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

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member what he thinks about the jury selection items in the bill.

First, I want to make a comment. I want to make sure that the public is aware, and I am a layperson, too. There seems to be some indication that some people think that this would reduce the maximum sentences. There is nothing in this bill that reduces maximum sentences. The judges still have access to all the same maximum sentences, and they still have access to indictment. In fact, certain summary offence penalties have actually increased.

My question is related to jury selection. Peremptory challenges are proposed to be removed. For the person in the street, a peremptory challenge means that when people line up to be jurors, the defence lawyer or the prosecutor can say, “Oh, I don't like that one” and throw them out for no reason at all. Does that sound like natural justice? This has been an issue for decades. It is being removed, and that could actually be used to increase diversity.

Also in the bill is that judges can stand aside certain jurors to obtain diversity, and they can decide on challenges for cause, to make sure that if the defence or the prosecutor is suggesting that someone leave for a certain cause, the judge can decide on that.

I think these are improvements, but I would like to hear the member's thoughts on these proposed changes.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the member for Yukon at the procedure and House affairs committee. I hope it will be very short from now until the end of June. That is my hope, and I am sure it is the member's hope as well.

On peremptory challenges, the member makes an interesting point that it is an attempt to get more diversity in our jury system. Diversity is important, but I always try to go back to the fact that people should be tried by a jury of their peers, as much as possible. When people are accused of a crime, the entire weight of the judicial system is standing against them. They truly are in an unfortunate position. If they have committed the crime, it will hopefully end with a just sentence being applied to them, a just outcome of the court trial. Diversity is important, but I do not think we can lose track of the fact that our goal should be achieving a trial where people are facing their peers and are able to know that their peers will understand where they are coming from, understand their particular situation.

How diversity plays into that is an interesting point. I have read portions of the bill, but I am not certain that the government has struck the right balance in it.

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

Madam Speaker, like Saul on the road to Damascus, I was glad to hear my hon. colleague say that the Conservative Party should be more focused on rehabilitation. I encourage him to speak to his colleagues who were here when the Conservatives formed the last government, which woefully and insufficiently funded legal aid and victims funding; cut programs that promoted rehabilitation for offenders trying to get back on the right track while serving their time; systematically introduced legislation that stripped away the independence and discretion of the courts to impose proper and fit sentencing; and made it harder to get parole and to get pardons.

If justice is what the member seeks, I encourage him to speak to his colleagues, because that is the way they can restore justice.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I noticed that the member is still very much focused on the past, on what has happened before.

However, as the parliamentary secretary, the member should be defending the bill, not focusing on what happened in the previous 10 years. The contents of the bill is what is important. I do not see how this is connected to pardons. I do not see how the bill is directly connected to seeing an individual pardoned by civic society for actions taken in the past.

I know many individuals with criminal convictions who have reformed and are contributing members of society today. They were tried and convicted, and they served their time in jail first. It is where they found an opportunity to pay back society and then sought rehabilitation themselves. A person has to want to find that in order to achieve it.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, I wish to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the outstanding member for Niagara Centre.

I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-75. This legislation seeks, among other things, the streamline the criminal justice system and reduce case completion time.

Today I want to talk about Bill C-75's provisions on preliminary inquiries.

Currently, after an accused is charged with an indictable offence and they elect to be tried before a superior court, the accused or the crown can request a preliminary inquiry before a justice of the provincial court.

During the preliminary inquiry, the crown submits evidence and the accused may as well. The crown and the defence may cross-examine witnesses.

The purpose of the hearing is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to commit an accused to trial. Preliminary inquiries have become a forum where the accused can discover the case against them, providing a candid forum for negotiation discussions and generating transcripts available at trial should a witness be unable to attend.

At the conclusion of the inquiry, there is no guilty or not guilty decision. Rather, the accused is either sent to trial or discharged, meaning no further action is taken. Under existing law, preliminary inquiry is not available in all circumstances. For example, it is not available for indictable offences under the absolute jurisdiction of the provincial court.

In light of the stringent crown disclosure obligations, the Supreme Court of Canada in a 2009 case, R. v. S.J.L., ruled that there is no constitutional right to a preliminary inquiry.

This process is not used the same way in all provinces and territories. Some jurisdictions, like New Brunswick, hold very few preliminary inquiries, while other jurisdictions, like Ontario, hold many. Furthermore, some jurisdictions, like Ontario and Quebec, have developed preliminary out-of-court examination procedures that complement, or, in some cases, replace, preliminary inquiries.

