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 towards 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 nearly 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 committed 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 committed 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.

Motions in Amendment

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen in the past that when the Conservatives have gone against mandatory minimums in cases that the Supreme Court has held are unconstitutional, there have been floods of litigation after. As a result, people did not get convictions, and so it is really important—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to interrupt the minister. I did say a very short question.

I will allow the member to respond in under 20 seconds.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the government has chosen a path. I think it is a flawed path, but it is a path nonetheless, and that is to provide for an escape valve. The question becomes, if this is an exceptional valve, in exceptional circumstances, why not define what those circumstances are? Why leave it completely—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. It is also a privilege to rise, as I always do on matters of justice and the Criminal Code, in support of victims.

That is one thing that distinguishes the approach my Conservative colleagues and I take to crime and justice matters from that of the Liberals. We look out for the rights of victims, and they look out for the rights of offenders. We root our approach in the facts on the ground, what law enforcement advocates say, what members of law enforcement say and what victims advocates say. They rely on legal theory and, so often in doing so, ignore the gruesome realities of some of the most heinous acts of crime we see in our country.

A lot of the discussion about mandatory minimums for sexual offences, for example, such as child sexual exploitation and abuse material, was exacerbated when there was, last year, a horrendous Supreme Court of Canada decision called the Senneville decision. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that for someone possessing thousands of images and videos of children as young as four being subjected to brutal sexual acts, a one‑year mandatory minimum sentence in that case was cruel and unusual punishment because of some “reasonable hypotheticals” in which someone else, in an entirely different set of circumstances, might be charged, under what the court said were more sympathetic terms, with possessing child sexual exploitation and abuse material.

Conservatives offered a very reasonable solution: to reinstate the mandatory minimums for people trafficking in and possessing child sexual abuse and exploitation material; and to defend them with the notwithstanding clause, a tool in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms given to legislatures to ensure that the will of the people and, indeed, basic decency are upheld in our laws.

Now, Bill C‑16, the government has said, was its answer to this. To be fair, members of the Liberal Party have certainly expressed disgust with the facts of the Senneville and Naud case, but where we diverge is that their answer to this is a bill that would give all judges a so-called safety valve, to say that a mandatory minimum sentence seems like it might be cruel and unusual punishment in a certain case and, therefore, they will not apply it. “Mandatory minimum penalty” has three words. The first is “mandatory”. If we give judges a safety valve to unilaterally declare, on their own terms, that they do not need to uphold the mandatory minimum, it is no longer mandatory. It is not even a minimum. In some cases, it is not even a penalty.

Why that is so important here is that in the Senneville and Naud case, the trial judge made that very determination. The trial judge thought that the mandatory minimum penalty for these two men, who between them possessed thousands of images of young boys and girls being subject to acts I will not read in the House, was cruel and unusual punishment. That judge would have availed themselves of the very safety valve the Liberals are now seeking to enshrine in Bill C‑16.

Why is this so particularly troubling? I am very proud of some of the work that the justice committee, on which I have the great privilege of sitting, did on Bill C‑16. In fact, I am proud of some of my own amendments, which have been adopted into this bill. An example is the way the bill deals with those who are victimized by intimate images being distributed. This is a horrible crime that we see affecting more and more Canadians, especially young Canadians. I have spoken about this with high school students, who just accept this now as a fact of life. This is something that we need to have a very strong response to in the Criminal Code.

We also see, through emerging technologies and artificial intelligence, the dissemination of deepfakes, or deepnudes as they are sometimes called: artificially generated images and videos that look very real, showcasing someone in a state of undress or engaging in a sexually explicit act. These things are disseminated and shared and victimize people in much the same way that the sharing of actual non-consensual intimate images does. This is important because the law needs to catch up with the technology.

