Debates of Feb. 2nd, 2023

Opposition Motion—Bail Reform

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few seconds to wish you a happy new year, good health, happiness, love and anything else your heart desires. I want to also send that message to my constituents in Saint-Jean, as this is the first time I have spoken in the House this year.

I am not going to put the Conservatives on trial for their motion today. I would like to believe that this idea stems from a genuine desire to reduce violent crime and prevent the proliferation of illegal firearms. I hope that I will not be put on trial either, despite the fact that I am going to describe the problems with this motion. In my opinion, it does not provide a solution. I will be disappointed if I hear, yet again, during question and comment period, that the Bloc Québécois has helped put dangerous criminals back on the street and refuses to admit that there is a problem. I hope that does not happen, but I will be sure to manage my expectations.

There are a few problems with the motion, and I will go through them one at a time. For instance, no distinction is made between correlation and causation. Some members have presented statistics showing an increase in certain crimes and said that this is caused by Bill C-75. That is correlation. There is a theory about that, known as the hemline economy theory. According to this theory, when short skirts are in fashion, the economy is doing well, and when long skirts are in fashion, the economy is doing poorly. If we were to rely solely on this index, we would probably all make some very poor choices in the stock market. Similarly, if a temporal correlation is the only correlation that exists between an increase in crime and the passage of Bill C‑75, then we are probably overlooking the real solutions to a multi-faceted problem.

Another problem is that some of the “whereas” clauses and demands in the motion are based on somewhat fallacious arguments, and some are not supported by any evidence. I will come back to that aspect when I go through the motion in greater detail.

The arguments raise another problem. We are hearing a lot of references to the case of Randall McKenzie, who allegedly killed a police officer in December while out on bail. If we look at this case more closely, we might find that it is not just him being out on bail that is the problem. Randall McKenzie had already been locked up and was released on bail with some of the strictest conditions possible. He was on house arrest 24 hours a day, he wore an electronic tracking device and he was allowed to leave home only for medical reasons or to get legal advice from his lawyer. The question is, what happened? How did he end up out in public when the company monitoring the GPS device should have sent an alert to have him immediately apprehended? There may be a problem there too. No one has raised that issue yet, but the analysis should go beyond the simple issue of bail.

I heard it said that if Randall McKenzie had not been out on bail, the police officer would still be alive. I am sorry, but we have still not heard all of the evidence in this case. The authorities are not certain that he is the one who pulled the trigger. There is a co-accused in the case, so the argument is perhaps a little thin. This is only a secondary point, I only wanted to mention it. However, it is perhaps a stretch to say that a life would have been saved if bail had not been awarded.

I would like to point out a fourth problem with the motion. Making it more difficult to obtain bail in the case of illegal arms possession will not dissuade people from procuring illegal arms. The motion will not have an impact on first offences with a firearm. Adopting the motion could leave us with a false sense of security.

I will quickly review some of the points in the motion.

The motion states, “That, given that, after eight years of this government's soft on crime policies, (i) violent crime has increased by 32%”. According to Statistics Canada, this number includes sexual assaults.

In recent years, thanks to greater awareness among other things, there has been an increase in the number of crimes reported, which contributes to the increase in this number. When we talk about violent crime in general, we are not necessarily referring to violent gun crime or cases in which the accused was awarded bail. That, however, is how the question for the government is being framed.

The motion states that “violent, repeat offenders are obtaining bail much more easily”. I still have not heard a clear explanation of whether this is true, and, especially, if it is related to the repeal of certain aspects of Bill C‑75 requested in the motion.

The motion also states that “five Canadian police officers were killed in the line of duty in just one year”. That is both deplorable and tragic. We should do something about that. However, no connection is made between the murder of these police officers and the bail system. Statistics are used to justify strengthening bail provisions, but there is not necessarily a rational link between the statistics and what the motion is asking for. That is deplorable. I think that the Conservatives could have been more thorough in presenting their motion.

