Bill C-75 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) modernize and clarify interim release provisions to simplify the forms of release that may be imposed on an accused, incorporate a principle of restraint and require that particular attention be given to the circumstances of Aboriginal accused and accused from vulnerable populations when making interim release decisions, and provide more onerous interim release requirements for offences involving violence against an intimate partner;
(b) provide for a judicial referral hearing to deal with administration of justice offences involving a failure to comply with conditions of release or failure to appear as required;
(c) abolish peremptory challenges of jurors, modify the process of challenging a juror for cause so that a judge makes the determination of whether a ground of challenge is true, and allow a judge to direct that a juror stand by for reasons of maintaining public confidence in the administration of justice;
(d) increase the maximum term of imprisonment for repeat offences involving intimate partner violence and provide that abuse of an intimate partner is an aggravating factor on sentencing;
(e) restrict the availability of a preliminary inquiry to offences punishable by imprisonment for a term of 14 years or more and strengthen the justice’s powers to limit the issues explored and witnesses to be heard at the inquiry;
(f) hybridize most indictable offences punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years or less, increase the default maximum penalty to two years less a day of imprisonment for summary conviction offences and extend the limitation period for summary conviction offences to 12 months;
(g) remove the requirement for judicial endorsement for the execution of certain out-of-province warrants and authorizations, expand judicial case management powers, allow receiving routine police evidence in writing, consolidate provisions relating to the powers of the Attorney General and allow increased use of technology to facilitate remote attendance by any person in a proceeding;
(h) re-enact the victim surcharge regime and provide the court with the discretion to waive a victim surcharge if the court is satisfied that the victim surcharge would cause the offender undue hardship or would be disproportionate to the gravity of the offence or the degree of responsibility of the offender; and
(i) remove passages and repeal provisions that have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, repeal section 159 of the Act and provide that no person shall be convicted of any historical offence of a sexual nature unless the act that constitutes the offence would constitute an offence under the Criminal Code if it were committed on the day on which the charge was laid.
The enactment also amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act in order to reduce delays within the youth criminal justice system and enhance the effectiveness of that system with respect to administration of justice offences. For those purposes, the enactment amends that Act to, among other things,
(a) set out principles intended to encourage the use of extrajudicial measures and judicial reviews as alternatives to the laying of charges for administration of justice offences;
(b) set out requirements for imposing conditions on a young person’s release order or as part of a sentence;
(c) limit the circumstances in which a custodial sentence may be imposed for an administration of justice offence;
(d) remove the requirement for the Attorney General to determine whether to seek an adult sentence in certain circumstances; and
(e) remove the power of a youth justice court to make an order to lift the ban on publication in the case of a young person who receives a youth sentence for a violent offence, as well as the requirement to determine whether to make such an order.
Finally, the enactment amends among other Acts An Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons) so that certain sections of that Act can come into force on different days and also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Criminal Code

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was quite right when he said the legislation was introduced on a Thursday afternoon before the Easter break. That speaks volumes to how little credibility the legislation has with respect to dealing with these changes. The government knew it would be open to criticism. It has shut down debate on the issue so it does not further expose itself to criticism.

Because the Liberals have been so slow at appointing judges, having summary convictions would stop the backlog in the courts. What does the hon. member feel about that?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my opening comments, this is a 300-page omnibus bill, which the Liberals promised not to use.

I have in my hands a summary from the Library of Parliament that is 45-pages long. It shows criminal offence after criminal offence. One column shows current penalties and then we read the proposed penalties in Bill C-75. This would give every Canadian who took the time to look at it great cause for concern for their safety.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-75, the Liberal government's justice reform bill.

Sadly, I cannot find a lot of good things to report about the bill to the House, to my riding, or to Canadians at large, for that matter. Like a number of the Liberal government's legislative measures, the purpose of the bill, as presented by the Liberal front bench, does not always match what the bill actually proposes to do.

In Bill C-71, the Minister of Public Safety used tragic shootings in the United States, shootings in Canada, and a guns and gangs summit in Ottawa to suggest he was putting forward legislation that would tackle illegal guns, gangs, and violent criminals. The sad reality is that the legislation he has proposed never once mentions gangs or organized crime, and does nothing to deal with illegal weapons and crimes caused by them.

