Finance Committee on May 22nd, 2018

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

(Clause 403 carried on division)

(On clause 404)

There's a proposed amendment. Copies are being made.

Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to propose a simple amendment to clause 404, in part 6, division 20, specifically referring to paragraphs 715.36(1)(a) and (b). I would like to amend it by replacing lines 1 to 11 with the following:

After an organization has accepted the offer to negotiate according to the terms of the notice referred to in section 715.33, the prosecutor must take reasonable steps to inform any victim, or any third party that is acting on the victim's behalf, that a remediation agreement may be entered into.

It's to provide as much flexibility as possible to allow them to figure out whether that is an option that they want to pursue, or whether they want to continue along with the original prosecution. That idea is to make sure that third parties acting on the victim's behalf or the victim is informed that the prosecution is entering into these kinds of negotiations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate the spirit in which Mr. Fergus is trying to improve upon this. Obviously, I'm from a party where we want to put victims at the heart of the justice system.

The unfortunate part about today's amendment actually further elaborates the concern I have with this government deciding that it would make large-scale changes through an omnibus bill. I have no problem with some of the compensation for justices or some of the other portions of the bill, Mr. Chair, but you've heard me say this before, that we did not have substantive evidence from witnesses on division 20. Many of us rose and expressed concerns, Mr. Fergus included, about the whole process of including a large section [Technical difficulty—Editor] a departure from the Criminal Code, and putting it in front of this committee when we could not study it.

I know we have some lawyers who are currently practising or have formerly practised, but again the justice committee would be the better venue, considering that the government has Bill C-75, as well as other pieces of omnibus legislation that it could have included to have a proper study done. The justice committee could have brought forward victims' groups, academics, and other groups, whether they be from the legal side or otherwise, to basically argue whether or not this legislation is good or not.

I take issue that the government put a small section in their budget bill that applies more to restitution and how we process criminal proceedings or not. People can take issue with the previous government on many different parts of it. I have defended, actually, the use of omnibus legislation by the previous government and this government because sometimes you have to have a process to move things forward. But this is the wrong process.

I heard from members of the NDP, the Liberals, as well as our own caucus who were quite taken aback by the government's approach. I think this is doubling down by offering an amendment. I certainly appreciate where Mr. Fergus is coming from. I don't necessarily disagree with including provisions to make sure victims are included; that's not the issue I'm taken with here, Mr. Chair. I'm taking issue with the fact that this Liberal government is putting through, without very much scrutiny, a wide departure. I think it needs to be registered clearly. I think it is wrong for the government to be using the finance committee process. Again, and I can be corrected, I don't believe we heard from witnesses in direct reference to division 20, with the exception of an official from the government.

This has not been studied in the proper way. It has not been a proper process. I am going to be voting against the overall process, Mr. Chair, because I don't think this is the right way for the government to carry this forward.

Again, through the justice committee would have been a more ideal process, and for the government now to be introducing.... We all had a timeline, Mr. Chair, of when we were supposed to have our recommendations for amendments in. To have this tabled, dropped, at this time, I have to ask you if it is in order, because I don't think this is the proper process. The rest of us work very hard. We don't have the government resources where we can call upon the Minister of Finance's staff or the Finance Canada staff, or the Minister of Justice and her staff, to advise us on these things, and yet we can make a deadline.

I think the fact that they are adding these changes, Mr. Chair, in this committee after hearing very little evidence on division 20 is troubling. I think it points to the government running a haphazard process. I think that Parliament suffers. I think that we should not support any further movements. In fact, this should be given to the justice committee or, if not, the government shouldn't proceed with this until a proper process has been done. They have other pieces of legislation, Mr. Chair, that they could have tacked this on to that would have been far more appropriate than a budget bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

The amendment is in order. I'm allowing a fair bit of latitude here beyond the amendment, on part 6, division 20.

Mr. Dusseault, and then Mr. Fergus.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I am not going to repeat what my colleague just said because I agree with him entirely. I am simply trying to see what improvement the proposed version makes to the current version. Both versions essentially say the same things but in different ways, which is that we must inform the victims. I would like you to provide more details on the proposed version and to explain how it improves the current version.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I would say to my colleague that it offers more flexibility and provides a better framework for the responsibility of informing victims that this process may be considered. For that reason, I will maintain this amendment.

In addition, I would like to add one other thing, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

All is fair from my colleague, Mr. Albas, but I think there were a couple of raised eyebrows over the language that was used near the end of his comments. I'm not certain if it's necessarily parliamentary or if it's something that we would want to.... I'm certain the member could express his point very strongly without engaging in that, for the record, so that we don't make this a slippery slope in terms of using language that is less than parliamentary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't think there was any unparliamentary language or I'd have picked up on it. There was one strong word, but I don't think it was unparliamentary.

Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I think I've heard stronger things off the record from the chair in the past.

Under “Duty to inform victims”, I'm just reading the section one more time, and I should mention that the amendment may be in order, but there are no Justice officials here to explain to us the impact of the amendment. We don't even have the experts in the room this minute so that members of the opposition can at least ask them what they think. I don't see them here, and I don't see anybody coming up to speak to this. I am not a lawyer, so I would rely on them to explain to me the impact of the amendment.

After reading the original section, I actually don't fully understand the goal of the amendment to the budget bill. It reads to me like victims are already looked after under the duty to inform. It says, “as soon as practicable”, and it goes into it. We should be amending other sections.

Apart from the discussion that Mr. Albas already said that we need to have, this whole section should have been cut out of this budget bill. It doesn't belong in an omnibus budget bill. We should get a fulsome discussion on how this interacts with the Magnitsky Act, which was passed by the House unanimously. I think it was in this room that we were considering the amendments to the Magnitsky Act in a bipartisan fashion, and this whole section will have an impact on the implementation of that act and how companies interact with it.

In proposed subsection 715.36(3), the prosecution can elect not to inform a victim or third party. If we are looking to ensure that the rights of victims are looked after, that's the subsection we should be amending so that prosecutors are obliged to present the facts.

I'd just like to hear more from Mr. Fergus on the impact and purpose of this amendment. As it is right now, I don't see what this would do apart from deleting paragraphs (a) and (b) in that section. We don't even have the Justice officials here to explain to us the repercussions of doing so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have a suggestion. We didn't think we would get this far today on this bill, so if you want to stand down these sections that relate to division 20 until tomorrow, we can do that and have the Justice officials here. That's entirely up to the committee. This means we would deal with part 4, part 5, and part 6, division 20, tomorrow. That's possible to do if there's agreement from the committee to do it.

Is there agreement to do that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

(Clause 404 allowed to stand)

I think that's fair. We really should have officials here on those three parts.

That really concludes all we can do today, and tomorrow we will deal with clauses 120 to 198 and clauses 403 to the end, and the other regular motions that we would do. Are we okay with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

The meeting is adjourned until tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.