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, it is true that there are a lot of measures in Bill C-16. That is why it will be important to carefully study the bill in committee.

Earlier, I spoke about the work that I did to spearhead a study in committee. I have been advocating for years about the importance of revisiting the issue of coercive control and criminalizing it. I have been waging this battle at the request of the Quebec National Assembly. Finally, we have something about that in this bill.

My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord has been waging another battle, that of creating guidelines for the application of the Jordan decision. My colleague spoke about that in his speech. As a result of the Jordan decision, some offenders got away with their crimes, even in cases of assault, because of court delays. The women who appeared before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women were very critical of that.

I will close by commenting on a situation that I found very concerning. A woman came to share her experience with us. She spoke mainly about the importance of developing criteria for the application of the Jordan decision. In her case, because of unreasonable delays, her abuser got off scot-free under the Jordan decision. However, to be frank, rather than actually listening to the victim, the Liberals and the Conservatives dug in their heels and played petty politics at committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have supported, and are in favour of, these provisions in the bill.

Just to be clear, we think the bill needs to be split, specifically around the provisions with respect to mandatory minimums, because the bill is essentially a test. What it would do is open up for debate, again, all past rulings where a particular sentencing was deemed unconstitutional. It would remove the guardrails Parliament has, remove the instructions from Parliament and create more delays and more litigation. This is something that needs to be clarified in the bill.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that Canadians, and Canadian municipalities in particular, have been crying for help from the Liberals for years. They have been burdened with crime and criminals walking the streets.

Why does the member think this is suddenly such an important issue for the Liberals? They have finally put it on the agenda, as if it were something brand new they had never heard of before.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' own ideology has finally gotten in the way because public safety has become too politically inconvenient for them to ignore.

As I said earlier, we have been advocating for tougher sentencing laws and bail reform for years at this point. We are ready to advance bail legislation. We are ready to get serious on cracking down on crime and criminals, keeping them behind bars where they belong.

Conservatives will always stand up for public safety.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-16, and in doing so, we need to first set out some of the context for why we are having this debate, how we got here and where we are right now as a society in Canada.

One of the unfortunate outcomes of this past 10 years of Liberal government has been a measurable, significant rise in the incidence of crime in Canada. This is not an opinion. This is measured by Statistics Canada and many other observers. In every category of crime, the rate is up after 10 years of the Liberal government. Some of the crimes for which the rates are up spectacularly, in such a negative way, are violent crime on transit systems in our cities, extortion and violent crime. We have seen an increased incidence in the murder of police officers. These are really serious and troubling crimes that Canadians are very concerned about.

How did we get here? Well, the government undertook very specific legislative changes that have affected the incidence of crime in our cities and towns and in all places across Canada. In the 42nd Parliament, the Liberals brought in Bill C-75, which was the catch-and-release bail law change. That is not just a clever political phrase. It is literally what that bill did to our system. The government brought in and legislated the principle of minimum restraint and compelled by law the principle that judges must always apply minimum restraint. Therefore, this plays itself out in our courts, where people are arrested and released and rearrested and released and rearrested and released and so forth.

Police forces across Canada all know who the small number of criminals who commit a disproportionate number of offences are, and they can do nothing about it other than rearrest and rearrest. Officials at the City of Vancouver say there are 40 individuals who are responsible for 6,000 annual police interactions. These are people who are arrested over and over again, literally an average of more than three times a week for this small group of criminals. This is the principle of minimum restraint working itself out in the streets of our cities, and every other city police department has a similar story. I have talked to many police officers in my city who affirm this is the case in our community as well.

During the summer before last, I spoke to people at the city police chief's office in Calgary and heard about a series of home invasions where police arrested the same person, the leader of a group of people who were breaking into homes at three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning. When someone breaks into a house at four o'clock in the morning, that is a home invasion. They are expecting the homeowner to be in their bed at that hour. The police figured out who was doing it, they arrested the suspects, and they were released and were able to do the same offence the same week, were rearrested for the same offence, and on it goes.

The other concrete step the government took that has had the result of increasing, or failing to address, crime in Canada was Bill C-5 in the 44th Parliament. In that Parliament, the Liberals passed a bill that stripped away mandatory minimum penalties for a host of offences, including serious drug and firearms offences.

