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

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

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Shepard.

Bill C-75 is an enormous 302-page omnibus bill that includes major reforms to our criminal justice system. This is the second large bill that has been proposed by the Liberals. Under the proposed changes, many serious offences may be prosecuted by summary conviction and thus will result in lighter sentences.

I would like to spend much of my time talking about human trafficking and what it looks like in Canada.

First, I would like to talk a little about the government's record. The human trafficking offences are being changed a bit by this bill. I have addressed this issue many times in this place already. Modern-day slavery and human trafficking are a horrific form of injustice. They are extremely profitable. They are growing in Canada and around the world, and are probably taking place within 10 blocks of where we live.

We know the vast majority of human victims in Canada are female and young. While those most at risk include indigenous women and youth, teenage runaways, and children who are in protection, we know anyone can become a victim of human trafficking.

Sadly, the government has been in power for 30 months, and never has a government done anything so little to fight human trafficking in so much time. Every time I have asked the government what it is doing, its only response is that it is reviewing the Criminal Code. We know that fighting complex and clandestine crimes, like human trafficking and modern-day slavery, require more than just changes to the Criminal Code. They require vigorous development and application of policy.

Since coming to power, the Liberals have done little to fight against human trafficking, and they have allowed the fight to languish. The Liberals allowed the national action plan to combat human trafficking to expire and they made no effort to replace it. It is not that they did not have the time or were not prepared, they could have announced an extension or launched a new one. However, they let it lapse, becoming one of the few developed countries that no longer has a comprehensive plan to eliminate human trafficking.

The Liberals ended federal funding to NGOs that provided support and options for victims of human trafficking. They blocked important tools that were adopted in the House over five years ago. Then the Liberals introduced legislation in Bill C-38 to lighten sentences for sex traffickers. The contents of Bill C-38 are now in Bill C-75.

It was not until budget 2018 that the Liberals finally addressed human trafficking and committed to funding the national hotline and a referral mechanism. While I applaud this, and it is important, it is long overdue.

I also want to recognize the fact that the announcement came after the Canadian Centre To End Human Trafficking, which is a great Canadian NGO, partnered with an American NGO, the Polaris project, to launch the official Canadian hotline. After it was public that Canada's national hotline was supported and funded by the United States, the government stepped in to offer support to it.

In 2011, the Conservative government became the first and only party to include a campaign promise in its platform to end human trafficking. Specifically, the Conservative Party committed to developing and launching the Canadian national action plan to combat human trafficking.

On June 6, 2012, only 13 months after the election, the Conservative Party launched its four-year national action plan to combat human trafficking. The primary goals of the national action plan were focused around the four Ps, prevention, prosecution, protection and partnerships, and included launching Canada's first integrated law enforcement team dedicated to combatting human trafficking; increasing front-line training to identify and respond to human trafficking and enhance prevention in vulnerable communities; providing more support for victims of this crime, both Canadians and newcomers; and strengthening coordination with domestic and international partners that contributed to Canada's efforts to combat human trafficking.

It is also worth noting that the Conservative Party was the only party in 2015 committed to fighting human trafficking, with its promise to establish new RCMP human trafficking teams in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Winnipeg, at an annual cost of $8 million for five years, and to renew the national plan to combat human trafficking for five years at a cost of $20 million.

Here we are today. It has been two years since the national action plan has expired under the current government and, interestingly, in December, the government's own Department of Public Safety quietly released a report called “The 2016-17 Horizontal Evaluation of the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking”. I want to share with the House what the report said. It stated:

There is a continuing need to have a National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking in order to consolidate federal initiatives, for federal organizations to partner together, and to strengthen accountability:

Prior to the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, each federal organization conducted its own anti-human trafficking initiatives. The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking consolidated federal initiatives to combat human trafficking under one plan;

The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking is required to meet Canada’s ongoing international commitments to combat human trafficking:

That means without one, we are not even fighting human trafficking at the same level as other countries. It further states, “There are opportunities for the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking to evolve.” The department was preparing to help the government develop and advance further action items to combat human trafficking.

Human trafficking is an extremely profitable crime that preys on young and vulnerable Canadians, especially in indigenous communities. Police officers and NGOs across Canada work incredibly hard to end human trafficking and help victims, but their resources are strained. Many hours go into this, and a lot of their own time. They are asking for federal support and leadership. As I mentioned earlier, the Conservative government committed $25 million over four years to build on and strengthen Canada's significant work to date to prevent, detect, and prosecute human traffickers. The Liberal government allowed that plan to expire in 2016 and, with it, critical funding for victims of human trafficking and law enforcement. Many organizations appeared at the justice committee's study on human trafficking and urged the government to renew its national action plan.

When the Minister of Justice introduced Bill C-38 in February, she misled Canadians and the House by claiming that it had tools for police and prosecutors to combat human trafficking. Bill C-38 was only one paragraph and it is now included within Bill C-75. Let me be clear that the changes proposed by the minister, first in Bill C-38 and now in Bill C-75, have no provisions whatsoever to give police and prosecutors new tools to investigate human trafficking. However, the tools that Liberals pretend are in Bill C-38 and Bill C-75 were, in fact, unanimously adopted by the House over five years ago in an NDP private member's bill, Bill C-452.

Bill C-452 was supported by a Conservative government and voted for by the current Prime Minister. It was Bill C-452 that contained provisions to provide tools to police and prosecutors. It created a presumption with respect to the exploitation of one person by another, added the offence of trafficking in persons to the list of offences to which the reverse onus forfeiture of proceeds of crime provisions applied, and it corrected a technical discrepancy and included a provision that human trafficking sentences be served consecutively.

Bill C-452 received royal assent in June 2015 and when the Liberal government came to power, it blocked that bill from coming into force. Why? It is because the Liberals do not like the idea that sex traffickers might face consecutive sentences. They feel it is too harsh to expect that a child trafficker could serve a long sentence for exploiting a minor in sex slavery. The only thing the proposed amendments would do in Bill C-75 is prevent sex traffickers from receiving consecutive sentences. That is it. It does nothing more. This certainly does not help the police.

Eighty per cent of the victims of human trafficking never come forward out of fear. All of the human trafficking investigators who testified on Bill C-452 welcomed the consecutive sentences and highlighted that long sentences gave victims the confidence to come forward and testify. They also pointed out that without consecutive sentences, a pimp who trafficks one minor would receive the same sentence as a pimp who trafficks five or 10 minors. Consecutive sentences allow for punishments that better reflect the gravity of the offence.

