Bill C-5 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to, among other things, repeal certain mandatory minimum penalties, allow for a greater use of conditional sentences and establish diversion measures for simple drug possession offences.

Opposition Motion—Bail Reform

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would recommend to the hon. member that he reread not only the Supreme Court decision, but also Bill C-5. I realize the problem was the inflammation of rhetoric during the debate on Bill C-5. We did not remove all the minimum mandatory penalties with respect to those gun offences. We only did it in a very narrow band, and it mirrored exactly what the Supreme Court did.

We have been on this question for a long time, since at the very least the federal-provincial-territorial meeting of last October. As I mentioned in my speech, Bill C-75 basically reframed the Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence that had evolved over previous years. It added reverse onuses with respect to intimate partner violence. There are some reverse onuses that already exist.

We are working with the provinces to find other ways to improve the law while remaining charter compliant. These discussions have been going on, particularly at a technical level with our experts. We are going to continue to do this.

We have a responsibility to do this. We have exercised that responsibility. We do not wait until inflammatory rhetoric drives us. We have been doing this for a long time in a prudent way in collaboration with our partners.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to reread the Supreme Court of Canada decision released last week. I am looking at it right now, and for the record, it is R. v. Hilbach. In a seven-to-two decision, that particular court indicated that the four- and five-year mandatory minimums for robbery with a firearm and robbery with a prohibited firearm were not grossly disproportionate, did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment and were charter-compliant, but the court opined that, given the results of Bill C-5, the issue was now moot, so I encourage the justice minister to reread that decision.

My point, however, is that I heard him indicate earlier this week that he was open to suggestions and that he was looking for some ideas. He has literally heard from the provinces, police chiefs, premiers and interested parties, for close to 11 months now, crying out for bail reform. He is indicating that talks are in the works.

Be specific, Minister. What are you doing?

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the hon. Minister of Public Safety.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the important issue of bail and a possible reform in Canada. I know that Canadians are concerned about this issue. Making sure that our laws are effective and fair and that they protect Canadians is certainly a priority for my government.

First, I would like to express my condolences to the families of Constable Greg Pierzchala and Michael Finlay and Katie Nguyen Ngo, and of all victims of the disturbing incidents of violence across this country that we have seen in recent months. Each has been a personal tragedy and a blow to our communities.

Canada has a strong and effective criminal justice system, including its bail laws, but we all know that things could always be improved. Canadians deserve to be and to feel safe, and we have a role to play in protecting our communities. I want to reassure Canadians that, if someone poses a significant threat to public safety, the law tells us they should not be released on bail.

I am disappointed that the official opposition is using tragedies to try to score political points. Canadians know that these are serious and complicated issues, and there are no quick or easy solutions. That is why we have been working hard for months, in collaboration with our provincial and territorial counterparts, to find solutions that would ensure the long-term safety of our communities.

Canada is not broken, despite what the Leader of the Opposition would like people to think. Indeed, data from Toronto shows that between 2019 and 2021, there was a decrease, both in the percentage of individuals granted bail and the number of people rearrested while on bail.

That being said, our government is always looking for ways to improve public safety and the efficiency of our justice system. At the federal-provincial-territorial meeting in October, the Minister of Public Safety and I committed to continue working with our counterparts on the issue of bail. This work is well under way. We also received a letter from the premiers about bail and we are carefully reviewing their proposals and other options.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting with my B.C. counterpart, Minister Sharma. Minister Sharma and I agreed that the best way to address the complicated issue of bail reform is by working together. I am hopeful that all of my provincial and territorial counterparts will agree.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation out there on the old Bill C-75. Bill C-75 is the result of a lengthy collaborative effort with the provinces and territories. It codified the bail principles set out in binding Supreme Court of Canada rulings.

I want to reiterate that Bill C-75 did not make any fundamental changes to the bail system. It did not change the criteria under which an accused can be released by the court. On the contrary, Bill C-75 made it harder to get bail for certain offences, such as violence against intimate partners, by reversing the onus of proof.

I trust that the hon. member for Fundy Royal will also be reassured to learn that there is already a reverse onus where an accused subject to a weapons prohibition is charged with a firearms offence, exactly as his motion calls for. That means the accused would be denied bail unless they can prove to the court that their release would not pose a significant risk to public safety or undermine the public's confidence.

