Justice Committee on June 5th, 2023

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

Thank you for the question.

I share those concerns and I, too, note the uptick. You know what our government has done thus far. The ministry just made an announcement this morning, again, in support of 2SLGBTQI+.

You know it is in Minister Rodriguez's mandate letter, with my support, to table hate crime and online hate legislation. Minister Rodriguez has said publicly that he hopes to table that in the fall. I can tell you that we have been working very hard on that, and I certainly hope it sees the light of day very soon.

You previously saw old Bill C-36, which reinforced the Criminal Code provisions on hate crimes. We will continue to work in that regard, working with the community.

I have recently met with leadership of the community on the blood question, and we've received our report. We're moving from that and, hopefully, we'll have something there very soon as well.

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

Thank you. I will say that the announcement today of additional support for security at Pride functions is very welcome, but it's very sad that it's necessary in this country.

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

I agree.

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

I want to talk about access to justice in terms of legal aid. First, let me say thank you to the government for providing an allocation for immigrant and refugee legal aid. I think that's very important, because lots of provinces weren't providing that support.

I see two problems happening. One is that there are great disparities between different provinces in getting legal aid. We often find that some charges can get legal aid in one province but not in another.

The second thing that's happening seems more general. That is because of the constraints of legal aid funding and what I would call the “working poor”. Those who have full-time jobs but don't make a lot of money are, increasingly, finding themselves excluded from legal aid because of the crisis in funding for those who are less fortunate. We find, as I said, a lot of ordinary working folks who aren't able to access legal aid because of that lack of funding.

Those are the two things: the discrepancies between provinces and then this growing problem of those who aren't really wealthy, by any standard, not being able to access legal aid.

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

I share those concerns, in addition to getting additional funding for both criminal legal aid and refugee legal aid.

We do raise the discussion at federal-provincial-territorial meetings. It is provincial jurisdiction, the administration of justice in any particular province. We are encouraging better sharing of data, information and best practices across provinces. We have been actively engaged in redoing the criminal law funding formula, and the impact of that decision is coming into force as we speak. It is something we need to do in terms of filling those gaps and making sure that we can move forward. I do my best to encourage those best practices and to facilitate co-operation with respect to making those available across Canada.

I, too, have noted that, just above the threshold, there's a real problem, because there is a group of people who don't qualify for legal aid but who have a difficult time getting legal advice because it's costly.

We need to look at other solutions. There have been some things that have been suggested to me by the people I have met across Canada, with respect to tax incentives and that sort of thing, that allow lawyers to give services. I've seen some creative solutions in parts of Canada working very much at a local level. Again, this is something that we would have to work closely on with the provinces in order to achieve, because it is something in their areas of jurisdiction.

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

I recognize that it's in their jurisdiction. Of course, the federal spending power is often an ability to provide some powerful incentives to solve these problems, so I look forward to seeing what's coming forward.

I want to go back to the question of judges, which has been canvassed quite a bit. I want to start by saying something positive again. I have seen progress on diversity while you've been the Minister of Justice in terms of gender, in terms of my own community and in terms of racialized communities and indigenous people being appointed.

However, earlier this year, six of the 17 committees that provide short lists to you for appointments weren't functioning. Can you give us an update on what's happening with that? That included the entire province of British Columbia.

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

Let me just add some context to that number of six. Two of those committees were for provinces and territories that didn't have any vacancies. Another one was for the tax court, which had, I think, one vacancy, so think three.

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

But it included B.C. and the GTA.

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

Two of them were coming on board.

We have worked to recompose those judicial appointment committees. We also have diversity on those committees. There are different people who have input into who gets on those committees at a provincial level, as well as bar associations, etc. We get those up and running, and we're proposing that we make those terms three years so that they can work for longer periods of time, which increases the stability in the system.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

I'll commit to about four minutes each, if that's okay.

We'll go now to Mr. Van Popta for four minutes.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Lametti, for being here with us today.

I'm going to continue with the questioning about access to justice. This committee is undergoing a study right now on bail reform, as you are very aware. We heard what I thought was surprising evidence from some witnesses. One witness told us that up to 70.5% of people who are incarcerated in provincial jails are in pretrial remand.