That is where we are today. We have a measurable, demonstrative increase in crime after decades of falling incidence of crime. We had for the first time in many decades a rise in crime over a 10-year period, and the response of the government during that time was to make it easier for criminals to get out of jail and harder for judges to send repeat violent offenders into custodial sentences.

Here we are today debating Bill C-16, and it contains measures that Canadians and Conservatives have indeed been demanding for years and that we have asked for through private members' legislation from the Conservative benches. The member for Calgary Nose Hill had a bill in the last Parliament to ban artificial deepfakes of intimate images and the circulation thereof, to include that in the Criminal Code and to compel Internet service providers to report incidents of child sex abuse material. The member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola proposed, through a private member's bill, the automatic first-degree charge for murder of an intimate partner.

These are things we have proactively suggested to the government, and we are pleased that it has adopted these measures. We are pleased that the government is at least talking about the bottlenecks in the system and that it is introducing legislation about coercive control and about restoring or preserving mandatory minimum penalties. Is it, though?

This bill contains a carve-out that many observers, including prosecutors, suggest would in fact do nothing to protect mandatory minimum penalties, including ones that have been upheld by the Supreme Court for decades and that have been introduced by successive Liberal and Conservative governments exercising their democratic responsibility to determine, as elected officials, what power the state would have to incarcerate somebody for serious crime.

The carve-out contained in this bill may well undo mandatory minimum penalties that currently exist and that have been upheld, while failing to reinstate them in many other cases that the public is demanding, so this bill has problems. This bill is not a panacea to deal with this problem. It really is worth reminding Canadians why we are here.

It has come to my attention that I forgot at the outset to state that I will share my time with the member for Richmond Hill South. I am thankful for the reminder of that, because I am looking forward to his remarks as well.

The carve-out in this bill would potentially take the power of the people of Canada who elect their representatives to come to this place and to determine what the penalties should be for heinous, terrible offences, and turn them into mere guidelines. There are these hypotheticals they always come up with. I was here for the debate on Bill C-5 when David Lametti came up with an outrageous, and actually quite arrogant and offensive, scenario that he imagined for why there should not be a mandatory minimum sentence for the dangerous use of a firearm with intent.

We see this from the Liberals, their trying to imagine a circumstance rather than dealing with the concrete. It goes to an approach, and we do not agree with that approach. That approach is what has gotten us here. I hope Bill C-16 will be examined thoroughly. Probably it will need to be amended, but at the end, we will get to where we need to be and restore the power of Parliament to determine mandatory minimum penalties for serious crime.

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

Mr. Speaker, we must recognize that Bill C-16 would actually reinstate mandatory minimums. It would put in a safety valve so that we would be charter-compliant. The Conservative member from Kamloops, who sits right in front of that member, has actually advocated in the past on the need for a safety valve.

The Conservative Party, much like it is doing with Bill C-14, wants to continue to prevent the legislative agenda from passing. I have asked one of the member's colleagues, and now I will ask the member: Would he, or the Conservative Party, agree that it is part of a crime package including Bill C-14 and make a commitment, at least a personal commitment, to allow this legislation to pass all readings before the end of February?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny how the member wants me to commit to a series of things that his own House leader has most of the control over, which is when a bill is going to pass in this place.

I do not know when the Liberals are going to call the bill. We have already seen what they have done at the justice committee with Bill C-14, which was expeditiously referred to the committee only to languish there while they played politics with Bill C-9. The member is determined to blame the opposition for the Liberals' inability to manage the parliamentary calendar.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by noting that Quebec's fourth femicide tragically took place in the riding of Shefford. My thoughts are with Véronic Champagne's family and loved ones. A vigil was held in Rougemont.

I was really struck by what one of her friends said in an interview. She said that femicide is one of the most easily preventable crimes, because there are often warning signs. This brings me back to the issue of coercive control. In committee, we heard that, until coercive control is recognized in the Criminal Code, police officers will lack the key tools to intervene more quickly and proactively, before the situation escalates to femicide.

My question is very simple, essential and important. What does my colleague think about what came out of the committee?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I did not really have time to go through all of the bill, as it is a pretty big bill, so I am glad the member brought that portion of it to my attention in this debate and is allowing me a moment to comment on it.

