Bill S-240 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (trafficking in human organs)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create new offences in relation to trafficking in human organs. It also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to provide that a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissible to Canada if the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is of the opinion that they have engaged in any activities relating to trafficking in human organs.

Criminal Code

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am here to speak tonight to Bill C-51. For those who are not aware, this bill is intended to clean up clauses in the law that are no longer useful or applicable and to strengthen some of the language.

First, Bill C-51 is another omnibus bill. The Prime Minister said that the Liberals would not have omnibus bills, but we continue to see them in the House day after day. I may have gotten used to the fact that the Prime Minister always breaks his promise. However, I want people to be aware of this so they understand, as we approach next year's election, that the Prime Minister does not keep his promises and if he makes new promises, Canadians can expect that behaviour to continue. The promises really are not worth the paper on which they are written. Therefore, I object to this being an omnibus bill.

Usually when we think of justice bills, we think about what the government is trying to achieve in the country with respect to justice. Normally, we try to define what behaviour would be considered criminal, sentences that would be appropriate and commensurate with the crimes and that they are enforced in a timely way. However, I have to question what the justice minister is thinking with these pieces of legislation and actions that have been taken.

The government is in the fourth year of its mandate and what priority has the justice minister been giving time to? First, she has not put enough judges in place to keep murderers and rapists from going free because time has passed and the Jordan principle applies. That should have been a priority for the government, but clearly was not.

We heard earlier in the debate about how the government was pursuing veterans and indigenous people in court. That is obviously a priority for it, but one would think that other things would make the list. The Liberals prioritized the legalization of marijuana and the legalization of assisted suicide. Then it introduced Bill C-75, which took a number of serious crimes and reduced them to summary convictions of two years or a fine, things like forcible confinement of a minor, forced child marriage, belonging to a criminal organization, bribing an official and a lot of things like that. Those were the priorities of the government.

Then there is Bill C-83 regarding solitary confinement and impacts on 340 Canadians.

I am not sure what the priority of the government is when we consider the crime that has hit the streets. There is the increase in unlawful guns and gangs and huge issues with drug trafficking. I was just in Winnipeg and saw the meth addiction problem occupying the police and law enforcement there. I would have thought there would be other priorities.

If I think specifically about some of the measures in Bill C-51, the most egregious one to me is that the government tried to remove section 176, which protects religious officials and puts punishments in place for disrupting religious ceremonies.

Eighty-three churches in Sarnia—Lambton wrote letters and submitted petitions. There was an immediate outcry. It was nice that the government was eventually shamed into changing its mind and kept that section the way it was. However, why is there no moral compass with the government? We have had to shame it into doing the right thing many times, and this was one of them.

Terri-Lynne McClintic was moved to a healing lodge. I remember hearing the Minister of Public Safety talk day after day about how there was nothing he could do. I looked at section 6(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. It says that the minister has full authority over his department. Eventually, of course, we shamed the government into the right thing. We heard today there may be a similar opportunity with Michael Rafferty, the other killer of Tori Stafford.

There is the Chris Garnier situation. He brutally murdered a police officer. He has PTSD and is getting veterans benefits when he was never a veteran. Again, we had to shame the government into taking action.

Then there was Statistics Canada. The government had a plan to allow it to take the personal financial transactional information of people's bank accounts and credit cards without their consent. Again, there was a total out-of-touch-with-Canadians response from the government, asking why it was a problem. Eventually, ruling by the polls, Canadians again shamed the government into changing its mind on that one.

Finally, there was the Canada summer jobs situation, which was very egregious to me. In my riding, numerous organizations were not able to access funding because of this values test that the government had put in place. The hospice, which delivers palliative care, was not even able to apply. It is under the Catholic diocese of Canada, which objected to the attestation. It has taken a very long time, but again, the government has been shamed into saying that the people are right and that maybe it will change it up for next year. Why does the government always have to be shamed into these things instead of having a moral compass to know what is right and what is not?