One of the things the House is being called to do is the following:

(a) fix Canada's broken bail system by immediately repealing the elements enacted by Bill C‑75...which force judges to release violent, repeat offenders onto the streets, allowing them to reoffend;

As my colleague mentioned, there is a fallacy in this paragraph. There is nothing in Bill C‑75 or the Criminal Code forcing judges to release people. In fact, when we get right down to it, the only thing that forces judges to release people is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There are two fairly specific rights in the following paragraphs of section 11 of the Charter:

Any person charged with an offence has the right...

(d) to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal;

(e) not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause;

The charter, not the former Bill C‑75, sets out that requirement for judges. The charter and the sections that allow for bail have established criteria.

Custody of an accused is only justified by the Criminal Code in certain cases, for example, “(a) where the detention is necessary to ensure his or her attendance in court”, such as someone with dual citizenship who is afraid of losing citizenship in another country, or “(b) where the detention is necessary for the protection or safety of the public”.

There are pre-existing criteria that judges can use to maintain institutional custody. Where “(c) the detention is necessary to maintain confidence”, the judge has the discretion to keep an accused in custody.

Section 515 of the Criminal Code also provides terms and conditions. For example, consideration must be given to “(iii) the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence, including whether a firearm was used”, which we already do, and “(iv) the fact that the accused is liable, on conviction, for a potentially lengthy term of imprisonment or, in the case of an offence that involves, or whose subject-matter is, a firearm, a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of three years or more.”

The Conservatives are saying that they want to, and I quote:

strengthen Canada's bail laws so that those who are prohibited from possessing firearms and who are then accused of serious firearms offences do not easily get bail;

However, that is already included in section 515 of the Criminal Code. Will that really change anything? It is a fair question. When we talk to criminal lawyers about the gun problem, we see that it is getting harder and harder to get bail when a firearm was used to commit a crime, so the motion contains some things that are already covered.

The motion seeks to repeal the former bill without really explaining what it is about. It attacks Bill C‑75, which actually does some other worthwhile things. For example, it creates a reverse onus for domestic violence. The accused must prove that they will not be a danger to the public if they are released on bail, whereas for other crimes the opposite is true. With regard to gun violence, the onus is already on the accused, or in other words, it is up to them to prove that they do not pose a risk to society.

As I mentioned, although this motion addresses a real and serious problem, it may not be the right solution. As I also mentioned, if a person makes their stock market decisions based on the hemline index, then they will likely make poor choices.

I think the same applies here. We need to have conversations about the best way to proceed so we do not opt for a bad solution to a real problem.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague touched upon something I think is very important. Bill C-75 did impose a reverse onus on serious offenders to prove that they have conditions and reasoning to obtain bail. She said something about it is getting harder to get bail, especially for those offenders.

Can she elaborate on that and assess whether weakening Bill C-75 served the purpose of this opposition day motion?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the real question is, should judges be told what to do more than they already are?

Generally speaking, when judges are told what they must do, such as with mandatory minimum sentences, those rulings often blocked by the courts because they do not comply with the Charter. That is a real risk, so it seems to me that may not be the best way to make sure potentially dangerous people are not freed. Maybe it would be better to figure out how we can ensure that people who are released on parole do not represent a real threat to the public and how we respect the right of people who are presumed innocent not to be wrongly imprisoned.

There are a lot of things to keep in mind here, including the fact that it now takes up to two and a half years to get a hearing. People can be detained that whole time before being found not guilty in the end. Would it not be better to do something like increase funding for the judicial system so that, if someone has to be held without bail, their trial can at least happen sooner? That could be part of the solution, and I may have other suggestions when people ask me questions.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member cited the incident with Randall McKenzie who recently killed a police officer in southern Ontario. She also cited information that was provided earlier in the House and created doubt as to the accuracy of that information. One thing that is very certain is that, out of the 44 murders in Toronto this past year, 24 of them were committed by people who were out on bail. We also know that Randall McKenzie was out on bail.

