill. I will just start with a brief personal anecdote. I want to be very clear when I say this: I do not do this as victim porn or looking for sympathy. It is an example of how if somebody like myself, in a position of privilege, has a hard time accessing the justice system, what about others?

When I was a minister of the Crown, over 10 years ago, I received very explicit sexualized online threats, very graphic descriptions of how somebody was going to rape me, with what instruments, and how they were going to kill me. I was alone in a hotel room. My schedule had been published the day before, and I was terrified. The response at that time from law enforcement, and the process I had to go through as a minister of the Crown, to attempt to get justice in a situation that did not involve intimate images, sticks with me to this day. If I had to go through that at that time, what hope is there for somebody who does not have my position of privilege?

What the bill would do is recognize that the forms of discrimination and harassment that, as my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke says, disproportionately impact women, sexual minorities and other persons, have outpaced Parliament's ability to change the law. Here we are today.

Briefly, I want to respond to some of the points of debate. First of all, my colleague from the Liberals suggested that we expedite Bill C-63. That bill has been so widely panned by such a variety of disparate stakeholders that the government has not even scheduled it for debate in the House yet.

Second, and this is particularly for my colleagues who are looking to support this, to send the bill through to second reading, Bill C-63 would not provide criminal provisions either for any of the activities that are in the bill or for some of the other instances that have been brought up in the House for debate tonight, particularly the non-consensual distribution of deepnudes and deepfake pornography.

I raised the issue in the House over seven months ago. The intimate image distribution laws that are currently in the Criminal Code were only put in place in 2014, about a decade after social media came into play, and after Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd tragically died due to an absence in the law. Seven months have passed, and the government could have dealt with updating the Criminal Code with a very narrow provision that the Canadian Bar Association and multiple victims' rights groups have asked for, yet it has chosen not to.

There are so many articles that have been written about what is wrong with what is in Bill C-63 that we now need to start paying attention to what is wrong with it because of what is not in there. There is no update to Canada's Criminal Code provisions on the distribution of intimate images produced by artificial intelligence that are known as deepnudes.

I want to be very clear about this. There are websites right now where anyone in this place can download an app to their phone, upload any image of any person, including any person in here, and imagine what that looks like during an election campaign, erase people's clothes, and make it look like legitimate pornography. Imagine, then, that being distributed on social media without consent. Our Criminal Code, the Canadian Bar Association, as well as law professors, and I could read case after case, say that our laws do not update that.

At the beginning of February, there was a Canadian Press article that said that the government would update the law in Bill C-63, but it did not. Instead, what it chose to do was put in place a three-headed bureaucracy, an entirely extrajudicial process that amounts to a victim of these crimes being told to go to a bureaucratic complaints department instead of being able to get restitution under the law. Do we know what that says to a perpetrator? It says, “Go ahead; do it. There is no justice for you.” It boggles my mind that the government has spent all of this time while countless women and vulnerable Canadians are being harassed right now.

I also want to highlight something my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke said, which is that there is a lack of resources for law enforcement across the country. While everybody had a nice couple of years talking about defunding the police, how many thousands of women across this country, tens of thousands or maybe even millions, experienced online harassment and were told, when they finally got the courage to go to the police, that it was in their head?

One of those women was killed in Calgary recently. Another of those women is Mercedes Stephenson, who talked about her story about trying to get justice for online harassment. If women like Mercedes Stephenson and I have a hard time getting justice, how is a teenager in Winnipeg in a high school supposed to get any sort of justice without clarity in the Criminal Code if there are deepnudes spread about her?

I will tell members how it goes, because it happened in a high school in Winnipeg after I raised this in the House of Commons. I said it was going to happen and it happened. Kids were posting artificial intelligence-generated deepnudes and deepfakes. They were harassing peers, harassing young women. Do members know what happened? No charges were laid. Why were no charges laid? According to the article, it was because of ambiguity in the Criminal Code around artificial intelligence-created deepnudes. Imagine that. Seven months have passed. It is not in Bill C-63.