I heard from witness testimony. I spoke to women's advocates in particular, like Liz Brown from Valora Place in St. Thomas, and Jennifer Dunn from the London Abused Women's Centre. I spoke to Chief Thai Truong, chief of the London Police Service, and Chief Marc Roskamp of the St. Thomas Police Service. I spoke to people including a personal friend of mine who was herself a victim of an artificially generated nearly nude image's being shared. What happens is that these images are shared, and oftentimes the most important thing is for the image or video to be taken off-line, so one of the amendments I put forward at the justice committee would force tech giants to remove this material within 48 hours. I am grateful I had support for that from my Liberal colleagues.

Another amendment I put forward was one making it so that the definition of “intimate image” would not exclude things based on a technicality. We changed it to include “nearly nude”. This was, again, something that was brought forward in testimony we heard from witnesses. We also added, and this came from previous work that my colleague the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill did in her bill, Bill C‑216, a definition specifically of artificial intelligence-generated material, which would ensure that new technology is captured by what we are trying to do here. We would not need to come back as members of Parliament to the drawing board because we find that the law does not actually capture all the cases we are seeing.

As we were working on this, I was very proud. This was an example of all parties working together to support victims. However, as we got through the clause-by-clause process on Bill C‑16, we realized that the big sticking point remaining was the Liberals' own poison pill, making it so that their so-called restoration of mandatory minimum penalties would not be, in fact, a restoration at all. They would be allowing any activist judge who fundamentally does not even believe in carceral sentences, which, sadly, we have seen a fair bit of in the justice system, to unilaterally declare that they do not think a mandatory minimum is appropriate. This would take away the “mandatory” of mandatory minimum sentences and ensure that the very people who commit these heinous acts we are talking about, and not just acts of a sexual nature but breaking any criminal laws really, are actually able to get a pass.

This is something that I feel we need to say, in the strongest possible terms, we will not stand for, and it is with a great deal of regret that I say this is what the Liberals have done to Bill C‑16. I have a great deal of regret that these provisions that I am very proud of and that I can stand up here and say would help victims are embedded in a bill alongside other things that would actually make things far worse for victims of crime. The bill now has this poison pill that the Liberals would not address, which would basically take any mandatory minimum sentence, including minimums that have not even been declared to be unconstitutional by a court, and subject it to the so-called safety valve, which means it would become optional. It would become discretionary.

Interestingly enough, I spoke about what some of these circumstances would be at committee with justice department officials. When judges are formulating their picture of the circumstances of an offence and an offender, the officials indicated that one's immigration status could actually be captured by the bill. If a mandatory minimum sentence would jeopardize someone's status as a resident of Canada, someone who is not a citizen and is convicted of a criminal act, that could be factored into a judge's saying that a mandatory minimum is no longer appropriate. The justice minister said something different, and herein lies the problem. If the minister and the department officials are not even on the same page about what this safety valve would do, how can any judge looking at it, even in good faith, take it and make laws and decisions that are going to support victims?

We will always stand up for victims. That means listening to them and advocating for them, but it also means advocating for a justice system that does not let perpetrators and offenders, including those behind some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, get a pass. It is regrettable that this is what this Liberal bill, Bill C‑16, would now do.

Bill C-16—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Secretary of State (Combatting Crime)]

Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-16, an act to amend certain acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours to the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the respective stages of said bill.

The House resumed from June 3 consideration of 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), as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Protecting Victims Act

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-16, the protecting victims act. This bill represents an important step in reinforcing Canada's commitment to protecting victims and supporting survivors of crime.

When I was a law student, I worked in a community legal clinic in Toronto. Interacting and advising women who were living with domestic coercion and violence was a sobering experience for me. I was privileged to work with lawyers in the violence against women and children sectors where I learned much more about the cycle of abuse, a malignant dynamic that was afflicting so many families. Later, when I worked as a family law lawyer, I encountered many women trying to navigate the legal system while simultaneously attempting to break free from the financial, emotional and social coercion that their intimate partners exercised over them. It had taken many years for some of them to even recognize they were victims of such control and manipulation. Isolation from their families, friends and social supports; restrictions to accessing their own money; and erosion of their self-worth and value through psychological manipulation were regular symptoms I encountered. Of course, there were limits to the help I could provide as a new lawyer, and I was grateful for the community groups and social supports that I was able to refer my clients to for that help.