When will the government stop misleading the public about its intentions with this bill, when will it stop blocking important tools for the police, and when will the Liberals stand up for victims of sex trafficking rather than blocking tough sentences for those who enslave them?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it has been known now for perhaps a decade or more that for every dollar we spend on criminal prevention in getting to what they call now the new squeeze age of 10 to 12-years-old with homework clubs, with sports activities, dealing with mental health challenges, addictions, and substance abuse, we save $40 at the back end in the administration of justice costs, incarceration, parole, and beyond.

The question of mental health arriving in the criminal justice system has arrived with a vengeance. We know this is a fundamental part of the challenge we have now moving forward. Therefore, we need to make room to deal with the reality of mental health challenges. We need to work with our police forces.

Most police officers I meet and deal with on the front line, who are community police officers, will tell me they spend now 60% to 70% of their time effectively working as psychologists and as social workers. They are asking for more training and more capacity to deal with mental health challenges.

This has arrived. I know the member has been working on this. It permeates Bill C-75. I know it is part and parcel of the Minister of Justice's understanding of the justice system in its entirely, even when it applies, for example, to the employment of justices. She understands the importance of ensuring those judges understand the role of mental health in the whole system.

We are making progress. Collectively, the House can make some great advances at committee to get better legislation and a justice system that reflects the reality of those challenges.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand this evening to speak to Bill C-75, which would amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other acts to address delays in the criminal justice system and increase criminal justice system efficiencies.

Delays in the criminal justice system significantly impact all of those involved. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, accused persons have the right to be tried within a reasonable time. Should an accused not be tried in a reasonable time, it could result in a stay of proceedings in accordance with new timelines imposed by the Supreme Court in 2017 in its landmark Jordan decision.

Stays of proceedings due to delays undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system. These stays are unacceptable and as parliamentarians, we must step up to address this problem, which is why we have introduced Bill C-75.

The challenge of delays is particularly acute for indigenous persons and individuals from vulnerable populations, such as those suffering from mental health or addiction issues, who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

While the volume and severity of crime have decreased over the years, criminal court cases are becoming more complex and trials are taking longer to complete. Data from Statistics Canada shows that the median case completion time in adult courts has increased from 120 days in 2010-11 to 127 days in 2015-16, a full week.

Another important challenge is the number of individuals in provincial detention facilities awaiting trial, which currently exceeds the number of individuals found guilty of criminal offences in serving their sentence.

Statistics Canada recently reported that the remand population had exceeded the sentence population, with adults in remand accounting for 60% of the custodial, that is federal, provincial, and territorial, population in 2015-16.

Bill C-75 includes amendments that would streamline and modernize the bail process, while maintaining public confidence in the criminal justice system. This would reduce the high population in remand, while ensuring our communities would be kept safe.

The bill would expand bail conditions that police would be able to impose on an accused, which would enable their release at an earlier stage and would reduce time spent in custody before their trial. These conditions, however, would be guided by a principle of restraint for police and prosecutors. A principle of restraint means that release at the earliest opportunity will be favoured over detention and that only reasonable and necessary bail conditions are to be imposed on the accused.

As well, Canadian criminal courts process a high number of administration of justice offences, such as breach of bail conditions and failures to appear in court. This volume of cases is bringing increased pressure on the entire system. These less serious offences often involve minor matters that do not compromise public safety or cause economic harm, for example, breach of curfew, but catch the offenders within the criminal justice system if they are charged for their breach.

Statistics Canada again reported that in 2013-14, 39% of all cases in adult criminal courts included at least one administration of justice offence. That is almost 40%. For many offenders, being unnecessarily charged and convicted of administration of justice offences is a fast track to the revolving door of the criminal justice system. This is costly in both economic and human terms and it is avoidable.

With a view to decrease the number of these charges taking up so much court time, Bill C-75 proposes to increase police and prosecutorial discretion for administration of justice offences involving both adults and our youth. The bill would give police and prosecutors a new tool called a judicial referral hearing, which serves as an alternative to a formal criminal charge.

For example, after being stopped by police after curfew, the police could decide to charge the accused with breach of conditions, or decide not to charge and do no more, or could use the new tool and refer the accused to a judicial referral hearing. However, the judicial referral hearing would only be available if the breach had not caused harm to a victim, and would take into account circumstances of the accused.

At a judicial referral hearing, a judge or justice could decide, for example, to take no action and release the accused on the same conditions, or release the accused after varying bail conditions, or, yet again, order that the accused be detained in custody. It does provide additional flexibility.

This new process seeks to reduce the high number of administration of justice offences that are clogging our system, which represent 40% of cases, while maintaining public safety.

As I mentioned, the overrepresentation of indigenous persons and individuals from vulnerable populations, such as those suffering from mental health issues or addiction issues, is a serious issue in our criminal justice, and it has been for decades.

When I began my career as a young criminal lawyer, it became clear to me very quickly the extent to which mental health and addiction problems were the lion's share of the client base in the firm at which I was practising.

In 2015-16, Statistics Canada reported that indigenous adults represented 28% of admissions to federal custody and 27% of admissions to provincial or territorial custody, while representing only 4.1% of the Canadian adult population. That represents a proportion of about seven to eight times higher than their proportion in the general population.

The overrepresentation is even more pronounced among indigenous women and youth. Similarly overrepresented are individuals suffering from mental health issues or substance abuse problems. Again, Statistics Canada reported that in 2012, of the 2.8 million Canadians aged 15 and older that reported at least one mental or substance use disorder, such as depression, anxiety, alcohol or drug abuse, or drug or alcohol dependence, one in three, which is 34%, reported coming into contact with police for at least one reason in the 12 months preceding the survey. That is an extraordinarily high number. Those Canadians who reported a mental or substance use disorder were about four times more likely than those without a disorder to report being arrested by the police.

Currently, in the bail process, the conditions imposed on the accused should be the least onerous and only what is necessary and reasonable. The principle of restraint in Bill C-75 would limit the circumstances in which conditions prohibiting the consumption of drugs or alcohol would be imposed.

This is an important measure because it will help alleviate the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on those living with addiction. Police or courts will impose a condition only if the condition is reasonable, considering the offence that they are alleged to have committed, if the condition is necessary to ensure the safety and security of any victim, and if the officer feels they will be able to comply with this condition.

In short, there are many other reforms in Bill C-75 that would help transform our criminal justice system. It is important for hon. members here tonight to consider the bill as a whole and not to view any component in isolation, and to remember that these questions can and must be taken to the Standing Committee on Justice to review, poke, prod, and explore probatively so as to improve the bill. These changes would ensure that the rights of both victim and accused would be protected, while maintaining public safety as a paramount principle.