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

That's right.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I find that very shocking. We've heard, from other witnesses, about a culture of delay. We've heard from other witnesses that this is due, in large part, to a shortage of adequate court time, human resources and financial resources.

My question is really about that. In my opinion, we're not going to solve any problems with bail unless we fully fund our court systems to make sure that there are adequate resources to speed up trials and bail hearings.

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

That's a fair point.

I have two things immediately in response.

The administration of justice is provincial, so much of the work that I have done with my counterparts with respect to Bill C-48 also included commitments on their part to reinforce the bail system. You're seeing in Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba specific kinds of measures with respect to the administration of bail, which hopefully will help the system, and different kinds of policing efforts. All of that is part of the mix.

The second point I would raise is that 95% of criminal law cases in Canada are heard by provincially appointed courts. There is a crying resource problem there as well at the provincial level, which arguably has a greater impact on the Jordan ruling, as well as bail questions.

Again, I have committed to working with provinces to try to find solutions to that particular challenge as well.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you for that.

I do recognize the provincial-federal split of responsibilities.

Bill C-75, as we've heard from witnesses, has not helped our overincarceration of indigenous people. I'm wondering what you think about that.

There was some talk about advancing the priorities of indigenous communities to reclaim jurisdiction over the administration of justice. At the public safety committee last year, we heard from a lot of witnesses about the benefits and the challenges of indigenous policing.

I wonder what your comments might be about indigenous courts, for example, at least to deal with some of the clogging in our bail system.

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

That's a fantastic question.

We are working with indigenous leadership across Canada to explore those possibilities. It is in my mandate letter. It's also very consistent with what we're doing with UNDRIP. I'm working with indigenous leadership to develop an indigenous justice strategy.

There are a number of examples of those kinds of projects that have the potential to work very well. The new courthouse in Ontario has sentencing circle rooms and restorative justice rooms that were specifically designed in collaboration with indigenous leadership in Ontario. Anything we can do, particularly on offences that don't involve the more serious crimes on the spectrum of the Criminal Code, helps us get to better results for both the victims and the accused, and takes some of the pressure off the criminal justice system. All of that is very good.

Bill C-75 is meant to help that, too. Bill C-75 didn't make it easier to get bail for serious crimes. In fact, it made it harder for crimes of intimate partner violence. It meant to take administration of justice offences out—minor violations of bail, like missing a bail hearing and that sort of thing—so that a person wasn't incarcerated for those sorts of things.

However, as you mentioned, it's hard to get bail in Canada; 70% of people in federal institutions are there on remand because they didn't get bail.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

It's hard to get bail because the court systems are so clogged up.

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

We're working on that, and so are my provincial counterparts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

We'll have one more round of questions.

Ms. Dhillon, you have four minutes, please.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, thank you for being here today.

I would like to talk about the various initiatives our government and Justice Canada have undertaken to follow up on the National Inquiry on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.

Can you tell us a bit about these initiatives?

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

Thank you for the question.

It's four years today since we received the report, and we have to admit that we haven't done enough so far. We're trying to do more, but in some areas, the problems are long-standing. We need to work with Indigenous leadership and different levels of government to improve the situation.

We are in the process of implementing the Federal Pathway to Address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People. I know my colleagues Mr. Miller and Ms. Hajdu feel strongly about this.

The Department of Justice has just announced the establishment of Family Information Liaison Units. These units were created during the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and are a means of supporting affected families, who have very much welcomed the units.

We gave funding, but it was annual funding. I've just announced permanent funding. This decision has been very well received by families and by Indigenous women's leadership. It will open doors, support victims and answer questions where there is a lack of information.

We know we need to do more, but in the meantime, we will support families and communities through the family units.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Dhillon.

I want to thank the minister for attending, along with his officials. We're always appreciative to have you here.

Now, in light of votes, we're going to suspend until 10 minutes after the votes.

Thank you.

We are resuming the meeting and adjourning the meeting.