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.

The House proceeded to the consideration of 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, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

There are 14 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-75. Motions Nos. 1 to 14 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 14 to the House.

Motions in amendment

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 22.

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

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 61.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 87.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 89.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 90.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 106.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 107.

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 108.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 109.

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 186.

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-75, in Clause 294, be amended by replacing lines 10 and 11 on page 120 with the following:

“mony given by a police officer, as defined in section 183, in the presence of an accused during a voir”

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

moved:

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-75 be amended by deleting Clause 310.

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-75, in Clause 389, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 6 on page 183 with the following:

“difiant le Code criminel, la Loi”

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-75, in Clause 407, be amended by deleting lines 23 to 32 on page 197.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the report stage debate in support of Bill C-75, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments thereto.

As a lawyer, I am all too familiar with the effect of delays on all Canadians, particularly those involved in the criminal justice system. I am proud to be a member of a government that is taking a meaningful and significant approach to promoting efficiency in our criminal justice system, reducing case completion times and contributing to increased public confidence while respecting the rights of those involved and ensuring that public safety is maintained.

I believe that, together, all of the elements of Bill C-75 will help create the necessary change in culture and strengthen the criminal justice system's capacity to complete cases within the time frame prescribed by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Jordan decision and recommended by the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in its report entitled “Delaying Justice is denying justice”.

I am grateful to the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for its hard work in studying Bill C-75.

Although there are many important aspects of this bill that I believe will contribute to a more efficient criminal justice system, I would like to focus my remarks this morning on preliminary inquiry reform, enhancing judicial case management, and facilitating remote appearances. I would also like briefly to touch on the amendments brought forward by the committee and consequential technical amendments thereto.

As the minister pointed out in her speech, Bill C-75 includes two proposals for preliminary inquiries.

First, the bill would restrict the availability of this procedure to accused adults charged with 63 of the most serious Criminal Code offences that are punishable by life imprisonment, such as kidnapping and murder.

Second, it would strengthen the powers of judges at the preliminary inquiry and limit the issues explored and the number of witnesses to be heard.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in Jordan, and the Senate legal affairs committee, in its final report on delays, recommended that preliminary inquiry reform be considered.

We acknowledge that the issue of preliminary inquiry reform has been the subject of lively debate for literally decades. Some have said that restricting preliminary inquiries would have little impact on delays, given that they are held in only 3% of cases. However, it is important to underscore that this impact would be greater in those provinces where the preliminary inquiry procedure is widely used, such as in Ontario and in the province of Quebec.

Also, we cannot overlook the cumulative impact of all of Bill C-75's proposals that seek to streamline the criminal justice system processes.

Lawyers Laurelly Dale and Michael Spratt testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that limiting preliminary inquiries, as the bill proposes, could result in delays and undermine the accused's right to a fair trial. In contrast, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police indicated in its written submissions that it supported the reforms.

In addition, Daisy Kler from the Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter and Elizabeth Sheehy said that these reforms were a step in the right direction and that requiring victims to testify twice, once at the preliminary inquiry and again at the trial, increases the risk of revictimization.

As stated by the Minister of Justice at the second reading of Bill C-75, the proposed preliminary inquiry amendments are the culmination of years of study and consideration in various fora, such as federal-provincial-territorial meetings. These reforms represent a balanced approach between the opposing views put forward before both committees and expressed before this very chamber. They would make this procedure more efficient and more expedient while respecting the rights of the accused to a fair trial and preventing some witnesses and victims from having to testify twice, which can have a very important impact, as I just mentioned, on women litigants in the criminal justice system.

Bill C-75 would also allow for the earlier appointment of case management judges, recognizing their unique and vital role in ensuring that the momentum of cases is maintained and that they are completed in an efficient, effective, just and timely manner.

Bill C-75 also proposes to expand the use of remote appearances provided for in the Criminal Code by enabling anyone participating in criminal cases to appear by audioconference or video conference throughout the trial, as long as the applicable criteria are met. This would include the accused, the witnesses, the lawyers, the judges or justices of the peace, the interpreters and the sureties.

Canada has allowed remote appearances for many years. These amendments seek to broaden the existing framework, with the possibility of using technology to promote access to justice where the infrastructure exists and as permitted by the rules of court.

These optional tools in Bill C-75 aim to increase access to justice, streamline processes and reduce system costs, such as the cost of the accused's transport and the cost of witness attendance, without impacting existing resources such as those through the indigenous court worker program. They also respond to the Senate committee's recommendation to increase the use of remote appearances for accused persons.

The proposals in Bill C-75 in relation to preliminary inquiries, judicial case management and remote appearances, together with all the other reforms in this bill, would ensure that our criminal justice system was efficient, just and in line with the values of our communities and all Canadians.

As a product of the extensive study of this bill and the compelling testimony from witnesses, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights amended the bill with regard to routine police evidence and some reclassification of offences. As a result of these amendments, four technical and consequential amendments must be moved to ensure coherence in the legislation. These amendments follow from the proper amendments made by the committee.

The first of the technical amendments involves the consequential amendment to clause 294 of Bill C-75. This clause deals with the admission of police officer transcripts as evidence and currently references the definition of “a police officer” in proposed section 657.01 of the Criminal Code. As proposed section 657.01 was amended and deleted at committee, an amendment is now required to clause 294 to remove the reference to that previously proposed section.

The second and third amendments being put forward today respond to the committee's intention to keep the offences of advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism, under section 83.221 of the Code, as a straight indictable offence. Accordingly, the second amendment today would delete clause 22, and the third amendment would delete subclause 407(5), which is a coordinating clause in accordance with Bill C-59. Again, these are consequential technical amendments that follow from the important and extensive study by the committee of this bill.

The fourth amendment presented to the House today would correct a drafting error resulting from an amendment to clause 389, which includes a mistake in the French version of the title of Bill C-75 and describes Bill C-75 as “Loi modifiant le Code criminel, la Loi sur le système de justice pénale pour les adolescents et d'autres lois et apportant des modifications corrélatives à certaines lois”. This is again a technical amendment that follows from the important amendments made at the committee stage.

To conclude, I want to highlight what we are doing in this law. We have a situation where access to justice is critical. We have a situation where court delays are preventing justice from being rendered. We also have the Jordan decision that was presented by the Supreme Court of Canada. Following the results of the Jordan decision, the minister and the parliamentary secretary went around the country and heard from stakeholders. They heard from people in the system. They heard from federal, provincial and territorial partners. As a result of that collaboration with provincial and territorial partners, we put forward Bill C-75 in this House. The bill was then studied at committee stage and the committee, after hearing robust testimony from a number of stakeholders from around the country who were involved in the criminal justice system, properly and rightfully took the initiative to amend the bill in the right direction with respect to the key areas I have mentioned. That is the way our system is meant to work. It is meant to work collaboratively, and that is what we did with this bill.

Bill C-75 would ensure that women were not revictimized through the preliminary inquiry process. The bill would ensure that we would no longer have the overrepresentation of indigenous and other marginalized communities in our justice system by changing the way we select jurors and changing the tools judges have to ensure more diverse and representative juries in communities. Very importantly, Bill C-75 would ensure access to justice. It would treat administration of justice offences through a separate model, a different model, that would allow things to be dealt with in a more general manner, in a manner that would speed up the proceedings and would not overly criminalize people who are interacting with the justice system.

These are important initiatives. This is an important bill. It is in the right direction, and that is why I urge all members of this House to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice noted that at the justice committee the Liberal members did the right thing in supporting our Conservative amendments to amend Bill C-75.

Thus, serious indictable offences, namely terrorism and genocide-related offences, would not be reclassified as hybrid offences. In doing so, they listened to the testimony of, among others, Shimon Fogel from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who said that reclassifying such offences would send “a clear and unacceptable signal diminishing the inherently grave, even heinous, nature of these crimes.” Similarly, the member for Edmonton Centre said, “Let's be serious.... We're talking about very serious offences.”

Unfortunately, the government decided to double down on the reclassification of offences such as impaired driving causing bodily harm and kidnapping a minor under the age of 14. What kind of message does that send?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker. the member opposite referenced Mr. Shimon Fogel from CIJA, whom we were very pleased to see here yesterday to hear the Prime Minister apologize for historic anti-Semitism in this country and for the continued fight against it now.

Apropos of that very apology and that very serious issue in this country, the step that the committee members took is one that we agree with as a government. When we take seriously the fight against racism and discrimination and hatred, then we must demonstrate significantly and strongly that incidents and crimes such as advocating genocide need to be denounced in the strongest terms. Those types of offences need to remain and will remain as straight indictable offences.

That is the result of the hard work that was done at committee, and we agree with it fully.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am deeply concerned and share the concern expressed in the House and at committee by my colleague, the NDP justice critic, the member for Victoria. Despite the Minister of Justice's mandate letter, which directed that she remove mandatory minimum sentences, and despite the fact that the criminal trial lawyers association of Canada called for that reform because of the delays in court proceedings, many matters are going to trial because of the fear of minimum mandatory sentencing.

Could the member speak to why they did not deliver on the instruction of removing the minimum mandatory sentences? Why did they refuse to do that? They could have done it within this 300-page bill.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite raises an important point and referenced the mandate given to the Minister of Justice. That mandate was to do a comprehensive review of the court and criminal justice systems and to propose methods of reform to speed up the processes and make them more efficient. That is exactly what we are doing with Bill C-75.

With Bill C-75, we are creating an administration of justice regime that will speed things up. Reducing the reliance on preliminary inquiries to a more circumscribed set of the most serious offences will speed things up in the criminal justice system.

The issue of mandatory minimums was raised at committee. It is an issue the government is seized with. It is an issue that requires broad, sweeping analysis and study. That is something the departmental officials indicated requires further consultation and study to get it right. A piecemeal approach to something in the nature of mandatory minimums would not be appropriate in this bill or otherwise.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary talked about speeding up the court system and access to justice and faster court times, believing that turning some of these very serious offences into summary offences or hybrid offences would somehow speed it up.

There is another option, namely, that the minister could fill the hundreds of judicial vacancies across this country so there is access to a judge. Right now that is another area she could act on very quickly. Why does she not do that?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, the brief answer is that we are appointing judges at a rate that has not been seen in this country in over two decades.

The minister has made 230 judicial appointments around the country. She is also doing it in a manner that is commensurate with what the bench should reflect, that being the Canadians they serve and the Canadians to whom they render justice by promoting a number of women, visible minorities, members of the LGBTQ community and persons with disability.

We are not only appointing judges. We are appointing judges who look like Canada.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-75, the legislation the government has introduced that purportedly is aimed at dealing with the backlog and delays in Canada's courts.

The only problem with Bill C-75 is that it would do next to nothing to deal with the backlog and delays in our courts. Indeed, it is more than likely that Bill C-75 would do the opposite and actually increase delays in our courts.

This legislation was studied at the justice committee. I attended all of the justice committee meetings, where we heard from a wide array of witnesses. In the three years I have been a member of Parliament, I have never been at a committee where virtually all aspects of a bill have been as exhaustively and comprehensively panned as Bill C-75, a massive 300-page omnibus bill.

This legislation would do nothing to deal with delay.

The government came up with the brilliant idea that so-called routine police evidence could go in by way of affidavit. The only problem with that is it would require a whole new application process that defence counsel would inevitably use, resulting in more delay, not less. It is good that the government has backtracked from that aspect of Bill C-75.

The government then came up with the other idea that preliminary inquiries should be limited to only those cases for which the maximum sentence is life behind bars. When I asked justice department officials whether they had any data, any empirical evidence, to back up the assertion that preliminary inquiries were resulting in delay, they had no answer. I can point to empirical data that demonstrates that preliminary inquiries do speed up the process and do reduce delay. Eighty-six per cent of cases are resolved following a preliminary inquiry. That is what the statistical data show. The government has none to demonstrate the contrary.

Preliminary inquiries do provide an opportunity for counsel to clarify issues, to narrow issues, to test evidence. There is also an important discovery aspect to a preliminary inquiry.

Moreover, it is unclear how the government decided to arbitrarily create two streams of cases, one where the sentence would be life and the accused would be entitled to a preliminary inquiry, and another stream that would apply to all other cases, notwithstanding the fact that in many instances the sentencing ranges would be similar. In certain cases the accused would be entitled to a preliminary inquiry, in other instances he or she would not. It speaks to the very sloppy and haphazard way Bill C-75 was drafted.

The biggest problem with Bill C-75 is that under the guise of creating efficiencies in Canada's justice system, it would water down sentences for among the most serious indictable offences.

What sort of offences is Bill C-75 proposing to water down by reclassifying them from indictable to hybrid? We are talking, among other things, about impaired driving causing bodily harm. Impaired driving is the leading criminal cause of death in Canada. We are talking about administering date rape drugs, kidnapping a minor under the age of 16, kidnapping a minor under the age of 14, human trafficking and arson for a fraudulent purpose. The government is moving ahead with reclassifying those offences. What would be the effect of reclassification? Instead of a maximum sentence of up to 10 years, the maximum would be two years less a day if the accused were prosecuted by way of summary conviction.

The Minister of Justice has repeatedly said that we should not to worry, that it has nothing to do with sentencing and that, after all, the sentencing principles are the same. Well, of course the sentencing principles are the same, but when we are reducing sentences and taking away the discretion of a judge to fashion a sentence from up to 10 years to two years less a day, that has everything to do with sentencing.

Apparently, the Liberal members on the justice committee agree, because among the packages of offences that Bill C-75 would reclassify are terrorism-related offences, as well as the offence of inciting genocide. It is shocking to think that those types of offences would be lumped into a class of offence such as a minor property offence, but that is Bill C-75. It is a terribly crafted bill. However, in the end, fortunately they listened to the evidence that it would send the wrong message. Shimon Fogel from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said that it would send “a clear and unacceptable signal, diminishing the inherently grave, even heinous, nature of these crimes.” The member for Edmonton Centre was quoted in the National Post as saying, “Let's be serious.... We're talking about very serious offences.”

So much for the minister's assertion that reclassification would not have anything to do with sentencing or diminishing the seriousness of the offence. It absolutely does, and the member for Edmonton Centre acknowledged as much. Liberal MPs on the justice committee agreed when they voted in support of our amendments to remove the reclassification of terrorism and genocide-related offences.

What kind of a message, then, does it send when we are talking about reducing and watering down impaired driving offences, or administering a date rape drug, or kidnapping a minor? It sends exactly the wrong message. It diminishes the seriousness of those offences and it makes it possible that individuals who are charged with such offences could walk away with literally a slap on the wrist. Such offences have no business being reclassified. They have no business being left to a prosecutor somewhere in some office to make the call without any level of transparency and consistency. It is absolutely the wrong way to go.

It would also do nothing to reduce delays, because 99.6% of cases are already before provincial courts. We know that summary offences are before provincial courts. That means more downloading onto overstretched and overburdened provincial courts. It would not reduce delays, but it would water down sentences, undermining victims and public safety. Bill C-75 needs to be defeated out of hand.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I have one comment and one question. I thank the member opposite for his work on the justice committee. He talked about delays. What I would put to him is that when we take administration of justice offences and no longer apply criminal charges to those issues, but instead a judicial referral hearing, we avoid clogging up the criminal justice system. That is a goal that both of us share.

The hon. member made a lot of important comments about victims and how they would be treated under this law and what the bill would do to them. Would he not agree that what we are doing in this legislation by defining intimate partner violence to include dating and former partners, and by increasing the maximum sentences for intimate partner violence and enacting a reverse onus on bail for repeat offenders, would protect the very victims, the women, the member opposite seeks to protect?

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

Madam Speaker, I do support the parts of Bill C-75 related to intimate partner violence. We supported that at committee. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the bill is a mess.

The member spoke about AOJ offences, administration of justice offences. The bill seeks to do something about those, but the administration of justice offences take up very little court time. Why? Because in almost all instances, for example, if someone breaches bail, there is a substantive charge underlying that. Typically someone is not brought back into court until the main charge, the substantive charge, is dealt with.

While there was a lot of talk about administration of justice offences, very little court time is specifically devoted to them. That evidence was clear before the committee.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, in its own report on the stakeholder consultations, the Department of Justice admitted that the strain on our system is largely due to social issues. Nearly all the participants in the round table raised the same major concerns. They said that the people coming into contact with the criminal justice system are almost all vulnerable or marginalized individuals, many of whom have issues with mental illness, substance addiction or violence.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the notion that the government should invest more in addressing the root causes of social inequality and stop criminalizing people in need of help.

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

Madam Speaker, what the government should do is invest in Canada's justice system by giving the actors within the justice system the tools and resources they need to deal with the backlog, including the prompt appointment of judges.

The parliamentary secretary can talk all he wants about how the minister is now appointing judges, but under the minister's watch, she failed to appoint judges for six months upon being appointed as Minister of Justice. She has seen judicial vacancies reach record levels.

It is the responsibility of the minister to fill judicial vacancies in a timely manner. Her failing to do so in the face of Jordan, upon which cases are at risk of being thrown out of court and, indeed, are being thrown out of court as a result of this minister's inaction, is not just inexcusable, it is negligence of the highest order.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-75. This is a very large, very complex bill that touches on many important issues related to our justice system.

Obviously, I will not have enough time today to cover every element of the bill, so I will just focus on the aspects that interest me the most. However, I want to start by giving some background on the events that led to this bill and how it concerns my constituents.

As we know, Bill C-75 is a response to the Jordan decision, in which the courts ruled that there were unacceptable trial delays and that proceedings would now be terminated after a certain time frame. This was concerning to my constituents and to all MPs, especially those from Quebec, because we have seen several troubling cases in Quebec. In some cases, people charged with horrific crimes have been freed because of Jordan. These have been sordid and disturbing cases for the affected communities.

The Jordan decision seeks to address major issues, particularly with respect to services to indigenous peoples and the administration of justice. This is essential for maintaining public confidence in the justice system, especially the confidence of people who have asked me about many disturbing, high-profile cases. It is essential because the justice system cannot function properly without maintaining public confidence.

If I can wear my public safety critic hat for a moment, I would say the same is true in many situations involving public safety. This is not just about the justice system, but also the correctional system and police forces or national security agencies, which also play a role here.

Given the importance of maintaining public confidence, this bill had to be thoroughly reviewed. On that I want to commend my seat mate, the hon. member for Victoria, who was one of the finalists in the hardest working category of the Parliamentarians of the Year Awards, and rightly so. It is not difficult to understand why when we read a bill like this one, because these are extremely complicated matters that require rigorous review.

We must also exercise caution in political debate. To prevent undermining public confidence, we do not want the procedures and the implementation of these measures to be tainted by partisanship. This cannot be repeated often enough.

In this context, the objective of the bill in question is primarily to reduce legal delays. There are several positive elements, but some flaws as well, and although my time is limited, I would like to address some of them.

The first element, mandatory minimum sentencing, is the most important. This type of sentencing became singularly common during the last Parliament under the majority Conservative government. However, this policy failed, not just in Canada, but in the United States as well, where even very right-wing Republican legislators realized that it did nothing for public safety.

Mandatory minimum sentencing is imposed on judges by law to punish all sorts of crimes, which are often horrible. This creates a number of problems. The first obvious problem is that it eliminates judicial discretion, which weakens our judicial system. Also, mandatory minimum sentences are often intended to punish crimes that are driven by other social factors. We are therefore exacerbating troubling social phenomena, such as the overrepresentation of members of racialized populations or indigenous people in the prison and legal systems.

Some crimes, like drug possession and use, are public health issues and not law and order issues. We cannot minimize how important these issues are.

The facts, from Canada and elsewhere, show three things. First is obviously the social impact, as I just explained. Second is that, on several occasions, the courts struck down some of the legislation that was passed during the previous Parliament. For example, they threw out the Conservative provisions around mandatory minimums. Third, the mandatory minimums did not achieve the goals of increasing public safety, putting dangerous criminals behind bars and reducing recidivism rates.

I brought up this issue in reference to the previous government. What does this have to do with this bill introduced by the current Liberal government? During the previous Parliament, a number of Liberal members spoke out against such policies. At the time, the Minister of Justice and other members of the current government said loud and clear that this was an issue that needed to be fixed quickly. Now, we see that Bill C-75, which they already took far too long to introduce, does nothing to address this issue, even though the Liberals have been in government for three years.

My colleague from Edmonton Strathcona raised the issue with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice earlier today. The parliamentary secretary responded that it was an issue the government was seized with. The time for considering this issue is long past, which has become a trend with this government. This policy was doomed to fail even before the Liberals were elected, because it penalizes the people we want to help out of poverty so that they can contribute to their communities and our society. The Liberals missed an opportunity to fix this very important issue that has been around for a long time.

Certain U.S. states that lean heavily Republican, commonly known as red states, have observed over the course of many years that this policy is doomed to failure. If they have been able to see this, I think a supposedly progressive government should be able to see it too. These judicial reforms have been too long in the making, and I hoped this bill would take care of the problem, but sadly not. As has happened far too often since this government was elected, we will have to look to the Senate for a solution. An excellent bill has been proposed by Senator Kim Pate to address the issue of mandatory minimum sentences. That bill is one to keep an eye on. All in all, the government has missed an opportunity.

I want to talk about another element of the bill, namely hybrid offences. This is a very important part of the bill because it should help speed up the administration of justice. However, we have learned that this measure could increase the burden on the provinces. It is important to remember that the provinces are responsible for the administration of justice.

Representatives of the Quebec bar told the committee that it is not so concerning for them, because Quebec already has a very robust justice system that gives the prosecutor significant discretion. The Crown works hard to assess cases appropriately in order to prevent a backlog and minimize delays in the justice system.

When we are placing an additional burden on the provinces and have to rely on the provincial governments' goodwill, it is a sign that the federal government has a lot of work to do to make all this easier. Obviously, Bill C-75 does not really achieve that objective.

Unfortunately, it looks like my time is up. There were other elements I would have liked to address. This is, of course, a very large and complicated bill. The Liberals missed an opportunity to carry out the necessary administrative reforms to our justice system.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his speech and comments.

In his speech, he indicated that we, on this side of the House, spend too much time consulting and that we do not take real action.

I would like to point out some of the ways that we have taken action that he might agree with.

The issue is what we are acting on. A decision was made in this country with respect to the death of Colten Boushie. The individual involved in the death of Colten Boushie was acquitted by a jury that was entirely unrepresentative of that community. There was not a single indigenous person on that jury, for the simple reason that peremptory challenges were used as a sword by counsel in that case to ensure an all-white jury.

Liberals have acted quickly since that decision and in respect of what we have heard in Manitoba, from Justice Iacobucci and from aboriginal witnesses and indigenous intervenors at the committee, who asked us to do away with peremptory challenges because that would help ensure there are more representative juries in our criminal justice system. This will hopefully cure the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation of indigenous and racialized persons is something I believe my colleague opposite and I share as a preoccupation and a priority of the highest order.

I would elicit the comments of the member opposite on whether he agrees with those provisions of this legislation.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We do in fact support those aspects of the bill. Since the devil is in the details, we will obviously have to see how those things will be implemented. The case my colleague mentioned is indeed very troubling. The matter of representation of indigenous peoples and racialized groups on juries in Canada must be resolved.

On the flip side, this bill does not fully resolve the issues related to mandatory minimum sentencing and all of the other aspects of the justice system that lead to an overrepresentation of vulnerable people in the correctional and justice systems.

It would be disingenuous of me to say anything other than the fact that I appreciate my colleague's goodwill. I do not want to diminish the importance of consultation, but I think that after being in office for a number of years now, the government could have done more to remedy the problems that perpetuate these social injustices. The bill contains good measures, but obviously more needs to be done.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am vice-chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and we heard very disturbing testimony about the impact of mandatory minimums, particularly on single mothers and indigenous women. In the past, judges had the discretion to say mothers could serve their sentences on weekends and look after their kids during the week. It has broken families, and kids have been forced into foster care because that flexibility no longer exists.

I heard the parliamentary secretary say we need more consultation on this. I would like to hear my colleague's view of whether there is any clearer direction than the several court rulings that have asked the government to move away from this practice. Does my colleague really think we need more consultation, or should the government have acted in this legislation to carry out the instructions in the Prime Minister's mandate letter to end the practice of mandatory minimums?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I share her dismay at the thought of women losing custody of their children because of a law whose mandatory minimum sentences were ruled inappropriate by several courts.

As she correctly pointed out, it was in the mandate letters, and more consultation is needed. In addition to the court rulings, we can consider the facts themselves: this policy has not achieved the desired outcomes, it has not ensured public safety, and it has not reduced recidivism. In some cases, it has had the opposite effect. The facts are very clear.

I think everyone involved, those from civil society especially, agrees with us. That is why the Prime Minister wisely included this directive in the mandate letters. Now we are asking the government to do the right thing by implementing this new policy and putting an end to provisions brought in by the Conservative government.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate 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.

I would like to begin today by acknowledging the contributions of all members of the House, particularly the members of the committee, for their hard work, engagement and debate on Bill C-75. It is clear that members of all parties learned a great deal from the testimony that was heard, and the country as a whole benefited from the committee's in-depth consideration of this transformative bill.

The committee heard from roughly 95 groups and individuals covering a broad range of issues, in addition to reviewing 58 briefs. I would like to take a moment to share some of the different perspectives that members heard and read on Bill C-75 in relation to its potential impacts on indigenous peoples and persons from vulnerable populations.

The committee heard significant praise of Bill C-75's proposal to codify a principle of restraint that would guide police and courts in making bail decisions. The principle dictates that police and courts would be required to give primary consideration to releasing an accused at the earliest opportunity and apply the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances. Police and courts would be required to ask if the conditions are responsibly practical for the accused to comply with and necessary for public safety to ensure the accused's attendance in court. The proposed principle of restraint aims to remove unnecessary strain on the criminal justice system and reflects the principles set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Bar Association, the Society of United Professionals, the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, Aboriginal Legal Services and the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres are just some of the witness groups that came forward and expressed support for these measures. The sheer diversity of support that this proposal has received speaks volumes about the significance of these reforms, which are long overdue. The Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres in particular noted that the principle of restraint would benefit indigenous persons who often have to travel away from their communities to get to court, far from their family and social support systems.

Bill C-75's proposal to codify the principle of restraint further requires police and courts to give particular attention to the circumstances of indigenous and vulnerable accused, who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and disadvantaged in seeking bail. According to 2016-17 data from Statistics Canada, the proportion of indigenous adults admitted into a provincial or territorial correctional institution is roughly seven times higher than the rest of the Canadian population, and this figure has been steadily increasing since 2007. For indigenous women in federal correctional institutions, the proportion is eight times higher than for non-indigenous women. In 2012, Statistics Canada reported that individuals suffering from mental health disorders were four times more likely than those without a disorder to report being arrested by the police.

Moreover, indigenous people and vulnerable persons tend to be disproportionately impacted by onerous and unnecessary bail conditions, more likely to be charged with breaching minor conditions, and more likely to be caught in the revolving door of the criminal justice system. These facts are indicative of a systemic problem in need of comprehensive reform.

While some witnesses, such as Professor Marie-Eve Sylvestre from the University of Ottawa, suggested that the law should define vulnerable persons, we are confident that the current, broad approach will allow for its meaning to evolve over time by being interpreted on a case-by-case basis, and avoid excluding certain groups. I would also note that the existing provision gives direction in terms of which types of vulnerability are relevant, by specifically targeting groups that are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and disadvantaged in obtaining bail.

The proposals relating to administration of justice offences also received broad support from witnesses during the committee's review of Bill C-75. These proposals would involve an alternative process called a judicial referral hearing, which is essentially an off-ramp for minor breaches that do not involve harm to a victim or witness. These breaches would not result in criminal charges, but would instead be referred to a bail court so that a judge can review and reassess the bail status and conditions of the accused.

The committee heard moving testimony from Dr. Rebecca Bromwich from Carleton University. She reminded us of the tragic case of Ashley Smith, who was just a teenager when she died on suicide watch at Grand Valley Prison in 2007. According to Dr. Bromwich, Ashley was in custody as a youth and had over 150 convictions for administration of justice offences, many of which did not involve harm to the public and would not have been offences had she not previously been involved with the criminal justice system. This is precisely the type of situation that the administration of justice reforms proposed in Bill C-75 seek to address.

The judicial referral hearing is a new tool that police and courts may use, in addition to the principle of restraint, to streamline minor breaches out of the court system and free up resources for more serious cases. This proposal drew strong support from organizations such as the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, Legal Aid Ontario, Aboriginal Legal Services and the Canadian Bar Association, as well as academics and private practitioners.

Last, I would like to speak to a proposal that did not get as much attention, but which some organizations and individuals acknowledged would have a positive impact for indigenous people and persons from vulnerable groups. Specifically, Bill C-75 would amend the plea provisions of the Criminal Code to require that courts be satisfied that the facts support the charge as a precondition for accepting a guilty plea. Legal Aid Ontario noted that the new process for guilty pleas would help to streamline these pleas and reduce subsequent challenges on appeal, thus contributing to reducing delays. I am confident that this proposal would provide an important mechanism for ensuring that guilty pleas are not used to further marginalize already vulnerable accused.

I believe the committee's review of this bill and the vast testimony heard strengthen an already robust piece of legislation and clarify how it responds to systemic issues. I am proud to say that we now have an even more comprehensive bill aimed at reducing delays.

I strongly support this bill. I believe it will make the criminal justice system a more efficient and effective tool for all Canadians, including indigenous people, persons from vulnerable populations, accused and victims. I urge all members of the House to support this bill.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to share a quick quote. With respect to the current government's dealing with first nations indigenous programs, our Auditor General described it as an “incomprehensible failure of the federal government to influence better conditions for Indigenous people in Canada.” He went on to talk about a number of programs.

The member opposite stood and said that he likes Bill C-75 because it incorporates a principle of restraint as it relates to the circumstances of aboriginal accused or other accused from vulnerable populations when interim release decisions are made. In other words, if a police officer sees that indigenous individuals have a long record, they can bring a lesser charge or a quicker and maybe in some regard more compromised response to it. Then he cited all the different groups that supported that, which were typically indigenous groups. None of them were victims organizations or victims groups that have real concerns about this part.

Does the member believe this is another indictment on the government, in that it is looking for ways to deal with the high indigenous populations in prisons at a cost to the victims?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I mentioned at the beginning of my speech that numerous different organizations and groups had come forward, some representing indigenous communities and others representing very different fields of law throughout the country.

It became very clear from the information provided by Statistics Canada that indigenous people are more likely to enter into the criminal justice system, and that it then becomes a revolving door. I strongly believe that the provisions in this bill are going to further strengthen the ability of the court to deal with lesser offences, so we can stop that cycle and address the serious impact of this system on our indigenous people.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, the status of women committee did a study last year about the experience of indigenous women in the justice system and in incarceration. We really hoped that Bill C-75 would bring in some of that advice. The government calls it a bold bill. I am afraid it is not.

I want to read something for my colleague. At committee, in December of last year, Jonathan Rudin, program director for Aboriginal Legal Services, said:

...mandatory minimum sentence prevents a conditional sentence from being put in....What happens then is that the person goes to jail, and if they don't have someone to look after their kids....they will lose their kids.... Even if the person gets their children back, they will have been removed from their families....that experience of being taken from your family and put into foster care....is incredibly damaging.

He also said:

The first thing we urge the committee to recommend and to at least try to do is to have the current government bring in the legislation they have promised to bring in to restore to judges their discretion to sentence people without the burden of mandatory minimum sentences and the restrictions on conditional sentences.

Why is that not in this bold bill?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, as we heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada earlier, it was in the minister's mandate letter to review and to provide reforms to speed up the criminal justice system. Based on the evidence and testimony that has come forward through the committee process to the House, that is exactly what the bill accomplishes

There is a time and a place to have a discussion about mandatory minimum sentences, and I am very interested in having that discussion. I do not believe the place for that is in the bill. However, the bill does strengthen the manner in which our courts are tasked to conduct certain offences, so we can have a stronger court system that ensures the most serious criminal charges are the ones that are dealt with and with the most attention that they deserve.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to speak to 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.

I have real concerns about the legislation, as do many stakeholders, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

First, this is another omnibus bill, containing 302 pages of major reforms to our criminal justice system. For our constituents, that means we need to study 302 pages of legalized legislation. Similar to many other Liberal promises, this is another broken promise, as the Liberals promised not to bring forward omnibus legislation.

It also signals very clearly, the Liberals' reluctance to allow for a thorough review and debate on the modernization of the criminal justice system, including reducing court delays and judicial proceedings, an extremely important debate given the current congestion within our courts, which is resulting in serious offenders having their cases thrown out.

Second, the bill would somehow undo the mandatory victim surcharge that our Conservative government imposed in 2013 under the Increasing Offenders’ Accountability for Victims Act.

The federal victim surcharge is a monetary penalty that is automatically imposed on offenders at the time of their sentencing. Money collected from offenders is intended to help fund programs and services for victims of crime.

We made this surcharge mandatory, recognizing that many judges were routinely deciding not to impose it. While we did recognize that they were doing so with some offenders who lacked the ability to pay, we believed it should be imposed in principle to signify debt owing to a victim.

Like any penalty, fine or surcharge, if people do not have the means to pay, they do not pay. However, it is the principle of the matter, and many times the guilty party does have the ability to pay some retribution to the victim.

The Conservatives strongly believe that the protection of society and the rights of victims should be the central focus in the Canadian criminal justice system rather than special allowances and treatment for criminals. This is why we introduced the Victims Bill of Rights and created the office of the victims ombudsman.