I also know the hon. member for Fundy Royal well enough to be sure he was not deliberately trying to mislead the House on the recent Supreme Court decision, which actually confirmed everything we did in Bill C-5. The minimum mandatory penalty we struck down, the court struck down as unconstitutional, and the minimum mandatory penalties we chose to retain in that bill have been upheld by the court. I would suggest the member read the Supreme Court decision a bit more closely.

One of the calls in the letter from the premiers is to establish a reverse onus for additional offences. I can assure the House that I am giving this serious consideration, and the work is well under way. We have also heard calls for law enforcement reform. I am grateful for their recommendations based on frontline experience. Work is under way to develop legislative and non-legislative options to address the particular challenges of repeat violent offenders.

We also know that it will take more than a legislative reform to completely fix this problem. The police need the necessary resources to monitor offenders who are out on bail and to arrest those who breach their release conditions.

We have already provided significant funding and we are open to providing more where it is needed. There has to be support and care for mental health, as well as for addictions treatment. There needs to be a social safety net. The previous government cut social programs and now we are seeing the very real and serious consequences of those cuts. As a government, we have made unprecedented investments in mental health, including $5 billion for the provinces and territories to increase access to care.

I commend our partners in B.C. for the action they took on bail in November as part of their safe communities action plan. I encourage all provinces to use the many existing tools at their disposal to ensure bail laws are applied safely, fairly and effectively. Yesterday I was happy to see the Premier of Ontario commit to action in this space, and I will reach out to my counterpart in coming days to discuss how we can collaborate.

Addressing the particular challenges posed by repeat violent offenders requires a comprehensive approach that crosses jurisdictions and levels of government. We will be acting at the federal level, and I hope my provincial counterparts will do the same. The only way to solve this problem is by working together. To this end, as has been planned since our last meeting in October, in the coming days I will be reaching out to justice and public safety counterparts to convene an urgent FPT meeting to continue our important work on bail.

I am hopeful that together we can review the product of months of joint work by federal and provincial officials and agree on a comprehensive path forward.

We know there is no easy solution to such a complex problem. We strongly believe that we need to protect Canadians.

At the same time, we must ensure that any measures taken will not exacerbate the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples and Black and racialized Canadians in our jails. We must not further marginalize vulnerable people, including those struggling with mental health issues and addiction, and we must also ensure that everything we do is compliant with the charter.

I look forward to sincere debate in this House today, and I will happily take any good-faith suggestions made by members of Parliament. I discourage members from wasting this opportunity with empty rhetoric designed to inflame the fears of Canadians. Let us debate real solutions and focus our energy on offering ideas for how the system can be changed to better keep Canadians safe while respecting our fundamental rights and values.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, in Bill C-5, the mandatory penalties for serious gun crimes were eliminated. House arrest was prohibited for certain offences, including sexual assault, under the Criminal Code, thanks to changes that were made during our years in government as Conservatives. We said that arsonists who burn down someone else's house and individuals who commit sexual assault should not serve their sentence from the comfort of their own home in the same community as their victims. All Canadians understand that. However, Bill C-5, which recently passed in the House, allows for sex offenders who commit sexual assault to get house arrest. That is wrong and we need to change that.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on what is a very important and pressing issue in our country today.

Our justice system under the Liberals is broken. Everybody knows it. All 13 premiers have gotten together to demand change. Our bail system is the responsibility of the federal government. Those provisions are in the Criminal Code. It is this Parliament that has jurisdiction over the Criminal Code. Our bail system is badly broken.

Some of the recent stats that we have seen out of Toronto will absolutely amaze members. We have heard from police associations across the country. We have heard from the Ontario Provincial Police. We have heard from the Toronto police. We have heard from police officers, and my fellow members have probably heard in their own ridings, about the dangers of our current catch-and-release bail system: the same individuals being caught for a crime and being let back on the street.

In Toronto, and I find this amazing, there were 44 shooting-related homicides last year. Of those 44 perpetrators, the accused, 24 were on bail. Our system is broken. That stat alone will tell us that our system is badly broken, when over half of the homicides in Toronto are committed by people on bail. There are people walking the streets in our community whom we had in custody. The police did their job. They caught them after committing a crime. They charged them, but because of a broken Liberal bail system, they are back out on the street.