What part of that does she not understand? Had those people not been out on bail, those incidents would not have happened.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to hear my Conservative colleagues tell it, as soon as someone commits a crime, even as minor as simple drug possession, they should automatically be detained so as to prevent any subsequent crimes. However, there are solutions that would be much more appropriate for this kind of problem. For instance, measures could be taken to ensure that conditions are respected and that, when there is a breach, the person is more easily returned to custody.

Many gun crimes are committed in the context of substance abuse problems. We should be looking closer at this aspect and offering the right services to the people who need them.

As I mentioned, Randall McKenzie was wearing a GPS tracking device. That is one of the strictest bail conditions that can be imposed. Obviously, he was able to leave his home without any alarms going off, without the GPS company notifying anyone, and without any police following him. There was obviously some sort of problem there, too.

There are several aspects of the problem that can be addressed without going for a solution that seems a little too good to be true, one that is too singular, one that risks giving the public the impression that the problem has been solved, when it probably would not be solved.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Jean for her very thoughtful, reasonable and well-informed speech.

In Montreal, there are shootings and gunfire. Violence has increased, parents and families are worried about their children and there is a proliferation of guns.

I would like my colleague's opinion. Is there not a security problem that stems from the lack of gun control?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that is obvious. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia demonstrated that as well. It is the topic of many discussions.

When we talk about bail, we have to remember that a crime was committed. What we want to avoid is the commission of an offence in the first place, before we even begin to talk about bail.

Can we address the root of the problem, which is currently the proliferation of illegal guns? I think we are only scratching the surface of the problem in a rather partisan way. As a result we are avoiding the problem and that is where I have to point the finger at the government. There is truly a much bigger problem we need to be addressing and that is where we should be focusing all of our energy.

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

Mr. Speaker, as members of the House know, I am always pleased to rise to talk about issues of criminal justice and public safety. My background, before I came here, was 20 years as an instructor in this field. I am also always pleased to talk about this as a former member of a municipal police board. Of course, right now, I am particularly pleased to get to address this question as a member of a community that, like many others across the country, has seen a rise in public disorder, which is of great concern to citizens and, I have to say, specifically small businesses in my riding, which quite often bear the brunt of that public disorder.

I am also pleased, as always, to get to talk about solutions, and that is why I am not so pleased to be discussing the Conservative motion before us today.

As I mentioned earlier in a question, something perplexes me a bit. On Monday, we came together in the justice committee on a very reasonable motion put forward by the member for Fundy Royal, which I supported and which the government eventually supported, to agree that the committee should work on practical solutions to the real problems that have been raised by municipal leaders, the public and premiers to find practical and effective solutions that would increase public safety by changes to the bail system.

There we were on Monday getting ready, and we have actually scheduled those hearings to start within two weeks, so we are moving rapidly, for the House of Commons, to try to find those solutions. I must say that we are moving more rapidly in the Commons than the government has moved. These issues were presented to the government months ago by the premiers, and we have not seen much happen. However, I am optimistic, I and was very optimistic on Monday, yet here we are, three days later, with the Conservatives bringing forward a very divisive motion full of inflated rhetoric, sensational statistics and claims about the bail system that are really not true.

As I said before, it makes me wonder which is the real Conservative Party on this issue? Is it the one that is doing this sensational motion, which I cannot help but conclude is about motivating its base and fundraising, or is it the party that put forward a reasonable motion that we could all agree on, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP, to work together in the justice committee to find practical solutions to the real concerns Canadians have about the bail system?

I guess the proof will be in the pudding when we get to the committee, where we will see if the Conservatives will work with the rest of us to find those practical solutions, because this motion really does fan the flames of public fear rather than make a contribution to solutions to the problem.

New Democrats agree that we need to find ways to address the problem created by certain violent criminals who have been previously charged and convicted of serious offences and who have ended up receiving bail. We need to look at how we tighten up the system in that aspect.

At the same time, we are also concerned about the public order questions. We know that there is probably not an easy legislative fix to those public order problems. They create real fear among citizens, rightfully so, but we know that most of those public order problems are rooted in things such as mental health issues, addiction and poverty.

