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.

Bail and Sentencing Reform Act

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

Mr. Speaker, drugs, stolen vehicles and church burnings are all things that have risen under the Liberal government since it came into power over 10 years ago. If we listen to the Liberals, they say Canadians have never had it so good and that crime is at historic lows.

We could make a graph of crime. The interesting thing about graphs is the time scale. If we look at it over the last 100 years, yes, crime is now at an average rate and lower than it was 100 years ago. However, the population of Canada was completely different then. It was much smaller. With respect to the sample size of crime per capita, which is how it is referenced most of the time, if we change the denominator by a factor of millions, it changes the rate significantly.

If we were to take a time scale of the last 30 years, it would be a very interesting graph to look at. There was a declining rate, which stabilized in the nineties. In the late to mid-2000s, it started declining again, and it declined rapidly for a period of time leading up to 2015. From 2013 to 2015, the rate on that graph dropped dramatically. Interestingly, there was a complete reversal. We could have expected it to flatten or something like that, but it did not flatten; it turned around immediately. Something very interesting happened in 2015. The Liberals got elected to power in this country. Since then, that incline took off and has continued to climb.

Let us go back to the 100-year average. Again, the time scale matters. We are back to an average, so when the Liberals say that, I am not here to dispute it with them. However, I would say that in a rolling average of five years, we are way past that. Those are the statistics. We know what they say about statistics.

The reality on the ground is that people feel it. People know this. They understand this. The police in Toronto are telling people to leave their keys near the door so that if somebody comes to steal their vehicle, at least they will find their keys quickly and not disturb the rest of their house. This stuff is happening in our country. We do it.

We hear from the Liberals all the time that “jail, not bail” is just words and not actions. It means something. People understand what it means. I acknowledge that Bill C-14 came from the last election. It came out of the campaign we fought for, with jail, not bail. Those are our words, but they mean something. They give a political will to what we would do if we were in power.

I referenced earlier today that in Vancouver, 43 individuals caused 1,100 police interactions in one year. Many of them were out on bail. We have one case after another of violent crimes committed by people who are out on bail, often for the second or third time.

The members of the RCMP in my constituency, who do very good work, are completely frustrated. They work very hard to build a case and get a conviction. They arrest somebody, and within four hours, these people are back on the streets. In one case that was brought to me, there were something like 72 charges by the time the guy got to the first court date. He had been arrested three times and charged with multiple offences each time he was arrested, just to be let out again.

The most interesting story I have heard is probably the one from Westlock a number of years back. It was not covered in the news, so I do not know if it is true or not. A spike belt, which is used to stop fleeing vehicles, was used three times inside of 48 hours, and the police used it on the same person. They were pursuing a stolen vehicle, they used a spike belt and they arrested the person in the stolen vehicle. She got out on bail and immediately stole another vehicle. The police used the spike belt on that one, arrested her again and put her in jail overnight. The next morning, she was out on bail and, again, she stole a vehicle and the police pursued her and used a spike belt.

This was a number of years ago. I point that out because it seems that stolen vehicles no longer rise to a certain level. The police do not have the resources to even pursue them. It just does not happen anymore where I come from, because it is such a common occurrence, and it is occurring all across the country.

One of the things that I find interesting is that, for as long as I have been a member of Parliament, vehicle theft has been quite a problem in northern Alberta. I do not think the trend has changed. I think it has held steady, but what has changed is that folks living in the big cities are now experiencing vehicle theft carte blanche.

Now, after the Liberals have caused all of these problems, they suddenly want to talk about bail reform. I would say the reason they want to talk about it is that we have made the case that the bail system is broken in Canada, but we are not asking for reform. We are asking for Liberal bail to be repealed. We do not like the Liberal bail system. We think the Liberal bail system sucks and it should be repealed entirely. We have put forward our vision for what bail ought to look like.

Most people think the Canadian bail system does something it does not do at all. People watch movies all the time and they hear about how someone made bail. Their family or friends had to scrape together $10,000 to get them out of jail. That does not happen in Canada. People are not putting up money to get bail. They are being released with a promise to pay. Sometimes it is $1,000 and sometimes it is less. By the third time they get out on bail, they may have forfeited $2,000, but they have not forfeited any actual cash. These were forfeitures of promises to pay. They were forfeitures of IOU notes, essentially. We need to have bail that works in this country.

I do not know where the Speaker was last week. I was sitting at committee when my phone made a very loud noise. I thought I had my phone on silent, so I was quite embarrassed by it. All of a sudden, I noticed that my phone was not the only phone making a lot of noise. Everybody's phone was making a lot of noise, and it was an Amber Alert. Subsequently, I found out that the Amber Alert had been issued because somebody had abducted a child, and that person was out on bail. We had already arrested this person for another crime and let them back out on bail, and now they were committing another crime. It interrupted our meeting, so I got to hear about that one in particular. That is very tangible for this place. I hope it will have an impact on my colleagues on the other side.

Bill C-14 is an admission by the Liberals that the bail system is broken in this country. It is an admission that our slogan of “jail, not bail” for repeat offenders worked when we brought it to the Canadian public. They are stealing our homework again, and I am happy about that, but I wish they would go the whole way by repealing Liberal bail and bringing in a bail system that works in its entirety.

I have lots to say on this. I spoke extensively on Bill C-75. I was asked to be a witness at the Senate committee meeting on Bill C-75. I had lots to say about that. I would love to have a long chat about consecutive sentencing and how this bill also touches on that, and I am hopeful that the Liberals will ask me about it in the questions that follow.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals desperately want to avoid accountability for creating the issues their disaster bail system, through catch-and-release legislation like Bill C-75 and Bill C-5, has created. While they are now telling Canadians that reforms are needed and we need to get this done quickly, it took them six years to clarify that the principle of restraint does not require a release. If Bill C-75 had not let violent repeat offenders out on bail, they would not have needed to clarify it.

