Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville for sharing his time with me and for his eloquent speech, particularly on the topic of intimate partner violence, which is a reality in the part of the country I come from. He covered it very well.
I am very proud to rise today to speak on Bill C-75. This legislation builds on our commitment to build safer and stronger neighbourhoods by making necessary investments in our police forces, reforming our criminal justice system, and supporting victims of addiction. As the member of Parliament for Surrey—Newton, I have listened to the priorities of my constituents about being tough on guns and gangs and making sure those deserving of full weight of the justice system receive it, and those needing our support and assistance receive it as well.
We have taken many great steps to accomplish this. For instance, in budget 2018, we announced over $300 million to be spent in the next five years and $100 million per year after that to support the RCMP, the CBSA, and other public safety agencies in cracking down on illegal trafficking of guns and drugs. We have invested over $180 million to help the RCMP recruit and train more cadets that it can continue to keep our growing cities safe. We have also taken action to support victims of substance abuse with the development of supervised injection sites across Canada, a model that began in Vancouver and that shows that with a compassionate and pragmatic approach, we can make a real difference in people's lives and keep our streets safe.
With this bill, we recognize that action must be taken to ensure that our court system moves quickly to hold offenders to account and to protect victims. In the past decade, Canada's court system has been burdened with administrative offences, as well as longer and more complex cases. These delays were cited by the Supreme Court as unacceptable and, therefore, it has established strict timelines that cases have to adhere to or risk being stayed. This is unacceptable to victims, and that is why our government, the Prime Minister, and the minister responsible have brought this bill forward.
This bill would make several key changes to the culture in our court system, beginning with limiting the use of of preliminary inquiries to more serious offences to ensure that criminal cases can proceed more quickly to trial; strengthening our response to intimate partner violence; streamlining the bail process to ensure swift access to justice; providing judges with the more robust tools they need to manage the cases before them; improving the jury selection process to ensure that juries are more representative of the Canadian population; providing more discretion on administration of justice offences; and reclassifying offences to allow courts to deal more efficiently with less serious matters, freeing up limited resources for more serious offences.
I want to touch on some of the key reforms in this bill, beginning with the changes to the administration of justice offences. These are acts such as failing to comply with bail conditions or failing to appear in court. These offences are unrelated to public safety, but, nevertheless, burden individuals with unnecessary and significant delays.
Nearly 40% of all adult cases involve at least one of these administrative charges. Therefore, this bill proposes a new approach. Police would retain the option to lay a new charge for the breach or failure to appear where appropriate. However, if the offence did not involve physical or emotional harm to a victim, property damage, or economic loss, the police would have an additional option of referring the accused to a judicial referral hearing.
We are also making changes to protect victims of domestic violence by ensuring that more offenders are brought to justice. Bill C-75 proposes a higher sentencing range for repeat offences involving intimate partner violence. It would broaden the definition of “intimate partner” to include dating partners and former partners, and clearly specifies that evidence of intimate partner abuse is an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.
The last area of reform I want to speak about is selection. The defining value of our country is our respect for equality and commitment to promoting multiculturalism, but we continually need to do more to make sure that this value remains in place, and one of those areas that has long gone unchanged is our justice system.
It is a fact that we have lower levels of representation of indigenous and minority communities in juries, and that needs to change to ensure the integrity of the justice system. That is why we are bringing in this reform. Abolishing challenges and reinforcing the power of judges to “stand aside” certain jurors in order to increase diversity and giving judges the power to decide challenges for cause will bring more fairness and transparency to the system and encourage juries that are more representative of our communities.
In closing, there are few things more important than making sure that our neighbourhoods are safe for families and our children. Whether it is making sure that we have more police officers on the ground, laws that target guns on our streets, or supporting victims of addiction, we need to keep finding new solutions for the safety of our nation. I believe this bill does that.
With a court system that is more efficient, transparent, and fair, we will uphold its integrity, hold offenders to account, and protect victims. For these reasons, I look forward to seeing all members support this bill.