Evidence of meeting #157 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I call the meeting to order.
I'll get to you in one second, Mr. Dusseault.
We are coming back to where we left off yesterday on the clause-by-clause. I think everybody knows now that we will be having some interruptions with votes in the House as we go through our clause-by-clause. I believe that potentially two more are expected, so we will do those and come back. We're under a motion to complete this by nine o'clock tonight.
Mr. Dusseault.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order, following new information circulated yesterday about clauses 316 and 317 of the bill. The Privacy Commissioner appeared before a Senate committee. He has expressed some major privacy concerns about the changes in Bill C-74 that deal with financial technology. He appeared before a Senate committee, and he was not at all satisfied with the way clauses 316 and 317 were written. He believes that they do not protect consumers from possible privacy breaches.
I would like to seek unanimous consent to go back to clauses 316 and 317 and vote on them separately.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
The member has asked for unanimous consent to go back to clauses 316 and 317 under part 6, division 16.
Does the member have unanimous consent to go back to those two clauses?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay. That takes care of that.
(On clause 404)
We are starting where we left off yesterday. I think we agreed that we would start with division 20.
We were at LIB-1.
Do members have a copy of this? I believe you want to read it out and explain it, Mr. Fergus.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Just give me a second, Mr. Chair. I'm just trying to find my version of it. My apologies.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Keep in mind that if anyone has questions on this, Ms. Sheppard is here as an official from Justice to answer any questions.
Mr. Fergus.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Chair, I thank all members for taking a look at this. We are trying to amend clause 404 by replacing lines 1 to 11 on page 535 with the following, under “Duty to inform victims”:
715.36(1) 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.
Mr. Chair, we had an initial discussion yesterday; however, I notice that we have an official here from the Department of Justice who would be able to walk us through the greater context of this. With your committee's permission, I think we would all benefit by having her at the table.
She could then do a better job of leading the discussion that we started yesterday, because I think we have moved away from the scope of the amendment.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Ms. Sheppard, can you respond to Mr. Fergus? I expect that while we're at it there will probably be other questions.
4:15 p.m.
Ann Sheppard Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Yes, certainly. I'd be happy to explain it.
The amendment is by way of clarification of the policy intent, which was to require the prosecutor to give notice to victims as soon as practicable in the circumstances. The way it's written right now is somewhat confusing, because it could give the impression that the prosecutor could wait until the last minute, use option (b), and wait until the agreement is before the court before giving notice, but that's not the policy intent.
The proposed wording would clarify that “the prosecutor must take reasonable steps” as soon as practicable in the process, which would be some time after the invitation to negotiate an agreement has been accepted but no later than the time that the proposed agreement is before the court for approval. It's just by way of clarification and to give victims a meaningful opportunity to make representations at a hearing. It's really just to clarify the remediative focus on victims.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Ms. Sheppard, you said that the previous two clauses that this amendment would seek to clarify are confusing. Are there any other confusing clauses that you would highlight in this bill?
4:15 p.m.
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I suppose that's a bit of a subjective question. We felt that the rest were fairly clear. As I mentioned the last time, there was a lot of detail in this regime that's by way of guidance. A lot of it's taken from regimes that we have seen in other countries, so we didn't propose to change anything—
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
You didn't get it right the first time. Is this what you're saying, that this amendment makes it better?
4:15 p.m.
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
We're saying that this amendment clarifies the policy intent because after having been questioned about it, we realized it could be misleading.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Mr. Chair, I would simply offer the following arguments in regard to Mr. Fergus's amendment.
First of all, where did this amendment originate? We didn't hear any testimony from any witnesses who said that things had to be clarified. It only seems that now we have Ms. Sheppard.... Ms. Sheppard, I'm sure you're doing an excellent job for the Department of Justice. It's just that when you came before the committee and explained this section, there was no reference that there were issues with the bill in terms of your division.
