Bill C-202

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (controlling or coercive conduct)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create an offence of engaging in controlling or coercive conduct that has a significant impact on the person towards whom the conduct is directed, including a fear of violence, a decline in their physical or mental health and a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities.

Criminal Code

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to start my speech with a sad statistic. As of May 28, 2024, in Quebec, there have been as many femicides as in all of 2023. My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.

I rise today to speak to Bill C‑332, which would amend “the Criminal Code to create an offence of engaging in controlling or coercive conduct that has a significant impact on the person towards whom the conduct is directed, including a fear of violence, a decline in their physical or mental health or a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities”.

This is a subject that is very important to me since I raised this issue at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, where we are currently conducting a study on the matter. I will talk about the definition of coercive control, some of the details of this bill and a few reservations I have about the bill.

First, coercive and controlling behaviour includes physical, sexual and emotional abuse, financial control, implicit or explicit threats to the partner or ex-partner, and against their children, belongings or pets.

Coercive and controlling behaviour does not relate to a single incident, but a pattern of behaviour that takes place repeatedly. It is important to understand that certain behaviours, taken in isolation might be considered normal, but it is the pattern and repetition of those behaviours that make them coercive or controlling violence.

Megan Stephens, one of the witnesses who took part in the study at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, indicated that there is no universal definition. However, a few definitions were discussed during the study, including restricting a person's movements, refusing them access to the home, controlling what they eat, disconnecting phone lines, breaking their cellphone and preventing them from going to work or to school. Taken together, these behaviours amount to coercive control.

Coercive control is low-level and repetitive. It often does not involve physical violence and takes away a person's sense of personal agency. Victims no longer make decisions based on what their own best interests are or what their driving motivators are, but they make decisions based on fear of what the other person will do to them if they don't make a decision in a certain way. It is generally understood as a course of intimidating, degrading and regulatory practices used by abusers to instill fear and threat into the everyday lives of their victims. Victims are deprived of their liberty and autonomy. The intent is to gain and maintain power and control and strip away a person's freedom and their sense of self.

Abusive behaviours are intended to cause fear and gain power and control over a woman’s thoughts, beliefs and actions. Controlling another person’s thoughts, beliefs and actions does not require specific overt acts of violence, although those acts certainly may be occurring as well.

Abusive partners use isolation, both physical and psychological, as a means to control their partner's contact with friends and family to emotionally bind the partner to them with the shackles of fear, dependency and coercive control tactics. In some cases, abusive partners use state-sanctioned structures to continue to coerce and control women through custody of and access to the children. The legal system is used as a weapon against the victim.

Second, I want to look more specifically at Bill C-332, introduced by the member for Victoria. It is part of a growing trend among legislators who work against coercive violence. In recent years, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights produced a report on this issue. I mentioned it earlier. It was tabled in the House on April 27, 2021.

The Standing Committee on the Status of Women is currently studying this issue. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women dealt with this issue during their study on safe practice in sport.

In the last Parliament, the NDP member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke introduced Bill C‑247 in October 2020. In November 2021, during this Parliament, he introduced Bill C‑202, which is essentially a new attempt to revive the legal framework, definitions and criminal consequences relating to coercive or controlling violence.

Bill C‑332 is the NDP's third attempt to put this issue on the agenda. The fact that it passed first reading and was added to the order of precedence of the House on September 20, 2003, makes Bill C-332 the most successful so far and the most likely to complete its legislative journey.

More recently, there was also Bill C‑233 from the Liberal member for Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle. It received royal assent on April 27, 2023, after study by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. This piece of legislation amended the Criminal Code to require judges, in cases of domestic violence and before issuing a release order, to consider whether it would be desirable for the accused to wear an electronic monitoring device. In addition, the bill amended the Judges Act to require continuing education seminars on matters related to sexual assault, intimate partner violence and coercive control.

According to a study published by Statistics Canada in April 2021, intimate partner violence, including controlling or coercive behaviour, is an integral part of this problem. It is a scourge. It is difficult to put an exact figure on the scale of violence in this country, as most cases are not reported to the police. This is the main obstacle when it comes to identifying and documenting this behaviour as well as implementing solutions for victims.

