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.

National Defence Act

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did not really answer my question or the question from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands but wants to talk about a completely different issue, which is Bill C-75. I will ask a question about that and hopefully get an answer.

The previous government, in power for 10 years, did nothing with a particular hybrid offence, which is sexual assault, which I think we would all agree is one of the worst offences in the Criminal Code. Why did the former government not do anything about that? That is question one.

If the member cannot answer that, is he opposed to the changes in Bill C-75 because he does not trust police officers or Crown prosecutors to give the right charge in the right circumstances?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is a terrific question. All we have to do is look at the evidence of the government, via its actions. This is a government, and I have said this many times in this House, that loves governing by Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, because with those 140 characters, or 280 now, and the way it controls them, it can really manipulate the message.

However, the way the government actually conducts itself on issues of victims and supporting criminals, there is evidence after evidence, as has been going through the House over the last couple weeks, with the Tori Stafford situation, the Catherine Campbell situation in Truro, Nova Scotia, and Omar Khadr. The list goes on and on.

This weekend I was speaking to the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. We were talking specifically about Bill C-71, which is the government's new gun registry, its answer, supposedly, to solving the gangs and criminal activity situation. In fact, what the government is doing is actually going after law-abiding firearms owners in this country.

It gives the government and the Liberal MPs a chance to go to their municipalities and say that the government is doing something tough on crime, but in fact, what it is doing is penalizing the wrong people. It is not solving a problem that exists in this country.

Bill C-75 is another example of that, with the amendments to the Criminal Code and the summary convictions, taking some of the most egregious and heinous crimes in this country and reducing them to a slap on the wrist, because the government has an inability to put judges in place to deal with the backlogs in the courts. The government would rather see criminals go free than criminals go to jail. That is the way these Liberals operate.

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

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak about Bill C-77, to enact military justice reforms. They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. The government of the day has taken into account many of the proposals that were in Bill C-71 from the previous government, with the exception of adding a couple of things. It has simply copied and pasted that legislation into Bill C-77.

I want to spend a couple of moments on some issues that have come up lately in the House. Throughout the debate this morning, we heard the government side talk about victims and victims' rights. On this side of the House, and in the previous government, I have strongly advocated for the rights of victims, as we did the previous government with the introduction of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights. It is paramount that governments ensure that they put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, we have seen some highly publicized situations come up that have gained the attention of Canadians, in large part because of the issues brought up in the House. I will note two cases in particular as examples.

There is the Christopher Garnier case in Nova Scotia. Christopher Garnier murdered police officer and volunteer firefighter Christine Campbell. It was a highly publicized case. Ahead of veterans, Mr. Garnier was receiving PTSD benefits from Veterans Affairs.

Of course over the last week, we have also seen the issue around Tori Stafford come up. Her murderer is now sitting in an aboriginal healing centre in northern Saskatchewan when she should be behind bars and razor wire, which is exactly where she was before.

On the issues of victims' rights, we have to ensure we put them ahead of the rights of criminals. We have not seen that, as an example in the case of the government, over the course of the last couple of weeks. Many of us heard the father of Tori Stafford over the weekend, pleading with the Prime Minister of our country to correct that situation.

Fortunately, tomorrow on opposition day, members of the government side will have the opportunity to stand and do what is right with respect to an opposition day motion we will be put forward. It calls on the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Public Safety to reverse the decision of Correctional Service Canada and ensure Tori Stafford's killer is put back behind bars and razor wire where she belongs, not surrounded by trees at a healing centre. The government and its members will have the opportunity tomorrow to do the right thing by standing in support of the opposition day motion.

On the issue of Bill C-71, as I said earlier, the Conservatives will always stand for victims and not criminals. Over the weekend, I had a robust discussion about this very issue as it related to criminals. It was more so about the current legislation, Bill C-71 and Bill C-75, as it relates to the new Liberal gun registry and changes to criminal justice acts, and in particular about the list of many otherwise serious criminal activities being reduced to summary convictions.

In some of the discussions I had around my riding this weekend, people were quite concerned not only with the gun registry and that it did little to tackle the real issue of gangs, gang violence and illegal gun activity, but also with the fact that many of these more heinous and serious crimes would be potentially reduced to summary convictions. The reason for that is the government's inability to fill judicial appointments on the bench and cases are getting backlogged. The government would simply rather slap criminals on the wrist with this potential summary conviction rather than looking after victims' rights and victims instead of criminals.

Part of this legislation, one of the important pieces of it, is the Gladue decision. For the most part, this is a copy and paste of the previous bill, Bill C-71, from the previous Conservative government. However, the main difference between the two would be the addition of the Gladue decision into the National Defence Act.

In effect, this addition would mean that aboriginal members of the CAF, who face charges under the National Defence Act, would face lighter punishments if convicted. That causes problems with respect to the fact that the special considerations for indigenous members could result in sentences that would be less harsh than those of other CAF members. In fact, it could undermine the operational discipline, morale and some of the anti-racism policies of the CAF. It is a concern.

We will support this legislation and get it to committee to ensure we hear from those various stakeholders, such as first nations communities and advocates.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I again would like to thank the hon. member for his commitment to our men and women in uniform. He is a passionate advocate.