At least the bill before us is looking at both sides of the coin on the Criminal Code provisions that we need to start looking at. I want to ensure that the government is immediately updating the Criminal Code to say that if it is illegal to distribute intimate images of a person that have been taken with a camera, it should be the exact same thing if it has been generated by a deepnude artificial intelligence. This should have been done a long time ago.

Before Bill C-63 came out, Peter Menzies, the former head of the CRTC, talked about the need to have non-partisan consensus and narrowly scoped bills so it could pass the House, but what the government has chosen to do with Bill C-63 is put in place a broad regulatory system with even more nebulousness on Criminal Code provisions. A lot of people have raised concerns about what the regulatory system would do and whether or not it would actually be able to address these things, and the government has not even allowed the House to debate that yet.

What we have in front of us, from my perspective, is a clear call to action to update the Criminal Code where we can, in narrow provisions, so law enforcement has the tools it needs to ensure that victims of these types of crimes can receive justice. What is happening is that technology is rapidly outpacing our ability to keep up with the law, and women are dying.

I am very pleased to hear the multipartisan nature of debate on these types of issues, and that there is at least a willingness to bring forward these types of initiatives to committee to have the discussions, but it does concern me that the government has eschewed any sort of update of the Criminal Code on a life-versus-life basis for regulators. Essentially what I am worried about is that it is telling victims to go to the complaints department, an extrajudicial process, as opposed to giving law enforcement the tools it needs.

I am sure there will be much more debate on this, but at the end of the day, seven months have passed since I asked the government to update the Criminal Code to ensure that deepnudes and deepfakes are in the Criminal Code under the non-consensual intimate image distribution laws. Certainly what we are talking about here is ensuring that law enforcement has every tool it needs to ensure that women and, as some of my colleagues have raised here, other sexual minorities are not victimized online through these types of technologies.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 8th, 2024]

With regard to Polar Knowledge Canada and the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS), which Polar Knowledge Canada operates: (a) how many full time equivalent (FTE) positions have been vacated in each year since 2015, in total, and broken down by Treasury Board classification level (e.g. AS-04, EX-02, etc.); (b) how many FTEs have been hired in each year since 2015, broken down by Treasury Board classification level; (c) of the employees currently at Polar Knowledge Canada, how many and what percentage have been there longer than (i) one year, (ii) five years, (iii) 10 years; (d) how many complaints regarding workplace harassment, bullying, racism, sexism, reprisal for whistleblowing, assault or other matters have been made by former or current Polar Knowledge Canada staff or consultants, or others who interact with Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS, against Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS (i.e. their staff or the entities), in each year since 2015, broken down by (i) year, (ii) resolution status; (e) what are the total expenditures on payouts or settlements made to former or current staff or consultants, or others who interact with Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS, related to complaints made regarding workplace harassment, bullying, racism, sexism, reprisal for whistleblowing, assault or other matters against Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS (i.e. their staff or the entities); (f) how much in severance or other types of payouts has been paid to departing Polar Knowledge Canada and CHARS staff, broken down by year, since 2015; (g) what are the expenditures in legal fees spent by Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS in relation to complaints made regarding harassment, bullying, racism, sexism, reprisal for whistleblowing, assault or other matters, broken down by year, since 2015; (h) since 2015, have any requests been made to increase funding related to legal fees beyond the original annual budgeted amount by either Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS, and, if so, what are the details of any such requests, including, for each, (i) the date, (ii) who made the request, (iii) the outcome; (i) what is the total number of lawsuits regarding harassment, negligence, unfulfilled contracts or wrongful dismissal that were filed against Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS, broken down by year; (j) what are the details of all contracts issued since 2015, including, for each, the (i) vendor, (ii) vendor address, (iii) date, (iv) total dollar value of the contract, (v) scope and deliverables of the contract, (vi) manner in which the contract was awarded (i.e. sole-sourced, competitive bid); (k) how many FTE positions are or have been filled by persons that are family members or close friends of existing employees at Polar Knowledge Canada or CHARS; (l) what are the details of Polar Knowledge Canada’s or CHARS' nepotism policy in their hiring policies from 2015 to the present, including the details of any substantive changes that have been made and the year any such changes were made; (m) what are the details of Polar Knowledge Canada’s and CHARS' contract procurement processes and policies from 2015 to the present, including the details of any substantive changes that have been made and the year any such changes were made; (n) what are the details of Polar Knowledge Canada’s and CHARS' workplace harassment policies, including prevention policies, and the details of any substantive changes that have been made and the year any such changes were made; (o) what are the details of Polar Knowledge Canada's and CHARS' current organizational charts, including all permanent full- and part-time positions, and any contractors involved in day-to-day operations, as well as associated Treasury Board classification levels; (p) what were the results of the aggregated data from the 2022 Public Service Employee Survey for Polar Knowledge Canada, broken down by survey question posed to employees (e.g. My Job, My Work Unit, My Immediate Supervisor, Senior Management, My Organization (Department or Agency), Mobility and Retention, Harassment, Discrimination, Stress and Well-Being, Duty to Accommodate, Compensation, Hybrid Work, General Information, etc); and (q) how many grants, contributions or contracts were flagged by Polar Knowledge Canada staff or members of its Board of Directors for potential conflicts of interests, broken down by year and value?

