Bill C-5

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.

Criminal Code

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

I will look directly at the member and say that on this side of the House, we care about gun crime. I spent three years of my life invested in doing everything I could with respect to my job when it came to gun crime, and I believe that my colleagues share that same sentiment. We do not want to see another shooting.

My question is twofold. First off, I am sorry, as I noted the hon. member spoke about the people in his life who have been impacted by gun crime. That is horrible and we do not want to see it. However, the member cited a number of cases, and I am wondering if he knows whether the guns used were legally or illegally obtained, and why we are not going after illegal guns in Bill C-21. Second, how does he reconcile this speech with the fact that we have lowered sentences with conditional sentence orders in Bill C-5?

Second Reading

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, even the Liberalist can be circumvented, but that is another matter.

What we are saying is that we would resolve a big part of the problem that was mentioned regarding air gun users. We are proposing that the bill include a clear definition of what constitutes an assault weapon, rather that listing all the weapons that are banned. There are currently 1,800 weapons on that list. It is never-ending. Weapons would need to be added to the list annually or even monthly to cover everything that needs to be covered. We would not be able to keep up. Instead, we should establish a clear definition of what constitutes an assault weapon and then ban them all. A weapon that does not meet the established definition would be allowed. That would surely satisfy the many firearms users who are telling us that the gun they use is being banned when there is no reason for it because it is not a real assault weapon. If we clearly define what constitutes an assault weapon, we can avoid a lot of discussion and problems regarding air gun users.

What really takes the cake is hearing the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice tell us that the increase in maximum sentences set out in Bill C‑21 will solve a lot of problems with crime, shootings and so on. We have been opposing Bill C-5 for months because the bill is unexpectedly and inopportunely going to eliminate minimum sentences for gun-related crimes. We are saying that the minimum sentences for gun crimes must not be reduced. People want us to do something about the shootings. In the case of that bill, the minister told me not to worry about it because criminals do not care about the elimination of minimum sentences. That does not concern them. There is not one criminal who worries about what the minimum sentence is before they commit a crime.

Today, not even a week later, the Minister of Public Safety is boasting about how great the government is for taking action on shootings by increasing the maximum sentences. Something does not add up here. I do not get it.

About increasing the maximum sentences from 10 to 14 years, I think that someone committing a firearm offence cares more about not getting caught. Is the maximum 10 years or 12 years? I would be surprised if that person thought long and hard before committing the crime. Having said that, we obviously cannot be against this measure. I think it is a good measure, but it will have virtually no effect on the growing crime rate.

Then there are the yellow-flag and red-flag provisions. This is a good thing. For quite some time, many women's groups and victims' groups in the community have been saying that someone who becomes threatening or violent should have their licence and weapons taken away. The red-flag provisions would allow for the confiscation of a firearm from someone who is a danger to themselves or others. If someone is accused of domestic violence or stalking and a protective order is issued against them, their licence could be revoked or at least suspended.

The red-flag and yellow-flag provisions are a good thing, and the Bloc Québécois is happy to support them. We thank and commend the government for them.

As far as cartridge magazines are concerned, they are already limited to five bullets or a bit more depending on the type of gun. We were glad it was limited because no one who goes hunting needs a cartridge magazine with 20 bullets, unless they are a bad shot. If so, they would be better off staying at home. Limiting the capacity of cartridge magazines to five bullets was already a good thing. Bill C‑21 also seeks to prohibit the alteration, import or resale of these cartridge magazines and make it a Criminal Code offence. These are good provisions that the Bloc Québécois supports.

Again, I want to reiterate what my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia and I have been saying for weeks in the House: There is a problem. Bill C‑21 is a good bill, but 95% of the shootings happening right now every day in the streets of Montreal and elsewhere are committed with illegal handguns that were acquired on the black market.

That is what people want us to tackle. People talk very little about legal guns, if at all. They do talk about them, that is true, but those guns are not used to commit most crimes, although it does happen. Once again, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C‑21, but what is the government doing about the illegal guns that are used to commit 95% of crimes?

The Bloc Québécois is very worried about that because our voters are worried about it. Perhaps Liberal voters are not worried about it, but I will let the Liberals discuss it with their voters. People are talking about it in our ridings. People call my riding office and ask me when will we solve the problem of people shooting at one another in the streets of Montreal like in a western. It is outrageous, and we must act. However, Bill C‑21 does nothing about that.

Last week, Quebec announced $6.2 million to tackle gun smuggling through Akwesasne. That is a good thing, and we were pleased. However, Quebec should not be paying for it, given that border control is a federal responsibility. It would seem that the Liberals are not interested in managing things that fall under their jurisdiction. It is disappointing and worrisome for the public, and for the Bloc Québécois.

As my colleague from Shefford stated, the Bloc Québécois will be voting in favour of Bill C‑21. However, once again, we are very disappointed with this government's complacency on the issue of guns illegally crossing our border.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying I will be sharing my time with the always incisive member for Rivière-du-Nord.

Some debates are complex, difficult and delicate. They elicit strong reactions, and even divide us and help create rifts in our society. The debate on Bill C-21 is a striking example.

I remember that this is the first file I commented on publicly after I was elected for the first time in fall 2019, and here we are at the end of the session in my second term, in June 2022, and we are still talking about it.

I would like to point out that the Bloc Québécois will still be voting in favour of Bill C-21 at second reading, but we believe that the bill should be improved in committee. My colleagues can rest assured that the Bloc will try to be as constructive as possible, but our now-famous dynamic duo, namely the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord and the hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, could explain it better than I can, since they have asked the Minister of Public Safety many questions on the issue. I will begin my speech by addressing certain aspects of Bill C-21, then certain points more specifically related to femicide and, lastly, other points focusing on domestic violence.

First, given the numerous events in the news in Montreal lately, Bill C-21 is a step in the right direction, but it will have little effect in the short term and change practically nothing in the streets of Montreal. The most important new feature in this bill is a complete freeze on the acquisition, sale and transfer of handguns for private individuals. Legal handguns will therefore disappear on the death of the last owner, since it will be impossible to bequeath or transfer the guns to others.

However, the bill includes exceptions for people who need a handgun to perform their duties, such as bodyguards with a licence to carry, authorized companies, for filming purposes for example, and high-level sport shooters. The government will define by regulation what is a “sport shooter”.

Those who already own a handgun will still be able to use it legally, but they will have to make sure to always renew their licence before the deadline or lose this privilege. The bill freezes the acquisition of legal handguns, but we will have to wait many years before all of the guns are gone, through attrition. In contrast, the number of illegal guns will continue to grow.

The federal government estimates that there are more than one million legal handguns in Canada and that more than 55,000 are acquired legally every year. The federal freeze would therefore prevent 55,000 handguns from being added to the existing number, but it does nothing about the millions of guns already in circulation. The Bloc Québécois suggests adding handguns to the buyback program in order to allow owners to sell them to the government if they so wish. In short, we are proposing an optional buyback program.

However, one of the problems is that, according to Montreal's police force, the SPVM, 95% of the handguns used to commit violent crimes are purchased on the black market. Legal guns are sometimes used, as in the case of the Quebec City mosque shooting, and it is precisely to avoid such mass shootings that the Bloc Québécois supports survivor groups in their demands to ban these guns altogether.

Bill C‑21 does nothing about assault weapons either, even though manufacturers are custom designing many new models to get around the May 1, 2020, regulations. The Bloc suggests adding as clear a definition as possible of the term “prohibited assault weapon”, so that they can all be banned in one fell swoop, rather than on a model-by-model basis with taxpayers paying for them to be bought back. The government wants to add to the list of prohibited weapons, but manufacturers are quick to adapt.

Also, Bill C‑21 will have no real impact on organized crime groups, which will continue to import weapons illegally and shoot people down in our streets. The Bloc Québécois has tabled Bill C-279 to create a list of criminal organizations, similar to the list of terrorist entities, in order to crack down on criminal groups that are currently displaying their gang symbols with total impunity while innocent people are dying in our streets. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord will discuss this bill in more detail, since he is the sponsor.

The most important thing for getting to the heart of the problem is reducing the number of guns available. Bill C‑21 increases prison sentences for arms traffickers, from 10 years to 14, and makes it an offence to alter cartridge magazines. It was already illegal to possess cartridge magazines that exceed the lawful capacity, but the government is now making altering cartridge magazines a crime.

Second, as the Bloc Québécois critic for status of women, I am regularly asked about this type of bill. What is interesting in this case is that Bill C‑21 incorporates the red- and yellow-flag system from the former Bill C-21. With the red-flag provisions, the Criminal Code will allow any individual to ask a judge to issue an order to immediately confiscate firearms belonging to a person who could be a danger to themselves or others, and even to confiscate weapons belonging to a person who might make them available to a person who poses a risk. The order would be valid for 30 days, and judges could take measures to protect the identity of the complainant.

