Justice Committee on May 25th, 2026

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Baber.

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Dhillon, it's over to you for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

Throughout the debate on Bill C-14, we've talked about balancing stronger public safety measures with charter rights and judicial independence at the same time. Can you speak to us a bit about why maintaining that balance is important?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Let's be specific about it. When we were first looking at the bill and balancing some of these rights, we weren't planning on including, from the outset, some of the measures that impacted mandatory minimums, but in the middle of the bill's formulation, the Senneville decision from the Supreme Court of Canada landed in the public conversation. Obviously, it drew significant attention to the issue of mandatory minimums, and we saw yet another one struck down. What we've seen over the course of Canada's history is that governments of different persuasions will periodically seek to advance a political priority. Courts will say that's outside the authorities that citizens have given unto you as a government; therefore, we will remove that law from the books, effectively.

If you don't engage in the exercise of making sure you respect Canadians' constitutionally protected rights, you end up with a bunch of laws that exist on paper but have no impact in communities. If we can't breathe life into the laws that exist on the books, into the communities where people live, then those laws are not worth the paper on which they are written. We need to ensure that we insist on the protection of Canadians' rights to the extent where, if a court determines that we fall outside the bounds of what's applicable, we have the opportunity to appeal. At the end of the day, when it comes to interpreting Canada's laws, we will respect decisions taken particularly by the Supreme Court of Canada.

In my view, the good news is that public safety and the protection of rights are not mutually exclusive. When Canadians know that they will have an opportunity to have their rights respected, and you combine that with adequate policing resources and criminal laws that will help to advance public safety, you can create a country and a society where people can live freely and live safely. I think that is what we should all aim to promote.

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

Speaking of public safety, the bill includes transit workers and frontline workers. Why was it important to include them?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

There are certain people in our communities who put themselves at risk in providing an essential service. You mentioned transit workers. First responders are an obvious choice to include. Before I articulate the reasons behind this change, I want to say a thank you to my Manitoba counterpart, Matt Wiebe, for helping to advocate this. We also have a Senate bill coming through on very similar measures that are attacking the same social harm.

Think about what it means to expect a person to go to a job where they are harassed and assaulted routinely. We would have an expectation that they're going to be at their very best in delivering public safety outcomes. I want to say thank you to every police officer and every first responder in our community, the paramedics and firefighters who are facing ungodly working conditions. If we can offer additional protection that may cause a person to think twice before assaulting a first responder in the line of duty, I think it's incumbent upon us to take that opportunity to make first responders' lives a little easier and in turn make Canada a bit safer.

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

The purpose of these bills is to modernize the criminal justice system framework. This is why we're here and why you're doing this.

For a long time, survivors have felt unable to navigate the justice system. How would Canada be able to assist them in moving closer to the goals of being able to navigate the system and feel safe in it?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

That's a big question, and it will be difficult to squeeze an answer into just a few moments. There are so many angles to help promote faith in the justice system, but since you mentioned survivors, I'll talk about those who have been victims of crime and who wish to seek justice.

There is no one thing you can do that will improve the system for everyone, but there are a lot of things you can do that will have an impact.

First of all, we have significantly renovated the Victims Bill of Rights in Bill C-16, which makes clear what a person is entitled to when they're going through this horrific experience of having complained to law enforcement and being made to tell and retell their story, which is sometimes very traumatic. The use of testimonial aids, proactively sharing information about what the experience could entail, making space for victims and their families to give statements on sentencing at Parole Board hearings are all positive changes that I think are going to have an impact.

We also need to look at the system itself. Maybe there are delays that are resulting in cases being thrown out without a trial coming to its natural conclusion.

In other instances, the challenges people have in navigating the system are far more basic. I hear often about a lack of public transit for low-income families to a family courthouse somewhere in Canada, as I do about the evidentiary process in sexual assault trials. Access to justice and advancing access to the justice system vary enormously from individual to individual and from province to province. I don't want to be too blunt, but you will see included in each of these bills a series of measures that are designed not only to strengthen Canada's criminal law but also to ensure that those who've been victimized by crime and have survived to tell their story have an experience that's more sensitive to what they've gone through.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Minister.

