Bill C-16

Protecting Victims Act

An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures)

This enactment amends various Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters.
It amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) create a new offence that prohibits engaging in a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct toward an intimate partner;
(b) provide that, in the following circumstances, murder — known as femicide when committed against a female person — is murder in the first degree:
(i) the murder is committed against an intimate partner in the context of a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct,
(ii) the murder is committed in the context of sexual violence,
(iii) the murder is committed in the context of human trafficking, or
(iv) the murder is motivated by hate;
(c) provide that, if an offender commits manslaughter in those circumstances, the court must consider whether to impose a sentence of imprisonment for life on the offender and, if that sentence is imposed, an adult offender is ineligible for parole for 10 to 25 years;
(d) remove from the criminal harassment offence the requirement to prove that the victim subjectively feared for their safety and replace it with a requirement to prove that the harassing conduct could reasonably be expected to cause the victim to believe that someone’s safety is threatened;
(e) amend the offence of non-consensual distribution of an intimate image to include, among such images, a visual representation showing an identifiable person depicted as nude, as exposing their sexual organs or as engaged in explicit sexual activity, if the depiction is likely to be mistaken for a visual recording of that person;
(f) amend certain existing child sexual offences to include prohibiting a person from inviting a child to expose their own sexual organs for a sexual purpose;
(g) criminalize the distribution of visual representations of bestiality;
(h) create a new offence relating to the recruitment of a person under 18 years of age to be a party to an offence;
(i) provide that victims of certain offences, such as offences in the commission of which violence was used, threatened or attempted against an intimate partner, are entitled to testimonial aids;
(j) permit courts to order that an offender serve a period of imprisonment below a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment, but only if the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for that particular offender;
(k) create a new Part establishing a framework for applying alternative measures and restorative justice processes in appropriate cases;
(l) create a new Part in respect of unreasonable delay that requires a court to consider specific factors in relation to case complexity, directs a court to exclude time periods in respect of specific applications and requires that a stay of proceedings be ordered only if a court is satisfied, taking into account a list of factors, that no other remedy would be appropriate and just;
(m) streamline and strengthen the procedural rules in sexual offence trials that govern when evidence of a complainant’s past sexual activity can be adduced and when certain private records, including therapeutic records, can be produced or adduced; and
(n) allow the possibility of using affidavit evidence for certain cases involving identity theft and identity fraud.
The enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
The enactment also amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act to, among other things,
(a) ensure that it better reflects the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights with respect to the rights and interests of victims;
(b) modernize the principle requiring consideration of the needs of young persons, including by requiring particular attention to those of Aboriginal and Black young persons; and
(c) allow youth justice courts to order that a young person enter into a recognizance if there is a reasonable fear that the young person will commit a child sexual offence.
The enactment also amends the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights to
(a) modify the preamble to affirm the importance of victim-centred and trauma-informed approaches;
(b) provide victims with the right to be treated with respect, courtesy, compassion and fairness;
(c) enable victims to receive information without being required to make a request;
(d) provide that victims have the right to receive information about their rights under that Act and the protection measures that are available to them;
(e) broaden the information that victims have the right to receive about available restorative justice processes; and
(f) clarify the right of victims to present a victim impact statement at sentencing and a victim statement for consideration when decisions regarding parole or corrections are made about the offender who harmed them.
The enactment also amends the National Defence Act to, among other things,
(a) provide that victims of certain offences, such as offences in the commission of which violence was used, threatened or attempted against an intimate partner, are entitled to testimonial aids;
(b) create a new Division in respect of unreasonable delay that requires a court martial to consider specific factors in relation to case complexity, directs a court martial to exclude time periods in respect of specific applications and requires that a stay of proceedings be ordered only if a court martial is satisfied, taking into account a list of factors, that no other remedy would be appropriate and just;
(c) streamline and strengthen the procedural rules to align with the Criminal Code procedural rules in sexual offence trials that govern when evidence of a complainant’s past sexual activity can be adduced and when certain private records, including therapeutic records, can be produced or adduced;
(d) provide victims with the right to be treated with respect, courtesy, compassion and fairness;
(e) provide that victims have the right to receive information about their rights under the Division of the National Defence Act entitled “Declaration of Victims Rights” and information about the protection measures that are available to them; and
(f) enable victims to receive information from authorities in the military justice system without being required to make a request.
The enactment also amends An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child sexual abuse and exploitation material by persons who provide an Internet service to, among other things,
(a) clarify the types of Internet services covered by that Act;
(b) require that transmission data be provided with the mandatory notification in cases where the material is manifestly child sexual abuse and exploitation material;
(c) extend the period of preservation of data related to an offence; and
(d) extend the limitation period for the prosecution of an offence under that Act.
The enactment also amends the Firearms Act to clarify that an individual whose firearms licence or registration certificate has been revoked is required to deliver their firearm to a peace officer, firearms officer or chief firearms officer and to provide that an individual is not eligible to hold a licence under that Act if the chief firearms officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that the individual may have engaged in an act of domestic violence or stalking.
The enactment also amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to, among other things, enhance the disclosure of information to victims and other components of the criminal justice system and provide for the submission of victim statements in certain instances.
Finally, the enactment also amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to facilitate legal assistance between Canada and supranational bodies with responsibility for criminal investigations or prosecutions.