The yellow-flag provisions would allow chief firearms officers to temporarily suspend a person's firearms licence if they have information that casts doubt on the person's eligibility for the licence. This suspension would prevent the person from acquiring new firearms, but it would not allow for the firearms they currently own to be seized. However, the person would not be allowed to use those firearms, for example at a firing range.

A new measure in this version of Bill C-21 is the immediate revocation of the firearms licence of any individual who becomes subject to a protection order or who has engaged in an act of domestic violence or stalking. This measure has been lauded by many anti-femicide groups, like PolyRemembers. There are several such groups, far too many, in fact.

This includes restraining orders and peace bonds, but also, and this is interesting, orders concerning domestic violence and stalking, including physical, emotional, financial, sexual and any other form of violence or stalking. A person who was subject to a protection order in the past would automatically be ineligible for a firearms licence.

However, there is another problem in relation to gun smuggling. The bill contains only a few measures and, I will say it again, it does not mention a buyback program for assault weapons or even the addition of a prohibited assault weapons category to the Criminal Code, two things that are absolutely necessary.

It is important to point out that 10- and 12-gauge hunting rifles are not affected by the ban. The gun lobby tried to sow doubt with a creative definition of a rifle's bore, which is now limited to under 20 millimetres. The bill therefore does not affect hunters. I know that many hunting groups are concerned about the new measures, but we need to reassure them that assault weapons are not designed for the type of hunting they do.

Getting back to assault weapons, the government as already planning to establish a buyback program through a bill in order to compensate owners of newly prohibited weapons, but it did not do so in the last legislature. If the government persists in classifying guns on a case-by-case basis, the number of models of assault weapons on the market will continue to rise. That is why the Bloc Québécois suggests adding a definition of “prohibited assault weapon” to the Criminal Code so that we can ban them all at once.

The Liberals keep repeating that they have banned assault weapons when there is nothing preventing an individual from buying an assault weapon right now or going on a killing spree if they already have one, since a number of models remain legal. Having already come out against this in Bill C‑ 5, the Liberals are also sending mixed messages in removing mandatory minimum sentences for certain gun crimes.

Third, I know that this bill will not stop all cases of femicide, but it is significant as part of a continuum of measures to address violence. There is still much work to be done, for example in areas such as electronic bracelets and health transfers, to provide support to groups that work with victims and survivors.

On Friday, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women tabled its report on intimate partner and family violence in Canada, and that is essentially the message I wanted to convey in my supplementary report. I hope it will be taken seriously. We will also need to work on changing mindsets that trivialize violence and try to counter hate speech, particularly online.

To talk a little bit about the bill, it relates to cases of violence, and we mentioned electronic monitoring devices. The bill would provide for two criminal offences that would qualify for electronic monitoring, including the authorized possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm or ammunition. That is a good thing. Something worthwhile came out of the work that we did at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

In closing, we are not the only ones who are saying that this bill does not go far enough or that it needs more work. The mayor of Montreal herself said that this bill does not go far enough. She said, and I quote:

This is an important and decisive measure that sends the message that we need to get the gun situation under control. The SPVM is making every effort to prevent gun crime in Montreal, but it is going to be very difficult for police forces across the country to do that as long as guns can continue circulating and can easily be obtained and resold.

There is still work to be done, and we must do it. We owe it to the victims. Enough with the partisanship. Let us work together constructively to move forward on this important issue. We cannot stand idly by while gunshots are being fired in our cities, on our streets and in front of schools and day cares. Let us take action to put an end to gun culture.

Criminal Code

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

Madam Speaker, I want to add my voice as well to the debate around Bill C-21, which is a very sinister bill that comes out of the evil intentions of the Liberal government.

Why do I say that? It is because the bill before us will do nothing to end the crime sprees that we are seeing happen across the country. The bill will do nothing to end the violence that is happening in our streets. The bill will do nothing to support law enforcement in bringing these people to justice and holding them to account.

I hear over and over from community members that criminals are operating with impunity in broad daylight. They do not seem to fear the police whatsoever, or authorities of any sort, and that is the hard work that needs to be done. However, the Liberals are not interested in doing that hard work, because they know that this hard work will not score them political points. Therefore, I lay at their feet that the bill before us is a feeble attempt and that the Liberals should reconsider what they are doing.

Bill C-21 will not reduce gun crime and it will not reduce crime that is happening in our streets across the country. Why? It is because it would not give the authorities new tools; it would not provide new funding for law enforcement; and it would not allow for law enforcement to make quick interventions in these kinds of situations.

In Calgary, not a month ago, people in two cars racing down the street were shooting at one another. One car collided with a minivan and killed a mother of six children. Community members were asking, “How does this happen in broad daylight? Why did these criminals think that they could operate with impunity?” Well, that is because they did not see that there would be any consequence to what they were doing, and that is the challenge. That is the challenge of governing and it is what is required of government, which is to ensure a reward to those who do good and punish those who do evil.

This government is not doing that. For that, it gets a failing mark on Bill C-21.

This particular bill, although it takes the easy way out, would go after law-abiding firearms owners. The people who are already obeying the law and jumping through all of the hoops to own a firearm would only have another hoop placed in front of them. They would not be able to purchase new handguns or be able to transfer those handguns to their offspring and those kinds of things. Under this particular bill, they would be the last generation of handgun owners.

Many of these firearms are heirlooms handed down from generation to generation. Many of my constituents speak with pride about the firearm that their great-grandfather used to own, and they have it in their collection. It is something they will no longer be able to pass down if Bill C-21 comes into force. How will that prevent criminals from operating with impunity in broad daylight? It will not.

That is a punitive, lazy and evil outcome of this particular bill. It would take away a freedom that Canadians have to pass on their heritage to their children, but it would not equip law enforcement or communities in order to prevent criminals from acting in broad daylight, making our communities less safe and a place where the gangsters rule, rather than law and order.

The Liberals claim law and order is their goal, but in reality we know that it is not. If they were actually focused on tackling some of these tough issues around restoring law and order, making criminals fear authorities, putting power behind the authorities and providing political support for law enforcement to do their job, we would see a restoration of peace and security in these communities. However, we have seen the Liberals tacitly support the “Defund the Police" movement; we have seen them radically reduce the length of sentencing that comes from participating in gun crime with Bill C-5; and we have seen their failure to adequately call out the firebombing of churches across the country.

All of these things have allowed gangsters and communities to feel like there is no law and order being upheld in particular communities. Where I come from, rural crime is a large and growing issue. People do not even phone the police anymore, because they are quite convinced that nothing will be done. The police will do the investigation and make the arrests, and the perpetrator will be out again the next evening. Then, when it does eventually go to trial, the whole case will be thrown out on some technicality. This does not bring justice for the victims, but it also does not put the perpetrators on a path to restoration to the community or a path of rehabilitation so that they can operate in the community.

These are some of the things that Conservatives have been calling for. We have been calling for the government to work to back up the police. My dad is a World War II history buff and he has a poster on his wall of a soldier going off to war. It says, “Buy Victory Bonds. Back him up!” That is essentially what we are calling on the government to do, to back up the law and order of this country and to provide the political support to ensure that law and order can be enforced in our communities. That is one of the major things we are seeing, whether it is in downtown Toronto, whether it is in Surrey, British Columbia, whether it is in Calgary, whether it is in northern Alberta or whether it is in Fairview, Alberta. That is something we are calling for.

Another thing I want to bring up as well is about some of the sports that involve firearms, particularly the handgun-shooting sports. I have a good friend up in Slave Lake who participates in a particular type of competition around this. He is of elite skill. I do not have any concern that he will not be able to get the elite skill exemption that is placed in this bill, but his question is, how does one become elite? One becomes elite by starting out as an amateur. One becomes elite by beginning at the bottom of the totem pole: buying one's first handgun when one is 18 years old, going to the range, learning how to shoot, getting a mentor, all those kinds of things.

In hockey, we have thousands of people who play hockey who want to make it to the NHL. The same thing happens with elite handgun-shooting competitions at the Olympics. Typically, there are thousands of people who are participating at the amateur level so that we can have one or two make it to the Olympics to represent Canada on the world stage. How are we going to ensure that we have a strong and growing base of people to draw from for those things?

The other area of competition I want to talk about is paintball and airsoft. These two particular sports are going to be extremely penalized by this particular bill, because many of the paintball markers or airsoft tools look like a replica of a firearm. How does that help anybody in Canada? Many times these are replicas that are used for training purposes. They are used for simulation purposes. Again, the point is that if we want to have Canadians competing at the Olympic level, we need to ensure that we can use these particular tools.

