Justice Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

That's a motion that the minister appear?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

That's correct. The minister had agreed to appear. The minister was scheduled to appear. There was no issue there. The issue was that we did not get to any business. We actually did absolutely no business that was scheduled to be done at the last meeting.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm aware of that. Is there a time by which the minister must appear, based on our motion and based on reporting on supplementary estimates?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

The supplementary estimate reporting is concluded. The time expired a few days ago.

I'll get someone to explain that to you, but that is in fact—

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

If Mr. Maloney can elucidate, I'm happy to cede my questions, Chair.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Maybe I can shed some light on this.

We all know why we're continuing Bill C-40 today. I agree with everything Mr. Brock said earlier, and I've lived by that code my entire life. I don't know that it was necessary to bring Mr. Garrison into this. That was a comment made off the record, but be that as it may....

We want to get all these things done, and we want to get all these things done as quickly as possible. There have been a number of points of order raised. The chair has ruled on them.

I suggest that the easiest way to move forward and address all of these issues, be it Bill C-40, bringing the minister back at another time or dealing with the meeting tomorrow, which can be avoided if we get Bill C-40 done today.... I suggest we get to the matters at hand, and then get through them as quickly as we possibly can today. There aren't that many amendments that have been put forward.

Another thing I liked to do when I was practising, Mr. Brock, was to be brief and get to the point as quickly as possible. I always found that the adjudicators were very grateful for that, and I think that if we can apply that practice here today, we can accomplish all the things we've raised as concerns today.

Madam Chair, given that you've ruled on the points of order already raised, I suggest that we move on and start dealing with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-40.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Mr. Garrison.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to apologize to committee for my outburst and provide just a little context.

I had just come from the House, where, when I was asking a question very important to me on hate crimes against the gay community, I was heckled by a member of the Conservative party with, “What about the Jews?”

I found that extremely troubling. People will know around this table that I am among the most collegial and among the most respectful—at least I think that's my reputation. I'm not a heckler in the House.

That was what was behind that, but I also want to say that respect also means respect for the work of the committee and not bringing other political agendas from outside this committee to frustrate the work of the committee. When that happens, it frustrates me greatly.

On the bill we have in front of us, Bill C-40, indigenous people and racialized people, but in particular indigenous women, have been waiting for years for a better way to challenge the miscarriages of justice that have taken place in this country. When we have heard from all the parties that they are, in principle, in favour of this bill, it's very frustrating for some members of the committee to be prevented from getting to the work of the committee, so I am frustrated. I will admit that. I don't believe I'm being disrespectful by being frustrated with not being able to make progress on a bill we all agree on.

I too hope that we can move through this today. I'm prepared to stay here as long as it takes, obviously, to do this, but that wouldn't be about the injustices that people have suffered in our justice system. That would be about another political agenda, and that's what I find frustrating.

Thank you.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Madam Chair, on a point of order, I want to thank Mr. Garrison for that. I apologize to you as well, sir, if you in any way took my comments the wrong way. I wasn't aware of what you experienced in the House, so I do apologize for that.

I'm really confused, Chair. I know ministerial time is very precious. For the last two years I have been frustrated in my ability to speak with various ministers, so we always look for opportunities to have ministers appear at committee. We agreed, I believe as a committee, if not at the subcommittee level, to have Minister Virani appear on or before today's date, December 7.

Obviously a unilateral decision was made, without consultation with committee members, which bypassed his appearance. I'm confused as to why Bill C-40 and clause-by-clause have taken priority over the minister, when we probably agreed at the subcommittee level that both should be priorities for this committee.

I want to draw everyone's attention to the first page of Bill C-40, which I copied off the computer earlier today. There's a recommendation under Bill C-40 that is as follows:

Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to amend the Criminal Code, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to repeal a regulation”

This requires the allocation of taxpayer money, and the allocation of taxpayer money is at the root of what appearances and discussions on the supplementary estimates flow from. Again, I could be the only one who's confused on this issue—and if I am, I apologize—but I thought that, given the circumstances and given the recommendation in this bill, as in other bills where there's an allocation of taxpayer money, a priority should be given to the minister. That concerns me.

What also concerns me, Madam Chair, is your statement that the supplementary estimates process has been completed without any input from any committee member at the justice level. I'd like to know how that happened, because I had a number of questions for Minister Virani on the allocation of money for Bill C-40, among other issues, in relation to the content of Bill C-40 clause-by-clause, and I'm missing out on this opportunity.

As I said, I've always had great difficulty.... I will throw a recommendation for consideration to Marco Mendicino, a colleague of ours, a former minister, who always had an open door policy. I never had any difficulty speaking with former minister Mendicino on any particular issue then—

[The Honourable Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Marco Mendicino]

Or now.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

—or now, and quite frankly, I wish all ministers of the Crown had that sort of mentality, because it certainly brokers mutual discussions on important areas.

In my view, I need clarification as to whether or not we've completely lost the ability to question Minister Virani on the supplementary estimates.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

There's a list, so you're all on it.

Mr. Moore, do you still want to say something?

You're followed by Mr. Housefather.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Canadians would like to know why the minister is not here. Not to belabour the point, but violent crime has gone up by 39% in the last eight years. Gang homicides are up by 108%. Gun crimes are up by 101%. That's all in the last eight years.

We have an accountability mechanism here whereby the minister appears. We made a decision as a committee that the minister would appear today. Initially it was going to be for two hours. Then that was reduced to an hour. Now, it is no time at all. That decision was made unilaterally.

