Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to be here today to address Bill C-3. It has gone through committee and is now back in the House of Commons, and we once again get an opportunity to speak to it.
I want to point out that this is a pleasant departure for the Liberal Party in supporting the bill. In the past the Liberals have typically been odious, pointing out errors that the justice system gets. For them to give clear instructions to the justice system is refreshing. I am excited to see that they are supporting the bill, that they have moved it forward and that we have the Government of Canada pursuing education of judges.
We have seen in the past some horrendous crimes that have been committed in this country, and we have seen sentencing that does not seem to fit the crime. The sentencing does not provide an incentive to not do the crime again. I am talking particularly in the area that I know best, around human trafficking. I have a series of examples in which folks were convicted of trafficking people and the justice system was incapable, or folks in the justice system were rude about what was going on. It led to people being concerned and not willing to come forward when they had a crime perpetrated against them.
I remember one situation in which a gal was talking to me. She had come forward and pressed charges against an individual, but the guy was out on bail very quickly and was standing at the end of her driveway making threatening gestures such as slicing across his throat. This is a justice system that was supposed to be there to protect her. I am happy to see the government supporting the bill to provide judge training, and it is important that we get it right. The justice system should get it right.
I also want to note that I will share my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, a great colleague of mine. I also had the opportunity to tour him across the promised land. He is from Quebec and I am from Alberta. I know there is a bit of rivalry there, although it is more imagined than real because when I had him, a Quebecker, in Alberta, I stuck him in a trench of a pipeline and showed him what pipelines were all about. He was impressed with the size of the farms that we have where I come from. He is the member of Parliament for the maple syrup capital of Canada, and I am the member of Parliament for the honey capital of Canada, which I think is pretty sweet, either way. I do take a little honey in my coffee because I think that makes me a little sweeter all the time.
We have seen human traffickers get off with sentences that were in many cases less time than they had spent trafficking their victims. We have seen traffickers who trafficked multiple girls for several years get months in prison. We also see traffickers, who have made hundreds of thousands of dollars trafficking people, get fines of $5,000. It is important to me that the justice system provides justice and deterrence. It says in the Bible that the law cannot save us, and that is true. The words on a piece of paper will not in the instant save someone, but we do try to rectify these situations after the fact. Our justice system is to bring justice to the situation. We see in the bill the acknowledgement that our justice system does not get it right all the time.
From time to time, things change, things come to light, society changes and society sees the need to shine a spotlight on particular issues. That is what this bill does. I am pleased to support the bill.
However, this is a departure from what we have seen in the past. We have seen the Liberals hesitate on bringing justice through the justice system for human trafficking victims. When it comes to consecutive sentencing, we saw a bill that was first introduced by a Bloc member, then was introduced by an NDP member and it was finally passed under a Conservative government. It was brought into force by the Liberal government.
However, before the bill was brought into force, the government waited for two years to pass Bill C-75. It could have been brought into force immediately when it took power back in 2015, but the government waited in order to pull out consecutive sentencing, because, lo and behold, if a trafficker had to go to jail for an extended period of time, that would not have been right.
The Liberals delayed the passing of that bill. While it had originally been introduced in 2013, it took all the way until 2017 to be reintroduced. We see that when the bill was finally brought, the Liberals had pulled the consecutive sentencing out and went back to concurrent sentencing, saying if someone had trafficked one girl, they were going to jail for a maximum of 10 years, and if they had trafficked 10 girls, they could serve those sentences concurrently. Regardless of how many people they had trafficked, they would serve the sentences concurrently.
That is not justice. That is not bringing people to justice. That is not providing any deterrent. Perhaps the Liberals will stand up and ask me questions about this, and maybe they will clarify whether they actually believe that deterrence should be something that is part of our justice system. Do Liberals believe that deterrence is part of our justice system?
At the end of the day, serious penalties for this type of sexual violence is important. However, it is more important to provide real protection for victims who endure years of trauma and take years to recover, knowing that their trafficker could be out and back on the streets before they have been fully integrated back into society.
Today we see that judges are still handing down human trafficking sentences that do not reflect the seriousness of the crime. The government refuses to send a message to traffickers by mandating serious penalties.
I propose that the government, at the very least, consider adopting a similar approach to human trafficking as it did on this bill. Judicial training on human trafficking law would be unprecedented. Maybe we could go beyond this. Maybe we could look at special courts. I know there are a number of special courts in Canada. We see drug courts where there are two doors. If someone is convicted of a drug crime, there are two doors. One is rehabilitation; the other is jail. People can choose which door they want to go through. If they do not abide by the conditions set when they cross the first door, then they are switched to the second door.
Those kinds of things have been successful in Canada. I think Ontario is the province that has been pushing that the most. I think that is great. In Alberta, we have the child advocacy centre. It is not a special court, but it is a centre where children of sexual abuse come. There are complete wraparound services. It is not a sterile institutionalized facility. There are puppy dogs wandering around. There are nice trees. The whole place is a place to put people at ease.
All of the government services that come into play in a case of child abuse come to the child, rather than sending the child through multiple different institutions. That, again, has been a great model and is something that we could see across Canada, in terms of dealing with human trafficking victims.
While I support the government's initiative around the bill, I hope that we can see some of these other things that Conservatives are pushing for that get our justice system to provide justice but also, on the front end, prevent these crimes from happening by providing a deterrent.
It is always an honour and privilege to rise in the House of Commons.