I find that Bill C-21 is a sinister bill. Bill C-21 does not do the things that it is purported to do. I look forward to the defeat of this bill and the government providing support to law enforcement to restore law and order in our communities.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak on Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments with a particular focus on Canadian firearms legislation. It is yet another bill that proves this NDP-Liberal government's incompetence and vendetta against Canadians by being too soft on crime, particularly gun crime, while being punitive towards law-abiding Canadians.

The main premise of the bill is generally to ban the future legal sale of handguns in Canada and increase the allowable penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking. Bill C-21 also outlines an untested buyback program based on a similar approach attempted by New Zealand. The program proved to have numerous substantial issues that the NDP-Liberals conveniently omitted from the contents of the bill. Ultimately, the government claims to advance laws to protect Canadians. However, upon closer inspection, Bill C-21 is riddled with contradictions and faulty premises that are simply an attack on Canadians' safety and security. How can the government claim that it is keeping guns off our streets when the bill itself is grounded in unfounded statistics and a faulty premise from a country that implemented a similar approach, and claim that the increase of maximum penalties will deter crime?

It is incredibly contradictory that the government is introducing Bill C-21 to pair with the equally problematic Bill C-5, further proving that the government prioritizes political gain over the protection and security of innocent, hard-working Canadians already being subjected to the government's ineffective draconian rule.

For the sake of brevity, I will focus my speech on the following: one, the flawed statistics that the government based its argument on in the first place; two, the equally faulty premise riddled with issues from New Zealand's Arms Amendment Bill; three, the government's focus on protecting offenders while punishing law-abiding, licensed Canadians; and four, the NDP-Liberal government's critically misdirected approach to address gun crime and firearms legislation through Bill C-21.

Going back to numerous statistics, gun crime has climbed steadily since the government has been in power and, unsurprisingly, even more so with its “spend-DP” allies. Together, they managed to spend more to achieve less, and Bill C-21 is no different. The foundation of the bill is in reference to a series of records from Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada highlighted that firearm-related violent crime only represents a small proportion of police-reported crimes in Canada, accounting for 2.8% of all victims of violent crime reported by police in 2020.

Furthermore, Statistics Canada states that the numbers upon which the bill is founded are lacking in numerous areas. It quotes gaps in its records such as, but not limited to: one, the types of firearms used in these crimes; two, whether or not the owner of the firearm was licensed to bear arms in the first place; three, where the firearm was procured from to commit the offence; and four, whether or not the firearm was properly or improperly stored. With these piecemeal statistics, I want to know how the government has the gall to insist that it is getting tougher on crime by relying on punitive approaches to licensed gun owners over addressing the real issues of gun-related violence from gangs and their members in our communities.

Bill C-21 did introduce increasing maximum sentencing for certain offences, but increasing maximum penalties will give no reprieve when the minimum penalty would be Bill C-5's option for house arrest under conditional sentencing. Furthering the theme of faulty premises, the government introduced a buyback program that was loosely based on a similar approach adopted by New Zealand in 2019. It was called the Arms Amendment Bill. The recommendation highlighted that handguns would be sold off to authorized parties so long as they were accepted, and then the previous owner would be adequately compensated. This approach should have also highlighted the issues found by New Zealand in adopting such a program: issues the government conveniently omitted from discussions.

Considering that the government is introducing a similar approach, it could be reasonably inferred that Canada would be plagued by similar obstacles. Under New Zealand's Arms Amendment Bill, the program lacked fair and reasonable compensation for gun owners who had legally obtained their firearms from a reputable source, thus leaving some licensed owners scrambling to sell their firearms to select establishments that would accept them.

Inevitably, the limited market of firearms purchasing would leave it oversaturated, with firearms circulating through the buyback program, leaving gun owners undercompensated and frustrated. Ultimately, this would result in significantly more egregious gaps in the already spotty records outlined from Statistics Canada. Without an accurate track of handguns in circulation and sold or procured through the program, how can we accurately account for firearms in Canada?

This program would not account for illegally obtained or smuggled firearms. It would not contribute to the accuracy of statistics we have on firearms-related offences in Canada, and it certainly would not protect and preserve the safety and security of vulnerable and innocent Canadians comprising our communities. Instead of investing in an untested firearms program in Canada, the government should invest in improving support systems and resources for anti-gun violence.

Why is the government pampering actual offenders who are wreaking havoc in our streets with illegally obtained firearms? It should scrap the program, as outlined in Bill C-21, and reinvest the funds into anti-gun-violence resources, provide rehabilitation for demographics prone to gang involvement, and strengthen our border security to avoid the infiltration of firearms in our neighbourhoods. The lack of these common-sense solutions in Bill C-21 only proves that the government is not serious about keeping firearms off our streets. It only knows how to mismanage taxpayers' money to advance its ineffective NDP-Liberal agenda.

The lack of a grandfathering clause in Bill C-21 would force firearms owners to either surrender their firearms to the limited dealers allowed to store firearms, as noted through Bill C-21, or retain their ownership. Either way, this would do nothing to solve the issue of firearms-related crimes in Canada.

If anything, the lack of a grandfathering clause would only contribute to more backlogs and waiting times that plague the country. Canadians do not need another NDP-Liberal manufactured disservice. Regardless of all the other questionable aspects outlined in Bill C-21, the lack of a grandfathering clause would be punitive toward law-abiding folks who have done their due diligence in their licence acquisition to bear arms.

This would only punish the wrong people and enable the criminals who illegally procure firearms in the first place. Where is the government's dedication to offenders' rehabilitation, support for victims and survivors, and conviction to take corrective actions to guarantee the integrity of our judicial system?

Conservatives believe that minimum sentencing should be sustained for heinous crimes, including crimes involving firearms, not only through the enactment of maximum penalties of 10 to 14 years in a correctional facility, but also by shunning the proposal of conditional sentencing, such as house arrest, for offenders. Moreover, Bill C-21 would establish no systems to deliver support or resources to survivors or potential victims of gun violence.

This is not a right-to-bear-arms speech. We Conservatives simply advocate for putting Canadians first and enforcing pragmatic, common-sense solutions to get guns off our streets and limit gun violence in Canada, while protecting the safety and security of our communities.

I now welcome questions or comments from my colleagues.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Yellowhead.

This is a real opportunity to speak against Bill C-21. The premise of my whole talk today will be that Bill C-21 would actually make Canadians less safe, as it spends sparse resources in ways that are ineffective and targets law-abiding firearms owners instead of the real problem, which is gangs and guns in our inner cities.

In 2018, Public Safety Canada put forward a paper, “Reducing Violent Crime: A Dialogue on Handguns and Assault Weapons - Engagement Paper”. It starts off by explaining what I am trying to explain today:

The vast majority of owners of handguns and of other firearms in Canada lawfully abide by requirements, and most gun crimes are not committed with legally-owned firearms.

It goes on:

Recent estimates indicate that there are about 900,000 handguns registered to individuals in Canada. In most cases, individuals own handguns either in the context of sport shooting activities or because those handguns form a part of a collection.

Later it states:

Any ban of handguns or assault weapons would primarily affect legal firearms owners....

It is not just Conservatives who are saying this; the former public safety minister himself actually said that he knows that handgun bans would not work. In a 2019 interview with The Globe and Mail, he said that months of consultation have led him to the conclusion that banning handguns would be costly and ineffective. Again, that is from the Liberal former public safety minister across the way:

I believe that would be potentially a very expensive proposition but just as importantly, it would not in my opinion be perhaps the most effective measure in restricting the access that criminals would have to such weapons, because we'd still have a problem with them being smuggled across the border.

I could not agree more. That is why I find it strange that the government has not imposed a handgun ban previously and has admitted that it is going to be ineffective and very expensive. Again, the premise is very expensive, and I do not even necessarily want to speak to that, because how can we quantify the life of one of our children? We cannot. They are priceless. Instead, let us actually deal with the problem in a way that would actually save lives on our streets instead of prolonging the problem.

This is a quote from a police officer. Staff Superintendent Sean McKenna of Peel Regional Police recently tweeted:

Another illegally owned firearm seized by Peel Police. This is becoming a far too common occurrence in our community. A municipal, provincial or federal ban on firearms will not stop criminals from carrying them. Root cause issues need to be addressed.

Exactly. Here is somebody who sees the problems on the streets daily and knows where the real problem lies.

Another police officer, Ron Chhinzer, tweeted, “In my time in the integrated gun and gang task force, I don't recall ever seizing a legally owned firearm from any of the investigations that I was involved in.

“The law-abiding population should never suffer or pay because of the unlawful criminal.”

