Finance Committee on Feb. 9th, 2026

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Should that not have been thought of before this was put in the BIA? All of these things that have been—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I think the protections that were put in the BIA do protect against the harm you're concerned with—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Especially after we know about all of the conflicts and—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Hallan, if you'd like me to answer the question, I'm trying, but it's hard to do it when you speak over me.

On the protections that were included in the bill, they do exist. There are time limits. You have to specify the purpose. It has to be done in public. Those are very real protections. The place where I'm struggling with your question....

I'm sorry. What's that?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

None of those provisions include the Conflict of Interest Act.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The challenge I'm envisioning with how a person would use it in the context of the Conflict of Interest Act is what's—

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

The only person who could use it is a minister or a prime minister—is that correct?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

The authorities contemplated are certainly for members of cabinet, yes.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Exactly. It would apply to someone like you. If a company like Brookfield, which obviously has conflicts with the Prime Minister, were to apply for a grant, they could be granted a conflict of interest under this provision. Is that correct?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I wouldn't scope out.... There are better protections, in my mind, to prevent conflicts, and we all comply with them. We all have certain ethical requirements as a result of the code.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

This is outside of that. You're asking for these powers. This isn't something that's currently here right now. That's why we're concerned. That's why I'm asking you these questions.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If you do have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I'm sorry, Minister. We're going to have to leave it there.

Thank you, Mr. Hallan.

We'll continue with Mr. Sawatzky now for five minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all of you for coming.

Minister, I appreciate the work you've been doing. I know it's very welcome, particularly when we're talking about the bail and sentencing reform act in a bipartisan sense.

I want to start by maybe touching on the intersection between mental health and substance use issues and the criminal justice system. Ultimately, we want to make sure that people aren't committing crimes in the first place, but if they do, we also want to make sure that they are getting treatment and rehabilitation. Could you speak to how these fields intersect?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes. There are leading experts who have spent their lives and careers understanding with specificity the answer to your question. I hope to do them justice with a cursory overview.

It doesn't take a giant leap of logic to understand that a person who is unwell is not able to do many things the way that everyone else in society does, particularly when a person is being driven by addiction, where they have a fundamental challenge with how their brain may be operating. They often are more closely interconnected—not always but particularly with addiction—with people who are involved in the trafficking of narcotics.

If we actually go upstream a level to say, let's not always just target the end-user but let's realize that you can bust criminal organizations and you can provide treatment to people so they are less likely to fall victim to addiction or are better able to manage their symptoms, you're going to see over time a positive outcome when it comes to the rate of violent crime that takes place in your communities.

The same logic, for what it's worth, would apply to investments in affordable and supportive housing. It's hard to expect people to meet the same social standards we expect of one another if they don't have a roof over their heads and food on their table.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Absolutely.

How does the intersection between the federal government and the provincial municipalities play out here?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

It depends province to province. Long story short, as you'll well know, provinces have primary responsibility for the delivery of health care, as well as housing policy, although much of that falls to municipalities now. Just because they're technically someone else's responsibility doesn't mean that we don't want to be a good partner in that regard.

With the creation of Build Canada Homes, for example, we've now put a billion dollars on the table for supportive housing, but we've not seen every province come up with their share of the cash to actually provide the services that are necessary for a supportive housing project to function properly. We're not interested in just putting up buildings for the sake of having structures in our communities. To have the best positive outcome, we want real homes and we want services that meet people's needs.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Absolutely. Thank you very much.

Coming back to the bail and sentencing reform act, there have been changes to how extortion is handled.

In my community in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, there are a lot of issues right now with extortion. How will the bail and sentencing reform act help here?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There are few specific things that touch on extortion when it comes to the bail and sentencing reform act.

Keep in mind that now there are extremely serious penalties for extortion, but over and above the penalties that exist today, which can carry the maximum of life imprisonment, we're also changing the rules around violent extortion when it comes to bail, to make it harder for a person to be released when charged with offences that touch on violent extortion. In addition, we're seeing real challenges where extortion is combined with arson in different parts of the country and are going to be directing the courts to consider consecutive sentences in those circumstances.

The job is not done with those changes. We desperately need to empower law enforcement to bust up extortion rings by giving them the powers around a lawful access regime, which is the subject of a separate bill, the strong borders act, which I would encourage all of us to support as well.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you very much.

For anyone out there who hasn't heard the term “consecutive sentencing”, could you explain it?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes. Generally speaking, there are many offences for which you might be charged and receive a two-year penalty for a particular offence and then a separate penalty that may come with a sentence of three years. In many instances, courts will allow the two-year sentence to be served concurrently, during the same time that the three-year sentence is operating, so the total is three years.

We're changing the rule for certain kinds of offences, so you'd see them layered on top of one another, unlike in the scenario I just explained, and you would have a total penalty of five years as opposed to three years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

That's great. Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Sawatzky.

We will now continue with Mr. Brock for five minutes.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, circling back to the issue of judicial vacancies, Ontario—the busiest jurisdiction for legal matters in Canada—currently has 15 vacancies of the 37. I'm aware that there are 17 judicial advisory committees throughout Canada. Two years ago, the CBA, the Canadian Bar Association, issued a statement highlighting the crisis in our legal system due to unfilled vacancies. It also addressed filling vacancies on those advisory committees that screen and recommend candidates for office.

At the end of 2023, there were six vacancies. Can you tell me whether those vacancies have been filled? What's the current situation of unfilled vacancies on those committees?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You're asking about just the JACs, not court vacancies.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

That's correct.