Protecting Victims Act

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, emotions are running high in this debate. We are thinking about all the women who have been victims of femicide and the fact that femicides are on the rise. The bill does contain one measure that women's groups have long been calling for. On their behalf, I spearheaded a study on the criminalization of coercive control at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Bill C-16 paves the way. What does my colleague think about that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I recall that in the last Parliament there was a bill precisely to deal with coercive control. I seconded that bill and am disappointed that the government has not adopted it wholesale. I know this has been an ongoing issue over the last number of years. There was another bill in the last Parliament that the Liberals voted against as well that I was hoping they would take on; it was around the element of fear required in order to press charges for human trafficking. We should not have to examine the heads of victims to determine whether they are being human trafficked.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the intervention from the member for Winnipeg North requires a little more unpacking.

I will put it to the member for Peace River—Westlock that it is in fact the government. The member for Winnipeg North is the parliamentary secretary to the House Leader. The government House leader has tremendous control over the agenda of this place, and the fact that the government cannot get or have not yet had Bill C-14 approved says everything about the priorities of the government, which was more content to have protracted debate around Bill C-9 than to get on with Bill C-14.

Would the member for Peace River—Westlock like to further unpack where the responsibility is for the absence of meaningful bail reform to fix the system that the Liberals broke?

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

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Liberals are the government. They do control the agenda of this place. It is incumbent entirely upon them to schedule these things.

I would like to remind the Liberals, in addition, that they have a minority government and that they should be working with opposition parties to pass things we mutually agree upon. Fixes to Liberal bail has been something that, apparently, the Liberals agreed with us on. It should have been the first thing they put on the agenda, rather than muddying the waters with a bunch of other bills.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. I at one time asked if we could sit for a couple extra weeks until midnight, and the Conservatives said no. The Conservative Party of Canada is the reason we do not have bail reform or bail legislation today.

Will the member apologize for misleading Canadians on that point?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is bullocks. The Liberals entirely have the control of this place in terms of scheduling. The member should look in the mirror, and perhaps he should figure out which way he is going, as he has reversed his position on a number of things over the last years.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to take this opportunity to recognize Waves of Changes for Autism, a charity in Vaughan that is celebrating its 10th anniversary. I would like to congratulate Ellen Contardi and her entire board for all their efforts over the years.

Waves of Changes for Autism helps families that have children with autism. It helps them offset the cost of therapies. It has funded over 700 applications and has raised over $2.5 million since 2016. Since its inception, it has made sure that every single dollar has had an impact. In 2026 we dedicate this milestone by marking a decade of hope, a decade of opportunity and a decade of giving. Again, I congratulate Waves of Changes for Autism.

It is an honour to rise today to discuss a very important issue in our country related to public safety. Canadians expect Parliament to approach criminal law with seriousness and humility. Our decisions have the utmost real-life impacts on Canadians. They determine how we protect victims, how we hold offenders to account and whether people feel safe in their home and in their community. That responsibility demands clarity, discipline and honesty. Bill C-16 would meet that standard in many important respects. In others, it would not.