I think we need to revisit that, Madam Chair. We do need to have the minister appear here. It's our job to hold the government accountable for these and other things, and it's the minister's job to appear before us.

Madam Chair, Mr. Brock actually covered quite a bit of what I was going to say, believe it or not. We debate our agenda, and we make decisions, usually, on a consensus basis. I had moved that the minister should appear. There's nothing out of the ordinary with that motion. Every committee would have a similar motion, that a minister appear on the supplementary estimates. We agreed, and there wasn't much debate at the time, I recall. There was pretty quick agreement that the minister would appear no later than December 7, today.

We also had the opportunity to deal with Bill C-40. We briefly dealt with Bill C-40 on Tuesday. We didn't get through it. It was slow going. It was very slow going on Bill C-40, but we do have next week to deal with it. We try to do a best guess on how long something's going to take, but when it comes to clause-by-clause, I have often seen bills go over the course of an entire meeting or two meetings. I've seen clause-by-clause go for three full meetings.

In this case, I would never have presumed that we'd be done Bill C-40 on Tuesday and then have the minister on the 7th. The agreement that was made by this committee was that, whatever happens on Tuesday, the minister's going to be here on the 7th, today, to be accountable.

The minister has appeared in the past. He should be here now. On a going-forward basis, when the committee makes a decision, I think we need to....

Nothing in my view warranted a change in the schedule. I know a change in the schedule was made. We've moved from scheduling the minister to Bill C-40. I don't see what warranted that, particularly when we are here next week. Unless there's something happening that I don't know about, we're here next Tuesday and Thursday.

On that point, Madam Chair, I'll leave it at that.

I want to reiterate that in my experience it's quite rare that a change in schedule would happen like that with such short notice. Also, to Mr. Fortin's point, I'm sure the very short-notice plan to meet all day tomorrow, Friday, on Bill C-40 probably took a number of people by surprise. It certainly took me by surprise. I don't mind.

I think Bill C-40 is interesting. It deals with a topic, and our witnesses were extremely interesting. I think there's a lot for us to flesh out. I think the government's proposal on Bill C-40 as it was drafted is wanting. I think we have amendments that we have put forward. There are other amendments that other parties have put forward to make changes to Bill C-40 as it was tabled. We'll get to all of that, but I think today we should have been dealing with the minister.

I can't ask the witnesses this, Madam Chair, so I guess I will ask you. When do we expect to have the minister here on the supplementary estimates?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

We're taking notes on all this.

Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I tend to be somebody like Mr. Garrison, I think, who is collegial and tries to be pragmatic. I think most of us in this committee, fortunately, are that way, so I just want to start by saying, because somebody made a comment about Jews, that Randall Garrison has been the most solid ally I have ever had in the NDP in standing up for the Jewish community in Canada. I want to put that on the record.

Second, on this issue, my understanding in committees that I've always been on is that clause-by-clause on bills supersedes other meetings. When you move to clause-by-clause on a bill, you continue clause-by-clause on a bill until you finish clause-by-clause on that bill. I personally thought that there was clearly an understanding here at the end of the last meeting that we would then continue with clause-by-clause on Thursday. I thought that was fully understood. Certainly, it was my full understanding.

The minister, I think.... I will answer Mr. Brock's question. The deadline for the committee's voting on the estimates passed before today. It doesn't mean that you can't ask every question you want of the minister. We often entertain ministers after the deadline for that ends. It would be no different if you had him today or next Tuesday on that question.

My recommendation—since, I think, none of us wants to be here tomorrow—is that we move through the clause-by-clause on this bill, which is supposed to be on our agenda, before we finish today. There are only five amendments proposed. The Conservatives, with all the flaws in the bill that Mr. Moore mentioned, proposed only one amendment. Let's try to get through that. I think we can, if we really try. Then we will have the minister at the next meeting, on Tuesday, and we won't have to worry about Friday meetings that may or may not be in order.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Thank you very much, Mr. Housefather.

Was there anyone else? Mr. Van Popta...?

No. I'm sorry.

Did you have a motion at the end of what you said?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes. He moved that we should go back to clause-by-clause.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

That's what I thought I heard.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I thought I was clear. If you want me to make it a motion, Madam Chair—I thought you had the authority to do that—then I move that we move to clause-by-clause now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Do you want to vote on it by a show of hands, or do you want the clerk to call it?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I think, Madam Chair, that you have the authority to tell the committee. You started the meeting by saying that we were on clause-by-clause. I don't think we actually need a motion for this. I think you can move straightaway.... If I were the chair right now, I would move right away to clause-by-clause and I would call clause 2, which is the clause we were debating in the previous meeting. Then we would continue the debate that we were having on clause 2, with the speakers list that was there. That would be my recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

I'm going to take that recommendation, Mr. Housefather, since you've been doing this for many years, and I am going to move to clause 2.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Chair, on a point of order, then, Mr. Housefather moved a motion. I disagree with his motion, number one, because we're obviously discussing things that are important to the committee right now, on topic with what we were supposed to be talking about today.

I want to point people's attention to the motion that we passed and to think of how this has been undermined with recent events: “November 9th, 2023, the Committee invite the Minister of Justice to appear for no fewer than 2 hours”. There was consensus on that: no fewer than two hours.

Regarding—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm going to make a point. Mr. Housefather's motion was that we move to clause-by-clause, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a dilatory motion that does not allow for debate. We have to go right to a vote.

[An hon. member]

It's not dilatory.