Prior to that, the Minister of Public Safety had introduced Bill C-59, a bill he claimed would strengthen our national security and protect Canadians. Again, the reality was very different, as the bill would move nearly $100 million dollars from active security and intelligence work that protects Canadians to administrative and oversight mechanisms.

Worst of all, the Minister of Public Safety made bold claims about moving the bill to committee before second reading, stating:

I would inform the House that, in the interests of transparency, we will be referring this bill to committee before second reading, which will allow for a broader scope of discussion and consideration and possible amendment of the bill in the committee when that deliberation begins.

When it came time to actually consider reasonable, bold, or even small amendments, the Liberals fought tooth and nail to ensure the bill did not change in scope or scale. The results are poor for Canadians and for those who work in national security, more people looking over shoulders, tougher rules, more paperwork, and few, if any, benefits, as front-line efforts to protect Canadians only become more difficult.

Under Bill C-75, we see the same old story. The justice minister made bold claims that she would be helping address the backlog of cases created when the Supreme Court imposed a maximum time frame for cases. The minister made these claims. The legislation would improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system and reduce court delays. It would strengthen response to domestic violence. It would streamline bail hearings. It would provide more tools to judges. It would improve jury selection. It would free up limited court resources by reclassifying serious offences. It sounds like a great bill. Streamline the courts? Strengthen response to domestic violence? Provide more tools for judges? That all sounds fantastic.

Sadly, the Liberals are not achieving any of these objectives according to the legal community nor according to many knowledgeable leaders in the House. Does it shorten trials and ensure that we deal with the backlog? No. The minister appears to make this claim on the elimination of most preliminary hearings.

Preliminary hearings, according the Canadian legal community, account for just 3% of all court time. With an overloaded court system, eliminating a huge number of these hearings will only make a small impact. That impact, unfortunately, will be offset by potentially worse results.

Preliminary hearings are used and can often weed out the weakest cases, which means that more of the weak cases will go to trial if we eliminate the preliminary hearings. That will increase court times. Moreover, preliminary trials can deal with issues up front and make trials more focused. Instead, many cases will be longer with added procedural and legal arguments.

One member of the legal community called this bill “a solution to a problem that does not exist." That is high praise indeed. However, it is the changes to serious criminal offences that have many Canadians, not just the legal community, concerned.

I think all members of the House could agree, or at least accept, that not all Criminal Code issues need to be treated the same and that threshold for punishment should also not be treated the same. However, Canadians expect that Ottawa will ensure we have safe streets, and that the law benefits all people like the law-abiding and victims, not just slanted in favour of the convicted criminals. The Liberals seem to be more focused on making life harder on the law-abiding and easier on criminals.

Under Bill C-75, the Liberals have provided the option to proceed with a large number of violent offences by way of summary conviction rather than an indictable offence. This means that violent criminals may receive no more than the proposed 12 months in jail or a fine for their crimes, crimes such as a slap on the wrist for things like participation in a terrorist organization, obstructing justice, assault with a weapon, forced marriage, abduction, advocating genocide, participation in a criminal organization, and trafficking, just to name a very few.

There are many more, but it bears looking at a few in particular. These are serious offences. Allowing these criminals back on the streets with little to no deterrence makes even less sense.

Assault with a weapon, as we know, is when someone uses a weapon that is not a firearm, such as a bat, a hammer, or any sort of item, to attack someone else. These are not minor occurrences. They are serious criminal issues that should have the full force and effect of the law. Abduction is another serious offence. It could involve children taken from parents or intimate partner violence, or it could be combined with a number of other offences for kidnapping and forced confinement.

In none of these scenarios are the victims or society better served when those responsible for these types of offences serve only a minimal jail sentence or receive a fine. The principle is that Canadians expect that our government and our courts will be there to ensure that criminals receive punishment for their crimes, and that good, law-abiding Canadians and those who have been victimized by these criminals are treated well and fairly.

However, the average Canadian cannot see how making sentences shorter on criminals would meet this basic test. The fact is that it does not meet that test. What it does is address another problem. It potentially reduces court backlogs with the promise of reduced sentences. Therefore, it solves the minister's problem. That is perhaps the part we should be looking at. The Minister of Justice is not here to solve her own problems; she is here to serve Canadians and fix their problems. As my colleagues have pointed out very clearly, there are other solutions, better solutions, in fact.