Overall the bill aims to establish a criminal justice system that will best serve the Canadian public. I urge all members on all sides of the House to support the proposed legislation.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will share my time with the hon. member for Ottawa South.

One of the joys of being the chairman of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is the collegial way that we work together, which is the way we should work together when it comes to the justice system, because whether we are Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, or Green, we all want the same things: We want a system that moves quickly; we want a system under which the accused has the right to a fair trial and is presumed innocent; we want a system that protects the rights of victims and treats victims with respect; and we want a system that ensures that we are not soft on crime but that allows for rehabilitation of an offender.

These are all elements that we need to consider as we deal with Bill C-75, a very important bill that deals with not only the Jordan decision but a number of elements that need to be enhanced and improved within the justice system.

I want to talk about some of the elements of the bill, ones that we will need to study at the justice committee. I will start with the issue of preliminary inquiries.

Parliament was invited to look at the issue of preliminary inquiries by the Supreme Court in the Jordan case itself. Due to the vast disclosure requirements now required in preliminary inquiries, the court mentioned in Regina v. Jordan that Parliament may wish to revisit the issue of preliminary inquiries, and the bill would do away with preliminary inquiries for all those offences that do not carry life sentences.

In general, I do agree with the proposal to drastically reduce the number of preliminary inquiries. It is clear that there is no constitutional right to a preliminary inquiry. That does not mean, of course, that we do not need to consider arguments that may be made by defence counsel and those there to defend the rights of the accused, so one of the issues the justice committee will need to study is whether the list of offences for which there could be a preliminary inquiry should be expanded or should be left as it is in the bill.

Another issue that we will need to study is the issue of hybrid offences. I have heard the arguments made by my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton on hybrid offences and on the possibility that sending offences to a provincial court with a shorter time frame under Jordan will clog up the justice system even more. I do not think it will. Doing away with certain administrative offences and reducing the volume for the court in that sense will not be problematic, but I hear that argument, and we will have to look at the list of offences that are now only indictable but that would become available for summary conviction as well, and we will need to determine whether any offences that are currently on the list to be hybridized should not be hybridized.

One of the issues that is very important for all Canadians is the over-incarceration of certain populations in this country. My colleague from Victoria, the NDP justice critic, today raised at our committee the fact that 25% of jailed people in Canada are indigenous, and among women in prison it is 33%. Since this community makes up approximately 5% of Canada's population, this is a shocking situation and it needs to be fixed. As for the other vulnerable populations that are overrepresented in the prison population, we need to diagnose why that is.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands raised the issue of mandatory minimums. That is certainly an issue that we will need to look at in depth at some point in time, because clearly mandatory minimums are one of the reasons for overrepresentation. Another reason, though, that I do believe is dealt with by the bill in a way that I totally support is the issue of creating a new judicial referral hearing that allows people who miss a condition not to automatically be charged and sent before a court, which creates a vicious cycle in which people who, for example, miss a hearing because they do not have transportation to get to the bail hearing are then incarcerated again because they have breached a condition, and it happens over and over. I totally approve of the issue of modernizing and streamlining the bail system and legislating a principle of restraint.

Another issue we need to look at is reverse onus. I do support the presumption that those people who have already been convicted of intimate-partner violence should have a more difficult time making bail. However, I understand that there are charter issues to be raised in terms of any reverse onus of proof that we create, and that is another item that our justice committee will have to study when this bill comes before us after second reading and a vote by Parliament.

Another issue I want to talk about is amending the Youth Criminal Justice Act to reduce the rates at which youth are charged for administration of justice offences.

One of the things that has worked really well in Canada since the Young Offenders Act was revised in the early 2000s is the fact that we have drastically reduced the number of youth incarcerated in Canada. This is something we need to look at, not only for young offenders but for all offenders. We need to find a way to keep people out of the vicious cycle of prisons. We need to find a way to make sure people can stay in their communities and be rehabilitated, as much as possible.

While I have a minute, I also want to turn my attention to the sections that will be repealed in the Criminal Code.

Section 230 of the Criminal Code, which was originally dealt with in Bill C-39, is now present in Bill C-75. This is a very unfortunate section that the courts have struck down, and in the case of the McCanns, which my hon. colleague, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, has raised on multiple occasions, the judge erroneously referenced this section, causing even more pain for the family. One of the items that we need to make sure of is that those provisions of the Criminal Code that are struck down by our courts are repealed from the Criminal Code so that nobody else could ever make that type of mistake.

I also want to draw attention to section 159 of the Criminal Code, which desperately needs to be removed. The stigmatization of the gay community through section 159, the distinction between anal sex and other types of sex, and the stigmatization of gay men by a different age of consent is totally unacceptable, totally out of date, and needs to be repealed.

One of the things that I am very proud of is that the government, in bringing forward Bill C-75, has talked to all of its provincial counterparts, has held round tables throughout the country, and has not come back with its own ideas but has come back with lots of good principles that were worked on by multiple parties.

Now it is up to us as a Parliament to further enhance the bill, and for the committee to do its good work in terms of carefully looking at each of the provisions. I am very gratified that my colleagues in the other parties have agreed that we will sit extra hours when needed to deal with these provisions and to hear all the witnesses. I want to encourage those witnesses across Canada who have comments on Bill C-75 to come forward, send their briefs to committee, and ask to appear before our committee should they have a reason to do so. The more people we hear from on these important issues, the better the law will be. The goal for all of us is to get this bill as right as possible.

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

Madam Speaker, the bill is very disappointing for those of us on the opposition benches who sat through the 41st Parliament. We saw a radical overhaul of the criminal justice system by the previous government in ways that undermined our criminal justice system, overloaded our jails, and passed the cost on to the provinces, and here I speak of the mandatory minimums.

Mandatory minimums were added to many things. I opposed them at the time, and I really did expect that the current Minister of Justice would take on this issue of mandatory minimums head-on. Now we have Bill C-75, which is fairly voluminous, but it ignores this substantial issue that is crying out for reform.

I wonder if my hon. colleague has any idea why we do not see the removal of the mandatory minimum sentences that are sprinkled throughout our criminal system. Many of them have now been struck down by the Supreme Court. Surely we should be acting to remove them.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville for sharing his time with me and for his eloquent speech, particularly on the topic of intimate partner violence, which is a reality in the part of the country I come from. He covered it very well.