On that note, I would like to thank Sue O'Sullivan for her tremendous efforts on behalf of victims. Ms. O'Sullivan, who retired as the victims ombudsman in November 2017, had a very distinguished career in policing before being appointed to this extremely important position in 2010.

We created the ombudsman's office in 2007 to act as an independent resource for victims to help them navigate through the system and voice concerns about federal policy or legislation.

While we placed such high regard and importance on this office, the prolonged vacancy in fulfilling the position after Ms. O'Sullivan retired demonstrates very clearly what the Liberals think of the office.

In April of this year, more than four months after Ms. O'Sullivan retired, the CBC revealed the frustrations of many victims and victims advocates, including that of Heidi Illingworth, former executive director of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime.

Ms. Illingworth said:

...the community across Canada feels like they aren't being represented, their issues aren't being put forward to the government of the day...Victims feel that they're missing a voice. The people we work with keep saying, why isn't somebody there? Isn't this office important? Who's speaking for victims... who's bringing their perspectives to the minister?

I would like to congratulate Ms. Illingworth for those sentiments, which I think may influence the government, and also for her appointment on September 24 as the third victims ombudsman for Canada.

Third, Bill C-75 would effectively reduce penalties for a number of what we on this side of the House, and many Canadians, deem serious offences. The Liberals are proposing to make a number of serious offences that are currently punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years or less hybrid offences.

Making these hybrid offences means they can be proceeded in court by other indictment or summarily. Summary offences are tried by a judge only, are usually less serious offences and have a maximum of two years imprisonment. These hybrid offences will now include: causing bodily harm by criminal negligence, bodily harm, impaired driving causing bodily harm, participation in activities of criminal organizations, abduction of persons under the age of 14 and abduction of persons under the age of 16.

As pointed out in their testimony before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police expressed significant concern about the proposal to hybridize the indictable offences. It said:

These 85 indictable offences are classified as “secondary offences” under the Criminal Code. If the Crown proceeds by indictment and the offender is convicted of one of these 85 offences, the Crown can request that the offender provide a DNA sample for submission to the National DNA Data Bank (NDDB).

If these 85 offences are hybridized...and the Crown elects to proceed by summary conviction, the offence will no longer be deemed a “secondary offence” and a DNA Order cannot be obtained. The consequence of this will be fewer submissions being made to the NDDB. The submission of DNA samples to the NDDB is used by law enforcement to link crime scenes and to match offenders to crime scenes. Removing these 85 indictable offences from potential inclusion into the NDDB will have a direct and negative impact on police investigations.

I realize that due to the pressure exerted by the Conservatives, last night I believe, two offences, primarily the terrorism offences, have been taken out of this and it is now 83 offences with the two terrorism-related offences being removed. However, according to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the uploading of DNA taken from 52 indictable or secondary offences, which are among those initial 85 to be made hybrid offences, resulted in 221 matches to primary offences, including 19 homicides and 24 sexual assaults. At the very least, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is recommending that this significant unintended consequence of Bill C-75 on hybridization be rectified by listing these 85 indictable offences as secondary or primary offences so DNA orders can be made regardless of how the Crown proceeds.

We watch CSI and other programs and we see the importance of this new type of science and technology. However, now the Liberals are saying that these 85 offences are no longer important for the DNA database.

Last, I would like to talk about the intent of Bill C-75 to incorporate a principle of restraint as it relates to circumstances of aboriginal accused and other accused from vulnerable populations when interim release decisions are made.

Section 493.2 places an unreasonable onus on police officers at time of arrest to make a determination on whether an offender falls within this classification. Furthermore, and more important, it wrongly uses the criminal justice system to address the problem of overrepresentation of indigenous peoples within the criminal justice system. Instead, the government should be dealing with the socio-economic and historical generational factors that are contributing to this problem.

I, unfortunately, do not believe that the Liberal government has any intention of redressing the plight of our indigenous people in any meaningful way and will continue to fail in this regard despite its promise of reconciliation and renewed relationship.

As chair of the public accounts committee, our Auditor General came with two reports this spring. The objective of one audit was to determine whether Employment and Social Development Canada managed the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy in the skills partnership. To make a long story short, the Auditor General said that when the government was dealing with many of these programs for indigenous people, it was an incomprehensible failure.

It is unfortunate that the government is using this one part of Bill C-75 to address the overrepresentation of indigenous people in our penitentiaries.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I confess to being surprised that the member opposite raised the plight of indigenous people, in light of the previous government's track record on indigenous reconciliation. I find it peculiar that he is criticizing our commitment to reconciliation, with the billions of dollars we have committed to the calls to action.

The member raised the question of how it addresses victims' rights. I will tell my hon. friend. When we stop the cycle of perpetually criminalizing individuals by piling charge upon charge on them, we stop the cycle of overrepresentation. That is what this bill would try to do. That is what the member for Kingston and the Islands highlighted in terms of the administration of justice offences. By taking people out of the cycle of criminal charge after criminal charge and penal sentence after penal sentence, we avoid over-criminalizing individuals, including indigenous and marginalized communities, and we avoid the types of crimes the member opposite is so concerned about in terms of the victims he rightfully defends. We stand by those victims, as does he.

I put it to you, sir. Do you not see a link between addressing the over-incarceration and overrepresentation of indigenous people in our system and the very crimes you seek to stop occurring?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. parliamentary secretary knows full well that he is to address his questions to the Chair and not to individual members.

The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a very sad question from the member. He stated that we should look at how the Liberals have helped indigenous people, and then he said that they have put billions upon billions of dollars into it. We have a government that believes that throwing billions of dollars at a problem is going to solve it. It is not going to solve the problem. What does the hon. member suggest? He suggests that when there is charge after charge for an indigenous offender, we do not charge that person for all the offences.

With all due respect to the member and the government, I see that as an affront to victims, to the people who have been victimized by those crimes. Liberals are saying that they are going to whittle this down because they think there are too many first nations in our penitentiaries, and they do not want them to have records that are quite so long, unfortunately.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member's colleagues have stood in the House frequently to call on the government of the day to fill the vacancies for judicial appointments. As he is aware, as he was in the last Parliament with me, the Conservative government also failed to fill those vacancies and failed to respond to the pleas of the former Conservative attorney general of Alberta. I wonder if he could speak to that. There has been a languishing problem in that area for a long time.

I wonder if the member could also speak to the previous government's decision to impose minimum mandatory sentences. As the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association has pointed out, that has been one of the major causes of clogging the courts. Why, then, is his party completely opposed to any kind of reform of that measure?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, the former attorney general of Canada is sitting right here.

Very clearly, in the 10 years the Conservatives were in government, we filled those vacancies, and we filled them regularly. Yes, there were always openings, and we filled them as soon as we could. We see hundreds of vacancies now. We see very serious crimes, and criminals walking away because of those positions not being filled. That is one thing we took pride in.

This morning, the parliamentary secretary explained to us why Liberals have not filled those positions. He said it is because there is not a diverse enough population, and they want the top courts to be representative of Canada's population. It is a worthy goal, but it sounds to me like positions are not being filled because they cannot find indigenous people to fill them. I think he mentioned putting members of the LGBTQ community in judge positions. That is the reason there are so many vacancies.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues.

As chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I am very pleased to rise to talk about our work on Bill C-75. I want to thank the members of the committee for their hard work. I also want to thank the more than 60 witnesses who appeared before our committee to share their opinion on the bill.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who proposed some very constructive amendments in committee, which we debated.

Overall, Bill C-75 is a good bill, and it is a bill the committee made better through its study. I want to talk a little about the amendments made by the committee.

The first amendment I am very pleased the committee made was to delete from the Criminal Code the provisions related to keeping a common bawdy house and vagrancy. We heard about these provisions from witnesses from the LGBTQ2+ community who came before us. My friend Robert Leckey, who was the dean at McGill, Tom Hooper and others told us that they had been disproportionately used in the 1970s and 1980s to charge, send to prison, and fine members of the gay community. For these convictions to be expunged under previous legislation the House and the Senate had adopted, we would need to have the offence under which they were charged repealed from the Criminal Code.

I salute all members of all parties, who listened to these witnesses and determined that it was only right, while these people are still alive and with us, to take action and restore a sense of fairness, a sense that they were charged with something they never should have been charged with in the first place. The members of the committee amended the bill to delete these provisions. I am very grateful, and I hope if the bill is adopted, which I imagine it will be, we will move forward quickly to adopt an order in council to allow these men to have their records expunged.

Second, we deleted the provisions in the bill related to routine police evidence and allowing police testimony to be entered by affidavit, as opposed to the police officer showing up in court. We heard from virtually all sides that this provision in the bill could easily be misunderstood and could harm those people who were trying to represent themselves in court and did not understand how to challenge the submission of routine police evidence by affidavit. We found that since any lawyer in almost any circumstance would challenge the idea that police officers did not need to show up to be cross-examined on their testimony in all matters, other than the most simple ones, this should be removed from the bill, and we have proposed to the House, in this reading, that it be removed from the bill.

We also listened carefully to those people who said that we should not hybridize the offences related to terrorism and genocide. I want to correct the record of what my colleague previously said. This was not done because the NDP and Liberal members of the committee were pushed into it by a Conservative amendment.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. I just want to remind the members of the opposition that they are to wait until questions and comments to make any comments or put any questions forward.

I would ask the member for Mont Royal to continue with his speech.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, as my friend from St. Albert—Edmonton well knows, the committee had discussions long before amendments were submitted about these issues. The committee members had all put forward the proposal that genocide and terrorism be deleted. Rather than vote against the clauses, which is what the committee had originally talked about doing, the Conservatives put forward amendments to retain other language that had been amended in the clause and to delete these provisions.

I wholeheartedly agree that genocide and terrorism are easily distinguishable from the offences that are hybridized, not necessarily because they are more serious offences, although they are incredibly serious offences, but because they are offences against groups as opposed to offences against individuals. They are easily distinguishable from ordinary charges under the Criminal Code. They are ones that impact society in a way that individual cases do not. I strongly supported removing them from the list of offences to be hybridized, and I am pleased that the committee did that.

I also note that when we talk about moving forward justice, one cannot argue that the handful of terrorism and genocide offences that go before our courts are ones that will slow down the court system by remaining solely indictable offences. Therefore, I wholeheartedly supported that.

What I did not agree with was the conclusion that by hybridizing an offence, we are automatically judging that offence to be less serious. When an offence is hybridized, it gives the prosecutor the discretion to choose to move forward with either an indictable or a summary type of conviction. It is true that a summary conviction carries a maximum sentence that is generally less than the indictable one, although in some cases, by only one day. It is true that if one chooses to proceed by summary conviction, the maximum sentence is less than if it was a maximum sentence under an indictable prosecution. However, presumably, prosecutors look at the facts of a case and determine whether the facts warrant a jail sentence longer than two years less a day. If they believe that the facts of a case warrant a jail sentence longer than two years less a day, they proceed by indictment.

By the way, there are many serious offences in the Criminal Code, such as assault, that are already hybridized. There is no weakening of the offence. There is no saying that an offence is less serious by agreeing that this type of offence could have different facts leading to a need to hybridize.

For example, an incredibly serious offence in the Criminal Code, one we would all agree is incredibly serious, is kidnapping someone under the age of 16. That is one of the offences that would be hybridized under this bill. However, we also understand that there can be terrible people out there who try to kidnap or solicit young people under 16 for the purpose of trafficking or for the purpose of seizing them away to commit crimes against them.

There can also be a situation where a non-custodial parent takes his or her own child to visit grandparents, against the will of the custodial parent. That is still kidnapping a child under the age of 16. Even though it is serious and a crime, to me it warrants a very different sentence than the person taking the 16-year-old for trafficking.

I also note that there were other offences, such as branding of cattle or stealing timber, for which there were Conservative amendments saying that we should not de-hybridize. Those offences are clearly offences that do not carry the same type of consequence, yet in the same way we could not distinguish between one and the other, we are saying that we do not need to hybridize these either.

Fourth, we made an amendment to protect students. As opposed to weakening sentences, one of the things we did was enhance summary sentences. Instead of a six-month average summary sentence, a six-month maximum, the maximum was changed to two years less a day. We actually strengthened sentences for many more offences in this country and set a general summary maximum sentence of two years less a day instead of six months. However, that would have a negative impact on students and agents who could only appear on cases that were six months or less. Therefore, we moved an amendment at committee to allow provinces to set general order in council rules that would allow different classes of agents to appear for periods of over six months. That was important.

We listened to witnesses. There are many issues in this bill that are clearly debatable and have good points on both sides, but the committee came back with a better bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the good work that the member for Mount Royal does as chair of the committee.

That being said, I take issue and respectfully disagree with his comments respecting the hybridization of offences. It is true in reference to certain offences such as stealing cattle or branding cattle, or whatever he referred to, but yes we oppose the reclassification simply on the basis that we said the government has taken a whole series of offences without any real consideration as to why Parliament treated them in the first place as indictable. Other than a handful of offences, there was really no evidence before the committee and we took the position that if the government wanted to reclassify certain offences, then it should introduce legislation focused on the reclassification with a basis or justification for doing so.

Unfortunately, that is not what the government did. It just took a bunch of offences, which is why genocide and terrorism-related offences were put into the mix. They should never have been there. I think the member would concede that, but the member mentioned there were witnesses who called on the committee not to reclassify those offences. It is true and they gave very impactful evidence, but also victims of impaired driving appeared before the committee. They pleaded with the committee not to reclassify the offence of impaired driving causing bodily harm.

We heard from witnesses that reclassifying does send a message. I wonder if the member for Mount Royal could speak to that issue.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to share my hon. colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton's compliments. His intellect and his work at the justice committee is always very much appreciated.

I know what he said about the government taking groups of offences and making them hybridized. I would note as well that the amendments offered by the Conservatives did essentially the same. As he notes, there were certain offences in there that were much less serious on the face of them than others and they proposed not to hybridize them either.

On the issue of impaired driving, I agree it is an incredibly serious offence and for those whose families are affected, the victims of impaired driving, there is nothing we can say to console those people. However, my view is that prosecutors will determine based on the facts of the offence whether they proceed indictably, which they will no doubt do in most cases, or whether it should be proceeded with summarily.

I will give an example. Someone who for the third time takes alcohol, goes on the road and then hurts someone severely and puts them in the hospital for weeks, is very different from the person who takes cold medication, is not aware of its effects, and backs out of a parking lot slowly, injuring someone's ankle, and yet they are the same offence.

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

Madam Speaker, I have had some interactions with the justice committee with the member and I know that he runs a fair and honest ship over there.

I am interested to hear him on clause 106, which is material benefit from trafficking, and clause 107, which is the destroying of documents due to trafficking. Both of those have now been turned into summary or hybrid offences. I am wondering about the logic on that. The member said there is a range and I would like to see what his opinion on the range of issues could be with those. The material benefit from trafficking seems like a very serious offence.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to say that one thing that was desperately missing at the committee was the member for Niagara Falls who always added great weight to the committee.

As I only have a short time, I want to say again with regard to the intention of hybridizing an offence, there are many serious offences in the Criminal Code today, such as assault, that are hybridized. It is not to diminish the offence, it is simply to give the prosecutor a range of options with respect to the particular circumstances of the offence. It does not diminish the seriousness of the offence to hybridize it.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my work on the justice committee for these past three years. It was very rewarding and very insightful.

With respect to Bill C-75, there are sections of the bill that we, on this side, are in favour of.

One of those is the reform of intimate partner violence cases, which will basically reverse the notice of bail on someone who has been convicted of assaulting or other crimes against their partner. I like the idea because it does give better protection. There are a number of procedural changes with respect to preliminary hearings and jury selection. Again, we will continue to review those changes here and get input from people.

As we heard from my colleagues on this side, we continue to be quite concerned about the hybridization of some very serious crimes.

I think most Canadians would agree with us in the Conservative Party that there are serious crimes that are currently listed as indictable offences with a maximum of up to 10 years and that it does reflect the seriousness of those crimes. Some of those offences include, but are not limited to: participation in a riot, or concealment of identity; breach of trust by a public officer; municipal corruption; selling or purchasing offices; influencing or negotiating appointments or dealing in offices; prison breach; assisting prisoner of war to escape; obstructing or violence to or arrest of officiating clergyman; keeping a common bawdy house; causing bodily harm by criminal negligence; bodily harm; impaired driving causing bodily harm; failure to provide sample and blood alcohol level over legal limit; material benefit from trafficking; withholding or destroying documents; and abduction of person under age of 14 or under the age of 16.

I think most Canadians would agree with us that these are very serious offences. Some others are marriage to someone under the age of 16, arson for fraudulent purpose and participation in the activities of a criminal organization.

The government has backed down on a couple of those issues. They are the ones related to terrorism and genocide. The problem I have with the government is that we told them a long time ago that Canadians are not going to agree with hybridizing and reducing the possible penalties for criminal activities like genocide and terrorism. We were very clear that it is a mistake to go forward with this. It took the government a long time, approximately a year, before it would back down on this.

A piece of advice I would give to the government is that just because an idea comes from the opposition does not mean that it is a bad idea. Some time ago we started pointing out that a person who is convicted of murdering, torturing and raping a child should not be then transferred to a healing lodge. We told the government that it was a huge mistake. All we got was pushback from the government and the minister saying no.

However, I found out a few minutes ago that Terri-Lynne McClintic has been transferred out of a healing lodge and placed back in prison where she should be. All I can say to the government is that this idea is no better than it was when we told the Liberals a long time ago about these things. I had said it was a mistake to put genocide and terrorism in as hybrid offences, and again, we were right.

I remember, in June 2017, the government came forward with another omnibus justice bill, and part of it was to remove the protection of members of the clergy and the protection of people disrupted during a religious service. We told the government it was a mistake. I remember standing here, telling some of my colleagues to please go home this summer and ask constituents, even if they do not go to a religious service, if they think it is a good idea that we would repeal this section.

It took about a year, but then finally the government did agree with us. Unfortunately, I see that threat against a member of the clergy is now part of the hybridization, so the government has reduced the penalty for this. Again, I believe this is inconsistent.

We hear the Prime Minister and others saying we have to protect religious institutions, synagogues, churches, temples and mosques. However, at the same time, the government's record, now on two occasions, is to reduce or, in a sense, eliminate the specific penalty dealing with that. It is completely inconsistent, and I think it is a mistake.

I was going to ask my colleague a question, since he gets overwhelming support at elections and is very in tune with what his constituents say. I was going to ask, “Are any of your constituents saying that we should open up the possibility of a lower sentence for people who traffic in children under the age of 14? Did anybody say that to you, or say that we have to go easier on these people?” The hon. member says that nobody came forward to ask for that.

We talk about the challenges with respect to impaired driving. Now the government's priority this year has been to legalize marijuana. Everyone in this chamber knows that this is going to make it more complicated, with respect to impaired driving and the associated challenges. Yet, at the very same time, the government has legislation that says that if people are driving impaired and they cause bodily harm, they now have the possibility of facing a summary conviction offence, which would result in something even as low as fine. I would say that nobody wants something like that.

On the section on trafficking in persons, the justice committee is doing a study right now on human trafficking. We heard from Canadians across this country, different groups and individuals saying what a terrible problem this is and that it has to be addressed. However, at the same time, the government is reducing the penalties.

One of the things I heard from the government over a year ago, when it introduced this, was that it would speed up the criminal justice system. I say, “Sure, if you are a terrorist.” If somebody says they have the possibility of getting a fine of $1,000, they will ask where they can sign up for that. That is great news for them. Let us not hold up the justice system.

My point is these are very serious crimes. They were treated as such when Conservatives were in government. As my colleagues have said, we always stood up for victims of crime to better protect victims and to increase people's confidence in the criminal justice system. When somebody who has committed a horrific crime is let off, when they get the minimum possible sentence, it does not increase people's confidence in the criminal justice system. It has the exact opposite effect.

We had a very good run at this. We stood up for law-abiding Canadians. We stood up for victims. We wanted the system to work. I am very proud of all that we have done. My advice to the government is, when the Conservatives have good ideas that the Liberal members can run by their own constituents and they agree with them, the government should adopt those, and it should not have to wait to change its mind.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I have one brief comment and one question. I appreciate the comments from the member opposite and his experience in this matter.

I would put it to him that to question our commitment to fighting religious discrimination is puzzling in the wake of the strong position we have taken against anti-Muslim hatred, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism based on yesterday's apology in this House, and the monies we have dedicated thereto.

The member did state that he agrees with our position on intimate partner violence and victims who suffer intimate partner violence. I thank him for that. I think that is an important area of common ground.

What I would say to the member is that there are areas where other victims are also addressed in this bill. I would solicit his view on the disconnect that existed when his party was in power. There could be a consensual sexual relationship between people between the ages of 16 and 18 who are heterosexuals, and that was perfectly valid under the Criminal Code of Canada, but until this legislation, in the same situation, consenting minors in sexual activities who are 16 to 18 years old and who are part of the LGBT community would be criminalized.

This bill will change that. Would the member opposite say that is a step in the right direction? Perhaps he could elaborate as to why his government did not make that change when it was in power?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member said he was confused when we were talking about the protection of religious freedom. I was completely confused when I saw the bill repealing a section of the Criminal Code.

I checked the section in the Criminal Code, and the Liberals would repeal the section that specifically protects members of the clergy and people from having their religious services disrupted. I asked the question, and one of the members said that it would still be mischief if one caused a disruption at a religious service, and that if one threatened a member of the clergy, it would still be assault. I said that it was not the same thing as causing a ruckus at a hockey game or a disruption somewhere else or a fistfight at a bar. It is not the same. Even people who do not attend religious services agreed with me that this is more egregious. It is more serious if one disrupts people's right to practice their religion.

Therefore, I say to members of the government that if they want to better protect religious institutions, then make sure that the laws do not weaken those protections. Do not make it a hybrid offence for someone to go after a member of the clergy. That is a mistake and sends the wrong message.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, from the NDP side, we had hoped that this proposed legislation would repair the mandatory minimum policy change that the Conservatives brought in during the previous government.

We have heard testimony at the status of women committee about judges no longer having judicial discretion to impose sentences on an offender serving time on weekends, when the offender could get their family to look after their kids and keep the family together, and could still keep their regular job during the week. Often, in the case of women, particularly indigenous women, they may well have been an accessory to a crime and plead guilty just to get the charge over and under way, but they do not have access to good representation. There is a lot of evidence that mandatory minimums have been harder on indigenous women than anyone else and have broken up families. In fact, 68% of court challenges are related to mandatory minimums.

Have the Conservatives had any second thoughts or regrets about the decision they made in the previous Parliament? Do they wish the government had kept its promise, followed its mandate letter and included a repeal of mandatory minimums in this proposed legislation?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is the role of Parliament to set guidelines for the courts.

Back in the early 1990s when I was part of the government, we introduced a bill to put stalking into the Criminal Code and make it a specific crime. I believe the maximum sentence for that was five years. However, one of my own colleagues said that maybe a judge would want to give a sentence of more than five years. Why would we limit it to five years? I said that it was our job to set guidelines for the courts, whether it is the maximum or minimum sentence. That is what we do as a Parliament.

The hon. member will ask how we can do this. For example, why would we limit it for someone who commits first degree murder and insist that it be 25 years? Again, these things reflect the seriousness of the crimes.

Here is the other thing. When a court imposes a very light sentence on someone who has committed a serious crime, it hurts people's confidence in the criminal justice system. They have a problem with that. One of the things we always wanted as a government was that people would have confidence in the criminal justice system and believe that it would do what it is supposed to, which is to hold people accountable for what they have done, to protect the public and to stand up for victims. That is exactly what we did in our 10 years, and I am very proud of our record.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today to Bill C-75. Like other members of the House, I am very appreciative of the study undertaken by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the many witnesses who gave helpful testimony on various aspects of this bill. I would like to use my time today to discuss the jury amendments proposed in Bill C-75.

As members know, jury reform is an area of shared jurisdiction. While Parliament is responsible for the criminal law and the rules in the Criminal Code setting out the legal framework for in-court jury selection, the provinces and territories are responsible for determining, for example, who is eligible for jury duty and the process by which the jury roll is compiled.

Bill C-75 proposes several reforms to the in-court jury selection process. One of the significant changes that I would like to start with is the proposal to abolish peremptory challenges.

The committee heard from several witnesses who testified on jury reforms, all of whom shared an understanding of the importance of representative juries. Their views differed on whether or not peremptory challenges contribute to or undermine that objective. However, several legal experts and advocates, and most notably Professor Kent Roach, expressed very strong support for their elimination, which would finally put an end to the discriminatory exclusion of jurors. Any tool that can be used to effectively undermine the participation on juries of persons of a particular race or ethnicity contributes to a perception of mistrust and lack of confidence in the justice system.

Jonathan Rudin, the program director for Aboriginal Legal Services, also gave compelling testimony before the committee that the use of peremptory challenges has had a corrosive impact on efforts to encourage indigenous people to act as jurors. Discrimination in the selection of juries has been documented for decades. Concerns about the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges and its impact on indigenous people being under-represented on juries were raised back in 1991 by Senator Murray Sinclair, then a judge, in the report of the Manitoba aboriginal justice inquiry. More recently, we heard from retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci, who studied these issues in his 2013 report on first nations representation on Ontario juries.

I agree with Professor Kent Roach who, in his written brief to the committee, characterized jury reforms in Bill C-75 as being “long overdue”.

Having read these reports and hearing from many experts on the topic, I am confident that Bill C-75 proposes the right approach in abolishing peremptory challenges. It is a simple and effective way to prevent deliberate discrimination and the arbitrary exclusion of qualified jury members.

Furthermore, to bring greater efficiencies to the jury selection process and to make it more impartial, the bill proposes to empower the judge to decide whether to exclude jurors challenged for cause, such as because they are biased by either the defence or the prosecution. Currently, such challenges are decided by two lay people, called “triers”, who are not trained in the law. This process has been problematic, causing delays in jury trials even before they begin, and appeals resulting in orders for a new trial. The proposal would shift the responsibility for such challenges to judges who are trained adjudicators and therefore better placed to screen out impartial jurors. The proposed change reflects the recommendation made in 2009 by the Steering Committee on Justice Efficiencies and Access to the Justice System, a group established by the federal-provincial-territorial ministers of justice and comprising judges, deputy ministers of justice from across Canada, defence lawyers, representatives of the bar associations, and the police. It is also consistent with what has been done in other common law countries, such as England, Australia and New Zealand. I am confident that this change in procedure will make improvements to the overall efficiency of our jury trials.

There are also several proposed changes to modernize and update the challenge for cause grounds. Notably, the proposed change to reduce the number of jurors with criminal records for minor offences from being challenged and excluded for jury duty would help address concerns that excluding individuals with minor criminal records disproportionately impacts certain segments of society, including indigenous persons, as noted by Justice Iacobucci. It would also assist with improving broader participation on juries, and thus jury representativeness.

While a few witnesses before committee said they would like to see this ground removed so that anyone with a criminal record could not be challenged for cause, I am mindful of the fact that permitting a juror with a serious criminal background to serve on a jury and make the decision as to the guilt or innocence of the accused could greatly undermine public confidence in the administration of justice. I would also note that provincial and territorial jury legislation also specifies who is eligible for jury duty and is, in many respects, reflected by what is in the Criminal Code.

Bill C-75 would also allow a judge to continue a trial without the jury when the number of jurors falls below 10 and where the Crown and the accused agree. This change would promote efficiencies because it would avoid mistrials when the jury is reduced to fewer than 10 jurors due to illness or some other reason.

Another key change proposed in Bill C-75 is to allow judges to stand aside a potential juror while other jurors are selected, in order to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice, for example, to support the establishment of an impartial, representative jury. The change recognizes the important role that judges can play in improving jury selection at the outset. I believe that the use of this power, where deemed appropriate, would help improve the diversity of jurors during the in-court selection process, particularly in cases where public confidence in the administration of justice would be undermined if the jury were not more diverse.

With respect to the representativeness of juries, there is certainly work that remains to be done, especially given the important role played by both the federal government and the provinces and territories in the jury selection process. I am greatly encouraged by the fact that jurisdictions are collaborating to examine a wide range of jury-related issues, and undertaking important work to find further ways to improve our jury selection system in Canada, including to enhance representation on juries.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that the jury reforms in Bill C-75 mark critical progress in promoting fairness, diversity and participation in the jury selection process. These improvements would also enhance efficiencies, as well as public confidence in the criminal justice system.

I call on all members of the House to support this transformative bill. I thank the justice committee for its work, and the witnesses committee members heard from in bringing forward this important legislation, including the amendments they proposed.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Guelph spent much of his time addressing the issue of peremptory challenges. It was a proposal I considered very seriously, but there was a lot of evidence before the justice committee that peremptory challenges are a vital tool, including for defence counsel to use. In fact, the defence counsel and representatives of the defence bar who appeared were unanimous in calling on the committee not to move forward with eliminating peremptory challenges. In addition to that, their evidence was that it could actually increase the representativeness of juries. Consistent with that, the Supreme Court of Canada, in its Sherratt decision, stated that peremptory challenges can increase rather than diminish the representativeness of juries. Could the member comment on that?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. Albert—Edmonton for his work on the committee. As he pointed out, there was conflicting evidence at committee. However, where we have landed, namely, giving the stand-aside revisions for the justice to be able to put aside people in order to increase diversity, is really the way to go. By removing the challenges, we would be able to make sure that people are not excluded because of their race or background, and that they still are eligible and under the guidance of the judge in the final selection of the jury. It is a tool that we are giving the judges to make sure that we have diversity and representative juries.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, status of women committee heard testimony from Jonathan Rudin from Aboriginal Legal Services, who I note my colleague quoted as a defender of the legislation. Almost a year ago, having described the impact of mandatory minimum sentencing as being particularly hard on indigenous women and on having removed judicial discretion, the pattern observed was that there were more indigenous women in prison, that their families were taken away and that their children were incredibly damaged on their return, maybe even creating intergenerational impacts.

Mr. Rudin said

The first thing we urge the committee to recommend and to try at least to do is to have the current government bring in the legislation they have promised to bring in to restore to judges their discretion to sentence people without the burden of mandatory minimum sentences and the restrictions on conditional sentences.

Does my colleague agree with Jonathan Rudin's advice in this case?

Although the government campaigned to make this change three years ago, it has done nothing. It has not fulfilled its commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action to repeal the Conservative's mandatory minimum legislation. The government had an opportunity in the bill and it has failed to meet it.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for her advocacy on behalf of women.

What we are looking at is the principle of restraint that is being legislated here. We are looking at not imposing unnecessary conditions, but giving freedom to the judges to determine whether mandatory minimum sentences are the way to go.

The job of the judges and the judicial process is to apply the proper tools. Our job is to give them the tools from which they can choose to use, depending on an individual case and on their expertise in this matter.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am always pleased to rise to speak to bills that mean a lot to me or bills that I am not entirely comfortable with.

Today I will be speaking to second reading of 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.

On reading this large, 302-page omnibus bill, many of my colleagues agree or might agree that this bill is quite dense and complex and that it tries to slip important changes under the radar.

I cannot help point out that it was introduced in the middle of day on the eve of Good Friday as the House was about to adjourn for a week. Nice try, whoever was trying to sneak this through, especially when three new government bills were already on the Order Paper: Bill C-28, an act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to the victim surcharge, Bill C-38, an act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to exploitation and trafficking in persons, and Bill C-39, an act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to unconstitutional provisions and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Given that this bill makes a number of changes to the Criminal Code, most of my speech will focus on the amendments that, I would argue and so would many victims of crime and their loved ones, totally contradict what the Liberals say when they claim that victims are being considered, that they care about victims' rights and that they are committed to upholding those rights. The reality is a far cry from that.

The Liberals are always quick to put criminals first. It seems to be their first instinct.

We do not have to look too far to see some very recent examples of that. Consider the case of the criminal Terri-Lynne McClintic, who brutally and savagely murdered a little girl, eight-year-old Tori Stafford, yet she was transferred to a healing lodge after spending just nine years behind bars and even though she is not eligible for parole until 2031, and Tori's family was never given prior notice of the transfer.

Only after dozens and dozens of interventions in the House by the opposition parties, an open letter to the Prime Minister from little Tori's father, the arrival of many protesters on Parliament Hill, and pressure from all Canadians who found the transfer to be unacceptable, inconceivable and disrespectful did the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness finally decide to take action.

It was only yesterday, after far too many weeks of waiting and unnecessary suffering for Tori's family and because of all the public pressure in this regard, that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness finally asked Correctional Service Canada to make the transfer policies more stringent.

However, we do not yet know whether this serious mistake has been corrected. We do not know whether Ms. McClintic is back behind bars where she should be. That is of little consolation to Tori's family and to Canadians.

The minister has apparently also asked Correctional Service Canada to improve its policies for the transfer of medium-security offenders to institutions without controlled perimeters precisely because these changes could help convince the public that our correctional system holds guilty parties responsible.

Canadians were outraged by Ms. McClintic's transfer, but above all they were extremely disappointed to see—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General on a point of order.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point or order. With all due respect to the member opposite, she spent the last three minutes discussing matters related to the incarceration of individuals and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which is the purview of the Minister of Public Safety. We are dealing with Bill C-75, a matter that pertains to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. I would ask her, through you, to direct her comments to the bill that is before the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary. Members will know, of course, that they are asked to ensure their comments are relevant to the matter at hand. Members also know that they are given a fairly large degree of liberty in terms of how they couch those arguments.

The member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix has used three minutes of her speaking time. I hope that she will use her remaining seven minutes to address the topic before the House.

The hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague may want me to muzzle me, but I will continue reading my speech. I want my words to be heard; I am not here to be muzzled, I am here to speak on behalf of Canadians.