In her testimony before the committee, Lisa Smylie, the director general of communications and public affairs at the research, results and delivery branch of the Department for Women and Gender Equality, reported that approximately 36% of domestic violence incidents and only 5% of sexual assaults are reported to the police.

Based on data reported by police services in 2018, women in rural areas experienced the highest overall rates of intimate partner violence in the country. The committee also noted that marginalized women, including indigenous women, racialized women, women with disabilities and migrant women, face the greatest risk of violence, not to mention children. Furthermore, although coercive and controlling violence can occur in other contexts, it is present in 95% of relationships where there is domestic violence as we know it.

Today, this coercive and controlling violence is facilitated by technological advancements. GPS systems make it possible to track women. Small cameras can be used to film them. Smart phones and social media platforms are used to spy on them. All these means and tools make it easier for abusers to continue to extend harm, isolation and control regardless of victims’ physical locations. As we saw, there are also the traditional forms of blackmail on social media, impersonating the victim, sending persistent threatening messages, or even distributing private information or sexual content about the victim.

Third, the committee noted a few problems in enforcing the current law in the cases of victims of coercive or controlling violence. I will go over them quickly. The victims distrust current mechanisms, police services and the justice system and have little confidence they will adequately address their trauma. Unfortunately, this attitude is particularly pervasive among groups that are most often targeted by these acts, in other words, indigenous or racialized women, marginalized populations and immigrants. Women who are immigrants or who do not have Canadian citizenship fear the repercussions that reporting the abuse will have on their immigration application.

Furthermore, several stakeholders report that victims believe that they will not be taken seriously. They know that there are myths out there and they want to avoid being judged by institutions on their credibility when they come forward. It is undeniable that the fear of being blamed in turn means that few victims come forward. Victims are limited in what they can do because they may be dependent on the abuser, financially for example. They are caught in a vicious cycle where they could lose everything, end up on the street or lose custody of their children.

This point was raised by several witnesses during a committee study on women's economic empowerment. While aspects of coercive control and controlling behaviour may be present, the police and the justice systems often say that the victim's word alone is not enough to file a complaint. The numerous cases of femicide and harassment show the limitations and major flaw of the infamous “810 order” in cases where violent men pose a high risk of reoffending. They must be treated differently and be forced to use a monitoring device.

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois supports the objective of Bill C‑332. However, we believe there are significant shortcomings that will need to be studied in committee. For example, we will have to study the possibility of expanding the scope of the bill so that ex-partners and other family members can testify in order to address the problem of one person's word against another's. We will also have to address the severity of the sentences and the consideration given to children in cases of coercive or controlling violence, as well as the connection between the new offence and the impact on family law and protection issues. Many other aspects need to be studied.

In conclusion, I would say that we need to have a debate on the duty to protect the victims of controlling or coercive behaviour relative to the obvious right of the accused to a fair and equitable trial. Let us continue to reflect on this issue. That being said, this is done elsewhere in the world and there is not one country that would backtrack on this issue of coercive control.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the minister for his expression of support for my private member's bill, Bill C-202, on coercive and controlling behaviour. I've also been working very closely with the member for Victoria, Laurel Collins. Our commitment, as New Democrats, is that we will get this bill before this Parliament soon, one way or the other. I thank you for mentioning that.

I want to return to the issue of bail hearings directly. One of the things I hear anecdotally is that, often, those who are asked to make the decisions don't have the full information in front of them. Section 518 of the Criminal Code allows prosecutors to present evidence about previous offences and other relevant circumstances, but it doesn't require presentation of that kind of evidence.

Again, one of the suggested reforms is that we amend the Criminal Code to require in every bail hearing that the judge has in front of them information about previous offences by the person who's seeking bail. Is that the kind of thing the government would be prepared to consider in reforming the bail system?

Gender-Based Violence

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with the pandemic came a spike in calls to frontline agencies for help with domestic violence. Like the pandemic, that increase has not faded away.

In the previous Parliament and again this June, the justice committee unanimously recommended that the government bring forward legislation to make coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate partner relationships a criminal offence as one additional tool to help fight intimate partner violence.