In my previous comments, I asked a couple of questions. He answered the first but not the second, so I will go back to the second question. During his speech, he mentioned Bill C-75. The government is planning to make certain offences hybrid. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, sexual assault is a hybrid offence and is one of the worst things of which I can think. For 10 years, under Stephen Harper, why did the government not change that? Is it that the hon. member does not believe police officers and prosecutors should be trusted to charge individuals under the right offence?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to know that the hon. member sounds very supportive of the bill. He threw a bit of shade at the government for not getting it done, as we are into our final year.

It is good to see the government getting it done. We did not see it getting done under 10 years of Stephen Harper. However, he also went into a few barbs against the government, one in particular with respect to Bill C-75 and hybrid offences. One hybrid offence in the Criminal Code of Canada is sexual assault, which is one of the worst crimes of which I can think. Why did the Conservatives not change that from a hybrid offence to a straight indictable offence? If he cannot answer that, does he not trust police officers and prosecutors to lay the right charge once Bill C-75 passes?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-77, an act to enhance victims' rights in the military justice system, an act to amend the National Defence Act and other related acts.

First and foremost I have to thank those who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. The men and women in uniform who serve in the regular forces, the reserve force in all the disciplines and all the different trades take on an important task in keeping us safe here in Canada in dealing with our foes abroad. As long as we have adversaries who want to do harm to us here in Canada as well as to our allies, we need to have a standing force to protect Canada.

It is because of the skills required to be a soldier, an airman, an airwoman, a sailor in the Royal Canadian Navy, our air force and the army, the people that we need to do that job need the support of the Government of Canada, and it does that through the National Defence Act.

A lot of people who might be hearing this debate today for the first time may not understand why we have a separate military justice system within the National Defence Act for the Canadian Armed Forces versus the court system that we have for civil society across this country.

People need to understand that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the hallmark piece of legislation, our Constitution, that even the National Defence Act is subordinate to and has to follow the laws as are written under our rights in the charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada has stated on numerous occasions, and most recently in the Moriarity decision, that the purpose of Canada's military justice system is “to maintain discipline, efficiency and morale in the military”.

By allowing commanding officers as well as non-commissioned officers to have the ability to have efficiency and discipline within the armed forces means stronger morale, a better-abled armed forces, so they can carry out the duties that are bestowed upon them from time to time in operations by the Government of Canada.

As I already mentioned to the minister, I am glad to see that the government has moved ahead with our old Bill C-71, which would put within the Code of Service Discipline a declaration of victims' rights, something that the previous Conservative government did, as constituted in law, and now is making sure that the military justice system and that victims' bill of rights would be respected within the National Defence Act.

Some of those rights that we are talking about for victims are: the right to information, so that all victims would have general information about the military justice system; what types of victim services would be available through the Canadian Armed Forces and National Defence; and what type of information they would need. They would be able to hear about the progress of the case as it moves forward and also get all of the information relating to the investigation, prosecution and sentencing of the person who did the harm.

I talked earlier about Operation Honour. That information is critical in making sure that we respect the victims of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. This legislation would make sure that the armed forces provides those services.

There is the right to protection, the same thing that we have in civil society. All victims would have the right to security and privacy considered at all times through the military justice process. The armed forces would take reasonable and necessary measures to protect victims from intimidation and retaliation. A victim's identity would not be disclosed to the public.

The right to participation comes down to the victim having the right to have a victim impact statement put into the proceedings and read at the time of sentencing. Military justice professionals would have to consider these at all stages of the proceedings.

Finally, there is the right to restitution. In the event that there is the ability to provide some financial assistance to cover losses from the criminal activity that took place, the victim would have the right to restitution.

One thing that we would now see in the Canadian Armed Forces is the addition of the victim's liaison officer. This individual would proactively work with victims in their choice of jurisdiction for sexual misconduct matters. The liaison officer would help victims with the investigation and trial process, keep them informed, listen to them and get their views to determine how public interest is moving forward on that prosecution.

Witness preparation will be improved through this process because of the addition of the victims rights officer. They will make sure that the comfort and security of the victim are always taken into consideration. They will look at everything from the type of effort that prosecutors need for all of the information regarding the victim impact statement, and during sentencing in particular, to looking at maintaining the consistency of prosecutors throughout the court process. It is critical to make sure that prosecutors are using the same type of parameters in moving forward. That has to be paramount. Finally, these sexual misconduct cases would be expedited ahead of other trials that might be ongoing.

As Conservatives, we have always stood up for victims' rights. We believe that victims must have an effective voice in the criminal justice, which includes the military justice system. As I said, it was the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper that brought forward the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights, and now we would be enshrining those rights into the military justice system through Bill C-77. That is why we introduced Bill C-71 last Parliament in the last session.

We are going to be supportive of this process with the government, but are wondering why the Liberals took so long. We know they are copying our bill because it is the right thing to do. Everyone wants to stand up for the victims of crime, and of course we will want to study this further once it gets to committee.