Again, here is someone who is actually on the streets, seeing this first-hand. What I am going to talk about later is how we should give those police officers better resources to deal with the root problems, like recidivism. Criminals get to walk free and commit crimes all over again. We are also not dealing with some of the root causes that cause violence in the first place.

Here is another quote from another police officer, Steve Ryan, who tweeted, “I investigated 150 homicides—never seized one legally owned gun as a murder weapon. In my opinion, it makes more sense to ban legally owned kitchen knives and scissors! Those I have seized as murder weapons. Banning legally owned guns won't decrease violence. Root cause will!”

There is a consistent message coming from our police officers today: The focus should be on the problem instead of on the diversion, the law-abiding firearms community.

Chris Lewis, a former OPP commissioner who works for CTV, is a crime specialist who has been a very vocal opponent of wasting resources on gun bans. Here is a quote from Mr. Lewis: “They aren’t legally owned handguns, nor are they shotguns and hunting rifles. Taking more guns from lawful owners and putting a toothless municipal handgun ban in place will do the square root of sweet”...nothing, I will say, because he uses another word, “to impact violent crime.”

There it is. Even the former commissioner is saying the same thing.

I will go on. I have a few more quotes, and then we will get into more discussion. I am sure there will be questions.

The deputy chief of the Toronto Police Service, Myron Demkiw, stated, “The City of Toronto's experience is that guns are not from law-abiding citizens that are being used in crime. They're guns being smuggled from the United States. Those engaged in handling those firearms are not law-abiding, licensed gun owners; they are criminals with no firearms licence.”

I am a firearms owner. I have my RPAL. I know that it is a very rigorous process to purchase a firearm in Canada, whether it is a non-restricted firearm or restricted. It is very difficult. There is training that is involved and there is a vetting process that is involved, and every day they look at our records to make sure that we can still legally and safely own our firearms.

I will go on to a quote from somebody who is very important. This was part of the recent public safety study. It is from Marcell Wilson. He is the founder and president of the One By One Movement, an organization founded by former gang members, extremists and organized crime members to help identify, address and research strategies on effective social programming for youth outreach.

He explained:

...when speaking on gun control, when we hear the phrase, it should always be synonymous with illegal gun crime and illegal gun trafficking as over 80% of the gun violence we [witness is] committed with illegal firearms smuggled in from the USA.

It has not just been me. I always like to quote other individuals with expertise a lot of better than my own, such as actual police officers on the streets. This is from Marcell Wilson, former gang member, who is really trying to fix the root problem of the issue of kids dying on our streets as the result of illegal firearms.

I think that as Conservatives, this is where we take quite a different position from the Liberals across the way. We Conservatives actually support dealing with the real problem. We saw a Liberal long-gun registry that cost $2 billion the last time. We have another bill, Bill C-21, that is part of resurrecting another long-gun registry and a confiscation regime too. It is going to be in the billions.

My argument is always to just take even a fraction of that money and put it into places where it is going to be effective, such as giving border agents better resources to inspect containers as they cross the border. I do not even want to say the percentage of the containers that are actually inspected, but how about we triple that, or even increase it times 10 to an exponential number of inspections to actually deal with these firearms and stop them right at the border? How about we give inner city police the tools to crack down on illegal firearms and gang activity? How about we give resources to help these police officers deal with these young gang members and try to get them out of those gangs and into productive lives?

We support stopping the revolving door. We even saw recently, with Bill C-5, that the Liberals want to let people who are convicted of firearm crimes out the door sooner than they should be, just to recommit those crimes. Why do we not deal with all of those situations? That will actually cause a real effect, a real, positive change in safety in our inner cities and on our streets.

At the end of the day, I started off by saying that the bill actually makes our country less safe. What the Prime Minister is touting is a bait and switch. Just because he is talking about guns and getting rid of them does not mean he is talking about the right guns to get rid of. He needs to get rid of the illegal firearms on our streets. Once he starts tackling that and stops misleading Canadians about what really will make a change, my hope is that he will finally realize what that is, but I think he uses this issue to divide Canadians. I would rather see us tackle the real problem with illegal firearms on our streets.

Judges Act

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to clarify for my colleague from the NDP regarding this piece of legislation, I agree. Looking at the proposal and the draft, this could strengthen it and ensure there is a full process for every complaint that goes through to a review of judicial misconduct. The bill would improve and modernize that.

What I was alluding to in my speech was an opposition to Bill C-5 and the elimination of mandatory minimums. Again, one can support and respect the independence and quality of our judges in this country while still believing there could be a minimum floor.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was not suggesting that people would get off scot-free. What I am saying is that Conservatives believe that, for the serious cases I listed, with the removal of mandatory minimums in Bill C-5, there should be a floor, a benchmark or a minimum punishment for some of the most severe and serious crimes being committed to go after the people who are going after our most vulnerable.

Again, I alluded to this in my comments. These are highly educated judges, and I have respect for our judiciary. I also have respect for victims. I believe when somebody is committing robbery with a firearm or extortion with a firearm, or they are producing heroin, cocaine, fentanyl or crystal meth, there should be a benchmark and a minimum. They would have the discretion to go higher, but there would at least be a floor. It is standing up for victims and their rights.

I will not apologize for that, and I reject the premiss that to support mandatory minimums in these serious cases is somehow saying we do not trust our judiciary. I trust the need to stand up for victims and for there to be proper consequences for those who harm them.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to other legislation, Bill C-5, which is on minimum sentences, and he is very offended by the fact that that legislation was brought forward. Getting rid of minimum sentences does not mean someone who commits an act would get off scot-free. What it does mean is we would be providing more opportunity for judges to use their discretion. Judges, in vast majority, are very well educated and have a very good understanding of the system. They can take a look at the circumstances and are in a better position to be able to give a disposition. I would not want him to give a false impression that, because we are getting rid of minimum sentences, people would get off scot-free. That is just not accurate.

My final thought is regarding the calling of the legislation. Surely to goodness the member would realize that, even though it was introduced and had first reading in December, there are many other legislative agendas. The Conservative Party never approached the government to call for Bill C-9 either. It is here today because the Bill C-14 debate collapsed last night. Bill C-14 was another piece of legislation that was extended because of the Conservative filibuster.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always in the House, it is a pleasure to rise to speak and raise the voice and the message from my constituents in the eastern interior riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. I will be splitting my time here this afternoon with our opposition House leader, the member for Barrie—Innisfil.

I want to start my intervention and notes on Bill C-9 today with a bit of a personal parliamentary perspective.

We are hearing a lot of criticism here today on this bill. I will say at the forefront that I agree with this specific piece of legislation on the need to modernize our judicial system and to improve confidence in it in a timely fashion. We will hear from our Conservative colleagues some reasonable questions, comments and perhaps amendments to strengthen it. At the end of the day, when we talk about a general intent and the high level of opportunities for us to build strength and confidence in our judges and a process for removal if necessary, we would be deeming that appropriate.

As a bit of context on this piece of legislation, it was tabled six months ago, and this is the first opportunity to discuss it. It is not as if it had been debated for weeks and months on end here in the House of Commons. This is the first time we have had a few hours to discuss it. In my limited time here of two and a half years as a member of Parliament, I have seen that we have to learn how we can most effectively find ways to get our voices onto the floor of the House of Commons on issues that are important to our constituents.

I will take some time and note a bit of the background on the bill, but I will talk as well in general about some of my concerns and frustrations with the government's direction or tone or intention or narrative when it comes to building confidence in our Canadian judiciary.

The bill before us would update a piece of legislation. When I was looking at the background, I had to go online, and it was kind of interesting. The current process for complaints of misconduct against judges was introduced in 1971. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was our prime minister, and the minister of justice and attorney general at that time was future prime minister John Turner. I think we could agree in the year 2022 that there have been amendments over the years but that we are going to need to tweak and change and edit legislation over the course of time.

I will give credit to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who just spoke for a few minutes and gave some very tangible examples of how we need this reform to go. Right now, one of the issues is that if a serious complaint is made through the process of the judicial council and if the misconduct is deemed less serious, the individual member may negotiate a resolution to the process. That lacks accountability and transparency, and I think there is agreement that we need to reform that process.

The proposal in Bill C-9 would change that so that if it is deemed less serious, there still is an opportunity. A member would review it and could either dismiss the complaint if it was wholly without merit or refer it to a three-member review panel. This would provide an opportunity to make sure all reasonable and credible allegations of misconduct, and their severity level, would go through a proper process, which again would give Canadians confidence.

I will also note from my colleague from the Green Party's intervention that there have not been many of these over Canadian history. That speaks to the integrity, the ethics and the strength of the bench in Canada for decades, but I also think we need to update this to make sure that, again, the cases that are deemed “less severe” would still require a review in a public, transparent process in terms of the review panel, the hearings and so forth.