Unfortunately, when the government tabled its recent response, there was no sense of urgency. In Canada, we continue to see a woman killed by an intimate partner, on average, every six days, and coercive and controlling behaviour is almost always a precursor to this physical violence.

In the face of government inaction, New Democrats will be seeking other ways to make sure victims and survivors get access to the help they need, with both improved access to support and making coercive and controlling behaviour a criminal offence in my private member's bill, Bill C-202.

I ask all members of the House to continue to support concrete action to address the ongoing scourge of intimate partner violence in Canada.

Criminal Code

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this important debate today on Bill C-5 at third reading.

It is disappointing that this bill was returned from committee virtually with all the same flaws that it arrived there with. One of the issues I want to highlight with Bill C-5 is how it would allow dangerous criminals to avoid jail time and to serve their sentences at home, in the community. In particular, Bill C-5 would extend house arrest to a number of serious crimes, including criminal harassment, sexual assault, kidnapping, abduction of a person under 14 and trafficking in persons for material benefit, in section 279.02. Extending house arrest to those offences would place victims at serious risk of abuse from their trafficker or abuser.

Earlier this year, when I asked the justice minister why this bill did this, he rejected the premise of my question. The justice minister does not seem to know what Bill C-5 would allow. It would allow human traffickers to serve their sentence at home. This is crazy, but the minister does not even know his own bill. Human trafficking is a vicious crime and traffickers prey on the most vulnerable. Criminal harassment, sexual assault and kidnapping are violent crimes by dangerous individuals.

That is why I am surprised to see this bill supported by my hon. colleagues in the NDP. The member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke has introduced Bill C-202 on coercive control. I support that bill, and I believe I was the first MP to jointly second it. I have also written to the Minister of Justice to ask him to support Bill C-202. I have heard from constituents who have experienced domestic violence and face challenges accessing justice and safety, in particular in the face of coercive control by their former partners during and/or following the separation.

Further, having worked with survivors of human trafficking, I also know that coercive and controlling behaviour is the primary method used by human traffickers to control their victims, and many traffickers seek to continue to control their victims after the victims have left or escaped. Therefore, I have recommended that the dynamic between traffickers and victims of trafficking be included within the definition of persons “connected” in Bill C-202 or government legislation on coercive control. This would provide an additional tool to counter-trafficking units to protect victims of trafficking.

The fact is that at no time should we be allowing individuals who traffic or kidnap or sexually assault others to serve their sentences in the community. This was raised multiple times at committee by witnesses.

The chief of police of Laval, Chief Pierre Brochet, said that his force had experienced a crisis relating to sexual exploitation a few years ago. He said:

In Quebec, we are making the fight against sexual exploitation a priority, because many minors are taken and exploited by unscrupulous individuals. It is obvious that crimes such as those you mentioned must be severely punished. If we were to decide instead to impose suspended sentences on those who commit this type of crime, this could send an extremely difficult message to the victims.

Brantford chief of police, Robert Davis, also raised this concern about the conditional sentences for violent crimes like human trafficking and sexual assault. He testified:

We already have weak bail conditions. They will be exacerbated by weak sentences. Essentially, conditional sentences are so that they can serve in the comfort of their homes. That is not a sentence. They will be able to operate.... There are sexual assaults and kidnapping that we see tied to the drug industry with firearms being involved. There's trafficking in persons. If we're serious about human trafficking, are we going to allow house arrest for a human trafficker? It makes no sense.

Jennifer Dunn, the executive director of the London Abused Women's Centre, also testified on the danger of the government's plan to allow house arrest for human trafficking. She said:

When we consider human trafficking as a conditional sentence based on the section of the Criminal Code you mentioned, it really undermines the seriousness of this particular crime.... The problem is that when you have an individual who has a conditional sentence and is put back into the community, oftentimes women are faced with having to face the offender as well, and that is very harmful.... It really puts women at a higher risk, and it makes women have to watch their backs wherever they go.

Jennifer emphasized this: “Women are left to pick up the pieces.”

That is what this bill would do. It would leave women and survivors to pick up the pieces instead of having a government that cares enough to keep their abusers and traffickers in jail.