Thanks, Ms. Dhillon.

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

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Fortin, we'll go to you, sir, for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I heard your answers to my questions about a clear majority in a possible referendum. Let's now turn to the broader issue of whether the Clarity Act should be applied.

This morning, at a press conference, the Prime Minister said that he was studying the issue of whether the Clarity Act should be applied to Alberta. He argued that the matter wasn't on the ballot or in the mandates or platforms of either the governing party or the official opposition. I haven't looked at Ms. Smith's party platform in Alberta. I suspect that the Prime Minister did so before making this statement.

However, I'm looking at this argument in light of the situation in Quebec. The Quebec sovereignty issue appears in article 1 of the Parti Québécois platform. This has been the case since the founding of the party.

Does this mean that the same reasoning wouldn't apply and that the federal government would have more consideration, so to speak, for Quebec's jurisdiction in the case of a referendum on sovereignty?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Your question has different parts.

First, you're asking whether the Clarity Act would be applied in certain cases.

In the case of Quebec, it currently isn't possible to make this type of statement. There isn't any referendum question. Quebec may put forward this type of question in the future. The government of the day will then need to decide whether the legislation should apply in that case.

Alberta has a referendum question. However, I still need time to consider the application of the Clarity Act.

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

Minister, I nevertheless understand that, in your assessment of whether this legislation applies, the referendum's inclusion in the governing party's platform plays a key role.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

It's one issue to consider among many, but that's obviously a very important political point for a voter to consider. The Clarity Act has several elements that it would consider in terms of the requirements for the federal Parliament to take part in the process. However, certainly I think what people have campaigned upon is always politically important.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

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

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Lawton, I go to you for five minutes.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Minister, thank you for being here.

I'm going to start with Bill C-22, which has generated a huge amount of concern from civil society groups which, I think quite justifiably, do not trust your government to respect fundamental charter rights, given your government's track record. You keep coming back, as do your colleagues, to this line that, when you force electronic service providers to retain metadata, it's no different from just having a copy of the phone book that someone could leaf through.

The problem with this, and where it falls short, is that metadata is so much deeper than that. It includes, for example, location data. Why is where my wife and I went to dinner the other night, why is a Canadian's movement pattern—a Canadian who hasn't been suspected or accused of committing a crime—relevant to withhold and to force companies to withhold?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Maybe I should have given this disclaimer at the beginning of some of my answers. I'm engaged with and aware of the bill. My colleague, Minister Anandasangaree, particularly on the part that you've mentioned, is leading on this, and I'll leave it to him to offer specifics. Keep in—

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Could you urge him to accept our invitation to appear before this committee? So far, he has not come.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If you put it on the record, he will be aware.

What's important to me is for us to have protections in place that will allow people to know that their information is not going to be abused but, at the same time, enable us to catch up with the rest of the world in allowing law enforcement to investigate and prosecute dangerous criminals who are causing harm to our country today. In my view, having a system that allows you to request information but not a requirement that the information exists would leave an obvious gap that would render the legislation ineffective.

Again, not to speak for my colleague, but if there are proposals that you think will not eat away at the ability for law enforcement to do their job but will offer superior protections to Canadians' privacy—we're members of Parliament, we have the opportunity to put forward proposals and amendments to bills—I think that that would be, if you deem it appropriate, the best use of your energy as a committee.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

When you say, “catching up with the rest of the world”, though, this actually goes further. It goes into areas that other democratic countries have rejected in the past.

To be clear, I want law enforcement to have the tools available to do their jobs. When I spoke to police chiefs in my riding, and others in law enforcement, a lot of what they said they wanted is in part 1 of the bill. They did not talk about wanting to force back doors into these technological services, which is exactly what Apple, Meta and Google have said this legislation will force them to do to comply with the demands that your government is putting on these companies, which have vast amounts of Canadians' data.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Well, I would disagree. I think some of that may come from facts that are not known, which are left to the regulatory powers included in the bill. I don't see the back door that people have become concerned with.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Minister, but do you not believe it is justifiable to be concerned about where the regulatory power that a bill grants regulators could go?