Putting the rights of victims at the heart of our criminal justice system is important to ensure that victims have a more effective voice within the justice system, and that they are treated with courtesy, compassion and respect at every stage of the military criminal justice process, as well as in the civilian criminal justice process. This is about reversing the trend of criminals always getting breaks. We want to make sure that we keep our streets and communities safe, and that families of victims have an effective voice.

As Conservatives, we are very proud of our record with respect to the criminal justice system. It speaks for itself. We enacted the Safe Streets and Communities Act and reformed the not criminally responsible legislation. We also brought in laws against sexual exploitation, cyber-bullying and cyber-intimidation.

We believe that victims should always be placed at the forefront in the criminal justice system because they deserve and should have the right to information, the right to protection, the right participation, and where possible, the right to restitution. That is why we passed the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights. It enshrines that in legislation. We are finally doing that through Bill C-77 in the military justice system.

Although we are all here talking about standing up for victims, I have been very disappointed over the last two weeks from seeing the government's response on the Tori Stafford case regarding Terri-Lynne McClintic. She has been put into a minimum security healing lodge in Saskatchewan where there are other children. She is the child killer of Tori Stafford. If we really believed in supporting victims' rights, there is no way that Terri-Lynne McClintic should be in a healing lodge. She should be behind bars in at least a medium security facility that has a fence, where she can be properly monitored and can receive the counselling she needs.

I will also note Chris Garnier, an individual who killed off-duty police officer Catherine Campbell, is sitting in prison and receiving Veterans Affairs benefits for PTSD that he got from killing Officer Campbell. There is no way that this individual should be given any veterans benefits, but the government refuses to rescind the services being offered to him. Garnier could get PTSD counselling through the Correctional Service of Canada. He does not need to be taking away benefits from veterans when he is not a veteran himself. He got ahead of the line of actual veterans trying to get help for their operational stress injuries.

Then of course we have Bill C-75, which I call the Liberal hug-a-thug bill. The Liberals have brought forward this legislation that reduces fines, penalties, and incarceration time for individuals for 26 different offences that right now are indictable and result in jail time, instead making them summary conviction offences. This could mean just getting a fine instead of jail time.

To get back to why we have a military justice system, I will read an old quote from Maurice de Saxe, who was a marshal general of France. He noted in a 1732 treatise he wrote on the science of warfare that “military discipline...is the soul of armies. If it is not established with wisdom and maintained with unshakeable resolution you will have no soldiers. Regiments and armies will only be contemptible, armed mobs, more dangerous to their own country than to the enemy.”

That is why we have a court martial system. It is also why we have summary hearings so that the chain of command is able to deal with disciplinary measures. We always have to remember that since the earliest of times, members of the Canadian Armed Forces have been given great responsibilities in exercising those duties to protect this country. When we go back to our British history and operations, they were always governed by articles of war that were proclaimed by the monarch. Articles about different military offences and punishments at that time included the death penalty, or someone would have their head shaven if they were not conducting themselves in a respectful manner. The military has that ethos and the code of service conduct that its members have to respect. It is critical that the military function under that very hard discipline. When people are going into battle, service members standing next to each other must be bound by that same code and conduct themselves in like manner and be able to trust each other with their lives.

It is because of that history, the operations we undertake, and the creation of the National Defence Act in 1950 that we have this two-tiered system.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are often required to risk injury or death in their daily performance of their duties inside and outside Canada. They often have to use lethal force in an operation. They are going to be commanded to be the aggressors at times and they all have to be responsible under the chain of command. Of course, those activities and operations are sanctioned by the Government of Canada. That is why there has to be a military justice system that is separate from the civilian system and that puts a premium on the necessity for discipline and cohesion of military units.

The operational reality of the military has specific implications holding military members to a higher standard than what is expected of civilians. That is why there are the summary hearings or summary trials, as they are currently called, that deal with those disciplinary matters. It builds morale within the Canadian Armed Forces when everyone is marching in the same direction.

The realities of military life were acknowledged by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 1992 decision in the Généreux case. It stated that:

The purpose of a separate system of military tribunals is to allow the Armed Forces to deal with matters that pertain directly to the discipline, efficiency and morale of the military. The safety and well-being of Canadians depends considerably on the willingness and readiness of a force of men and women to defend against threats to the nation's security. To maintain the Armed Forces in a state of readiness, the military must be in a position to enforce internal discipline effectively and efficiently. Breaches of military discipline must be dealt with speedily and, frequently, punished more severely than would be the case if a civilian engaged in such conduct. As a result, the military has its own Code of Service Discipline to allow it to meet its particular disciplinary needs. In addition, special service tribunals, rather than the ordinary courts, have been given jurisdiction to punish breaches of the Code of Service Discipline. Recourse to the ordinary criminal courts would, as a general rule, be inadequate to serve the particular disciplinary needs of the military. There is thus a need for separate tribunals to enforce special disciplinary standards in the military.

In light of that decision, I think it is key that a person must be punished severely, efficiently and with speed. In the current situation of civilian courts, that would not happen. We have murderers who are getting off from their crimes because their jurisprudence has not been respected under the courts and their cases have been thrown out because of the time it has taken to actually get them to a hearing.