I am very proud to rise today to speak on Bill C-75. This legislation builds on our commitment to build safer and stronger neighbourhoods by making necessary investments in our police forces, reforming our criminal justice system, and supporting victims of addiction. As the member of Parliament for Surrey—Newton, I have listened to the priorities of my constituents about being tough on guns and gangs and making sure those deserving of full weight of the justice system receive it, and those needing our support and assistance receive it as well.

We have taken many great steps to accomplish this. For instance, in budget 2018, we announced over $300 million to be spent in the next five years and $100 million per year after that to support the RCMP, the CBSA, and other public safety agencies in cracking down on illegal trafficking of guns and drugs. We have invested over $180 million to help the RCMP recruit and train more cadets that it can continue to keep our growing cities safe. We have also taken action to support victims of substance abuse with the development of supervised injection sites across Canada, a model that began in Vancouver and that shows that with a compassionate and pragmatic approach, we can make a real difference in people's lives and keep our streets safe.

With this bill, we recognize that action must be taken to ensure that our court system moves quickly to hold offenders to account and to protect victims. In the past decade, Canada's court system has been burdened with administrative offences, as well as longer and more complex cases. These delays were cited by the Supreme Court as unacceptable and, therefore, it has established strict timelines that cases have to adhere to or risk being stayed. This is unacceptable to victims, and that is why our government, the Prime Minister, and the minister responsible have brought this bill forward.

This bill would make several key changes to the culture in our court system, beginning with limiting the use of of preliminary inquiries to more serious offences to ensure that criminal cases can proceed more quickly to trial; strengthening our response to intimate partner violence; streamlining the bail process to ensure swift access to justice; providing judges with the more robust tools they need to manage the cases before them; improving the jury selection process to ensure that juries are more representative of the Canadian population; providing more discretion on administration of justice offences; and reclassifying offences to allow courts to deal more efficiently with less serious matters, freeing up limited resources for more serious offences.

I want to touch on some of the key reforms in this bill, beginning with the changes to the administration of justice offences. These are acts such as failing to comply with bail conditions or failing to appear in court. These offences are unrelated to public safety, but, nevertheless, burden individuals with unnecessary and significant delays.

Nearly 40% of all adult cases involve at least one of these administrative charges. Therefore, this bill proposes a new approach. Police would retain the option to lay a new charge for the breach or failure to appear where appropriate. However, if the offence did not involve physical or emotional harm to a victim, property damage, or economic loss, the police would have an additional option of referring the accused to a judicial referral hearing.

We are also making changes to protect victims of domestic violence by ensuring that more offenders are brought to justice. Bill C-75 proposes a higher sentencing range for repeat offences involving intimate partner violence. It would broaden the definition of “intimate partner” to include dating partners and former partners, and clearly specifies that evidence of intimate partner abuse is an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

The last area of reform I want to speak about is selection. The defining value of our country is our respect for equality and commitment to promoting multiculturalism, but we continually need to do more to make sure that this value remains in place, and one of those areas that has long gone unchanged is our justice system.

It is a fact that we have lower levels of representation of indigenous and minority communities in juries, and that needs to change to ensure the integrity of the justice system. That is why we are bringing in this reform. Abolishing challenges and reinforcing the power of judges to “stand aside” certain jurors in order to increase diversity and giving judges the power to decide challenges for cause will bring more fairness and transparency to the system and encourage juries that are more representative of our communities.

In closing, there are few things more important than making sure that our neighbourhoods are safe for families and our children. Whether it is making sure that we have more police officers on the ground, laws that target guns on our streets, or supporting victims of addiction, we need to keep finding new solutions for the safety of our nation. I believe this bill does that.

With a court system that is more efficient, transparent, and fair, we will uphold its integrity, hold offenders to account, and protect victims. For these reasons, I look forward to seeing all members support this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have touched on a few other aspects of Bill C-75, and I certainly agree with my hon. colleague that doing more to deal with intimate partner violence is critical.

I am troubled that the bill would eliminate preliminary inquiries. A preliminary inquiry is typically a time when the defence gets to test the evidence. It is something of a dry run or dress rehearsal for what is going to come at trial, and it allows the defence to properly prepare and may even lead to deciding not to proceed to trial because the evidence is too weak.

I do not understand the rationale for eliminating preliminary inquiries, all for efficiency. It is trampling the rights of the accused, who may be innocent, in the interest of efficiency. At least that is how I see it right now, standing here tonight.

I would love to know what the defence and rationale is for getting rid of preliminary inquiries.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Surrey—Newton.

I am pleased to rise today to lend my support to Bill C-75, introduced by our government on March 29, 2018. Today my remarks will address how the bill would contribute to eliminating intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence is one of the most common forms of gender-based violence. The term includes physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and controlling behaviours by an intimate partner.

I would like to reiterate some very shocking statistics the Minister of Justice shared when she spoke to Bill C-75 at second reading.

In 2016, according to police-reported data from Statistics Canada, over 93,000 people in Canada experienced intimate partner violence. Sadly, intimate partner violence is a reality for at least one in two women in Canada. Women who are indigenous, trans, elderly, new to Canada, or living with a disability are at increased risk of experiencing violence due to systemic barriers and failures. The personal and often lifelong consequences of violence against women are enormous.

This data also shows that in 2016, violence within dating relationships was more common than violence within spousal relationships. These statistics are devastating. I believe that we, as a government, must work to continue to strengthen our responses to this complex social problem that so disproportionately impacts women, particularly those who are in certain types of relationships.

During the 2015 election, our government campaigned on a promise to give more support to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment and to ensure that more perpetrators were brought to justice. As well, the minister's mandate letter included implementing our platform commitment to toughen criminal laws and bail conditions in cases of domestic assault, in consultation with stakeholders, with the goal of keeping survivors and children safe.

In Bill C-75, we are fulfilling these commitments. This bill would standardize the meaning of “intimate partner” for all Criminal Code purposes by defining the term. The new definition would specify that an intimate partner would include a current or former spouse, a common-law partner, and a dating partner.

These changes are long overdue. As I just noted, the data demonstrates that a substantial number of violent incidents are committed in the context of a dating rather than a cohabiting relationship. Since violence against a dating partner has long been recognized in Canadian courts as a form of intimate partner or domestic violence, the reforms would codify what is already standard practice in many jurisdictions, thereby clarifying the law. Specifying that “intimate partner” includes a person's current or former spouse, common-law partner, and dating partner would reflect sentencing decisions that have considered abuse of both current and former intimate partners as an aggravating factor, even though the existing provision does not specify that abuse of current or former intimate partners should be taken into account. Specifying that sentencing judges must consider any evidence of abuse of current or former spouses, common-law partners, or dating partners as an aggravating factor would not only clarify the law, but as previously mentioned, would support one of our government's platform commitments to ensure that all forms of intimate partner violence were considered an aggravating factor at sentencing.