This other one, again, amazes me, from the Toronto police: In 2021, 47 individuals were let out on bail. Who are these 47 individuals? They were individuals who were arrested for a firearms offence but were given bail. They committed a firearms offence, but now they are out on the street. They were re-arrested for another firearms offence, and 47 of them were given bail again, given bail twice for firearms offences. The system is broken.

Now we look at the tragic death of a police officer that has galvanized police organizations and has galvanized the premiers, every premier in our country. As my colleague just said, it is hard to get multiple parties from multiple provinces, different premiers, to all agree on something. We do not expect, in Canada, that we would all agree on something, but every single premier in this country, of every province and every territory, agrees that we need bail reform. They are saying that repeat violent offenders who commit gun crimes should not be let out on the street. That is not too much to ask.

Two days after Christmas, a young police officer was gunned down by an individual who was on bail, an individual who had a lifetime firearms prohibition order against him. If someone with a lifetime firearms prohibition commits a firearms-related offence and we cannot keep them in custody, the system is badly broken.

Who broke the system? It was the Liberals. In 2019, Bill C-75 made it far more difficult for offenders who should be behind bars to be kept behind bars. Bill C-75 was a sweeping bail reform by the Liberal government that established a catch-and-release system that ensured that even repeat violent offenders who use guns to commit their crimes would be back out on the street.

It gets worse. The Liberals like to say that the Conservatives' “tough on crime” does not work. The fact of the matter is that it does work. Violent crime went down when we were in government. What is happening with crime now? Crime is up 32% in Canada since the Liberals took government. Gang-related crime and gang-related homicides nearly doubled since the Liberals took government, less than eight years ago. To lay this at the feet of the Liberals is entirely appropriate. It is their system.

What does Bill C-5 do? It removes mandatory minimum sentences for crimes like extortion with a firearm, robbery with a firearm and for drive-by shootings. It allows house arrest for individuals who burn down homes, arsonists. They burn down someone else's house, but they get to serve their sentence from the comfort of their own house. Those who commit sexual assault are now able to serve their sentence from their home and possibly in the same community as their victim.

When we say the Liberal justice system is broken, it absolutely is. Liberals will often talk about the tough-on-crime approach of the Conservatives. If someone is a repeat offender and commits robbery with a firearm in this country, if someone walks into a store or into someone's home with a firearm and robs them, they do not need to be out on the street. They need to be in jail.

It is not helping anyone. We are not helping the victims. We are not helping our communities. We are not even helping the offender. How does putting an offender back on the street help them? Under the Conservatives, if someone committed robbery with a firearm, they went to jail for a minimum of four years.

Under Bill C-5, which recently passed into law, the Liberal Bill C-5 that is soft on crime, there is no longer a mandatory jail sentence for committing a robbery with a firearm. There is something interesting I heard the justice minister say many times. He said that tough on crime is not constitutional.

Less than a week ago, just yards from here, the Supreme Court of Canada said the mandatory penalty of four years for robbery with a firearm is constitutional. It was a seven-to-two decision. The Supreme Court of Canada said that a mandatory penalty of five years for robbery with a prohibited weapon is constitutional. What a surprise. That was a seven-to-two decision. Those were two separate cases.

Soft on crime does not work. Canadians know it. Conservatives know it. Premiers of all political stripes know it. The only people in this country who like this approach would be the Liberals and repeat offenders. That is poor company to keep.

We have to take action on behalf of victims. I do not know how we can look a victim's family in the eyes and say the system does work. Then we say that the person who was out on bail for a firearms crime, who had a lifetime firearms prohibition, was able to murder their loved one and the system is working. The system is not working.

We need strong changes. We need to repeal Bill C-5. We need to that ensure if someone robs another with a firearm they go to jail. We need to ensure that if someone burns someone's house down or commits sexual assault, they are not serving their sentence from the comfort of their own home. We need to ensure that a repeat firearms offender serves their time in jail.

We need to make sure that when the police catch someone who has a firearms prohibition order and who has committed another firearms-related crime, like a drive-by shooting or robbery with a firearm, it is not too high a bar to meet to say that while that person is awaiting trial, for the safety of the victims, the community and our frontline police officers, they are going to be held behind bars.

That is appropriate. It is reasonable. It is what all premiers are calling for. It is what the police are calling for. It is what Canadians are calling for. Unfortunately, for three days in a row, we have asked the government, in good faith, to do something and correct the mistake it made. Will it change the bail laws so individuals, who should absolutely not be roaming our streets, committing crimes and murdering people, are held behind bars? It is crickets over there.

