My name is Rebecca Bromwich. I am appearing on behalf of the CCJC, the Church Council on Justice and Corrections. My colleague Melanie Younger is here with me.
I'd like to thank the honourable members of this committee for providing us the opportunity to appear this afternoon.
We have provided a written submission, which I will touch on in overview form, but I will not get to all aspects of it. Primarily, we are here to strongly support the changes to sexual assault law proposed by Bill C-51.
We are an organization founded in 1972 by 11 Christian denominations, and we operate independently from any one of our bodies. We welcome multi-faith and secular-minded participation, and we are an ecumenical organization. It is our mandate to shine a light on restorative justice. It is our understanding that the job of justice is a community responsibility, and members of the community, including complainants, are important to be considered in the context of any criminal proceeding.
It is in this thematic trend that we strongly support changes that are put forth in Bill C-51 to amend the Criminal Code to clarify and codify what was rendered in the J.A. decision of the Supreme Court in 2011, that an unconscious person is incapable of consenting to sexual relations, and to clarify that the defence of mistaken belief in consent is unavailable in instances of mistake of law, and again, this properly codifies aspects of the Supreme Court's decision in Ewanchuk, decided in 1999. The expansion of rape shield provisions is something we also support. We also support the expanded rights to legal representation for the complainant in sexual assault proceedings.
Again, we feel it is of crucial importance that compassion for all members of Canadian society and community, including complainants, whether they be children, men, or women, is of value, and their interests and views need to be brought to the attention of the court. We contend or submit that this legislative proposal strikes the appropriate balance with the rights protection for accused persons who continue to have the presumption of innocence and the right to full answer in defence. We would submit that this is minimal impairment upon those rights that is very much justified in a free and democratic society under section 1 of the charter in the interests of fairness and compassion to complainants.
On the other provisions put forth in Bill C-51, we also support and are in agreement with the justice minister that the articulated provisions are redundant or obsolete, including specifically—as I've heard mention in an earlier panel this afternoon—section 296, with respect to publishing blasphemous libel. We certainly support the removal of that provision.
In addition, and this is a position we take to some degree in dissent from some faith-based commentators who have spoken as witnesses this afternoon, we are in support of the removal of section 176 from the Criminal Code for essentially three reasons. Section 176 provides relief that is otherwise covered in the Criminal Code by section 175, which prohibits public mischief; sections 265 through 268, which are the assault provisions; and sections 318 and 319, which deal with hate speech.
It is a concern that, second, section 176 potentially criminalizes forms of dissent that fall short of mischief. I would submit that it would have, for example, criminalized the conduct of Martin Luther when he nailed his 95 theses to the wall 500 years ago tomorrow. So it is problematic that we continue to have a criminal prohibition that would criminalize forms of dissent within a religious context. Dissent is not necessarily anathema to religious practice.
Third, section 2(a) of the charter requires that the Christian paradigm not necessarily be the template for our protection of freedom of religion. For example, my colleague Melanie and I were discussing it in the context of other forms of faith-based practice, for example, indigenous celebrations or Wiccan celebrations or other forms of celebrations. Even among Quakers, for example, there isn't necessarily an officially designated officiant who has that ongoing job or role, so the protection in subsection 176(2) of an officiant is not necessarily applicable across the board.
Rather than amend a seriously flawed provision, we would submit that it is appropriate to protect religious communities and their services. An entirely new provision or, as has been submitted by Mr. Matas on behalf of B'nai Brith, provisions with respect to sentencing would be appropriate in this context. However, we do not believe that a provision so seriously flawed should be retained, and we agree with the justice minister that it is appropriate for that provision to be removed.
Finally, we applaud the provision in C-51 that would amend the Department of Justice Act to require the justice minister to table a charter statement. We would like to go beyond that. We would like the scrutiny that has been undertaken with respect to the Criminal Code in this bill to be formalized and regular rather than ad hoc. We submit that it would be appropriate to reinstitute a law reform commission in some form so that this process will continue.
I will have to amend my textbook when the provisions with respect to blasphemous libel and crime comics are taken out, but I'm happy to do that work. I would rather have our Criminal Code be right than to criticize it.
Thank you.