Under Bill C-75, the availability of preliminary inquiries would be restricted to the most serious offences punishable by life imprisonment, such as murder. Currently, preliminary inquiries consume significant time and resources due to scheduling issues, the complexity of the evidence, the number of witnesses to be heard, and/or issues to be resolved.

In its Jordan decision, the Supreme Court of Canada established strict time frames within which criminal cases must be completed, beyond which the delay would be presumptively unreasonable and cases would be stayed. The court also noted that Parliament should consider the value of preliminary inquires in light of expanded disclosure obligations.

Also, in its 2017 final report on delays, the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs took a similar view as the Supreme Court of Canada in Jordan by recommending that preliminary inquiries be restricted or eliminated.

On a number of occasions over the course of many years, reform of preliminary inquiries has been the topic of discussion and consultation, for example, at federal-provincial-territorial meetings.

Most recently, at their meeting in September 2017, the ministers pointed out that reforms were needed to limit the use of preliminary inquiries in the criminal justice system, since these inquiries can cause legal delays, and there are now other mechanisms that serve the same purpose.

Though these proposals clearly represent a significant change in how cases would be conducted, provincial and territorial justice ministers demanded bold reforms to bring about the transformation of the criminal justice system required to respond to the reality adopted in the Jordan decision, and our government took action. These bold reforms respond to calls not only from provincial and territorial justice ministers, but also from the Supreme Court of Canada and the Senate, acknowledging that transformative changes are required to bring about the change to the culture of complacency in regard to delays.

Bill C-75 would fulfill our mandate to improve the efficiency of the Canadian criminal justice system by limiting preliminary inquiries to the most serious offences. This move would reduce court backlogs and ensure that victims would receive the justice they deserve in a timely manner. As noted by the Minister of Justice, restricting the availability of this procedure to offences punishable by life imprisonment would reduce their number by 87%, according to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Restricting preliminary inquiries, as proposed in Bill C-75, would reduce demands on provincial court resources and would have more serious cases heard more expediently in superior court.

This bill would also give the justice of the peace presiding over the preliminary inquiry more powers to limit the questions to be examined and to reduce the number of witnesses heard as part of the inquiry.

As such, Bill C-75 would streamline the conduct of preliminary inquiries and would reduce the number of cases in which some witnesses would have to testify twice. These changes would reduce the re-victimization of vulnerable victims and witnesses, such as children, and would protect them from long-drawn-out proceedings.

Bill C-75 recognizes diverse views, from those who oppose any changes to the existing procedure to those who would completely eliminate this procedure. It would introduce a significant and bold response. Our balanced approach would maintain the preliminary-inquiry process for more complex and serious offences, where the jeopardy for the accused is the greatest.

These reforms would not impact trial fairness. Furthermore, the flexibility for existing processes, such as out-of-court discovery, implemented in Ontario and Quebec, would not be impacted and would remain a practical option.

These reforms would make the courts' use of time more efficient by getting rid of procedural steps that are unnecessary for less serious offences. The proposed restriction would not fundamentally change the nature of criminal trials in Canada or evidence requirements for a guilty verdict against someone with outstanding charges, nor would it change the crown's responsibility to prove all the necessary elements of an offence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Canadians expect our criminal justice process to be just, equitable, and expedient, to protect victims, and to hold offenders to account. These reforms, together with the other measures in Bill C-75, would help achieve these expectations. Bill C-75 would ensure that the accused's charter right to be tried within a reasonable time was respected and that those involved in criminal justice proceedings were not subject to protracted criminal proceedings. I urge all members to support Bill C-75.

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

Madam Speaker, my question is in relation to the kind of consultation that went into this bill. I have raised a number of concerns. Primarily the concerns I have had in reading the bill myself have been echoed when I have looked at the commentary from members of the criminal bar, particularly the Criminal Lawyers' Association, which said that the association was not consulted at all. In bringing forward fundamental reforms to the criminal justice system, I would have thought that the members of the practising bar would have been part of a consultation process.

I wonder if the hon. member can tell me what will be done in committee to ensure that, rather belatedly, we hear from people who are doing this work day to day.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Madam Speaker, I personally had a hand in the consultations that led to this bill. The hon. member would know that before becoming Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, I was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice and personally attended round tables that included members of the criminal defence bar in multiple provinces and territories throughout the country. There has been extensive consultation. I was personally party to those extensive consultations. I am also, as a result of being in that role, acutely aware of the very thorough and comprehensive work that is routinely done by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in this place, and I have every confidence that no stone will be left unturned in the course of the committee review of this bill.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage who previously served as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice, and who I think was justice critic in the opposition.

