This bill is from the 39th Parliament, 1st session, which ended in October 2007.
Rob Nicholson Conservative
Second reading (Senate), as of June 5, 2007
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide that the accused will be required to demonstrate, when charged with certain serious offences involving firearms or other regulated weapons, that pre-trial detention is not justified in their case and to introduce additional factors relating to firearm offences that the courts must take into account in deciding whether an accused should be released or detained pending trial.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-35s:
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The Speaker Peter Milliken
I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member, but it being 11 o'clock we will now proceed with statements by members. She will have about six minutes remaining in the time for questions and comments when debate is resumed.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
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The Speaker Peter Milliken
Before question period the hon. member for Surrey North had the floor for questions and comments consequent on her speech. I therefore call upon the member for Yukon for questions or comments.
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to comment on the presumption of innocence in relation to this bill.
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that I understand the question the member has asked. Perhaps he could rephrase it for me.
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, a basic tenet of our legal system is that a person is presumed innocent until convicted by a court. Therefore, if the onus is put on prisoners, which I definitely agree with for other reasons, to prove their innocence and to prove that they should be allowed bail, could the member comment on that in relation to the philosophy of our judicial system where one is innocent until convicted?
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
Mr. Speaker, I understand it is a tenet of our legal system but we have as a society and as a government decided in a number of other circumstances where people's lives are at risk that reverse onus can play a role. That has been upheld.
That is why I said in my earlier comments that this needs to be tracked very carefully and the results of it reviewed. Any time we move into a reverse onus situation, we have to be very careful that it is not abused. There are at least four or five other examples of where reverse onus is used in order to protect, not from some unlikely threat, but to protect from a very likely threat that violence will happen again. In these circumstances both Parliament and the courts have upheld that.
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-35, which is before us here today. First of all, you will not be surprised to learn that the Bloc Québécois is against the principle of this bill, in part because we are opposed to upsetting the balance between the principles of security and the presumption of innocence. We believe that a person accused of a crime must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. In accordance with this presumption of innocence, it is important that the onus be on the Crown to demonstrate that the individual should not be released before his or her trial.
The Crown is in a better position to bear the burden of proof, given its expertise and resources, while the accused is left to his own devices, sometimes without even a lawyer to represent him. As a result, any encroachment on the presumption of innocence must be done with great caution, which is unfortunately not the case with this bill. The Bloc Québécois acknowledges that certain exceptions already exist, but refuses to contribute to any violation of the key principle of presumption of innocence.
I would like to begin my presentation by putting things into context. The bill was tabled in the House of Commons on November 23, 2006 and proposes amendments to the Criminal Code to provide that the accused will be required to demonstrate, when charged with certain serious offences involving firearms or other regulated weapons, that pre-trial detention is not justified. In lay terms, we could say that the bill ensures that, for certain crimes, accused individuals awaiting trial must remain in prison, unless they can prove that they do not belong there.
I would like to give an overview of the bill. At present, the general rule states that it is up to the crown prosecutor to demonstrate that the accused should not be released on bail because he or she poses a danger to the public. The Criminal Code provides for some exceptions, however, and in such cases the accused must prove that pre-trial detention is unjustified. These exceptions are: breach of release conditions, involvement in organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling or production, murder, treason or war crimes.
With Bill C-35, the Conservative government is trying to broaden this range of exceptions. If passed, the bill will require the accused to prove to the judge that he or she may be released without causing concern for society for in connection with any and all of the following offences: attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, extortion, firearms trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, any offence involving a firearm if committed while the accused is bound by a weapons prohibition order.
This bill has been widely criticized, not only by the Bloc Québécois but also by the legal community. It is clearly in response to the shootings in Toronto, the city in which the Prime Minister chose to announce the introduction of this bill. He was accompanied at the time by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, a Liberal, and by Toronto Mayor David Miller, an NDPer. Support for this government bill from these two public figures prompted the Prime Minister to say that, between the three of them, they covered a large portion of the political spectrum, which meant there was some unanimity.
But when the Ontario premier and the mayor of Toronto suggested banning handguns, the Prime Minister was quick to reject the idea. “Simply banning guns we don't think would be effective,” commented the Prime Minister, “What we do need to do is stop the smuggling of illegal weapons”.
This is how the government has come to jeopardize a right that is critical to democracy, namely the presumption of innocence. But at the same time, it will not give a chance to the firearms program, whose costs—
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The Acting Speaker Royal Galipeau
Order, please. The hon. Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip wishes to rise on a point of order.
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Prince George—Peace River B.C.
Conservative
Jay Hill ConservativeSecretary of State and Chief Government Whip
Mr. Speaker, my apologies to the hon. member, but I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions between all the parties, and I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That when no member rises on Bill C-35 today, all questions necessary to dispose of the bill be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, March 27, 2007, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.
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The Acting Speaker Royal Galipeau
Does the hon. minister have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?
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