Conservatives want solutions, and we will work to strengthen this bill to address the areas where it falls short.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to discuss the government's proposed changes to bail and sentencing in Bill C-14. In order to better understand the bill, we need to reflect on how we made it to this point, because while the Liberals are now acknowledging that bail reform is needed, they are hoping Canadians will forget that they have been in power for a decade and introduced the legislation that severely jeopardized the safety of Canadians.

Before I go on, I want to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.

For years now, Canadian families, communities and neighbourhoods have witnessed the catch-and-release crime wave that has swept across our nation. The Liberals talk about the need for judicial independence, yet with Bill C-75, they took what used to be a judge's decision on granting bail, after weighing and considering previous case law, and put their thumb on the scale by codifying the principle of least restraint, which directs courts and police to release accused persons “at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions”.

For six years, the Liberals have told Canadians that they have not ruined the bail system and are not responsible for catch-and-release policies that have led to a spike in crime. Let us look at some stats from when they have been in power. From 2015 to 2023, auto theft went up 45%, extortion went up 357% and gang-related homicides went up 78%. Cars are being stolen from people's driveways while they sleep. Violent home break-ins have become so bad that police issue warnings for families to leave their keys at the door in the hopes that home invaders would not come further into the house and endanger the people living there. Mr. Speaker, talk about creating a new norm, not only of fear but of helplessness, as Canadians feel that they are left to fend for themselves.

To make matters worse, the Liberals added Bill C-5, which allowed for repermitting conditional sentence orders or house arrest for serious offences, including sexual assault. In many cases, this allows violent abusers back into the homes and communities of the people they are a danger to. It also allows for kidnappers, human traffickers and people who abduct children under 14 to be given house arrest. Letting a violent abuser back into the very home of the people they are a danger to is not compassionate, despite what the Liberals have claimed over the last several years.

Earlier this month, the Prime Minister said that letting violent sexual assault abusers off on house arrest was wrong and that they intended to fix it. It took three years for the Liberal government to figure out that letting people convicted of sexual assault serve house arrest was a bad thing. No intimate partner, family or community should have to live in fear that someone who commits sexual assault could be given house arrest. While the Liberals have continued to put the rights of violent criminals ahead of those of victims, Conservatives believe in putting the rights and protections of victims first.

Members opposite me from the Liberal benches will now say that they are bringing forward positive changes and that Canadians should be satisfied. They will say that repealing the principle of restraint in Bill C-75 would not solve the problem since there is precedent set by court rulings, but what they fail to own up to is that they are the ones who created the precedent in the first place.

In Bill C-14, the Liberals are proposing a change to clarify that the principle of restraint does not require release. Why would the government need to clarify that its legislation does not require violent offenders to be released unless it currently does just that? Having said that, I note that this clarification does not repeal the “least onerous conditions” set out in the Liberals' catch-and-release bail laws; rather, it still provides a pathway to release and remains the directive that is to be applied.

Let us be clear: Conservatives have been advocating for changes to the broken Liberal bail system. We have advocated for tools our judges can use to keep repeat violent offenders off the streets. We have advocated for changes so that the brave men and women who serve as first responders and police officers do not have to arrest the same repeat violent offenders over and over again.

While Bill C-14 does provide for outcomes that would prevent the overly broad catch-and-release policies that allow for repeat violent offenders to be withheld, it falls short of an actual repeal of the policy that made it possible in the first place.

For years now, together with my colleagues, I have stood in this place and shared the stories of what is happening in our communities and of the victims of the Liberals' soft-on-crime approach. Their broken bail system started six years ago. It has taken six years and too many devastating accounts for the Liberals to finally act and put forward any changes that would reverse course on their disastrous bail legislation. What is the excuse for not acting sooner?

Members should make no mistake: Conservatives have been right on this all along. We have never lost sight of the victims of violent crime or those who protect our communities.

Our first responders and police officers put their lives at risk every single day to keep us safe. Firefighters do not need to risk their lives putting out yet another fire caused by arson that is tied to an extortion investigation. Nor do our police officers, when they have to arrest the same violent offenders who are out on bail dozens of times over. Nor do our nurses and doctors, when they work to treat the sick and wounded but have been victims of violent assaults in the hospitals they work in.

To add insult to injury, the Liberals repealed mandatory minimum sentences on violent firearm offences, including robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm, weapons trafficking and importing illegal firearms. How does it make our communities safer when we know that the people who commit offences like these do not have to serve a mandatory prison sentence? It does not.

If we remove the mandatory punishment for committing a crime, we watch the incidents of that crime increase. If we direct judges to grant the least onerous conditions for bail, which lets criminals out the same day they committed a violent crime, and we watch them continue to commit violent crimes.

That is why Conservatives put Bill C-242, the jail not bail act, before the House. While the Liberals have signalled that they will not support the bill, it is an opportunity to take action that would protect victims.

Bill C-14 was inspired by the measures put forward by Conservatives in calling on the government to change course on its disastrous bail policies. However, it is still a half measure that, after three years, refuses to acknowledge the pain caused by allowing sexual offenders to be given House arrest, while claiming to be standing up for the victims of the Liberals' own policy.

Even though the Liberals have proposed that violent sexual offenders will no longer be eligible for house arrest, they are also proposing, with the bill, that kidnappers and human traffickers will remain eligible for house arrest.

Conservatives have pushed, and will continue to push, for legislation that cracks down on crime rather than encouraging it. We disagree with the Liberal government's decision to keep the directive for judges to release offenders on the least onerous conditions, and we will seek to ensure, through amendments, that kidnappers, human traffickers and those who abduct children under 14 do not get to serve house arrest in the communities they are a danger to.

I look forward to hearing the testimony that will be provided at committee once the bill is sent there. I welcome the members opposite to ensure that they will be doing the same.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite spoke about principles of restraint, but he failed to mention Jonny, my daughter's boyfriend, who was stabbed to death by a violent repeat offender out on five different charges on bail, including attempted murder, all because of Bill C-75. Way to go.