One of the things I want to raise when we talk about building confidence in the judiciary is the government's intention when it comes to mandatory minimum sentencing. One of the pieces of legislation we have debated here is Bill C-5. That can relate to, and the government is proposing to remove, several mandatory minimum penalties. The government is saying that if we oppose the removal of those mandatory minimum penalties, we do not support the Canadian judiciary and the discretion of judges. That is not the case. We believe, as Conservatives, in victims' rights and in supporting those who have gone through trauma or issues and have gone through being a victim of a crime. There deserves to be a minimum punishment.

One of the things we talk about when we talk about removal is that this is not for simple things like simple possession. I want to list the things that we have been standing up for, as I believe confidence can still be maintained in our Canadian judiciary and individual judges.

A number of mandatory minimums are being removed related to gun crimes. Mandatory minimums are gone for robbery with a firearm; extortion with a firearm; weapons trafficking, importing or exporting, knowing it is unauthorized; and discharging a firearm with intent. The mandatory minimum in all of these cases is gone, and the list goes on.

Also, some of the legislation we have been dealing with would eliminate mandatory prison time for drug dealers by eliminating six mandatory minimums in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act: trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, importing and exporting or possession for the purpose of exporting, and production of a schedule 1 or 2 substance. What does that mean? It means heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, crystal meth. There would be a removal of those mandatory minimums.

This, again, is the first time we have been dealing with the bill in this Parliament, as it was over in the Senate. The government prorogued at one point, and then it called the election, so it has been stalled several times. This is the first time that we have an opportunity.

I have advice to the Bloc and the NDP, which are complaining that I would like to stand up and have a 10-minute intervention on confidence in our Canadian judiciary: It is that I do not believe in the direction the government is going when it comes to eliminating mandatory minimums. We may agree on the need for reform; there is what is in the legislation, but, most importantly, it is what is not in the legislation, and we have an opportunity to stand up here in the House of Commons and raise those concerns.

It also gives me the opportunity to be the voice for my constituents as well when we talk about the process. Bill C-9 is one example, and Bill C-5, which is terribly flawed, in my opinion and in the opinion of our caucus and in the opinion of many members of law enforcement as well. One of the things that we are not seeing, among the easy things to do, is a whole bill dedicated to reforming this. It means that they are not putting in legislation to address some of the other things. We are calling it out when we see it.

A perfect example is the lack of services for those in the Canadian justice system who are dealing with addiction or battling addiction. We are seeing changes in an effort, through legislation, to try to distract us from the lack of investment in mental health and addictions treatment for those who truly need it. We are taking mandatory minimums away from people who are trafficking and preying on some of the most vulnerable in our society, yet we are not providing the resources to get them the help that they truly need.

When we have a bill like this, it is an opportunity to talk about the views from our community on the portfolio of the Attorney General, the Minister of Justice. It is an opportunity to perhaps find agreement on this, yes, but I can also find time to join the floor of the House of Commons and say what is not in forthcoming legislation, what is perhaps not in budget bills to address some of the flawed aspects of the government's intentions.

I will just say this as we wrap up, and I have always said it: Somebody who is battling addiction does not need prison time. That is a universal agreement in our country, of law enforcement, I believe, and of the House. We need to target our resources and our criminal justice system on those who are preying on these people and victimizing them. At the same time, we need not only pieces of legislation like Bill C-9 to increase confidence in our justice system; we need investments that can actually get victims, those who are dealing with addiction, out of our justice system and into proper help to get back into a better trajectory in life and a more positive future for themselves.

I will say in review of this bill that it is time for an update. I look forward to questions and comments and I appreciate the opportunity to speak broadly about confidence in our justice system.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-9, which is an act that would create a complaint mechanism for judges. We have certainly heard from all sides today that everyone thinks this is a great idea. This is not to say judges do not do a good job, because we know we have great judges in this country who work hard, but as with any career discipline, there is always the odd thing going on that is not good.

I remember when I was the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women we talked about some of the things that were happening. In one sexual assault case, a judge actually asked the complainant, “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” In another sexual assault case, another judge said, “she was drunk” in the taxi.

Rona Ambrose brought forward Bill C-337 to try to get at this issue of judges who do not have experience in sexual assault presiding over those cases. Although that bill unfortunately did not make it through under her private member's bill, the government brought it back, and we passed it earlier in the session. This would offer judges training, and in fact, it would offer lawyers who want to be judges training as well. That is the kind of remedy we want to see.

I was very pleased to hear the member for Mount Royal, who just spoke, talk about what this bill would allow. Other than just the extreme option of getting rid of a judge for whatever behaviour was complained about, there is a whole realm of possibilities, including verbal warnings, letter warnings, public apologies, training and multiple other options. This is something very good about this bill.

I do have a concern about the state of judges in our country since the Liberal government was elected. I started in 2015, and at that time we were missing I think 60 judges who needed to be appointed. Because of that, and because the Jordan decision, there were numerous examples of murderers and rapists who went free because there were not enough judges to handle the workload in a timely fashion.

There was an attempt made to put in a process. The government wanted to increase the diversity of the judges being selected, which is great, because one of the things that will make for a healthier democracy and rule of law is to have diverse thought and diverse representation of the population.

Unfortunately, what happened is the government used the Liberal fundraising database to figure out which judges should be picked from the lawyer pool. There were also fundraisers going on with the minister of justice at the time, which caused a big scandal because lawyers were paying $500 to meet her, and they all wanted to become judges. We know that is certainly not in keeping with conflict of interest rules in the House. The scandal went on for quite a while.

It is important to have diversity of thought with judges so they can check one another. If people are all in a group and they think together, it can be a bad thing. We have seen some of the Supreme Court decisions that came out recently that have caused concern across the country, such as the one that says, if a person is intoxicated, it could be a defence for murder, sexual assault, etc. Canadians in general would reject that and say no. The person is the one who chose to keep drinking or doing drugs until they became that intoxicated, and there needs to be an ownership of the behaviour. Those judges all together did not have enough diversity of thought for somebody to say that decision might not be a good thing.

I would suggest, from a Conservative perspective, that when somebody has killed multiple people, consecutive sentencing gave a lot of comfort to victims. The Supreme Court decision on that is another example. Parliament has a duty to review those decisions and have the discussions about whether that is really where we want to go on those topics. The whole purpose of having judges is that they are the executors of the rule of law in our nation.

I am very concerned that, in the last seven years, we are not seeing more rule of law. We are seeing more people committing crimes. The crime rates are increasing, including gun crime and violent crime. However, when I look at the response from the government, it looks like we are seeing a continual erosion of the rule of law.

The member who spoke previously mentioned that I am the first female engineer in the House, and we have an expression in the engineering world about a frog in a pot. Gradually the temperature in the pot increases until eventually we boil the frog, but the frog is not able to sense that the temperature is going up because it is so incremental. I would argue, with respect to the rule of law in Canada, the temperature is going up.

We had Bill C-75, which reduced the sentencing to fines or less than two years of time in jail for crimes such as abduction of a person under the age of 16, abduction of a person under the age of 14, arson for fraudulent purposes, marriage under 16 and participation in the activity of a terrorist group. There are a number of offences there, and I did not see the justification for that. We have heard from police chiefs that, although in some cases they agreed, in many cases there are serious crimes happening that now have only a slap on the wrist, which is not sending the right message about the rule of law and the importance of it.

In this parliamentary session, we now have Bill C-5 coming forward, which would remove mandatory minimums on robbery with a firearm; extortion with a firearm; discharging a firearm with intent; using a firearm in the commission of offences; trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking; importing, exporting, or possession of serious drugs; and production of these serious drugs, which are killing thousands of Canadians. Also, Bill C-5 would allow some of these sentences to be put down to house arrest, including that of sexual assault.

Somebody could victimize someone in their community and then serve the time there. I do not think that is something that we should leave to the discretion of judges, when we have seen in the past a judge ask, “couldn't you just keep your knees together?” There is a naivete if we think we can leave it to chance. Yes, in the majority of cases, judges will judge with wisdom, but it is the every now and again that we want to prevent and what our laws should prevent.

Abduction of a person under 14 could become a house arrest sentence. This is unbelievable. We have a huge human trafficking issue in this country, and this not only sends the wrong message, but it is also not going to fix things because, when people are left with a potential house arrest, those who are committing crimes can commit them out of their house. It is the same thing for someone trafficking drugs who gets house arrest. How convenient is that for people to stop by and pick up drugs?

These things make no sense to me, and so I am very concerned when I look at the erosion of our rule of law. At the same time, there is an erosion of protection for victims. We had Bill C-28 in the previous Parliament on victim surcharge. It used to be that there was some recompense made for victims who had suffered and had to travel distances to go to parole hearings and that kind of thing, but that was taken away.