I also want to share the voice of Kelly Tallon Franklin, who is a survivor and the founder of Courage for Freedom. She wrote to me and the other co-chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. She stated, “As a survivor of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation and abuse, I am both personally and professionally aware of how the results of certain crimes named in this bill would give access to potential criminals to victims and survivors on house arrest or accelerated bail. With over 529 active engagements with survivors that are minors since 2013, I can attest, with the support of the case notes and the testimonials, that there are already instances of breaches of bail and house arrest conditions resulting in harm and repeated violence to victims and risks to their families and communities. These are just two small samplings of the lack of protection in our communities and across the country. As the business and professional women of Canada and as a chairperson in anti-human trafficking, I am gravely troubled that house arrest is being made available for the offence that could cause women and girls at greater risk of revictimization and sex trafficking, gender-based violence and femicide situations by a lack of protection and prevention. Our volunteers and committee team members, legal and policy analysts continue to research policy and laws that affect the requirement to the removal for amendment of these serious offences by any way of any consideration.”

One of the examples that Kelly shared was an Alberta man named Jade Buro, who police had to track down last fall again after he breached his bail conditions. Jade was under a 24-hour house arrest at the time for allegations of human trafficking. What did he do? He cut off his ankle monitor and the police had to issue several public warnings that he was considered violent and dangerous and may have access to firearms. It took the police two months to track him down. With the adoption of Bill C-5, how many more human traffickers, abusers or kidnappers will breach their conditions and continue to hurt and exploit their victims?

It is unconscionable that the government wants to place such a great burden on the victims by allowing their traffickers to serve their time in the community. Once again, I will ask my Liberal and NDP colleagues why they believe that pimps and sex traffickers should be serving their sentences at home. In what situation would they support a kidnapper receiving house arrest?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You talked about training, but also about legislation currently under consideration, Bill C‑202, which could help support initiatives implemented in Quebec.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here. It is really very interesting to hear them.

To start with, you talked about Bill C‑202 relating to coercive conduct. We will have to discuss that in the House.

What would happen if we did nothing but pass that bill? We can have this sort of magical thinking and believe that merely making the thing a crime will make it disappear and solve the problem. But it takes more than that.

What do we have to do around that? You mentioned housing and training for the professionals who receive the complaints. Are there other things we should be thinking about, when it comes to amending the bill, so that at the end of the day, it has a real effect?

[Chantal Arseneault, President, Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. Thank you for the invitation to appear today.

The team at the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale was very interested to read the report entitled “The Shadow Pandemic: Stopping Coercive and Controlling Behaviour in Intimate Relationships”. We have studied the effects of criminalizing coercive control in several countries. We believe that Canada should pursue this avenue and study Bill C‑202.

The Divorce Act introduced the concept of coercive and cumulative violence. Now it is important for there to be knowledge and recognition of that reality in all areas of the law.

In addition to enabling many women to report controlling acts and to recognize the repercussions those acts have for them, creating an offence relating to coercive control would entitle women to compensation for victims of crime. This would recognize the violation of women's fundamental rights to dignity and freedom, and hold the aggressor responsible for his actions.

Some countries, including England, Ireland, Scotland, six U.S. states, and Australia, have enacted legislation to criminalize coercive control or are in the process of enacting such legislation. The Scottish approach seems to us to be the most appropriate and worth considering. It recognizes the impact and consequences of controlling behaviours on the victims, including children. The emphasis is placed on the conduct of the perpetrator without having to prove the harm caused to the victim.

Experience in the various countries that have made coercive control a crime shows that it must be accompanied by training for all of the professionals, including judges, so they are able to recognize these behaviours, so they are aware of gender stereotypes, and so they are able to gather evidence. The training should have an intersectional perspective and include the lived experience of indigenous populations or marginalized groups, to avoid those communities being disadvantaged by criminalizing the behaviour. The training must be accompanied by indicators of success and evaluations.

Support for victims and access to resources are essential, as is educating the public and our young people.