My early career as a family law litigator also taught me of the pervasive obstacles these women faced and continue to face in accessing justice through the legal system. My experiences with these women and their families inform the words I bring to this House today and ratify my support for our government's action to protect them.

Bill C-16 advances four core goals in protecting victims: strengthening the criminal law's response to gender-based violence, including intimate partner violence and femicide; strengthening protections for children against sexual exploitation, particularly in online spaces; improving the treatment of victims; and addressing delays that undermine confidence in the justice system.

I will focus today on how the bill would enhance the criminal justice system's response to gender-based violence and improve protections for children from sexual exploitation. Every two days in Canada, a woman is killed by her intimate partner. This extreme form of violence is both devastating and disturbingly prevalent. These realities demand a strengthened and explicit response in our criminal law. We can strengthen the Criminal Code through Bill C-16 to ensure that murders occurring in certain aggravating circumstances are treated as first-degree murder, the most serious offence in the Criminal Code. These include murders of intimate partners that occur in the context of a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct, murders that occur in the context of sexual violence or exploitation, and murders motivated by hate, including based on gender.

The bill would also treat manslaughter occurring in these same circumstances more seriously by requiring sentencing judges to consider imposing the penalty applicable to second-degree murder: 25 years of imprisonment. Importantly, Bill C-16 would explicitly refer to these killings as femicide. Words matter, and naming these crimes matters. In doing so, we recognize and acknowledge that women and girls are disproportionately the victims of these forms of homicide, and it reflects victims' lived realities.

While femicide represents the most extreme form of gender-based violence, such violence often takes many other forms, including mental abuse. Abusers may exert control by isolating intimate partners from family and friends, monitoring communications, controlling finances or making threats involving children. This pattern of coercive or controlling conduct often precedes intimate partner femicide.

Through the protecting victims act, a new offence would criminalize engaging in a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct toward an intimate partner. The new offence is modelled on Scotland's approach, which is widely regarded as the gold standard because it does not require proof that the victim feared for their safety. Clearly defining “coercive control” in the Criminal Code is intended to help law enforcement identify the true aggressor in intimate partner violence cases and reduce the risk of dual charging by requiring a contextual assessment of power imbalances and patterns of exploitation of vulnerabilities. This approach recognizes that coercive controllers often target vulnerabilities, while violence used by victims is often defensive. The new offence would be supported by training to support the offence being applied by law enforcement in a manner consistent with its core objective of protecting victims.

To complement these reforms, the protecting victims act would modernize the criminal harassment offence by removing the need to prove the victim's subjective fear, instead requiring proof that a reasonable person in the victim's circumstances would perceive a threat to their physical or psychological safety, reducing the need for survivors to relive their trauma in court.

The protecting victims act would also respond to an emerging form of digital-based gender violence: sexual deepfakes. While child sexual abuse material is already criminalized regardless of whether images are real or fictional, the existing offence for non-consensual distribution of intimate images does not clearly capture AI-generated images that are indistinguishable from real ones.

Bill C-16 would address this gap by ensuring that sexual deepfake depictions of identifiable persons that appear real and are distributed without consent are treated the same as real intimate images, affirming that consent is required regardless of how the image is created.

The bill would also criminalize threatening to distribute intimate images, including deepfakes, to address sextortion and intimidation and would increase the maximum penalty for the offence from five to 10 years' imprisonment.

The proposed legislation contains a range of measures to better protect children from sexual exploitation, including online. For example, significant concerns have been expressed about child sexual offence mandatory minimum penalties, MMPs. While Parliament has been signalling that sexual crimes against children should be treated as far more grave by increasing MMPs, courts have struck many of these MMPs down as violations of section 12 of the charter, which characterizes them as cruel and unusual punishment.

Our government is responding to this through the proposed protecting victims act. We propose to reinforce these MMPs for predators who create, possess or distribute child sexual abuse and exploitation material by allowing judicial discretion, in rare cases, where applying an MMP would be grossly disproportionate in the facts of the case before the court. The protecting victims act would ensure those who prey on our kids face prison time for the most heinous crimes imaginable, by reviving 13 MMPs for child sexual offences that were previously struck down by courts.