This is a soft-on-crime government, and while I support Bill C-9 because when judges do not get it right we need to fix that, but I am very concerned that we are having this continual erosion of the rule of law. We have heard many speeches in the House that have said that there is a high rate of reoffending. People are committing crimes, getting out, committing them again and being put back in, and there really is no rehabilitation happening. That is not to say that there should not be, but the situation today is that there is not. If we know that people are going to reoffend and go out on the street, we have to protect the public, and we have a duty to do that.

The mechanism in the bill is to make sure that judges are doing their due diligence. We would have mechanisms, not just an extreme one, but progressions, that would allow us to take corrective action and manage the judicial system to ensure its integrity. This will preserve the rule of law, although the concerns I have expressed do remain.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for his kind words on my role on the committee.

I just want to say, before I answer the question specifically, that the removal of criminal records for personal possession potentially affects 250,000 Canadians, so this would have a big impact. If we are worried about public safety, we need to make sure that those who have come in conflict with the law have every opportunity to reintegrate themselves into society, to support their families and to get things back on track. Bill C-5 would help do that.

With respect to Bill C-9, I have been frustrated, I would say, for almost five years now because we have not simply gotten this done. I think there is agreement, and like the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, I would recommend to House leaders that we find a way to move this bill forward very quickly.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will turn to the substance of Bill C-9 in a moment, but first I want to talk about how we got here, a process that for me illustrates disarray on the government's side in this 44th Parliament. Some days it still seems almost as if the Liberals really did not expect to have to govern after the last election.

Certainly, the bill was essentially ready to go well before the pandemic hit. For unknown reasons, the government decided to have it introduced in the Senate on May 25, 2020, as Bill S-5, and it died there when the unnecessary 2021 election was called. Then it was reintroduced by the government leader in the Senate as Bill S-3 on December 1, 2021. After a dispute over whether the bill could actually be introduced in the Senate as it would require a royal recommendation to allow expenditures by the Judicial Council under the bill, the bill was withdrawn from the Senate on December 15, 2021, and reintroduced as a government bill, Bill C-9, in the House on December 16, 2021, if members can follow that bouncing ball.

Despite the disarray on the government side, the bill still seemed to be a priority for the Liberal government as it was included in the December 2021 mandate letter for the Minister of Justice. There, the Prime Minister directed that the Minister of Justice, “Secure support for the swift passage of reforms to the judicial conduct process in the Judges Act to ensure the process is fair, effective and efficient so as to foster greater confidence in the judicial system.”

That's fair enough, and no doubt there is important work for us to do on improving the process by which complaints against federal judges are handled. However, here we come to the question of priorities of the Liberals and their effectiveness when it comes to addressing, in a timely manner, the pressing crises in our justice system and, of course, the question of the persistent obstructionism of the Conservatives, as the official opposition, in this sitting of Parliament.

While I remain disappointed that the government chose to ensure the defeat of private member's Bill C-216 from the member for Courtenay—Alberni, which would have decriminalized personal possession of small amounts of drugs, we have made some progress on the opioid crisis. Pushed into action by the impending vote on the private member's bill, the Liberals, after months of delay, finally granted an interim exemption to the provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act for British Columbia, in effect decriminalizing personal possession for small amounts of drugs for the next three years.

That's a good thing, yes, but it only raises the question of why wait another six months. This delay seems likely to ensure that 2022 will eclipse the appalling record set in 2021 in British Columbia for the greatest number of overdose deaths in B.C. Also, why only British Columbia? The epidemic of deaths from toxic drug supply continues unabated across the country and in all corners of the country, both urban and rural. Passing Bill C-216 would have allowed us to begin to apply the tools we know that work right now: decriminalizing the personal possession of small amounts of drugs and guaranteeing a safe supply of drugs for those suffering from addictions. Bill C-216 would have brought a permanent change to the law to guarantee that addiction is dealt with as a health matter and not a criminal matter.

The crisis that demands urgent action is, of course, systemic racism in our criminal justice system. The most prominent evidence of the reality of this crisis is the over-incarceration of indigenous and Black Canadians in this country. All members by now are familiar with the shocking facts that indigenous people are more than six times as likely as other Canadians to end up incarcerated and that Black Canadians are more than twice as likely. Most shocking I think to all of us is the fact that indigenous women make up 50% of women incarcerated in federal institutions when they are less than 5% of the population.

Of course, injustice does not end with incarceration, as there is the legacy of the resulting criminal record. Not only have indigenous and racialized Canadians been disproportionately targeted for investigation, prosecution, fining or imprisonment, the most marginalized among us then end up stuck with criminal records. These are criminal records that make getting a job almost impossible, criminal records that often restrict access to affordable housing or even ordinary rental housing because of criminal record checks, criminal records that make volunteering with kids and seniors impossible, criminal records that restrict travel and criminal records that even make it difficult to get a bank loan or a mortgage.

The good news is that we have taken some steps to address the systemic racism in our court system with the passage of Bill C-5 yesterday. As soon as the Senate acts, we will see the elimination of 20 mandatory minimum penalties, most importantly those in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which fell very heavily on indigenous and racialized Canadians and have been a major contributor to over-incarceration.

Again, we would have liked to see bolder action here with the expansion of the existing Gladue principles to give judges discretion to waive all remaining mandatory minimums when it would be unjust to impose them on indigenous or racialized Canadians due to their circumstances. Unfortunately, this was not in the bill. One may ask why I am going on so long about this. It is judges' discretion that will make a big difference, so people have to have confidence in the judiciary.

Despite the public image that we never co-operate in Parliament, we had good co-operation in the justice committee. That co-operation allowed the passage of my amendment to Bill C-5, which will see the elimination of criminal records for personal possession of drugs within two years through a process called sequestration. What this means in practice is that these records will no longer show up in criminal record checks.

Today, we are moving on to debate Bill C-9 and finally, some members may say, I am coming to the substance of this bill. This is a bill to reform the process for handling complaints against federal judges. As I said, it is important in our system to maintain public confidence in those judges. Is this a crisis? Clearly it is not. Is it as urgent as decriminalizing drugs or removing systemic racism in our justice system? Clearly it is not. Is this as important? I would argue that in fact it is, because trust in the integrity of our justice system is integral to the fate of our democracy, especially in these trying times. We have to have faith in the integrity of the justice system and that means in the judges themselves, so we have to do better when it comes to holding the judiciary accountable, but we have to do so in ways that respect their fundamental independence and protect the system against government and political interference.

Bill C-9 suggests ways in which we can do this and, as I mentioned at the outset, measures have been ready to go on this for a very long time. Can we do better on holding judges accountable? Yes, we can, but it took well over two years for the government to get this bill before the House today and many of the ideas in it were first proposed in Canadian Bar Association reports as early as 2014. Some appeared in private members' bills tabled in the House as early as 2017, so it is past time to get to work on this bill.

Let me distinguish just for a moment what we are actually talking about. We are not talking about mistakes in law that occur from time to time in the federal courts. There is a clear remedy for these kinds of mistakes, and it is the appeal process. Instead, we are talking about the failure of federally appointed judges to meet the high standards that have been set for them and that we naturally should demand of them. That is either when it comes to personal conduct or to maintaining impartiality on the bench.

I should say from the outset that the Canadian record is remarkably good when it comes to cases of serious misconduct warranting removal from the bench. In the history of Canada, the Canadian Judicial Council has recommended removal for only five federally appointed judges. Four of those resigned before Parliament could deal with their cases, and the fifth before Parliament could act on the case. Whether these judges resigned before being removed solely to protect their pensions, which has been alleged, or simply to avoid the stigma of being the first federal judge ever removed by Parliament, I leave for others to judge.

Leaving the process in the hands of judges themselves is probably necessary, as this is both a key and crucial feature of our current system. It is the one that guarantees governments cannot influence the decisions of judges by threatening to remove them from office. Complaints about federally appointed judges are handled by the Canadian Judicial Council, which is made up of the 41 chief justices and associate chief justices of federally appointed courts.

The Canadian Judicial Council is chaired by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, who appoints a committee to examine complaints. If a complaint is initially found to have merit, a three-judge panel examines the complaint and either decides to dismiss it, to recommend no further action because the misconduct does not warrant removal from the bench, or to hold a public inquiry. Again, this is relatively rare, with only 14 inquiries held over the past 40 years.

If there was an inquiry, the committee would then forward its findings to the full Judicial Council, along with a recommendation on the possible removal. If removal is recommended, the judge has the right to appeal to an appeals panel and, if needed, further appeal beyond that. The Supreme Court of Canada can choose to hear the appeal directly, but the current process is that the case would be heard at the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada could hear the case. This seems unnecessarily complicated and provoking of unnecessary delay. Bill C-9 would address the problem, but while the current system does work in the most serious cases of judicial behaviour, the process is long and drawn out.