Until we as a society address the poverty, the addictions and the mental health questions, and until the federal government actually delivers on its promises to provide more funding for those kinds of programs and to the provinces, then I do not think we will have a real solution to the public order problems before us.

At the heart of what we are talking about today is something that is sometimes lost, and that is the presumption of innocence. In any just society, those who are accused of a crime have the right to be presumed innocent, which is enshrined in our charter, until they are found guilty.

In our system, we do have a presumption against pretrial detention. We really believe that we should not be penalized by being detained before one has actually been convicted of anything.

It is quite disturbing to me to look at our system and find that up to two-thirds of people in provincial detention centres, on any given day, have never been convicted of anything. They are there awaiting trial. That is a very large number.

When we hear people talk about our bail systems as a catch-and-release system, it is not a catch-and-release system. We detain very large numbers of Canadians before trial. Who ends up being detained? Who does not end up getting the benefit of bail? It tends to be indigenous people, racialized Canadians, new Canadians and low-income Canadians.

Why is that? It is because for people to get bail, we demand certain things. We say that people must have a stable job, a stable address and someone who can supervise them while they are out on bail. Of course, the people who have the least resources in society have the least ability to meet those fundamental conditions for getting bail. If they do somehow get bail, they also have the least resources for meeting the conditions that might be imposed on them.

I know someone quite well who worked with an individual with mental health challenges who was required to report to their bail supervisor on a regular basis, but they could not get it together to do that because of their mental health challenges. Those people risk ending up with bail violations, with another offence, even if they were not guilty of what they were charged with in the first instance. What we have, honestly, operating in our system contributes to the overincarceration of indigenous people, racialized people and poor people in this country, starting with the bail system.

While, yes, we acknowledge there are some problems with the bail system that we need to look at, New Democrats would expand that to take a look at what we can do to make sure we are not penalizing people unnecessarily by putting them into detention for long periods while awaiting trial.

Most upsetting to me in this bill is the misuse of statistics by the Conservatives. We all know that the overall rate of crime in this country has been on a 30-year decline. That is still the general trend. We know, though, that in the past five years there has been a spike in public order crimes, violence on the streets and serious violent crime.

Where does that come from? We need to take a serious look at what causes those increases. We have had some unusual things happening in the world and in this country in the past five years. Therefore, some of it is related to the pandemic; some of it is related to the mental health challenges that we honestly failed to deal with, which resulted from the pandemic. When we are talking about finding solutions to these problems, it is not good enough for me to look at a spike in statistics and say we must make general changes in our system. That is really throwing out the baby with the proverbial bathwater.

We have specific problems we need to address, and we need to look very carefully at those problems and find effective solutions that really contribute to public safety.

As I mentioned earlier, provincial and territorial ministers of justice brought concerns forward at the justice ministers' meeting in Nova Scotia last October. They had concerns about serious violent offenders and the bail system and about the public order crisis at the community level, and the Minister of Justice promised to review the bail system. I am told again and again that the government is working on this. Maybe we need a faster gear; this is something we often hear from the New Democrats when we are talking about the Liberals. Yes, they have said the right thing; now let us actually complete that task.

In January, after the high-profile murder of an Ontario Provincial Police constable, where one of the accused was on bail, the premiers had heard nothing specific from the Liberal government. They drafted a letter making a very specific suggestion to the Prime Minister that reversing the onus for additional serious and violent offences should be considered as a reform to the bail system. This is something I take very seriously, and I think New Democrats are quite prepared to look at it.

To be clear, reversing the onus for bail means that one would need to demonstrate why one should be released rather than the prosecution demonstrating why one should be retained in custody, which is the norm. There is a list of offences already for which there is reverse onus for bail, including murder and serious violent firearms offences. This also includes something Bill C-75 did, which was reversing the onus in domestic violence cases. The presumption is now that those who are charged and have been previously charged or convicted with domestic violence offences need to show why they should be released rather than the prosecution showing why they should stay in jail.