This approach is designed to protect and preserve mandatory minimum penalties while ensuring they continue to apply to the serious crimes they are intended for, thereby addressing the court's constitutional concerns under section 12 of the charter, cruel and unusual punishment. It is an approach that members of the opposition have supported very well.

The protecting victims act also proposes reforms that would modernize offences that target sexual exploitation, sextortion and child luring and child sexual abuse and exploitation material. These reforms include creating a new offence that would prohibit threatening to distribute child sexual abuse and exploitation material; expanding the child-luring offence so it would explicitly apply to those who communicate with children to sextort them; criminalizing the distribution of bestiality depictions, including deepfake ones, which is conduct that is known to be used to manipulate children for sexual purposes; expanding certain child sexual offences to protect children from those who may invite them to expose their own sexual organs for a sexual purpose, including where no physical touching occurs; and ensuring Canadians who sexually assault children abroad could be prosecuted at home.

The proposed reforms also seek to strengthen requirements for Internet service providers under the mandatory reporting act, which imposes duties on Internet service providers, including one to notify police when their services are used to commit a child sexual abuse and exploitation material offence. Service providers would have to preserve data for a longer period of time and transmit critical information to law enforcement. The act would also more clearly cover a broader range of online platforms and would extend the limitation period for the prosecution of offence under that act.

Finally, to address those who recruit and involve youth in the commission of criminal offences, Bill C-16 proposes to create a new offence that would prohibit recruiting, counselling, encouraging or inviting a young person to be party to a criminal offence.

These reforms are necessary. They move Canada forward toward a justice system that recognizes modern forms of abuse, protects survivors before it is too late and refuses to allow predators to hide in technology, bureaucracy or legal loopholes.

I mentioned earlier that every two days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. That day came for Darian Hailey Henderson-Bellman, a 25-year-old woman who lived in my riding. She was killed by her intimate partner, a man who had numerous interactions with law enforcement and should never have been released into society after he was previously charged with domestic violence.

The system failed Darian and her family, but her murder is not in vain. Through the valiant and dedicated work of her parents, Flo and Paul Henderson, Darian's story has been shared and discussed, including in this very House.

Darian's story and those like hers play a key role in the fabric of this legislation. We owe it to women living under the shadow of coercive control, we owe it to the children who are confronted with threats on their phones and we owe it to victims who wait for years for justice only to be turned away.

Laws shape culture, and culture shapes safety. When we call femicide by its name, we expose misogyny for what it is. When we prosecute sextortion, we protect dignity. When we protect children, we protect our country's future. When we expand victims' rights, we honour their courage.

I implore everyone in the House to support these reforms because safety is not optional, dignity is not negotiable and justice should not be a privilege; it must be a guarantee.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. I listened with great attention to my colleague's speech, as the person who wrote the bill along and ushered the bill through to change the name of “child pornography“ to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material.” As somebody who prosecuted Internet luring and offences against children, I took a great deal of interest.

One of the things the member spoke about was homicide of intimates, which was also addressed in Bill C-225, also known as Bailey's law. Bailey's law is at the Senate right now, and it was studied and amended substantially in the House at the request of the government.

I wonder if that member would be prepared to provide an endorsement to state that Bailey's law should be passed forthwith. Bailey McCourt, for whom the bill is named, was tragically killed in a similar situation to the Henderson murder the member spoke about. Her death happened on July 4 last year. Would the member support this bill coming into effect by July 4 this year?

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for his advocacy and work on that bill.

As someone who has worked in the violence against women sector in the legal context, I know we saw gaps in laws and legislation that could be addressed through this House, and we are glad to see those types of bills moving through now.

I am happy to continue to advocate, and certainly it is our job as elected officials in this chamber to advocate on behalf of those who do not have voices to bring their stories forward. I commend the member for his work on that bill, and I will certainly continue to work with him to elevate those voices in this chamber.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have a chance to take the floor to ask a question of my colleague from Milton East—Halton Hills South.