The Liberals were not doing anything and kept defending the indefensible. They said they could not do anything, but in reality, they did not want to do anything. The government could have saved this already devastated family from more hardships, but we know the sad end to this story.

The Conservatives are the voice of victims of crime and their loved ones, and we will never stand by in a case of injustice like this one. We are satisfied that this shameful issue has advanced, but we are appalled that it took so long.

We cannot forget the case of Chris Garnier, a criminal who killed a young police officer. He is currently serving his sentence and is receiving veterans benefits, even though he never served in the Canadian Armed Forces. This week is Veterans Week, which would be an appropriate time for the government to apologize and immediately correct the situation.

Speaking more specifically to Bill C-75, certain aspects can be supported in the interest of victims of crime, such as removing certain Criminal Code provisions that have been found unconstitutional; indeed, the Conservatives acknowledge that this measure will benefit victims of crime and that it will clean up the Criminal Code.

We also support higher maximum penalties where offenders have been repeatedly violent toward an intimate partner, and more importantly, we support the consideration of intimate partner violence as an aggravating factor in sentencing. For that, however, it is absolutely essential that more stringent requirements be imposed on temporary releases in the case of offenders who have committed intimate partner violence.

I think this requirement is especially important because offences related to the scourge of domestic violence are increasing steadily in Quebec. It is important to understand that spousal homicide is often the culmination of violent tendencies that increase in severity and intensity over time. In 78% of cases of spousal homicide committed in Canada between 2001 and 2011, police were aware of a history of domestic violence between the victim and the aggressor.

In far too many cases, offenders that have been arrested and subsequently released go on to kill their spouse anyway. It is crucial that conditional release provisions be strengthened in the Criminal Code; otherwise, increasingly younger innocent victims will lose their lives.

Another aspect of Bill C-75 I strongly oppose is the change to the victim surcharge. The Conservatives support victims of crime and believe that they deserve better. Bill C-75 is a reintroduction of Bill C-28, which was introduced two years ago and gives courts the flexibility to waive or reduce the victim surcharge when a person convicted of a crime convinces the court that such a payment would cause undue hardship.

On behalf of victims of crime, I feel it is my duty to vote against Bill C-75. Despite taking some steps in the right direction, it takes far too many in the wrong direction, I believe. Unfortunately, victims of crime do not yet have themselves an advocate in Canada's Liberal government.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague opposite for her comments.

After hearing her comments, I wonder if she thinks we have improved the system for victims.

She specifically mentioned in her comments the issue of domestic violence, conjugal violence and intimate partner violence, which is a problem throughout Canada but also in Quebec. We have made significant improvements with respect to intimate partner violence by expanding the definition, looking at dating partners and providing for harsher sentences in that context.

We are also taking steps to address something raised at the justice committee, which is that victims of sexual assault are doubly traumatized if they have to appear both before a preliminary inquiry and then a subsequent trial. By eliminating the preliminary inquiry process for sexual assault crimes, are we not addressing the very victims' needs the member opposite has just underscored in her comments?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite.

There has been some progress with respect to conjugal violence, but too many people are still being victimized by their intimate partners. To me, the worst thing is the lack of support for these men and women. Some women are violent toward their partner. There is not enough support, and in many cases, the offender walks free after serving just a third of their sentence.

When that offender gets out, they go looking for their ex-partner. Tragically, the result can be more serious forms of violence or murder. There is some progress, but the 309 pages I read are still shot through with grey areas. I think we have two choices. We have many choices. We can help criminals, some of whom are also victims. However, today I want to speak on behalf of victims because they are the people we are talking about. Unfortunately, they are still too often overlooked by the government.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

She talked about the positive measures included in Bill C-75 but she said that she is going to vote against it. I would like her to tell me more specifically what she thinks is wrong with the bill.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Quebec City region.

I come from a prison background. Let me assure my colleagues that I did not spend any time in jail. My father was a prison warden and my mother was a correctional officer. My aunt was a correctional officer. My grandfather was a police chief and my cousins are police officers. I come from a family that worked in the prison system. It is a harsh environment that, to date, has always been appropriated by criminals.

This 302-page bill shows that even today, in 2018 and soon 2019, everything is done to protect criminals while little or nothing is done to protect victims of crime. It is time that changed.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about crimes against predominantly females in a domestic violence context. One of the issues we have real concerns with is the watering down of sentences, including for the offence of administering date rape drugs, from as much as 10 years to two years less a day.

Could the member speak to that provision of Bill C-75 and the impact of that change, namely that offenders who were prosecuted by way of summary conviction for administering a date rape drug could not have a DNA order so they would be in the DNA national database?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He is quite right.

In my opinion, Bill C-75 does not go far enough. It makes some strides, but only small ones. It is time for all Canadian governments at all levels to put themselves in the shoes of victims of crime, who have to deal with criminals day after day with no way to protect themselves.

Our government put in place the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights, which specifies that, when an offender gets out of prison, the parents of the victim must be informed. In many instances that does not happen, and in my opinion, it shows a lack of judgment. That should have been included in Bill C-75.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to 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.

Before I begin, I would like to thank the Minister of Justice and the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for their work on this legislation, which is now at report stage. It really would address some of the issues of delay in our court system. It would reinforce and strengthen our criminal justice system to ensure that victims would be looked after in a way that would protect them, our communities and society and. At the same time, it looks at the inequities within the system.

Before I go any further, I will quote Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer in the United States. I have read his book Just Mercy and one line reads, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” I started with that quote because I want lay some context.

I have listened to hon. opposition members speak to the bill. I want to re-emphasize that our objective is not to revictimize innocent people, but to ensure they are adequately protected. We know there are inequities in the system and the bill looks to improve the efficiency of and equity within the system.

There have been many reports, and it is not just me saying this, about the over-incarceration of our indigenous and black populations within federal institutions across the country. Irrespective of where we are, we see this happening.

I am not a lawyer and this is not my background, but in looking at the legislation, I want people in Whitby to know and understand what the legislation would do to strengthen our criminal justice system, the Criminal Code and increase efficiencies. By doing both, it would increase efficiency.

Bill C-75 proposes to do a few things: modernize and streamline our bail system, including by legislating a principle of restraint to reduce the imposition of unnecessary conditions and with the intended effect of reducing the overrepresentation of indigenous and marginalized Canadians in our criminal justice system. Essentially, when bail conditions are imposed, the proposal is to look at the situation of the individuals in front of the judge and come up with reasonable conditions that would prevent them from re-entering the criminal justice system. By doing that, we would ensure it would not be a revolving door in and out of prison. We want people to be rehabilitated and stay out of the system, but there has to be a thoughtful process throughout the whole judicial system to ensure that happens.

A second proposal is to change the way our system deals with administration of justice offences, including by creating new judicial referral hearings as an alternative to a new criminal charge, with the goal of reducing the burden of administrative justice charges and increasing court efficiency. If an alcoholic is in front of a judge and one of the conditions imposed by the judge is that the person not drink, that is a little unreasonable. Why not have one of the conditions be that the individual seeks treatment? That is a better alternative than telling that person not to drink. Allow individuals to seek treatment and make it part of their conditions so they do not come back before the court. It would prevent that revolving door and increase efficiency.

Another proposal is to strengthen the way our criminal justice system responds to intimate partner violence, including enhancing the reverse onus at bail for repeat offenders. If charged with an offence, it is not up to the prosecution but rather to the defendant to present evidence for why he or she should be released. This makes it harder for the person to reoffend, and it protects the victim. It should be up to the individual to tell the court why he or she will not offend again. It should not be up to the prosecution to do that. It broadens the definition of intimate partner violence to include dating partners and former partners, and it increases the maximum sentence for intimate partner violence.

Another reform is the reform to jury selection processes. This legislation proposes reform by including the abolition of peremptory challenges, reinforcing the power of judges to stand aside certain jurors in order to increase the diversity of the jury selection. That does not mean the person will not have the opportunity to be a juror; it just means that in order to increase the diversity of the jurors who are selected as a jury of our peers, they should reflect those who are living in the community. That component allows for judges to have the authority to do that. Jurors cannot be removed without reason. They cannot be indiscriminately removed; there has to be a reason for that. This also helps to allow and increase equity within our system.

This piece of legislation also restricts the availability of preliminary inquiries to only those offences carrying the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, with the intended effect of reducing the time it takes for each case to go to trial. We know that the introduction of this proposal will allow us to understand what victims go through. We are not revictimizing witnesses by having them testify at the peremptory and also at the trial. It increases efficiency while also, as I mentioned earlier, ensuring that the victim is not further victimized within the system.

I want to talk about the hybridized offences, and a few people may want an explanation as to what this is. There are three ways in which we can convict. There are summary convictions, indictable offences and hybrid offences. The fact that we are increasing the number of hybrid offences does not mean the Crown does not have the ability to decide the appropriate sentence or look at the seriousness of the offence.

My hon. colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton has brought this up a number of times. He is a civil litigator, and during his speech he said we cannot just leave it up to the Crown somewhere in some building to have the ability to indiscriminately sentence. I am sure he has faith in the ability of his colleagues, and I would hope he would know that these lawyers take their job very seriously. Not taking away their ability to decide the seriousness of a crime means they can still go in either direction, whether people are given a fine, or two years, or two years to life. That possibility is still available to our attorneys.

This is certainly not what it is doing. It is not being soft on crime. In addition to these proposals, our Minister of Justice has made significant numbers of appointments. Last year there were over 100 appointments to the bench. We are currently at 235. We are on track this year to keep that number going.

We have the most diversity on the bench. We have judges who look like Canadians. That combination of appointments, plus the proposals in here, increases the equity in our system, and it increases the efficiency of our system.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member for Whitby a question about hybridization and how it will make the justice system more efficient, which is the basis upon which the government claims it is reclassifying or hybridizing offences.

The effect of hybridization is that more cases will be prosecuted by summary conviction. That means they go down to be prosecuted at the provincial court level, rather than at the superior court level. We know that 99.6% of cases are already prosecuted at provincial courts.

In addition to that, from the standpoint of the Jordan decision, which imposed timelines wherein a delay is deemed presumptively unreasonable, the burden rests on the Crown to justify the case continuing. As such, it is 30 months in superior court and it will be 18 months in provincial courts. Not only is the government downloading cases, but it is reducing the timeline to prosecute by about half.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to reiterate, summary cases have fewer procedural aspects. They move much more quickly through the system. They do not need as many procedures, and they increase the efficiency within our justice system.

However, I would like to talk specifically about hybridization and to look at, for example, an issue that the hon. colleague has brought up before in this House, which is making incidents such as kidnapping a hybrid offence.

I have three kids. When we look at kidnapping, it could either be someone who stands outside of a school luring kids into their van and saying, “I am going to take you away and kidnap you,” or it could be a custody case in which a child says, “I don't want to live with mom anymore. I am going to run away and go stay with dad,” and mom calls the police. Both of these fall under the same classification, which is kidnapping.

However, those two cases are not the same. The Crown has the ability within that context to look at those two cases of kidnapping and classify which is the more serious offence that requires a lifetime in prison, and which requires two years or less.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to briefly address preliminary inquiries.

Preliminary inquiries are, in essence, dress rehearsals for subsequent trials, and they are only used in 3% of cases. Therefore, eliminating these is not really going to save a lot of time. Sometimes, during these preliminary inquiries, the Crown's case can collapse entirely and one does not end up having to hold a much longer trial.

Critics also claim that their elimination can limit the rights of the accused to fully comprehend the case against them, and may increase wrongful convictions. In fact, the Canadian Bar Association said:

Bill C-75 would restrict preliminary inquiries to offences with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. This would not reduce court delays and would negatively impact the criminal justice system as a whole. As lawyers who practice in Canada’s criminal courts every day, we know the practical value of preliminary inquiries to the criminal justice system.

I am interested in what the member would have to say to the Canadian Bar Association on preliminary inquiries.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would start by saying that I do not purport to be a lawyer or to speak for members of the Canadian Bar Association in the way they speak among themselves about this particular reform.

The proposals in Bill C-75 would restrict the availability of preliminary inquiries to only those offences carrying the maximum penalty of life in prison, with the intended effect of reducing the time it takes for cases to reach trial.

Among other things, this looks at the witnesses and the revictimization of individuals who, at the inquiry and again at trial, have to go through their testimony and some of the very difficult circumstances of what happened to them. That can be a very painful and excruciating process.

When we look at limiting those to offences that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, we are ensuring that we take into consideration some of the issues my colleague is talking about with regard to having the witnesses there to testify to those very serious offences.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise to speak to Bill C-75.

We have waited long and hard for these omnibus changes to the Criminal Code, and a number of the changes have been welcomed by our party. Regrettably, a number of changes that could have been made, and that were promised by the Liberals, have not been made. That is deeply disappointing not just to us, but to Canadians and the lawyers who represent them when they end up before the courts.

Many of the reforms and the calls for reform have come from the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in the Jordan case, which many members have spoken about here. That decision put in place a new framework and timeline on the necessity of processing trials through the courts with the intention of trying to resolve the backlog of cases. Many of the impacted cases have involved very serious offences, but charges are simply being dropped because the cases have not proceeded expeditiously, consistent with the charter of rights, and in accordance with the new timelines imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin two years back admonished the government in saying that “The perpetual crisis of judicial vacancies in Canada is an avoidable problem that needs to be tackled and solved.” This has been the focus of a lot of debate in this place in the nine years I have been elected. Repeated calls by the opposition to the then Conservative government are now continuing with the Liberal government to fill those vacancies.

There are other measures that can be taken, some of which have been taken by the current government, to try to address the backlog in the courts and to ensure that justice is done. However, there are a number of significant measures that the justice minister was apparently mandated to undertake and chose not to do, at least not at this time, but maybe after the next election, which is usually the reason given.

Judicial appointments are seen as one solution to the backlog. Other possible solutions have been requested and, as mentioned, not adopted in Bill C-75, despite the calls by my colleague, the New Democrat justice critic, the MP for Victoria. His calls have been drawn from the testimony of experts in the field, including the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association.

I am a member from Alberta, and in the nine years I have been here, there have been calls by the attorney general of my province for judicial vacancies to be filled, which is the prerogative of the federal government. Hundreds of cases have been thrown out because of the failure to fill vacancies across the country. There is an appreciation that some of those vacancies have been filled, particularly since this past April. However, as I have noted, these calls were made by the opposition to the then Conservative government and the calls now continue to the Liberal government. My Province of Alberta has been calling for federal action to fill these judicial vacancies and is pleased that some action is being taken, but I do want to credit my own provincial government for taking action.

The Canadian Bar Association has criticized the government for the chronic failure to appoint judges, in some cases with a delay of more than a year. As I mentioned, I commend the Alberta government for its action in filling vacancies and creating new positions in the provincial courts “to ensure Albertans have more timely and representative access to justice.” It has also appointed additional clerks and prosecutors to ensure that the cases proceed more expeditiously.

I particularly wish to point out some of the recent appointments made by the Government of Alberta. In April of this year, Judge Karen Crowshoe, the first indigenous woman called to the Alberta Bar Association, became the first female first nation provincial court judge. Also, in this week alone, the Alberta court appointed Judge Cheryl Arcand-Kootenay, who is now the third first nation woman appointed to the provincial court. Moreover, Judge Melanie Hayes-Richards was appointed to the Edmonton Criminal Court. Finally, Judge Michelle Christopher was appointed as the first female judge in the judicial district of Medicine Hat in the history of our province. Kudos to the Government of Alberta.

There are a number of solutions that could have been taken in Bill C-75 that were not taken. For example, my colleagues have consistently called for the government to cease charging Canadians for the simple possession of small amounts of cannabis. All of those charges, the tens of thousands of Canadians charged for simple possession, have clogged our courts. We could have simply resolved that, even in the past year when the government made it clear that it was going to legalize cannabis, by stopping those criminal charges. However, it chose not to, and so the courts remain clogged.

In addition, there have been a lot of calls, including by Moms Stop the Harm, to address opioid addiction. They have been calling for the decriminalization of small amounts of opioids for personal use and to address it as a mental health challenge. Again, those charges could reduce time in our courts.

On preliminary inquiries, a number of my colleagues in this place have talked to the concerns about the government deciding in Bill C-75 to remove the opportunity for preliminary inquiries. The government has professed that this removal would make the judicial process more efficient, but as has been mentioned, it is a very small percentage, 2% to 3%, of cases that ever go through preliminary inquiry. Obviously, it would not have a substantial effect in reducing the clogging of the courts.

There has been concern at the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers that this may pose a serious risk of more wrongful convictions. We have to remember why we have preliminary inquiries. It was mentioned previously that in some cases, as a result of a preliminary inquiry, the charges are dropped. It is a good opportunity for the defence to review the evidence by the Crown. It is concerning that while the government continually likes to use the word “balance”, the bill is not adequately balancing greater efficiency in the courts and the protection of the rights of the accused.

I would also like to speak to the issue of mandatory minimum sentences, which has been discussed a lot in this place. Based on a lot of expert witnesses testimony at committee, my colleagues are expressing great disappointment that removal of mandatory minimum sentences was not addressed in this 300-page omnibus criminal justice bill. They are disappointed that it was not dealt with, particularly as dealing with mandatory minimums was specifically prescribed in the mandate letter of the justice minister. It seemed logical that this would included in this omnibus bill. Many remain puzzled as to why there is a delay on that. Is it going to be yet another Liberal promise that is delayed until the next election? It is a solution that could genuinely address the clogging of the courts, and we encourage the government to move forward more expeditiously and table a measure on that before we recess for the next election.

Many expert witnesses at committee, including the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, recommended taking action on these measures introduced by the Harper government. This is a significant factor clogging the courts. The association said:

Mandatory minimum sentences frustrate the process of resolving cases by limiting the Crown's discretion to offer a penalty that will limit the Crowns ability to take a position that will foster resolution before trial.

We have been told that the effect has been to increase the choice to go to trial rather than pleading to a lower charge. That is because of the necessity by that law that a minimum penalty will be imposed. Therefore, many who are charged will then say they will go to court and try to beat the rap, because otherwise they may receive a greater sentence. That has really clogged the courts.

I quote Jonathan Rudin of the Aboriginal Legal Services, who has emphasized the need to restore judicial discretion, particularly for indigenous women, as the Liberals promised. He said:

...we have to look at the fact that there are still mandatory minimum sentences that take away from judges the ability to sentence indigenous women the way they would like to be sentenced. There are still provisions that restrict judges from using conditional sentences, which can keep women out of prison.

I look forward to questions and could elaborate further then.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for her contributions to the House and to her community. I will confess to finding some of her comments about appointments a little surprising. Clearly, when we have to overhaul an entire appointments process, it takes some time to get it right.

However, in overhauling that process, we have shifted from a situation in which 30% of the appointees under the previous government were women to a situation in which 57% are now women. Twelve per cent of the appointments have been from racialized groups, 6% from the LGBTQ community, and 3% from indigenous peoples. Two hundred and thirty people have been appointed across the country, including 34 in the province the member represents.

Does she share our view that we strengthen the administration of justice when that justice is delivered by a bench that reflects the community it appears before?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, of course I agree with that suggestion, but what I find stunning is that when I visit the law school in my constituency at the University of Alberta, I see that a large majority of the students are women. When I graduated a huge number of graduates were women.

It is not that we do not have qualified women. It is not that we do not have qualified indigenous lawyers. It is not that we do not have people from all kinds of racial backgrounds. What it is, is a poor excuse for the delay in the appointment of judges.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do want to touch upon judicial appointments.

Under the present minister's watch, we have seen a record number of judicial vacancies. As the member pointed out, months went by when the minister failed to appoint a single judge. The situation became so acute that former Chief Justice Neil Wittmann spoke out in the spring of 2016.

The member is quite right. The provincial government did respond by way of order in council by establishing 10 new judicial posts in October 2016.

The federal government says it is a priority to fill judicial vacancies, but it did not get around to filling one of them until a year later when my former colleague Grant Dunlop was appointed to the Court of Queen's Bench.

It seems that the government's record does not match its rhetoric in taking the situation of judicial vacancies seriously.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned during questions to other colleagues, when the Conservative Party was in power, it was also chastised by provincial attorneys general for the delay in appointments. I think both bear the responsibility and I see no reason whatsoever for not proceeding. We have many qualified lawyers in this country.

It is not the only solution. Appointment to the courts is important. We need more prosecutors. We could also reduce the number of cases going forward if we took some of the measures that we recommended, for example, simply referring a lot of people who are addicted to opioids to mental health and other supports instead of charging them. There are many solutions.

A lot of people in court are not represented because they cannot afford it. The government should step up to the plate and provide more money for legal aid.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree completely with my hon. colleague's comments on more treatment and less criminalization of those who are addicted to opioids.

My question is regarding the criticism of our continued prosecution of people for simple possession of cannabis before we legalized it. Our plan was to legalize and strictly regulate cannabis. To stop charging people would basically lead to de facto legalization without any of the regulations in place.

Does the hon. member think that we should have had de facto legalization before we had the regulatory regime in place?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking here about changes to the Criminal Code. Our party was very clear. We have long called for the decriminalization of simple possession, which could have been done in the first year the government was in office. We could have avoided tens of thousands of charges against Canadians who now probably cannot cross the border as a result.

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

Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it is once again to rise and share some thoughts on what is a very important issue.

This is a very comprehensive piece of legislation we have before us. It will modernize our criminal justice system. There are a lot of positive changes here. I must say that I am a bit surprised that the Conservatives continue to find ways to be critical of such good, progressive legislation. I hope to be able to highlight where I think that is somewhat misplaced.

We talked a lot in the last federal election about the importance of keeping our communities safe, protecting victims, and ultimately, holding offenders accountable for their actions. What we have before us today is legislation that would do all three. That is why I stand today with enthusiasm and highly recommend that members, particularly the opposition members, look again at what it is this government is doing with respect to making our communities safer, protecting victims, and holding offenders more accountable. Those are three aspects of this legislation that I believe need to be taken into consideration when people choose to vote in favour or against this legislation.

I compliment the minister on the fine work she has done with respect to working with the different stakeholders. When we think of our justice system, our court process and law enforcement, it is not just one level of government that is responsible for all of it. We are dependent on ensuring that there is a high sense of co-operation, discussion, and dialogue with provincial and territorial entities and indigenous people, in particular. There are many other stakeholders beyond those I have just referred to that need to be taken into consideration and listened to.

I believe that the legislation we have before us today is very reflective of what Canadians want to see and the discussions that came out of the numerous consultations with the department. I am happy to say that when the minister brought in the legislation, she made it clear in some of the debates we had that we were open to amendments, and we did receive amendments at the committee stage. The committee did some outstanding work, I must say. Through that process, the government even accepted amendments that were not government amendments, contrary to the days of Stephen Harper, when amendments brought by opposition members were never respected. We recognized that there were some positive amendments from the opposition and got behind and supported them. Therefore, it seems to me that the system worked quite well.

I started off by talking about the election. The discussions members of this House had when they met with the electorate were very keen on the issue of crime and safety and what it was Canadians expected of this government. That is why we have this progressive piece of legislation before us today. There were commitments made. We commented that we would bring in comprehensive criminal justice reform. We talked about the importance of intimate partner violence and what it is we might be able to do with respect to that.

This legislation is yet another example of one of many pieces of legislation this Prime Minister and this government have brought to the floor of the House that fulfills another commitment to Canadians in the last federal election. I believe that Canadians would be happy with the fact that we are addressing the commitments that we know are important to them, so let us talk about some of those changes.

My friends in the Conservative Party seem to have a difficult time with the issue of hybridization. We have summary convictions and we have indictable convictions. There is a list that would allow a crime to be considered indictable or summary.

My colleague made reference to kidnapping, and that is an excellent example. To get a sense of what it is the Conservatives are actually opposing, I will use the example of kidnapping.

There are many lawyers in every region of the country who will be able to tell people about the negative consequences of a family breakdown and a custody situation. I would ask members to put themselves in the position of a 12-year-old child who has a mom and dad living apart. Maybe it is the mom who has custody of the child. That child is having a rough day or possibly even a pretty bad week and decides to give the other parent a call to say, “I don't want to be here. Come and pick me up. I'm really upset. I'm going to run away”, or whatever that child might actually say.

The other parent maybe meets the child somewhere or somehow accommodates that child at his or her home or maybe drops the child off at the grandparents' place. Technically, that is kidnapping, and kidnapping is a very serious charge. Surely to goodness people who might be following the debate would recognize that this is quite different from someone who preys on a child who is walking out of a schoolyard, who throws that child into a van and then maybe does something horrific or decides to hold that child for ransom or put that child in a dangerous situation, such as prostitution.

What we are saying is that there are two extremes, and there is a lot in between. Hybridization allows the opportunity for discretion. That is only one aspect of what I like about this legislation. There are many other things I could be talking about.

I made reference to intimate partner violence. We need to realize that it is not just common law relationships or marital relationships. It could be a dating relationship where there is that sense of intimacy and violence. Victims really need to be given extra consideration. That is taking place here.

I like the idea that we are providing the opportunity to get rid of preliminary trials. That is a positive thing. Let me give a specific example. Imagine someone who is a victim of a sexual assault. As opposed to having to go through a preliminary trial and relive that nightmare, there could be no preliminary trial. There would just be the trial. I see that as a good thing.

My New Democratic friends previously said that it is a small percentage of overall court cases. That is not true. While it is true that it might be a smaller percentage, we are talking about thousands of cases. Imagine the impact on court times.

This legislation would do so much more to reform our system. It is good news for Canadians, and that is why I would recommend that all members of this House rethink their position and get on side with the Prime Minister, the cabinet and this government and support this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, a couple of the phrases my colleague used in his speech were “progressive legislation”, “keeping our communities safe”, “protecting victims”, and “reflective of what Canadians want to see”. He said that this is reflective of what Canadians want to see.

We know that this bill proposes to reduce the sentences for at least 25 offences, some of them very serious. For which of these five or six offences did he hear from his constituents that they wanted sentences reduced? Would it be for obstructing or violence to or arrest of an officiating clergyman? Would it be for impaired driving causing bodily harm or death? Would it be for extortion by libel, or arson by negligence or participation in activities of a criminal organization? For which of these offences, which would have their sentences reduced, has he heard from his constituents that they want these sentences reduced?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let me go back to something I know my constituents like about this legislation, which is a specific example I have given. Imagine a physically or sexually assaulted victim who would now not have to go through a preliminary trial. It means that victims would not have to relive that nightmare of an event. I can tell the member that 99% or more of people would support that sort of initiative within this legislation. This is legislation the Conservative Party has opposed, and on other hand, it is trying to say that it stands up for victims. Conservatives should give their collective heads a shake and get behind this legislation, because it is in the best interest of the victims.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make one correction. My colleague tried to claim that the NDP is worried about preliminary hearings because this measure would not really reduce delays in the justice system and because, ultimately, there are not enough hearings to create delays. This was certainly one point that came up.

However, in essence, our major concern is what we heard from defence lawyers in committee. They explained their concerns that, without preliminary hearings, it would not be possible to identify the cases in which the accused is, in the end, actually innocent and should not have been charged.

Eliminating the preliminary hearing process will mean that people who are not guilty will end going to trial. The conviction rate for people who are not guilty will go up.

What does my colleague think about that? Is he not worried about eliminating this essential step to preventing false convictions in a system where vulnerable Canadians are already overrepresented?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that if he were to review some of his colleague's comments, he would find that some of them have tried to give the impression that trying to limit the use of preliminary hearings would not really reduce the amount of court time. From a percentage perspective, yes, preliminary hearings are a relatively small percentage of the overall cases that go before the courts, but we are talking about thousands and thousands of hours.

When we look at the legislation as a whole, there are many efficiencies in it that would ensure that we have a more efficient system. It is not just about having an efficient system, it is about assisting in making our communities safer and ensuring that there is accountability for offenders. This legislation would improve all aspects, and the bottom line is that we would have safer communities as a direct result.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to allow my colleague to go back to the comments of the member for Kitchener—Conestoga. He said, and I do not think he was trying to mislead the House, that this piece legislation would reduce the sentences for a number of different offences.

Again, we would not be taking away the ability of the Crown, the prosecution, to classify whether an offence would go to summary or indictment. The Crown would still have the opportunity to look at a case and see whether that offence was serious enough to have life or a couple of years. I would love to give my hon. colleague the opportunity to correct the possible mistake my hon. colleague made.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague raising that issue, but I am not going to be as harsh on the member, because he is talking about the Conservative spin. That is all part of the Conservative spin on the legislation. It does not have to be true, they Conservatives just use it because those are types of hit points or media lines they are trying to circulate to Canadians. It does not have to be true, but they still feel obligated to say it.

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would draw your attention to the unparliamentary language. The member is basically accusing me of lying. He is saying that it does not have to be true. If it is not true, it is lying. I take objection to that and ask you to correct it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for his point of order. The words “true” or “not true” are expressed from time to time. Depending on the context of how they are used, unless it is quite evident the member is suggesting that a person was deliberate in expressing an untruth, particularly another member, that is when it would cross the line into unparliamentary language. I do not think that was the case on this occasion.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the Liberal government's justice reform bill, Bill C-75. If the parliamentary secretary was worked up during his presentation, I cannot wait until he hears what I have to say. Sadly, I cannot find a lot of good things to report about the bill, to report to my constituents or to Canadians at large.

Like a number of the Liberal government's legislative measures, the purpose of the bill does not always match to what the bill would actually do.

For example, recently in Bill C-71, the Minister of Public Safety used tragic shootings and a gun and gangs summit to suggest he was putting forward legislation that would tackle illegal guns, gangs and violent criminals. The sad reality was that the legislation he proposed never once mentioned gangs or organized crime. It had nothing to do with illegal weapons and crimes caused by them.

Prior to that, the Minister of Public Safety also introduced Bill C-59, a bill he claimed would strengthen our national security and protect Canadians. Again, the reality was very different, as the bill would move nearly $100 million from active security and intelligence work, which actually protects Canadians, to administrative and oversight mechanisms and functions. Worst of all, the Minister of Public Safety made full claim about moving Bill C-59 to committee before second reading to:

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

When it came time to consider reasonable, bold or small amendments, the Liberals on that committee fought against everything to ensure the bill did not change at all its scope or scale. The results will place the security of Canadians at greater risk and for those who actually work in national security, more people will be looking over their shoulders, tougher rules, more paperwork and few, if any, benefits, as front-line efforts to protect Canadians only become more difficult.

Now, under Bill C-75, we see the same old story. The justice minister made bold claims that she would be helping address the backlog of cases created when the Supreme Court imposed a maximum time frame for them. Some of her claims included that this legislation would improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system and reduce court delays. She said that it would strengthen response to domestic violence. It would streamline bail hearings. It would provide more tools for judges. It would improve jury selection. It would free up court resources by reclassifying serious offences.

That sound fantastic. What a great bill. Streamlining the courts, strengthening the justice system, domestic violence, improving tools for judges, improving jury selection? Incredible. Sadly, the Liberals are not achieving any of these objectives according to the legal community or any of the knowledgeable leaders in the House.

Does it shorten trials and ensure that we deal with the backlog? The minister appears to make the claim that it will with the elimination of most preliminary hearings. Preliminary hearings, according to the legal community, account for just 3% of all court time. Therefore, with an overloaded court system, eliminating a huge number of these hearings will only have a minimal impact at best. Preliminary hearings often weed out the weakest cases, which means more cases will go to trial, thus increasing the court backlogs under the current legislation. What can also happen with preliminary hearings is that they create opportunity for the defence to recognize the need to seek early resolution without a trial.

Moreover, preliminary hearings can deal with issues up front and make trials more focused. Instead, under this new legislation, many cases would be longer with added procedural and legal arguments.

One member of the legal community called the bill “a solution to a problem that didn't exist”. High praise for this legislation indeed.

It is the changes to serious criminal offences that have many Canadians, not just the legal community, concerned. All members of the House could agree, or at least accept, that not all Criminal Code issues need to be treated in the same manner. Serious offences like homicide and minor offences like vandalism or property damage do not meet the same threshold for punishment. We can all agree with that.

Canadians expect that Ottawa, that government will create safe communities and that the law benefits all people, not slanted in favour of criminals.

Under Bill C-75, the Liberals have provided the option to proceed with a large number of violent offences by way of summary conviction rather than an indictable offence. This means that violent criminals may receive no more than the proposed 12 months in jail or a fine for their crimes, a slap on the wrist for things like impaired driving causing bodily harm, obstructing justice, assault with a weapon, forced marriages, abduction, participation in a criminal organization and human trafficking. There are many more, but it bears taking the time to look at these in particular. These are serious offences. Allowing these criminals back on the street, with little to no deterrents, makes even less sense. These serious criminal issues should have the full force and effect of the law.

None of these scenarios, victims or society are better served when those responsible for these offences serve only minimal jail sentences or receive fines.

The principle is that Canadians expect that their government and the courts will be there to ensure that criminals receive due punishment for their crimes and that law-abiding Canadians and those who have been victimized by these criminals are treated fairly and with respect. In short, the bill undermines the confidence of Canadians in our criminal justice system and makes it more difficult for law enforcement to ensure safe communities. As my colleagues have clearly pointed out already, there are other solutions, better solutions in fact. The minister could address the backlog with more judicial appointments, as an example.

As the former minister of justice said, there was never a shortage of qualified candidates in his six years as minister of justice. Therefore, it is not a failure of the judiciary. It is not that there are too many preliminary hearings. It is not that there are way more criminals, because crime rates overall have been declining. The problem resides almost entirely with the minister getting more people on the bench and in prosecution services.