Will Bill C-14, a bill that admits Bill C-75 was a failure, prevent cases like that of Jonny from happening? If not, will he admit it is a weak bill and needs improvement?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there we go. There is the rhyming. It is very productive.

Bill C-14 creates a regime that is going to help our frontline police officers. It is going to help our Crown attorneys, and it is going to make sure they are properly informed on what the principle of restraint actually means so it can be applied properly. When I speak with those frontline officers, unfortunately, the rhetoric of the world permeates their environment as well. What this new legislation would do is explain what the principle of restraint is. It would enhance the provisions of Bill C-75, and it is going to make an existing set of bail laws, which are already very good, better. They are good, because another Conservative witness came before the committee just this week and said that the existing bail laws in Canada right now are very good. The issue is enforcement, which takes me to my next point.

We are constantly being accused by the members opposite of trying to blame the provinces. We are not blaming the provinces; we are trying to teach the members of the opposition some civics. There are jurisdictional boundaries that the federal government has to follow, the province has to follow and municipalities have to follow. We are responsible for amending the Criminal Code. The provinces, which in my case is Ontario, are responsible for funding the court system, hiring Crown attorneys, building jails, and making sure there is the capacity to do what it has to do. Right now, it does not, and every witness who has come before the committee has agreed with that. The problem is that, if we do not work in conjunction with the provinces, or they do not work in conjunction with us, the problem could potentially become more problematic, because the weight of the new laws on a system that is already overburdened could create a whole new set of problems it is not prepared to deal with.

On Monday afternoon, we had a Crown attorney from British Columbia who agreed with that. We have had members of the law enforcement community who agree with that. We have had defence lawyers who agree with that. Everybody who is in the system agrees with that, because they understand it. This is not a case of pointing fingers and assigning blame. It is a case of people accepting responsibility for their own actions and what they can do. This is what this piece of legislation does.

If the Province of Ontario, in my case, is prepared to work with us, it needs to adopt these laws. In the riding of the justice critic for the Conservatives, there was a decision released just yesterday, or just this week, by a local judge who said, and I am sure he has probably appeared before him, that the system is broken because the jails are over capacity. We cannot even put people in there. The system is under such duress.

Building jails is the responsibility of the provincial government because it is the justices of the peace and the provincial governments that are responsible for this. In fact, this judge, and I would encourage the members opposite to go read the decision, increased the sentence so he could put them in a federal jail because there is capacity. The province is under-funding the system.

We talked about Bill C-48. Bill C-48 was adopted unanimously in the House. It is a positive piece of legislation. It helped the system. It strengthened the system, but we do not have any data on that, because data collection is also the responsibility of the provincial government. We need them to work with the federal government, the municipalities and the police forces so we can get this data, and any changes that need to be made at the provincial level can be done.

This is something that has been admitted by all of the witnesses who appear before the committee as well. To see the effectiveness of these laws, we need the co-operation of the provincial governments. They need to do their part and step up so we can make the system better as a whole.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to point out that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

I am pleased to stand on behalf of my constituents in the great riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore, as I always am, but in particular I am pleased to speak to a bill of such importance to not only my community but also communities across the country.

Bill C-14 is the result of an overwhelming effort from our Minister of Justice, the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime, the Department of Justice and the government. They spent the last six months travelling across the country to meet with stakeholders in the court system, the law enforcement community, lawyers and the Crown attorney. This is the product of that hard work.

We have seen the response from members of the law enforcement community and from the justice system at large who have come out supporting this bill overwhelmingly. I am going to keep asking the opposition whether its members will do the same. I find it very ironic, frankly, that the Conservatives opposite spend so much time asking for something and then complain about it when they get it, which is what we are dealing with on Bill C-14.

I will talk about two or three major issues.

One issue is an unfortunate piece in all of this, which is the rhetoric. This matter is non-partisan, as a number of my colleagues said earlier today. Unfortunately, it is wrought with members of Parliament trying to score political points on an issue and in an area for which they should be doing the exact opposite. Just this week, at the justice committee, we had a number of witnesses, who were called by the Conservatives, I might add, and this is a point that must be remembered. One of those witnesses asked that there, please, be no politics and no sound bites. There is the rhetoric, the rhyming, the “bail not jail” and the “catch and release”. All of these catchy phrases serve no purpose other than to undermine the integrity of our justice system and strike fear in the hearts of the public, when it should not be doing that. I am asking the Conservatives to stop, and this is an opportunity for them to make that change.

The speaker before me referred to my city of Toronto as “Gotham City”. I do not know. Maybe he still watches Batman, but it is just embarrassing when these guys get up to say ridiculous things like that. It does not get to the heart of what we are talking about. It creates an impression that is entirely false.

The other thing I want to address is that, every single time these discussions take place in that manner, it suggests that some members in the chamber are less concerned about keeping our communities safe than others, which is absolute, utter nonsense. To any member who wants to look me in the face, either here or out in the hallway, to tell me that I do not care about the safety of my community and the residents in Etobicoke—Lakeshore, let us go outside and do it right now, because that is absolutely false. They know it is false, yet they continue to do it over and over again. It is completely unacceptable.

Let us talk about an example. Bill C-75, the bill that the Conservatives constantly talk about as the piece of legislation that somehow undermined the integrity of the justice system, did the exact opposite. It strengthened the laws for intimate partner violence. When they talk about Bill C-75, they fail to mention that.

I have talked to frontline officers in the city of Toronto in 22 Division, and I am very proud of its membership. I work with them on a regular basis. I support them every way I can, and they know that. Bill C-75 codified a decision from the Supreme Court of Canada called the principle of restraint. If members go to section 493 of the Criminal Code, they can read the provisions. Nowhere in that section does it say that courts are to do what the Conservatives suggests they do, which is to release multiple-offending criminals out on the street. It is an absolute falsehood, and they need to stop.