I want to be clear from the outset. I have witnessed, upon returning to Ottawa in this winter session, the falsehoods coming from the Liberal government: that Conservatives are obstructing legislation on public safety. Many of the victim-focused provisions come directly from legislation introduced by my Conservative colleagues prior to the introduction of Bill C-16.

Making the murder of an intimate partner automatically first-degree was a measure first proposed by my Conservative colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola in Bill C-225. Expanding the offence prohibiting the non-consensual distribution of intimate images to capture sexually explicit deepfakes draws directly from my Conservative colleague's bill, the member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill's bill, Bill C-216. Of course, updating the mandatory reporting requirements for child sex exploitation material legislation was originally enacted by a previous Conservative government and later modernized through Conservative initiatives.

We support these measures. We have supported them consistently. We have called for them long before the government had decided that public safety had become politically inconvenient to ignore. That context matters because Canadians are being told a story by the Liberal government. They are being told that Conservatives are blocking progress. They are being told that we are unwilling to move legislation forward, and they are being told that democratic debate amounts to indifference toward victims. That narrative collapses under even modest scrutiny.

Allow me to highlight the case of Bill C-14, the Liberals' bail reform legislation. We all know that for years Conservatives have been calling on the government to get tough on crime and tough on repeat offenders. Bill C-14, while not going far enough, is better than what we have now. It would not address the underlying issue of removing the principle of restraint from Bill C-5 and Bill C-75, which is leading to the catch-and-release issues we are plagued with today.

Since the Liberals are making their rounds in the media, suggesting we are obstructing bail reform, for the people watching at home let me highlight how the Liberals play politics with crime. The Liberals finally introduced their bail reform legislation on October 23. On November 18 they went to committee. Instead of advancing the legislation at committee so it could get expert testimony and be sent back to the House of Commons for a vote and be passed, from November 18 all the way to January 27 they chose to prioritize a different bill, Bill C-9, and support a Bloc amendment that attacks freedom of expression and religious freedom, an amendment they knew we could not support.

We asked 20 times before the Christmas break for bail reform to be moved ahead, but this was denied. Why? The Liberals did so in order to advance a narrative that because we are fighting back against Bill C-9 and their attacks on freedom of expression, we are therefore obstructing bail reform. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of how Liberals are playing politics with public safety.

Conservatives have been calling for stronger responses to violent crime, which is up 55%; to human trafficking, which is up 84%; and to sexual assaults, which have gone up 76% in this country since the Liberal government took office. We did so when the government dismissed rising crime as a perception problem. We still have former Liberal members of Parliament, like the one from Vaughan—Woodbridge, suggesting that crime is just a perception problem by using year-over-year statistics instead of a multi-year average to look at the actual trends. We did so while Liberals repealed mandatory penalties, expanded constitutional sentences and pursued a bail framework that has left communities, including Vaughan, less safe.

Bill C-16 combines measures that strengthen public safety with a sweeping restructuring of sentencing law that is fundamentally weakening Parliament's role. That is the problem and that is why the bill should, indeed, be split. The creation of coercive or controlling conduct offences within intimate relationships is a serious and necessary reform. Earlier intervention before abuse escalates into severe violence or homicide is very important. Conservatives support this approach. The expansion of deepfake offences is necessary to respond to modern forms of sexual exploitation. Conservatives support this as well. The procedural reforms aimed at reducing trial delays deserve careful study. Justice delayed serves neither the accused nor the victim. Conservatives are prepared to engage constructively on those provisions.

However, embedded within the bill is a sentencing provision that does not belong with the rest. It is a provision that would transform mandatory minimum penalties into discretionary suggestions. It is a provision that would apply across almost the entire Criminal Code. It is a provision that would fundamentally alter how Parliament expresses denunciation for the most serious crimes. Under Bill C-16, judges would be required to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum whenever applying the minimum would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for the offender. That provision would apply to nearly every mandatory minimum in federal law, excluding only murder and high treason.