The minister has addressed the backlog with judicial appointments. I note that 20 have been made this year. However, that is not nearly enough to deal with the problems, as there are still so many more vacancies all across this land. The former minister of justice said, “in my six years as minister of justice, there was never a shortage of qualified candidates”. Therefore, it is not a failure of the judiciary. It is not that there are too many preliminary hearings. It is not that there are way more criminals, as crime rates overall have been declining. The problem resides almost entirely with the minister and the government getting more people on the bench and in the prosecutorial services.

As I have said in the House before, public safety and national security should be the top priority of the House and should be above politics, so that the safety and security of Canadians are put ahead of political fortunes. While the Liberals have said that public safety is a priority, they have said that everything else is their top priority as well. To have 300 or more top priorities is to have no priorities at all.

Canadians expect that the government will make them its top priority. Sadly, this bill fails the test to keep Canadians safe and deliver effective government. The legal community has said that this bill is deeply flawed and would hurt the legal system rather than help it. Police officers will likely see themselves arresting the same people over and over again as criminals get lighter sentences or fines on summary convictions. Therefore, the backlog will move from the courts to the policing community and back to the courts. How does that help the average Canadian?

In closing, I am of the opinion that Canada is going to be weaker after the Liberals leave office in 2019, and far weaker than when they entered office. Their wedge politics on the values test, pandering to terrorists, ignoring threats from China, targeting law-abiding gun owners, lack of leadership on illegal border crossers, and waffling on resource development continue to put Canadians at a serious disadvantage that weakens our public safety and national security and places undue strain on families and communities.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for his service to his community. He said something that I think was quite compelling, about there being no greater responsibility for this Parliament than the safety of Canadians. I could not agree with him more.

In April 2016, the member rose in the House and voted for mandatory alcohol screenings, just as an example. The evidence is overwhelming on that particular measure, mandatory authority for the police to stop drivers and administer a roadside alcohol screening test. The member voted for that in April 2016, yet he rose again in the House less than a year later and voted against it. Given his stated commitment, which I believe is quite sincere, that we have no greater responsibility than the safety of our citizens, and in light of the overwhelming evidence that mandatory alcohol screening saves lives, could he explain the contradiction?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's service to his community over the years, and I have great respect for him in that regard.

I would like to clarify for my friend that in April 2016, I was contemplating becoming a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada. I had retired some three and a half months previous to that and was enjoying my retirement after 35 years of service, so I did not vote against and for and contradict myself. I was not here to do so. I just wanted to correct the record on that.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of Bill C-75. With this piece of legislation, our government is fulfilling its promise to move forward with comprehensive justice reforms. It would have real effect on court delays and reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous people, people of colour, in particular black people, and other marginalized groups in the criminal justice system, including those with mental health and addiction issues.

We are making good on our promise and commitment to address intimate partner violence. Do the member's constituents not agree that we should increase the sentencing for perpetrators of intimate partner violence?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am troubled to see that Bill C-75, where it addresses some of the concerns the member raised, specifically when dealing with the disproportionate population of indigenous people in our justice system, does not necessarily deal with that in the way the committee has been studying it. It would not necessarily eliminate the risk of intimate partner violence in our communities, as we would like.

As for the member's question, when I speak to members of my community, the first thing they mention is not what is being promised, but the concerns they have about criminals being dealt with in a manner they do not think is appropriate for some of the serious offences. My friend across the way who asked the first question will understand this. In my community, there are a significant number of individuals who have been criminals previously in their life, and they are still friends of mine. When I speak with them, they consider our justice system to have been incredibly light on them when they were in the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, those who continue to perpetuate crimes think that our justice system is sometimes a laughing stock, and it should not be.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time this evening with my friend from West Nova.

I also want to take the opportunity to apologize to my friend from Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner for failing to remember that he had not yet joined the House, and I appreciate very much his remarks.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to join today's second reading debate and speak to the bail and administration of justice offence reforms contained in Bill C-75 to address delays in the criminal justice system.

I am proud to speak to what will be the largest reform to the bail system in 35 years. I believe the changes proposed in Bill C-75 will go a long way toward encouraging a cultural shift in how the pretrial release and detention decisions in our justice system are approached by police officers and the courts, and strike the right balance in reducing unnecessary detention and bail conditions, while maintaining a strict focus on public safety.

According to police and court statistics, over half of the people currently in provincial and territorial detention facilities have not yet had a trial or been found guilty of any offence. We also know that indigenous people and other marginalized groups are overrepresented within that group of people who are being incarcerated before their trial.