Yes, we agree and stand with victims. Yes, we know there are many signs, and we never want to see scenarios where someone is murdered and everybody who knows the scenario or the family, whether it is the police or the neighbours, say they saw it coming but that the police lacked the tools to intervene. This is a very serious concern, and it is something that many of our members have talked about and commented on. We are are very concerned about this and are glad this debate is happening on Bill C-16.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to recap how things work around here, and I will ask my colleague to comment on it.

Conservatives are always way out ahead of Liberals when it comes to things dealing with justice and public safety. As a matter of fact, we warned them about the consequences of their changes in Bill C-75, Bill C-5 and a number of other changes they made. We told them crime would go up. We told them our communities would become less safe. They ignored us and did it anyway.

We then propose private members' bills, which the Liberals across the way systematically vote against every single time until public pressure gets so great that they actually then take our ideas, bundle them up in a bill, put them before the House and then claim that we are blocking them. Is that true?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent, succinct summary of exactly what has happened in this place over the last 10 years. That is exactly it. The Liberals create a problem, we propose a solution, they turn down our solution, they copy our solution, and then they blame us for it not passing fast enough. That is exactly what is going on in this place.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have become very familiar with Liberal rhetoric on public safety, unfortunately. We hear their words about combatting crime, standing with victims and protecting women and children, but words are not results, and rhetoric does not keep communities safe, unfortunately. Bill C-16 is a case study in the government's approach to justice: announce the right intentions, borrow Conservative ideas, and then quietly undermine accountability in the fine print.

We will admit that this bill contains provisions that will genuinely help victims, provisions Conservatives have long supported, proposed, and defended in this House. However, it also contains structural changes that would weaken sentencing certainty, expand judicial discretion and erode Parliament's authority, all while violent crime continues to rise.

Make no mistake. Conservatives are ready to get to work, and we will work with the Liberals. They are more than welcome to take our ideas, as they already have, but Canadians deserve honesty, not more Liberal spin. We cannot claim to be tough on crime while systemically weakening consequences for the most serious crimes.

Where C-16 is grounded in reality rather than the same old Liberal ideology, it deserves some recognition. The creation of a Criminal Code offence targeting intimate partner violence is an important first step, because we know violence rarely begins with a single act. It begins with patterns like control, isolation, intimidation, surveillance and financial pressure, all designed to dominate another person. By recognizing this behaviour as criminal before physical violence occurs, the law can intervene earlier. This approach aligns with Conservative principles of protecting victims, taking threats seriously, and deterring violence before it escalates. If the Liberals are serious about addressing intimate partner violence, Conservatives stand ready to strengthen this provision, along with this bill, not just more Liberal announcements.

Much of what the government is now promoting as progress in Bill C-16 is, in fact, a long-standing Conservative policy. Let me start by saying that making the murder of an intimate partner automatically a first-degree offence was first advanced by the Conservative member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. Expanding protections against the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, like sexually explicit deepfakes, also came from Bill C-216, from the Conservative member for Calgary Nose Hill, which the Liberals expressed opposition to before they finally embraced it. Mandatory reporting of child sexual exploitation material was built on the laws enacted by the previous Conservative government.

We are glad that the Liberals have finally recognized the value of these Conservative proposals. They are welcome to take our ideas, because Canadians are safer every time they do so, but this record also exposes a contradiction that Canadians are noticing. If Conservatives were right about protecting victims, why does the government continue to be wrong on sentencing, bail and accountability?

This is at the heart of the problem with Bill C-16. Buried inside this omnibus bill is a so-called safety valve that would afford judges with significant discretion on sentencing for nearly every serious offence in the Criminal Code. We have seen how this has played out in several instances where the Liberals have enabled judges to give discounted sentences based on the race or immigration status of the accused. Parliament would explicitly authorize courts, because of Bill C-16, to impose sentences below mandatory minimum penalties whenever a judge concludes that applying the minimum would be cruel and unusual for that particular offender. That is not a narrow exception. It applies to nearly every mandatory minimum in the Criminal Code, excluding only murder and treason. In other words, judges could ignore mandatory sentences for crimes like various sexual offences, robbery with a firearm, weapons trafficking, child sexual abuse material offences, robbery and extortion.

We know that mandatory minimums exist for a reason. They ensure the uniform denunciation of serious crimes. They provide a predictable and baseline consequence for the most dangerous crimes. They provide deterrence and incapacitation of dangerous offenders.