The Liberals said if the opposition wants to come up with something, they will consider it. They are almost victim blaming by saying the police and the provinces have a role. No, the Criminal Code is their job. We are calling on them and demanding that they do something to reform our broken Liberal bail system. They have to do it today.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, for eight years we have heard the Prime Minister falsely proclaim that he is a feminist. After eight years, violent crime against women has never been higher.

A Crown prosecutor in Quebec had the courage to speak out after a rapist received a 20-month sentence that he could serve at home, in the community, because Bill C‑5 had been passed in the House by the Liberals with the help of the NDP and the Bloc.

This prosecutor said that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice “will have to answer to the victims of sexual assault”.

Can the Prime Minister look victims in the eye and tell them that he is satisfied with the sentence that was handed down?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Jonathan Gravel committed a violent sexual assault but avoided going to prison after eight years of legal proceedings. Instead, he received a 20-month suspended sentence that he can serve in the community. Why? It is because the Prime Minister, with the help of the Bloc Québécois, passed Bill C‑5.

When the sentence was handed down, the Crown prosecutor, Alexis Dinelle, said, “Now [the Prime Minister] and the Minister of Justice will have to answer to the victims of sexual assault.”

Does the Prime Minister now realize that Bill C‑5 is a monumental mistake?

Public Safety

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, since the Liberal government took office, violent crime has increased by 32%. There have been 124,000 more violent crimes under its watch.

Who are the primary perpetrators of these crimes? They are repeat offenders and drug traffickers with illegal guns. What is the Liberal solution? It is to remove mandatory minimums and target law-abiding hunters and firearms owners, people like this retired RCMP officer who has four handguns that were carried by his grandfather and father during both world wars. Unfortunately, due to the Liberals' handgun freeze, keeping them in the family is no longer possible.

Meanwhile, recent victims of gun violence include a 17-year-old killed in broad daylight and another police officer murdered by a repeat offender out on bail and prohibited from owning a firearm. After an armed robbery this past weekend, the regional police chief stated, “This violent incident was avoidable. Two of the arrested in this incident failed to adhere to the conditions of their release on previous charges. This is why we must pursue bail reform.”

Considering these disturbing facts, the Liberal government must withdraw its soft-on-crime Bill C-5, make bail reform a priority, and withdraw Bill C-21.

Firearms

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the leader of the Bloc Québécois are totally out of touch when it comes to the safety of Quebeckers. They are working together to criminalize law-abiding citizens, while allowing criminals to roam free in our communities.

Bill C‑5, which was passed with the Bloc's support, allowed a criminal to avoid jail time this week despite being arrested in possession of two fully loaded guns. In addition, Bill C‑21, which the Bloc Québécois also supported, directly attacks Quebec hunters.

Why are they so out of touch?

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we all want a safer society where serious crimes should be met with serious consequences. However, we also have a duty to follow the evidence and set aside failed policies that did not work. That is exactly what we did with Bill C‑5. We are putting resources where they are needed to ensure that our society is safer.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, our community's safety is obviously a priority. We have always said that serious crimes will have serious consequences, but we can also recognize that our justice system required reform. With Bill C‑5, we abandoned policies that were unnecessarily harsh, especially towards indigenous people and Black or marginalized people. These policies clearly were not working. We are proud that Bill C‑5 passed and that it will have a positive impact on Canadians.

Judges Act

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

Madam Speaker, that was precisely the point of my entire speech, that the attitude of the Liberal government around crime is causing an increase in crime across this country.

Bill C-5, which the member mentioned, also allows human traffickers to be placed under house arrest rather than spend their time in jail. Many human traffickers are able to control their victims from inside prison, never mind when they are inside the very same community they were operating in before. Many of them operate from their homes and are able to control their victims through a multitude of means. Not taking these people out of society to do their time and rehabilitate them is a complete failure of justice and leads to the reasons why Canadians do not report crime when they see it and why criminals feel that they can operate with impunity.

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

Madam Speaker, in Bill C-9, there is a strengthened review process where allegations are made against judges regarding sexual misconduct. That is a good thing, but this is the same government that just passed a bill, Bill C-5, to allow criminals convicted of sexual assault to be able to serve their sentences at home, perhaps next door or down the street from their victims.

What does that say about the current government's priorities?