Bill C-75 would also clarify that strangling, choking, or suffocating another person would constitute the more serious form of assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm, which is punishable by a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment. These types of assaults, which often occur in the intimate partner violence context, have serious and even deadly consequences for victims. However, under existing law, courts do not always recognize this greater harm. The proposed amendment would ensure that this type of assaultive conduct was treated more seriously.

Further, in support of our government's electoral platform commitments, Bill C-75 would also allow for the imposition of a higher maximum penalty where offenders have been repeatedly violent toward an intimate partner. In such cases, the crown would be able to give notice that a higher maximum penalty would be sought. Allowing courts to impose a term of imprisonment that was higher than the applicable maximum penalty in repeat intimate partner violence cases would better reflect the severity of the conduct and assist in better protecting victims. For example, in some cases, the higher maximum penalty would ensure that sanctions other than imprisonment, such as conditional sentence orders, were not available.

The bill would strengthen the bail provisions of the Criminal Code by imposing a reverse onus at bail for an accused charged with an offence involving violence against an intimate partner if the accused had a criminal record with at least one prior conviction involving intimate partner violence. In the context of bail, a reverse onus means that the accused, rather than the crown, would have to justify why he or she should not be detained in custody until the start of the trial, having regard for the safety of the victim and public confidence in the administration of justice. This would ensure that an accused's history of intimate partner violence would be brought to the attention of the bail court at the outset of the hearing, regardless of whether the current charge involved the same victim or a different one. The reverse onus would also signal to the bail court the seriousness of the alleged offence as well as the increased risk of recidivism in this context.

Bill C-75 would require all bail courts to consider, in making any order relating to bail, whether an accused was charged with an offence where violence was used, threatened, or attempted against an intimate partner. Bail courts would be required to take this factor into account when making a number of possible bail-related determinations, including the decision to impose an order not to communicate with a particular victim, witness, or other person; a detention order; or an order to release the accused on bail.

In particular, if the accused was to be released into the community pending trial, the bail judge would have to consider the fact that the alleged offence was against an intimate partner in determining whether bail conditions were necessary, and if so, what types of conditions would be appropriate. Requiring bail courts to consider the safety of the accused's intimate partner before releasing an accused on bail would afford increased protection to victims of intimate partner violence.

Bill C-75's intimate partner violence amendments would provide the courts with the means to denounce intimate partner violence to better protect victims, including prior to trial, and to ensure that the sentences imposed were proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

Concisely put, Bill C-75 would make marked improvements to the treatment of intimate partner violence in our criminal laws. It would establish a higher maximum sentence and reverse onus at bail for repeat offenders, recognize strangulation as an elevated form of assault, and broaden the parameters of intimate partner violence, which would now include current or former spouses, common-law partners, and dating partners.

These reforms are sorely needed. I hope that all my colleagues will join me in seeking to end intimate partner violence and will support Bill C-75.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, where to begin? There is just so much that is fundamentally wrong in my learned colleague's remarks.

Let us start with the Conservative record on judicial appointments: based on partisanship, and at a slow rate that prevented individuals from getting access to justice. Let us then continue to the member's comments on what this bill would do when it comes to the hybridization of offences. When it comes to Conservative commentary, there is scarcely another area that is more misrepresented and more misleading to the public than the hybridization of offences.

The hybridization of offences is informed by the independent, properly exercised discretion of the crown, the prosecutor. One of the things the prosecutor is required to take into consideration is the seriousness of the offence, whether or not somebody has been hurt. That will determine where the offence goes, whether it goes to superior court or whether it stays in summary court. However, in no way does it detract from the fitness of a sentence, which will be imposed by a judge.

Lastly, my friend touched on a number of other bills besides Bill C-75, one of which is Bill C-46. This is perhaps the most perplexing of all his comments. I hear my hon. colleagues heckling. He wants to keep the roads safe, but his Conservative colleague in the Senate is now opposed to mandatory alcohol screening, the number one deterrent that would keep our roads safer. How does the member explain that?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's speech. He is very learned and comes from a profession that understands things well. I did pass through law school at one time, but decided that another profession was of more interest to me, so my speech will probably be a little more the layman's type, and will probably have some rhetoric in it that I am sure he will rather enjoy.

I will be speaking on Bill C-75, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments to other acts. That is quite the title, and it probably should come as no surprise that it is an omnibus bill. It makes massive reforms to our criminal justice system, and in fact, it re-tables three bills already on the Order Paper: Bill C-28, on the victim surcharge; Bill C-38, on consecutive sentencing for human trafficking; and Bill C-39, which repeals unconstitutional provisions.

The government simply cannot seem to manage its legislative agenda. It waited until late in its mandate, and now Parliament is expected to rush through debate on these important matters.

What is apparent is that Bill C-75 is a big, complicated bill that is supposed to fix the issues facing our justice system. It does contain provisions that I could support. Repealing unconstitutional provisions in the Criminal Code is a positive proposal. Increasing the maximum term for repeat offenders involved in domestic violence also makes a lot of sense.

However, the bill also introduces a host of other issues. This legislation should have been split so we could have debated and voted on some of its parts, rather than as an omnibus bill. There is far too much here to be considered in such a short time. The Liberals promised they would not introduce an omnibus bill, but here we are.

We have known for a long time that our justice system is dangerously backlogged. A primary stated objective of Bill C-75 is to reduce delays in our justice system. The R. v. Jordan ruling, now known as the Jordan rule or principle, imposes strict timelines on criminal trials: 30 months for the criminals, and 18 months for the indictable.

This objective is very important. Thousands of criminal trials across Canada have been stayed, including murder trials, for going over the imposed time limits. We have seen the stories of individuals accused of horrendous crimes being let off because of massive delays in the court system. The problem is only getting worse, but this bill is finally supposed to do something about this serious problem.

Before I get into the details of this bill, I have to ask: Why has this government not taken steps to appoint more judges? It has been pointed out that the government has appointed many, but we still have 59 vacancies. Let us get them all filled so that we can improve the justice system. Appointing judges may have been a faster way to address the delays in our justice system, rather than forcing an omnibus bill through Parliament. I know that the Liberals have left appointments unfilled in other government agencies, but the judicial ones are critical. At the very least, they need to fill those. I am sure that is something they will do quickly, right?