I am distressed. I certainly agree with all the sentiments. We need to make sure that we are acting to protect people from the crimes that we have talked about, including intimate partner violence. However, we are falling back on rhetoric in the absence of evidence when we start echoing the notion that mandatory minimum sentences are somehow great at preventing crime, because there is no evidence for that at all. Empirical studies from all around the world, particularly from the U.S., where they were used a lot in Texas, prove conclusively that they do not deter crime. What deters crime is the risk of being caught, not longer sentences.

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great question about mandatory minimum sentences. We had great discussions about that in this House. I do agree that the research on justice does tend to show that mandatory minimum sentences do not necessarily deter crime. However, they do provide more trust and more confidence in the justice system. What our government is trying to do here is find that middle ground where we can ensure that folks have confidence in justice, and I believe there is some element of deterrence there as well, but at the same time we are making sure that we are compliant with the charter. As we know, there have been a lot of charter challenges with respect to mandatory minimum penalties, and this is a balance that we have to negotiate here in this House.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, many women who experience intimate partner violence face obstacles in accessing justice. Can my colleague explain how Bill C-16 would improve access to justice for women who experience intimate partner violence?

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question from my colleague. During my work in the legal field with women who were experiencing intimate partner violence, many of them experienced hesitation and trepidation in coming forward because they were not confident that the justice system could be easily navigated or address their needs.

This bill speaks directly to that concern by ensuring that courts can have earlier responses, respond faster and deliver stronger results for victims. We are also including testimonial aids for victims, so that they do not have to relitigate and relive their traumas in court. We also want to ensure that they have a speedy result. At the same time, we have to make sure that more complex sexual assault and sexual abuse cases have the time they need in the courts without encountering unnecessarily long delays and being thrown out, as we saw in the Jordan decision.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, remember how good life used to be a decade ago, before the Liberal government? We had the wealthiest middle class. Now the middle class is poor, and Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. However, the best thing we had was how safe our country used to be. My city, the beautiful city of Toronto, anywhere, anytime, day or night, any neighbourhood, was safe.

After a decade of Liberals, violent crime is out of control. Residents are no longer safe. Parents are afraid for their kids to take the transit. There are robberies on the street, home invasions and extortion. It seems like every day I wake up and a person has been shot in my North York riding. Last week, there was a murder at Sheppard and Magellan, in the beautiful community of Downsview. Three men shot a man to death outside his house.

What is happening? What is happening is Liberal bail and sentencing laws. Every police officer will say that. We need to close the revolving door in the courts. First, we got the Liberal failure of Bill C‑14. That was for bail. Now we are here on Bill C‑16, to deal with sentencing. Again, we have a Liberal failure. Instead of increasing mandatory minimum sentences, the Liberals do the opposite. They create what they refer to as a “safety valve”, which would allow judges to disregard mandatory minimum sentences.

Under the Criminal Code, mandatory minimum penalties apply to a range of serious offences. These mandatory minimums are designed to set a sentencing floor, a minimum term of imprisonment that Parliament deemed necessary for denunciation, deterrence and public safety for specific categories of crime.

In recent years, courts have been striking down mandatory minimum penalties under section 12 of the charter as cruel and unusual punishment. That, of course, includes the Supreme Court. The Liberals frame the safety valve as a response to this jurisprudence of striking down mandatory sentences. They point to recent decisions like Senneville, where the Supreme Court struck down a mandatory minimum penalty for possession and distribution of child pornography. I will come back to this decision.

What would they do with a safety valve? The valve would allow courts to impose seLiberalsntences below the mandatory minimum if a judge thinks that applying the mandatory minimum would amount to a cruel and unusual punishment. The Liberals ironically say they would strengthen mandatory minimum sentences, but instead they do the opposite. They make them non-mandatory. Effectively, the valve would allow a judge to disregard mandatory minimum penalties, so a minimum penalty is no longer a mandatory minimum penalty.