The charter also recognizes the existence of the separate system of military justice within the Canadian legal system. If we look at section 11 of the charter that deals with the proceedings of criminal and penal matters, it talks extensively about the right to a fair trial. However, section 11(f) says:

Any person charged with an offence has the right...(f) except in the case of an offence under military law tried before a military tribunal, to the benefit of trial by jury where the maximum punishment for the offence is imprisonment for five years or a more severe punishment;

Therefore, the charter specifically says that we have the right to have a separate and distinct military justice system. That has been upheld now in three separate decisions, most recently in 2015 in the Moriarity decision. In each case, the court has upheld the requirement for a separate justice system in the Canadian Armed Forces.

In Généreux, the Supreme Court found that the existence of a parallel system of military law and tribunals for the purpose of enforcement and discipline in the military “is deeply entrenched in our history and is supported by compelling principles.”

When we start looking at some of the decisions going forward, and of course the one just delivered by the Court Martial Appeal Court in the Beaudry case, I do not know if they have looked significantly at the decisions already made by the Supreme Court of Canada. The reality is that the Supreme of Court of Canada has decided that we need to have a separate military justice system, a court martial process, as well as a summary hearings proceedings to ensure that we have that discipline and that morale is there, so that we have an efficient armed forces that can deal with the threats of the day and that everyone is then working hand in hand.

In the MacKay case, there was a similar note when the National Defence Act was considered as a whole. it reads:

When the National Defence Act is considered as a whole it will be seen that it encompasses the rules of discipline necessary to the maintenance of morale and efficiency among troops in training and at the same time envisages conditions under which service offences may be committed outside of Canada by service personnel stationed abroad. […] In my view these are some of the factors which make it apparent that a separate code of discipline administered within the services is an essential ingredient of service life.

Again, that comes back to the fact that our troops are deployed in places like Iraq, Ukraine, Latvia, Mali, and in past in places like Korea and Afghanistan, and across Europe in World War I and World War II. The reason we have it is that if crimes are committed overseas, those military members will still be bound by the military processes and the military justice that we have under the National Defence Act.

Again, in the Moriarity decision, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of paragraph 131(1)(a) of the National Defence Act, which incorporates offences under the Criminal Code and other acts into the military justice system, because the court acknowledged that the behaviour of members of the military relates to discipline, efficiency and morale, even when they are not on duty, in uniform or on a military base. This comes back to Operation Honour, which we are engaged in right now and which has been carried out very effectively by the Canadian Armed Forces. It is not just when one is wearing the uniform and is on duty that it matters, but it is an ethos and code of conduct that Canadian Forces members have chosen to uphold at all times, whether on duty or off .The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that. Therefore, if there is any sexual misconduct, it can be dealt with.

In closing, I have to say that I am very concerned about the effect of the Beaudry ruling. I am glad that the government and the minister have appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, because it contradicts two other recent rulings of the Court Martial Appeal Court. Essentially what they are trying to do is to wipe out the military's ability to prosecute any civilian offences within the Canadian Forces.

To close, I will read the dissenting opinion of the chief justice of the Court Martial Appeal Court, the Hon. Richard Bell. He wrote that Parliament had intended to include the offences under paragraph 131(1)(a) of the National Defence Act as “offence[s] under military law tried before a military tribunal” when drafting subsection 11(f) of the charter. He noted that “Parliament was presumably aware of the legal consequences of the military exception set out in subsection 11(f) of the Charter, and there is every indication that it intended to exclude persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline from the right to a trial by jury when it conceived that exception”.

I have to agree with him. I hope we can put stronger language into Bill C-77 to respect that type of legal opinion.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I would like to turn to B'nai Brith and Mr. Herman. I really appreciated your powerful and persuasive presentation. To my friend Mr. Fogel, I say the same. Thank you.

I thought your eight-point plan to tackle anti-Semitism is excellent. Of course, a lot of it, as you will agree, is not at the federal level, nor specific to Bill C-75, so I wanted to focus on those matters that may be pertinent here.

The first, and you referred to it, is the publishing of the Attorney General guidelines for sections 318 and 319 so that we have a better chance to know how to get on the right side of the law, if I can put it that way. But then you said that the prosecution process is currently opaque and open to charges of political bias. Could you elaborate on what that means?

[Deepa Mattoo]

Amazing. Thank you, Chair.

I would like to submit that, like many other advocates, we believe the bill also impacts women in what it fails to amend. Specifically it fails to amend and strike the Criminal Code to revoke the bawdy house, indecent act and vagrancy provisions. The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged in Bedford that criminalization of sex workers puts women at an increased risk of victimization. These offences serve to simultaneously criminalize and victimize women, in particular racialized indigenous women, and the clinic submits that, to help end the cycle of violence that women face, these offences should be revoked.

Last, what I want to talk about is the serious criminality under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that creates inadmissibility provisions. We feel that Bill C-75 proposes to increase the maximum sentence for summary conviction offences, and an unintended consequence of this would be that women will find themselves in a situation where they're escaping domestic violence and intimate partner violence and getting caught in inadmissibility.

Due to the fact that there are a lot of women who come to this country dependent on their intimate partners, as in spousal sponsorship schemes, it is important that an impact assessment of what would happen to their cases and their situation be considered.

With that, I would say thank you for giving us this opportunity. I'm happy to take any questions or comments that you may have.