The biggest red flag in this legislation is the hybridization of many indictable-only offences, done by adding summary convictions as a sentencing option. Simply put, serious crimes deserve serious penalties, but some of the offences listed in the bill are undoubtedly, to me and many of my constituents, serious crimes. These include participating in a terrorist group; impaired driving causing bodily harm; kidnapping a minor; possessing stolen property over $5,000, which is a huge concern in my rural riding; participating in activities of a criminal organization; municipal corruption or influencing a municipal official; committing infanticide; extortion by libel; advocating genocide; arson for fraudulent purpose; advertising and dealing in counterfeit money; and many more. There are a lot of serious crimes in here that are going to change. Many of these crimes are classified as indictment-only for a reason. They should not be punishable under a summary conviction, with a possible mere fine. That option has been included, and it should not be there.

The bill would also delay consecutive sentencing for human traffickers. Human trafficking is a severe crime. There is a cross-party committee dealing with this crime. It is a severe problem and deserves severe punishment. We know it is taking place in Canada. It is an international issue that needs to be combatted with all the tools at our disposal. Why would the government weaken our criminal justice system with these changes? We all need to address the backlogs in our courts system, but some of these measures just do not make sense.

In my riding of Bow River, we have been dealing with serious issues involving rural crime. I am happy that motion by the member for Lakeland, Motion No. 167, was passed last week in this House. I believe it will be an important step toward actually doing something about rural crime. The statistics show that crime in rural areas has increased significantly in all three prairie provinces. However, right on the heels of adopting this important motion, we have this bill taking two steps backwards. This is going to be hard to explain to the constituents in my riding who are dealing with constant rural crime. Residents across the country are going to be shaking their heads in disbelief at this one. I have heard from many constituents who have suffered break-ins, property theft, and threats to person. We have held round tables in locations in ridings across Alberta and heard from many people who are living in fear. They do not have confidence that the criminal acts taking place around their homes will be addressed. In many cases, the RCMP is simply stretched too thinly across the vast rural areas to respond promptly.

I am particularly concerned that this bill would relax sentences for crimes like possession of stolen property and participating in criminal gangs. It is hard enough to catch criminals engaged in rural crimes. In many cases, the criminals are long gone before anyone can show up to deal with them. When it takes police officers hours or until the next day to get to the scene, there is plenty of time to disappear. This is not like crime in a city where people reasonably expect police to show up on their doorstep in minutes. When criminals are caught, there is a reasonable expectation that they will face serious consequences for their actions. It is hard enough to convince people to report crimes when they occur. We encourage them to do so because it is very important for the statistics of the police services. The police need to know what is actually happening in communities, but people are afraid to report crimes, or they say it is a waste of time. The police need the statistics to make decisions related to how to best enforce the law, but my constituents do not always believe they will make any difference in the justice system anymore. It is going to be that much harder to encourage people to report rural crimes if this bill receives royal assent. At a bare minimum, people need to know that if they report a crime and the criminal responsible is actually apprehended, there will be serious consequences for that individual. We need real deterrents, not slaps on the wrist, to keep Canadians' faith in the justice system.

They talk about Alberta judges, and yes, we are short of judges, but here is the other side of it. I have spoken with legal people and they say that the number of crown prosecutors is drastically short. There are few crown prosecutors willing to do it. As the number of crown prosecutors has decreased, there are fewer of them who will work on this huge workload. The average caseload that crown prosecutors have is twice what it used to be years ago. Legal aid lawyers are quitting. The pay they are getting has decreased, or they are not being paid at all. If they are moving to summary convictions, two years less a day, the jails are full. I have seen downloading from governments before; this is a huge download from the federal government to the provincial governments. They are going to download into the provinces' judicial systems by changing convictions from indictable to summary convictions. As the prosecutors have told me, they have been told to clear the docket and keep only the very serious cases and kick all the rest of the cases out, not to take them to court but to get the charges dropped, to kick them out.

There is a joke around the provincial jail system that if there is an arrest for car theft, the officers should make sure their car is locked when the criminal goes out the door, because the criminal is likely to steal their car to go home. With the shortage of prosecutors, the time that is available to put people in jail for two years less a day is a huge download to the provincial system.

It is especially wrong that this bill is being introduced at the same time we are considering Bill C-71. That bill would do nothing to address rural crime and gang violence. Nothing in it would make a difference to the criminals using illegal firearms. All the bill does is target law-abiding firearms owners with new, poorly designed, heavy-handed regulations.

Farmers in my riding make use of all kinds of firearms on their property. Firearms are basic to rural life in many cases. I have heard from many constituents who are very concerned about Bill C-71. Why would the government treat farmers like criminals, while reducing sentences for rural criminals at the same time? Summary convictions and fines are just kicking the cases out, because there is no time to deal with them.

Again, it makes no sense. The government's agenda is looking increasingly incoherent, especially from the perspective of rural residents. Will these measures do anything to reduce the backlog? No. They are just downloading the problem on the provinces. Just as Chrétien did with the transfer payments, the current government is going to do it with the judicial system to download to the provinces.

Our legal institutions are overwhelmed by the number of cases that need to be addressed. The bill could stretch them to a breaking point, as the crown prosecutors in Alberta told me. We could have many more cases thrown out for taking too long. Jordan's principle is going to come in and many people will walk the street because of it. In other words, criminals will walk. That is not a result anyone wants to see, especially when rural crime is involved. It is deeply painful for victims of crime and it is dangerous for the Canadian public at large to lose faith in the justice system, like the rural residents in my constituency.

The government seems to be dumping more problems on provinces and municipalities. It leaves them to clean up the mess. We have already seen how the government has done this with cannabis legislation. Its approach has left provinces and municipalities scrambling to accommodate the new laws and pay for their implementation.

I have heard from town councillors across my constituency how concerned they are about the cannabis legalization and how they are going to pay for it. They do not know how the small towns and villages will handle all the issues that are coming down the pipe, just like the carbon tax. The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association has expressed grave doubts about how its members are going to get ready for legalization. It has been conveying these concerns to the government for a long time, but the Liberals are not listening.

The federal government simply punts its problems on to subnational governments and claims to have taken action. That is exactly what it did with the cannabis legalization, and that trend is continuing with Bill C-75. We need real leadership, not just passing the buck to the provinces.