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

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

Canada has been weakened by the Liberal government. Its wedge politics on the values test, pandering to terrorists, ignoring threats from China, targeting law-abiding guns owners, its lack of leadership on illegal border crossers and waffling on resource development continue to put Canadians at a disadvantage, weaken our public safety and national security and place undue strain on families and communities.

Canadians deserve better. In 2019, I suspect we will get a better justice minister, a better justice bill and a better government.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I will put to the member opposite something similar to what I addressed to the NDP member from Alberta. When we inherit a flawed process, it takes time to perfect it. That flawed process of judicial appointments highlighted by the member opposite produced a situation where 30% of the country's judicial appointments were women. The process we put in place, which is merit based, inclusive and venerates personal lived experience, has produced a process which has resulted in 57% of appointments being women, 12% being members of racialized communities, 6% being people from the LGBTQ community and 3% being indigenous individuals.

Does the member opposite believe and agree, when we have made 230 appointments thus far, 34 in his own province, that the administration of justice and confidence in the administration of justice is enhanced, not diminished, when a bench metes out justice that reflects the communities coming before that bench?

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

Mr. Speaker, one has to debate whether or not the system of appointing judges was flawed in the first place. Second, it took the government a full year to stand up its judicial advisory committee.

If we wonder why we have a backlog in our system, it is because the government “drug” its feet. The government did nothing. It did not think it needed to. Now, we are paying the consequences for that. That evidence rests on its own merits.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, during my colleague's speech, he talked about knowledgeable leaders in this House. The person sitting right in front of him, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, is a lawyer. I would think he would have confidence in lawyers and their ability to handle justice across Canada.

The member also said that Canadians expect that people will receive due punishment for their crimes. To be clear, we are not removing the ability for prosecution lawyers, such as the member sitting in front of my hon. colleague, to look at an offence and decide the seriousness of that offence, and to then decide whether it is to be a summary conviction or whether it should be indictable. We are not taking that away.

We are not reducing sentencing for serious crimes. We are giving the prosecution, much like many of my hon. colleagues' friends and colleagues, the ability to decide, which we know they will do in a just and effective way in order to look at who is before them, and give them the right punishment.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Just a reminder to all hon. members, before we go to the hon. member, that we try to stay away from making reference to the presence or absence of members in the House.

The hon. member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I have heard from the legal community about this bill is that it does water down sentences, even though the rhetoric on the other side does not admit that, but it also takes away the ability for judges to have the discretion to manage their cases in the manner in which they need to. It puts that onus on the prosecutors, without a lot of transparency.

It is unfortunate that it does that. I think over time, if this bill should pass in its current form, and those in the legal community have warned us about this, we will see this begin to happen and it will have detrimental effects.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member touched upon hybridization.

One of the things the minister, and I would almost suggest laughably, states is that the hybridization has nothing to do with sentencing at all, even though in some cases it is going from a 10-year maximum down to a maximum of two years less a day.

I was wondering if the hon. member would agree with the justice minister that hybridization has nothing to do with sentencing. If that is so, then why would the government, rightly, have removed from the bill the reclassification of terrorist and genocide-related offences? Unfortunately, the government did not do so in the case of other very serious offences.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know we are pressed for time, and I will simply say, it is all about sentencing and the reduction of sentences. That is the only impact this will have. This will shorten sentences, clear across the board, for those offences identified.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to get up and speak to 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.

My particular interest is the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I spent 25 years working with the Criminal Justice Act in British Columbia, starting out as a youth probation officer working on the streets of Surrey, riding with RCMP officers and responding to calls, particularly on youth violence and domestic violence. I was also a foster parent for a number of youths who had been in conflict with the law. Most importantly, I was the warden of our largest youth jail in British Columbia for 10 years where I worked with youth who were on overnight arrest, remand and longer-term sentences, including a number of very serious offenders. While having that experience, I also went back to university to get a Ph.D. and was appointed an adjunct professor in criminology at Simon Fraser University. It is a position I hold today, and it has allowed me to look at these concerns and issues facing us from a conceptual framework as well as from a practical experiential model.

On the Youth Criminal Justice Act, we have been very good in Canada in being able to reduce the number of youth coming into custody. Our numbers 25 years ago were substantially higher on a per capita basis, but the development of a number of alternative measures has made our system much more responsive to the nuances and needs of young children and youth in particular.

Some good research has been in place over the past 15 to 20 years, particularly the Cracow study, which was originally funded by NATO and has been standardized in Germany as well as British Columbia. It is a longitudinal study looking at the issues that become prevalent when youth come into conflict with the law and the challenges responding to that. As a result of this longitudinal study that has been tracking youths for up to 15 years now, we are much better informed in terms of the actions we should be taking in dealing with them.

There are five profiles or pathways that have become evident in this research that inform the way we should be responding to the needs and nuances of youth. In some instances, we are able to look at and make some relatively accurate predictions with respect to the propensity of a youth to come in conflict with the law, even pre-conception.

There are environmental influences, such as the presence of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, which are overwhelming in terms of the number of youth who come into conflict with the law.

There are a number of neurological and developmental disorders which are precursors, such as ADHD/ADD and fetal alcohol syndrome, and in certain communities these conditions are epidemic. They have been particularly evident within a number of our indigenous communities.

Certainly domestic violence has a strong link as well, and there is alcohol and drug addiction. There are a number of samples in the jail that I was responsible for, but up to 90% of youths coming into custody had been using hard drugs.

There are personality disorders, aggressive disorders, dependency disorders, anti-social personalities, psychopathy. These types of disorders are also very prevalent. In fact, where we were finding youths getting into conflict with the law in their early teens, it is becoming younger and younger. We are finding now that some parents are taking their two-year-old children to children's hospitals saying they cannot control them anymore. When that happens, because of the medical model, we tend to mask it with the utilization of drugs and manage it in that fashion, but later on in life it manifests itself as they come away from the drugs in all kinds of deleterious and negative behaviours.

Also, many youth come from high needs, such as single-parent homes, high economic need, domestic violence, family and child abuse, and 60% to 70% come out of foster care.

Therefore, the proposed legislation we are talking about in terms of addressing the needs through the Youth Criminal Justice Act looks at how we can provide more community-based responses. We can look at alternative measures so that there are more choices provided to the courts and the Crown counsel when youth come before the courts. Certainly, every bit of the modern research being done tells us that we can have a far more profound impact by ensuring that we create alternatives that are responsive to the diagnosis and the needs. However, we have not reached the level we need to in order to ensure that we respond to that.

I think that probably a hundred years from now, people will look back and say that everything was a health issue, not a criminal justice issue. People will look at us the way we now look at the fact that in the past people were burned at the stake or stoned to death and they thought that that was a good response to things.

I think that as we become more responsive to changing our legislation, we will have more creative responses, instead of just saying that we are going to lock people up or put them in solitary confinement and those types of initiatives, which obviously are not working terribly well. I am delighted that we are providing more options within that framework, that we are giving the courts other options and that we are giving communities the chance to respond to the nuances and needs of youth as they come before the court system.

Obviously, we have to maintain safety and ensure that our communities are safe. There are some youths who are identified as being psychopathic and have behavioural issues that we cannot manage adequately without having some type of confinement. That is an important element of the approach that we take. We want to reduce incarceration for those people who are not representing risk to the well-being of our citizens.

That is an important part of the way that these modifications to the Youth Criminal Justice Act are leading us. They are leading us in a very progressive way. In many ways, Canada has been a leader in looking at different models. There was a suggestion and a movement in the 1980s toward total de-incarceration and total community-based response. Massachusetts led that.

There were a number of de-institutionalized models that happened in different pockets of Canada and they were not successful. They were not successful because they were not recognizing and identifying those youths who did constitute a risk to the community at large. Fortunately, this act allows us to hold onto that while developing the other parts of our system that have been shown to be so positive and that research is now supporting in a positive and meaningful way.

Having the public more actively engaged in alternative measures has been an important part of that type of resolution. We have seen the development of a myriad of community-based models for responding to the types of needs that these youths present. Certainly, this act provides again the opportunity for both the Crown counsel and police to screen out at different points those who are at lower risk and do not constitute a need to be put into state custody to do that.

By modernizing and streamlining our system, we are responding more adequately and appropriately to the nuances and needs of our communities at large and, importantly, to the nuances and needs of those youth who are in conflict with the law. We are finding ways to respond to the research, allowing us to provide the services that they need to become actively and positively engaged in our system and in our society.

We have seen many successes of youths who were dramatically at risk committing horrendous offences who are now very positive role models who have changed dramatically. Talking to those youths about their experiences and what they have been through, it is very revealing in terms of supporting what has happened and in terms of the research we are seeing. Their experiences are saying when they made those connections with people who are meaningful and had that relationship with them, structured it for them and held them in a place of support, that they then started to see and become connected with people in a meaningful way.

This legislation allows us a great capacity to do that. It allows us the opportunity to ensure that we provide that support while maintaining the security and safety that we need for our communities, while at the same time providing an empathetic, caring community and society that does respond to those needs.

Therefore, I am delighted to support Bill C-75 with the actions that it takes to ensure that we do have a safe, more compassionate and caring society, which I think is something that we all espouse.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member for South Surrey—White Rock about hybridization and how that is going to make the court system, the justice system, more efficient.

The effect of hybridization is that more offences will be prosecuted by way of summary conviction. As a result, those cases are going to be downloaded onto provincial courts that deal with summary offence matters, although 99.6% of cases are already before provincial courts.

Also, from the standpoint of Jordan, there is a 30-month timeline in superior court versus an 18-month timeline in provincial court before a delay is deemed presumptively unreasonable, upon which the case is at risk of being thrown out. In addition to downloading cases onto provincial courts that are already overstretched and overburdened, I would submit that in fact it is going to increase the risk of more cases being thrown out.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the I missed the beginning of the member's remarks, but I think I caught the end of them and the concern about the downloading onto provincial courts and the potential for their not meeting the timelines, and cases being thrown out of court. Certainly, this legislation would not contribute to that problem in any meaningful way.

Provincial courts have some responsibilities to appoint enough judges to respond to these needs. We looked at a number of alternative measures. As the alternative measures evident in and supported by this legislation are developed, we can take a number of cases out of the court system and ensure that those who pose the greatest risk to our society are held within the court system. We clearly need to have enough judges in place to respond to those cases.

We would reduce the impact on them by ensuring that alternative measures are developed in an active and positive way, and in a community-based fashion.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock for his important contributions to today's debate. I want to highlight his work with youth and ask him to address, first, indigenous youth in British Columbia, and second, racialized youth, particularly in the Surrey area, many of whom are of south Asian descent.

What we are proposing in the bill in creating a model for a judicial referral hearing is to take the administration of justice offences out of the criminal justice system, such as when someone breaches a curfew or a bail condition, and force the courts to look comprehensively at the circumstances of the accused, including indigenous youth and racialized youth.

How does the member for South Surrey—White Rock think that would improve certain sentences for the very youth he has been working so hard to defend and represent for the last 25 years?

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that observation. Clearly, indigenous youth are overrepresented within our system, both in our youth justice system and child welfare system. Over 50% of them are indigenous youth, and we are certainly seeing them within youth gangs in the Surrey area and the challenges there. About 40% of gang members are from South Asian families. We have been actively working with them in responding.

The issue of administrative response to that is crucial to ensure that we are intervening at the right level. We should not intervene with radical, dramatic action when we are dealing with people who are starting to show some of the precursors to negative behaviour and activities.

Having an administrative response would ensure that we are able to move those individuals out of the system and respond to them adequately and appropriately. That is one way of ensuring some reduction in the burden on the court system.

The other thing is to ensure that we do respond—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. We have time for just one more short question in response. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Whitby.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard throughout this debate that this particular legislation looks to increase the efficiencies of our Criminal Code and to ensure that there is equity in the system.

Could my hon. colleague expand on that and tell me what his constituents would think about his voting in favour of this legislation?

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have had an active dialogue with a number of communities, and certainly with first nations and the south Asian community. I have met with the leaders of five gurdwaras in Surrey who are very concerned about the activity of south Asian youth and how they are overrepresented in some of the youth gang activities. They will be delighted with my support for this legislation, because it gives an appropriate intervention point for both indigenous youth and south Asian youth, who are overrepresented.

The bill gives us a point where we can administratively respond to them in a positive, active fashion. This legislation provides us with a good opportunity to ensure that their lifestyle becomes much more positive. They could fit more actively into the lifestyle their communities want and are so active to support. We are giving them that option.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we go to resuming debate and the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I will let her know that there are only about five minutes remaining in the time before we get to statements by members. She will have her remaining time when we next get back to debate on the question that is before the House.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, in the heart of the beautiful upper Ottawa Valley, I appreciate this limited opportunity to contribute to this truncated debate on a piece of legislation that is important to my constituents.

I begin my comments by sharing some thoughts from a group called Because Wilno, and why it reiterates the word “because”. They state:

Because on September 22, 2015, Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam were killed in their homes near Wilno, Ontario.

Because they were killed by a man they knew, who had a history of domestic violence known to police for over three decades.

Because even after violence is reported, people slip through the cracks in the system.

Because advocates have been calling for these cracks to be addressed, for decades.

Because dealing with violence is particularly challenging in our rural communities.

Because coercion and control of women is a spectrum that can begin with words and escalate towards lethal violence including multiple killings.

Because the culture of society, policing and courts needs to be better.

Because women continue to be killed in Canada, at a rate of 1 every 6 days.

Because we couldn’t just sit around doing nothing.

Because we think you can help.

I thank Holly Campbell, who organized the group Because Wilno.

Violence against women is not new. While I would like to believe, coming from a predominantly rural riding like mine in eastern Ontario, that violence against women is a city problem, we know that is not the case. Violence against women continues to be a fact of life in Canada, and in a predominantly rural riding like Renfrew County, Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam and Anastasia Kuzyk were killed on September 22, 2015. Their killer was known to all of the women and to police as having a long history of violence spanning more than three decades. While the accused had previously been ordered by court to attend counselling for abusers, he never went. He had been released from prison shortly before the murders. The system failed these women. On average in Canada one woman is killed by her partner every six days. The man arrested and accused of their murders had a long criminal history, including charges involving two of the three women.

Holly Campbell, who organized the group Because Wilno, issued this statement to legislators like us:

For too long, Canadians have looked away from violence in our homes that predominantly harms women and children in every neighbourhood, district, municipal ward and constituency of this country.

Like Holly, I am not prepared to let Carol, Nathalie, Anastasia and all the other women who have been victims of violence die in vain. The memory of their senseless deaths is too fresh not to be moved to action. I support the proposal in Bill C-75 that would increase the maximum term of imprisonment for repeat offences involving intimate partner violence and provide that abuse of an intimate partner be an aggravating factor on sentencing, as well as provide for more onerous interim release requirements for offences involving violence against an intimate partner.

The Conservative Party believes, as do I, that the safety of Canadians should be the number one priority of any government. We will always work to strengthen the Canadian criminal justice system, rather than weaken it. The Conservatives understand that a strong criminal justice system must always put the rights of victims and communities before special treatment of perpetrators of violent crimes.

My question for the government is this. Does Bill C-75, in its other 300 pages, meet the expectations of Canadians? The fact that the current government has decided to move forward with precisely the omnibus legislative format it condemned so vociferously in opposition suggests to my constituents and to all Canadians that the contents of Bill C-75 are being rushed forward as an omnibus bill precisely because these contents are out of touch with the concerns of average Canadians.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke will have five and a half minutes remaining in her time for her remarks, and another five minutes for questions and comments when the House next resumes debate on the question.

We will now go to statements by members.

The House resumed consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke has five and a half minutes remaining in her speech.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, reducing penalties for serious crimes sends the wrong message to victims, law-abiding Canadians and criminals. The government is failing to take criminal justice issues seriously. Sadly, for Canadian women, the Prime Minister has developed a reputation for obfuscation when clarity is required. The Prime Minister sets a bad example.

The female reporter who was subjected to an unwanted sexual advance by the Prime Minister in her workplace is still waiting for an admission of responsibility. His hypocrisy in lecturing others while failing to account for his own behaviour sets a bad example at a time when members of his own party are lecturing Canadians that bad behaviour is encouraged by the things politicians say or do not say.

The following open letter appeared in a Toronto newspaper this week. I cite it because it is important that the government hear directly from the casualties of its neglect of the rights of victims and their families. It states:

When I was 10 years old, one of Canada’s most notorious pedophiles — Peter Whitmore — kidnapped, tortured and raped me in an abandoned house in rural Saskatchewan after repeatedly slipping in and out of the justice system’s oversight.

And so you might imagine the rush of anger, pain and sadness I felt reading the recent news that Terri-Lynne McClintic — who kidnapped, raped and killed eight-year-old Tori Stafford in 2009 — was moved from a maximum-security prison to an Indigenous healing lodge.

I feel the pain of the Stafford family. The justice system is once again failing to protect our children.

It was the Liberal government that released Peter Whitmore from his eighth time in a federal prison for the abduction and rape of a myriad of different children before his sights fell upon me in 2006.

When I tell my story publicly, I usually ask the audience: “What is the most important thing to us and to the future of our country?” The answer is plain and simple. Our children. How could someone as callous and destructive as McClintic be moved to a healing lodge? How can people who are supposed to ensure justice is done allow this to happen?

This is not the first time the Liberal government or parole boards have failed to keep child abusers locked up. Over the past few months, I have come upon multiple cases of convicted pedophiles and child murderers being released or having their sentences reduced.

For example, Ryan Chamberlin, a Saskatchewan hockey coach who admitted to sexually abusing four young boys after a prior history of sexually abusing children, was released after serving less than four years in prison.

His mother told the media: “It is so sickening to even think he’s going to be back out and I can’t do anything more about it,” adding that men like her son can’t change and the federal government must act to keep them behind bars.

Cyle Larsen, a pedophile who has multiple convictions and has not sought treatment, was released recently after serving 12 months in a Calgary correctional facility. The Edmonton Police Service went so far as to issue a public statement saying they fear Larsen, who plans to live in Edmonton, “will commit another sexual offence against someone under the age of 16 while in the community.”

The striking statement, according to the force, was issued as part of its “duty to warn the public about the risk Larsen poses.”

“Larsen is considered an untreated child sex offender with pedophilic interests towards both male and female children,” police said. “Larsen has a history of opportunistic offending against children known to him, however, (he) is also believed to be at risk of offending against victims unknown to him and has shown he will groom and/or lure his victims if given the chance.”

McClintic, a convicted child murderer, who is anything but a model prisoner, is being moved to a healing lodge intended to rehabilitate prisoners with light sentences. Translation: her punishment for murdering and assaulting a child will now amount to living with minimal security in a facility that receives child visitors.

What kind of person does not understand that these “people” do not change? Predators are predators. A 25-year study of sex offenders in Canada found about 3-in-5 offenders reoffended (based on sex re-offence charges or convictions or court appearances data). That figure increased to more than 4-in-5 when all offences and undetected sex crimes were included in the analysis.

These loopholes are making our justice system look like a game of catch and release with no more than a slap on the wrist for a consequence. The real punishment is handed off to victims and their families.

What makes this such a painful blow for victims and families impacted by these monsters is the failure of the [Liberal] government to stand up for the rights of the victims and survivors.

Some people are offended when victims speak out seeking justice. They appear to defend the rights of predators who destroyed lives. Predators like mine, who raped and abducted many children in his pedophilic career, were allowed to walk free from a federal prison on his way to the front door of my parent’s Saskatchewan farmhouse in 2006.

Eight times the system failed to stop a monster from getting back on the streets. Eight times a family was ripped apart never to be whole again. Eight times he slipped through the cracks and on the ninth time he chose the wrong child and the wrong family; a family who is not giving up until justice is truly served.

I am raising my voice for those who cannot to let the Stafford family, victims and victims’ families know that they are not alone while standing against the failing justice system. I am standing up for the protection of our children. I am speaking out for what is right.

The author of this letter is a farmer and a volunteer firefighter.

Bill C-75 needs to be chopped up to allow for careful consideration and proper debate. Anything less would be to fail Canadians.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the hon. member if there may be some common ground in the important aspects of domestic violence she indicated in the first and second parts of her speech, which are a priority for her side of the House.

What I would put to her is that this legislation proposes important changes in respect to domestic violence and intimate partner violence, by expanding the definition so that it does not just cover violence by a spouse but also by a dating partner or a former spouse; increasing the maximum sentence for those convicted of intimate partner violence; and, indeed reversing the onus on bail for those repeat offenders.

In fact, the changes we are making to preliminary inquiries would eliminate the likelihood that a woman in a sexual assault trial is victimized twice. By removing the preliminary inquiry, we will no longer have sexual assault victims testifying twice, in both the prelim and the trial process.

Is the member encouraged to see those kinds of changes when she puts the rights of victims of sexual assault and intimate partner violence at the heart of the legislation?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned in my speech that adding jail time as a consequence and interpreting previous activities of that nature as assault is one action I support in Bill C-75.

However, Bill C-75 is an omnibus bill. That is the very type of legislation the Liberal government promised during the election it would not bring forward.

Speaking of dating, what the Liberals changed from an indictable offence to a summary offence is the application of noxious substances to other people. That says that putting a date rape drug into a person's drink is really not that serious. I oppose that.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her contribution and for standing up for victims, as we all like to do.

The member mentioned that the use of a noxious substance was changed from an indictable offence to a summary offence. Of course, that is not correct. It was changed to an offence that, based on a prosecutor's discretion, could be proceeded with either as an indictable offence or through a summary conviction, as were many of the offences in the bill.

Does my hon. colleague support the changes the committee made to the bill to remove the bawdy house and vagrancy provisions in the Criminal code that have been applied against gay men?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my speech, I did not touch on that. I am not sure what happened in committee, but I will talk about a part that I am familiar with, the reduction of sentences from an indictable offence to a hybrid offence with respect to impaired driving.

In my riding, anyone who has driven through the roads will see large billboard signs of Emily. Emily was a girl, about the age of one of my daughters. In fact, she looked very much like one of them. She had just backed out of her parents' driveway and a person, drunk out of her mind, bashed into her, and the girl's car exploded in fire. We happened to be driving along the main street, a couple of blocks away from that. The parents and the neighbours who watched Emily burn alive could hear her screams.

Making drunk driving less of an offence is a tragedy. It is certainly an insult to the memory of that very innocent Emily.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are aspects of the legislation that I would think the member across the way would definitely endorse.

Preliminary hearings, for example, will now be used far less often. A good example of that would be that female victims of physical assault would not have to relive that nightmare by going to a preliminary hearing. This legislation addresses that issue. Would the member not agree this is a positive aspect of the legislation?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the point behind this proposed legislation was supposed to be the issue arising out of the Jordan decision, that justice delayed is justice denied. What the Liberals are trying to do is to shorten the length of time that a person has to wait before going to trial. However, when we eliminate these preliminary hearings, that only amounts to about 3% of total court time.

What the Liberals are doing in many parts of the bill will increase the length of time. Also, by hybridizing some of the indictable offences, it means that, if they even go to jail at all, they will be coming back.

There are many parts of the bill that I do not agree with.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be on the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights, and I know that our committee did good work in reviewing this proposed legislation.

I am pleased to speak today in support of Bill C-75 and will spend my time today outlining proposed changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, YCJA, in particular. These changes would focus on administration of justice offences and how they are dealt with in the youth criminal justice system.

As members may know, the YCJA came into force in 2003 and has significantly reduced the overall use of the formal court system and custody of youth. However, despite the overall success of the YCJA in achieving its goals, the treatment of young persons in administration of justice offences has remained an area of concern.

While the YCJA clearly encourages alternatives to charging for less serious offences, approximately 85% of youth accused of administration of justice offences are subject to formal charges, with many of these cases leading to custody. This is despite provisions in the YCJA that require consideration of all reasonable alternatives to custody in the circumstances. These high rates of charging and custody for administration of justice offences contribute to delays in the system and the overrepresentation of vulnerable youth, particularly indigenous youth, in that system for conduct that would not in and of itself be criminal.

The aim of the proposed youth reforms in Bill C-75 is to strengthen aspects of the currently used justice framework so that fewer young persons are prosecuted and incarcerated for administration of justice offences. In this regard, the bill would amend the YCJA to do several things. First, it would further encourage the use of alternatives to charges, such as extrajudicial measures and judicial reviews, in response to administration of justice offences. Second, it would ensure that the conditions imposed on youth at the bail stage or at sentencing are necessary to address the offending behaviour of the youth concerned, and which are required for criminal justice purposes. Third, it would further restrict the use of custodial sentences for administration of justice offences.

Bill C-75 would provide that extrajudicial measures, in other words, informal measures, such as police warnings or referrals to community-based programs, are adequate to hold a young person accountable for breaches of conditions or failure to appear at the bail stage and for breaches of community-based youth offences. An exception to this presumption, however, would arise in circumstances where the young person either has a history of breaches or where the breach caused harm or a risk of harm to the safety of the public.

In some cases, extrajudicial measures may not considered an adequate response to the breach. For such cases, the bill establishes the circumstances in which a judicial referral hearing, as set out in Bill C-75's proposed Criminal Code amendments, or the existing provision for reviewing community service set out in the YCJA would be used.

These alternatives would be the preferred approach when appropriate, and the use of formal charges for administration of justice offences would be discouraged, except as a last resort.

I would now like to talk about the use of conditions as part of the youth criminal justice system.

Many people believe that the problems with administration of justice offences are rooted in the myriad of conditions imposed on youth. The concern is that, in many cases, the conditions set the youth up for failure, leading to new charges and perpetuating the youth's involvement in crime.

Dr. Jane Sprott, a professor at Ryerson University, who has focused her research over the past decade on the YCJA and issues surrounding bail and the use of bail relief conditions, in her testimony before our committee, stated:

there are numerous broad-ranging conditions placed on youths, and many times those conditions appear to be crafted with broad social welfare aims that go far beyond the purpose of release conditions....

The use of these broad welfare or treatment-based conditions is problematic for a variety of reasons...so however well intended...they're unlikely to achieve their desired goals and can actually do more harm in a variety of ways, one of which is setting the youth up for failing to comply.

The youth justice proposals in Bill C-75 would require greater scrutiny at the front end to ensure that any conditions imposed were reasonable in the circumstances and necessary for a valid criminal law purpose, such as ensuring the young person's attendance in court or protecting the safety of the public.

Furthermore, conditions could not be imposed on a young person unless he or she would reasonably be able to comply with those said conditions. Finally, the bill would prohibit the imposition of conditions or the detention of young persons as a substitute for appropriate child protection, mental health or other social measures.

As I mentioned, the use of custody in relation to administration of justice offences committed by young persons remains an area of concern due to the fact that 35% of these cases are resulting in custody. Bill C-75 would modify the criteria for youth custody by providing that custody could not be imposed on the basis of prior failure to comply with non-custodial sentences, unless the prior failures resulted in actual findings of guilt. In other words, evidence alone of prior failures would not be sufficient.

In addition, the bill would provide that if a youth justice court was imposing a sentence for a breach at the bail stage or for a failure to comply with a community-based sentence, custody could not be imposed unless the young person caused harm, or a risk of harm, to the safety of the public in committing the offence currently before the court. These changes would make it less likely for administration of justice offences to lead to custody for youth.

In closing, it is a pleasure to be a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and I can assure my hon. colleagues that we did a comprehensive study of Bill C-75. While I know that there were legitimate disagreements between members of the committee, there were also a number of amendments made that were unanimously adopted that strengthened the bill.

I thank the many witnesses who gave their time and expertise to assist the committee through testimony and written submissions.

I am confident that these reforms I have touched on today would contribute to a more efficient youth criminal justice system and a better justice system overall. They would free up court time so the more serious criminal matters, both on the youth side and the adult side, could be dealt with in a timely fashion and in line with the parameters set out in the Jordan decision. That is why I support passage of the bill and urge all my hon. colleagues to do so as well.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague.

If the government wants to reduce delays in the criminal justice system, why did it not use this bill to eliminate the mandatory minimum penalty regime imposed by the Harper government a few years ago?

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, this is an important question. I appreciate my friend raising it. Obviously, mandatory minimum penalties is an issue that has to be dealt with. Some mandatory minimum penalties are appropriate. There are others the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled are inappropriate and violate the charter.

It is important that the government take a comprehensive view to ensure that we get this right. That review is ongoing right now. We will make sure that we take the time to get it right and set the criminal justice system up for doing its duty every day to mete out justice in the best and appropriate way.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I heard the member opposite respond to a question on some of the weaknesses of the bill, and since he is on that path, I would like to ask him if he could outline some of the areas that could perhaps be strengthened or be better with this bill. Could he highlight those weaknesses he wished would have been in the bill to make it better than the way the bill is as we see it?

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, this bill does a number of things that will address the issue of delays in our courts. Does it fix every problem our criminal justice system has? No. Is it a positive step in the right direction? It one hundred per cent is. Therefore, I support the bill.

With respect to the administration of justice offences, the bill will get rid of the tremendous backlog in our provincial courts. With respect to the custodial sentences being applied to our youth, especially indigenous youth, as I highlighted in my speech, it will really get at the heart of many of the issues that are causing the delays. Of course, one bill does not fix all problems.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I first want to compliment the member, not just on his comments here today but on his tremendous work at the justice committee in terms of bringing his expertise to bear in the study that was undertaken.

The member commented on the importance of looking at reforms, and he highlighted some of the committee testimony, specifically around bail. We know that indigenous and other marginalized groups are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and are disproportionately impacted by the bail process. We know that they are disproportionately impacted because they are sometimes detained in custody for reasons that are entirely unrelated to the offence they are alleged to have committed, such as not having enough money or not knowing individuals who are suitable to supervise them if they are released on bail.

We are changing bail through certain key amendments in this legislation to take into account the overrepresentation of indigenous and other marginalized groups. I am wondering if the member could comment on how those changes will alleviate the plight of those groups in particular.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, through the testimony we heard at committee, it is obvious that the measures in this bill will go a long way toward dealing not only with the delays in our court system but with the unfairness as well. There is a patent unfairness that we see far too often when marginalized individuals come before the criminal justice system, and for one reason or another, are given conditions they cannot reasonably comply with and that are therefore breached. They do not comply with conditions they really had no ability to comply with.

It is important that the judicial referral hearings that are one aspect of this bill are put in place to not only deal with the backlog in our court system but to ensure fairness for all individuals who are facing a criminal charge.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House especially to talk about ensuring the safety of my constituents and all Canadians.

Every day since the 2006 election I have had the privilege of being chosen to represent the values that are dear to us in Lévis—Lotbinière. My Conservative colleagues and I are determined to live up to that honour ethically and with respect and integrity.

Generally speaking, the legislation debated and passed in the House moves Canada forward, but since the election of this Liberal majority government, legislation is debated and passed very quickly in the House, which is moving our country backward. The list is long, but consider the marijuana legalization legislation, which is disastrous for the future of our young people, not to mention the bill before us today.

I would like nothing more than to remain positive, even optimistic, or even bury my head in the sand like so many other MPs are doing when it comes to Bill C-75, the 300-page omnibus justice bill.

As the official opposition, we have to once again call out this Liberal government's poor judgment, as it refuses to consider the impact that some of its changes will have on the safety of our children and our country. What is motivating the government? Is it trying to keep one of its promises at all costs, even if that means setting Canada back? Time will tell.

We were fortunate to have inherited one of the most stable and robust political systems in the world, a model in terms of peace, order and good governance. Of course, things took a turn for the worse with this Liberal government, which wants to liberalize everything that we think should have some oversight.

Making major changes to Canada's justice system should be a judicious exercise, one that is not taken lightly, as the Liberal government seems to have done once again. Believe it or not, rather than taking action to combat terrorism, the Liberals want to get rid of penalties imposed on those who go abroad to join a terrorist group like ISIS.

What should we make of this Prime Minister who believes that reintegration, rather than prosecution, is the best way to treat ISIS fighters? Clearly, in keeping with the usual Liberal opportunism, the rights of victims and the safety of Canadians are not among the Liberal government's priorities to the same degree as they were top priorities for the Conservatives. The Prime Minister wants to lower penalties for serious crimes.

Apparently reason, committee testimony, studies, and plain old common sense just do not matter. If this bill passes, criminals may have to do nothing more than pay a fine instead of serving jail time for serious crimes such as leaving Canada to participate in a terrorist group, trafficking in persons and impaired driving causing bodily harm.

It makes absolutely no sense. All of these crimes are indictable offences and carry with them the maximum jail time they deserve. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights heard from victims of crime who are angry that the Liberals are again failing them by denying justice for their loved ones.

Recently, the Prime Minister refused to put a murderer back in jail. He decided to pay veterans' benefits to incarcerated criminals who never served their country. That is scandalous.

Canada's Conservatives have always stood up for the rights of victims of crime, and we will not stop now. That is why we submitted over 100 amendments to ensure the continued safety of Canadians and our country.

We called for serious crimes to remain indictable offences and demanded that the Liberals reverse the elimination of preliminary inquiries and peremptory challenges of jurors.

We also called for a reversal on the elimination of cross-examination of police officers for certain offences and an increase to the maximum sentence for sexual assault.

We demanded that the victim surcharge imposed by the courts not be reduced.

Obviously, some of the amendments are commendable. The Conservatives can support some of the proposals set out in Bill C-75. We agree to remove the provisions of the Criminal Code that have been deemed to be unconstitutional. The Conservatives can support that measure because it will benefit victims of crime and it will clean up the Criminal Code.

It goes without saying that we support increasing the maximum sentence where offenders have been repeatedly violent toward an intimate partner as well as the consideration of intimate partner violence as an aggravating factor in sentencing. We also support more stringent temporary release requirements in the case of offenders who have committed intimate partner violence.