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

Madam Speaker, it is my honour to speak to Bill C-9 today. I know this is always an interesting topic, and I have spoken to it at the other stages along the way.

I commend the Liberals for taking on the issue of judge accountability. It seems like an interesting topic for me, given the fact that Conservatives are often critical of the decisions made by judges across Canada. We find their leniency to be annoying. We find the overturning of the mandatory minimum sentencing to be frustrating, and all of those kinds of things, therefore we think there needs to be accountability for judges along the way.

Then there is the issue of comments made by judges in public. We have seen that become an issue. There are also the actions judges may take in their personal lives that are beyond the pale. It is frustrating to the public that folks in a position of authority and a position of stature in our society would behave in such a manner. These are all areas in which we need to have a level of accountability.

The member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke talked about the independence of the judiciary. That is an important principle, and the bill would maintain that, for sure.

The bill does a good job around personal behaviour accountability and accountability for comments made by judges outside of their role. It would not necessarily deal with accountability in terms of making judgments and things like that, so I would suggest perhaps there is an opportunity to go forward from here.

We will be supporting the bill. It is a good first step. We have heard from folks across the country around the appeals process. Conservatives put forward recommendations to not make the Supreme Court the final appeal process, but to make the Federal Court of Appeals the final appeal process, and I would have supported that as well.

Ensuring accountability for judgments is an interesting and more complicated area. For as long as I have been here I have been trying to come up with a solution for not only maintaining the independence of the judiciary but also having some sort of accountability for judgments made that are not in line with what the Canadian public agrees with. We have seen this very recently around sexual assault and people who are intoxicated. We have seen horrendous judgments from judges in that respect.

I understand there is the notwithstanding clause here, so that Parliament can pass legislation to clarify a judgment. However, we have seen how the Liberal government has been loath to use the notwithstanding clause and has condemned other governments for using it. The notwithstanding clause is an extreme measure, and it also comes with a five-year renewal process. I do not think that is necessarily a good process.

One of the more fascinating items that has come to my attention, and I throw this out there as more of a possibility, is around judge selection by having a panel of judges put forward. As I understand it, cases are generally assigned to particular judges along the way by a chief justice of sorts. There are jurisdictional regions from which cases come that are assigned to particular judges.

There might be an opportunity for the movement of culture within the decisions that are made by judges to put forward a panel of judges rather than one particular judge. Similar to jury selection, both the prosecution and the defence would then agree upon a particular judge. If three judges were put forward in a particular case, out of the three, the prosecution and the defence would have to agree on a particular judge.

That may in fact be the free market of judges, so to speak, a selection process that would ensure judges' accountability. Judges who were making poor judgments would not get as many cases, therefore it would be a kind of corrective action. I am not a lawyer. I am an auto mechanic, so there may be huge holes in this argument, but it seems to me that it is one way of providing judge accountability without going after the independence of the judiciary.

If this place deals with judges and their inaction or their overturning of laws, because there is an interface there, that would be problematic. Putting politics into the judiciary would also be problematic. We want an independent judiciary, and that is very important. I want to reinforce that. I just put forward the idea around the panel of judges and the judge selection process as a possible opportunity for another mechanism for judge accountability.

I am now going to turn my focus to more broader justice issues in this country. We saw the lowering of sentencing across the board in Bill C-71 and now in Bill C-5. We see how the removal or reduction of sentencing has led to an increase in violent crime across the country.

Folks come to me often about rural crime in their communities and how that seems to be on the increase. Some of it is not so much to do with the laws. The laws have not changed a great deal over the last seven years, but the attitude has. That is really what frustrates me about the Liberals. The Liberals' lack of emphasis on justice and their emphasis on the rehabilitation of the criminal but not on aid to the victims or survivors are the kinds of things that have really frustrated me. There is also the lack of taking seriously the crimes that happen in our communities.

I totally understand that there is a host of things, from our prison system to our justice system to our laws, that come into play. Then there is the administration of all of it. When people feel that the system will work, that their cases will be heard, that justice will be had and, if they are victims of crime, that the person will be taken out of their communities or their property will be returned to them, then there is an appetite to participate.

If none of that is seen to be happening, there is an increasing issue of people not being interested in participating in the justice system. That goes in either of two directions. It goes to desperation in terms of not feeling like their country cares for them, but it also goes to vigilantism, where people take things into their own hands.