Bill C-51 would clean up a lot of things that were obviously a big priority for the government, like comic books causing crime. We know there have been huge issues about that in Canada. It would remove offences such as challenging someone to a dual. It would clean up the section on people fraudulently using witchcraft and sorcery. It would clean up a number of things. I do not object to it; I just do not see it as a priority when people are dying because of serious crimes.

Then there is the issue of sexual assault. The government spends a lot of word count talking about the fact that it cares about this. However, does it really care about sexual assault and strengthening the language on consent when it does not appoint enough judges to keep rapists from going free?

I was the chair of the status of women and we studied violence against women and girls. We know that one out of every thousand sexual assault cases actually goes to court and gets a conviction. If we want to talk about the sentences applied, they are measured in months and not years, when the victims struggle on forever.

Although there has been an attempt to make it clear what consent really means, there has been discussion in the debate today that it is still not clear. If people are interested to see what consent really means, there is a little video clip that can be googled. It is called Tea Consent. It is a very good way of demonstrating what consent is. I encourage everyone to take a look at that.

When it comes to the justice system and the priorities of the government, I cannot believe it has not addressed the more serious things facing our nation. We can think about what the justice minister ought to do, such as putting enough judges in place so we can have timely processing of events, and prioritize. If we do not have enough judges for the number of cases occurring, it is an indication of too much crime. However, it is also an opportunity to put the priority on processing murderers and rapists ahead of people being charged with petty crimes of less importance.

When it comes to looking at some of the actions the government should be taking going forward, it should be focusing on the issue of illegal gun activity happening right now. Ninety-five per cent of homicides is happening with unlawful guns or guns that are used unlawfully. There is a huge opportunity to do something about that. This should be a priority for the justice minister.

Our leader has put together a very cohesive plan that would reduce gun and gang violence. It is a great, well-thought out plan. I wish the Liberal government had some plan to try to do something to reduce crime in the country and to ensure that the people who commit crimes are actually held to account. I do not see that in Bill C-51. I have to wonder why it took so long to bring the bill forward.

As I said, the government is in the fourth year of its mandate and Bill C-39 would have made a lot of these fixes. It was introduced in March of 2017. Here we are at the end of 2018 and still none of this has gone through.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that she thought this was an omnibus bill. Everyone else in the House obviously disagrees with her because with an omnibus bill, the vote can be split, and no one requested to have the vote split. It only affects two acts: the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act.

Maybe the member could explain why she thinks this is an omnibus bill, as she is the only member in the House who thinks this.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure I am not the only one in the House who thinks it is an omnibus bill. Perhaps we are just so numb with the number of these that have come by. The most recent one was the 854-page budget bill, which was definitely an omnibus bill. We are so used to seeing them, and all of these things lumped together.

In this one, there are so many different issues that members have to look at many different parts of the Criminal Code in order to see them. This takes a lot of time, and of course we do not always get a lot of time because the government is continually doing time allocation to cut off the time for debate and study.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, the issue with respect to section 176 was just an oversight. It was a mistake that was quickly rectified by the committee. I think we are all glad that it was. This underlines how important committee work is in fixing bills.

I want to move to the Senate amendments. Part of the issue that the Senate had with this bill was not so much with the definition of “consent”, but more with the definition of when no consent is obtained. I am thinking of a victim who is intoxicated voluntarily. We are unsure as to whether consent can be obtained. I am thinking of the Rehtaeh Parsons case. Rehtaeh Parsons was sexually assaulted while intoxicated, and the court acquitted the people who were charged.

The Senate is attempting to really add in more specific language to the Criminal Code so that we do not have judicial discretion. It is so that “no consent” is clearly laid out such that people have to be able to understand the nature, circumstances and risks and that they have a choice. They have to be able to “affirmatively express agreement to the sexual activity”.