It also goes without saying that we support the provisions to reduce delays in our justice system, particularly those that seek to limit the scope of the preliminary inquiry, allow increased use of technology to facilitate remote attendance by any person in a proceeding, modernize and clarify interim release provisions to simplify the forms of release that may be imposed on an accused, and 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.

Finally, modernizing the language used in the Criminal Code to make it non-discriminatory is also a very good thing.

The Prime Minister played the part of the grasshopper who travelled here, there and everywhere around the world singing and dancing. Time has become a critical factor for this Prime Minister, who claims that his government is introducing an omnibus bill so that it can fulfill multiple election promises at once, since this is the final sprint before the next election in a few months.

This is deplorable and a fait accompli. Introducing a big bill such as this one leaves the opposition little time for careful and in-depth study. For most of the session, Bill C-45 on marijuana legalization and Bill C-46 on drug-impaired driving kept the Senate busy.

They are two major pieces of legislation that make good on the Liberals' immoral promise to legalize marijuana, a promise made during the 2015 election campaign.

These delays and poor management of the legislative agenda have left the government short on time to fulfill its mandate. It will be hard pressed to achieve its goals with Bill C-75 and other pieces of legislation that have been languishing for months.

We criticized the government for failing to do anything up to this point to reduce delays in our legal system and we were critical in particular about its approach to judicial appointments.

Can members believe that as of April 1, 2018, or three years after he was elected as Prime Minister, there were 59 vacant judicial positions at the federal level? We believe that it takes less time and is more effective to appoint judges than to impose an omnibus bill on Parliament.

In closing, under no circumstances should checking off an item on their list of election promises compromise the safety of honest Canadians and our borders or weaken Canada's justice system.

It is not just the Prime Minister who will be adversely impacted, but an entire generation that we have been honourably defending for more than 150 years.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech and comments by my colleague opposite. I would like to raise the point of LGBTQ rights, a point that neither he nor his Conservative colleagues addressed, but which was raised a number of times in committee.

There are two aspects of this bill I want to solicit the member's comments on. First, this bill would put aspects that relate to the LGBTQ2 community into compliance with the Constitution. It would remove vagrancy and the bawdy house provisions, which would allow the expungement of records that historically discriminated against the LGBTQ2 community. Second, the bill would remove section 159 of the Criminal Code, which makes sexual relations for consenting LGBTQ2 minors between the ages of 16 and 18 an offence, whereas the same sexual relations between a heterosexual couple are not an offence.

Does the member opposite appreciate these aspects in terms of this government and Parliament's support on the important issue of human rights of the LGBTQ2 community?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, all Canadians are entitled to the same legal system.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, a number of amendments were rejected in committee. Which of these rejected amendments was he most disappointed by?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I was disappointed by all of the rejected amendments, but I was most disappointed by the Liberal ideology of making life easier for criminals. They are forgetting the victims and families of victims, who are affected for the rest of their lives. It is always easier for a Liberal to be there for people getting out of prison. They want to support them, and that is fine, but they need to make sure that these offenders are not getting out early. They need to be thinking about everything. When a criminal is released prematurely, that can affect 25, 30 or 40 Canadians. This is what I find most disappointing.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech.

I hope that my colleague realizes that Bill C-75, as reported back to the House, makes no changes to the terrorism laws. The member spoke at length about them, but the committee amended the bill so that no changes were made to the terrorism laws.

The member said that he was disappointed that the Conservative amendments concerning hybrid offences were not accepted. For example, their amendment that cattle branding not be a hybrid offence was rejected. Is he disappointed about that? Does he believe that it is too serious an offence to warrant a sentence of two years less a day? What about dislodging a vessel stranded on rocks?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question about terrorism.

It was a fine victory for the Conservatives to have these amendments withdrawn in committee. I thank my colleague for asking the question. This proves that he at least followed the committee's work on this bill. It was the committee as a whole, but mainly the Conservatives, that did the necessary work to have these amendments withdrawn.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, no matter how much we improve legislation and talk about amendments, if there is no judge to enforce the law, then Canadians end up with a system that does not work. That is what happened to Dannick Lessard, a constituent of mine who had to cope with seeing the man who tried to kill him released because of the Jordan decision.

Does my colleague agree that dealing with the shortage of judges in the justice system should be the top priority?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. There are 59 vacancies in Canada's court system. That is disconcerting. If every judicial vacancy were filled, there would not be so many delays in the justice system.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-75 is at report stage. The purpose of this bill, introduced by the Liberals, is to improve the compliance rate with the Jordan decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 2016 and to reduce the backlog in the justice system.

Unfortunately, we have heard many times that Bill C-75 was rushed. Some of the wording is very vague, and the bill does not meet the main objective, which is to improve the justice system so it works better for everyone.

One of the biggest disappointments, which was not addressed in committee, is the lack of bold reforms for the criminal justice system, such as abolishing the mandatory minimum sentences that proliferated under the Harper government. That is a major element, because unfortunately, although mandatory minimums are respected in most cases, there are many unusual cases for which judges would have liked to have some flexibility.

Unfortunately, judges' hands are often tied by mandatory minimum sentences, and they have no choice but to impose them, despite circumstances that can be extremely sad. I am thinking about the rise in “suicide by cop” attempts, which primarily involve police.

Some people reach a point in their lives where they are in extreme distress and feel suicidal. They sometimes threaten on-duty police officers with real guns or paintball guns, fake guns that look real, in order to get themselves shot. These situations are unfortunately known as “suicide by cop” and are a sign of someone who is suffering tremendously.

Gun crimes are often subject to mandatory minimum sentences. During the trial, if the judge recognizes that the problem is not a criminal issue, but an issue of mental illness or distress, and that the offender would be better off receiving treatment than being branded a criminal, this judge has very few legal options. I think it is especially important to give back some flexibility to judges by eliminating mandatory minimums. It is also important to understand that in cases where the accused truly committed the crime, the sentences go far beyond the mandatory minimums.

Mandatory minimum sentences often have a perverse effect on the justice system. They do not allow judges to consider the extenuating circumstances surrounding the events or the accused's past, experiences, personal situation or family responsibilities. Mandatory minimums allow for absolutely no flexibility.

Another problem this bill does not fix, a problem that impacts the justice system, is lack of financial support for victims and their families, as well as for the accused. The poverty threshold for access to legal aid is very low when the accused does not have a family or dependents. One must be very poor to get legal aid.

Some people simply cannot afford a lawyer. They cannot get legal aid because their income is too high. For example, a young man in his early twenties who earns $30,000 or $40,000 a year cannot get legal aid because his income is considered too high. There is no way he can afford $30,000 in legal fees, so he cannot get good legal advice. That young man will find himself caught up in a system that does not allow him access to legal advice.

The legal system also needs to take victims into consideration, because the whole process would go more smoothly if they had better support. In many cases, they get absolutely no support. Many a parent whose child was killed in a car accident, which is such a tragedy, says they have no access to resources of any kind, no financial support to attend court proceedings. They pay for everything out of pocket.

Lack of access to justice for financial reasons is a serious problem that hinders the effectiveness of our justice system. Bill C-75 does nothing to address that. In the case of both victims and the accused, we need to take a more logical approach and be able to support them. We must be able to ensure that they understand what is happening. For instance, when victims' families get completely lost in the procedures, they often have to pay for lawyers out of their own pockets in order to understand what is going on, get advice and figure out all the procedural rules. That is one particular aspect of the bill that could have been explored, or at least corrected, in committee. It still has not been corrected or addressed. I also have to say that, since it was not done at the outset, we were more limited.

Furthermore, if we want to make the judicial system more efficient, we absolutely must separate acts that genuinely criminally motivated from acts committed as a result of social problems. So many charges related to simple possession of any kind of drug wind up in court.

I think we will have to explore whether drug possession is actually more of a health problem. That is a very important issue that absolutely must be addressed.

In order to find a better solution, should we not consider drug possession and ultimately drug use as a health issue, rather than a criminal justice issue?

Would that not give us more time to focus on serious crimes and free up our judges who have to deal with offenders who have been charged with drug possession? I believe these offenders would be much better off if they were treated at a hospital and given quick access to detox services.

Would it not be better to treat these cases as health issues and save our resources to deal with cases involving serious sexual violence, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and violence against indigenous women? Many such crimes are committed, and unfortunately, our justice system does not deal with them very effectively.

We could set better priorities by rethinking the way our justice system works. Many offences are related to social problems. People living in extreme poverty will commit small offences to try to survive. Is the solution to criminalize them or, on the contrary, is it to better address those social issues and dedicate our resources to people with truly sick criminal behaviour? I think we would all benefit from that.

Since my time is up, I now hope to provide thoughtful answers to my colleagues' questions.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue for her speech.

She spoke about access to justice for many people in Canada who cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

I want to underscore and ask for the member's comment on the changes that were made at committee that addressed this very important issue.

Something that was raised with us was the issue of when we are changing summary conviction offences and moving them to two years less a day in terms of the penalty, what does that mean in terms of those people who are either unrepresented or are represented by law students, paralegals or agents?

At committee, there has been an important change, which has been supported, that would allow the provinces and territories to change to 802.1 of the Criminal Code. That allows the provinces and territories to permit agents to appear on summary conviction offences that are punishable by more than six months of imprisonment.

Is that the kind of change the member is encouraged to see, because it would address the very access to justice issues she raised in her speech?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, obviously, having access to law students or people in the legal system who can provide representation can help. However, that does not work for every type of offence.

Access to law students often depends on having law schools nearby. There are no universities offering law programs in Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

The people in my riding will not have access to law students, even if the law changes. That is a fundamental problem.

If a 21-year-old has to take out a loan to pay $30,000 or $40,000 in legal fees, the rest of their life is ruined. This debt will have an impact on their life and career for 10, 15 or 20 years.

Even if the person earns too much to qualify for legal aid, legal fees are so high now that some people plead guilty simply because they cannot afford a lawyer.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to address the issue of limiting preliminary inquiries.

The government, in Bill C-75, would limit preliminary inquiries to only when the maximum sentence is life behind bars. Anyone charged with an offence with a lesser maximum penalty would not have the benefit of a preliminary inquiry. However, the government has provided no empirical data to back up its assertion that this would reduce the backlog in our courts.

We heard a considerable amount of evidence before the justice committee that preliminary inquiries help narrow issues. They allow both parties to test their cases. They provide a discovery function, and in terms of data, 86% of cases that have a preliminary inquiry are resolved.

I wonder if the member could comment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue has just over a minute to respond.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very concerned that there will be no more preliminary inquiries. A preliminary inquiry is like a rehearsal for the trial. In particular, it is an opportunity to test the evidence.

Sometimes, the preliminary inquiry shows that there is no need for a trial. If there is no preliminary inquiry, that means that cases that do not need to go to trial will automatically go to trial anyway. There may be insufficient evidence, or it may be determined that the case does not meet the criteria for an indictable offence.

Preliminary inquiries are extremely important, especially given that the entire justice system will be competing against itself. For example, matrimonial cases are also dealt with in the same justice system. When a trial that could have been avoided is held anyway, less time is available for matrimonial cases. As a result, family cases that require immediate intervention by a judge take longer.

There are many aspects to consider, and I think that it was not a good idea to eliminate preliminary inquiries.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to join the debate. I have been listening for a few hours to what different members believe are the most important parts of the bill, the biggest defects and the biggest advantages given to it.

I thought the member for St. Albert—Edmonton gave one of the best, most succinct rundowns of the bill in terms of its many defects. It is an omnibus justice bill. I sit on the Standing Committee on Finance, so we are well versed on omnibus legislation there for three years now from the government, a government that during the last election promised not to ram any more omnibus legislation through the House. It was a promise that they have continuously broken since then. The Liberals failed to lived up to their promise.

The lens I want to give to this piece of legislation is mostly consideration of some of the hybridized offences in it. Like I have mentioned in the House before, I am not a member of the legal profession, so my eyes on it are basically the eyes of any regular member of the public and what they would think are serious offences versus non-serious offences.

We have been told that one of the reasons for this legislation is that it would drastically reduce the bottleneck at our provincial courts, that the court system would be somehow liberated from having to deal with all of these cases that are clogging it up and all the court delays.

With the Jordan decision rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada, that bottleneck of court cases is even more important now because we have individuals being charged with offences but never seeing a court or going through the system to be judged. I would call this piece of legislation as the Yiddish proverb says, the gift that is not as precious as first thought. There are so many defects that the member for St. Albert—Edmonton pointed out that would actually create an even greater bottleneck at the provincial courts.

Those courts closest to the people are the ones that deal with the vast majority of criminal offences. They deal with family law, young persons aged 12 to 17, traffic bylaw violations, regulatory offences, small claims and preliminary inquiries. The judges are actually doing most of the work. Every province has been set up slightly differently in how they proceed with different types of offences. Many of these would not be directly affected by this legislation, but the ones that deal with criminal offences would be because a great deal of the hybridized ones would be going to the provincial courts. The Liberals are not making it simpler, they are actually creating a greater bottleneck.

I thought that it was the House of Commons and the Senate that together decided what was a serious enough offence to warrant five to 25 years, not prosecutors. It is this House that decides on behalf of our constituents what are serious offences and what is deserving of consideration by a judge, whether a judge should consider the maximum offence of 25 years to life, whether it should be 15 years or 10 years. It is not up to prosecutors, who are not responsible to any constituents. They are not responsible directly to the public. They do not have to go to the public every four years and make a pitch for the retention of their job. Neither does a judge, but we ask judges to consider the particulars in an individual case and determine whether it warrants five years, 10 years, or something in between and to make a judicious decision based on the facts of the case. We would actually be taking away that ability of the justices to be able to render a decision.

I am sure there will be a member of the Liberal caucus who will stand and attack some past Conservative government's record, that we can go back and forth to the 19th century if we want to, to what previous governments did or other previous governments did not do, but we are looking at the record of the past three years. That is where the focus should be.

This piece of legislation comes to us as an omnibus bill. It should have come to us as pieces of legislation, different focus areas that could have been proposed in the House. It is not as if we have a maximum load that we can take on and afterwards we say we simply cannot take on any more legislation in the House. The government has shown a great interest in guillotine motions. The Liberals have used over 50 now, even after saying they would not do so and would allow fulsome debate in the House. There is no reason why this piece of legislation could not have been broken up into different pieces so that members could consider whether in fact criminal acts of sabotage were serious enough to perhaps warrant full consideration by indictable offence, and whether that would be the best way to proceed.

Forgery or uttering a forged passport, the selling or purchasing of an office, and the bribery of public officials are serious offences and there should be no opportunity for a prosecutor to elect to have them hybridized and go by summary conviction. The same applies to prison breach, assisting an escape, infanticide and participation in activities of a criminal organization.

Just this morning, as I was providing a tour for my constituents through the House of Commons, the Minister of Public Safety was outside announcing that the government would spend $86 million to fight organized crime. On this same day, his government is proposing that we hybridize the offence of participating in the activities of a criminal organization and handing such decisions over to a prosecutor to decide whether the offence is serious enough, even before a judge has a chance to listen to the facts of the case and an individual's particular circumstance or participation.

This is why I used this Yiddish proverb, “The gift is not as precious as first thought”. It is a very good proverb and someday I will be able to actually say it in Yiddish.

If the gift is that we are going to reduce the bottlenecks in our provincial courts and reduce wait times, then we need to appoint more judges so they can hear more cases.

Provincial governments should be looking at more court space. The City of Calgary built a brand new court building expressly because there was a problem with securing court space. Judges needed the space to hear cases.

If this legislation is the government's gift, if this legislation is its attempt to resolve the problem, and it is not worth it, then the government should go back to the drawing board. This legislation could be dealt with piece by piece and the parts that many members of the official opposition said they could agree with could be expedited to the other place.

To their credit, government members on the justice committee agreed that terrorism and genocide are pretty serious offences and, therefore, should not be hybridized. I think members would agree with me that the selling or purchasing of an office, and I do not mean in this case a corporate office, but an elected office, is a serious offence and does not deserve to be hybridized in any way.

It is a matter of process here. Had this omnibus piece of legislation been broken out into its parts and there been an attempt to reach consensus on certain parts, I think it would have passed, because we agree with most pieces of it. That has happened before in the House. I have seen all parties agree that a particular piece of legislation should pass more quickly than another. Maybe certain portions of Bill C-75 could have been passed more quickly. Instead, we are having a more fulsome debate so that members on all sides can explain the concerns their constituents have expressed about the contents of this legislation.

Sabotage is a serious crime. It should not be up to a prosecutor to decide whether it is deserving of a faster process because people are busy. Attorneys general in every single province give direction to their prosecutors. They are told to prioritize certain cases over others. There is only so much time in a prosecutor's day and I understand that cases need to be prioritized, and that is led by the attorney general of the respective province. That is a fair process.

At the same time, however, it is Parliament that is supposed to decide what is or is not a serious offence. What the government is doing here looks like a copy and paste job. It is just taking giant sections of the Criminal Code and dumping them into the bill. It is as if all of those sections should be hybridized in a vain attempt to find some type of time saving for judges. Judges will not have a chance to listen to the contents of every particular case like we expect them to do.

I will not be able to support this piece of legislation. It is simply defective in its content. It is defective in its process. Perhaps the small number of amendments that government members on justice committee accepted is a good step in the right direction. There should be far more amendments to this piece of legislation before it would, in any way, be permissible to pass it through the House.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Shepard for his contributions in the House.

With respect to judicial appointments, the Minister of Justice has appointed 235 judges thus far in each of the past few years. That is more judges than have been appointed by any minister of any political stripe in the last two decades, and it includes 34 judges in the member's province alone.

The member questions the ability to speed up the processes in compliance with the Jordan decision. I am going to put to him three statistics and I ask for his comments.

The first statistic is that an administration of justice offence is an offence such as breach of curfew. This type of offence has increased by 8% in the system since 2004. One in 10 incidents reported to the police involved an administration offence and four in 10 cases in adult criminal courts included at least one administration of justice offence.

Given those statistics would the member opposite agree with me that when we take those types of administration of justice charges, which are criminalized right now and are clogging up the system, and move them to a separate administrative judicial referral hearing, we are addressing the very backlog he has identified as a problem in this country for delivering justice more quickly?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member prefaced his commentary with statistics, and there is one point that I cannot pass up mentioning, because it was that justice minister who blew up the entire judicial advisory committee appointment process, where they heard advice from those committees on who should be appointed to become judges.

The Liberals created the system that led to the backlog of appointments, so they do not deserve any credit for any appointment they have made since then. The Liberals are the ones that caused the situation that they are catching up on to fix today.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my friend's speech, but there were a number of things that I cannot agree with.

First of all, the member indicated that it should not be up to a prosecutor to determine the seriousness of an offence. I wonder if my hon. friend understands that currently 152 Criminal Code offences are hybrid offences, some of which can be very serious, including sexual assault. Some of these hybrid offences can be completed in a range of ways. We trust our Crown prosecutors to make determinations on a case-by-case basis every day.

Would the member not agree with me that the Crown does an effective job dealing with the cases before it, based on the circumstances of the offence?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the previous contributions to the debate by the member.

He raises a good point. Right now prosecutors have a great deal of leeway in how they proceed with their cases. Again, as I mentioned, in cases such as sabotage, prison breach, participation in the activities of a criminal organization, I think the judge should be the one to determine, based on the matters of the case, both how long the person should spend in jail and the conditions, in cases where they convict the person of the crime involved.

It is the House that decides what the maximum and the minimum should be in those particular cases. The prosecutor makes the case; the defence defends them. We do entrust unto them a great deal of leeway. However, in cases of sabotage, as I mentioned, and selling or purchasing an office, infanticide, no, it should then be up to the judge to hear the complete case.

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Calgary Shepard is absolutely right.

What this bill does is to take discretion away from judges to fashion sentences having regard for the individual circumstances of a case, and it puts it in the hands of prosecutors in a non-transparent and arbitrary way.

The member made reference to some of the offences that are hybridized. I would draw his attention to another, including selling young women and men into sexual slavery, as well as administering date rape drugs. If we are going down this road, where do we draw the line? Maybe murder should be a hybrid offence next.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton is right.

Herein lies the problem, in that simply too many offences are being hybridized. If it were a piecemeal approach, section by section, and if they had combined them together into bite-sized pieces of legislation, including an easier way to explain why we are doing this, we would not be in a situation where the list of the offences the government is proposing to hybridize raises red flags all over the place.

This is the wrong way to build legislation. Omnibus justice legislation in the House simply does not work. It raises too many questions. Too many members have issues with particular sections they want to see removed. The government should go back to the drawing board and start over.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, during this debate today we heard words such as hybridization, tough on crime and speeding up the judicial system. I will remind the House and Canadians who are listening and are tuned into this debate that it was probably on day 10 of the 2015 campaign that the member for Papineau said that, under his government, he would let debate reign and would not resort to such parliamentary tricks as closure and limiting debate. He also said his government would not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny, such as omnibus bills. Here we have a bill that is well over 350 pages long, legislation that encompasses three bills. I think that probably speaks more to the current government's legislative failure than a lot of other things.

One of the things the Liberals always say is that they are protecting Canadians. I do not feel that Bill C-75 does that. That said, I will preface my speech by saying that I am not a lawyer, nor do I profess to be one, but we have seen instances over the course of the last three years where the Liberals and the government like to say they are tough on crime and that they are standing up for victims' rights, and yet we have seen recently a convicted murderer being transferred to a healing lodge. She had a key to her room and could come and go as she pleased. This murderer had lured an eight year old away from her school and then she and her partner murdered young Tori Stafford. For weeks the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety said that it was not in their power to change that. However, it was done. They probably blame the Conservatives for that, because they blamed us for politicizing this event. Then last week, Tori's father and family came to the Hill and protested on the steps of Parliament. They not only begged the Prime Minister and the minister to change that, but they also shamed them into changing the rules, and today, as a result of that public shaming, we saw the Liberals change the rules, and that murderer is now behind bars.

Why am I bringing this up? It is because we are talking about Bill C-75, which hybridizes certain offences that were previously dealt with by indictment only. Why were they classified by indictment? It is because they include some of the most serious offences. I know our hon. colleague from Calgary Shepard brought this up. Actually, his speech was bang on.

Let us talk about some of these offences that have now been hybridized. There is the punishment for infanticide, concealing the body of a child, abduction of a person under 16 or abduction of a person under 14, administering a noxious substance, and enslaving a male or female into prostitution. Those are some of the crimes that will be hybridized and take away the discretion of a judge to be able to levy serious punishment for some of these serious crimes.

I sat at committee during some of the testimony relating to Bill C-75. I had the opportunity to sit through two sessions of that. Criminal defence lawyers who witnessed at committee offered that, while there were some good changes in Bill C-75, one of the key points that was missing from the bill was the filling of judicial vacancies and how that would help.

I heard the arguments of those across the way who are blaming the previous government. The Liberals want to put their record up against the record of the Conservatives. As our hon. colleague from Calgary Shepard so aptly put it, why are they always doing that?

The Liberals have been in government now for three years, yet they always say we should have seen it when the Conservatives had it or could we imagine if the NDP had it. However, their failures are their own. At times, the Minister of Justice has held records for the most judicial vacancies.

I will offer this for our hon. colleagues across the way who are going to point their fingers at us. The Jordan decision came about in July of 2016. We would think the Jordan decision would have spurred the minister on to fill those judicial vacancies. Why is that such a key issue? In rural communities such as mine and other areas right across Canada, it is tough to get a judge at times. What happens is that those cases get thrown out. Prolific offenders in some of our communities are the ones who are getting out and 90% of the crimes are committed by them.

The Liberals talk about being tough on crime. The Minister of Public Safety could not say the word “murder”. Now it is a bad practice. The people who are crossing our borders illegally are now crossing the border irregularly.

Also, that brings me to another point. With Bill C-75, I cannot call my wife a spouse anymore. The term is “intimate partner”. I have never introduced my wife that way. I think I would probably get slapped. That goes along the lines of the Prime Minister's comments about “peoplekind”. We cannot say “mankind” anymore. It is “peoplekind” He said he was joking. I doubt it.

Service Canada is changing the vocabulary on its forms. It is removing “father, mother, Mr. Miss, Mrs.” I do not know whether my colleagues have ever introduced their partners or spouses as their intimate partners. It is ridiculous. How far we have fallen? It is crazy.

The Liberals said they were going to do away with omnibus bills. Here we have a 350-page document that does not give opposition members an opportunity to fully engage. It does not give the electors who elect opposition members an opportunity to fully have a say.

The government has shown contempt for the House time and again by closure and by continuing to table these omnibus bills. It is quite shameful.

The Liberals like to say that they are consulting with Canadians. By that, they mean they will invite somebody to speak for seven minutes at committee, and that is consultation. They also like to say they work collaboratively across the floor with the opposition and that all parties have a say. However, we know that it is their way or the highway, that they know best. It really is quite shameful. What the Liberals are doing and saying behind closed doors is completely different than what they want their public image to be. I should probably watch what I am saying. Maybe the Prime Minister will not agree to take a picture with me now.

Bill C-75 is flawed legislation. We have heard it is rushed legislation.

I want to go back to some of the hybridized offences, such as polygamy, forced marriage and marriage under the age of 16. If Canadians are listening, that is right. Their government wants to make forced marriage and marriage under the age of 16 a hybridized offence. That is shameful. Canadians should be afraid of that and alarmed at what the government is doing. It is not standing up for victims and it is making it harder for police agencies to do their job. This legislation is flawed.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I am quite troubled by some of the comments of the member opposite. I appreciate the fact that there is an effort to simplify vocabulary and make things understandable for people in the chamber and those watching on television. However, the reason the definition of “intimate partner violence” is entrenched in law is because domestic violence and violence between sexual partners is a very troubling and problematic matter about which all parliamentarians should be concerned. Today in this chamber, even members of his caucus, in response to questions I raised or on their own volition, have agreed that the changes to intimate partner violence form a critical part of the legislation with which most members can agree.

I will give the member one more opportunity to not make light of the situation. Does he believe that when a definition is expanded so things like “strangulation”, “choking” and “suffocation” are deemed an elevated form of assault that judges need to take note of when issuing orders and harsher sentences for such violence, whether it involves a current partner or a former partner, is a step in the right direction?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was not referring to that part of legislation. I was referring to the fact that we cannot talk about our spouse anymore as a spouse and we have to use the term “intimate partner”. Violence against intimate partners, spouses or loved ones is shameful and wrong. I stand here unequivocally in support of what our colleague across the way has said. I question the terminology, not the law behind it.

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

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to hear Conservatives try to come across as if they are really tough on crime and stand for the victims when it is just not true. Let me give the example of Tori Stafford. At least three times today, the Conservatives have stood in their place trying to give the impression they are really tough on crime. When Stephen Harper was the prime minister, murders were transferred to healing lodges, sadly, over 12 of them.

Could the member tell me why this so-called tough on Stephen Harper Conservative Party crime file did nothing on those files, on those child killers? Why were they allowed to go to medium-security prisons when the Conservatives sat in government?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was not elected at the time so cannot comment on that. However, I can comment on the current Prime Minister and the current Minister of Public Safety's inability to get the job done and act when it matters the most. Instead, it took the family of Tori Stafford to come to Ottawa to publicly shame and beg the Prime Minister and minister to act, and that is shameful.

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Cariboo—Prince George went through a long list of what are currently serious indictable offences the government is watering down by reclassifying them to be hybrid offences. Another offence he did not mention, which I would be interested in his comments on, is impaired driving causing bodily harm.

We know impaired driving is the leading criminal cause of death in Canada. However, instead of holding to account those individuals who make the choice to drink and drive and, as a result, injure another person, the government is going to hybridize that offence. What kind of message does that send?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was not going to touch on that because, as most in the House know, my brother Fabian was killed by a drunk driver on March 17, 1990. It is shameful what the government is doing. To hybridize bodily harm by impaired driving is shameful. It begs the question as to what the thoughts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving are on this, because it just revictimizes us and brings up the old wounds of those we have lost.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Poverty.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Haldimand—Norfolk.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to add my insight to this very important discussion surrounding 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. I am speaking on behalf of the constituents in my beautiful riding of Haldimand—Norfolk.

As we know, one of the core functions of government is to provide a framework and a set of laws to protect those who it governs, whether it be through the creation and maintenance of a strong military to defend us from foreign threats or, as is more applicable to today's discussion, to protect Canadians from domestic threats and administer just consequences for those who break the law. We, as Conservatives, take this very seriously.

Before speaking to the shortcomings of the bill, I agree with the reforms proposed to deal with repeat offenders of violence against intimate partners. I see this as a step in the right direction.

That said, with the few steps forward that are made in Bill C-75, the Liberals seem to run backward with much of the rest of this bill. The Liberal Party, in particular the Prime Minister, seems to jump to the defence of serious offenders and violent criminals, disregarding the rights of victims.

The previous Conservative government worked hard on behalf of Canadians and on behalf of victims. We brought forward legislation designed to reduce the revictimization that occurred because of shortcomings in our justice system, bills like the Tackling Violent Crime Act come to mind. That one implemented conditions such as a reverse onus on bail, which requires that those accused of serious gun crimes show why they should not be kept in jail while awaiting trial.

Our initiatives aimed at ending the revolving door form of justice that was all too common and put people who had committed serious crimes, particularly serious gun crimes, back out on the street with bail. This law was targeted squarely at organized crime and tackling gun violence. The Tackling Violent Crime Act also introduced tougher mandatory jail times for serious gun crimes, which again targeted organized criminals and gangs.

The truth is that tougher and longer sentences are about deterrence and protecting society from violent and dangerous offenders. Violent and dangerous behaviour cannot be changed simply by prematurely returning an offender to the environment that bred that very behaviour in the first place. Sadly, the Liberal position seems to be quite the opposite.

Of course we all recall the recent transfer of Terri-Lynne McClintic from the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener to a healing lodge with no fence around it. Rightly, Canadians were outraged. They were outraged that one of Canada's most notorious criminals, convicted of first-degree murder in the kidnapping, rape and killing of an eight year old, was being moved to such a weakly enforced facility. What was the Liberal response to Canadians' outrage? It was a vehement defence of that decision. Yes, it is sad, but unfortunately that is true.

This speaks to the low position that victims have in the eyes of the Liberal government. It speaks to the undeniable Liberal bent toward making life better for even the most offensive and deplorable criminals. This bill further displays that view.

The number and types of offences that could result in lighter sentencing as a result of the bill, even going so far as to reducing some of them to just a fine, sends a clear message to victims and also to criminals.

I think that most of us would agree that Canadians are largely compassionate, willing to forgive and give second chances to people who might have made some bad choices. That said, the types of offences that the Liberals seem to be making light of in Bill C-75 are well beyond what Canadians would consider just bad choices.

Offences like participation in the activities of a terrorist group and leaving Canada to participate in terrorist group activities may now see reduced sentences. This includes people who have left Canada for the sole purpose of joining and fighting with ISIS. For a Prime Minister who claims to be a progressive and a feminist, it is hard to see how granting a softer consequence for ISIS fighters fits this narrative. This is a group that represents the very antithesis of everything Canada represents and tries to be. These people burn homosexuals alive and throw them from buildings. They take sex slaves. They commit public mass executions, and they have declared war against our own western values, but the Prime Minister and the justice minister think that perhaps a softer touch is the best way to deal with ISIS fighters.

Again, as concerning as this is, sadly, based on what we have already seen from the government, it is not surprising. The Prime Minister seems to think that government programming to reintegrate returning ISIS members is a suitable option.

We all remember Omar Khadr. Mr. Khadr is directly and admittedly responsible for the grenade attack that led to the death of allied U.S. special forces Sergeant Christopher Speer and the injury of retired U.S. special forces Sergeant Layne Morris. Is Khadr in jail? Courtesy of the Prime Minister, he is now $10.5 million richer, thanks to the Canadian taxpayer. Canadians are appalled, and rightly so.

The bill also brings in softer sentencing for, among other things, advocating genocide, participating in activities of criminal organizations, arson for fraudulent purposes, human trafficking-related offences and material benefit for sexual services. Listening to the list of some of these offences on which the Liberals are going soft, one really cannot help but wonder if some of the stakeholders who were consulted on the bill were actually organized crime leaders.

Municipal corruption, selling or purchasing office, influencing appointments or dealing in offices may also receive lighter sentencing. One cannot help but wonder what the Liberals are preparing for with these types of changes.

In all seriousness, the list goes on and on. Even the abduction of a child, a defenceless child like Tori Stafford, could see lighter sentencing under the Liberals' soft-on-crime bill. Back home in Haldimand—Norfolk, people are shocked to hear that these are the views of the modem Liberal Party and our Prime Minister. They are shocked by the disregard for victims of crime shown by bills like Bill C-75. They are baffled by the doublespeak of the Liberals, who claim in one breath to be opposed to gun crime but then introduce bills like Bill C-71, which provides no meaningful way of addressing illegal gun crime but implies that law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters are part of the problem. They, like Canadians right across this great country, are genuinely concerned that the soft-on-crime policies of the Liberals are going to put their communities and their families at greater risk.

There are some good aspects of the bill, but they are needles in a 300-page haystack of bad policies. I do not recall reading about reduced sentencing for terrorists, child abductors and organized crime members in the Liberals' election platform. I did not see it in the justice minister's mandate letter, and I would wager good money that no Liberal candidates will put that in any of their next campaign literature. I am confident that this is not the mandate Canadians gave them, nor would they in 2019.