Bill C-9 would also address the major gap in the current process, which is that it has proved largely ineffective in dealing with cases of misbehaviour that would not be serious enough to warrant removal from the bench. This is the fact: There is only one possible remedy in the current process, which is removal from the bench. Serious misbehaviour, though rare, is not hard to spot as it always involves law-breaking by the judge concerned or outright corruption.

Less serious complaints about misbehaviour are almost always about the question of impartiality. What would an example be of this less serious misbehaviour? A case in Saskatchewan in 2021 is a case in point. Five complaints were received about a judge who appeared in pictures with a group indirectly connected to a case on which, though he had finished hearings, he had not yet delivered judgment.

The judge in this case agreed this was a serious error on his part and that it could reflect negatively on perceptions about his impartiality in the case before him. The complaints did not proceed, as almost no one thought the judge should be removed and he had promised it would never happen again. Under the current provisions, no action could have been taken, if the judge had disputed the allegations, other than to recommend his removal from the bench for appearing in a photograph.

Bill C-9 would allow for additional remedial options other than the current sole option of recommending removal. The bill proposes the referral of complaints to a three-judge review panel, which might find removal to be warranted, and then the review panel could refer the complaint to a larger five-judge hearing panel. At the review stage, however, the review panel could still dismiss the complaint or impose remedies other than removal.

What would Canadians get out of these changes? Most importantly, they would get confidence in the judiciary that would be better maintained by having a process that was more timely and could deal more effectively with less serious complaints. This should help prevent the judicial system from falling into disrepute and help preserve the very important trust in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Bill C-9 might actually save some taxpayer money on cases involving allegations of misconduct by federal judges, as the current process can stretch out for years. Cases involving serious misconduct now often take up to four years to resolve. Bill C-9 would expedite that process by removing the two levels of court appeals that I mentioned.

At the same time, there also may be an increase in costs for dealing with less serious allegations as there would be more options available that are currently dismissed early in the process. The benefit here is that less serious cases would no longer simply be dismissed, and instead sanctions for remedies would be possible.

In the end, and after hearing debate today, I believe Bill C-9 should prove to be relatively uncontentious. The Canadian Bar Association was part of the consultations that were held by the judicial council when Senate Bill S-5 was being drafted in the previous Parliament. There was a broader consultation that dealt with measures to clarify expectations on what constitutes “good behaviour” for federal judges that are largely set in regulations. Bill C-9 simply reforms the process for dealing with judges who fail to meet those standards.

Bill C-9 would also require more transparency with regard to how complaints are handled. The Canadian Judicial Council is responsible for administering this process, and Bill C-9 would require the council to include the number of complaints it received and how they were resolved in its annual public report.

In conclusion, New Democrats support modernizing the process for complaints against federally appointed judges, and we support adding alternative remedial options behind the current sole option of removal from the bench. The bill would allow for varied sanctions such as counselling, continuing education and other reprimands. New Democrats are supportive of streamlining and updating the process to handle complaints against federally appointed judges. This process has not been updated for 50 years. It is time for a modern complaint system for a modernized judiciary, and one that will help increase public confidence in federal judges.

The bill provides an opportunity for parties to work together to get an important reform in place, as it is yet another example of things that did not get done earlier because of the unnecessary 2021 election. We should get this done so that we can then turn our attention back to tackling the serious issues in our justice system that remain, and to confronting the opioid crisis that is better dealt with as a health matter than a judicial matter. I hope to see Bill C-9 advance quickly through the House and in the other place.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his steadfast support for victims.

It is always concerning to me. I currently sit on the justice committee and when we discuss a bill, for example Bill C-5, which we voted on this week, often the word “victim” does not come up in the conversation whatsoever. It is often said that justice delayed is justice denied, so one avenue of improvement with this bill is streamlining the process for offences that do not warrant removal from the bench so that we would have an outcome and have an impact on the judge who is the subject of the complaint sooner rather than later, as is currently the case with a too protracted process.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, as we approach the final sitting days of the House before it rises, this is likely my last opportunity to speak before we all return to our ridings for the summer months. In light of this, I would like to start off my remarks today by acknowledging the great people of my riding of Fundy Royal, whom I am honoured to represent here in this 44th Parliament.

On the topic at hand, we are here today to discuss Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act. I will begin by going over a bit of a summary of the bill.

The legislation would amend the Judges Act to replace the process through which the conduct of federally appointed judges is reviewed by the Canadian Judicial Council. It would establish a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct that are not serious enough to warrant a judge’s removal from office and would make changes to the process by which recommendations regarding removal from office can be made to the Minister of Justice. As with the provisions it replaces, this new process would also apply to persons, other than judges, who are appointed under an act of Parliament to hold office during good behaviour.

In short, the objective of the legislation is to update the Judges Act to strengthen the judicial complaints process. The existing process was established in 1971, so it is due for a refresh. We can all agree that strengthening and increasing confidence in the judicial system, and taking action to better respond to complaints that it may receive from Canadians, are good things. Canadians are really depending on this Parliament to strengthen our judicial system.

As it stands, the judicial system in Canada has been weakened by COVID delays and a lack of resources for victims in particular, like, as I have mentioned, the vacant victims ombudsman position. There really is no excuse today for that when we see so many stories ripped from the headlines that impact Canadian victims. We also see legislation like the bill the parliamentary secretary just mentioned, Bill C-5. The victims we have talked to, whom we have seen and heard from at committee, are concerned about that bill and its predecessor bill, Bill C-22. The victims ombudsman had a lot to say about it.

I would love the benefit of hearing from a victims ombudsman, except we do not have one. We were supposed to have that position filled back in October, so for many, many months it has been vacant. That is completely unacceptable, not only for victims and their families but also for all Canadians. I should note that when the position of the federal ombudsman for federal offenders in our federal prison system became vacant, it was filled the next day. We can see where the government's priorities are.

Bill C-9 was originally introduced in the Senate as Bill S-5 on May 25, 2021. The previous version of the bill did not complete second reading. We heard commentary across the way about delays, with some asking why we are talking about delays. Why was that bill not passed? Well, the Prime Minister called his snap pandemic election in August 2021. That is what happened with that version of the bill.

The bill was reintroduced in the Senate last year as Bill S-3, but the government had an apparent change of heart, dropping Bill S-3 from the Senate Order Paper in December of 2021 and introducing that bill in the House of Commons as Bill C-9. That is where it has languished for months until today, just days before we go into our summer recess.

The bill would modify the existing judicial review process by establishing a process for complaints serious enough to warrant removal from office, and another process for offences that would warrant sanctions other than removal, such as counselling, continuing education and reprimands. Currently, if misconduct is less serious, a single member of the Canadian Judicial Council who conducts the initial review may negotiate with a judge for an appropriate remedy.

It may be helpful at this point to provide a bit of background on the Canadian Judicial Council, what it does and who its members are.

Established by Parliament in 1971, the Canadian Judicial Council is mandated to “promote the efficiency, uniformity, and to improve the quality of judicial services in all superior courts in Canada.” Through this mandate, the Canadian Judicial Council presides over the judicial complaints process.

The Canadian Judicial Council is made up of 41 members and is led by the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Hon. Richard Wagner, who is chairperson of the council. The membership is made up of chief justices and associate chief justices of the Canadian provincial and federal superior courts. The goal of the members is to improve consistency in the administration of justice before the courts and the quality of services in Canada's superior courts.

Returning back to the bill itself, the reasons a judge could be removed from office are laid out. These include infirmity, misconduct, failure in the due execution of judicial office and “the judge [being] in a position that a reasonable, fair-minded and informed observer would consider to be incompatible with the due execution of judicial office.” A screening officer can dismiss complaints should they seem frivolous or improper, rather than referring to them to the review panel. A complaint that alleges sexual harassment or discrimination may not be dismissed. The full screening criteria will be published by the Canadian Judicial Council.

The minister or Attorney General may themselves request the Canadian Judicial Council establish a full hearing panel to determine whether the removal from the office of a superior court judge is justified. The Canadian Judicial Council is to submit a report within three months after the end of each calendar year with respect to the number of complaints received and the actions taken. The intention of this bill, as stated by the government, is to streamline the process for more serious complaints for which removal from the bench could be an outcome.

As I mentioned earlier, these amendments would also address the current shortcomings of the process by imposing mandatory sanctions on a judge when a complaint of misconduct is found to be justified but not to be serious enough to warrant removal from office. Again, such sanctions could include counselling, continuing education and reprimands. In the name of transparency, this legislation would require that the Canadian Judicial Council include the number of complaints received and how they were resolved in its annual public report.