I want to ask him about the issue of delay and the Jordan decision. In that respect, the Supreme Court of Canada determined that delay is deemed presumptively unreasonable between the laying of charges and the conclusion of trial after 30 months versus 18 months at provincial court.

Bill C-75 hybridizes a lot of offences, potentially downloading a lot of cases to provincial courts, wherein the timeline is not 30 months, but 18 months. How does that deal with the issue of delay and minimize cases being thrown out of court?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Madam Speaker, it is nice to be debating my friend from St. Albert—Edmonton on issues touching the justice file once more. I would say to my friend that he needs to look at the bill as a whole.

I just gave a speech that focused very much on the elimination and reduction of the need for preliminary inquiries. My friend would be acutely aware that preliminary inquiries are most often conducted at the provincial court level. This is one thing that will be taken off the plate at provincial courts.

The hybridization of offences will allow more plea bargains to take place. This will not only reduce the burden at provincial courts, but in many cases also dispense with the need for a trial.

There are multiple steps and measures being taken within the bill as a whole, the cumulative effect of which will be to reduce court delays throughout the system.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in today's debate on Bill C-75 and to address more specifically those reforms that deal with juries. Hopefully, the comments I will make will answer some of the questions by the members opposite that my colleagues have been answering for the last little.

Juries are a cornerstone of our criminal justice system and are guaranteed as a right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for offences carrying a maximum penalty of five years or more under section 11(f). For some offences, such as murder and terrorism, there is a presumption that the accused will be tried by a judge and jury, and for other offences, such as robbery and sexual assault, an accused can elect to be tried by a judge alone or judge and jury.

Canada is a diverse country, underlined by a core value of respect. We should not expect anything less of our juries. The Supreme Court of Canada has noted that the jury acts as the conscience of the community and must in fact be a representative cross-section of society, and be honestly and fairly chosen.

The Supreme Court of Canada has also made it clear that a process that promotes a diverse jury furthers the confidence of the community, including the accused, victims, and the public at large, in the administration of justice. We know there is discrimination in our criminal justice system and, as a result, certain communities have different experiences in the system.

We know that we have to do better to address the problems that plague our system and have contributed to high rates of incarceration among indigenous persons and those suffering from mental health challenges or battling addictions. We also know that if the challenges are left unaddressed, confidence in the system will continue to be eroded. That is why the proposed jury reforms included in Bill C-75 are so important.

Canada's jury selection process has long been the subject of concern. Several reports have documented discrimination in the use of peremptory challenges. There is also a clear record of under-representation of indigenous persons and other minority groups on Canadian juries. Bill C-75 seeks to address these concerns through reforms to the in-court jury selection process, recognizing that laws governing jury selection exist at both the federal and provincial-territorial levels.

For example, Parliament has jurisdiction over the criminal law, including the rules in the Criminal Code governing jury trials and in-court jury selection, whereas the provinces and territories are responsible for legislation that governs matters such as the criteria of who may serve as a juror and the process by which the jury roll is prepared and compiled.

Bill C-75 respects the division of powers over juries and proposes to abolish peremptory challenges and give judges a greater role in the jury selection process. As many are likely aware, peremptory challenges give both the crown and defence counsel the ability to exclude potential jurors from participating in jury duty without having to provide a reason. Senator Murray Sinclair, in his earlier work on the 1991 report on the Manitoba aboriginal justice inquiry, documented the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges and recommended that they be abolished.

More recently, retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci, in his 2013 report on first nation representation on Ontario juries, recommended that consideration be given to amending the Criminal Code to prohibit the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. Similar calls for reform have been made by legal experts and advocacy groups, such as Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto.

Abolishing peremptory challenges would settle the concern that this aspect of the jury selection process may be used to discriminate unfairly against potential jurors and would strengthen public confidence in the jury selection process.

The proposed amendments will signal that discrimination of any kind, including through the use of peremptory challenges based on a hunch or based the way a potential juror looks at an accused, has no meaningful role in promoting fairness and impartiality in the criminal justice process.

I strongly support this proposed change and note that Canada will join countries like England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, which have also abolished peremptory challenges.

This bill would also amend the “stand aside” provision, which currently permits a judge to stand aside jurors for reasons of personal hardship or any other reasonable cause. This tool helps to ensure that potential jurors are impartial and capable of performing their duties if they are selected. Amendments will clarify that a judge can stand aside a juror to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice, a concept that is already used in other parts of the Criminal Code, and has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. St-Cloud, 2015, in the context of bail.

The use of this power would be context-specific, approached from the perspective of a properly informed public that understands the legislative provisions of the code, charter values, and the circumstances of any given case, and recognizes the important role judges can play in promoting a jury that is impartial, representative, and competent.