Jail time would still be required, but a judge would be free to sentence the convicted person to one day in prison. If they feel that this House, Parliament, has prescribed a sentence that is too extreme, they can just disregard what we say. This is crazy. It would result in lighter sentences for serious repeat offenders. The Liberals are doing the exact opposite of what is required. In effect, what previously required a constitutional argument would be an automatic argument every time at sentencing, that something is cruel and unusual.

The safety valve is a major concession to judicial activism. It would undermine the role of this Parliament. We are the ones who set sentencing policy. Worse, the principle of deterrence is lost. I listened to some comments a short time ago from folks saying that there are empirical studies that state mandatory minimum sentences do not work. They do work, because someone cannot commit a crime if they are in prison. Many of these violent offenders who offend repeatedly, again and again, should be left in jail, away from the community that they seek to terrorize again. Therefore, we need to do the opposite.

This is especially in response to the Supreme Court striking down the mandatory minimum sentence on distribution and access to child pornography. At the justice committee, I moved a motion to invoke the notwithstanding clause to protect mandatory minimum sentences on possession and distribution of child pornography, but the Liberals voted it down. Again, they failed to protect children. This is not just about kids who have already been abused and exploited in these pictures and videos. It is about kids in the future who, God forbid, could be raped because the courts have failed to punish these perverts and deter future perverts.

We had to go hard here so that we could kill this awful industry, but the Liberals refused. Why? They say, “All we heard from the Attorney General was that it is a sunset clause, and in five years we would have to do this again.” Well, fine, let us do it again.

What was the point of the notwithstanding clause? It was to prevent absurdity. Attorney General Jean Chrétien used the clause to seal the deal on the charter, and he specifically used an example for absurdity that the Supreme Court could potentially come up with. It was a hypothetical that Chrétien used: that the Supreme Court would find possession of child pornography protected by freedom of expression. I think everyone in this room, even the Liberals, would agree that such a finding would be absurd.

Now, that is not the scenario we had in Senneville, but pretty close. Senneville pleaded guilty to possession and access to over 300 images of children, mostly girls between the ages of three and six, being sexually exploited. The co-appellant, Mathieu Naud, pleaded guilty to possessing over 500 images and almost 300 videos, most of which were of children ages five to 10, in many cases being subjected to rape and sodomy. This is disgusting. Striking down a mandatory one-year sentence for each of those two counts is precisely the type of absurdity that Attorney General Jean Chrétien had in mind. This is precisely why section 33 was explicitly inserted in the charter.

We said to the Liberals at the justice committee, instead of narrowing down and diluting the mandatory minimum sentences, let us preserve the mandatory minimum sentences for the worst of the worst, and this is one of them, but the Liberals refused the amendment.

I am proud of the Leader of the Opposition and my Conservative colleagues. We will invoke section 33 to protect children from these monsters and to prevent this absurdity that the Supreme Court arrived at. The Attorney General is refusing to invoke the clause, refusing to do his job, refusing to protect children and safeguard the law. Instead, the Liberals weaken sentencing laws with a safety valve. It is a shame, and it is regrettable.

I spoke to a police officer in my riding. I do not want to name them, and I do not even want to name the division. He said to me, not too long ago, “Roman, you know how upsetting it is when we arrest a guy again and again. We had a situation where an officer got injured during the arrest of a guy he arrested again and again, and a couple of days later the same offender was out on bail again.”

We tried to deal with bail, but the Liberals refused to remove the ladder principle, and still the courts are required to release at the earliest opportunity under the least restrictive terms. We dealt with sentencing and with activist courts that refuse to impose the mandatory minimums that the House prescribed. Instead of preserving mandatory minimums, what did the Liberals do? They did what Liberals do: They weakened mandatory minimum sentences. They now tell judges to go ahead and disregard the mandatory minimum if they think the mandatory minimum is disproportional.

I do not understand what it is we are doing here with Bill C-16. We need to do the opposite. We need to protect Canadians. We need to take a bite out of crime and not let criminals loose, as this bill would do.