Evidence of meeting #2 for Justice and Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Marc-Olivier Girard
Émilie Thivierge  Legislative Clerk
Philippe Méla  Legislative Clerk
Gillian Blackell  Senior Counsel and Team Lead, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB

Yes, for sure. I just thought that's the way we did it, but that makes sense. That's fine.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Mr. Lewis.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm sorry. I do believe either Mr. MacGregor or Mr. Maloney voted before I did. I think L comes before M.

Could you check that, please?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

It's the same logic that the clerk has provided. These members are replacing permanent members of the committee, so they are voting in the specific order of those names, not their own.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Virani, is your hand raised on this specific question?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON

No. It's on PV-1.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Okay. I will go to you, Mr. Virani, to talk about PV-1.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON

From my experience in the last Parliament, whenever there were amendments proposed by a party without official status, we usually proceeded on unanimous consent as to whether we would let that person speak to their amendment. I know we afforded Ms. May that appropriate gesture on many occasions in the last Parliament.

I would propose that Mrs. Atwin be able to speak to her own amendment.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Thank you, Mr. Virani.

Do I have the consent of the committee to proceed with that?

Mrs. Atwin, please go ahead and speak to PV-1.

11:55 a.m.

Green

Jenica Atwin Green Fredericton, NB

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I wish to thank the committee today for allowing me the opportunity to speak. It's my first time proposing amendments and learning the whole process as well. I'm certainly not here to slow anything down. I will be very brief.

I also wish to say that I do not come from a legal background, but from education. In either case, context is everything. It's very important to me that we get this bill right. It's a wonderful initiative on behalf of members of Parliament.

Within the amendment, I speak about social context and expanding that to include, as we understand, a variety of subjects. We deem it essential that the preamble clearly state that it's essential to understand the intersection of systemic oppression and gender identity and the dynamic it plays in the perpetuation of sexual violence. The specific thing there is on the inclusion of systemic oppression in relation to gender identity.

Of course, the amendments that I proposed are similar to ones proposed by the Black caucus and indigenous caucus. I wish to support their work and in no way undermine or overlap.

I will leave it at that.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Thank you, Mrs. Atwin.

I have Mr. Virani next. Before I go to you, Mr. Virani, I'll say that PV-1 amends clause 2, page 2, line 28.

Mr. Virani, go ahead.

Noon

Liberal

Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON

I thank Mrs. Atwin for her participation in the first-ever virtual clause-by-clause, as we muddle our way through it in this Parliament.

I think these are important suggestions being made by the Green Party through Mrs. Atwin. I would reiterate that, from my perspective and that of many of my Liberal colleagues, we are very keen on ensuring that the language that talks about social context covers off and clarifies what social context is meant to include. From our perspective, that is systemic racism and systemic discrimination.

There are other Liberal amendments that follow this that refer to those concepts with exactly that language. That was very deliberate in terms of drafting. It was meant to be as encompassing as possible without going down the path of enumerating certain concepts, classes, groups or demographics, which could open us up to the possibility of having unwittingly or inadvertently excluded some. Rather than enumerate specific categories, we elected to—through some drafting creativity—entrench concepts such as systemic racism and systemic discrimination, which would, hopefully, be large enough to encompass many of the things that have been proposed by many parliamentarians, including Mrs. Atwin.

On that basis, my support would be in favour of LIB-2 rather than in favour of PV-1, so I will be voting against PV-1.

Thank you very much for the floor.

Thank you, Mrs. Atwin, for this helpful suggestion.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Thank you, Mr. Virani.

I don't see any more members on the speakers list.

Mr. Moore.

Noon

Conservative

Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB

Sorry, Chair, just to be clear, you've already raised the conflict between PV-1 and LIB-2. Those are mutually exclusive amendments. They can't both pass.

What about NDP-1? Do you have a ruling on that?

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

My understanding is that NDP-1 does not conflict with the specific lines that are proposed to be amended by PV-1 or LIB-2, and therefore it stands, but I will defer to you, Mr. Clerk, to confirm whether that is correct.

Noon

Philippe Méla Legislative Clerk

It is.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Thank you.

If that answers your question, Mr. Moore, I'll go to Mr. Virani and then Mr. MacGregor.

Noon

Conservative

Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB

It actually doesn't, Madam Chair. To me, we have here two definitions of social context, using different words. It's making a muddle of this legislation.

LIB-2 says “social context, which includes systemic racism and systemic discrimination”. NDP-1 adds “social context means the social factors that contribute to systemic inequality in Canadian society, including colonialism, systemic racism, ableism, classism, homophobia and transphobia.” It doesn't include systemic discrimination.

It doesn't seem to make any sense. It seems that the two would be mutually exclusive.

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Give me one second as I speak to the clerk about this and clarify what you're saying, Mr. Moore.

Noon

Conservative

Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB

I want to be clear on it, because how we treat those impacts how we treat PV-1. We can't consider them one at a time; we have to consider them together, because we're not going to adopt all of them.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Mr. Clerk, may I ask you for reference, please?

12:05 p.m.

Legislative Clerk

Philippe Méla

PV-1 indicates “which includes”, so it's not limited to the list that follows. It includes the list plus whatever needs to be added to the list.

The same goes for LIB-2, which indicates “assault law and social context, which includes systemic racism and systemic discrimination”. That could possibly be understood to include—but it's not excluding—what's proposed by NDP-1.

If the committee wants to have a more comprehensive definition, I suggest they do it in NDP-1, put aside PV-1 and LIB-2 and try to come to an agreement on what the definition could be, but that's up to the committee to decide.

The way we see it, the three are not mutually exclusive, but if there is a will to have a definition at one place in the bill, that's up to the committee to decide.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid

Okay. Thank you for that.

In that case, just to take the advice of the experts here, is it the will of the committee to go to NDP-1 before we discuss PV-1 and then LIB-2?

Mr. MacGregor, your hand is raised.

12:05 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you, Chair.

I take Mr. Moore's point. That's the problem when we all submit amendments at once and we try to figure our way through them.

I take what Mr. Virani argued before. If we start making a list of all the different types of discrimination that can exist in our society, we will run into the very real danger of excluding some. Therefore, in the interest of keeping this bill, when we report it back to the House, with some continuity and some consistency, I will ask the committee for unanimous consent to withdraw NDP-1 and just proceed with the existing amendments that we have before us.