On the subject of support for victims in Quebec, there are about 100 houses providing shelter and help. The 44 shelters that belong to our association provide support exclusively to women who are fleeing violence committed by an intimate partner. They offer services to women who need shelter with their children, but also to women who want to be seen on a non-residential basis. The services they provide include supporting women through the legal process and finding housing. The workers at these houses also going to the schools and the community to raise public awareness about violence and to encourage prevention.

In Quebec, we find that there is a shortage of spaces in shelters. In regions like Montreal, the Outaouais and Lanaudière, it is sometimes impossible to find a place for victims. What is needed is not just resources for properties, but also an operating budget.

Since the start of the pandemic, we have seen a large increase in telephone requests and requests for non-residential consultations. However, we have also seen a limited supply of services because of the shortage of workers. On top of that, the terms of employment that our shelters are able to offer are not very attractive. An increase in transfers to the provinces might help them better fund the resources, as would a review of the programs offered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Economic issues also prevent women from leaving their violent spouse. They need to have access to affordable housing, safe social housing, a decent income, and an employment integration program, to reorganize their lives.

Immigration status can also prevent women from fleeing their partner's violence, when the victim is dependent on her spouse, for example, or in sponsorship or joint application situations. We have to provide women with autonomous status and access to language courses.

Preventing spousal violence necessarily involves educating children from the earliest years. They have to learn about egalitarian relationships, consent, healthy sexuality, and so on. The shelters often lack resources to send workers to the schools so they can work with students on a more regular and intensive basis.

In closing, I would like to point out that when there is no physical violence, not everyone recognizes the presence of spousal violence, be it the victims, the ones committing the violence, or their family and friends. It is therefore important that awareness campaigns showing the various aspects of coercive control be carried out intensively and on a regular basis.

Thank you.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, let me start by thanking the voters of Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for sending me back to the House once again, this time for a fourth mandate. In particular, I would like to thank my partner for more than 20 years, Teddy Pardede, for his constant and enduring personal and political support. My role as an MP is now taking up more than half our relationship and I will never be able to repay him.

As I said during the campaign, I very much wanted to come back to the House to be able to deal with unfinished business from the last Parliament. Indeed, there were lots of things we made progress on that were cut short by the early and unnecessary election. That is why I was pleased to see the quick passage of the ban on conversion therapy, Bill C-4, unanimously no less, both here and in the other place.

There are other examples of bills on which this House had held hearings, had achieved a broad consensus on moving forward and is now able to do so. Those include my Bill C-202, to make coercive and controlling behaviour and intimate partner relationships a criminal offence and Bill C-206, which would remove self-harm from the military code of conduct as a disciplinary offence and instead make sure that self-harm is treated as the mental health challenge that it truly is. I hope we can find a way to move forward on both of those bills that were left undone in the last Parliament.

Today, here we are debating Bill C-5. I am frankly surprised to be up on Bill C-5 so soon because its predecessor was not one of those bills which had been to hearings and it was not of those bills where we had lots of discussions about how to come to a consensus on what needed to be done. Normally, I would be glad to see the House moving quickly to get stuff done that sat on the back burner for far too long. That would be especially true of the issue of systemic racism in the justice system and it would be even more true of the opioid crisis on our streets today.

However, Bill C-5 is a virtual carbon copy, to date myself with an archaic phrase, of Bill C-22, which the government introduced at the eleventh hour in the last Parliament. At that time, we New Democrats clearly told the government we found Bill C-22 to be weak sauce. After its introduction, there were only very limited discussions before Bill C-22 was reintroduced in this session as Bill C-5. In those brief talks I made it clear that New Democrats wanted to see a bill with a few more teeth. We have a crisis of over-incarceration, we have a crisis of opioids on our streets, and the bill is not strong enough.

I am not sure how happy I am to be rushing forward on a bill that remains a half measure, especially when it is not even very clear what it is a half measure of. Here is the first and most important question I have for the government about Bill C-5: Is this a bill to address systemic racism in the Canadian justice system? If so, why is its focus so limited? We know mandatory minimum sentences are one of the causes of the over-incarceration of racialized Canadians and indigenous people. Then why does the bill restrict itself to only removing mandatory minimums for some offences, namely personal possession of drugs and some firearms offences?