Could my colleague comment on those specific amendments the Senate is trying to make on this bill, and whether she agrees with the spirit and intent of the amendments?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think we're definitely moving in the right direction with respect to defining “consent”, but when I still hear arguments back and forth that say it's still not clear, it sounds like we have not arrived at the exact answer.

If we can determine what makes a person mentally competent to give consent in the case of assisted dying, then we should be able to define consent for sexual activity. I do not think this definition is exactly where it needs to be, but I think it is moving in the right direction. We have to move away from the notion of people being unconscious. It has to be clear that if they are inebriated, they cannot give consent, and that people who have a mental challenge may not be able to give consent.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to continue on the omnibus bill discussion.

I gave a 10-minute speech explaining to the House the technicalities and how the orders have been changed so that they cannot be abused. With respect to the budget bill, the member mentioned that at 854 pages it was obviously an omnibus bill. It does not matter how long a budget implementation bill is. Obviously governments have to implement budgets, so they need legislation, which can be 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 pages long. As long as a bill implements what is in the budget, it can put in a number of things. Previously, there was a budget implementation bill that had a huge amount about the environment that was not in the budget, and that was abuse of the budget implementation bill.

This is to provide clarity so that members know what is abuse and what is not abuse with respect to budget bills and non-budget bills.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is asking the wrong question. The question really should be why the government does not keep its promises. Omnibus bills are one example. Liberals said they would not propose them and they have. He admitted that there are some out there.

Let us think about the other promises the government made but did not keep: the deficits that were going to be very small that are not, which are three times what they were supposed to be; the balancing of the budget within the mandate; and the restoration of home mail delivery. I could go on and on, but I can see that my time is up.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I will inform the member that there are only 12 minutes remaining in the time for debate on the motion before the House and I will interrupt him at 6:45 p.m.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have been here for three plus years and this will be the last week for many of us in this beautiful building. I hope all 338 of us take the time to walk around each of the sections of this wonderful building and soak them in: the Railway Committee Room, the Reading Room, the Library of Parliament and the House of Commons. This is one of the great institutions of our country. We all felt it coming to the House of Commons tonight, with the Christmas lights. We are so privileged, over 300 of us, to call this our home.

A good number of us will not be here when it reopens, whether it is in 12 years, 15 years, 20 years, whatever the case may be. Hopefully, we all take pictures. This is a great facility and such an honour. I had a distinguished 40-year career in broadcasting. The iconic curtains in the House of Commons have been here for so long. Come Wednesday or Thursday, we should treat this place like a basketball court, cut them down and each get a piece of the curtains.

I am here tonight to speak on Bill C-51. The stated purpose of this bill is to streamline the Criminal Code of Canada by removing certain provisions that no longer have any relevance in contemporary society. The Conservative Party is very supportive of Bill C-51 strengthening the provisions of the sexual assault legislation and has led the way for supporting victims of sexual assault by, among other things, Bill C-337 by my former Conservative colleague Rona Ambrose, which is one such measure.

Bill C-337 would make it mandatory, as we have heard in the House throughout the day, for judges to participate in sexual assault training and be aware of the challenges sexual assault victims face. The bill was designed to hold the Canadian judiciary responsible for the ongoing training of judges and the application of law in sexual assault trials. It would require that lawyers also receive training in sexual assault as a criterion of eligibility for a federally appointed judicial position. As members will recall, Bill C-337 was passed in the House of Commons and appears to be well on its way to royal assent in the Senate, although Ms. Ambrose, like the rest of us, is waiting patiently for the results.

Bill C-51 would expand the rape shield provisions to include communications of a sexual nature or communications for a sexual purpose. These provisions would provide that evidence of a complainant's prior sexual history cannot be used to support the inference that the complainant was more likely to have consented to the sexual activity in issue or that the complainant is less worthy of belief. The bill also provides that a complainant would have the right to legal representation in rape shield cases, which I believe is very important, but also creates a regime to determine whether an accused could introduce a complainant's private records at trial that would be in his or her possession. This would complement the existing regime governing the accused person's ability to obtain complainants' private records when those records would be in the hands of a third party.