Thank you.

[Deepa Mattoo]

I'll repeat from where I left off.

Our clinic is unique in Canada. It's the only clinic that provides specialized services to women who have experienced violence. Since 1985, the clinic has provided legal representation, counselling, and language interpretation services to over 65,000 women. Over the years, we have experienced a steady increase in the number of women seeking assistance. In 2017, we served 4,700 women. Last year we saw an 84% increase, and we served 7,000 women.

We want to submit to the committee that, broadly speaking, the clinic welcomes proposed amendments to broaden the definition of “intimate partner” to include dating and former partners, as well as the amendments that reflect a desire to safeguard the interests of women.

At the same time, however, the clinic is concerned that some of these changes will place an undue burden on women who are subjected to criminal responses. With that in mind, we are proposing that the committee undertake an impact assessment to determine the impact of Bill C-75 on women. I will be focusing on four areas today to support that.

First, the proposed amendment fails to consider how increased penalties related to intimate partner violence can further criminalize women, and fails to consider the impact of mandatory charging policies related to intimate partner violence on racialized and immigrant women.

I will also be making submissions on amendments that could further impact the lack of agency that women generally experience in the criminal justice system.

The last point is that the government's objective of improving access to justice for marginalized, racialized and indigenous women with these amendments does not necessarily impact in the correct way the women who belong to these groups.

There are some other, additional changes that the bill is proposing that we are concerned about. We specifically want to make submissions around the bawdy house, indecent act and vagrancy provisions, as well as the prohibition on the provision of sexual services. We are requesting that the committee consider repealing this under this bill.

We are also concerned that lumping all summary conviction offences under serious criminality may increase barriers to access to justice and finding of inadmissibility under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We find that the implications of that were not at all considered by the makers of this bill.

With regard to the mandatory charging policies, we all know that these policies came into being for better protection. However, what we have seen is that the application of these policies over the years has, in many cases, created a situation where when the police receive a call from an intimate partner violence situation, they are required to act. There is lack of discretion for the cops in these situations. In some cases, what we see is that the perpetrators, or the instigators, of the violence will use the threat or action of calling the police as a weapon against their victim. When this threat is acted on for a variety of reasons, including retaliation or control, the police are forced to charge the woman instead of the man, a woman who was either a blameless survivor—a victim—or who used physical force in self-defence. Abusers may misuse mandatory charging in order to further terrorize, punish, intimidate and control their partners.

This may have extremely negative consequences, including, but not limited to, cases where the children are left with the instigator while the person who is a survivor is removed. Bill C-75 fails to consider the experiences of the survivors of intimate partner violence who are not the primary aggressors. The bill similarly fails to consider history of experienced abuse in sentencing or bail considerations for this population. These omissions can have devastating consequences on women who are criminalized under the criminal justice system. In addition, most of these women are from racialized backgrounds, and I'll be addressing that next.

It is widely recognized that the criminal justice system disproportionately impacts marginalized, racialized and indigenous people. Women from these backgrounds who are charged with violence toward an intimate partner are more likely to face the full force of the penal law. Bill C-75 provides the means by which this can happen by increasing the maximum penalties for the repeat offender. Along with the specific provision that increases the incarceration ceiling for intimate partner violence, Bill C-75 also raises the maximum penalties for summary convictions from six months to two years. This means that racialized, marginalized and indigenous women facing these summary charges, who are more likely to face poverty, encounter further barriers to justice.

In addition to that, raising the maximum penalties from six months to two years means that, under section 802.1 of the Criminal Code, women from these particular backgrounds will not be able to rely on paralegals or law students for their representation. These agents are cost-effective alternatives to retaining a counsellor, and that will be denied to marginalized women. This raises a constitutional issue related to the right of a fair trial, access to justice and equality rights. These issues must be canvassed, and what we propose is that there should be an impact assessment, as suggested above, on the situation of women.

My last point is about the impact on the survivors of violence. Bill C-75 fails to consider how the increased penalty for intimate partner violence can enhance the lack of urgency that female complainants generally face in the justice system. A women experiencing violence, when she interacts with the justice system, may or may not be accessing these services without fully appreciating the outcome of this call that she's making. Once a charge is laid, a female complainant is more or less completely removed from the process. This is something that we also hear routinely from survivors of sexual assault and survivors of various kinds of intimate partner violence.

Although a woman may seek to have the charges removed for a variety of reasons, Crowns are often unwilling to consider these considerations. These reasons can include, but are not limited to, reliance on her partner for immigration status, economic and emotional support, and a desire not to be called as a witness.

This can result in women feeling powerless and patronized. This will further deteriorate the sense of powerlessness by increasing the legal jeopardy for abusers, which invariably impacts their lives with their intimate partners. Women who rely on their partners for economic security may be further impacted by the victim fine surcharge amendments. What we see, which could be an unintended consequence of the bill, is that, in many cases, requiring a fine for each offence can take significant assets out of the hands of women and children who are left economically vulnerable, further contributing to their sense of powerlessness.

I just want to say there are two additional points, as I submitted at the beginning, that this bill is kind of failing to do, so there are some great changes, as we've said, and we welcome those changes.