The witness the previous speaker spoke to appeared before committee last night. He is a renowned criminal lawyer in the city of Toronto, who has been practising for decades. His evidence was that the principle of restraint is nothing new. All they did was codify it. I have been making the same arguments on behalf of my clients in courtrooms for decades. Nothing has changed. It is a red herring. Those are my words, not his, but he agreed with me. They need to stop. I would encourage them to actually go read the bill, to go read that section.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, finally, after years of us pleading with the Liberal government, the Liberals are trying to do something about bail and sentencing in Canada. If the Liberals admit there is a problem, we know there is a problem. The problem is crime and chaos on our streets. Violent criminals, gang violence, guns and auto thefts are terrorizing Canadians. Like many Torontonians, I get up in the morning and wonder if I am going to see my car, which is why I had to buy one of those big clubs to lock my wheel. We used to see those only in the movies but not anymore. This is after my insurance company told me that, unless I install a tracking device at their expense, my insurance rate will go up. How is it possible that the Liberals cannot stop this? The criminals know they can get away with stealing a Jeep and take it to the port of Montreal, where, the very same night, it will be on its way to the Middle East. My provincial counterpart, the Solicitor General of Ontario, had his car stolen.

I love our country very much. I remember what life was like before the 2015 Liberal government. We need two timelines like BC and AD. We need before Liberals, BL, and after Liberals, AL. I remember times before the Liberals, when Canada was one of the safest countries in the world.

I often talk about my first love. My first love is the city of Toronto. In the time before Liberals, I felt safe walking anywhere in the city of Toronto, on any street, at any time of day or night. Safety and the feeling of safety add so much to our quality of life. After a decade of the Liberals, I do not feel safe anymore in multiple neighbourhoods in the city of Toronto after dark, even in some of the safest neighbourhoods. North York in north Toronto is being terrorized by gang violence, gun crime and drug-related shootings almost daily. It is all done by criminals, and it is all done with illegal guns. The justice committee heard from the OPP commissioner this week that almost all gun violence is perpetrated by criminals with illegal guns, not the legal guns the government seeks to confiscate from law-abiding citizens.

How did we go from being one of the safest countries in the world to this? How did Toronto, one of the safest metropolises in the world, lose that sense of safety? Toronto is becoming Gotham City. It is a combination of many things. It is for sure the economic decline thanks to the Liberals. That is part of it, for sure. People are hopeless. CTV reported, the other day, that young people cannot land a minimum-wage job anymore. I was told by a Toronto police officer that the going rate for stealing a car is $500. Imagine a young offender stealing one car per night and that is how they are making their living.

It is not just because our economy is in the gutter. Young offenders know that there are no consequences for what they do. I remember first-year criminal law like it was yesterday. What is the purpose behind sentencing? What is the policy? First and foremost, it is deterrence. It is the threat of legal consequences and possibly jail. However, now there are no consequences.

That is where I will start in taking this bill apart. In its current form, it falls very short. The prevalence of young offenders in crime and gang violence is very troubling. Participation in auto theft rings is just shocking. We would think the Liberals would want to do something about it, but no. There is no sentencing reform to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. They closed a loophole and clarified what violence is for the purpose of custody but did not increase any sentences.

I want to be clear. I do not want a kid who breaks a vending machine to be part of the correctional justice system. However, for murder, for instance, custodial sentences for youth are limited to four years. They do pre-trial custody and get two-for-one. By the time they are sentenced, they are barely in custody for a year. Then they come out as much better criminals and terrorize the community.

There is another issue I would like to flag, and this one is very special to me because we are a democracy and respect the rule of law. One of the big failures of Bill C-75, the previous Liberal crime bill, was that it created a diversionary regime for offences involving failures to comply with court orders. For instance, offences such as failure to appear in court or breach of an undertaking, or even breach of bail, may go unpunished. That is what Bill C-75 by the Liberals provided for. It basically allows Crown attorneys to divert or remove such offences from the docket. Crown attorneys, unfortunately, often do this. Bill C-14 is completely silent on this. We had the OPP commissioner at the justice committee this week. He said that this is an affront to the rule of law, and the Liberals will not correct their own mistake.

Another major failure is not fixing a bail condition that every police association across the country is telling them to do: cash bail. I am going to explain this. Right now, in almost all cases, a surety is not required to post a cash bail. They just make a promise to pay in the event there is a breach of bail conditions. Often, they do not have the money and no one comes after them. It is meaningless. We now have this class of professional sureties that help criminals get out on bail. If they were made to post cash bail, this practice would end. A surety should have some skin in the game.

Finally, on bail reform, here we go again. We already reversed the onus for a number of offences under Bill C-48, but people are still caught and released even with those offences. Reversing the onus is not enough. What is missing is the burden of proof, a definition to direct the courts as to what the burden is that the accused must meet in order to be released. What is very important, also, is that, without such a burden, we do not have consistent application among courts. We have courts in different jurisdictions and different provinces. While they are directed to reverse the onus and place it on the accused, they are not sure what the burden they actually have to meet is. That is something every police force and every police association has brought up, and it is something that I sincerely hope we can address at committee.

Another major problem with the bill with respect to bail reform is the ladder principle. The ladder principle basically directs the court that the accused must be released at the earliest opportunity. The problem, specifically noted by the Police Association of Ontario this week, is that the ladder principle is not eliminated in reverse-onus offences. Just two days ago, my colleagues in the room with us heard testimony from the Police Association of Ontario asking for this very clearly. It said that we need to codify the fact that the ladder principle does not apply in a reverse-onus offence.