In practical terms, mandatory minimums would no longer be mandatory at all. That includes offences such as aggravated sexual assault with a firearm, human trafficking, extortion with a firearm, weapons trafficking, drive-by shootings and multiple other firearms offences. Parliament set these penalties deliberately, not casually or symbolically, because certain conduct is so dangerous, so destructive and so harmful that incarceration was deemed to be the baseline, not the exception.

The Supreme Court has never held that mandatory minimum penalties are unconstitutional per se. It has never stripped Parliament of its authority to impose them. Section 12 of the charter prohibits punishment that is “grossly disproportionate”. The House should pay close attention to what the court actually said, particularly in Quebec (Attorney General) v. Senneville. In that case, the court was sharply divided. The majority relied on hypothetical scenarios to invalidate mandatory minimum penalties for child sex exploitation offences, but the dissent, led by Chief Justice Wagner, issued a warning that Parliament would be reckless to ignore.

That dissent reaffirmed a foundational principle. Hypotheticals must be reasonable. They must have a real, factual and legal connection to the offence before the court. Parliament is not required to legislate for the least serious imaginable application of an offence. Using remote or extreme hypotheticals to dismantle sentencing floors risks undermining democratic accountability itself. Those words matter.

Bill C-16 ignores that warning entirely. Instead of responding to Senneville with discipline by clarifying offence definitions or crafting a narrow and targeted safety valve, the government chose the most expansive option available. It used a contested decision as justification for wholesale retreat from Parliament's sentencing authority. The government will point to law enforcement organizations and victim advocacy groups that have welcomed parts of the bill. Conservatives respect those voices. We listen to them and we agree with them on many of the reforms contained within the bill. However, broad support for certain provisions does not mean Parliament should abandon its duty to scrutinize the whole.

Millions of Canadians voted for the official opposition to do precisely that: Hold the government to account, improve legislation and demand excellence, especially on matters of public safety. Conservatives stand ready to work. We stand ready to improve this legislation. Of course, we stand firmly on the side of victims, communities and public safety.

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

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. The Conservatives have not been supportive of getting legislation passed. I will give us the ideal example of Bill C-14. The Prime Minister and 70 new Liberal members were elected. The government said that bail reform legislation was critically important. We did the consultations, and the provinces, law enforcement and other stakeholders brought forward the legislation. The Conservative Party of Canada is the reason it has never passed. It is as simple as that.

We are now talking about Bill C-16, which is, again, important crime legislation. The Conservatives are coming up with excuses as to why they do not want to see it pass.

Will the member opposite agree that it is time for the Conservative Party to allow Canadians' crime agenda to pass? After all, even Canadians in Conservative ridings want this type of legislation to pass. Will the Conservative Party commit to passing the legislation before the end of February?

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that statement, although, unfortunately, much of it is placed in some alternate universe that must exist out there. As everyone is well aware, Conservatives have been advocating for a tough-on-crime agenda for years at this point.

We supported sending Bill C-14 to committee for study, yet it was put behind Bill C-9. Then the Liberals decided to use their time to try to ram through attacks on freedom of expression. Why? We called for that bill to be moved ahead [Technical difficulty—Editor].

Sitting Suspended

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

We will have to pause momentarily.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 10:20 a.m.)

(The House resumed at 10:31 a.m.)

Sitting Resumed

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I think the problem has been sorted out. We will continue. We were on questions and comments. The question had been asked. I will invite the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge to respond to the most recent question.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Protecting Victims Act

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank the hon. member for his comments, although they seem to be derived from an alternate universe. The facts on the ground are that Conservatives have always supported and advocated for tougher sentencing laws and have wanted the government to get tough on crime.

Bill C-14 was introduced on October 23. We advanced that bill to committee on November 18 with the understanding that it would be moved quickly through committee so it could be passed into law. The government then decided to ram Bill C-9 through and support a Bloc amendment that attacked freedom of expression. All this is to say that, because we are defending freedom of expression, we are therefore obstructing bail reform.

Conservatives have always been in support of tougher crime laws, and what Canadians need to ask themselves is why. The Liberals broke the bail laws to begin with. We are here to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Shefford.