Bill C-9

An Act to amend the Judges Act

This enactment amends the Judges Act to replace the process through which the conduct of federally appointed judges is reviewed by the Canadian Judicial Council. It establishes a new process for reviewing allegations of misconduct that are not serious enough to warrant a judge’s removal from office and makes 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 also applies to persons, other than judges, who are appointed under an Act of Parliament to hold office during good behaviour.

Judges Act

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

Mr. Speaker, we have the Canadian Judicial Council, and I believe they had a semi-annual meeting take place in Alberta. There was a concern as to why the legislation was not passing through. The government has a fairly robust legislative agenda. We have attempted to get Bill C-9 through, ultimately having to go to time allocation to get it through second reading. It still needs to go through the committee stage, not to mention the report and third reading stages.

Could the member provide her thoughts on the need for the passage of the legislation? Does she believe that the legislation should pass this year, or would the Conservative Party rather see it pass in 2023?

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I take my job as a legislator very seriously. It is imperative that the people who elect us know that we are not just pushing bills through, but that we are passing the best bills.

For that to happen, it means that, when we have time allocation, we use that time to make sure we improve on the bill and we put the best bill forward. That is what I endeavour to do.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

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

I want to say that we support this bill. I must also note that the process needs to take less time.

Look at what happened in Val‑d'Or with Judge Girouard. That took place not far from where I live, so I am very familiar with the story. He had been appointed to the Superior Court of Quebec, and he was able to keep receiving his salary the whole time the case was before the courts. It is unthinkable that a judge could even do such a thing, that is, possibly sell cocaine.

We must prevent these situations from ever happening again and put an end to the process, which is too long and does not allow people to be judged accordingly.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very true that, when a judge is charged with improprieties, they should not be rewarded by having their salary or their pensions continue, especially such an egregious impropriety as alluded to by the hon. member.

It is my position that a part of this bill has to be the strengthening of the clauses that would take away this privilege from judges and also take away the fact that they could appeal and use taxpayer dollars to frustrate the system when they have been charged with an offence.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think I heard from the member that the Conservatives are interested in moving this forward and sending this to committee.

Could the member tell us if Conservatives are committed to not slowing down and frustrating this process and to sending the bill to committee?

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I take deep exception to the comments of anybody who would think that I or my colleagues would slow down the process. I take my job very seriously as a legislator.

As I said before, this is something that is very important to me. I believe the bill is very important to the judicial system. I have been an officer of the court as a lawyer. I think it is very important that we maintain integrity in the system. Therefore, a rigorous application of this bill is necessary, and we would continue to do that to put the best bill forward.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about maintaining public confidence in our system.

Perhaps the member could further elaborate about public confidence in our justice system, after seven years of Liberal policies that have eroded the public's trust.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that very pertinent question.

There is a problem with the public trust. As I said, as a lawyer I appeared before judges and I always had the confidence of knowing that these judges were impartial. However, with some of the things that we have seen over the last few years, even with how the Emergencies Act was dispensed, there is a lot of concern among Canadian citizens about the erosion of institutions in our system. When we have violent offenders being released on the streets and frustrating the parole system, it really brings our administration of justice into disrepute.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Haldimand—Norfolk raised some very good points and spoke about why it is very important to address the judicial system and build integrity in the system, and my colleague from Niagara Falls raised the issue of public confidence in our justice system, so I want to pick up on those points and talk about the fact that violent crime is up on our streets, yet the government and its coalition partners have certainly been shown to be soft on crime.

I want to refer, as we talk about debate on this issue, to three articles that were in The Hamilton Spectator, the daily paper in my community, just this week alone. Let me read the headlines, because I think they speak to the fact that we really have a crime wave that is going on in our streets, and if we are going to talk about the judicial system, what is not in the bill and what we are not talking about is the increase in violent crime and the increase in weapons and those things that were watered down in Bill C-5 with the watered-down mandatory minimums. We need to really address that, because that is certainly what people in my community are asking about.

This was just on Wednesday: “Two teens charged and one suspect at large after weekend shooting near Hess Village”, which is a popular area for bars in the Hamilton area. This article refers to the fact that there were “32 shootings reported in Hamilton this year”, and three people killed. This is just one example.

Two days prior, on Monday of this week, there was a “Loaded firearm seized...at Hamilton Mountain restaurant”. This is concerning to people in my community. Police arrested some suspects in this crime, but the fact that there were loaded firearms at restaurants in suburban communities and the fact that people are afraid to go out as a result of these things are a concern. That is something that is not really being addressed in changes to the judicial system under the current government.