The Liberals have completely failed in the administration of justice. It is mostly an attitudinal thing. It is not about the particular laws or the system. It is a lot about where they place their emphasis. We have seen, since the Liberals have taken power, that rural crime and violent crime across this country have been on an upward trajectory. That is because victims do not feel that they will get restitution for the problems they are facing. Criminals do not feel they will be held accountable either.

Constituents contacted me about some pickup truck rolling into their yard. They went outside and there were people stealing scrap metal or copper right out of their yard. They confronted them, and the criminals said to call the police and asked what they were going to do about it. That is exactly what is happening in our communities. It comes from the tacit support for the movement to defund the police, from the lowering of sentencing across the board and from the lack of concern for the victim.

It is not a funding issue. We hear the Liberals saying all the time that they have more funding for all of those issues. It is not the funding that is the issue. It is the attitude. We see it over and over again.

The case in point is probably the border security issue that is tangentially attached to this. Under the Conservatives, we spent a lot less on border security. We also did not have a big problem with people coming across the border illegally. People understood that if they came across the border illegally, we were turning them right back around. When the Conservatives were in government, that was the case. That is my major frustration.

Last, I will talk a little about the firearms situation in Canada.

The Liberal government has let the veil slip. It has been trying to ban, confiscate, make illegal and criminalize firearm ownership in this country, full stop. The Liberals always deny that. They always say they are not doing that. However, they have now let veil slip and have put in an amendment to Bill C-21 that includes hundreds of hunting rifles. They were caught, and now they are saying they did not mean to and did not understand.

The Liberals are the ones who say they know how to define firearms. They are the ones telling us they have the experts on their side. They are the ones who said they paid for all the studies.

If they have done all of that hard work, how come hunting rifles are ending up on the list? They are ending up on the list because the Liberals have let the veil slip. They have been after everyone's firearms, not just the handguns, which we were fine with. We said that if they were going to do this, they were going to do this. We do not think criminals should have firearms.

However, when it comes to hunting rifles and farmers having the tools of their jobs, that is where we have drawn the line. We now know what the Liberals' plans are when it comes to firearm ownership in this country. They want to ban it. They want to criminalize it. They want to confiscate the firearms of everyday Canadians. That is extremely worrying.

This particular bill is about judge accountability, and I commend the Liberals for it. I did not think they had it in them to bring forward a bill on judge accountability. I am happy they have. I think judge accountability is something we need to ensure continues in Canada. I have put forward another mechanism for judge accountability, and I am looking forward to having more discussions on that as well.

However, I am concerned that the issues this country faces around justice and law and order do not come from the particular laws and systems that we have in this place, but from the soft-on-crime attitudes of the Liberals and their lack of concern for public safety. This has caused a dramatic decrease in the safety of everyday Canadians, with the running wild, the unaccountability and the lack of fear that we see from criminals in this country as they operate on the streets of Canada.

That is what I hear more and more from Canadians across the country. Criminals operate with impunity. People ask me about this all the time. Why do these criminals operate in broad daylight? Do they not fear the police? They do not.

We hear from Canadians over and over again that these criminals fear nothing in Canada. They do not fear the judicial system. They do not fear our police. We need to ensure that our police forces have the political backing to do what they need to do to take these guys off our streets. We have to make sure that the justice system takes these criminals off the streets and puts them away for a long time to ensure that our streets are safe. If we do not have safety in our communities, we do not have anything. That is the reality.

Safety and security are the fundamental building blocks of a stable and strong country, and we must maintain that as we watch other things fall apart in this country. That starts with the justice, law and order issues in this country, not to mention the inflation issues, the border security issues and the inability to get a passport. There is a whole host of other things that are falling apart.

We need to ensure that our justice system works and that we feel safe to walk around the streets of Canada. Therefore, I will be supporting this bill, and I look forward to questions and comments.

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

Madam Speaker, the courts have not struck down minimum sentences across the board. Mandatory jail times have always been a part of our Criminal Code, or have been for many decades, and continue to be. In fact, none of the provisions, I believe, in Bill C-5 were struck down by the courts, certainly not by the Supreme Court.

It was a choice made by the government to remove those mandatory jail times because, for the government, it is always about putting the rights of criminals ahead of those of victims. The Liberals provided little rationale on why they picked those specific provisions, which involve serious firearms offences and serious drug offences.