I'm wondering where Mr. Fergus would get the testimony saying that there were confusing elements. It's one of two things. Either the government is trying to fix its own bill or Mr. Fergus somehow has a crystal ball which he is able to look into without hearing any testimony. I would simply ask Mr. Fergus where he is getting these amendments from.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
The quick answer is that these amendments are the result of some questions that I had in reading this bill. As I mentioned—and I said this at the meeting that we had when Ms. Sheppard was here before—I apologized to the committee because I had only read the BIA up to division 16. In thinking about the last few sections, I had some questions and it was in posing these questions that I realized a clarification was necessary.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
I would just go back to the process. The government has indicated today that it has not put forward the most solid legislation. The fact that we have members changing it without hearing testimony from witnesses really undercuts the process here. It has been circumvented. First of all, the proper process for amendments would be to submit them to the clerk by the appropriate time so that all of us could review them and then look to the testimony we've heard to see whether or not they are merited, and then bring our questions to the officials for clarification. In this case we're not being afforded that opportunity because there isn't testimony.
Again I would say that this should be done at the justice committee. This should not be done here at the finance committee. I will be opposing this simply—not out of respect for victims and wanting to make sure they have the proper information; I'm very supportive of that. I just think that this is a terrible process, and I really would hope the government.... It would be different if this were your first budget implementation act after taking government, but this is several times in, so I'm very disappointed that we're in this state today, Mr. Chair. I will be voting in opposition to the amendment as well as to the substance because this is the wrong process.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Your point has been noted.
Is there any further discussion on the amendment?
Mr. Kmiec, go ahead.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Ms. Sheppard, on this proposed amendment that Mr. Fergus has tabled, can you explain exactly how it improves the bill? You said it wasn't clear, that it would lead to some confusion. Could you explain what the confusion would be? You said that it was the intention of the government to make it seem like you could drop this at the very last minute, that the prosecutor had that ability. How would your amendment change any of that? I see in proposed subsection (3) that the prosecutor has the ability to inform the victims after the fact when they decide not to, but they have to provide information to the court on why they decided not to inform them anyway. It seems that there's lots of leeway already written into the proposed section of the BIA. The entire division just wants to see something appended to the back of the bill as an afterthought.
4:20 p.m.
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I can explain the duty to inform victims. Our instructions from cabinet were to provide for victim reparations along the lines of what exists now in the Criminal Code. The challenge with doing that is that under this regime, the charge may be laid at a later stage, so it may not be practicable to notify victims. We wanted them to be involved as early as possible in the process.
The provision that you see now in the actual text of the bill says that the prosecutor must take reasonable steps to inform a victim, or a third party on their behalf, as soon as practicable after the offer to negotiate has been accepted, that the negotiations are taking place, or, as soon as practicable after the parties have agreed on the terms of the agreement but no later than before it goes to court, that the parties have arrived at an agreement. It's obviously not possible to draft it in....
For instance, we can look at proposed paragraph 715.36(1)(a). If you're notifying them as soon as the invitation to negotiate has been accepted, you can't notify them that the parties have agreed on terms, because they haven't. They've just started. Because there's an “or” between proposed paragraphs 715.36(1)(a) and (b), it looks as though the prosecutor could say, “Well, I could just opt to use (b) and wait until the agreement is being proposed to a court”, which wouldn't really give victims a meaningful opportunity to give input on the terms.
Now, proposed subsection 715.36(2) does say that the duty to inform victims is to be construed and applied in a “reasonable” manner. If you use that to interpret the (a) “or” (b) in proposed subsection 715.36(1), then it would have to be whatever is reasonable in the circumstances. This proposed amendment makes it crystal clear that there's one notification requirement and it's to take effect as soon as possible so that victims can have an opportunity to have their views factored into the process.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
I understand your explanation, but it seems to me that the group of parliamentarians on the justice committee should have reviewed the entirety of this division in order to be able to take into account how these changes would impact the rest of this particular division.
Mr. Chair, it should have still been on its own, in its own bill, separate from this act.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you. That point has been noted for the second time.
Is there any further discussion?
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
I'd like a recorded vote.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