Finally, Bill C-14 is completely quiet on parole. In Canada, one is, essentially, automatically eligible for parole after serving a third of their sentence. We heard from a criminal defence attorney last week in the justice committee. Even he, a criminal defence attorney, thought it was lunacy that we see criminals sentenced to a custodial sentence do a third of their sentence, leave, reoffend, get sentenced again, do another third of their sentence and then leave again. That is a practice that we need to put an end to.

This week, the justice committee heard from Meechelle Best and Ron Best from Manitoba, parents whose daughter was killed by an intoxicated driver in a car accident. He was out on bail and had breached his bail condition. There was a warrant for his arrest. That was not the first time. He had breached bail before and got out on bail again. It was one of the most moving and saddest testimonies I have ever heard.

We cannot bring Kellie back, but we can prevent the next atrocity. We need to fix the bill. I am asking the government, in good faith, to work with us to fix Bill C-14, which is currently a flawed bill.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I already said, in my remarks, that I look forward to working on this bill in committee. I welcome the member for Winnipeg North joining us for a meeting, if he would like to contribute.

I find it interesting that the member for Winnipeg North said, in a previous intervention in the House, “Bill C-75 actually made it harder to be released on bail.” That is the precise opposite of what law enforcement told us in our consultations.

I would encourage the Liberal government, if it is so committed to this, to support the three bills I mentioned by the members for Oxford, Lethbridge and Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege and an honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for York Centre.

When I was first elected, I was shocked at how quickly crime became the issue I had to contend with as a member of Parliament, because it was the significant issue that galvanized the community of St. Thomas this summer, in many respects. A rather historic building, which happened to be my campaign office in the last election, that was 140-some odd years old was burned down by a serial arsonist out on bail. This was a symbol of a problem that Canadians have seen in communities large and small across the country, which is rampant repeat offenders unleashing what police have called chronic criminality and prolific offending onto the streets.

If we talk to any police service across the country, as I have with the police chiefs in my riding and others through my work on the justice committee, we will hear that a small number of offenders, sometimes 100 people or maybe even fewer, are responsible for 80% to 90% of the calls the police must respond to. A small group of prolific offenders is taxing communities, taxing and straining police resources, and terrifying and terrorizing communities.

They are making it so people do not feel safe walking streets they once could comfortably, safely and freely walk down at any hour of the day or night. People do not feel comfortable letting their children go out to a mall. People are forced to take other forms of transportation because they do not feel safe on public transit.

Just this morning, I saw that London, Ontario, is promoting police officers being on public transit. I am grateful to the brave men and women in the London Police Service, the St. Thomas Police Service, the Aylmer Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police who are forced to deal with this, but they have had to deal with a problem that has by and large been a consequence of federal government policy.

We have heard testimony for several weeks now from police associations, police chiefs and victims' rights groups, and almost all of them have pointed directly to Bill C-75. This was legislation from the Liberal government that, among other changes, codified something called the principle of restraint, a provision of the Criminal Code that makes it easier for repeat offenders to get out on bail under conditions that are very lax.

I bring this up because for months, when we have raised these issues in this House, the government has said not to worry and that bail reform legislation is coming, but this was not a significant priority to the extent that other bills were. We saw Bill C-9, which was the first priority, as far as justice legislation goes, of the government. That came out and was tabled in this House weeks before the bail legislation was. Now we see Bill C-14.

I will say first and foremost that I am grateful the Liberal government recognizes there is a crisis unfolding in our criminal justice system. I am grateful that the Liberal government has finally responded to the calls from law enforcement, municipal governments, victims' rights groups, ordinary citizens and Conservative members of Parliament that action is needed.

What the Liberals have delivered falls short in some very key areas, and I think this is important because they said they needed time because they wanted to get it right. They needed time because they wanted to cover all the bases. We had before the justice committee on Tuesday the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, Thomas Carrique, a very decorated officer. He is also the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and commissioner Carrique said that he was disappointed the legislation did not tackle sentencing in a meaningful way.

The bill was supposed to tackle bail and sentencing, and with the exception of beefing up the penalty for contempt of court, it has not really touched sentencing head-on when we are talking about sentences for violent offences. That is a key shortcoming of this bill.

On the principle of restraint, we have another key issue, which is that the bill offers, and I will read it precisely, the following language on the principle of restraint:

For greater certainty, section 493.‍1 does not require the accused to be released.

The Liberals are basically giving a little asterisk for judges and police officers to tell them not to worry and that the principle in the Criminal Code that says we must release people at the earliest opportunity and on the least onerous conditions does not mean they have to release them at all.

Everyone knows that. No matter how critical someone is of the justice system, they know that 100% of people do not get bail, although the Liberals have certainly tried to get as close to that figure as possible it seems. This is a clarifying note; it is not a meaningful change. The Liberals are just saying that it does not mean what we think it does, that this section does not mean what police officers have been saying it has done to them and what attorneys are saying it has done to the justice system.

To be fair, the Liberals made some acknowledgement that there is a problem when they expanded the reverse onus. This is something I welcome, but when this bill goes before committee, it is incumbent on the Liberal government to accept the very significant measures Conservatives have already proposed in this House that would be genuinely and seriously tough on crime, measures that would provide real solutions, real resolutions and concrete reforms to fix the Liberal bail system.

For example, the principle of restraint needs to first and foremost be a principle that makes public safety its primary obligation, not the rights of the accused but the right of the public to feel safe and secure in their own communities. This is very important, and it is a direct response to months and months of consultation by Conservative members with law enforcement officials, who have said they feel ignored by the government and that morale has taken a massive hit. Officers feel it is not even worth arresting people, knowing that under the law on the books right now, they are just going to be released.

For years, Liberal government members, when we have sounded the alarm about this, have said that it is not really an issue. They have attempted to gaslight Canadians into thinking the problem is not as a bad as it, which makes me ask the question about Bill C-14 of why now. Are the Liberals finally acknowledging that they got it wrong with Bill C-75, Bill C-48 and Bill C-5?