We have years of experience now with mandatory minimums. We know they do nothing to reduce crime. We know that they only result in the incarceration of people who have no place in the prison system.

As the over-involvement in the justice system is a real problem for indigenous and racialized Canadians every day, I still have my doubts of some of the provisions in Bill C-5, like introducing those diversion programs instead of more fundamental reforms. In the absence of tackling the thorny question of reform of the RCMP, again I still have some doubts about increasing police discretion in drug cases as Bill C-5 proposes.

If Bill C-5 is actually about racism in our justice system, then there is surely much more it could do. I will return to this question later in my remarks. If Bill C-5 is not about tackling the broad issues of systemic racism in the criminal justice system, then is it really about something else? In fact, the heavy focus on removing mandatory minimums for drug crimes might lead us to believe that Bill C-5 is actually about the opioid crisis. If that is the case, then once again, it makes it hard for me to be excited about quick action on the half measures to confront the opioid crisis that we have in the bill, especially when we have known for so long what is needed.

As an elected official, I first spoke in favour of decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs more than a decade ago as a city councillor in Esquimalt. At the time, I argued that decriminalization provided the most effective path, along with safe injection sites, to tackle the emerging problem of deaths from drug overdoses in my community.

Even then, I was able to point to early signs of success in Portugal where decriminalization was adopted in 2001. Since then, Portugal has seen an 80% reduction in overdose deaths. It has seen the proportion of people who use drugs fall from 52% to 6% when it comes to new HIV and AIDS diagnoses. It has seen a decrease of incarcerations for drug offences by over 40%. Instead, in Canada over the last decade, we have seen so many preventable deaths and now this problem has accelerated into a full-blown crisis across the country.

Last month the Province of British Columbia announced a record number of people had died so far this year from overdoses. There were 201 deaths in the month of October alone, the highest ever in a single month. Think of all the families we are talking about, all 201 families affected by the loss of loved ones in a single month in a single province. This is a crisis.

Numbers released by the B.C. Coroners Service show a death toll in the first 10 months of 2021 in British Columbia being 1,782, surpassing the 1,765 deaths recorded in all of 2020. B.C.'s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, was direct in her assessment of the situation in B.C., a situation no different than any other jurisdiction. “Simply put, we are failing,” she said. With six people dying every single day in British Columbia, the status quo cannot be accepted.

That is why recognizing the stark reality of the opioid crisis, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and now the City of Toronto have all three applied to the Minister of Health for an emergency exemption from the provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that criminalizes personal possession of small quantities of illegal drugs. They are asking that we recognize that criminalization only adds more harm to the toll addiction takes on its victims.

Where are the Liberals on decriminalization of so-called “hard” drugs, either as a temporary exemption or permanent strategy to shift our response to addiction from punishment to health care? One might be surprised to learn that decriminalization is the official policy of the Liberal Party, endorsed more than three years ago at its 2018 convention in Halifax. Perhaps some will be even more surprised to learn that the government was advised to move on decriminalization of personal possession of drugs before the last election.

The previous Minister of Health appointed a commission of experts to advise on drug policies well before that election. Don MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition at Simon Fraser, was part of the task force that simply said that charging people with simple possession and seizing their drugs makes no sense.

In a CBC Radio interview, MacPherson said, “There's mountains of evidence that show it's a bad thing. It's harmful, it hurts people and there is not really an upside to it.” He continued saying, “So the task force...came fairly quickly to the conclusion that the federal government should immediately start work on putting forward a plan to decriminalize simple possession of drugs across the board.”

The task force submitted that report before the election and has since followed up with the new Minister of Health and the new Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, but MacPherson reports they have yet to hear anything back.

Since we returned to Parliament last month, MPs have been increasingly vocal in raising their concerns about the opioid crisis. Certainly, my leader of the New Democratic Party, the member for Burnaby South, has repeatedly called on the government to commit to moving quickly on decriminalization. This call has come from all parties and all parts of the country, urban and rural.

Last August, during the election campaign, even the Conservative leader added his voice to those calling for shifting our approach from punishment to treatment as the way to respond to the opioid crisis, though he did not go quite as far as decriminalization.