I implore the Liberals to take this monster of a bill, split it up into more reasonable-size bills, and set their partisan, self-serving tactics aside so the House can come together and vote in agreement for the good bits that are in Bill C-75. Then we can have a more thorough debate on the merits of the rest of the policies and a discussion about the lack of a mandate from Canadians to legislate the rest of it.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I will start with a comment and end with a question.

Hybridization occurs regularly throughout the Criminal Code. It did under the previous government's watch, and it continues to occur today. Over 100 offences are already hybridized. Hybridization is about giving the Crown attorney a choice to proceed summarily or to proceed by way of an indictable offence. It does not predetermine the sentence, and the choice is critical, as highlighted in the instance of kidnapping. It can be extremely heinous, in the context of kidnapping someone who is then trafficked for prostitution, or it can be in a context that is usually much more benign, such as the case of a parent who shares custody with an estranged spouse who simply extends a stay with a grandparent and has the child for an extra day. Those require different responses by Crown attorneys.

The member spent a lot of time debating whether our government's position on crime is sufficient or tough enough, from her perspective. How does she explain the fact that under our government's watch, all summary conviction offences are moving from six months to two years less a day, a much more significant penalty for those types of offences?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, kidnapping is kidnapping is kidnapping. I do not think anyone reasonable on a police force would describe grandparents having a child for an extra day as kidnapping or even be in a position to lay those charges. We are talking about kidnapping, where there is the option of getting them a much lighter sentence.

The Liberals say that they are going to be tough. The other day, we had the apology in the House for the terrible situation of the MS St. Louis, and the Prime Minister said that this kind of intolerance and bias should never be allowed to happen again, yet one of the Liberal government's very first actions was to eliminate the Office of Religious Freedom and bring in Bill C-51, which tried to take away protection for religious freedom for those who practise it.

On the one hand, the Liberals talk a good line, but when we watch their actions, it is a whole other thing.

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

Madam Speaker, I disagree with the member's comments regarding kidnapping. There is a significant difference, and to try to marginalize one or play up another is wrong. Let me give a different example.

Within the legislation, there is going to be a reduction in pretrials. Imagine being a sexually assaulted woman. As opposed to having to go through a pretrial, because of this legislation, that pretrial could be avoided. She would not have to relive that horror, that nightmare, because of not having to go through a pretrial.

Does the member not see that as a good thing? If someone is a victim, why would the member want to obligate her to go perhaps through a pretrial, when it is just not necessary?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Madam Speaker, there are a number of ways those kinds of situations have been dealt with successfully and sensitively in the past. What the bill would do in allowing so many of these very serious crimes to be hybridized is download them to the provinces. In many cases, the provinces are already overburdened. Their justice systems are loaded.

The minister herself has said that this bill would speed up the process at the federal level. Of course it would, because they would just be shifting the workload to the provinces, which have neither the time nor the capacity. That is going to help the federal stats, but it is not going to do anything to fight gangs. It is not going to do anything about gun crimes. It is not going to punish those or act as more of a deterrent to those who commit the very crimes the Liberal government says it wants to fight the most. It would not do that. In fact, it would reduce, in many cases, these very serious crimes to a slap on the wrist, to be handled by someone else, instead of the federal government taking responsibility for what it should be responsible for.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-75.

Throughout the day today, we have heard a lot of rhetoric from the other side in terms of what Bill C-75 would actually do. We have heard that this is progressive legislation. It would protect victims, it would strengthen the Criminal Code, it is reflective of what Canadians want to see, and it would create safer communities. However, the bill would actually reduce the penalties for many offences. Over 25 offences would be reduced with the introduction of the bill. I will speak a little more on that later.

Some of the objectionable parts of what is happening today relate to the process that brought us to where we are today. During the campaign, I remember sitting in many all-candidates debates and being told that if the Liberals were elected to government, they would not use time allocation to limit debate on important bills, but here we are today with I do not know how many dozens of times the government has implemented closure.

We were also told that omnibus bills were something to be avoided at all costs. However, here we have a bill that deals with three substantive issues that were actually part of three previous bills. It is over 300 pages long and lumps together all kinds of reforms. Some of them we support, but this omnibus bill is impossible to support in its entirety, and I will outline my reasons for that as I proceed.

This proposed piece of legislation, as we have seen time and time again in the actions of the Liberal government, would actually do very little for victims of crime. It would actually reduce the potential consequences for criminals. It has become a pattern with the government to put the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of victims.

Thankfully, today one of the government's failures has had a positive resolution, with the re-incarceration of Tori Stafford's murderer, Terri-Lynne McClintic.

When Tori Stafford's father found out that Terri-Lynne McClintic was being transferred to a healing lodge, he raised objections through a number of contacts with individuals and he organized protests here on the Hill, which I was able to attend to hear the concerns of Rodney Stafford and his family and how they had been impacted by the relocation of Terri-Lynne McClintic to a healing lodge. They were very concerned about that, and many Canadians joined them. They showed their concern by coming to the protests here on Parliament Hill. Last Saturday, hundreds of people in the Woodstock area joined together in front of the Woodstock courthouse to register their concerns about the fact that Terri-Lynne McClintic was being housed in a healing lodge, way before the time she was due to be released.

We agree that we need to have rehabilitation, but to have someone put in a healing lodge more than 10 years before their eventual release is certainly an inappropriate way to be treating our criminals and especially to have concern for victims.

I am still disturbed by the government's continuing soft-on-crime soft spot for criminals. Currently I am dealing with the issue of the prison needle exchange program at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in the Waterloo region. This program puts needles into the hands of hardened criminals so they can use illicit drugs in their own prison cells. We are not talking about EpiPens or insulin syringes administered by nurses. We are talking about needles being handed to prisoners to administer drugs to themselves in their own cells.

Rightly, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers has come out against this, as it puts their members in danger. They were not consulted at all on the implementation of this pilot project that is being carried out at the Grand Valley Institution for Women. They have held protests outside the offices of the health minister and the Minister of Public Safety, but it seems that the government is just turning a blind eye to this illegal substance problem in our prisons.

Not only do I stand with the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers on this issue, I am also very concerned about my community in Waterloo region. These prisoners who are using the prison needle exchange program can maintain an addiction throughout their entire sentences, and their participation in the exchange program will not even be shared with the Parole Board when their application is made for parole. Therefore, it is quite probable and possible that we will have cases of criminals returning to our communities still addicted to substances that may have played a role in the behaviour that led them to commit their crimes in the first place.

I hope my colleagues in the Liberal Party will realize how we in the Conservative Party have a hard time believing that they are tough on crime when they encourage these types of programs in our prisons.

As a Conservative, I believe that the safety of Canadians should be the number one priority of any government. On this side of the aisle, we will always work to strengthen the Canadian criminal justice system rather than weaken it. We will continue to stand up for victims.

That is why today the leader of my party was in Brampton laying out the Conservative plan that cracks down on guns and gangs. This plan has five proposals.

The first is ending automatic bail for gang members. Right now, even the most notorious gang members are entitled to bail. That means dangerous criminals who are known to police often go right back out on the streets. This is a dangerous risk to our communities and wastes valuable police resources. A Conservative government would change that and make sure that arrested repeat gang offenders would be held without bail.

The second is identifying gangs in the Criminal Code. Every time prosecutors go after gang members, they must first prove to the court that their gangs are criminal organizations. This includes well-known gangs like MS-13 and Hells Angels. This makes no sense. It is another huge waste of resources. A Conservative government would create and maintain a list of proven criminal organizations, which would help law enforcement prosecute gang members more quickly.

The third is revoking parole for gang members. Parole is a privilege, not a right. Currently, paroled offenders are required to abstain from drugs and alcohol and promise to keep the peace. A Conservative government would also require those on parole to cut ties with gangs. Statistics show offenders are more likely to reoffend on parole if they are part of a gang. For those who associate with gangs while on parole, the message would be simple: they go back to jail.

The fourth is tougher sentences for ordering gang crime. Right now, gang leaders who order others to commit crimes can receive very short sentences in prisons, often served alongside other gang members. A Conservative government would bring in mandatory sentences in federal prison for directing gang crime, sending a strong message to gang members that they belong behind bars.

The fifth is new sentences for violent gang crime. Gang-related murders, assaults, robberies and other violent acts are steadily on the rise and pose the biggest threat to Canadians' safety. A Conservative government would create new offences for committing and ordering violent gang crime and attach mandatory sentences in federal prison for each.

Conservatives understand that a strong criminal justice system must always put the rights of victims and communities ahead of special treatment for perpetrators of violent crime. The Prime Minister is failing to take seriously criminal justice issues. Reducing penalties for serious crimes sends the wrong message to victims, law-abiding Canadians and criminals. As such, we are concerned with the Liberals' proposal to eliminate consecutive sentences for human trafficking and to eliminate the victim surcharge introduced by the previous Conservative government to help victims of crime.

The Liberals are breaking yet another promise. They committed to keep full protections in place for religious officials under section 176 of the Criminal Code. Assault on officiants during a religious service is a very serious crime and should remain an indictable offence. We have serious concerns with other elements of this bill as well, including the number and types of offences that could result in lighter sentencing, including fines, for what are very serious crimes. Under the proposed changes, several serious offences could be prosecuted by summary conviction and, therefore, could result in lighter sentences.

I want to outline, for the benefit of anyone watching this today, some of the changes in Bill C-75 that would result from the passing of this bill. It is quite probable that the penalties for these indictable offences, among many others, would be reduced. On this list are prison breach, municipal corruption, influencing municipal officials and obstructing or violence to or arrest of an officiating clergyman. I mentioned that earlier in my speech. When there is a rise in many of these crimes across North America, this is not the time to be reducing sentences. There are many others on this list.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member for Kitchener—Conestoga a question with respect to the constituents he represents who are members of the LGBTQ2 community. Those constituents are directly affected by this bill in two important regards. We have removed the vagrancy and bawdy house provisions, which brings the bill into conformity with constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. It would allow the expungement of records that existed for the violation of those Criminal Code provisions that were inherently discriminatory.

Second, and most importantly, a provision has been changed whereby section 159 of the Criminal Code has been removed. The impact of that would be to treat a consenting sexual relationship between a heterosexual couple aged 16 and 17 and a LGBT couple aged 16 or 17 exactly the same way. I wonder if the member would indicate his support for those types of changes because of the important impact they would have on the LGBTQ2 community in his own riding.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will always stand for any protection that is included in the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, regardless of sexual orientation.

It is not good enough to hide behind that when we look at the long list of other offences here that are very serious offences that my constituents have concerns about. I have been contacted directly by my constituents about some of this. In fact, I just happened to be working today on my responses to a number of letters I have received. One of them clearly said we need to be clearer on the consequences for serious crimes that are being committed in our area. One of them referred to the use of drugs. That is a big concern, and I am very concerned that not only are we lightening these sentences, we are now giving the tacit message to our population that the use of drugs is okay by the legalization of marijuana. It is not appropriate.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, over the past few months and years, there has been a lot of discussion about crimes involving sexual violence, especially against women. We have shown just how ineffective the justice system is at dealing with these cases and how badly a different approach is needed. We want to keep victims from being traumatized by their experience in the justice system.

Does the bill before us today solve the problems in the justice system concerning cases of sexual violence, or does it fail to make any concrete improvements for victims?

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

Mr. Speaker, this gets to the heart of one of the problems with dealing with an omnibus bill that incorporates so many different aspects to these reforms. I support some of the aspects of the bill, in fact the one that deals with intimate partner violence. Absolutely, we want to make sure that the message is given that this is absolutely inappropriate and must be rooted out.

When we have this omnibus bill with so many other elements introduced into it, it makes it impossible for us to support that initiative because there are so many other initiatives in it that are totally wrong-headed.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Kitchener—Conestoga went through a list of offences that the government is watering down. One he did not highlight that I would be interested in his comments on is a breach of the long-term supervision order. These orders involve the most serious sexual offenders. These are individuals who are so dangerous that following the conclusion of their sentence they are subject to an order for up to 10 years, administered and overseen by the Parole Board of Canada. When these individuals breach these orders, it is a clear sign that they are returning to their cycle of dangerous criminal behaviour.

I would submit this is just another example of why Bill C-75, in terms of reclassification, is so badly thought out, so badly drafted and puts public safety at risk. I wonder if the member would agree.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not pretend to have anywhere close to the knowledge that the member has of the legal justice system. I certainly agree that we need to do everything we can to give a strong message that any of these breaches will not be tolerated.

I want to come back to my earlier point that there is such a long list of lightening of sentences here that it gives me great concern for my entire community, and in fact for the whole country.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be here to talk about Bill C-75.

I think that the House now knows that I was a diplomat for 15 years. I was assigned to Argentina first, then to Salvador, and finally to Dallas, Texas. I also had the opportunity to work for my colleague from Thornhill when he was Minister of State of Foreign Affairs for the Americas. I found it very interesting, since we had the strategy for the Americas.

There we had three major principles that we followed in everything that we did.

The first was the idea of democracy. As shadow minister for democratic institutions, democracy is very close to my heart.

The second principle was that of prosperity, promoting free markets. I remember the Brazilians did not like this. They said we thought everyone should be rich but that was not our way of thinking at all. Rather, we chose to promote free markets abroad.

The third principle was justice, and this bill flies in the face of the principle of justice. Is this really the example that Canada wants to set for the world in terms of what would be established as a result of Bill C-75?

When I was consul for Canada to San Salvador in El Salvador there was a very unfortunate incident whereby a Canadian was found with narcotics. The individual was in a taxi. The cab was pulled over and unfortunately the narcotics fell out of some tissue paper. The individual was brought to jail and put on trial. As the consul for Canada at the time, I was asked to attend the proceedings. This was a very difficult situation for me. It was probably the most difficult that I had as a diplomat. I received a speech from the judge who indicated that fighting narcotics in his opinion at that time, in 2006, was one of the primary tenets of the western world.

My point is this. It is not this situation specifically but it goes back to the point that I am trying to make in regards to the deficiencies in this legislation. This legislation would not only cause delays but would propose lighter sentences. Is this really the example that Canada wants to set for the rest of the world? I absolutely think not.

I will go through some of the lighter sentencing items that my colleagues have gone through, some quite extensively. The bill would reduce penalties for crimes that include, but are not limited to, participation in activity of terrorist groups, leaving Canada to participate in activity of terrorist groups, punishment of rioter and concealment of identity, and breach of trust by a public officer.

Let me go back to participation in activity of terrorist groups and leaving Canada to participate in activity of terrorist groups. I daresay that it has historically been a major component of not only Canada's foreign affairs agenda but I would also argue our aid agenda and our defence agenda to fight against these crimes in the world. Is Bill C-75 the example that we want to set for the world?

Another item that stands out to me is “Obstructing or violence to or arrest of officiating clergyman”. I see my delightful colleague, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard in the House. I worked, side by side, with him at his round table that he had for clergy. God bless him. I am sure they always do, but they did have the fear of God regarding the potential change that would result from this legislation. I daresay they might again today, seeing that these penalties can potentially be reduced. It very well might embolden some. That is also very concerning.

Moreover, there is the offence of “advocating genocide”. That is something that we as a nation should be in the lead against. We are indicating in Bill C-75 that perhaps it is not such a priority that we have said it is to the world by reducing the sentencing for advocating such a thing. I think that is shame. Again I ask, is this the example, as found in Bill C-75, that Canada wants to set for the world?

Also, I am going to go to one of the last items on the list, and that is “Participation in activities of criminal organization”. This is one that is very dear to me, again, having served in El Salvador, a place that unfortunately has much gang violence, with many negative effects on society there.

In addition to being the consul and the chef d'affaires during my time in El Salvador, I was also very fortunate to sit on the Canada fund as a member to decide the allocation of funding for programs. Every single time, we would put these funds towards activities that would discourage gang violence, primarily towards youth, to get them involved in physical activities and with youth organizations, so they could have other interests that would allow them to believe and see that they were worthwhile and worthy, and could contribute to society.

This would be a good time for me to indicate that I am very proud of our leader today and the legislation that he has brought forward in regard to gangs for a safer Canada. This includes ending automatic bail for gangsters, identifying gangs in the Criminal Code, revoking parole for gangsters, tougher sentences for ordering gang crime, and new sentences for violent gang crime, something that I believe, given my experience, given my work in Canada and abroad, is something that is very timely and necessary for a safer Canada.

I do believe that we should all get behind our leader and his message of a safer Canada in promoting and supporting this legislation, because I have seen the end result of where gang violence takes over a society. It is not a pretty picture. It affects all areas of society. Again, I ask, is Bill C-75 the example Canada wants to set for the world?

In conclusion, I will say this to my counterpart, the Minister of Democratic Institutions.

He said that he came to the House of Commons specifically to change the law with regard to valid ID for voting. I myself came here to promote democracy. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration did so much for democracy, prosperity and justice. That is why I cannot support Bill C-75, since it goes against Canadians and our position in the world.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments by the member opposite and salute her contributions to Canada while serving in the foreign service in the past. While I am tempted to ask her a question about the disenfranchisement of all of the Canadians abroad under the previous government while she was serving those Canadians abroad in El Salvador, etc., I want to ask her about Bill C-75.

The member asked repeatedly about whether this is something we should be proud of and whether it is the kind of symbolic representation we want to make toward the world. I have a comment and a question.

We do want to be known as a government that takes discrimination against indigenous people seriously, and a government that listens to those very same foreign counterparts she served in her various roles in the foreign service, like England, which eliminated peremptory challenges in 1988. Those challenges are basically discriminatory, as they would allow a homogenous jury to render a verdict in the case of a white farmer accused of killing an indigenous man in Saskatchewan. I would put to her that ending peremptory challenges is something we want to be known for around the world.

Would she agree that it is also good to be known around the world for taking a substantive stand against intimate partner violence, something the member for Cariboo—Prince George questioned in a somewhat mocking manner in the chamber? Also, by expanding the definition to include dating partners and former spouses and ensuring that we have tougher penalties on intimate partner violence, is that the exact kind of stand she would like our government and this Parliament to take against violence against women?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what I will say is that I am very proud of the Harper administration and, along with that, my predecessor Jason Kenney. Also, I am very fortunate to know the Hon. John Baird very well. I believe all of them worked together to promote the principles of democracy, prosperity and justice in the world. It was this type of leadership that saw us do many great things during that time of the Harper administration. Therefore, I do not believe that the reduction of sentences for these significant atrocities against humankind would do anything to further our place in the world. I will always stand very much behind and encourage the types of stands we saw from Minister Kenney, Minister Baird and certainly Prime Minister Harper. I really look forward to returning to those practices again very soon under a Conservative government.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although the bill in question includes some measures concerning domestic violence, many stakeholders and victims of sexual violence have said that the existing justice system does not meet current needs and is not adapted to the reality of sexual violence. It can often be a traumatic experience for victims.

Although it contains measures related to domestic violence, is the bill before us today a major reform of the justice system when it comes to sex crimes, or is that far from the case, and does it in fact lack the reforms needed to make the justice system work better for victims of sexual violence?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot think about Bill C-75 or genocide without thinking about the work done by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill. I can honestly say that our party supports victims of genocide, including women. As I said before, I cannot support Bill C-75, because that would be tantamount to opposing victims of genocide.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn to rise to speak to Bill C-75, an omnibus bill that is over 300 pages long, even though I very clearly remember the government promising not to introduce any omnibus bills. Unfortunately, the Liberals did not keep their promise.

Bill C-75 has the Liberal stamp on it. At second reading, the Liberals moved a time allocation motion on Bill C-75. They do not want to hear the truth when they introduce bills and they do not want to hear what the opposition has to say. Nevertheless, the members of the opposition represent Canadians the same way government members do, and so what we have to say deserves to be heard.

Since time is quickly running out, I will get right to the point. The Liberal government's inaction on justice has consequences.

One of my constituents was the victim of the Liberal government's inaction on justice on two occasions. His name is Dannick Lessard. He was the victim of a crime and he was the victim of an error on the part of Corrections Canada. He was also a victim of the Jordan decision. He watched as his assailant, the man who shot him, was set free without any other charges being brought against him.

It is absolutely unbelievable that, despite this voluminous bill, the government is doing absolutely nothing to address the case of Dannick Lessard, a man who did not ask to be victimized several times, not only by a criminal but also by the government. He was also the victim of the government's dogged determination to ignore his case.

To date, Mr. Lessard has racked up $80,000 in legal fees just so he can get his point across, get the government to listen to reason and be able to move on to other things.

The government has become an expert in victimization, which is completely unacceptable.

I would like remind everyone of what happened to Mr. Lessard, so they know what we are talking about.

Mr. Lessard was shot by a man armed with two pistols. He was hit nine times. He suffered many physical and psychological injuries. That act of unspeakable violence turned his life upside down. That is what he wrote in a letter addressed to several people.

On April 21, 2017, a stay of proceedings was ordered under the Jordan decision for the trial that was to be held in September 2017 of a man charged with first degree murder as well as the attempted murder of Mr. Lessard.

That ruling effectively ended any chance that Mr. Lessard's case would be heard and that justice would be served. At the time, he asked one question, and he still has not received an answer.

Is it reasonable that his attacker does not have to face justice for such a violent and gratuitous crime? Is it reasonable for Mr. Lessard to live the rest of his life with the scars from that attack? He believes that as a consequence of the Jordan decision, victims and the public have lost confidence in the Canadian justice system.

What does Bill C-75 propose to do about appointing more judges? Absolutely nothing. It is all very well to make laws, present amendments and talk for hours in committee, but if there is no one on the bench to manage these situations, it will not do any good.

Mr. Lessard wants the government to acknowledge the mistakes it made in his case. He wants the government to acknowledge that mistakes were made in the case of his attacker, who was wrongly released.

It is scandalous that an attacker who should be in prison is released to commit another crime and then has all charges dropped. Meanwhile, the government gave Omar Khadr $10 million.

This is a case of a citizen who was just doing his job and got shot. He was the victim, and today he is looking for help. He wrote to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety. The Minister of Public Safety was the only one to reply. Unfortunately, in his reply, he said that the Minister of Justice was responsible for this file.

What happens when the buck gets passed? Nothing is resolved.

We absolutely have to think of the people who are victims of the system. The system did not work, and the government is taking too long to appoint judges for various reasons. Unfortunately, people are waiting and spending a fortune trying to get justice. The government should be more understanding and address the situation as quickly as possible.

Since Bill C-75 does not resolve Mr. Lessard's case, I will be voting against it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable will have four minutes remaining for his speech when the House resumes debate on this motion, as well as a 10-minute period for questions and comments.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed consideration of 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, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, government orders will be extended by seven minutes.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise and speak to Bill C-75, which represents a package of bold and comprehensive reforms. This is not the first time that I have spoken to this significant piece of legislation. I did have the opportunity to comment on it previously in my former capacity as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice and the attorney general of Canada.

I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to a number of people who have contributed to Bill C-75. First, obviously, I would like to thank the Minister of Justice for her leadership. I would also like to thank members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for their close study of the bill, and all of the stakeholders and contributors who through their testimony before committee and their written submissions provided for a very rigorous and thoughtful study of this bill.

Having had the benefit of reviewing those submissions and some of the testimony and seeing the hard work and contributing to it myself by participating in round tables around the country, consulting with stakeholders in conjunction with the Minister of Justice, I am confident in saying that Bill C-75 is a momentous piece of legislation. When it becomes law, it will improve our overall criminal justice system.

I also want to thank the thousands of people who work within our criminal justice system day in and day out, law enforcement, police, members of the judiciary, and all the social services which are wrapped around the criminal justice system. Having worked in it myself for over a decade, I can say without any hesitation that these are individuals who care about protecting our community while also offering the prospect and opportunity for people who find themselves caught within the criminal justice system to reform and to rehabilitate, which is a fundamental principle of the criminal justice system, especially as it relates to our sentencing processes.

There is obviously more to do. The Supreme Court of Canada put into very sharp focus the task that is ahead of us as a result of some of the ongoing challenges which the criminal justice system is confronted with every day. What are those challenges? They range from, obviously, the overrepresentation of marginalized individuals, in particular, members of the racialized community, as well as our indigenous peoples. Far too often, for reasons that are not their fault but rather a result of the systemic challenges which they face on an individual basis as well as the collective challenges that communities face, they find themselves caught in the web of the criminal justice system.

We need to be very candid with ourselves about what those challenges look like. We see overrepresentation of racialized members as well as indigenous peoples in our jails right across the country.

We also know there is an under-representation of those very same groups within the legal profession and within the judiciary. The work that the Minister of Justice has undertaken in appointing a judiciary which is more reflective of the diversity of this great country is in part a sincere effort to address that challenge. Having spoken with many members right across the continuum of our society, I can say that we have made progress, but there is still more work to do.

I also would note that the Supreme Court of Canada in Jordan did point out quite rightly and quite justifiably that there are serious concerns when it comes to delay, court delay in particular, and if not addressed, a denial of the right to have a trial within a reasonable period of time can amount to an infringement of a person's rights under the charter, particularly under section 11(b) of the charter. It was incumbent upon all of us in the words of the Supreme Court to address the culture of complacency which for far too long has shackled our ability to address delay.

Having had the benefit of reflection and having had the benefit of consultation and discourse in the context of Bill C-75, we now have a suite of reforms which will not solve all of the problems, but certainly will begin to dramatically rewire and hopefully create a criminal justice system, a set of processes, which will allow people to have access to justice, have the right to have their day in court, and begin that path to rehabilitation which is so important in order to create communities which are strong, resilient and safe.

I will now highlight some of the important components of Bill C-75, much of which has been debated for quite some time now in this House and at committee. Eventually, the bill will make its way over to the other place and then back.

It begins at the very start of the criminal justice system process when an individual is arrested and is brought before the court for his or her first appearance. It is at that moment the court is then asked to determine whether that person should be released or detained pending his or her trial.

We have enshrined a principle of restraint in Bill C-75, the point of which is to ensure that justice actors who are appearing in court, either representing the Crown or the defence or in their capacity as duty counsel, are not automatically overburdening judicial interim release orders with conditions which essentially are a prescription for reoffending and failure. Rather, through this principle of restraint, we are encouraging all of the parties who are involved in the determination of bail to assess the conditions which are necessary to address one of the three statutory grounds on which an individual is released.

From the perspective of the primary grounds, if the person is a flight risk, what are the conditions that are necessary to secure the person's ongoing attendance before the court? On the secondary grounds, is there a serious risk of reoffending? What are the conditions that are necessary for the purposes of ensuring that the community's concerns are addressed on secondary grounds? Obviously, under the tertiary grounds, we question whether there are additional conditions which are required to maintain the public's confidence in the administration of justice. Again, we look for some nexus between what are the conditions which are being asked for by either party and their advancement of the tertiary ground concerns.

We have, through the principle of restraint, really fostered a much more responsible approach. This is about addressing the culture of the criminal justice system right from the get-go, once a person is implicated with charges at the bail stage.

We have also, in the context of Bill C-75, introduced a suite of reforms that will, hopefully, reduce the number of administration of justice offences which are in the system. Looking at the statistics which are available right across the country, we see, for example in the province of Ontario, that over 40% of the charges in the provincial court system, the Ontario Court of Justice, could be classified under the administration of justice offences.

We are looking to find alternative ways to address potential breaches through the principle of restraint, to actually reduce the likelihood that there will be an unnecessary technical charge which is unrelated to the underlying substantive offence, but also to introduce a concept called judicial referral hearings, where even if there is a legitimate breach, to look for other ways to address it, short of introducing an entire set of new charges.

I would also point out that Bill C-75 addresses intimate partner violence. This is something that I heard very personally and I know the minister did as well in our round tables. There is the need to address the systemic barriers which for far too long have prevented victims from coming forward. How are we doing that? In the case of repeat offenders, people who have been convicted in the past of sexual offences or offences related to intimate partner violence, to put the onus on them to determine whether they should be entitled to bail, and also to look for additional factors to be taken into consideration.

At the back end there are more tools available both to the prosecutor as well as to the court to determine what is the appropriate sentence by lifting the maximum sentences available, again for repeat offenders. That, coupled with the investments which we are making in the victims fund, by looking at other ways in which we can make it easier for victims to be able to come forward to ensure that they are heard, to ensure that they have a voice in the system, is absolutely crucial in order to ensure that there is access to justice.

These are just some of the highlights in Bill C-75. Again, there is no one simple solution to solving all of the challenges which the criminal justice system is confronted with.

I rise with great pride to speak on behalf of the bill. I urge all members to support it. At the end of the day, it will bring the criminal justice system into the 21st century and therefore be a great service to our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague outlined a number of the positive elements of the bill. Certainly on this side of the House, we agree that there are some positive elements in it. The intimate partner violence reform is one that we applaud. What he has neglected to say is that there are many other crimes for which the sentences are being reduced, for example, human trafficking.

Under the leadership of our former prime minister Stephen Harper and my colleague Joy Smith, we led the play on human trafficking. The fact that human trafficking of children and young people occurs in our country is unfortunate and despicable.

At the justice committee hearing on human trafficking, former human trafficker, Donald, testified that if the government were to be lenient on the sentencing of convicted human traffickers, it would be like a carte blanche for traffickers to expand this despicable industry and further harm Canadian kids.

Could my colleague indicate if he is in fact in favour of making more lenient sentences for those who would abduct a child, the human traffickers in our country?

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. colleague across the aisle knows better than to ask such a rhetorical question. Of course, no member on the government side of this chamber is in favour of being lenient and turning a blind eye to human trafficking. In fact, I would point out that under the last Conservative administration, there were broad cuts made to our public safety apparatus to the tune of three-quarters of a billion dollars, which undermined our ability to bring human traffickers to justice.

This government has reversed those cuts. Not only that, we introduced legislation to provide additional tools to prosecutors to ensure that the appropriate burdens would be in place so we could bring human traffickers to justice. To that I would also add that Bill C-75 is precisely about ensuring that we have access to justice by introducing a suite of procedural reforms, which I addressed in my commentary.

Once we get beyond the kind of regrettable rhetoric that we hear from the Conservative benches, and in particular the member who just posed that question, we see we have before us a very strong bill. It is based on evidence and on data. I would encourage my hon. colleague to look at some of that information and vote in support of Bill C-75.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the work I have done in my riding, I have heard both from the RCMP and from legal representatives. They are frustrated with dealing with issues that are really better served by people who provide support and deal with social issues.

When we look at the bill, again, we see the absolute neglect of dealing with the social issues and understanding that not all of these issues need to be in the legal system. We know the system is already overflowing. There are so many challenges. In fact, multiple experts have said that this will not deal with that at all and that it will not actually do what it says, which is to ensure the system has fewer people going through it.

I would appreciate it if the member could talk about how he or his government would justify not addressing the social issues that are clogging our system every day.

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that we cannot solve all of the social issues in the context of Bill C-75. If she had listened carefully to my remarks, I made that concession at the very outset.

However, I would point out that the experts we have listened to very carefully, including the Criminal Lawyers' Association, while they do not agree with every aspect of Bill C-75, they do support many of the measures as they relate to bail reform and to reducing the systemic barriers that have plagued our system for far too long when it comes to addressing the indigenous, marginalized and vulnerable individuals who come before the courts at both the bail and the sentencing phases.

Inasmuch as my hon. colleague is concerned about this government's commitment to addressing the social issues that our country faces, I would point out that we have introduced a national housing strategy. It will invest $40 billion over the next 12 years and it will reduce homelessness significantly. Under this government, we have introduced the Canada child benefit plan, which has put more money into the pockets of nine out of 10 families and has lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. By doing that, we will see fewer of those youth, with whom I worked very closely, caught up in the criminal justice system.

That is a result of both Bill C-75 before the House, as well as the social investments we are making and of which we should all be very proud.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour to be in the House to speak to this important justice bill.

Bill C-75, sadly, is a deeply flawed, 302-page omnibus bill introduced by the government. Are there some positive aspects? Yes. However, the way it has been done, rammed through, not properly dialogued, not properly considered and ignoring the opposition members at committee, is a very serious and concerning process.

The previous speaker, when asked about the bill, said that the Conservative comments were regrettable rhetoric. It is that attitude, where the Liberals have a majority in the House, they can ram things through and get their way every time. It appears to be an arrogant attitude with the government dismissing any critique.

The Prime Minister continues to show that he does not take the safety and security of Canadians seriously. He is not listening to positive critique. He is watering down serious offences, such as impaired driving causing bodily harm, using date rape drugs and human trafficking. These are all serious crimes.

There are 136 offences included in Bill C-75, offences like participating in the activities of a terrorist group. One of two amendments, coming from the Conservative Party, were made at the justice committee. The government then permitted its members in committee to accept an amendment on that one, and that was withdrawn. Another is advocating genocide.

How did the Liberals come up with this list of 136 offences? Why did it only accept to remove two, advocating genocide and participating in a terrorist group? What about the other 134 offences?

The Liberals have taken any offence that is a serious indictable offence, with a maximum sentence of 10 years, and they have grouped them into one group, and we have Bill C-75 in front of us. It is offences like prison breach, municipal corruption, influencing municipal official, influencing or negotiating appointments or deals in offices, violence against a clergy person, keeping a common bawdy house, punishment for infanticide and concealing body of child.

There are 134 offences. Do some of them need to be updated? Yes, but it needs to be done in a constructive, proper way.

The Criminal Code of Canada did not come into play a year ago. It has come through the judicial system, through the legal system, through the legislative system for years and years. Last year, Canada celebrated its 150th birthday. Over the years, we have learned from other countries what the laws should be and what is the appropriate sentencing. We have also learned about respecting the courts and giving the courts discretion.