One of the biggest changes that we see that this bill is failing to amend is something that has been proposed by the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged in Bedford that criminalization of—

[Deepa Mattoo, Director, Legal Services, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic]

Thank you.

Thank you, honourable Chair and committee members. We are honoured and grateful to have the opportunity to speak to you today about the significant impact that some of the changes proposed in Bill C-75 may have on the women the Barbara Schlifer Commemorative Clinic serves.

Some of you might not be aware of the clinic. To give you a brief background, our clinic is unique in Canada. It is the only clinic that provides specialized services for women who have experienced violence.

Since 1985, the clinic has provided legal representation—

[Shimon Koffler Fogel, Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs]

I thank you on behalf of CIJA for inviting us into this important conversation. I see friends on all sides of the House. It's an honour to be with you. Just by way of identification, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is the advocacy agent of the Jewish Federations of Canada. We're a national non-partisan and non-profit organization representing tens of thousands of Jewish Canadians affiliated through local federations across Canada.

On Bill C-75, our specific area of interest is the hybridization of some offences that—as was noted by my colleagues at B'nai Brith—currently may only be prosecuted as indictable offences. Our request is simple and focused: that Bill C-75 be amended to ensure that advocating genocide and terrorism-related offences are exempt from this broad hybridization and instead remain indictable offences.

We advocate removing the following: clause 16, providing or making available property or services for terrorist purposes; clause 17, using or possessing property for terrorist purposes; clause 20, knowingly participating in or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group; clause 21, leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group; proposed subsections 83.23(1) and (2), knowingly harbouring a person who carried out terrorist activity or is likely to carry out terrorist activity; clause 122, advocating genocide; and finally, subclause 407(5), counselling commission of a terrorism offence.

We take no position on other aspects of Bill C-75 and do not object to its overall goals. Modernizing Canada's justice system and reducing backlog in the courts are vital objectives, and we acknowledge that hybridizing some indictable offences will contribute to this effort.

We also recognize that hybridizing what is currently an indictable offence does not mean that prosecutors will invariably choose to prosecute these crimes as summary offences, and we note that the bill proposes to increase the maximum penalty of summary offences to two years less a day.

However, we do believe that advocating genocide and terrorism-related offences should not be hybridized. Our position is rooted in three principle considerations.

First, on a practical level, terrorism-related offences and advocating genocide constitute a minute fraction of criminal cases in Canada. Recategorizing these crimes as hybrid offences will have virtually no impact on the current judicial backlog. It therefore follows that exempting them from this initiative will not diminish the underlying goal of Bill C-75.

Second, maintaining these crimes' current designation as indictable offences does not undermine judicial discretion in the sentencing of these cases. Because these crimes do not carry mandatory minimum sentences, judges may determine on a case-by-case basis the sentence most appropriate given all factors. It is one thing to allow judges sentencing discretion within a framework that affirms that a great violation of the law has taken place, that is, the designation of indictable offence. It's another to allow prosecutors the discretion to proceed on the basis that diminishes the very gravity of the crime, that is, by having the option to prosecute these violations as summary offences.

Third, and most important, allowing these offences to be prosecuted as summary offences sends a clear and unacceptable signal, diminishing the inherently grave, even heinous, nature of these crimes. Advocating genocide and terrorism-related offences are crimes that, while obviously impacting victims directly, also threaten the very foundation of Canadian democracy and universal human rights. These offences cannot, for example, be considered on a par with property crimes. Rather, they should be viewed alongside Criminal Code provisions related to treason or acts of violence to intimidate Parliament, both of which are indictable offences that Bill C-75, quite rightly, does not suggest hybridizing.

A person charged with a summary offence is not usually held in custody but given notice to appear in court. This is worrisome when it comes to advocating genocide and other terrorism-related offences. In the relatively rare instances when these provisions are used, it is almost certainly for high-profile crimes that carry with them a risk of mass violence and significant public alarm.

Like many in my community, I'm the child of Holocaust survivors. The Jewish people are tragically familiar with the dangers of genocidal propaganda, which often preceded such horrific campaigns of ethnic cleansing as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and other atrocities. Society ignores at its peril those who call for the mass murder of entire communities, which is why the Criminal Code prohibits advocating genocide.

Given the premium we rightly place on the freedom of speech, the threshold for pursuing those charges is exceptionally high. Experience shows that those who surpass this already-elevated threshold are engaged in the most egregious violations. To be blunt, this provision is used in very rare circumstances against those who actively promote grotesque, dehumanizing propaganda to advance a genocidal agenda. Such cases should only ever be treated as indictable offences.

Similarly, the global Jewish community has had painful, first-hand experience with terrorism. Committee members are familiar with the history of terrorism targeting Israelis. Jewish communities worldwide have also been vulnerable to such violence, as seen in terror attacks in recent years at a synagogue in Copenhagen, a Jewish museum in Brussels, a kosher grocery store in Paris, a Jewish elementary school in Toulouse, and a Jewish community centre in Mumbai.