With each of these bills, there has been a trend. Some members of law enforcement have looked at them and said they looked like they had some good things in them, but years later, when they see the application of them, they realize they did not actually deliver on the promises made and what the government said it would do. That is, of course, a concern I have with Bill C-14, as with any legislation. We need to make sure these are not just things that exist on paper that do not translate in the real world.

We have given the government the answers. We have provided three pieces of legislation in this House already. While the Liberals were still trying to figure out where they wanted to go with Bill C-14, my colleague from Oxford introduced the jail not bail act, Bill C-242. It would put front and centre the role of public safety when talking about bail. It would also prohibit someone from serving as a surety to help other accused offenders get out on bail if they themselves have been convicted of a serious criminal offence within the last 10 years. Reform of the surety system does not appear at all in Bill C-14, which is another shortcoming that has already been identified by witnesses testifying before the justice committee in its bail study.

We also have, from my colleague from Lethbridge, Bill C-246, which would put consecutive sentences in place for sexual offenders. Heinous criminals who have been convicted should be serving their sentences consecutively, which is a proposal we offered to the government. I ask the Liberals to please take our idea and put it in law if they are serious about these measures.

My colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola introduced Bill C-225, which would create new offences pertaining to intimate partner violence, provisions that Jennifer Dunn of the London Abused Women's Centre told the justice committee yesterday should be passed by the House of Commons to protect women. Victims are being failed by the justice system as it is now, and Ms. Dunn said in her testimony that many of the women she sees do not even refer to the justice system as the justice system anymore.

I am committed to working with government members if they are serious about wanting to reform and genuinely fix these problems, but they need to acknowledge their role in creating them. They need to acknowledge what law enforcement has been saying, which is that so much of what we are dealing with on the streets now, which has led to Bill C-14, is a consequence of Liberal laws, notably Bill C-75.

I am committing to the people of Canada, the people in my riding and the members of this House that I will work in the justice committee to beef this bill up to what it should be, but Canadians deserve more.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, Canadians are tired of watching the same headlines play out every week: another violent crime committed by someone who never should have been released in the first place. They see the revolving door of justice spinning faster than ever and have the right to ask why their safety no longer seems to matter. That is why we are here today to debate Bill C-14, the government's latest attempt to clean up the mess it created years ago through soft-on-crime policies.

Let us not forget how we got here. In 2019, the Liberals passed Bill C-75, which enshrined in law the principle of restraint. It directed police and judges to release offenders at the earliest reasonable opportunity under the least onerous conditions. That single change and that Liberal ideology opened the floodgates to the catch-and-release system we now have in our justice system. Then came Bill C-5, which gutted mandatory minimum sentences and made house arrest available for serious crimes like sexual assault and drug trafficking. When crime inevitably spiked, the government tried to paper over this damage with Bill C-48, a bill it sold as tough on bail but that barely scratched the surface with a handful of new reverse-onus offences and no real change to the culture of automatic release.

The result has been devastating. Since 2015, violent crime is up 55%, firearm crime is up 130%, extortion is up 330%, sexual assault is up 76% and homicide is up 29%. Those are not just numbers. Each one represents a victim, a family and a community that has been forever changed. Let us not forget the names behind those statistics. Bailey McCourt was murdered by her ex-husband just hours after he was released on bail for assaulting her. Savannah Kulla, a 29-year-old mother of four, was gunned down in Brampton by a man who had already been released on bail. These tragedies are not anomalies. They are the predictable outcome of policies that put ideology ahead of safety.

After a decade of denial, the Liberals introduced Bill C-14, which admits, finally, that their reforms have failed. The bill tweaks the Criminal Code to clarify that restraint would not require release when detention is necessary to protect the public. It adds a few more reverse-onus offences, such as violent auto theft, break and enter and human trafficking, and it slightly tightens conditional sentences for youth custody rules.

While Conservatives welcome any movement in the right direction, let us be clear. Bill C-14 is not the bold reform Canadians deserve. This bill keeps the principle of restraint that caused the crisis in the first place. It does not restore the mandatory minimum sentences that were stripped away with Bill C-5. It does not presume detention for repeat violent offenders. It simply shifts the burden of proof. It still allows house arrest for robbery, trafficking and firearm crimes. Its so-called guidance to judges remains optional, not mandatory. Canadians do not want more guidance. They want guarantees that violent repeat criminals will not be back on the streets to terrorize their communities.

Our Conservative plan, the jail not bail act brought forward by my colleague from Oxford, would deliver those guarantees. It would replace the principle of restraint with a public safety primary clause, making the safety of the public in our communities the governing principle in bail. It would presume detention, not release, for serious violent crimes, such as sexual assault, human trafficking, armed robbery and home invasion. It would restore mandatory minimums for firearms, sexual assault, kidnapping and other serious offences. It would ban house arrest for robbery, gun and trafficking crimes. It would require judges to consider every prior conviction, any outstanding charge and any pattern of offending while on bail. It would bar criminal sureties and enforce surety obligations so that bail means accountability, not just paperwork. It would raise the risk threshold from “substantial likelihood” to “reasonably foreseeable” because, if it is reasonably foreseeable that someone will reoffend, they should not be released.

The Liberals call Bill C-14 a comprehensive reform. I call it an admission of guilt and an admission that Conservative warnings were right all along. They copied our ideas because the evidence left them no choice. They copied them only halfway, because political optics still matter more to them than public safety. They talk about compassion for victims, but every piece of legislation they have passed since 2015 has sided with offenders. They cannot be pro-victim and pro-offender at the same time.

Communities across my riding of Souris—Moose Mountain know this reality all too well. People used to leave their doors unlocked, and now they lock their vehicles, barns and shops every night. Farmers are losing quads or trucks to organized theft rings. Small business owners are watching thieves walk in, clean out the shelves and walk out, only to see those same offenders released the next day.