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 20th, 2024]

With regard to the government’s estimates on the efficacy of its Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations: (a) how many fabric, as defined in section 2 of the Textile Labelling Act, checkout bags (hereinafter “fabric checkout bags”) were purchased at major Canadian grocers annually between 2015 and now; (b) how much gross revenue did major Canadian grocers make from the sale of fabric checkout bags annually between 2015 and now; (c) how many fabric checkout bags were sent to landfills annually between 2015 and now; (d) how many times, on average, are fabric checkout bags reused in Canada before being discarded; (e) how many times, on average, are single use plastic checkout bags reused in Canada before being discarded; (f) what percentage of fabric checkout bags does the government estimate are recycled; (g) what percentage or fabric checkout bags does the government estimate eventually end up in a landfill; (h) what research, if any, has the government undertaken to determine how many reuses of fabric checkout bags would be needed for them to be deemed as a viable environmentally-friendly alternative to single-use plastic checkout bags, including, but not limited to, factors such as (i) carbon insensitivity in manufacturing, (ii) energy use in manufacturing, (iii) comparative impact on landfills when discarded; and (i) if the government does not have the information for any of (a) through (h), why does the government not track such information or why was the research not completed?

[Business of Supply, March 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, many people across Quebec are struggling with rising rents, rising costs of food and lower standards of living. Part of that is also higher prices to fill their cars. A carbon tax does not make life more affordable. Conservatives will axe the tax and spike the hike.

[Business of Supply, March 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for spiking the hike and axing the tax on that question. She knows that Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. They are going to food banks to get food. They cannot put fuel in their cars, never mind trying to save for an unaffordable home. That is why it is absolutely crazy to take the government's word. The government wants to be thanked for increasing a carbon tax that does not work.

Over two-thirds of Canadians know that it is time to spike the hike and axe the tax.

[Business of Supply, March 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a cold, natural resource-based country that does not have major public transit options for many Canadians across the country. In fact, we do not even have an electric grid that works to plug electric cars in, so it is insane to increase a carbon tax that does not work, that does not meet Canada's emissions targets and that makes Canadians broke.

It is time to axe the tax and spike the hike.

[Business of Supply, March 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, as to experts, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says the average Ontario family, where the member's riding is, will pay $1,363 for their carbon tax and only get $885 back. That means that, by 2030, a family in his riding will pay a whopping $1,800 for their carbon tax. Eighteen hundred dollars contributes a lot to a family of four. It is not a minimal amount.

It is time to axe the tax and spike the hike.