Last week, the new member for Yukon, who was previously the Territories' medical health officer before running for the Liberal Party, rose in this Commons to acknowledge that the Yukon has the highest rate of opioid deaths in the country. The new Green MP, the member for Kitchener Centre, made a moving statement in this House on the scourge of opioid deaths in his community.

Indeed, when the new cabinet was appointed, we saw the appointment of the first Minister of Mental Health and Addictions at the federal level, which many of us took as encouragement and acknowledgement of the urgency and seriousness of the opioid crisis.

Therefore, when we know the severity of the problem and we know the solutions, it surely becomes incumbent upon all of us in the House to ensure that we act. Therefore, where is that action? It is not in Bill C-5.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the three emergency decriminalization applications from Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto, we have no indication that things are moving quickly. Under the leadership of Mayor Kennedy Stewart, a former member of the House, Vancouver submitted its preliminary application for an exemption on March 3, and its final application June 1. British Columbia's application was submitted November 1 and Toronto's December 1. It is not like the government has been taken surprise by these requests, yet all the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is reported to have said is, “We are looking at these proposals very, very seriously.”

At the same time, the minister refused to set a timeline for a decision on these applications. Instead, the minister veered off into an argument that decriminalization alone would not solve the opioid crisis, as if anyone ever thought decriminalization by itself was a solution to addiction rather than an important measure of harm reduction.

The minister said that other options were being considered, including establishing a safe supply of opioids to give injection drug users an alternative to the increasingly toxic fentanyl now on the streets. She indicated the federal government was also looking at setting up more safe injection sites and making more counselling available. Yes, that it is all good, but there is no need to wait on decriminalization while putting together a more complete package.

What was especially disappointing to hear was the minister in one interview referring to these ideas as “innovative”. She should know that these are not new ideas, but rather tried and true harm reduction strategies with a track record of nothing but success.

When it comes to the temporary decriminalization applications, the B.C. minister of mental health and addictions, Sheila Malcolmson, also a former member of this House, told reporters last week that Health Canada staff had identified no barriers to speedy processing and approval of B.C.'s decriminalization application.

Where are we? On the one hand, we see no real sense of urgency on the short-term exemption applications and, on the other hand, that leaves us with Bill C-5, which reflects none of that necessary urgency to move toward permanent and complete decriminalization of personal possession of drugs. The narrow scope of Bill C-5, as drafted, certainly means that, for technical reasons, we cannot likely add decriminalization through amendments at the committee stage.

That brings me back to the question of what is Bill C-5 really about. It seems that in the government's mind, this must be a bill primarily about tackling systemic racism in our justice system. If that is the goal of the bill, is there enough there to support?

Clearly removing mandatory minimums for drug offences would be a step forward. Even better would be removing mandatory minimums for all but the most serious violent offences. That is not there, not in Bill C-5. The frustration with the ineffectiveness of mandatory minimums has gone so far as to see a provincial court judge in Campbell River last week substituting probation for a mandatory jail sentence for a woman convicted of dealing fentanyl to support her own addiction. The judge said that she could see no positive impact of a jail sentence in that case.

Not only does Bill C-5 fail to address cases like the Campbell River case, but as well Bill C-5 is missing other elements that would help right the wrongs caused by systemic racism in the justice system. Let us make no mistake about how serious this problem is.

Correctional investigator Ivan Zinger reported in 2020 that while indigenous people made up 4.9% of the total population of Canada, they made up just over 30% of the people in Canadian prisons. Approximately 3.5% of Canadians identified as Black in the last census, yet Black Canadians make up more than 7% of those in prison.

When we look at indigenous and racialized women, the figures are even more stark. Zinger reported that Black women made up just over 9% of women incarcerated and indigenous women made up a shocking 42% of the population in women's prisons. This is the result of mandatory minimums.

The injustice does not end with incarceration as then there is the legacy of a criminal record. Not only have indigenous and racialized Canadians been disproportionately targeted for investigation, prosecution, diversion, fining and imprisonment, the most marginalized among us then end up stuck with criminal records, criminal records that make getting a job almost impossible, criminal records that often restrict access to affordable housing. Bill C-5 lacks any provision for automatic expungement of criminal records for drug possession, something for which the NDP has been calling for more than two years.