Bill C-16 replaces legislative certainty with subjective offender-specific assessments, thereby fragmenting sentencing across cases, courts and jurisdictions. It is another example that the Liberals are putting criminals first. If a mandatory sentence could be ignored whenever a judge disagrees with Parliament, then Parliament would no longer be setting sentencing policy. Judges would still be left to fill the gap. That is not progress, as Liberals like to describe it; it would mean a quiet erosion of democratic accountability, leaving the criminal justice system unaccountable to the Canadian electorate. The result of this is that Canadians all across the country will live with rising violence, and victims will ultimately pay the price as mandatory minimums are not enforced.

We need to take a step back and look at how we got here. Perhaps the clearest measure of the government's priorities is what it has not done. It is impossible to ignore that it has been nine months since the last election, and still, in those nine months, despite daily headlines, police warnings and community fear, the government has delivered no meaningful bail reform to scrap the weak Liberal bail and no serious action targeting repeat violent offenders, and shown absolutely no urgency in restoring public safety.

Since the Liberal Prime Minister took office, not a single public safety bill has been passed so far, despite multiple attempts by Conservatives to make concrete proposals after months of work to fix the justice system that the Liberals broke in the first place. This has resulted in violent crime being up 55%, sexual assaults up nearly 76% and human trafficking up 84%. These are not just abstract statistics. Behind these numbers are victims, families and neighbourhoods that no longer feel safe all across the country because the Liberals set into motion this catch-and-release system not too long ago.

Police officers, prosecutors and premiers have all said the same thing, that the Liberal bail system, which they are responsible for, is now broken. Repeat violent offenders are being released again and again, sometimes within hours, only to offend again. What is even worse is that, instead of scrapping the weak Liberal bail and fixing the bail system for good, the government first focused its attention on Bill C-9 back in the fall, repealing long-standing and important Criminal Code safeguards that protect religious freedom made in good faith. Without these long-standing safeguards for individuals acting in good faith that is reasonable and without malicious intent, core freedoms are put at risk. The preaching of religious doctrine or the reading of sacred texts could be swept into criminal law if a government of the day deems it objectionable.

At the same time, the proposal introduces a vague and elastic definition of “hate”, one that invites abuse and risks criminalizing lawful expression that has always been protected in a free society. Fixing bail should come before policing beliefs, and protecting communities should come before restricting liberty. Conservatives will always defend freedom of religion and expression, especially when government overreach hides behind these so-called intentions.

Conservatives are not here to obstruct. We are here to stand ready to work with the Liberals to strengthen victim protections and scrap the weak Liberal bail system, which the Liberals set in motion. We are here to restore sentencing certainty, reassert Parliament's role and make communities safer. The Liberals are more than welcome to take our ideas, as they already have, if it delivers real results for Canadians, except we know the Liberals always water down our ideas and then take the credit for it. They are free to take the credit for it if it delivers for Canadians, but rhetoric must finally match reality.

Canadians do not want speeches, Canadians do not want photo ops or press releases, and they certainly do not need another public safety summit so the Liberal government can figure out what is wrong after 10 years. They want safety, they want accountability, they want action and they want a justice system that puts victims and law-abiding Canadians first. Conservatives stand ready to deliver that.

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.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will split my time with the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

I am speaking today on Bill C-16, the government's proposal to address the serious issue of rising violent crime and the growing lack of public safety. Residents in communities across Canada and my riding, including those in Penticton, Oliver, Princeton and Castlegar, tell me things do not feel as safe as they used to. I am hearing this constantly. While our region is the most beautiful in Canada and a place I feel proud to call home, many do not feel safe walking our streets, shopping in our downtowns, visiting our hospitals or clinics, or even at night in their homes.

Within just the last few months, we have had a firebombing in Castlegar, an attempted break-and-enter with a shotgun in Osoyoos and a shootout in Princeton. These are things we never used to see before, especially in rural towns. Residents have good reason to be concerned. There is a growing and fundamental issue of violent crime in this country that has gone unaddressed by the Liberals for years, but I am not telling the House anything new. The time for change is long overdue. Bill C-16, I hope, can do some good here, but some concerns remain.

When I first joined municipal politics, people in the community were concerned about many issues, but crime was not top of the list. They worried mostly about parks, about job security and about taxes. In a decade, things have changed drastically. Now, it is a regular occurrence for people to say they are concerned, cautious or even afraid. In a place like Penticton, residents no longer feel safe to take a summer night stroll on our iconic Lakeshore Drive. The business associations there are clear that “crime is what we are hearing about, every single day.”