The numbers tell the story clearly. In Souris—Moose Mountain, violent crime has increased from about 3,500 incidents in 2015 to nearly 4,700 incidents in 2024, a staggering 34% jump. This is not an abstract statistic. Those are hundreds of real families in our rural communities that have been victimized, that have lost their sense of safety and that are asking when the system will finally put law-abiding citizens first.

Every time an offender is released without consequence, confidence in the justice system erodes a little more. That is why our message is simple: Scrap Liberal bail. Canadians deserve more than half measures. They deserve to live without fear in their homes, on their farms, in their shops and on their streets. They deserve a justice system that puts their safety first, not the comfort of repeat offenders.

The government has had 10 years to get this right. Instead, it has chosen ideology over evidence, leniency over law, and rhetoric over results. Conservatives will support sending Bill C-14 to committee, but we will fight for real amendments to eliminate the principle of restraint entirely, to presume detention for major and repeat violent offences, to restore mandatory minimums and to turn judicial suggestions into judicial obligations. Only then can we begin to undo the damage caused by Bill C-75 and Bill C-5.

Canadians have lost faith in their justice system, and they have every right to. We owe it to victims like Bailey McCourt and Savannah Kulla, and to every Canadian who wonders whether their government still values their safety, to make this right.

The Conservative position is clear: Public safety comes first, justice means accountability and no violent repeat offender should walk free while innocent Canadians live in fear. That is why we will continue to press the government to strengthen Bill C-14 or step aside and let Conservatives fix the system for good. Canadians do not want tougher laws. They want safer communities. Only a Conservative government will deliver both.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak to an important legislation, which is Bill C-14, bail reform and sentencing reform. However, before I do that, I want to advise that I will be sharing my time with the very effective member of Parliament for Souris—Moose Mountain.

Here we go again with bail reform 2.0. In the 44th Parliament, we had Bill C-48, brought to us by the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau. The bill was in response to several high-profile violent crimes committed by people who were, at the time of the crime, out on bail on charges for other violent crimes.

Let us take, for example, Randall McKenzie, who murdered an OPP officer, Constable Greg Pierzchala on December 27, 2022. That murderer was out on bail at that time, awaiting trial on charges of a violent, weapons-related crime against his girlfriend. We call that intimate partner violence. He was in breach of his bail conditions, of course, having a weapon in his possession, having removed his ankle bracelet and having left his home. That is where he was supposed to be. There had been a warrant for his arrest for about six months, but the police had failed to apprehend him. There were too many people out on bail and not enough police resources. This man was getting away with murder. There were too many people out on bail. That was the problem at the heart of this. This man should have been behind bars in pretrial incarceration.

There were other high-profile cases at that time. I raise this one because it really woke up the public to weaknesses in our criminal justice system. When the public gets concerned over a public policy issue, politicians scramble to get ahead on the story. In a rare show of cross-country, cross-party co-operation, all the premiers of the 10 provinces and of the three territories wrote a letter to the then attorney general and to the former prime minister demanding bail reform. The response to that was that AG Lametti introduced a very weak bail reform bill, Bill C-48, which made it just slightly more difficult for people like Pierzchala's murderer to get out on bail while awaiting trial.

The accused now had to convince the judge that he could be trusted to be out on the streets instead of the government lawyer having to convince the judge the accused should stay behind bars. We call that a reverse onus. It is a slight improvement, from a law and order perspective. We, the Conservatives, supported the bill because it was a step in the right direction. Provincial politicians and law enforcement agencies across the country supported it too although many expressed disappointment that it simply did not go as far as they had hoped.

Why did the Liberals not go further when public sentiment was clearly on the side of going for the bail reform? The underlying challenge for them was a previous bill from the 42nd Parliament, Bill C-75. It was one of the last enactments of the 42nd Parliament before it rose for the summer. The bill introduced the principle of restraint in bail hearings, the principle that directs a judge to release the accused at the earliest possible time and with the least onerous conditions. This is set out in section 493.1 of the Criminal Code, which states, “consideration [should be given] to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances”.

This is what happened to Mr. McKenzie, the murderer of Constable Pierzchala. He was out on bail under his mother's supervision, with an ankle bracelet. He was not to leave home, and he had a weapons prohibition. This was all for a man who had been charged and was awaiting trial on charges of a violent crime against his girlfriend with a weapon. How is that even right? How can that happen in this country?

It is easy to point the finger at the judge, as some people did, but the judge was responding to the principle of restraint introduced by the Liberal government in Bill C-75. We hear the Liberals say they had no choice, the court told them they had to do that in a case called R v. Antic. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Canada, with Chief Justice Wagner writing, did say that “release is favoured at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous grounds.” It is true that the court said that.

We have always argued, as Conservatives, that the Supreme Court of Canada never directed Parliament to throw open the gates to unfettered bail. It did not direct Parliament to introduce new legislation. It did not direct Parliament to do anything. Antic was a case that simply clarified some confusion around the rights of the accused when it comes to bail: the right to be presumed innocent; the right to a fair trial, with the burden of proof on the Crown's lawyer; and the right, of course, to reasonable bail as set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Antic was not a case in which the court had struck down any legislation under section 52 of the Constitution Act 1982, the so-called supremacy clause. That does happen from time to time, as happened a few years ago in a case called R v. Ndhlovu, which was decided in 2022. According to that decision, certain subsections of section 490 of the Criminal Code, the ones mandating automatic registration of anyone convicted of a sexual offence, were unconstitutional and contrary to section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects life, liberty and the security of the person.

The court, in that case, gave Parliament 12 months or 18 months to correct the impugned legislation. I forget exactly how long it was. That was exactly what we did in the last Parliament. All the parties worked together co-operatively to make that happen.

I want to be clear: Antic was not that kind of case. The Supreme Court just wanted to clarify things. It was the Liberal government, under Justin Trudeau, with David Lametti at the time, that introduced Bill C-75 and introduced section 493.1 to the Criminal Code. This was of their own volition. This was the Liberals appealing to their base, trying to distinguish themselves from law and order Conservatives.