Over the years, we have come up with appropriate sentencing. To review this is a good practice. It should be done. One of the things I am quite concerned about is that in the last Parliament we had a major focus on victims in Canada. The Victims Bill of Rights came out of that, and that was a huge accomplishment. Part of that was a system where there would be a victim surcharge, where an offender would pay into a victims fund to take care of victims. This is being repealed in Bill C-75. It will be gone, again taking away opportunities to take care of victims.

In the little time I have to speak, I would like to focus on impaired driving. Impaired driving causing bodily harm, causing death, is the number one criminal offence in Canada. It is a very serious offence. I have received tens of thousands of petitions. There is not usually a week that goes by where I am not honoured to present a petition on behalf of Families For Justice. Every member of Families For Justice has lost a loved one.

Markita Kaulius lives in my riding. She is the president of Families For Justice. She and Victor lost their beautiful daughter to a drunk driver. She was 22 years old when she was killed.

In these petitions, the petitioners are asking that the charge of impaired driving causing death be called “vehicular homicide”, and that if a person is arrested and convicted of impaired driving, there should be an automatic one-year driving prohibition. It sounds reasonable. Also, if a person is convicted of causing bodily harm while impaired, by being under the influence of either drugs or alcohol, there should be a minimum mandatory sentence of two years imprisonment. If a person is convicted of causing a collision while being impaired and a person is killed, they are asking for a mandatory minimum sentence of five years imprisonment.

In the last Parliament, the government introduced a bill to toughen up laws on mandatory minimum sentences, which is what Families For Justice is asking for. It did not include calling it vehicular homicide. It was dealing with the mandatory minimums, getting tough on crime.

At the end of the last Parliament, Families For Justice contacted each of the leaders. The current Prime Minister wrote a letter to Families For Justice and said that he would support getting tough on crime. Sadly, Bill C-75 would remove impaired driving causing bodily harm, failing to provide a bodily sample and blood alcohol over the limit from indictable offences and make them hybrid offences. In actuality, this would take these offences, at the choice of the prosecution, out of federal court. Because they could be summary convictions, they would be put into provincial court. The federal government would be downloading onto provincial courts.

In British Columbia, I have been regularly shocked to see cases being thrown out of court by judges because they have gone on too long. We then end up with the federal government downloading all these indictable cases onto the provincial court. The Criminal Code being enforced will exasperate provincial justice, by making serious offences like kidnapping, abducting a person under the age of 14 summary convictions. Why should people who would abduct a child, who could be charged with a serious indictable offence, with a 10-year maximum, now have a summary conviction available to them? This would be two years less a day and put into the provincial courts.

The government says one thing and does something totally different. It promised Markita Kaulius, Families For Justice and other Canadians that it was going to get tough on crime. We hear regularly that it is getting tough on impaired driving, but in fact it does nothing like that. What it says and what it does are two totally different things.

It brings to mind the proverb, “A tree is known by its fruit”. If there are apples on the branches of that tree, it is an apple tree. If there are pears on it, it is a pear tree. If it is a tree of deceit, the country groans. Canadians want justice. They want a government that spends the time to do it right when it makes legislative changes, not ram it through because it has the ability to do it.

Therefore, I hope the government will ask some good questions, some important questions. With the way it is handling Bill C-75, I have received a lot of phone calls, emails and regular input from my constituents. I am sure every one of us is getting the same kinds of phone calls with respect to Bill C-75, saying to vote against Bill C-75. Therefore, that is what I plan to do.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, by way of a comment, I would indicate to the member opposite that federal-provincial-territorial conferences have been held about this very issue, responding to the Jordan decision, which was rendered two years ago. There have also been extensive consultations around the country, both in person and online, to hear from Canadians. Therefore, “ramming this through” is probably a bit of a mischaracterization for this bill.

With respect to my question, what I would put to my friend opposite is this. The very specific way we are responding to the problem of domestic violence is by categorizing it as “intimate partner violence”, by expanding the definition of who an intimate partner can be, including a dating partner or a non-married spouse, and ensuring that the penalties for intimate partner violence are increased. I know the member opposite and many of his colleagues care deeply about victims rights. In the case of victims of domestic violence, we absolutely abide by that and hear those kinds of criticisms. Therefore, could the member comment on whether he approves our changes to the intimate partner violence provisions and the increased penalties for people who are guilty of that kind of domestic violence?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, consultation is listening, taking into consideration, and learning from one another. Just having meetings with people within our provincial directorate is not proper consultation.

I was not part of those consultations. However, I strongly believe that the provinces in this great country of Canada did not ask to make softer impaired driving laws. Just like they have told Canadians and told us, I believe they told the provincial bodies that they were going to toughen up impaired driving laws. However, with Bill C-75 they are making them weaker. Those provincial consultations did not say it was okay to bypass abducting a child or to participate in criminal organizations. Therefore, the government has blown it on Bill C-75.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member across the way talked about kidnapping. It is somewhat disturbing that the Conservatives do not seem to recognize that there is a bit of a difference. Imagine an individual going through a divorce and one parent assumes custody. If one day the child is very disgruntled or upset with the parent who has custody, he or she may decide to go over to the other parent's house, and a day later there could be allegations of kidnapping. There is a big difference between that sort of kidnapping versus a kidnapping where a child is apprehended from a schoolyard and literally used in the sex trade, possibly murdered or something of that nature. Would the member across the way acknowledge the difference between those two types of kidnapping?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would acknowledge that there is a big difference. That is why the courts need to have discretion. However, what we are hearing from the government is that participation in the activities of a terrorist group or advocating genocide is also within that same grouping of legislation, Bill C-75. It accepted amendments to remove those two, but everything else had to stay because it is close-minded and would not accept consultation from Canadians.

Bill C-75 has a lot of problems with it. That is why Canadians do not want us to vote for it.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his remarks.

We all know that Conservatives and New Democrats do not always agree. However, one point on which we can agree is that the government's failure to appoint judges is deplorable. Without more judges, delays in the justice system will not get better.

I would like to know if my colleague finds that utterly deplorable. The election is a year away, but we all know that anything the government does between now and then will be motivated solely by a desire to get re-elected.

For the past three years, the government's legislative agenda has been quite sparse. The government has not changed much, and when it does do something people were looking forward to, such as this bill, it does a poor job.

What does the member think of that?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member brings up a very good point. When the justice minister had the responsibility of appointing judges, six months went by before there were any appointments, and this created a backlog. Now with Bill C-75 and offences being downloaded onto the provincial government, there will be an additional backlog. The Liberals are creating a judicial and legislative mess. They have accomplished very little in the House and now they want to ram Bill C-75 through because they have the most bodies in the House.

These important issues need to be handled properly and they are not being handled properly by the current government.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to speak on Bill C-75. Through this bill, our government is fulfilling its promise to move forward with comprehensive criminal justice reform. Once passed, this legislation would have a real effect on court delays and help reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous people and other marginalized groups in the criminal justice system, including those with mental health and addiction issues. It would also help to make juries more representative of the communities they serve.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Justice and all members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for all the hard work they have done to make sure we get this bill right.

I will focus my remarks on amendments to the Criminal Code that would remove provisions declared unconstitutional, primarily by the Supreme Court of Canada, and that already have no force or effect, but continue to appear in the code.

Bill C-75 would repeal the offences of anal intercourse, vagrancy, spreading false news, procuring a miscarriage and bawdy house offences. This bill would also remove provisions relating to the offence of murder, as well as provisions that prevented judges from giving enhanced credit for time served in custody prior to sentencing.

Bill C-75 proposes to repeal section 230 of the Criminal Code, which was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Martineau in 1990 because it infringed on section 7, which is the right of life, liberty and security of persons, and paragraph 11(d), which is the presumption of innocence in the charter. Section 230 could result in a murder conviction if the accused caused the death of a person while committing another offence, like robbery, even if the person did not intend to kill the victim. The court made clear that the label of murderer and the mandatory life sentence was reserved for those who had the intent to kill or injure so severely that they know the victim could die.

The Martineau decision also found part of paragraph 229(c) unconstitutional because it allowed a conviction for murder where a person, in pursuing an illegal activity, causes someone's death when the individual should have known, but did not, that death was a likely outcome of his or her actions. Bill C-75 proposes to remove this unconstitutional provision.

The continued presence of these invalid provisions in the Criminal Code can cause delays, inefficiencies and injustice to the accused. Bill C-75's proposed amendments would make it clear that those convicted of murder must have foreseen the death of the victim.

Bill C-75 would also repeal the prohibition against anal intercourse. It has been declared unconstitutional by several courts because it discriminates on the basis of age, marital status and sexual orientation.

Bill C-75 would also repeal section 181, which prohibits the spreading of false news. This offence dates back to 13th century England and targeted conduct meant to sow discord between the population and the king. The Supreme Court struck down this provision in R. v. Zundel in 1992 because it unjustifiably violates freedom of expression and lacks a clear and important societal objective that could justify its broad scope.

As Bill C-75 proposes to appeal this unenforceable offence, some might wonder whether this leaves a gap in criminal law, including the ability to target false news in some way. These questions are quite relevant today in the light of fake news discourse and the concerns of such fake news to promote hate against particular groups. In this respect, it is worth noting that the Criminal Code already contains a robust set of hate propaganda offences and other hate crime-related provisions, including, for example, the public incitement of hatred offences found in section 319.

Bill C-75 would also repeal the abortion offence in section 287 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits the procurement of a miscarriage and was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court 30 years ago in the Morgentaler case. The Supreme Court's guidance was clear. It said forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term, unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus a violation of security of the person. It is long overdue that this invalid provision be removed from our Criminal Code.

Additional amendments to modernize the criminal law were adopted by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for its work and I would like to take a moment to discuss this as well.

As tabled, Bill C-75 repealed part of the vagrancy offence. The provision against loitering near a school ground, playground or public park for persons convicted of certain offences, paragraph 179(1)(b), was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Haywood in 1994 because it was overly broad in applying to “too many places, to too many people, for an indefinite period with no possibility of review.” The justice committee went further and adopted a motion to repeal the vagrancy offence committed by supporting oneself by gaming or crime and having no lawful provision or calling, found in paragraph 179(1)(a).

Modern Canadian criminal law is not concerned with the status of an individual such as unemployed, but rather and rightly focuses on morally blameworthy conduct. The justice committee also heard that this offence was used in a historically discriminatory fashion to target members of a particular community. I am pleased that the committee agreed to remove this offence in its entirety and I am confident that it leaves no gap in the law.

The justice committee also unanimously adopted an amendment that repeals bawdy house offences at sections 210 and 211 of the Criminal Code. This amendment responds to the concerns that these provisions are antiquated and also have been used as discriminatory against the LGBTQ2 community and no longer serve a legitimate criminal law purpose. Their net effect is to criminalize anyone who has any kind of association with a bawdy house. This is inconsistent with modern criminal law, which criminalizes blameworthy conduct not location in which certain activities take place, nor a person's status in respect to such location. The repeal of the bawdy house offences would also leave no gap in the law as discussed by the committee during its consideration of this issue.

We have a responsibility as parliamentarians to ensure that our laws are as clear as possible to all Canadians, not just criminal law experts who can weave the Criminal Code together with the jurisprudence to better understand the true state of the law. Clarity contributes to accessibility. This is particularly important to criminal law given its significant impact on an individual's liberty and on public safety. Lack of clarity with the law also results in costs aside from tangible costs on the justice system such as wasted police, prosecution and court resources. They are at risk of injustice to the accused and intangible costs to victims.

Moreover, the reliance on unconstitutional laws has a negative impact on the reputation of the criminal justice system and affects Canadians' confidence in that system. These amendments promote clarity in the law and respect for the charter and should be without any controversy. These changes are consistent with the objectives of other amendments contained in Bill C-75 in the way they will make our system more efficient and more accessible.

I urge all members of the House to vote in favour of the motion and once again I want to take this opportunity to thank the minister for all the consultations that she has done with many members of our society as well as the justice committee for all the work it does.

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

Mr. Speaker, sections of the Criminal Code have been deemed unconstitutional and are therefore of no force or effect. I was astounded that the parliamentary secretary would pat the government on the back for moving forward in this bill with the rightful removal of those sections when it was all the way back in the fall of 2016 when the second-degree murder charges against Travis Vader were thrown out of court because the trial judge applied section 230 of the Criminal Code.

The member made reference to the Martineau decision. Following that, the McCann family, who come from my community of St. Albert, Bret McCann, his son and his wife Mary-Ann, and I pleaded for the minister to introduce legislation. The member for Mount Royal, the chair of the justice committee, wrote to the minister to urge her to introduce legislation. She introduced legislation, to her credit, on March 8, 2017 in Bill C-39.

Bill C-39 has been stuck at first reading, when we could have gotten it done by way of unanimous consent. Why did the government delay almost two years before finally moving forward in Bill C-75? It is too little, too late for the McCann family.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the work our government has done to introduce this legislation to modernize the criminal justice system and reduce court delays.

The proposed reforms are a key component of a federal strategy to transform the criminal justice system and make it more efficient, more effective, and fairer and more accessible while protecting public safety. The proposed reforms also aim to reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous persons and vulnerable populations in the criminal justice and court system. Many of these law reforms reflect a collaborative intergovernmental effort to address court delays, and have been identified as priorities by the federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion of my colleague opposite. I would want to believe that too, if I were her. I would want to believe what my colleagues told me, what my ministerial colleague told me.

Can she tell me whether she will at least have a chance to look into how little progress the current government has made on its legislative agenda compared with the previous government at the same point in time?

When a bill is suddenly introduced, it is only natural to say that we are going to examine it, but ultimately, many witnesses and experts in the field believe that Bill C-75 does not come close to doing what needs to be done.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question, but this is a very comprehensive piece of legislation that was done in consultation with many key stakeholders. As we have said all along, there is no simple solution for addressing the issue of court delays. We are already doing so as part of our collaboration with our provincial and territorial partners. However, this legislation and all of the actions taken to date are aimed at addressing the root causes of the delays. This bill intends to bring more cultural shift within the criminal justice system, something that the Supreme Court in its Jordan decision stressed is required.

Once again, I thank the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for its extensive study of Bill C-75 and the amendments it has proposed. We believe these amendments help strengthen Bill C-75. I hope that all members of the House—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the member opposite, in her role in international affairs, has encountered countries where forced marriage exists. I am astounded that the government here in Canada could allow forced marriage in this bill, which essentially means individuals being forced to have sex again and again with someone they did not give consent to. How can a government that claims to be feminist and a defender of women's rights think that the penalty for that should be a summary conviction of less than two years or a fine?

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I just heard from my hon. colleague is just absurd. Again, with Bill C-75 we are advocating bold reforms that would address court delays in our criminal justice system. Nothing in this bill would change the fundamental principles of sentencing. Our courts will continue to impose sentences that are proportionate to the gravity of the offences and the degree of responsibility of the offenders.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I would appreciate if the hon. member would let me speak, when he could have—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate today on Bill C-75, introduced on March 29, 2018. The bill has now been studied by the justice and human rights committee and returned to the House. I am optimistic that we can move this important piece of legislation forward today. Bill C-75 includes important amendments that reflect the government's unwavering commitment to tackling gender-based violence.

Last June, the government launched a federal strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence across Canada. The 2017 budget included $100.9 million over five years and an additional $20.7 million per year thereafter to fund this important strategy, which would ensure there is more support for vulnerable populations, such as women and girls, indigenous people, LGBTQ2 community members, gender non-binary individuals, those living in rural and remote communities, and people with disabilities, among many others.

Budget 2018 announced a further $86 million over five years and $20 million per year in ongoing funding to enhance this strategy. The three pillars of the strategy—prevention, support for survivors and their families, and promotion of a responsive legal and justice system—will better align these and existing resources to ensure that current gaps in support are filled.

Bill C-75 complements these initiatives and further supports the third pillar of the federal gender-based violence strategy by promoting a more responsive legal and justice system. It specifically targets intimate partner violence, which is one of the most common forms of gender-based violence. Intimate partner violence includes things like sexual, physical and psychological abuse, as well as controlling behaviours. Bill C-75 proposes to define “intimate partner” throughout the Criminal Code to clarify that it includes a current or former spouse, common-law partner and a dating partner.

This clarification is sorely needed to reflect the current reality, which is that so many of the individuals accused of violence against women before the courts are in fact dating partners, as opposed to spouses. According to data from Statistics Canada, victimization by an intimate partner was the most common form of police-reported violent crime against women in 2016. Based on police-reported data from 2016, we also know that violence within dating relationships was more common than violence within spousal relationships.

The new definition of intimate partner violence would apply in the sentencing context, where judges would have to consider any evidence of abuse against a former or current spouse, common-law partner and dating partner as an aggravating factor. Higher maximum penalties for repeat intimate violence offenders would also be available to sentencing judges under this legislation.

In addition to the reverse onus on bail, Bill C-75 would add two new factors that a judge would have to consider before making an order to release or detain an accused. Bail courts would have to consider an accused's criminal record, something that already routinely occurs but is not mandated, as well as whether an accused has ever been charged with an offence that involved violence against an intimate partner. These factors would ensure that judges have a more complete picture and are fully informed of any prior history of violence that could threaten the safety of a victim or the public at large.

In 2016, Statistics Canada reported that the type of violence most often experienced by victims of intimate partner violence was physical force, which includes more serious harm, such as choking. The reforms proposed in Bill C-75 would further enhance victim safety by clarifying that strangulation, choking and suffocation constitute a more serious form of assault under section 267 of the Criminal Code, punishable by a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment, instead of a simple assault, which carries a maximum penalty of five years. It would also ensure that sexual offences involving strangulation, choking or suffocation are treated as the more serious form of sexual assault, which imposes a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment if the victim is an adult, and life if the victim is a child, under section 272 of the Criminal Code. This would depart from the existing penalty for simple sexual assault, which is a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment under section 271, or 14 years when the victim is under 16.

Unfortunately, under existing law, courts do not always recognize the seriousness of these types of assaults, which often occur in the context of intimate partner violence. These aggressive acts cannot be underappreciated or dismissed as simply reflecting a perpetrator's anger management problem. Strangulation and choking pose a much higher risk to safety than other forms of assault, because they deprive a person of oxygen, with potentially fatal consequences, despite the fact the person might not have any visible injuries. The proposed amendment would better reflect the gravity of the harm inflicted.

While strong laws are a necessary part of tackling gender-based violence, it is important to understand how this legislation complements existing programs and initiatives that, together, ensure that the justice system is working at its full potential.

Over the past couple of years, the government has been working closely with the provinces and territories to improve the criminal justice system's response to gender-based violence. For example, since 2016, the government has provided funding for projects designed to improve responses to sexual assaults against adults. This funding has been made available through the federal victims fund to provinces and territories, municipal governments, first nations, and criminal justice and non-governmental organizations.

The funding is supporting pilot projects in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador to provide independent legal advice to victims of sexual assault, and the Government of Ontario to further enhance its existing project. Alberta has developed a similar program that is being administered and funded through the provincial ministry of the status of women.

Strong criminal justice responses to gender-based violence, including measures that aim to enhance access to justice for victims, as well as the proposals in Bill C-75, are especially significant right now in the wake of the #MeToo movement, as so many sexual assault survivors are coming forward to acknowledge and share their experiences of sexual violence. Indeed, a November 9, 2018 report by Statistics Canada indicates that the number of police-reported sexual assaults sharply increased by 25% following the beginning of the #MeToo movement in October 2017. The harrowing accounts shared by survivors have shed light on the many social and economic barriers that sexual assault victims have faced and continue to face, with devastating consequences for individuals, their families, and their communities. As more stories of sexual assault are told, we must ensure that the victims and survivors are treated with compassion and respect and that the criminal justice system responds appropriately.

I firmly believe that the proposals to enhance the safety of victims of intimate partner violence in Bill C-75 are a necessary response to this horrific societal problem. I am proud to be part of a government that takes violence against women seriously, as I know all of us in the House do, and one that remains unwavering in its commitment to ensuring that the victims of gender-based violence and their loved ones are treated with the utmost respect and dignity. I hope members will all join me in supporting this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I find interesting about the bill before us is clauses 106 and 107, which have to do with people who participate in human trafficking. Clause 106 talks about material benefit, and clause 107 talks about destroying documents. Also, clause 389 talks about removing consecutive sentencing for those who participate in human trafficking.

I listened to the member talk about much violence against women. However, human trafficking is terrible thing that happens right here in Canada, and often 10 blocks from where one lives. I am wondering how the member can square what she said in her speech with a bill that would reduce the sentencing for human traffickers. In some cases, someone would only end up being fined for participating in human trafficking.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me say to my hon. colleague that I appreciate his interest in the issue of human trafficking. Many of us in the House and elsewhere are well aware of what goes on out there in this terrible world when it comes to trafficking in human beings, whether it is occurring on our local streets or elsewhere.

Some of the work I did on prostitution and trafficking some years back, as a city councillor, was about helping people better. I think we all intend to make sure that the laws of the land protect people and help those victims who find themselves in the terrible position of being trafficked or used for sexual exploitation.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is a quote from an article by Elizabeth Sheehy and Isabel Grant, in the Toronto Star, entitled “Bill C-75 reforms too little, too late....” It says:

A woman is killed by her current or former partner every six days in Canada. Indigenous women are killed by their intimate partners at a rate eight times higher. Domestic violence is a national crisis.

The federal government’s Bill C-75, introduced last month, proposes changes to the criminal law response to domestic violence. But the bill will do too little, too late. What we need is a comprehensive, integrated strategy to prevent and respond to domestic violence, and resources to support women extricating themselves from violent relationships.

We know that women's organizations that address issues of domestic violence have been coming again and again begging for money they desperately need to help these women prevent these kinds of situations. We know that the government is absolutely not providing the support they desperately need.

If this bill is so great, I want to know what the follow-up will be to make sure that these women are supported so that they can begin to have trust in the justice system of Canada.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think we all share this major concern that Bill C-75 would improve the safety of women and others throughout this country. Much of the new Department of the Status of Women will have additional funding in that category so that we can support initiatives that will help women get out of difficult relationships.

Part of this, as we go forward, I think, is that the # MeToo movement has had a huge impact. The fact is that no one will get away with abusing anyone, whether a man, woman or child. Society, for far too long, has stayed too quiet on many of these fronts. I think we have to really push on the whole issue of education. I know that our government will continue to invest significantly so that education becomes a big part of this. No one should be allowed to raise a hand against anyone, man, woman or child.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to parlay a little off what my hon. colleague before me had to say. It was very interesting that she very much went around the concept of standing up for violence against women.

This bill is, again, one of these things where the Liberals say they are trying to do one particular thing, and then they go off and do something completely different. When this bill was introduced, the minister said that this was going to improve efficiency in the criminal justice system and reduce court delays. The Liberals then just seemed to water down a whole bunch of sentences to reduce backlogs in the courts. They also wanted to improve and streamline bail hearings.

The goals they stated off the top were laudable. I think everyone in this place has the goal to make the justice system work better. That is something I think everyone who comes to this place can agree on. How we get there is where we disagree. If Bill C-75 actually accomplishes some of these things, we would definitely be on the right track.

Conservatives always look at the justice system from the point of view of the victim. It seems to me that the Liberals always want to look at it from the point of view of the perpetrator.

My first concern about this bill is that it is an omnibus bill. It is a mashup of various other policies. We have seen, over the time I have been here, that bills are introduced, and they keep being added to. I think Bill C-36 has been put in here, and a number of other bills have been lumped in with this bill. We have seen the progression of that. Now it is this monstrosity of a bill that is fairly unmanageable. As my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton pointed out earlier, we had the opportunity to fix a number of these things earlier on, but the government has dithered on some of them.

A lot of people say that I am always criticizing the government, so could I just point out every now when it does something good. There are some good pieces in here. Bill C-75 would increase the maximum term for repeat offenders involved in intimate partner violence, and it would provide that the abuse of an intimate partner would be an aggravating factor in sentencing. I am totally supportive of that.

I am also supportive of the reverse onus for bail in the case of domestic assault. Indeed, I have written letters to the justice minister on that as well. Women who have been violently assaulted by their spouses should have confidence that the justice system will protect their interests and put their safety first.

Another important element of Bill C-75 is that the act of strangulation would be made a more serious level of assault. I am totally fine with that as well.

There are a number of areas I have concerns about in this bill, particularly the way it treats human trafficking. With such significant changes, we would have expected the government to consult widely. Over the last number of years, I have been working with a lot of groups that are concerned about the human trafficking happening right here in Canada. We suggested that these folks contact the justice committee to try to become witnesses at the committee.

The justice committee heard from 95 witnesses on Bill C-75. Over 70% of the witnesses at the justice committee were justice system lawyers, which would totally make sense if this bill was about streamlining the justice system. We would want lawyers to show up. However, this bill is not predominantly about that. It is predominantly about lowering sentences for a whole raft of different offences.

When we are dealing with a bill that would lower sentences, or hybridize these offences, which I think is the term that is used, certainly we should hear from some of the groups that represent the victims of some of these offences. However, we did not hear much from them at all. Just over 10% of those groups came to committee.

With respect to law enforcement, we would think that because they are the people who have to enforce these laws and use the Criminal Code to charge people that perhaps we should hear from them as well. Do members know how many police officers were heard at this committee? Out of 95 witnesses, one police officer showed up or was asked to come. That was also kind of disturbing.

From my limited experience travelling across the country, I know that the issues people face in northern Alberta and in Peace River country are quite a bit different from the issues people face in downtown Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver and across the territories. To hear from one police officer how the bill would affect his job seems to me to be limited, particularly when it deals with a whole bunch of different areas the police work in.

The police work every day to keep us safe, and they rely on Parliament to make sure that they have laws they can use. It seems to me that we should have heard particularly from victims and police officers. To have only one police officer, out of 95 witnesses, seems a little interesting.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill C-75 would make significant changes to some of our human trafficking offences, changing them from indictable to these hybrid offences. As legislators, we are about to vote on these changes. It is important that we make informed decisions. Are these amendments going to be useful for police officers fighting human trafficking? We do not know, because again, we heard from only one police officer, and he was not able to address specifically the human trafficking aspect.

What we know is that at committee, not a single organization that works to fight human trafficking across the country was consulted on these changes. In fact, many of these human trafficking units across the country have no idea that these changes could even be coming into effect, which could be a problem, given that the police are investigating crimes as we speak but would now have pieces of the Criminal Code disappear or be reduced. It may be a problem for them.

I would also urge my colleagues in the Senate to ensure that there is better representation of victims and law enforcement during the Senate hearings on Bill C-75. As we know, the bill will be going to the Senate quickly, as just this morning, we were voting on the closure motion for this particular bill.

Clause 106 of the bill would change the material benefit from trafficking offence and the destroying documents trafficking offence. These offences would be changed from indictable to hybrid offences.

The chair of the justice committee was here. I have debated him before on this. He said that we need to ensure that there is leeway within the law, and I agree with him. He used the example of assault and said that there is a great variance in assault, from minor fisticuffs in the parking lot to someone being left for dead. He said that we need to be able to have variance in the law for that, from being able to issue a fine. My point to him on this particular section is that there should be a minimum for material benefit from human trafficking. Could he give me an example of a fairly minor human trafficking occasion? That seems to me to be ridiculous.

Modern-day slavery is an affront to humanity, and there ought to be a minimum sentence of more than just a fine. I think all of us standing in this place would agree. I do not care if one is the nicest slave-owner on the planet, it is still slavery, and there ought to be a minimum sentence for that and not merely a fine. I was very frustrated by that. The other thing is that this will be downloaded to the provincial courts.

We know that the vast majority of human trafficking victims in this country are female. The vast majority are very young, and about half of them are indigenous. We need to ensure that the risk of being caught for human trafficking outweighs the ability to make money from it.

The justice committee in the past, in a different study, heard that human traffickers make between $1,500 and $2,000 a day from a trafficked individual. Under Bill C-75, the trafficker would face a maximum $5,000 fine. A trafficker who is trafficking a young person in this country can make up to $300,000 a year. A $5,000 fine is ridiculous. That is just be the cost of doing business for that individual.

The other thing is that this would take away consecutive sentencing for human trafficking. Victims of human trafficking are afraid to come forward because they fear that it would then just be a short time before their pimp would be back out on the street hunting them down.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Peace River—Westlock for his contribution to today's debate, and for his ongoing concerns about human trafficking. It is an incredibly serious issue, and I thank him for raising it in this chamber repeatedly.

I have one comment and one question. The comment is that human trafficking was studied extensively by the standing committee prior to receiving Bill C-75. In order to address some of the very important witnesses and stakeholders the member has highlighted, the committee travelled right across the country to hear from them. The committee has yet to table its report, but when it does, I hope we will study its recommendations carefully.

The member and a number of his colleagues have consistently underscored the need to being tough on victims' rights and tough on sentencing to address those rights. We agree, and I am glad he agrees with the intimate partner violence provisions.

Is it a step in the right direction to be taking the standard sentence for summary conviction offences from six months to two years less a day? Does that address the needs of the victims he represents in Peace River—Westlock?

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

Mr. Speaker, taking it from six months to two years minus a day is not the dispute. The dispute is about the fact that the government is are taking something that could be a maximum sentence of 10 years and reducing it to possibly just a fine. That is where the dispute lies.

The other concern is with consecutive sentencing. If a trafficker is trafficking one girl or 10 girls, he is going to jail for either 10 years or 100 years. That makes quite a difference, particularly when in most cases it is not just one individual who is being trafficked. It makes a difference, in that the person being trafficked would then be confident that the trafficker would be put away for a significant amount of time, so they could get their life back in order, because the trafficker would not be coming back to where they live, hunting them down and putting them back to work.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague for his speech. We discussed our positions, which sometimes align, but often do not.

Obviously, I always feel a need to point out how disappointing this government's legislative agenda is. Given all of the serious problems Canada is facing, including those faced by first nations, this bill once again seems insufficient.

In the spring, the Criminal Lawyers' Association said that, sadly, intimate partner violence is one of the recognized legacies of residential schools and the sixties scoop. It believes that creating a reverse onus at the bail stage and increasing the sentence on conviction will likely aggravate the crisis of the overrepresentation of indigenous people in our prisons.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that. I think that is a major problem. The government is always talking about reconciliation, but it would be nice if the Liberals would take concrete action to improve this situation, rather than just being satisfied with public relations exercises.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what point my colleague is trying to make. However, he talked about the legislative agenda to some degree, and one of the things I can talk about in that regard is that a former colleague of his, the NDP member Maria Mourani, introduced a bill over five years ago. That bill was passed in a previous Parliament and was to come into force. The Liberals said they were going to bring it into force. That was five years ago. It is finally being addressed in this particular bill. While most of the tools in her bill, Bill C-452, are coming in, the Liberals have removed consecutive sentencing from the bill. While to some degree that proves that the human trafficking angle is definitely a non-partisan thing, it is also very frustrating that the Liberals cannot get on board with it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary referenced the study on human trafficking that the justice committee undertook. I can assure the House that everywhere we went, from all the stakeholders we met, from the victims, from law enforcement, nowhere did they say the offence of human trafficking needed to be hybridized.

The member for Peace River—Westlock spoke of not being able to figure out a case where this would be justified. Does it not speak to the haphazard way the bill was drafted, the fact that such offences were classed as minor offences that could be reduced to a ticketable offence under the Criminal Code?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the member's question also speaks to my previous one. It seems like a bad thing when people go to jail. We have a court system that seems to be clogged, which also seems like a bad thing. The Liberals' solution for this is to reduce the number of things that people can go to jail for, but that is not a solution.

Canada is a nation built upon laws. We have a threshold of behaviour that we are looking for. Let us work on the Canadian culture if that is what it will take to change this, not reduce the things people can go to jail for. A lot of these things are heinous crimes that people ought to go to jail for.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Carbon Pricing; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Marine Transportation.

[MaryAnn Mihychuk, Liberal, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand here today in this honourable House to talk about Bill C-75.

This is a long overdue change to the legal system, which has been bogged down, in many cases to such an extent that cases have been found to have lost their meaning and been adjourned. People whom we suspected were guilty got away without going through due process at all. Those circumstances cannot happen. It is not justice. It is not fair.

This is one step towards making a fairer, more efficient and effective judicial system. Bill C-75 is a meaningful and significant approach to promoting efficiency, and I would assume that all members of the House would like to see that happen. Efficiency and effectiveness are what every member would like to see in our systems, because we would not want to waste one penny of taxpayer money on something that could be done better. It is always our goal to do better. That is exactly what this bill does.

This bill would, in a significant way, promote efficiency in our criminal justice system, reduce case completion times, as I mentioned earlier, and contribute to increased public confidence while respecting the rights of those involved and ensuring that public safety is maintained.

In terms of preliminary inquiries, this bill would restrict preliminary inquires to adults accused of the 63 most serious offences in the Criminal Code, which carry a sentence of life imprisonment, like murder; and would reinforce a judge's power to limit the questions to be examined, as well as the number of witnesses who will appear.

The Supreme Court of Canada in its Jordan decision, and the Senate legal affairs committee in its final report on delays in the justice system, recommended that preliminary inquiry reform be considered. We should be proud to support a bill that takes into account not only the recommendations of this House but also of the upper house and of the provinces and territories that have been working on this issue for many years. It has been discussed for decades.

Some say that restricting preliminary inquiries might have little impact on the delays. Even though it concerns only 3% of the cases, it would still have a significant impact on those provinces where this procedure is used more often, such as Ontario and Quebec. We know, because of the population base involved, that this would have a significant impact on the whole judicial system.

Also, we cannot overlook the cumulative effect of all of Bill C-75's proposals that seek to streamline the criminal justice system process.