Just this month, I had a conversation with a mother who lost her son in Penticton to violence. This young man was swarmed, assaulted and beaten until he died. Many residents of Penticton will remember this vicious murder, but what they might not realize is that we are mere months away from a statute of limitations issue. Delays in getting this complex case to court could mean this case, like many others in Canada, is never going to be properly heard, and the victim's family and friends and our small town will never have proper closure or see justice. This is not just justice delayed; it is no justice at all. I urge the courts to provide full and fair proceedings to this horrific case.

Sadly, it is not the only one. Why? What has changed in this decade? I suggest it is reflecting a chronic, years-long failure to uphold public safety, the first responsibility of any government. It is reflecting a failure to demonstrate consequences, a failure to provide a swift and fair application of justice for the accused, a failure to provide closure for victims of crime, a failure exasperated by a sluggish court system, and a failure to address a broken bail system.

I appreciate that Bill C-16 tries to find solutions, finally. How does Bill C-16 address this? It is by taking on many of the ideas that the Conservatives have called for, for years. These measures are long overdue in our criminal justice system. After a decade in office, finally, the Liberals have acted.

I give credit to my Conservative colleagues for their work throughout these years to finally get the Liberals to sit up and listen. I am glad to see the Liberals take up the proposal of my Conservative colleague, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, which would make the murder of an intimate partner automatically a first-degree offence. After the horrific murder of Bailey McCourt last summer, this is a proposal that I know the people of my riding and all of Canada can get behind.

I also see that a new Criminal Code offence has been put forth, prohibiting engaging in a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct toward an intimate partner. I spoke about the importance of considering coercive control in the House just yesterday in my speech on Bill C-223, and I welcome it here as well, but the Liberals have also undermined key policies that matter for public safety and for public confidence that justice will be served, like mandatory minimum sentences. This is a policy that the public, historically this Parliament and the Conservatives have been supporting.

In my recent survey to my constituents, almost everyone who responded said they wanted violent criminals held responsible for their actions and wanted them to serve mandatory time. Instead, to appeal to soft-on-crime supporters, mandatory minimums in sentencing are undermined again in Bill C-16. Bill C-16 would amend the principles for sentencing, imposing on judges and courts the requirement to impose a sentence below a mandatory minimum sentence, as adopted by Parliament as law, where applying the minimum would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for the offender. This change would enable a path to lower sentences than mandatory minimums require, even for crimes such as human trafficking, weapons trafficking and offences committed with firearms, such as extortion or drive-by shootings.

Mandatory minimum sentences for violent offenders are not cruel or unusual punishments. A violent crime itself is a cruel and unusual punishment to its victims, their families and the entire community. This cannot be forgotten. Someone who is convicted of a drive-by shooting or armed extortion deserves to be jailed with a clear sentence set by a democratic body of the House representing the desires of all Canadians. In practice, this bill, as drafted, means that mandatory minimums would no longer be mandatory. That is unacceptable to me. Too many residents, families, seniors and small businesses in my riding and throughout Canada have been victimized and do not feel safe. Canadians have had enough.

I do not come to the House to say “no”, but to offer a better way forward. I hope that, across parties, we can recognize the positive measures that I have highlighted and split them into their own legislation that stands apart from these sentencing measures. Doing so would allow us to quickly implement positive changes to the Criminal Code while taking these ill-conceived sentencing proposals for fuller debate and study at the committee level.

After a decade of catch-and-release Liberal bail, repealing mandatory minimums and increasing violent crimes, Canadians want better from their government. They want their taxes and their government to deliver safer communities, to prioritize them and their families over criminals and to prioritize justice. Let us work quickly to meet the expectations that our communities are demanding.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, the Criminal Code must meet the public's expectations and evolve with the times.

Bill C-16 proposes criminalizing the creation of deepfakes. When someone's face is manipulated to create deepfakes using tools such as AI and then disseminated, it can have a significant impact on the victim's life. Bill C-16 will criminalize that. It also criminalizes threatening to distribute non-consensual intimate images, because not only can distribution have an impact on victims' lives, so can the threat of doing so.

I think these are important changes to the Criminal Code. I would like to hear my colleague's opinion. Does she also think that this is an important change to ensure that the Criminal Code meets the public's expectations and reflects today's reality?