During my career in law enforcement, I have witnessed, on far too many occasions, court time and resources being disproportionately allocated to address breaches of police conditions or court conditions for those on bail. Some of these conditions are simply unnecessary, as they are not related to the underlying offence. They are not necessarily related to maintaining public safety. This ineffective approach can perpetuate individual cycles of incarceration and divert critical resources from other cases, including those involving the most serious offences.

The proposed changes in Bill C-75 related to the bail regime would modernize and streamline bail provisions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our bail process. The current bail system has developed over a very long period of time and has become somewhat of a labyrinth of provisions for police and courts to navigate. These complex provisions are being used daily in police stations and courts across Canada.

I am very pleased to see that the bill seeks to reduce the imposition of bail conditions that are unreasonable, irrelevant, and unnecessary, by codifying what is known as the principle of restraint. This change is consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Antic in 2017. The principle of restraint's starting point is that accused persons will be released at the earliest reasonable opportunity on the least onerous conditions appropriate in the circumstances. Clearly laying out the principle of restraint in the Criminal Code would provide a good starting point for providing safeguards for individuals who tend to be most disadvantaged by the criminal justice system. These include indigenous people and marginalized groups that are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, including those who live in poverty, suffer from mental health issues, or are homeless.

The principle of restraint would reduce the likelihood that bail conditions would have the effect of unnecessarily criminalizing predictable patterns of behaviour that do not put the public at risk or relate to the underlying offence for which the offender is before the court. For example, placing a condition that a person struggling with alcohol abuse not consume alcohol, even when alcohol was not involved in the predicating offence, creates a set of circumstances that must inevitably lead to the re-incarceration of that individual. These new provisions in the Criminal Code would also require police and courts to consider the specific circumstances of indigenous accused and accused people from marginalized populations at the bail stage.

These types of considerations are often referred to as Gladue considerations. They have been interpreted by the courts in the sentencing context as requiring that the method used in coming to a decision take into account the unique systemic background factors of indigenous people or other marginalized groups, which may have played a part in bringing the particular indigenous person or vulnerable person before the court in the first place.

I would like to assure members that there is nothing in this principle that waters down the requirement for police officers and courts to detain an accused who is likely to endanger public safety. Those who pose a risk to the public will still be detained after Bill C-75 comes into force.

There are also a number of proposed bail amendments in Bill C-75 that focus on maintaining public safety and specifically protecting victims of intimate partner violence. Based on the changes contained in the bill, when an accused is charged with an offence involving violence against an intimate partner, and when the accused has been previously convicted of an offence involving violence against an intimate partner, a reverse onus would apply in determining bail. A reverse onus means that instead of the crown being required to show the court why the accused needs to be detained, the onus will shift to the accused, who will need to prove to the court that he or she should be released. These amendments target serious conduct and will meet our government's platform commitment to better protect victims of intimate partner violence.

Another proposed bail amendment would require the courts to consider the previous criminal convictions of the accused. We believe this captures the intent of the former Senate public bill, Bill C-217, which was in response to the 2015 murder of RCMP Constable David Wynn, without some of the unintentional operational consequences that we felt could result from Bill S-217, including additional delays.

With the time I have left, I would like to speak to the amendments that would provide an alternate approach in responding to administration of justice offences.

Under the current law, when police officers respond to an alleged breach of a bail condition or a failure to appear in court, they currently have two options: they can do nothing, or they can lay a criminal charge. Bill C-75 would create a third option. Both the police and crown attorneys would have the discretion to refer the accused to a judicial referral hearing as an alternative to laying new charges for the breach or failure to comply with conditions of release. This tool would still hold the accused accountable but would be far more efficient than laying new charges for the breach, and it would allow an opportunity to modify and update conditions, as required by the circumstances.

I cannot emphasize enough that the judicial referral hearings would only be available when the conduct had not caused physical, emotional, or economic harm or property damage to a victim. At these hearings, the judge or justice would consider the current conditions of release in light of the alleged breach or failure and could take one of the following actions: they could take no action and have the accused released on exactly the same conditions under which they were previously released; they could release the accused after varying their bail conditions; or they could order that the accused be detained in custody, including for identification purposes.

This reform, in combination with the bail reforms I have previously spoken of, aims to reduce delays in the criminal justice system by reducing the number of conditions that would be breached in the first place and by reducing the number of unreasonable and unnecessary conditions that may be imposed. This reform would provide more efficient ways of responding to minor breaches of conditions and would reduce the number of administration of justice charges that currently clog our criminal justice system.