By definition, terrorism seeks to use violence to spread fear far beyond its immediate targets. Attackers typically benefit from the support of a broader network that includes ideological mentors and clandestine members of proscribed terrorist organizations. These background criminal activities, such as counselling terrorism or knowingly participating in the activity of a terrorist group, help make large-scale terror attacks possible. In recognition of the threat and danger posed by terrorism, these crimes should never be prosecuted as summary offences.

I thank the committee members for their consideration of what I think are modest amendments to Bill C-75 that preserve the bill's objectives while ensuring that these grave crimes maintain the designation they warrant. I welcome any questions or comments that you may want to pose.

Thank you.

[Brian Herman, Director, Government Relations, B'nai Brith Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and we thank the committee for allowing us to appear this evening.

My colleague Leo Adler, our senior legal counsel, will elaborate on some of our key points, particularly the legal issues. I just wanted to give a brief introduction.

You have our legal submission and some related documents, which I hope have made their way to all committee members.

I am not sure if everyone is acquainted with B'nai Brith Canada. We have been before your committee previously. It was founded in 1875, with a history of defending the human rights of Canada's Jewish community and Canadians all across the country. Together with our League for Human Rights, we advocate for the interests of the grassroots Jewish community and for their rights such as freedom of conscience and religion, rights that we know are important to all Canadians.

The point I wanted to make is that our comments will be consistent with testimony before several standing committees in the past year, including my own remarks to this committee on Bill C-51 on October 30 of last year.

We hope the committee will continue to bear in mind that Canada's most targeted religious minority, in terms of hate speech and hate crimes, is the Jewish community. Our comments are rooted in that fact. In particular, we are ever-mindful of the signals Parliament and the government send to our communities as amendments to various pieces of legislation take shape over time.

We followed the government's several initiatives to modernize both the Criminal Code and the national security framework, including plans to deal with provisions that are focused on expediency or efficiency. These aims must not supersede the essential prerequisites of fairness and balance, nor must they supersede the requirement for our publics to know, and for perpetrators to understand, the severity of penalties that would accompany advocating or promoting genocide or in any way supporting terrorism.

Our question remains a straightforward one: whether proposed changes taken holistically represent a weakening of essential provisions in the Criminal Code and other legislation that is perceived by the public and by law enforcement as meaning the government takes these offences less seriously. This is the context, and we have concerns with specific aspects of hybridization—as Mr. Adler will outline. Certain of these offences are very serious. Notwithstanding government assurances, how does this square with an implicit aim of affording Crown counsel greater discretion in how to proceed with less serious offences?

We believe that, in today's context, we must exercise great care in taking actions that can be misinterpreted, and the signal such a step would convey in today's environment where anti-Semitism, hate speech, and advocacy to serious crimes such as genocide remain serious challenges, if not in Canada then elsewhere.

Our hope is that the committee, in essence, will recommend that offences related to advocating genocide and offences that are terrorism-related are not hybridized and remain indictable. Mr. Ehsassi has already spoken eloquently today pertaining to the genocide point.

As opposed to hybridization, there are other steps that can be taken. Mr. Adler, again, will explain, but in April, B'nai Brith Canada published an “Eight-Point Plan to Tackle Antisemitism". Committee members will have that. One of our recommendations is to publish the Attorney General's guidelines for hate-related prosecutions. We believe more can be done in this area, including for other incitement offences.

While we recognize it falls outside the scope of this draft legislation, we must acknowledge that certain remedies that were contained in section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act are part of this overall equation. We accept that freedom of expression is important, but in the context of Bill C-75 the right of potential victims to be free from acts advocating genocide or terrorism and the threat of terrorism must be the greater priority.

Clear penalties help ensure this. We ask committee members to consider carefully the signals they would send by endorsing hybridization of those offences with which we are most concerned.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

It gives me great pleasure to reconvene the meeting and welcome this panel who are going to testify on Bill C-75.

I would like to welcome, from the Association of Justice Counsel, Ms. Ursula Hendel, who is the president. From B'nai Brith Canada, we are joined by Mr. Brian Herman, director of government relations, and Mr. Leo Adler, senior legal counsel.

We will be joined shortly by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, represented by Mr. Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer; and from the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, we will be joined by Deepa Mattoo, director of legal services, and Simran Dosanjh, a law student. They will be here by video conference from Toronto. When they join us, they will come up on the screen. When Mr. Fogel comes in, he will be seated over there.

In the meantime, we'll start hearing testimony.

Ms. Hendel, the floor is yours.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thanks to all of the witnesses—so many witnesses, so little time.

I want to first, if I may, just do a shout-out to Professor Parkes, whom I won't have time to ask a question of. Congratulations on your editorial in The Globe and Mail yesterday on the impact of mandatory minimum sentences, particularly on indigenous people. It was great, and thank you for introducing the term “sentence creep” to our vocabulary.

Ms. Cirillo, I just want to say, as a proud alumnus of the Downtown Legal Services, I know first-hand the important work that you people do. Thank you for doing it and for shining a light on what, I agree with all of you, is an unintended consequence of Bill C-75, that's to say, essentially shutting you out of the provincial court where you do such great work.

