I thank Monsieur Fortin for his intervention, but I want to be abundantly clear that nowhere in my explanation, nowhere behind the intent of this amendment, does it speak to automatic detention. There is no such thing as automatic detention in the Criminal Code. We are not seeking automatic detention.
My explanation of what happens under section 469 is there is a presumption of detention. It does not preclude an offender from making a bail application; it just can't be done at the lower level, the provincial level, because there is no jurisdiction for a section 469 offence. The hearing itself must be conducted in superior court. The rationale behind this, as I've indicated numerous times at committee and in the House, is we have a significant problem with serious violent offenders who often fall within this category of potentially facing imprisonment of 10 years or more, or more than five years if it involves violence and someone was harmed or could have been harmed.
A further rationale is the problem we have in the lower courts. The court system right now across Canada is still playing catch-up because of the significant delays and problems we had during the pandemic and the justice system's response to the pandemic. We have a problem with lack of resources, a lack of courtrooms, a lack of judges and a lack of JPs. What I have been gaining by way of evidence on my town hall tours across this country, anecdotally talking to police services, talking to Crowns, talking to defence counsel, is that because of the significant delays in the justice system, there are JPs who are actually putting time limits on the ability for contested bail hearings to occur. As strange as that may sound to you, it's counterproductive. It denies the prosecutor the opportunity of making a fulsome argument. There are examples in Canada where contested bail hearings, section 524 bail hearings which we have discussed, have been limited to 30 minutes. I've had situations where it takes me 30 minutes, if not longer, simply to read out occurrence reports, outstanding charges and dissect a criminal record.
What we want to do, and the whole focus has been.... I think the government would agree with me that the public, the police, the premiers and the mayors are not concerned about the vast majority of individuals charged with criminal offences, the first-timers, the second-timers, the third-timers, who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, make bad decisions and get caught up with peers. They go through the system. They learn from the system. They get rehabilitated from the system. We're not talking about that class of individual. We're talking about that small class of violent repeat offenders. We've heard witnesses, particularly in policing, indicate at this committee that they know exactly who these rounders are. They know them by name. They know their criminal past. They know where they live. They know it's simply a matter of time before they commit further offences again.
Again, the intent behind this was to ensure that we had a process that separated those violent repeat offenders, took them out of the general provincial stream, which is overtaxed and overburdened, and placed them in the superior court stream. The only way we could do that, apart from amending section 469 to include a major offence, would be to create a separate category of major offence considerations to give that same impact.
At the moment an accused is charged and meets the definition of a major offence, there's a presumption of detention—it's not automatic, which would be contrary to the charter—and the accused's bail hearing, should the accused decide for it to take place, would take place in a different forum, not the provincial forum. That's the intent behind the amendment.