There are some aspects of Bill C-51 that Conservatives were opposed to, such as the removal of section 176 of the Criminal Code, the section of the code that provides protection for religious services and those who perform religious services. It was absolutely ludicrous to remove this section of the Criminal Code when we have seen such a startling increase in attacks on mosques, synagogues and even churches as of late.

It should be noted that, according to Statistics Canada, over one-third of reported hate crimes in this country are motivated by hatred of religion, and removing section 176 would remove valuable protection for our faith leaders in this country.

I received many calls in my riding of Saskatoon—Grasswood over the removal of this section from the Criminal Code. This was brought up on June 5 here in the House, and a couple of weeks later when we recessed for the summer, I had many phone calls in my office in Saskatoon. I remember one phone call came from Pastor Eldon Boldt of Circle Drive Alliance Church. He was terribly concerned by this and was going to start a petition. He wanted the current government to know that this was wrong. He was concerned not only for his own well-being but for other religious leaders across the country.

In Quebec City, we had six people killed in a mosque attack. Our Conservative caucus at the time of that attack was just leaving Quebec City and returning to Ottawa. Also, 26 people were killed at the First Baptist Church in Texas. This is just a short list of what has gone on in this world.

Our religious freedoms are protected, and section 176 of the Criminal Code is certainly part of that protection. Religious freedoms are fundamental to all Canadians, and Conservatives are clearly proud to be among the first to stand and support religious freedoms of all faith.

I should add some words from the Right Hon. John G. Diefenbaker, Canada's prime minister from 1958 to 1962, who hails from my province of Saskatchewan, in fact, Prince Albert. He said:

I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.

If members come to my city of Saskatoon, I will take them to the Diefenbaker Centre where these words are etched onto the wall. It is very important, and these are great words from former prime minister John G. Diefenbaker.

There was a large public outcry against this amendment, and, thankfully, the Liberal members of the justice committee listened to all Canadians and voted to keep section 176 of the Criminal Code.

To summarize, I am pleased to participate in this debate on Bill C-51, which covers a broad range of amendments to the Criminal Code. Our current Prime Minister, of course, talked about omnibus bills being undemocratic. We talked about this in the House. I remember door-knocking back in 2015 as our former Conservative government was blamed, and maybe rightfully so at times, for the omnibus bills created in the House from 2011 to 2015. However, we see now that the bill before us, introduced by the current government, could also be considered an omnibus bill, because it has so many sections to the Criminal Code that we are dealing with. It is a promise, actually a pattern of promises, not kept by the Liberal government.

However, there are some amendments to the Criminal Code addressed in Bill C-51 that are quite necessary and really common sense. For example, we fully support all changes in the bill that clarify and even strengthen the sexual assault provisions in the Criminal Code. These changes would help support all victims of sexual assault crimes.

Conservatives have always stood up for the rights of victims in this country. We have a proud record of introducing the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and the passing of Bill C-337, which would make it mandatory for all judges to participate in sexual assault training. Both of these actions are in support of victims. Sometimes we forget all too much about the victims in this country, and they certainly need to be supported.

I think the Conservative Party has supported victims very well in the past number of decades.

Additionally, we support repealing or amending sections of the code that have been ruled unconstitutional by the courts. The removal of obsolete or even redundant provisions makes common sense. There is really no need for provisions about witchcraft or duelling in the streets. They are just not part of today's society.

However, an area of this bill which caused great concern for all Canadians was the government's removal of section 176 of the Criminal Code. We have talked about that. Thanks to the work of an effective opposition on this side, and the voices of all Canadians who spoke up in the summer of 2017 to challenge the government, the Liberals have decided to back down from these changes.

That just about wraps up my time. I just want to wish everyone who is in the House and who is watching the House of Commons on CPAC tonight all the best in the holiday season. As this could be the final time that I rise in 2018, I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It being 6:45 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-51 now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.