There is another one, from Sunday, again this same week, so there are three articles this week: “Police are investigating gunshots following a ‘disturbance’ on Hamilton’s west Mountain...Officers say [this was] in a parking lot of [a] housing complex”. Here we have people who are living in these communities, and they are experiencing all these increases in gun crime and violent crime. That is something that is not being addressed in this bill and is not being addressed by the government.

I know of another example, though I do not have the article or the headline on it, in my own riding in the town of Binbrook, which is really a small community of about 5,000 people. Recently in Binbrook there have been a number of car thefts and a number of home invasions. Members can imagine someone in a bedroom community who is fearful of home invasions in their community. This is a little further from the city, so police response is slow. These are things that are of real concern to real people in our communities, but they are not being addressed in changes to the justice system under the current government.

The revolving door of crime we are seeing is something that really needs to be more strongly addressed. I could throw out a number of different stats from the articles I talked about. There are still 348 people who are wanted on outstanding charges, including drugs and weapons charges. Many are repeat offenders, and that is not being addressed in the legislation.

As well, our system is not perfect, and that is the point that has been made by my colleague from Haldimand—Norfolk, but we do expect a higher standard of judges, and we expect a response to these activities that are going on in our communities that make people fearful to walk the streets. We know that is going on. We know there is this increase in violent crime. How are we addressing the root causes of that and focusing in on that?

Let me just conclude by echoing the comments made by my colleague. It is not perfect. There are things in the bill that we support. There are some criticisms she has suggested, and obviously they will be studied at committee, but my larger question is this: How are we helping people in our communities who are concerned about the increase of crime and not hearing any answers?

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

Mr. Speaker, the principle of this bill is to ensure and continue to support the need for independence in our judicial system. It would enable the process of looking at our judges and their performance to continue to be independent of politics.

We are a country that is based on the rule of law. There is a great expectation from stakeholders that this legislation will, in fact, pass through the system before the end of the year. Because of time allocation, we are finally going to be able to get it out of second reading so that it goes to committee.

I posed this question to the previous speaker today: What is the Conservative Party's position? I am asking this so that the people in the back room will be able to inform whoever might be speaking whether the Conservative Party's intention is to ultimately see this bill pass in 2022, or if it would rather see it pass in 2023.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as was pointed out in the question, there is time allocation on the bill, so we will be proceeding with it today, obviously, and we will get it to committee.

Aside from the bill, the larger question that the Conservative Party is asking is this: What are we doing about violent crime in our cities? What are we doing about the fact that there is an opioid crisis?

There are many issues that are not being dealt with, which are the concern of everyday Canadians, like the people I referred to in my communities and like the instances that were referred to in the articles I presented. That is really our question. When are we going to get serious about crime in this country?

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech, and he brought up a really great point that I would love to learn more about.

We just had a municipal election in my riding, and the number one concern was the rise of crime and the statistics that the same small number of people were responsible for the majority of crime, which has to do with bail reform. It is this “rinse and repeat” of people who are committing crimes and then re-released. They are committing the majority of crimes, but they are let out on bail. How important is bail reform versus Bill C-9?

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that Peterborough—Kawartha is a beautiful area of Ontario and our country, and I would encourage you and all members of the House to visit Peterborough—Kawartha sometime soon.

It is a good question with regard to bail reform, which is what I referred to with some of the instances I pointed out. There is this revolving door, and at least according to one article, two-thirds of the charges were with regard to repeat offenders. There is that revolving door, and that is really what we think should be addressed: bail reform and some of the other aspects that are contributing to the rising crime and the rising violent crime, in addition to what is being proposed here today.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

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

This is an important bill, and the Bloc Québécois will support it because it seems that some communities are seeing the rise of a kind of self-policing ecosystem. We must legislate in response.

A year or two ago, I moved a motion to establish an independent body to handle complaints in sport following complaints by female Swimming Canada team members. There have also been complaints by young athletes in Ontario and allegations of sexual violence.

Sport is a self-regulating system. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the importance of creating an independent body to handle complaints in the justice system as proposed in Bill C‑9.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert. That is also a beautiful area of the country. I would encourage people to visit it.

It was interesting that he used an example of swimming in his question. I was a lifeguard many years ago, going through high school and university. Swimming is a great sport, but his question was with regard to a toxic culture in sports. We have certainly seen that in others, the recent example of Hockey Canada being one that is top of mind.

In terms of an independent inquiry, I would refer to my colleagues who are the respective shadow ministers for that file to comment on that specifically. He made the valid point that there are these issues with crime and justice that need to be addressed and that are not being addressed by the government and its coalition partner. We take that to heart.