It is of course for the betterment of both the accused and victims to have the system move fairly and efficiently in a timely manner. The proposed preliminary inquiry amendments are the culmination of years of study and consideration in federal-provincial-territorial and other meetings.

We know that it is not easy to negotiate a framework when we have many divergent views and jurisdictions involved, but this is going to be good for Canadians. It will be good for the indigenous population of our country, who have unfortunately been the victim of a system that many have called racist. If we look at the number of indigenous people in our jails, it is extremely high. One must ask why the system seems to incarcerate so many more indigenous people than their population warrants. These changes will be more effective and fairer for our indigenous population, and that is a commitment of our Prime Minister.

This is a balanced approach. We often see that in this House, in particular, where we have the left and the right, the positions can be quite separated, with the Liberals coming in the middle and providing a balanced approach and centre to both.

I think most Canadians are reasonable centralists and, as we have seen in the past, this type of negotiated solution means compromises on both sides. As we look at the balanced approach between opposing views put forward by both committees and those expressed by the House, they are considered and put forward in this bill.

This bill would make this procedure more efficient and expedient. Of course, that is the goal of all of our programs for Canadians, as well as being meaningful, respectful and available to all Canadians. It is important to respect the accused person's right to a fair trial. This would also help witnesses and victims by preventing some of them from having to testify twice. That is just not reasonable for the system. It is hard on victims, very hard on witnesses, so to eliminate this would be of benefit to all.

Let us look at the issue of case management. Bill C-75 would allow for the earlier appointment of case management judges. This recognizes their unique and vital role in ensuring the momentum of cases is maintained, and that they are completed in an efficient, effective, just and timely manner. This was also recommended by the Senate report on delays in the criminal justice system.

It is important to discuss, even if briefly, the use of technology and how it would provide fairness, particularly to the indigenous population of Canada. I come from Manitoba, which has the highest per capita number of indigenous people of any province. In many cases, they are in fairly remote and isolated communities where participating in a full process is extremely difficult because there are no roads, access is limited and broadband connections are poor. These are all issues that make justice much more difficult for indigenous people in those circumstances.

In terms of technology, the bill proposes to allow remote appearances by audio or video conference for accused, witnesses, lawyers, judges, justices of the peace and interpreters, under certain circumstances. This would obviously assist many people, although it is not always appropriate. Canada has allowed remote appearances for many years, and these amendments seek to broaden the existing framework.

These optional tools in Bill C-75 aim to increase access to justice, streamline processes and reduce system costs, such as the transport of the accused and witness attendance costs, without impacting existing resources such as those through the indigenous court worker program. The changes we are proposing also respond to the Senate committee recommendations, which called for an increase to the use of remote appearances for accused persons.

In conclusion, the proposals in Bill C-75 in relation to preliminary inquiries, judicial case management and remote appearances, together with all of the other reforms, would ensure that our criminal justice system is efficient, just and in line with the values of our communities and all Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul spoke about preliminary inquiries. While there certainly was some support for limiting preliminary inquiries, the vast majority of witnesses who appeared before justice committee said that it was better to keep preliminary inquiries the way they are.

During the human trafficking study that the justice committee undertook, there was a Crown prosecutor who prosecuted one of the very few successful human trafficking cases in Canada. This individual said the preliminary inquiry was essential to the successful conviction of the individual at hand, because so many witnesses were disappearing. To get them in, under oath, at the preliminary inquiry stage was essential to their ability to then tender that evidence at trial. In addition, we know that 87% of cases are resolved at the preliminary inquiry stage.

In addition to that, there was some concern about the arbitrariness of using preliminary inquiry only for those cases where the maximum sentence is life. It may make some sense on a superficial level, but there are many instances where certain charges might carry life as a maximum sentence, and other similar ones where the sentence would be less than life. The sentencing ranges for both of those offences may be similar, yet only in one case would the accused be entitled to a preliminary inquiry.

I am wondering if the hon. member could address some of those points.

[MaryAnn Mihychuk, Liberal, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to talk a bit about the impact of the judicial system on victims. Imagine being involved in sexual abuse or being harmed in some way and having to testify in a preliminary hearing, only to have to testify once again during the trial and be victimized for a second time by the judicial system.

I am sure Canadians understand that the last thing we want to do is make a victim's life even harder through a judicial system that is not sensitive, particularly in the case of women who have been sexually assaulted.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul also touched upon the issue of peremptory challenges. This is something we took very seriously in terms of considering their abolition. Unanimously, before the justice committee, the criminal defence bar said that peremptory challenges were absolutely essential in order to ensure a fair trial.

In that regard, I would draw the hon. member's attention to the comments of Richard Fowler of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, who stated before the committee, “I will just say, as an aside, that the abolition of peremptory challenges is a huge mistake. I've selected over 100 juries, and I've never seen it misused. It's necessary.”

Another lawyer, Solomon Friedman, indicated that it was essential to ensure that juries are representative of the broader population.

Could the hon. member address those points?

[MaryAnn Mihychuk, Liberal, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to do so.

We remember cases in Canada where the jury did not reflect the local population. We heard from many people that there was a question of fairness and justice. Removing the peremptory challenge would, for example, limit the ability of a defence attorney to remove individuals based on something quite superficial. It might also limit the ability of the jury to be as reflective of the community as we would hope.

We want to ensure that there is representation from all of the ethnic groups in our local communities, and that the justice system is fair and open for all.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism (Multiculturalism)]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to speak here in support of 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.

I will start off by acknowledging that we are gathered here on the traditional lands of the Algonquin people.

To give members a sense of my involvement with the criminal justice system, I was a youth worker and ran a youth service agency several years ago. In fact, I came across a number of young people who had interactions with the criminal justice system. I found it quite frustrating that the young people were often looked at in silos with respect to the charges that were in front of them in their involvement with the criminal justice system.

Also, as a lawyer, I practised in this area very briefly. Over the years I have worked with a number of organizations that work with youth, especially those involved with the criminal justice system. Just last Christmas, along with the Toronto breakfast clubs and the Second Chance Scholarship Foundation, I was at the Roy McMurtry Youth Centre for young offenders and had a really good afternoon meeting with a number of young people who were involved in the criminal justice system and serving time.

As well, since my election as an MP, I have visited a number of institutions across Ontario, including detention centres and penitentiaries.

It is clear to me from my engagement with the criminal justice system that it is not fully working. There is a lot that we need to do to change it and to improve it. I believe Bill C-75 addresses a number of important issues. First and foremost are the issues of delay, safety in terms of our communities and, of course, the massive overrepresentation of certain groups within the system.

The reports of the Office of the Correctional Investigator are quite insightful, offering some drastic numbers that reflect what I believe are structural issues within our system. These issues often cause particular groups to be overly represented within the criminal justice system. For example, 40% of women in penitentiaries are indigenous, which is a gross overrepresentation in relation to the indigenous population in Canada.

Similarly, young black men represent roughly 8% of those serving time in penitentiaries, and indigenous men hover around 30%. We know that this representation is pronounced and disproportionate in relation to their overall numbers.

We can ask ourselves why this is so. In my current role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, in undertaking some discussions and engagements on anti-racism, it is very clear that there are underlying structural and systemic issues within our criminal justice system that have some very specific outcomes. Coupled with issues of poverty, disenfranchisement, a lack of housing and a whole host of other social determinants is a system that in many ways is deeply problematic in terms of the manner in which it treats certain groups of people.

However, Bill C-75 goes to some length to address these issues. It is probably not to the full extent that may be required, but it certainly goes a distance in addressing some of these structural issues, and I will talk about a few of them this afternoon.

Bill C-75 would change the way our system deals with the administration of justice offences. I cannot say the number of times I have worked with young people who have been charged with an offence, where oftentimes the evidence against the individuals is quite weak, but unfortunately, because of the terms of bail and the terms of release they often find themselves back in jail facing additional charges. It is deeply frustrating when we see that.

One of the immigration cases that came to my office involved a young man, 40 years old, who came to Canada when he was eight. He was involved with the child welfare system. I believe his first charge was when he was about 13, as a young offender. He was found not guilty of those charges, but within a year, he was charged and convicted of an offence of breach of condition, namely, that he did not appear in court. We are talking about a 14-year-old young man who, by all measure, had many obstacles in his life including the fact that he was separated from his parents and was growing up in the child welfare system. This young man ended up missing court and was convicted for the first time. Then I saw his record, and over and over again it was not the issues of the actual crime, but administration of justice offences that he was convicted of.

This really tells us that our system is not working. We can look across the country at many young men and women who are serving time because the way we have set up our system is one which is very punitive and restrictive. While it is essential to ensure public safety, I do think we can do this by making sure that the terms of release are proportionate and reasonable and are acceptable to all the parties. That is something which I see very often.

When I worked with young people, one of the standard terms of release that I saw in bail was non-attendance. If an incident took place at school or near a school, oftentimes a condition is that the young person does not attend that school or go near the school. How is it fair that a 15-year-old in grade 10 who is having some difficulties in life is restricted from going to that school? A change of school, a change of circumstance, would obviously extenuate the challenges a young person has in life and often will lead to a greater involvement with the criminal justice system.

I thought I would have time to speak to this in more detail. However, I will say that this bill is very important. It goes part of the way in addressing some of the systemic issues that we see in the criminal justice system and particularly with respect to the racialization of incarceration in Canada and many parts of the world, but particularly in Canada as documented by the Office of the Correctional Investigator and others who have pointed to highly polarizing numbers that speak to systemic issues within our criminal justice system.

In summary, the issues addressed in this bill are important, namely, the delay aspect and making sure the delays are limited by eliminating undue processes, as well as the overrepresentation that I discussed, and making sure that issues such as intimate partner violence are addressed. I believe that this is a very important bill that warrants the support of all of our colleagues here and across the aisle as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary is a lawyer, and I want to ask him a question in regard to the limitation on preliminary inquiries.

Evidence before the justice committee was that preliminary inquiries can serve as an important discovery aspect in which important evidence on complex motions before the court can serve a useful purpose to avoid mid-trial delays if it is not dealt with before getting to trial. It was pointed out in that regard that limiting preliminary inquiries in that context would have the potential impact of increasing delays rather than reducing delays, with an increased likelihood in mid-trial adjournments.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about issues such as preliminary inquiries, there are different perspectives. My experience has been there are oftentimes unnecessary delays put on because of this. Often there are people who are victimized who need to come back a number of times to testify. I believe Bill C-75 has found the right balance. While I respect the work of the committee, my experience has been otherwise in this area.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are well aware that the government had to respond to the Jordan decision and that that is the purpose of Bill C-75. However, the government failed to do one thing: ensure that delays will no longer be a problem. We need to make sure criminals actually get convicted and serve their time in jail.

Sadly, there is a case going on in Calgary that is very well known. Nick Chan is a notorious gang leader who was accused of murder and other crimes, but he has been released because his right to be tried within a reasonable time, as laid out in Jordan, was violated due to the shortage of judges.

The bill is a first step toward addressing the problem, but it has its flaws, which I mentioned earlier in my speech.

What is the government doing right now to fill those vacant seats and put more judges on the bench?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is something that is quite important to me. The appointment of judges who bring a breadth of experience and diversity to the bench is quite important.

As a government, we have taken some very important steps by establishing a process of appointment of judges that is one of the finest in the world and will withstand any type of scrutiny. We see our benches being filled with exceptionally talented people from all walks of life. As a government, this is something we fulfilled. We are on the right path in appointing the type of judges who should be on our benches.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned delays, moving away from the peremptory challenges which caused a lot of delays in our system and going toward the set aside provisions in the current proposed legislation to streamline the jury selection process, give control to the judges to make sure we have diversity. Could the hon. member talk about how that could improve our efficiency in the court system going forward?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the outcomes we see, the numbers we see year after year from the Office of the Correctional Investigator, should trouble all Canadians. They should really raise questions as to why certain provisions and practices exist and how they affect racialized people. It is very clear that peremptory challenge is one of those issues where we have seen some serious miscarriages of justice over the years. It is a very important step in Bill C-75 that would address a major concern of many victimized communities that have been seeking justice.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House today to speak to 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.

Before I begin my speech, I want to thank the hon. member for Victoria for the excellent work he did on this file in committee. He worked very hard. He proposed many amendments, asked witnesses questions, and made some insightful and very impressive remarks. That is what will fuel my remarks today.

Why are we voting against the bill? The purpose of the bill was to respond to the Jordan decision, but it does not respond to it correctly. That is one of the reasons we are voting against the bill. It does not go far enough, and it fails to achieve what it set out to do. That is the problem.

The stated objective of the bill was to comply with the Supreme Court's 2016 Jordan ruling and to clear the backlog in the justice system, which is very important.

The problem with the Jordan decision is that now the Charter guarantees the right to be tried within a reasonable time. That is fine. The Jordan decision set out a timeframe. The time limit between the laying of charges and the conclusion of the trial was set at 18 months, or 30 months in some cases.

If that deadline cannot be met, situations may arise—much like the notorious cases I mentioned earlier in my question—where real criminals who have committed very serious crimes can be let off without a trial. That is awful. That should never happen again. Our government should be ensuring that it never happens again.

That is why Bill C-75 was so highly anticipated. It should have corrected that situation, but unfortunately, it does not.

One of the major reforms in Bill C-75 is not based on sound evidence, and that is very problematic. The stated objective of the bill is to respond to the Jordan decision. However, we have serious doubts about whether the proposed amendments will actually help reduce case completion times in the criminal justice system.

Many of the proposed measures will likely have the opposite effect and could actually add to the delays.

The Liberals claim that this bill is a bold reform of the criminal justice system, but there is one problem, in addition to what I mentioned just now. The Minister of Justice's mandate letter has something very important in it, something we very strongly believe in: eliminating the mandatory minimum sentencing system. All of the leading legal minds and experts have told us repeatedly that mandatory minimum sentencing is bad for our justice system. It is bad for offender rehabilitation and reintegration, and it undermines judges' ability to exercise their judgment in unique cases.

What does Bill C-75 have to offer on that score? This was in the minister's mandate letter, so we expected the elimination of minimum sentencing to be a key component of the bill, but apparently it does not even bear mentioning.

The Liberals broke their promise, and that is a major disappointment. As I said, defence attorneys and legal academics agree that the reversal of this practice would have been a huge step toward unclogging the court system. Unfortunately, the Liberals chose not to tackle this key issue. That is inexplicable. I do not understand why they made that choice.

My first concern has to do with reducing the use of preliminary inquiries, which are essentially dress rehearsals for trials. They are used in only 3% of cases, so eliminating them in most cases, which is what Bill C-75 proposes to do, will not save a lot of time right away. One could argue that preliminary inquiries help narrow the issues to be presented at trial and that, in some cases, they completely eliminate the need for a trial if the Crown's evidence does not hold up. Eliminating preliminary inquiries is a solution that was proposed to reduce delays, but it will actually do the opposite.

My second concern is about the regressive change to summary offences. Imposing harsher sentences on those who commit less serious crimes, namely increasing the maximum sentence from 18 months to 24, is just one element of this reform. Many accused would be better helped by being given more social support, rather than being criminalized. This amendment would disproportionately affect members of racialized groups and indigenous communities, more specifically those with a low socioeconomic status and those struggling with addiction and mental health issues.

Another major shortcoming of this bill is that it does not propose any measures to address the root causes of crime, such as poverty. In fact, today is national anti-poverty day. Other root causes include addiction, mental health problems and marginalization. There is nothing concrete in the bill to address those factors. Unfortunately, many people end up in the legal system when their situation is actually a result of social problems that we should be addressing. Sometimes those problems are of long standing. Take, for example, the social problems in indigenous communities and mental health problems.

The government needs to sit down with the affected communities to come up with solutions to these problems and try to improve their situation. Unfortunately, this bill has no plan to that effect.

I also want to reiterate that appointing more judges to fill judicial vacancies is absolutely crucial. We can no longer tolerate all these judicial vacancies. This government has been in power for over three years now. These judicial vacancies must be filled.

Let me remind members of the Nick Chan case in Calgary. Everyone is still talking about it today. This notorious gang leader was accused of murder and other serious crimes, but he was let off because his right to be tried within a reasonable time, as laid out in the Jordan decision, had been violated due to the shortage of judges.

This is a very serious problem that the government must address as quickly as possible. Of course, we have an independent judicial appointments process, but that process needs to go a lot faster. The vacancies must be filled, because we simply cannot let other notorious criminals escape prosecution because of a lack of judges.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Drummond for his speech.

I want to touch on the point he made at the end of his speech about how many judges we have appointed. We have already appointed 31 judges in Quebec, the province my colleague represents in the House. He knows full well that we inherited a flawed system from the Conservative Party. We have revamped the system to put more emphasis on diversity in the judiciary. We have increased the percentage of women from 32% to 56%. We have increased the percentage of indigenous judges by 3.1%. We have increased the percentage of racialized judges to 12% and LGBTQ judges to 6%.

Among all of the candidates appointed in Quebec and across the country, 30% are bilingual. I am pointing this out because my colleague is a staunch defender of official languages in the House and across the country.

Does my colleague agree with the appointment of these individuals, who more widely represent our communities?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulated the government on its new approach to appointing judges. I think that the diversity of the new appointments is a very good thing. The increased number of bilingual judges is also a very good thing. However, the remaining vacancies do need to be filled as soon as possible.

My colleague did not address a very important aspect of my speech, the part about mandatory minimum sentences. It is so important that it was included in the Minister of Justice's mandate letter.

The Liberals have been in power for three and a half years. When will they finally put an end to mandatory minimum sentences?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice suggested that somehow the appointment process was broken under the Harper government. I hope he is not impugning the character of the very many good justices who were appointed under Prime Minister Harper, as well as the many good justices who have been appointed by the government. The problem, however, is that the Liberal government did not do it quickly enough, at least in the first year after it was elected.

The member for Drummond just commented on the new appointment process established by the government, but it took it a full year to appoint new judicial advisory committees.

Does the hon. member agree that this demonstrates that when it comes to appointing judges and when it comes to filling judicial vacancies within a reasonable period of time, the government has not taken it seriously?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the new process is indeed a good thing. We are pleased that the newly appointed judges represent a greater diversity of Canadians.

However, we are disappointed by how long it took and by the outstanding vacancies. That is what we find deplorable.

I would like to reiterate that abolishing mandatory minimum sentences is in the mandate letter of the Minister of Justice. Legal experts Amanda Carling, Emily Hill, Kent Roach and Jonathan Rudin have said that mandatory minimum sentences are a bad idea and that it is impossible for the legislator to know all the different types of offences and the offenders who might commit them. They believe that mandatory minimum sentences do not take into account the fact that some offenders live in abject poverty, have intellectual disabilities or mental health problems, or have been victims of racism or assault.

Why has the government not accomplished what is set out in the mandate letter?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in the debate 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, which is an important part. I intend to focus my remarks on the sentencing issue.

At the outset, it is important to address the hybrid offence issue, because we are hearing a lot of misinformation coming from the other side about how this process works. This means offences that are punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment or less. These reforms would allow the Crown to proceed by summary conviction in appropriate cases. There is the suggestion that this minimizes the seriousness of the offence. Nothing could be further from the truth. What is being said from the other side, and the concerns and misinformation they are raising, shows a lack of trust of the judiciary, of police officers and of Crown prosecutors.

The opposition is the party that pretends to be the law and order party, the party that gets tough on crime, the party that never really talks about significant issues to reduce crime, but will wrap itself in the flag and pretend to go forward based on that. It will spread misinformation about Bill C-75 to build itself up to make it seem like the bill would accomplish nothing. The rules in the Canadian judicial system changed with the Supreme Court decision in Jordan, that justice had to be quicker. We have all heard the phrase justice delayed is justice denied, but it is true. It is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Minister of Justice met with provincial and territorial counterparts of all political stripes, all parties that are represented in the House, to come up with a way to make justice quicker, to get people before a judge as quickly as possible. I think that is something on which we can all agree. If someone is charged with a criminal offence, he or she should be in front of a judge as quickly as possible, that gets to sentencing and an outcome as quickly as possible.

The proposal to hybridize offences is procedural in nature and is intended to allow the prosecution by summary conviction of conduct that does not currently result in a sentence of more than two years. For instance, it is a mischaracterization of the reclassification of amendments to assert that hybridizing, for example, section 467.1(1) of the Criminal Code, which is participation in activities of a criminal organization, is sending a message that we do not take organized crime offences seriously. There is not a member of Parliament in the House who does not take organized crime seriously. To suggest otherwise is preposterous.

The proposed amendment simply recognizes that this offence can, by virtue of the range of conduct captured, include circumstances where a appropriate sentence falls within the summary conviction range. Proceeding summarily in these circumstances allows for more expeditious proceedings, without undermining public safety or impacting the range of sentences for this offence.

Let us go back in our time machine to 2011-12. There was, as the Conservatives would call themselves, a tough on crime government. In those years, there were 49 guilty verdicts issued under section 467.1(1) of the Criminal Code. Of those 49 offences, only 34 were given a custodial sentence. Of those, one received one month or less. Six received between one and three months. Ten received between three and six months. Nine received from six to 12 months. Four received from 12 to 24 months. The remaining four, less than 10% of offences, received a sentence of 24 months or more. That is from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. This was during the Stephen Harper era of tough on crime.

[An hon. member]

They don't believe in statistics.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

We have heard in question period, as my hon. friend mentioned, that belief in statistics may not necessarily be the Conservatives' thing, but I will put that forward.

This bill, Bill C-75, gives the Crown discretion on how to proceed. The Crown knows, when it is going forward with a case, the sentence it would ask for if a conviction happened. The Crown then has to make arguments within the range of sentences.

In my riding, the Crown has been doing this for five, 10, 15, 20 years. The Conservatives say that we do not trust them. We do not trust them to make that call even though—

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

We trust judges. We do not trust prosecutors. I said that we trust judges.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, “we do not trust judges”. We just heard that from the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton who is yelling, for some reason.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Order. I just want to remind the hon. members that while someone is talking, shouting across the floor is not regular parliamentary procedure.

I will let the hon. member for St. Catharines continue.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I may have misheard the hon. member screaming and shouting. He may have said that he trusts judges. However, opposing this bill shows that they do not trust judges.

At the end of the day, it is the Crown and the defence who make the arguments. The Crown will say this requires a sentence for a certain period of time and the defence will say, “No, we believe it is less”. The judge will make that decision.

It is the Crown prosecutor's job in this business is to put dangerous people behind bars. They have gone into the business for that reason. If they believe that the sentence should be less than 24 months, why not make a proceeding to get these people behind bars quicker? This bill achieves a tougher on crime approach. It gets those charged with offences before a judge faster.

Members from the other side scoff, but they cannot dispute that fact. They cannot dispute the fact that they do not trust Crown prosecutors, which is shameful. How does one surround oneself with a law and order agenda while not trusting one of the most significant aspects of the system, which is the Crown prosecutors? They do not trust the police to lay the appropriate charge. They do not trust the Crown and they may or may not trust the judges either. That is just disappointing.

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

That is just pure rhetoric. Get to the substance.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we still hear the heckling. I think I have touched a nerve in terms of the truth of this. The hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton continues to heckle. I have not seen the recent reports. I believe he has been the most called out in terms of his heckling. He continues to do so, which is truly unfortunate. I am sure he has had plenty of opportunity to speak but wishes to shout me down. Again, speaking the truth, sometimes that stings and we are seeing that in this particular situation.

It is clear that keeping section 467.11 of the Criminal Code, which I had mentioned, a straight indictable offence, will not in any way prevent the Crown in appropriate cases from seeking a non-custodial sentence or a sentence of imprisonment that is in the summary conviction range or seeking a sentence that is even higher. It all comes down to the Crown attorneys who are on the ground and know the facts of the case. Who are we as members of Parliament to say that they are not the best people in the position to make that decision? They live in the communities where they are trying these cases. They do not want to see bad people out on the streets.

If I look to the opposition members, is that what they believe? That is what they are suggesting. What they are suggesting is going on in this bill is a complete lack of trust from some of our chief law officials who are living in their communities who want to see bad people go to jail and have dedicated their careers to that goal.

It is utterly shameful that the opposition would try to spin the narrative that this is soft on crime legislation. This is getting people to a judge faster. It is getting people to jail faster and it is meeting the charter requirements as set out by the Supreme Court.

As we heard from the leader of the opposition in his plan, which was rated full of baloney, they have no plan to make Canada safer. We have a plan. This plan will get people to justice faster. It will allow Crown attorneys to have discretion and it will make the justice system more efficient. Justice delayed is justice denied and this is going to help our Canadian justice system.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's speech was certainly long on rhetoric but short on substance.

The hon. member talked about giving prosecutors discretion and that is all this is about. If that were the case, then why would we have solely indictable offences at all? Why would every offence not be a hybrid offence? Why would murder not be a hybrid offence, if it is all just about giving prosecutors the appropriate discretion? We do not because there are certain offences that are serious, that need to be treated seriously in all cases and, therefore, are indictable.

The member spoke about the range of conduct captured, such that it would be appropriate to prosecute by way of summary conviction. Just what range of conduct captured does he envision in the case of infanticide or concealing the body of a child, or perhaps administering a date-rape drug? In just what circumstances does he see those offences being on the level of a ticketable offence or a minor property crime?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I again go back to this law and order government. I will give the hon. member an example that he can chew on a bit himself in terms of the offence of sexual assault. Sexual assault is a hybrid offence. It remained a hybrid offence under the Harper government. Why did the Conservatives not change it? Maybe it is because it is best to give Crown attorneys discretion, maybe it is because it is best to give judges discretion, or were they soft on crime? I do not know at the end of the day.

We gave the hon. member statistics as to the particular offence that was provided that at the end of the day, again under the law and order Harper government, the individuals charged and convicted under that particular offence were not getting sentences of more than 24 months. Fewer than 10% were. Therefore, why not come up with a plan to get those cases that are going to be less than 24 months to a judge quicker and get those people behind bars quicker? The Conservatives have no plan, and that is truly unfortunate.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the government talk about being a law and order government when it is clearly a common spin government.

I am not an expert on these matters, but all I can say about this bill is that everyone including the member for Papineau can see that the justice system is clogged up because of these very mandatory minimums.

Why not deal with the bigger problem, which is mandatory minimums? It is as though they called a plumber to fix a leak in the water heater and he is wasting his time fiddling with the taps.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will have to respectfully disagree. We are fixing the problem. There are two different methods in two different courts, one at the superior court and one at the provincial court. Provincial court matters move quicker and if Crown attorneys know at the end of the day that they are going to seek sentences of less than 24 months, they can move far more expeditiously through the provincial court system. That is what we are doing in this case. If Crown prosecutors know that they are going to seek only 20 months, why send the accused through superior court? Why incur all that extra delay? Why not get offenders before judges as quickly as possible and get them behind bars?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, there has been some discussion about trusting judges. A key aspect of this bill that has not been touched on much is the power of judges to stand aside jurors. Normally, they can only do this in the context of personal hardship, but this bill would amend the Criminal Code so that judges can stand aside jurors to ensure a more representative jury.

What does that mean to the member's constituents in St. Catharines and around this county so that they can ensure there are more diverse juries hearing cases and rendering verdicts in criminal matters?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary and the committee for their incredible work on this.

This bill speaks to a whole host of issues throughout the justice system, be it bail, juries and the like. I am very pleased to support this bill and at the end of the day, I hope opposition members come to their senses and support this bill, because it would get offenders to judges quicker than the previous government ever could.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek. I will point out to the hon. member that she will have nine minutes and then I will have to cut her off.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak at third reading to Bill C-75. I had the opportunity recently to speak on another bill that also sought to amend the Criminal Code, Bill C-375. In that speech, I drew attention to the Liberals' alarming track record on criminal justice. I would like to continue with these thoughts today in the context of the bill before us.

Bill C-75 continues a disturbing pattern from the Liberal government. Where previous governments of all stripes sought to protect victims of crime, the Liberal government seems to favour the protection of criminals instead. From their first days in government, the Liberals have used the levers of power to shield and protect criminals while leaving victims and their families in the cold.

We have seen this time and time again, with the Liberals' $10.5-million payout to Omar Khadr and their subsequent snubbing of Tabitha Speer, their shocking response to Terri-Lynne McClintic's transfer from a secure prison to a healing lodge, their abysmal response to gang crimes through Bill C-71, along with countless other examples.

When Canadians dared to raise their concerns, the Prime Minister labelled them ambulance chasers. Perhaps the most tangible examples of the government's disordered protection of criminals have come in this bill. When Bill C-75 was introduced, it reduced the penalties for advocating genocide and participation in terrorist activities to possibly as little as a fine. It was only at the insistence of my Conservative colleagues at committee that these clauses were removed.

I am glad the Liberal members on that committee saw the folly of the original text, but it begs the question: how could the government have thought those clauses were in any way appropriate in the first place? Unfortunately, I believe that this is not a one-time occurrence, but as I said, a disturbing pattern regarding terrorists from the government.

As I already mentioned, take the case of Omar Khadr which resulted in a convicted terrorist becoming a millionaire at the expense of Canadian taxpayers, and this is just one example. Recall that long before the Liberals tried to use Bill C-75 to lower the penalties for engaging in terrorist activities, one of the first items on the Prime Minister's agenda was to pull our air force out of the fight against ISIS. This was a backward decision at the time and in retrospect, almost indefensible.

Just days ago, a mass grave holding the remains of more Yazidi victims of ISIS was discovered in Kar Azir town. This is the 71st mass grave found in the area. The men, women and children in these graves were slaughtered by members of ISIS, some of whom are from this country. These ISIS terrorists stoned women to death for the crime of being raped. They killed families for believing in their own God or being the wrong ethnicity. They burned men alive for refusing to join their evil cause or threw them off buildings for being gay.

As I previously pointed out in this place, the Minister of Foreign Affairs could not even bring herself to call these monsters terrorists--

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Parkdale—High Park has a point of order.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have been listening intently to the member opposite and to all of her colleagues. We are about four minutes into her remarks and we have yet to hear anything that substantively relates to Bill C-75. We have heard about settlements of litigation, about foreign affairs policy and defence policy. I would ask the member to direct her comments to the bill at hand, please.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I will leave it with the hon. member. l am sure she will come to her point. As I have stated before, I often hear arguments go in certain directions that you figure is a tangent that make absolutely no sense to the person who is listening, but as the person explains it, you see it come around and it becomes evident to everyone. I will leave it to the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek to finish up.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that.

For his part, the Prime Minister has doled out taxpayer dollars for so-called de-radicalization programs for returning ISIS terrorists. In the meantime, he has told veterans they are asking for more than the government can give. Would it not be more appropriate to say that to returning ISIS terrorists instead of to the brave men and women who have defended our nation?

However, perhaps we should not be surprised. Indeed, after the Boston Marathon bombing, the now Prime Minister said of the terrorists responsible, “there is no question that this happened because of someone who feels completely excluded, someone who feels completely at war with innocence, at war with society.”

I believe it is this kind of foolish gentleness toward terrorists that caused the Liberals to propose weakening the penalties in Bill C-75. They spent months arguing for and defending the inclusion of that clause before finally backing down and supporting the Conservatives in removing it. It took months of pressure and hard work to make this one obvious change, but even with that change the bill remains deeply flawed.

Bill C-75 would still weaken the penalties to as little as a fine for many other serious crimes. Among those are serious sexual crimes, such as using the date rape drug, forced marriage, marriage under the age of 16, polygamy and acting as a pimp. I wonder how the Prime Minister can claim to be a feminist while simultaneously weakening the punishment for such terrible crimes.

In addition to the sexual crimes I mentioned, the Liberals are also weakening the punishment for corruption and fraud. A lighter penalty would be possible for those convicted of bribing municipal officials, insider trading, forging currency, using libel for extortion, fraud through the use of arson, or even illegally influencing political appointments.

Perhaps most shocking is the list of violent and gang-related crimes that would be eligible for a summary conviction: infanticide, hiding the body of a child, obstructing or assaulting an officiating clergyman, abduction of children under the ages of 16 and 14, conspiracy and participating in criminal gang activities.

While I know my time is nearly up, I would be remiss if I did not take the time to point out that this is the Liberals' second attempt to remove or amend section 176 of the Criminal Code after abandoning their changes to Bill C-51. Assault of officiants during a religious service is very serious and should remain an indictable offence, yet here the Liberals are breaking yet another promise despite the fact they committed to keeping full protections in place for religious officials.

There are many more serious crimes that we see a weakened response to. In fact, I find myself wondering if this is not the intent of the bill. The previous Conservative government passed the Victims Bill of Rights and this is the Liberals' response. Again and again, we see examples of the Liberals' obsession with making criminals lives easier.

As one final example, the Liberals recently introduced a plan to provide needles to prisoners who use drugs, despite a zero-tolerance policy on drugs in prisons. It would take a Liberal to square that circle. This ridiculous plan puts correctional officers in the line of danger, for no other reason than to assuage Liberal guilt. Jason Godin, president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said the following about this ridiculous idea: “It’s pretty obvious the policy changes the government is making are making it more dangerous for us, more dangerous for inmates and obviously more dangerous for the general public.”

Why does the government insist on placing the rights of criminals above the rights of victims, police, guards and of citizens overall? As I have said before, Canadians deserve better than a government that treats victims like criminals and criminals like family.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 5:52 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1.

A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 11, 13 and 14.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I declare Motion No. 1 carried, and I therefore declare Motions No. 11, 13 and 14 carried.

(Motions Nos. 1, 11, 13 and 14 carried)

The next question is on Motion No. 2.

A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 3 to 10 and 12.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on Motion No. 2, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #940

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 2 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 3 to 10 and 12 defeated.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage with further amendments.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #941

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

It being 6:42 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.