Bill C-75 would also modernize and streamline the challenge for cause process, including by empowering judges to decide all challenges for cause. The challenge for cause process is frequently used in jury trials as an important aspect of jury selection because it seeks to ensure that only eligible and impartial jurors are selected to try a case.

The proposed reforms address some long-standing concerns with the jury selection process in Canada and will help to increase the diversity of juries, while respecting the rights of the accused, maintaining public safety, and creating a criminal justice system that is fair, efficient, and equitable for all Canadians. I urge all members to support this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the constituents of Kitchener—Conestoga to participate in the debate on Bill C-75, the omnibus Liberal justice bill.

This bill is over 300 pages long and amends several different acts. One does not have to look too far into the past to recollect some of the comments made by members of the Liberal Party in regard to omnibus legislation. I am sure that many of us in this House remember the promises made during the all-candidates debate in the 2015 election not to have more omnibus bills, and many others as well. I will refer to those a little bit later tonight in my comments. However, it seems as if the Liberals have kept their reputation and have changed their minds to suit their own interests. It is a reputation they have developed quite well.

Not only is it a very lengthy bill, but its timing is also suspect, given that on the eve of the Easter long weekend, the Liberal government tabled this piece of legislation that would drastically change our criminal justice system and how criminals and victims are treated. We see again in this bill that the needs of victims are discounted and the lighter treatment of criminals is a priority of the Liberal government.

Tabling Bill C-75 on the eve of the Easter weekend, just prior to the two-week parliamentary break, clearly shows that the government knew it would not go over too well with Canadians or members of the legal community. That, in fact, is definitely what has happened since the tabling of this bill, in spite of the best efforts of the Liberal Party to hide these facts from Canadians.

Another interesting fact about this piece of legislation is that it re-tables three bills already on the Order Paper: Bill C-28, Bill C-38, and Bill C-39 have all been rolled into this new bill, Bill C-75. If anything speaks to the government's inability to handle a legislative agenda, this is surely it. The government has proven to be so badly organized that it is now just combining several previously tabled pieces of legislation in order to make broader changes to our criminal justice system in less time with less scrutiny, and less debate. It is a real shame, especially, as I said earlier, when during the 2015 campaign they promised to allow all members of Parliament to have a voice, and that the government would not use omnibus bills. They also promised that that election would be the last first-past-the-post election, and that they would run small deficits and not use time allocation. All of those promises are out the window with no respect shown for Parliament.

A primary stated objective of Bill C-75 is to reduce delays in our justice system. The R. v. Jordan ruling, which imposes strict time limits on criminals, has made this objective very important. It is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed.

Thousands of criminal trials across Canada have been stayed, including those involving murderers who have been charged. The reason these charges have been stayed is that the time limits imposed by R. versus Jordan were exceeded.

However, we know that this legislation does not achieve the objective. Do not take my word for it. A number of members of the legal community and journalists have also written about this. For example, an opinion piece in the Toronto Star stated:

On Thursday, the federal government released Bill C-75, an omnibus bill aimed at reducing court delays. Unfortunately, good intentions stop at the preamble, especially for those of us who believed in the government’s pre-election promise to bring a principled approach to criminal justice reform.

The author goes on to state:

However, C-75 reclassifies a myriad of offences, giving the Crown discretion to prosecute them summarily. To further incentivize this option, the bill increases the maximum penalty for summary offences from six months to two years. Summary offence trials, like preliminary inquiries, occur in provincial courts, which are already the most congested courts in our system. C-75 may very well take many preliminary inquiries off the provincial court docket, but it will replace them with many more trials.

What has proposed here are more backlogs, more delays, longer time limits. This justice minister is abdicating her responsibility to ensure that there is a functional justice system in Canada.

We see this inability to ensure a functional justice system with this current legislation, as well as with this Liberal government's extremely poor record of appointing judges.

I have one more comment from a legal expert from McElroy Law, a firm located right in Ottawa. She notes, “Under Stephen Harper, the Conservatives justice policies drew a clear line in the sand between criminals and victims. It was an easy sell to promise law-abiding citizens that those convicted of criminal offences will be punished harshly, in order to keep the good guys safe.”

She goes on later to say:

...the government is tinkering with the guts of criminal trials themselves, such as seeking to have police provide evidence by way of affidavit and having an accused person apply to be able to cross-examine them. The changes, if the bill is passed, will not aid in reducing delay, but will instead undermine trial fairness and may adversely affect Indigenous and other marginalized communities that are so often over-represented in our justice system.

