Justice Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

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

Absolutely—

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

The treatment of victims—

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

Excuse me. Time. I'm going to—

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

Let me just finish the answer.

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

No, it's okay, sir. It is my time. As the chair of the status of women committee, I know my role. I'm just going to move on to the next question, if you don't mind.

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

But you've asked me the question. I do want to answer it.

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

I'm going to move on to the next question, because my time is very slight.

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

Okay.

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

I'm looking at the training of judges.

I know that we have in the room today the sponsor of Bill C-233, and I know that you yourself have put through something. What are we seeing on the uptake of judges? I think one of my biggest concerns is that when people come into the system, they do not feel they are going to adequately get what they need. Victims aren't coming forward because they do not trust the system.

Where are we at when it comes to training judges?

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

We now have passed a bill that requires any new federally appointed judge to agree to take on training that includes and primarily focuses on sexual assault as part of their application. They have to do it in order to be named a judge. They get it immediately afterwards.

That's going well. The National Judicial Institute has taken that on, and we're—

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

Can I ask a quick question on that?

They have to take it. How long is that course? Is it something that continuously gets built on? For instance, social media wasn't here 20 years ago, and heck, has it ever changed our lives now. How frequently do they have to take it? Once they've taken it a first time, do they need to take it again? Do they need to continue with their skills and improvements on sexual assault and things of that sort?

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

We had put that bill into place precisely to get people to agree to do it before they became a judge, because once they become a judge, the principle of judicial independence says we can't force them. Chief justices do their best to ask their judges to be retrained. This is having a positive impact, because it has sent out a message that this is important.

Finally, it's creating an impetus, I think, for provincial court judges, who deal with most of the criminal cases in Canada, to do the same thing. There's a real set of standards that are being set.

Finally, the National Judicial Institute is world-renowned for judicial training. They train judges from around the world, including Canada. They continually update their offerings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Vecchio.

We'll now go to Mr. Naqvi for five minutes.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Good morning, Attorney General. Thank you for being here.

I know that there were questions asked by my colleagues about stakeholders that have been consulted on this bill. Will you be able to table a list of the stakeholders for the benefit of this committee so that we have it?

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

I certainly can.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That would be great. Thank you very much.

I was listening especially to your comments around misinformation when the Supreme Court decision came about. The things that I was hearing through legal circles were of real concern in the immediate aftermath of the decision.

Can you share with us what you were hearing from people you collaborated with and consulted with around the impact and the message that this particular decision from the Supreme Court was having in the community writ large?

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

Thank you for that question.

In fact, it was probably one of the most important factors that pushed us to move quickly. There was a great deal of misinformation on social media in particular—we all saw bits of it without seeing all of it—that all of a sudden, if you were intoxicated, this was a “get out of jail free” card. This was a pass.

It was an explosion of misinformation. We needed to correct it quickly. Even though this was only a rare case and even though that wasn't true, it didn't matter; people felt it was.

By closing this admittedly small gap, we could reinforce the larger message, which is that if you get drunk, you will be held responsible. That's a critically important message that people needed to hear.

I wish we didn't have to do that, quite frankly. I wish that there wasn't that level of misinformation out there. Whether it's erroneous or deliberate is inconsequential; it is there, so we needed and still need to fight that message constantly. We all have a responsibility to do that.

Closing this gap helped us to do that; closing it quickly helped us to reinforce that even more.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I think the message is an important one and a strong one in terms of preventing gender-based violence. The manner in which Parliament acted in unison in such an expedient manner, with all political parties combining forces together, speaks volumes of the collective motivation on behalf of our constituents and all Canadians.

I'm also quite interested in the process by which you determined the recourse to take. There were some calls for you to invoke the notwithstanding clause. You chose not to do so, and I appreciate that. You were quite surgical and methodical in terms of the solution you came up with.

Can you walk us through the kind of deliberation that you and your department go through in matters of a constitutional nature like these to make a determination as to how to remedy a law based on a decision that's offered to us by the Supreme Court of Canada?

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

Thank you for that question. It's an interesting process question.

First of all, I'm surrounded by a great group of lawyers, both in the Department of Justice and on my political team. We're generally quite attuned to this.

In this kind of case, we were given a road map by the Supreme Court of Canada. The notwithstanding clause is possible. It is part of the Constitution. I believe it's meant to be used only as a last resort—that's what the framers wanted in 1982—and only when there aren't other options, because with the notwithstanding clause, you're infringing on people's rights. Here, they gave us two ways to do it without infringing on people's rights, and we took one of them.

This particular clause also had the advantage of having been studied since the Daviault case in 1993. There was a body of existing opinion out there that we knew of from people who had already felt that it was, in particular, unconstitutional, so we had a head start.

Once that happens, the usual processes within the justice department and the consultation process allowed us to come up with something using the Supreme Court road map fairly expeditiously.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I very much appreciate that. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that must go into reviewing and then complying with Supreme Court decisions and the kind of surgical approach that you took in this particular instance, as opposed to using a broad-brush way of remedying the situation.

I ask because that thought process is missed in terms of the broader public's understanding of the kind of delicate steps that government and especially the Department of Justice needed to take. I sincerely appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Naqvi. Your time is up.

I will next go to Monsieur Fortin for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I would like your opinion on a matter that is somewhat broader than Bill C‑28.

When we study certain aspects of legislation involving criminal law, the main problem is that victims often have the impression that they were not consulted and not taken into account in the judicial process.

While reviewing Bill C‑28 on self-induced extreme intoxication, it seemed to me that the most virulent criticisms of this bill will come from victims, and probably with good reason. They will say that they have been raped, injured or something else by a person, man or woman, claiming to have been in a state of involuntary extreme intoxication. This aspect of the bill may be vulnerable to criticism by victims. Have you reviewed it?

Shouldn’t victims of these crimes, especially violent crimes, be given greater consideration in the judicial process? For example, they could be part of the process and participate in decisions if they wanted to. I know that the administration of justice falls under provincial jurisdiction, and you understand that I don’t want to lead you down that path. However, when it comes to substantive legislation in criminal law, aren’t there certain aspects that the federal government could cover, for example in the Criminal Code, so that victims have greater consideration?

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

Thank you for the question.

I think that is exactly what we are doing. We are giving victims the greatest opportunity to have someone’s culpability recognized based on our legal system’s known standards.

Current standards make it is difficult to establish that the accused was in a state of extreme intoxication, which we are currently reinforcing. We are attempting to minimize the chance that another defence could be used once extreme intoxication is established. So I think that…

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

Shouldn’t victims participate…

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Monsieur Fortin. Unfortunately, your time is up.

Mr. Garrison, you have two and a half minutes.