In a moment, I'll come back to you with solutions I'd like to get your take on, but I want to remind people of the quote I took from your excellent submission:

The unintended consequence of Bill C-75 would further exacerbate the access to justice issues facing Ontario criminal courts. SLASS clinics have worked for decades representing individuals charged with criminal summary offences, providing effective and efficient representation for those who would otherwise find themselves unrepresented in the criminal justice system. This bill will put an abrupt end to this legacy.

I couldn't have put it better than that.

Ms. Taman, if I could, I want to ask you a few questions. Thank you for the chart you gave us. I wish we had it when we started this little odyssey a few weeks ago.

In respect of the hybridization issue, you talked about the 136 indictable offences being hybridized, and you made an argument that I don't think had ever been made to our committee before. You said that part of the bill is the potential to significantly limit the accused's existing statutory right to elect to be tried by judge and jury and the effective shifting of this choice from the accused to the Crown. I don't think we've heard that before.

Well, if I may, so what? I understand the accused would lose that choice, but isn't it arguably in his or her best interest to go to a trial with a lower maximum penalty? If the person were to be tried by a jury in a higher court, they would likely be gambling on a harsher penalty. Is that a fair comment?

[Markita Kaulius, President, Families For Justice]

Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to be here today.

The federal government is proposing changes to reduce penalties for many serious crimes in Canada. The proposed changes are part of Bill C-75, which contains more than 300 pages of sweeping changes to the Criminal Code of Canada. Some of the proposed changes are to offences that include acts related to terrorism, assaults, impaired driving, arson, human trafficking and much more. These lower sentences send the wrong message to criminals, victims, law-abiding Canadians and society.

For summary convictions that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, section 787 of the Criminal Code of Canada specifies that unless another punishment is provided for by law, the maximum penalty for a summary conviction is a sentence of six months of imprisonment, a fine of $5,000 or both.

We need to have effective deterrents in place that will actually deter these crimes from occurring. If and when they do occur, tough punishments must be in place so that individuals who break the law will be held accountable.

The justice minister says that Bill C-75 will improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system and reduce court delays, strengthen the response to domestic violence, streamline bail hearings and free up court resources by reclassifying serious offences.

Sadly, according to the legal community, this bill will not achieve any of those objectives. Under Bill C-75, the Liberal government has provided the option to proceed with a large number of violent offences by way of a summary conviction rather than indictable offences. This means that the violent criminals may receive no more than six months in jail, or a fine, after committing a serious crime.

Many who commit crimes already get a slap on the wrist for things like obstructing justice, assault with a weapon, abduction, participating in organized crime, impaired driving, and drug trafficking. These are all serious offences. Allowing these criminals back onto the streets with little to no deterrence makes even less sense. Canadians expect this government and our criminal justice system to be there to ensure that public safety is a priority and that criminals receive punishment for the crimes they commit. Public safety and national security should be top priorities for this government. While the Liberal government has said that public safety is a priority, this bill fails the test to keep Canadians safe.

Police officers will likely see themselves arresting the same people over and over again as criminals get lighter sentences in provincial courts or fines for summary convictions. We already have a problem with repeat offenders committing crimes over and over again in communities across Canada, and therefore the backlog will move from the courts to the policing community and back to the courts.

Bill C-75 is a terrible bill for victims and for public safety. We have criminals accused of horrendous crimes, including murder, incest and drug trafficking, who have had their charges dropped because of delays in the courtroom. These charges should never be dropped when a crime has been committed. The accused should still stand trial and not be released or have their charges dropped because it took too long to get to trial. This proves again that in Canada criminals have more rights than the victims.

The federal government needs to make changes to the laws, but please don't sacrifice appropriate sentencing just to speed up the court process by giving lower or no sentences in court cases.

The biggest red flag in this legalization is the hybridization of many indictable-only offences done by adding summary convictions as a sentencing option. Some serious crimes deserve serious penalties, and many of the crimes are classified as “indictment only” for a reason. They should not be punishable under summary conviction with a mere possible fine. That option should not be included in Bill C-75.

With the Liberal government's legalization of marijuana, Canadians are very concerned about impaired driving and now fear an increase in future drug-related impaired driving injuries and deaths. In Bill C-75, there are four drunk-driving related offences, which all become a summary offence instead of an indictable offence. This includes impaired driving causing bodily harm with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit, failure or refusal to provide a sample with causing bodily harm, and impaired driving causing bodily harm by negligence.

For the past seven years, Families For Justice has been asking for tougher impaired driving laws. In that time period, over 7,000 more innocent Canadians have been killed by impaired drivers. We submitted a petition with over 120,000 names signed by Canadians asking the federal government to implement tougher sentencing laws. Now this government wants to do the exact opposite and make the sentencing a summary offence.

We ask this government to make appropriate changes in the laws in an effort to enhance the criminal justice system while preserving the protection of Canadians. I emphasize “to enhance”, not to just make the system more efficient by speeding up the court process by sending cases to the provincial court level instead of the superior courts.

Although some of the amendments are welcome, others signal a significant shift in our criminal justice system. Change can be good; however, even the smallest change must be implemented towards a goal we all share: maintaining the fine balance between protection of the public and protection of the individual within the system.

We still need to place the rights of innocent victims ahead of offenders committing crimes. Members of the justice and human rights committee, we must not sacrifice one for the other.

Thank you.