Taken from the Ottawa citizen is the following:

Bill C-75 promises to speed up court cases by eliminating preliminary hearings for all but the most serious matters. Also, quietly slipped into the bill is a provision that would allow Crown prosecutors to simply file written copies of police officers’ evidence instead of actually calling them at trial to testify. Not only will these changes waste more court time than they save, they will erode fundamental safeguards of trial fairness.

The number one responsibility of a government is to keep its citizens safe, and this bill is seriously failing in that responsibility. It seems the government, despite all of its comments about “rigid ideology”, is clearly implementing its own rigid ideology without proper consultation with experts and lawyers in the field who are actually going to be dealing with the ramifications of this poor legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have just been informed that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner. I thought I had 20 minutes, but I guess I will have to move quickly.

I have not yet addressed the aspects of the bill that my colleagues and I consider to be the most egregious. I am going to move to those now, as I see my time is elapsing quickly.

Some of the offences that would see penalty decreases include, but are not limited to, leaving Canada to participate in a terrorist group or participation in the activity of a terrorist group. The bill proposes to actually reduce the penalties for these crimes, and it is important that Canadians understand that.

There is a long list of criminal offences that the government appears to think are not worthy of indictable charges: leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group; punishment of rioter and concealment of identity; breach of trust by a public officer; municipal corruption; influencing or negotiating appointments or dealing in offices; prison breach; infanticide; concealing the body of a child; neglect to obtain assistance in child birth that results in the permanent injury or death of the child; assisting a prisoner of war to escape; obstructing or violence to, or arrest of, an officiating clergyman; keeping a common bawdy house; causing bodily harm by criminal negligence; and impaired driving causing bodily harm. The bill proposes to reduce the sentences for all of these offences.

One of the hybrid offences that the bill adds to the sequence is the obstruction of, or violence toward, an officiating clergyman. This is in section 176. This is the same section that the government proposed to repeal in Bill C-51, the justice omnibus bill. However, eventually it caved in to public uproar and feedback that was carried by our opposition members. Clearly, the government is not listening to the thousands of Canadians who are very concerned by the softening of punishment for this crime. The government is trying to diminish the severity of this crime. The issue is of crucial importance, especially now, given there is an increasing concern about sectarian violence in our world.

I could go on and speak for another 10 minutes, but hopefully I will get a chance to finish later.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the parliamentary rights we have as members of Parliament is that we not need to yield to our whips. The member need not yield to his whip. He could continue to speak for 20 minutes. The Speaker recognized the member and there was no need for the member to yield when he had a 20-minute speech, and I am sure all 20 minutes are important. I regret that the power of whips over individual members in this place is so uniformly accepted. The member for Kitchener—Conestoga has graciously and without any particular reason yielded his spot to someone else.

I agree with him about the elimination of preliminary hearings. We may find that will create more delays. That has certainly been an early critique of this bill, that preliminary inquiries can speed up matters by allowing early decision making about whether there is enough evidence and whether a case should proceed to trial.

I wonder if the member wants to expand on whether he thinks the government has gone too far in Bill C-75 by proposing to completely do away with preliminary inquiries.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me first address the issue of sharing my time. One of the things I had hoped with Bill C-75 was that we would have robust debate and that all members of Parliament who wished to speak to this issue could speak to it. I am thrilled to share my time with my colleagues on my side of the House because we need their input. I have no problem with that.

As to the issue my colleague has raised, I quoted from an expert who clearly pointed out that by eliminating preliminary inquiries and simply shunting them off to another level of court would save some time at one level, but it would clog up the courts at another level. It is on that basis that I am opposed to the legislation.

My primary objection to the bill is the overall mentality of the Liberal government, that somehow criminals are more important than victims. We have to get back to recognizing the needs of victims in our justice system and recognize the severe damage that has been done. We need to leave the kinds of effective deterrents in place that will actually deter these crimes from occurring, and if and when they do occur, there is a punishment that fits the crime.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to talk to a few individuals about preliminary hearings and how this legislation would improve the quality of justice quite significantly by getting rid of them.

I wonder if my colleague across the way could be more clear. Is he saying that we should not get rid of preliminary hearings? What is the Conservative position on preliminaries? Should we have them or should we not? It is a positive thing with respect to what the legislation would do.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government will use every opportunity it can to divert the issues to its advantage.

I indicated clearly during my comments, and I had many more comments, that my primary concern with the bill is the way it would weaken the criminal justice system in favour of criminals. We should be standing up for the victims. We should not be so concerned about offences being too harsh when they result in death or terrorist acts, creating situations that make not only Canadians feel unsafe but citizens of the world as well.