They are now seeing the effects of that legislation. There is public outcry about what members of the public are calling catch-and-release provisions. They are blaming the Liberals for that. There are widespread calls for bail reform from premiers, police services across the country, police unions and public safety advocacy groups.

What do they do? They introduce Bill C-14, which is before us today. They are bringing in workarounds around their own defective legislation. We ask why they do not just get rid of section 493.1 altogether. It was not mandated. It is not necessary. It is not helpful. It has been harmful to the administration of justice in this country. It is time to get rid of it.

Our judges on bail hearings know what the common law says about the right to bail. They know what the charter says about reasonable bail. They know what the Supreme Court and other courts have said to guide this age-old principle.

Bill C-48, from the 44th Parliament, took a small step in the right direction, a timid step. It did not go nearly far enough. That is why we are here today.

I am more hopeful today with the current Attorney General and Minister of Justice signalling that perhaps Bill C-75 went too far. Perhaps Bill C-5, another enactment, which I did not talk about too much in my speech so far but which relaxed some sentencing rules, had gone too far. Perhaps the two bills have had a negative impact on the public's confidence in the administration of justice. It is time to fix it.

Like Bill C-48, Bill C-14 does not go far enough. At committee, Conservatives will introduce amendments to get Canada back on track, putting public safety first and putting public confidence in the administration of justice first, because that is what Canadians deserve. That is what Canadians right across the country have been demanding for a long time. It is time to get it fixed. We will do our best to make sure that Bill C-14 comes out of Parliament as strong as possible, to protect Canadians.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not propose to politicize this issue. I just want to speak about the shortcomings of the bill and ask the secretary of state specifically why there is an absence of any stiffer sentences for young offenders. Why is the bill silent on parole? Why is the bill silent on cash bail, something that police associations across the country are talking about?

Most importantly, I am very interested in the diversionary framework introduced in Bill C-75 for offences involving failures to comply with court orders, such as failure to appear, breach of undertaking or even breach of bail. Basically, C-75 allows Crowns to divert, to remove those types of offences from the docket, as they often do. We also heard from the OPP commissioner a couple of days ago in justice committee saying that he thinks the fact that BIll C-75 allows for this kind of diversionary regime framework for offences against court orders undermines the rule of law.

Why does Bill C-14 not fix the travesty created by Bill C-75?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, gender-based violence sexual offences have been top of mind for our government. In Bill C-75, we have strengthened our position when it comes to the justice system. We would be further strengthening it in the bill that is before us, by not allowing courts to impose conditional sentences that can be served in the community. It is important to make sure the offenders stay behind bars.

In this role, I am here trying to do my job to inform the government to take measures that would protect public safety. As I said, I take that role very seriously, and I believe the bill would address that issue and is a step in the right direction. We also have a gender-based violence bill coming out that would further strengthen our position to make sure offenders get what they deserve.

Public Safety

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight to follow up on a question I asked the justice minister in June on when we could expect the much-needed bail changes to reverse the Liberal bail system we have in place. As I noted when I followed this up last month during Adjournment Proceedings and could not get an answer from the parliamentary secretary at that time on the specifics of it, this is not actually a new question. This is a question I have actually been bringing up in this chamber since 2022 about the urgent need for massive reversal around the Liberal bail system.

I point out, as well, that this is actually something the Liberal government voted against in early 2023, when we called for those changes here in this chamber. I did not get a specific answer last month, but I am happy to report that today, we are finally debating a recently tabled bill, Bill C-14, which addresses many of the reversals needed around the previous Liberal bills, Bill C-75 and Bill C-5.

As I assume the parliamentary secretary of justice is going to reply to me, out of all the Liberals present, I want to focus the remainder of my time tonight on giving her the opportunity to just focus in on some of the private member's bills we have already tabled in the House and ask her opinion. Can she reassure me that Bill C-14 is going to address these? If not, will she actually support these private member's bills?

This is important because, as I said in my question back in June, in my riding alone and in just the city of Owen Sound, the annual police report stated that violent crimes were up another 14.6%. I have addressed concerns about the fact that the delay specifically tied to decisions around the Jordan's limit is taking away justice for the victims.

Let us get to the three private member's bills I want to talk to the parliamentary secretary about. The first is Bill C-242, the jail not bail act by the great member of Parliament for Oxford. It is focused on a few things that I hope the parliamentary secretary can address. That is, it would repeal and replace the Liberal principle of restraint that came out in Bill C-75, stating that instead, public safety and public protection have to be the primary consideration.

Bill C-242 also proposes a new major offences category, with reverse onus bail conditions on charges involving firearms, sexual acts, kidnapping, human trafficking, home invasion, robbery, extortion, arson and assault. Bill C-14 would address a lot of the reverse onus aspects, but it would also strengthen bail laws by mandating that judges consider an accused's full criminal history when they are making a decision. It would also prohibit anyone with an indictable conviction from acting as a guarantor. This is something I want to focus on as well.

We have Bill C-246 from the member for Lethbridge, which focuses on consecutive sentences and being able to do that, and I would ask whether Bill C-14 is able to address that.

Finally, there are a couple aspects of Bill C-225, by the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, which would force an offender convicted of intimate partner violence within the preceding five years to be released only by a judge.

Can the parliamentary secretary assure me that Bill C-14 will address all the concerns in those three private member's bills?

Bail and Sentencing Reform Act

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Madam Speaker, we are hearing a lot today that the Liberal government coming up with workarounds for the old Bill C-75, which introduced section 493 to the Criminal Code, which is the principle of restraint in the administration of bail in bail court.

Instead of doing these workarounds, could we get rid of section 493 altogether? The Liberals are blaming it on the Supreme Court of Canada, but we were never instructed to change the law.