To clarify, the Canadian Judicial Council’s process applies only to federally appointed judges, which are the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and the federal courts, the provincial and territorial superior trial courts and the provincial and territorial courts of appeal. The provinces and territories are responsible for reviewing the conduct of the judges at the provincial-territorial trial court level, who are also provincially appointed.

Since its inception in 1971, the Canadian Judicial Council has completed inquiries into eight complaints considered serious enough that they could warrant a judge's removal from the bench. Four of them, in fact, did result in recommendations for removal. A ninth inquiry is under way, but has faced delays due to public health restrictions imposed by the Province of Quebec, such as curfew and indoor capacity limits.

Under the proposed new process laid out in Bill C-9, the Canadian Judicial Council would continue to preside over the judicial complaints process, which would start with a three-person review panel deciding to either investigate a complaint of misconduct or, if the complaint is serious enough that it might warrant removal from the bench, refer it to a separate five-person hearing panel. If appropriate, a three-person review panel made up of a Canadian Judicial Council member, a judge and a layperson could impose such sanctions as public apologies or courses of continuing education. If warranted, a five-person hearing panel made up of two Canadian Judicial Council members, a judge, a lawyer and a layperson could, after holding a public hearing, recommend removal from the bench to the Minister of Justice.

Judges who face removal from the bench would have access to an appeal panel made up of three Canadian Judicial Council members and two judges and finally to the Supreme Court of Canada, should the court agree to hear the appeal.

I know that sounded very convoluted and lengthy, but believe it or not, this would actually streamline the current process for court review of council decisions, which currently involves judicial review by two additional levels of court, those being the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, before a judge can ask the Supreme Court to hear the case.

The amendments would provide for a funding mechanism for the new process. The financial impact of the review process has been raised by a number of stakeholders. I want to encourage the Liberal government to take its fiscal responsibility to taxpayers into consideration with all government policies, but this bill is as good a start as any.

I would like to take a moment to point out that we have the former leader of the Conservative Party to thank for paving the way to having this bill before the House of Commons today. The Hon. Rona Ambrose introduced her private member's bill, Bill C-337, in 2017. This legislation would require the Canadian judiciary to produce a report every year that detailed how many judges had completed training in sexual assault law and how many cases were heard by judges who had not been trained, as well as a description of the courses that were taken. It would also require any lawyer applying for a position in the judiciary to have first completed sexual assault case training and education. Last, it would result in a greater number of written decisions from judges presiding over sexual assault trials, thus providing improved transparency for Canadians seeking justice.

The original premise of Bill C-337 was in response to a complaint about the behaviour a federal judge who was presiding over a case of sexual assault in 2014. The Canadian Judicial Council of which we speak today launched an investigation into the behaviour of that judge. Ultimately, in March 2017, the Canadian Judicial Council sent a letter to the federal Minister of Justice recommending that this judge be removed from the bench, and the minister accepted the recommendation.

The bill before us today works to expedite and facilitate the complaints process so that extreme cases like the one I just referenced can be fully and properly reviewed without causing too much disruption in terms of time, costs and delays in processing smaller but still important complaints.

Earlier this year, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights received correspondence from the Canadian Bar Association stating its support for the legislation as written in Bill C-9. In part, its letter reads as follows:

The CBA commented on the state of the judicial discipline process in its 2014 submission to the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC). On the subject of judicial discipline proceedings, our 16 recommendations were to ensure that the objectives of balancing the independence of the judiciary and the public’s confidence in the administration of justice were respected in the process. The CJC and Justice Canada responded with its own reports, which culminated in the present amendments to the Judges Act proposed by the Minister of Justice.

The letter from the Canadian Bar Association goes on to say:

In the view of the CBA Subcommittee, Bill C-9 strikes a fair balance between the right to procedural fairness and public confidence in the integrity of the justice system with the discipline of judges who form the core of that system. The proposed amendments enhance the accountability of judges, builds transparency, and creates cost-efficiencies in the process for handling complaints against members of the Bench.

I would like to pause here briefly just to say that at a moment like this, looking at a bill like this, it seems to me that it would be a very good time to have a federal ombudsman for victims of crime to hear the perspective on how the judicial complaints process is or is not currently working and how this bill would or would not be able to meet those challenges or rectify those concerns.

In testimony given to the justice committee on June 3, 2021, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime at that time raised what she described as a “most critical” issue, which was the legal recourse or remedy that victims have if their rights are violated.

She stated:

Currently, victims do not have a way to enforce the rights given to them in law; they only have a right to make a complaint to various agencies. This means that victims have to rely on the goodwill of criminal justice officials and corrections officials to give effect to or implement their statutory rights under the bill. This means victims count on police, Crown prosecutors, courts, review boards, corrections officials and parole boards to deliver, uphold and respect their rights.

But my office continues to receive complaints from victims that are common across all jurisdictions in Canada. Victims report to us that they are not consistently provided information about their rights or how to exercise them, they feel overlooked in all of the processes, and they have no recourse when officials don't respect their rights.

While the bill we are discussing today is, as I said earlier, a step in the right direction, there is certainly more work that needs to be done to make sure our justice system in Canada works for everyone who comes into contact with it, and I will add especially victims. One way this can be achieved is by immediately filling the position of federal ombudsman for victims of crime, which has now been vacant for nine months. There is absolutely no excuse for this position to have remained vacant for nine months when other positions are filled immediately, including, as I mentioned earlier, the position of ombudsman for those who are in our federal prisons.

By contrast, as I was mentioning, when the offenders ombudsman position became vacant, the Liberal government filled it the very next day, as it should have been. It should be filled right away, but so should the position of the ombudsman for victims of crime.

In 2021, the Canadian Judicial Council published “Ethical Principles for Judges”. I would like to reference excerpts from this publication to add some context into the role and duty of the judiciary.

They read as follows:

An independent and impartial judiciary is the right of all and constitutes a fundamental pillar of democratic governance, the rule of law and justice in Canada....

Today, judges’ work includes case management, settlement conferences, judicial mediation, and frequent interaction with self-represented litigants. These responsibilities invite further consideration with respect to ethical guidance. In the same manner, the digital age, the phenomenon of social media, the importance of professional development for judges and the transition to post-judicial roles all raise ethical issues that were not fully considered twenty years ago. Judges are expected to be alert to the history, experience and circumstances of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, and to the diversity of cultures and communities that make up this country. In this spirit, the judiciary is now more actively involved with the wider public, both to enhance public confidence and to expand its own knowledge of the diversity of human experiences in Canada today.

As was just referenced, social context and society overall change over time, and critical institutions like the justice system must grow to reflect these changes. Much of the time, this simply requires education on emerging issues or a more updated perspective on older issues.

In order to grow, there is a crucial partnership that must be respected between the judiciary and Parliament. While the Parliament and the courts are separate entities, there is a back-and-forth conversation between the two that is essential to our democracy and our judiciary. We have recently seen examples in which that conversation, unfortunately, was desperately lacking. On Friday, May 27, of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the punishment of life without parole in cases concerning mass murderers.

When confronted on the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Liberal government is determined to stick to their talking points by telling Parliament and concerned Canadians that we should not worry about mass killers actually receiving parole, because that possible outcome is extremely rare. What that actually means is that this government is comfortable putting these families through a revictimizing, retraumatizing parole process, even though, at the end of the day, it is essentially all for show because, according to the government, we just need to trust that a mass killer will not receive parole anyway.

In the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling, the decision stated, “A life sentence without a realistic possibility of parole presupposes the offender is beyond redemption and cannot be rehabilitated. This is degrading in nature and incompatible with human dignity. It amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.”

What the court is saying here is that keeping mass killers behind bars for the number of years that a judge has already decided would adequately reflect the gravity of their crimes amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”. Personally, I and many others feel and believe that having the victims' families endure a parole hearing every two years for the rest of their lives is the real cruel and unusual punishment, and the federal government has a duty and a responsibility to respond to the court’s decision, something that it has not done and has shown no inclination to do.

Essentially, the Supreme Court also ruled on May 13 that one can drink one’s way out of a serious crime. We have called on the government to respond to that as well, and we look forward to debate on the response that needs to be coming. Just because the Supreme Court has made these rulings does not mean that this is the end of the road. What it means is that there is a discussion and a dialogue that has to take place, and now the ball is in our court. It is for us to deal with these decisions in Parliament. The Liberals can now create legislation that responds to the Supreme Court’s decisions, and this legislation can be used to make sure that victims, survivors and their families can live in a country where they are equally protected and respected by our justice system.

Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act, is a step in the right direction. I will note that there is much, much more to be done to make sure that the justice system is fair and balanced for all.