Justice Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Unfortunately, we're out of time.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Monsieur Fortin.

Mr. Garrison, go ahead for six minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the minister for being with us today.

I want to emphasize that I think the context we were working with here was the creation of a gap in the law, which was maybe smaller than the public perceived, and the degree of co-operation and quick action in Parliament.

Sometimes as an institution we have a bad reputation for not being able to get things done. In this case, the consultations form an impressive list. We know that they weren't as fextensive as they might have been because of the speed that was necessary. Otherwise, we'd be sitting here now having consultations and having these hearings with the gap having been in existence for months on end. I appreciate the leadership you showed in approaching all of us to get this done.

The Supreme Court essentially gave Parliament two choices. I'd like you to talk for a minute about those two choices. In common language, the court said you could either create a new offence or fix the existing section. Can you talk a bit about why the choice was made to fix section 33.1 rather than create a new offence?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Thank you for the question, and thanks to all of you for the support.

There was only one article, so there was an advantage there in making the consultations more efficient.

It was also a known problem. There had been legal scholars who felt that this provision was unconstitutional from the time of the Daviault decision. The court gave us two options: We could create a new law that basically framed this kind of situation or we could take the old law and address the situation they were worried about, which was the person who innocently goes into that state without any ability to have known that this might happen—or shouldn't have known, on an objective standard.

We felt that the second option was easier, because it contained known standards, first of all, and for judges or Crown prosecutors or defence attorneys it had less potential for unforeseen consequences. When you create a new standard, when you create a new law, there will be periods of interpretation: What's the scope? How far will this go? What does this include?

In part, it was that. The other part was what the victims themselves said: “The person sexually assaulted me. I want the person to be charged with sexual assault. I don't want them to be charged with some form of criminal negligence. It doesn't carry the same stigma.” I think that was probably determinative.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Because of scheduling, we had an unusual circumstance in the sense that we heard some of the witnesses as part of this consultation before we heard from you today, Mr. Minister. This is something that doesn't usually happen. It might be a little bit unfair.

We heard from the Native Women's Association of Canada, from Ms. McBride and from Mr. Bond. It was quite eloquent testimony that while they felt that this was a good solution, the action from government was not sufficient in the context of the overall number of indigenous women in Canada who face violence

What they were saying was that they hoped the fact that this has come up at the Supreme Court level might lead to broader consideration, a broader strategy, for dealing with the root causes of violence against indigenous women in this country. Do you have any response to that testimony, which was quite moving?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

I would say that I don't disagree with any of that. I do think we need a broader response across a variety of different levels to address the social determinants of crime, the factors that lead to it, and better support for victims as well, particularly in more remote communities where it's doubled in terms of impact.

If I had the solution, I would have done it a long time ago. I am working with colleagues—with all of you—to find other solutions, and I certainly agree with the tenor of those remarks.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

One of the things that Ms. McBride said quite clearly is that there's a real lack of capacity in most first nations to deal with some of these root causes of violence, and that capacity-building funding for those community-level organizations is what's really needed. I know that doesn't necessarily come from your ministry, but it seemed quite insightful in that she was emphasizing that each first nation might have a different way of dealing with those causes of violence, but that without the capacity building, they weren't able to address it.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Again, I agree with the observation and the sentiment. I do my best to get funding for things like community justice centres. I've had some success with getting that funding for community justice centres, particularly in the indigenous context but also in the context of the children's advocacy centres and that sort of thing. I do try to convince my colleagues that we need more funding across the board in a variety of different ground-up organizations because I think the observation is right: That's the only way that we will be able to effectively combat this.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I have maybe 30 seconds, so quickly, have you heard from organizations about the sufficiency of this action since we passed this law? In other words, with regard to those who were consulted originally, have you heard back from them about whether they think the solution that we suggested is enough?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

I think we're all watching carefully. I think the defence was invoked once without success and certainly has not been invoked successfully. Obviously, we're still in dialogue. I think the groups that initially supported it are still supportive and the groups that initially had reservations still have reservations. You're going to hear that in your committee.

Certainly, we're watching and monitoring our dialogues carefully.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

Next we have Mrs. Vecchio for five minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am so glad to be here to talk about Bill C-28. As the minister knows, we talk a lot about this in my work as the shadow minister for women and gender equality and also as the chair of the status of women committee. We know that with intimate partner violence, the statistics are showing that in many of cases, the violence is men versus women. If we're looking at extreme intoxication with alcohol or drugs, we once again know that those statistics are very high.

Minister, you spoke about members such as LEAF and organizations that were receptive of this, but we also note that there were groups that were not. I have a list of at least 20 here that were not. I think the one thing I want to say is this: Let's make sure we listen to them all.

I know we have this preconceived notion, and to anybody who's out there, the question is this: Why are we studying a bill after it has passed? Just as Mr. Moore has said, it's important that we do this. However, I'm really hoping that we're taking these lessons as learned and that if there need to be changes, we're actually going to do them, because the women's voices need to be heard.

We're looking at two similar organizations, LEAF versus the National Association of Women and the Law. One is very supportive and one is not. Can you describe to me the conversations that you've had with the National Association of Women and the Law and the things that they would like to see you change?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

I know that they're concerned that there's no preamble to this piece of legislation. Our view is that the preamble remains the same, and the court found in its decisions in R. v. Brown that there was a legitimate legislative purpose, so we didn't feel we needed to change the preamble. We feel the preamble still applies, so I guess we respectfully disagree, but we certainly understand.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Minister, have you spoken to them personally? During the consultations, did you speak to them?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

This happened so quickly that we fanned out across my team, but my team did speak to members of NAWL.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

If we're talking about the consultations, how many consultations would you have participated in?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

I participated in a few, but very few, actually, given the timing of it. It was my political team reaching out.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Fair enough.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

In terms of my team, we do this extensively across the board on a number of pieces of legislation. Given the timing of it, and given the urgency of it.... I received a letter from you, thankfully, and from Mr. Moore.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Absolutely.

I think you and I both agree that we need to make sure we do close these gaps, because we know that right now, approximately 6%.... When I look at the statistics, this is something that's very concerning.

As we talk about extreme intoxication, we received testimony last week from Jennifer Dunn from the London Abused Women's Centre. If anyone knows me, they know that this is the statistic I usually refer to. She said, “We know from Statistics Canada that only 6% of sexual assault cases are reported to police, and of those 6%, only one in five results in a trial.”

I think these are some of the concerns we see, as we already know we have a problem when we come into the court systems. When we see that people are not reporting, what are you and your department are doing to ensure that it's more welcoming and that it's better for victims of crime when they come forward and that they are going to be supported by the law itself?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Since coming into power in 2015, we've made a number of changes to sexual assault definitions, for example, in the Criminal Code to prevent revictimization and to channel the kinds of examination and cross-examination that are legitimate, again with a view to helping protect victims when they do come forward—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Fair enough, Minister—

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

No, these are critical, because—