The legislation would weaken our criminal justice system by relaxing the sentences for many serious crimes. That list was not even the extent of it. It is a very broad bill. It downloads the delays in our court system onto the provinces. It also changes the victim surcharge, which is a deeply disappointing departure from our former government's priority of putting victims first. It would remove the requirement of the attorney general to determine whether to seek an adult sentence in certain circumstances. It would 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. It would delay consecutive sentencing for human traffickers, and that is wrong. It would make our justice system more like a revolving door than it is now. It would make rural crime in my riding and across Canada even harder to deal with, and it would make people not trust the justice system.

We need to deal with the problems in our justice system, but this is not the way to do it. This is simply a huge, poorly designed bill. It would make many changes that I simply cannot support.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did have the great privilege of visiting my hon. colleague's riding to conduct one of the over 20 round tables across the country, in partnership with the Minister of Justice, as part of the criminal justice review. I also want to take the opportunity to thank him in this chamber for his very deft and agile driving to get me back to the airport on time so that I could catch my flight back home. It was quite an adventure and with all the daylight, certainly it helped our navigation through the busy streets of Whitehorse.

However, to his question, in particular when it comes to administration of justice offences, this may be an area that much of the public does not have a lay understanding of. If a person gets charged with an offence and they are on bail, the person is asked to abide by certain conditions. In my remarks, I refer to a curfew, which is one of the more routinely imposed conditions. There may be good reasons why a curfew is needed in some cases to protect the public, but in many other cases it is not required.

There are far too many of these administration of justice offences in the courts. In Ontario, they take up nearly 40% of all judicial resources. We need to reduce those offences so that we can get to the serious cases. Bill C-75 helps us achieve that.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question, if for no other reason than it allows us to take a step back from Bill C-75, and take a look at one of the many other areas that we are approaching reform of our justice system. Of course, in addition to Bill C-75, we have a judicial appointments process, which I am quite proud to say the Minister of Justice has completely renewed, in consultation with her colleagues. By renewing it, I mean that it is now open, merit based, and reflective of the diversity and tremendous talent and experience that we see across the continuum of the country.

In direct response to my hon. colleague's question, I am quite proud to say that we now have, since taking office, appointed over 170 federal judges across the country. My hon. colleagues from the Conservative benches often take the opportunity to criticize this government wrongly and unjustifiably about our lack of progress in the province of Alberta. I would simply point out that there are now five more judges in Alberta than at any point under the Harper Conservatives. That is something we should all celebrate.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for all of her work in this area. I know she was a member of the legal profession prior to her taking office. I always invite and welcome her thoughts and her input on this. However, perhaps one of the most important things she has mentioned is the notion that the problem about the chronic under-representation of indigenous peoples and marginalized peoples on our juries far predate our time in office.

There have been reports that go back as far as when Senator Sinclair was a judge in Manitoba. More recent, retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci submitted a report in 2013 to the Attorney General of Ontario in which it was well-documented that much work needed to be done, including taking a close look at the use of peremptory challenge.

Bill C-75 would enhance the accountability and transparency around the methods by which the parties would contribute to the selection of juries. It would require them to provide a reason. In other words, it would open up that box of thinking that currently is able to be exercised without any review, without any comment from the courts.

We are confident that by doing this, we will see more individuals step forward and contribute to juries that are composed of and are reflective of the diversity of our communities, and that is a very positive thing.

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

Mr. Speaker, while there is much in Bill C-75 that I support, particularly getting rid of peremptory challenges in choosing juries, I am very disturbed by the changes being proposed to section 657 of the Criminal Code. I cannot imagine how this came so far. I hope the hon. member knows I am referring to changes that will mean police officers need not be on the witness stand, available to a defence attorney who sent word to cross-examine those police officers. They could submit an affidavit or previously submitted evidence.

The credibility of a police officer on the stand very often is the difference between an innocent person going to jail or not. This has been universally condemned by the criminal laws. Was there any consultation on this? Is it a mistake? Could it be changed at committee? I hope the answer is that this was a mistake.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to provide an overview of some of the key areas of criminal justice reform our government is tackling in Bill C-75.

In broad terms, the amendments in this legislation seek to promote efficiency in the criminal justice system, reduce case completion times, and speed up trials; reduce overrepresentation of indigenous peoples and marginalized peoples in our jails; and reduce systemic barriers that for far too long have prevented victims from coming forward, telling their stories, being heard, and being believed. All of these things are wrapped in our core objectives in Bill C-75, which will ensure that we are holding offenders to account, that we are ensuring that victims have their justice, and that we are keeping Canadians safe.

Before moving into the substance of my remarks, I would like to outline the origins and context that gave rise to the bill.

Before our government took office, there were delays and injustices in our criminal justice system. The opposition Conservatives would know something about that. In fact, they contributed to those delays.

It was for this reason that at the very outset of our mandate the Prime Minister gave the mandate to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to undertake responsive and comprehensive reforms to improve our criminal justice system to enhance access to justice.

In undertaking this bold task, the minister has been listening. She has been listening to stakeholders. She has been listening to actors who intersect with the criminal justice system every day, right across the continuum. In fact, much of the bold legislative reform is the result of consultations with her federal, provincial, and territorial counterparts and responds directly to the concerns they have voiced.

Portions of the bill also address issues that were identified by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in its June 27 report “Delaying Justice is Denying Justice: An Urgent Need to Address Lengthy Court Delays in Canada”.

Of course, another primary impetus for these bold reforms is the Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2016 called Jordan, in which the court stressed the need for efforts by all those involved in the criminal justice system to reduce delays and increase efficiencies.

My observations today will be on five key aspects of the bill: modernization and streamlining of the bail system; improving the approach to administration of justice offences for adults and youths; restricting the use of preliminary inquiries to offences carrying a life sentence; reclassifying certain Criminal Code offences; and improving the composition of juries and the jury selection process.

Now let me elaborate on these five key areas.

First, the bill proposes to modernize the bail provisions of the Criminal Code, which have many outdated and unnecessarily complex or redundant provisions.

The bill would do this by consolidating the various police and judicial pre-trial forms of release currently in the code and simplifying the release processes; increasing the scope of the conditions police can impose, while providing guidance in regard to reasonable and relevant conditions to be imposed in light of the circumstances surrounding the offence and other factors, such as public safety; and imposing, consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada's 2017 decision in Antic, a “principle of restraint” so that police and judges are required to consider the least restrictive and alternative means of responding to a breach, rather than automatically detaining an accused, including limiting the use of “sureties”, which are persons who supervise an accused while on bail, ensuring that the release of an accused at the earliest opportunity is favoured over detention.