Since courts would also be required to consider the circumstances of indigenous accused and accused from vulnerable populations in these judicial referral hearings, this new tool would assist in reducing the overrepresentation of these groups within our criminal justice system.

These proposed changes to the bail system and the new tool to address administration of justice offences are long overdue and will go a long way to improving Canada's criminal justice system. They will help direct attention to important considerations related to public safety rather than using the system as a means of warehousing those members of society who are already unfairly disadvantaged by our society in so many other ways.

For these reasons, I urge all members to support this bill, send it to committee for study, and give us an opportunity to make our criminal justice system more efficient and serve Canadians by keeping our communities safe.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments and also for his service to our country, especially to the city of Toronto.

As I mentioned earlier, the bill is made up of three separate bills that have already been tabled in the House: Bill C-28, Bill C-38, and Bill C-39. One deals with the victim surcharge, one with exploitation and trafficking, and one with unconstitutional provisions, which we support.

During the last campaign, in 2015, we heard over and over from Liberal members that there would be no omnibus bills, there would be no closure, and MPs would be allowed to speak individually and have adequate time for debate.

There are so many promises that have been broken. How can the member and his colleagues stand here tonight and speak to the bill, which is clearly an omnibus bill? We support many parts of it, but because of the fact that the Liberals rolled three bills into one, it made it impossible for us to even accept some of the good things in it without buying into all of these very negative implications, which I outlined earlier.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am strongly of the opinion that this is not an omnibus bill. Every aspect of this bill concerns the administration of justice. It is intended to improve public safety.

Here we stand together this evening. We are in debate on this very issue, so there is the opportunity for us to speak on it. We are encouraging members to let us move this bill before committee so that we can allow committee members to call witnesses, examine the bill in-depth, and return it to this House after their oversight and with their advice on how we might make the best law to improve public safety and the administration of justice in this country.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would excuse the hon. member for some of the cynicism that can clearly be expected when the bill goes to committee. We have seen literally disasters at other committees where the Liberals, with their majority on committees, ram things through. There is nothing to lead any of us, including all Canadians, to believe that it will not happen with this piece of legislation.

I want to speak to the priorities within the department's plan. The bill would reduce criminal offences to potential summary convictions for assisting a prisoner of war to escape, blood alcohol over the legal limit, polygamy, forced marriage, and marriage under the age of 16, and the list goes on. The bill would reduce these offences, but there is nothing in the department's plan that talks about putting judges in place to reduce the backlog within the criminal justice system. Why is that? Why is that not in the bill?

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of elements I am hoping to address, and I will try to do so briefly, in the interest of maintaining time for other speakers.

First, I would address the issue of the effectiveness of our committee. I have the privilege of sitting as the parliamentary secretary before the justice committee, and the members of the justice committee, from all parties, are remarkably engaged. We have seen the evidence in some of the work they have done in reports they have presented to the government. It has been exceptionally collegial and co-operative between the parties. Frankly, I reject the suggestion that the important work of our committee is somehow less than successful.

In our justice committee, we had the former attorney general of Canada as an exceptionally wise and contributing member. We are very grateful for his contributions. I would strongly defend the work of our committees, and I look forward to their having the opportunity to review the bill and come back--

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Perhaps the next time.

We have time for one more short question and response in questions and comments.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak to Bill C-75 briefly.

I welcome the introduction of the end of peremptory challenges in jury trials. I am worried about removing the opportunity to cross-examine police officers during preliminary inquiries. I wonder if the member has any comments on that.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an issue that has been raised. There is a concern among the defence bar about the efficacy of preliminary hearings. I have actually given testimony at many preliminary hearings in my life, and in many cases, we have found that with the new requirements of disclosure and with other judicial efficiency measures, such as judicial pretrials that are now taking place, the requirement and the efficacy of pretrials have been significantly impacted.

There is ample evidence in our trial procedures for the evidence to be tested properly in court and subject to cross-examination. Recognizing the importance of certain types of trials, we would maintain preliminary hearings for those offences that are considered within our criminal justice system to be the most serious and to have the greatest consequences. They would carry a potential life sentence. We are maintaining preliminary hearings for those very serious cases, but frankly, the system has evolved and we are recognizing that evolution.