Automatic expungement is clearly what is needed after seeing the failure of the government's program for expedited pardons for marijuana convictions, a program that has granted pardons for less than 500 people of the estimated 10,000 eligible in the two years it has been operating. We need something better; we need automatic expungement of these records.

Again, the narrow drafting of Bill C-5 means, for technical reasons, we likely cannot add those elements we really need to tackle racial injustice to the bill. Certainly we cannot add expungement. It is likely we cannot even add additional offences where mandatory minimums now apply to the removal list.

Therefore, I have a question for the government, one I had already been exploring with it before we rushed into this debate. Is there not a way we can make this bill do more to address both racial injustice and the opioid crisis?

The New Democrats are ready to talk, but we probably need to do so before we reach the conclusion of this second reading debate. There is one possibility I will put forward right now to get the ball rolling, and I have to credit the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which put forth the following recommendation in call to action 32 more than six years ago. This call to action states:

We call upon the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to allow trial judges, upon giving reasons, to depart from mandatory minimum sentences and restrictions on the use of conditional sentences.

This proposal would allow judges to ignore mandatory minimums where there are good reasons to do so, including the good reason that mandatory minimum sentences are, in and of themselves, most often unjust. This call to action to restore discretion to judges over sentencing for offences where mandatory minimums have been imposed is clearly doable, it is just not in Bill C-5.

A way to put this call to action into legislation has been provided in what is now Bill S-213. Again, it is probably not possible to add restoring discretion for judges when it comes to mandatory minimums to Bill C-5 in committee, because this idea is far beyond the scope of the existing bill.

What I am asking of the government is whether we can think about using the relatively rare process of sending Bill C-5 to committee before the vote at second reading. This would allow the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to alter the scope of the bill and to add missing provisions like the TRC call to action 32 to Bill C-5, and to add expungement to it. That would put some teeth in this bill.

Sending Bill C-5 to committee before a second reading vote would require a motion from the minister, and he has that opportunity later today when he speaks.

Let me conclude with this offer to work with the government on Bill C-5. This is renewing the offer New Democrats made when the bill was originally introduced in the last Parliament. I make this offer pointing to the progress we were able to make on bills like Bill C-4 and Bill C-3, when we were able to work together on common goals and purposes.

If sending Bill C-5 to committee before a second reading vote is not the way forward in the government's view, then let us work together to find other ways to strengthen the bill.

Am I optimistic about the chances of Bill C-5 proceeding? With the bill as it stands, can the government actually convince the New Democrats that there is enough in Bill C-5 to justify proceeding quickly or even proceeding at all? As I have said, I have good ideas about how we can ensure that is true.

I know there are misgivings in other parties about certain provisions of the bill, but I also know that no one in the House is unaware of the systemic racism in our justice system and its impact on racialized and indigenous Canadians. As well, I know no one in the House wants to turn a blind eye to the suffering imposed on families by the opioid crisis.

I also know we will not get a lot of opportunities to address systemic racism in the justice system in this minority Parliament and will not get many, if any, other opportunities anytime soon to respond effectively to the opioid crisis. Let us not waste the opportunity we have before us now with Bill C-5 to do one, the other or both—

Criminal Code

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-202, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (controlling or coercive conduct).

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to reintroduce my bill to make coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate partner relationships a criminal offence. This new offence would allow victims of coercive and controlling violence to get desperately needed help and would allow earlier interventions in problematic relationships rather than having to wait for physical violence to occur.

During this pandemic, we have heard reports from police and front-line service providers that domestic violence calls for assistance spiked by more than 30%, an alarming intensification of what was already a serious problem in the country.

In the last Parliament, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights studied this issue, and all-party support resulted in a unanimous report, calling on the House to take action within a year, either on my bill or a similar government bill.

I thank the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam for seconding the reintroduction of my bill today.

Addressing the issue of coercive and controlling violence is not a matter of partisanship. It is a necessary step toward addressing the shadow pandemic of domestic violence that has hit women and families so hard during this pandemic.

I urge all members to support quick action on this challenging problem that will literally save lives.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)