Once the bill is passed, police would also be required to impose the least onerous conditions necessary if an accused is released.

The changes made to the bail system would help modernize and streamline the provisions and save time and resources. They also seek to contribute to mitigating the disproportionate repercussions to accused who are indigenous or those who belong to vulnerable populations by ensuring that courts processing the bail applications and police officers take their specific situation into account when determining whether to detain them and impose conditions and, if so, the type of conditions.

Bill C-75 also includes reforms related to intimate partner violence, or IPV, and in doing so, follows through with our government's 2015 electoral commitments. It creates a definition of “intimate partner” that would apply to the entire Criminal Code, which includes a current or former spouse, common-law partner, and dating partner. A reverse onus will be imposed at bail for repeat IPV offenders.

This responds directly to the feedback that we have received from victims at round tables across the country. It will mean that an accused, rather than the crown, will have the responsibility to show why he or she should be released pending trial. These measures are necessary to take meaningful steps in ending intimate partner violence.

Finally, the bill would require the courts to consider whether an accused would be charged with an IPV offence when determining whether to release the accused on bail. These reforms target repeat offenders who have prior convictions or have been charged with an IPV. These reforms send a signal that our government is committed to meaningful and lasting reform, which protects women by focusing on deterrence.

I will now turn to the enhanced approach with regard to administration of justice offences. Administration of justice offences are offences committed against the criminal justice system after the commission of an initial offence. The most common of these offences is a failure to comply with a set of bail conditions, for example, disobeying a curfew or a failure to appear in court when required to do so.

Often offenders who have committed an offence and are released on bail are subject to conditions that can be challenging or impossible to comply with due to their life circumstances, for example, people who use public transit to get to work and due to the bus schedules would not make it home from work until after their curfew. Then, when these people breach their condition, they are recharged with a breach offence. This generates a cycle of breaching and charging which can result in an increased burden on systemic resources, without necessarily contributing to public safety, and capturing conduct that we do not want to penalize.

Bill C-75 would provide for a new judicial referral hearings process rather than the existing criminal justice process to deal with a charge for breach, to deal more effectively with certain minor administration of justice offences, for example, a breach of drinking alcohol contrary to the bail conditions. However, this could only occur if there were no harm to a victim, for example, physical, emotional, or financial, and it would also mean that rather than charging a person who breaches conditions or fails to appear in court, the police or prosecutor could refer the breach to a court that could in turn either dismiss the matter, vary the bail conditions, or revoke bail.

This new tool would also assist in reducing the overrepresentation of indigenous accused and marginalized groups by allowing for particular circumstances of those accused persons, for example, mental illness, addictions, and homelessness, to be considered in determining how best to address a breach. I submit to the House that those are precisely the types of policy prescriptions which will reduce overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in our jails right at the very outset of the criminal process system at bail.

I will now discuss how Bill C-75 is changing the way we approach preliminary inquiries.

Preliminary inquiries are optional hearings to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to commit an accused to trial. There is no constitutional right to a preliminary inquiry, as the Supreme Court of Canada has held in prior cases, and their uses vary across the country. In some instances, it is either complemented or even replaced by an out-of-court discovery process, pursuant to provincial rules of court or policy directives.

Bill C-75 would restrict the availability of preliminary inquiries to offences punishable by imprisonment for life. The bill would also allow the justice presiding at the preliminary inquiry to limit the scope of the inquiry to specific issues and to limit the witnesses to be heard on these issues.

Restricting preliminary inquiries in this manner will reduce demands on court resources, have more serious cases heard more expeditiously, and aim to reduce what is often called re-victimization, requiring victims or witnesses to testify more than once, both at the preliminary inquiry and then again, potentially, at a contested trial.

Again, consistent with other submissions I have made thus far, this is what we have heard from victims and communities across the country.

Let me turn to streamlining the classification of offences. I know this is something on which my colleagues across the aisle have commented frequently.

The Criminal Code categorizes offences as summary conviction, indictable or hybrid. Those are three general categories under which one offence will fall. This classification tends to indicate the degree of seriousness of the conduct covered by an offence, the available sentence range, and determines the mode of trial, for example, the level of court and whether a preliminary inquiry and/or a jury trial are available. However, some of these classifications are outdated and not always reflective of our societal values.

For example, only in exceptionally rare circumstances will the offence of damaging documents warrant a prison sentence greater than two years. Therefore, it makes sense for the prosecutor to be able to choose a more efficient procedure if the facts do not warrant a longer-term sentence. In other words, it will make sense to trust the independence of the crown to exercise its judgment in the best tradition of the crown so we save our scarce judicial resources and can get to the more serious trials, like murder and those tragic cases we hear about so often in the chamber. I urge my Conservative colleagues in particular to give reflection to this measure, which will indeed help access to justice.

Bill C-75 proposes to hybridize indictable offences punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years or less. It would increase the default maximum penalty for summary conviction offences to two years less a day. It would also extend the limitation period for summary conviction offences to 12 months from the current 6 months.

These reforms provide increased flexibility to the crown to select the most appropriate procedural route in light of all of the circumstances of the case and are expected to result in cases being heard more quickly, thereby reducing delays.

I will now speak to how our government is improving the jury process.

Under section 11 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, accused persons charged with an indictable offence carrying a maximum penalty of five years or more are guaranteed a right to a trial before an impartial jury of their peers. This does not extend to a jury of a particular composition nor to one that proportionately represents all the diverse groups in Canadian society, as the Supreme Court of Canada found in the R. v. Kokopenace case.

To improve the efficiency of the jury selection process and enhance public confidence in the process by promoting the empanelling of more impartial, more representative juries, Bill C-75 would be achieving several aims. First, it would abolish peremptory challenges of jurors by the crown and the defence. Second, it would allow the judge to direct that a juror stand by for reasons of maintaining public confidence in the administration of justice. Third, it would update the grounds for challenging a juror for cause. Lastly, it would allow the judge to determine whether a ground of challenge is true.

Bill C-75 seeks to ensure that our criminal justice system is more efficient, more effective, more fair, and more accessible. The bill demonstrates that our government is following through with platform commitments and it is following through on those platform commitments on the basis of a bedrock of consultation that has been exercised across the continuum. We have listened to victims. We have listened to stakeholders. We have listened to those individuals on the judiciary with whom we work very closely. This has contributed to a very constructive dialogue. More important, for the benefit of all Canadians, it is legislation that is principled, that is based in evidence, and that will improve the quality of the criminal justice system for all Canadians.