Considering this issue means hearing from some experts, police and prosecutors about how we can fix the problems and what we specifically need to do. What offences should be added to that list?

Again, there is a bit of irony. We tend to hear the Conservatives as defenders of firearms owners, but in this motion, they are saying that any firearms offences should get a reverse onus, that it should get a restriction on bail.

That seems peculiar to me coming from the Conservatives because my concern is about serious violent offences, not technical violations of gun laws. Therefore, when they say we should get rid of all of Bill C-75, it begins to sound like this was a bill about bail reform. Actually, it was an omnibus criminal justice bill that had many things the New Democrats supported and many things that I had long advocated for, including reversing the onus on bail in domestic violence cases. However, the claim that Bill C-75 somehow forces judges to do things is simply false. The claim in this motion is not true.

What Bill C-75 did was put into law the Supreme Court decision from 2017, called R. v. Antic. In that decision, the Supreme Court was very clear that fundamental justice and the charter require that those who are awaiting trial be released at the earliest reasonable opportunity and under the least onerous conditions in order to respect the principle of the presumption of innocence. Are there some unintended consequences of that decision in Bill C-75? Perhaps there are. I am looking forward to the committee looking at the specifics of what we can do if we have those unintended consequences. However, as the member for Saint-Jean so rightly pointed out, repealing Bill C-75 would not change anything about the law on bail because the charter and the Supreme Court decision would still exist. Therefore, to single out Bill C-75 for repeal is really not realistic as a solution to the problems.

What is it I want as a New Democrat and a member of Parliament? I want us to do that hard work at committee to figure out how we can reassure Canadians that those who are accused of serious violent crimes and already have a record of serious violent crime do not get bail before a trial for another offence.

I also want us to take a look at that broader question of how we make sure that changes in the bail system do not inadvertently contribute to the denial or inordinate detention of indigenous people, poor people or racialized Canadians. We cannot make sweeping changes to that system and still respect the need to make the justice system fair for all Canadians.

With that, I am going to conclude my remarks today. I want to say that I am disappointed with this motion, and for that reason, New Democrats are voting against it. However, it remains obvious that there is at least a part of the Conservative Party that came to the justice committee on Monday prepared to work seriously on these issues and find real solutions to the concerns that the public has about public disorder and violent crime. They are prepared to find things that are effective in increasing public safety as a way of addressing those, and not a motion like this, which sensationalizes the problem and provides no real solutions.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that there have been at least three pieces of legislation brought in by the former Harper government with mandatory minimum sentences that have been struck down by the court. I guess the only way to go around that is either to rewrite the charter or use the notwithstanding clause. It seems that the Conservatives keep bringing forward legislation that is clearly infringing upon people's charter rights. Would the member be willing to share his thoughts on what a charter of rights developed by the Conservative Party would look like?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question, which I will not take seriously. However, I think he raises a concern. We have seen this rhetoric about “tough on crime”, and we saw it implemented in Canada under the Harper government. Two things resulted from that. One was that, as the Supreme Court pointed out, most of the measures on the tough on crime agenda were unconstitutional and violated the charter. The second was that they were in place for a time in this country. What was the result of them being in place? Did crime rates plummet? No, they did not. Did the costs of the justice system and correction system skyrocket because of those measures? Yes, they did.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing the member was talking about that I found interesting, and I would like him to elaborate on it a bit more. He was talking about people who are awaiting trial as those who are caught up in the system. He acknowledged that there are violent criminals who are out on bail, but there is also this other issue. I would like him to talk about the other issue, which was that part about people who are stuck in the system simply awaiting trial. I wonder if he could elaborate on that point a bit further. If he has some suggestions, that would maybe be beneficial to the debate here today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a concern that we sometimes do not pay enough attention to. A large number of Canadians who are never found guilty of anything have ended up spending a long period of time in detention before they were found not guilty of those offences. In particular, this falls heavily on indigenous people, racialized Canadians and Canadians who have low incomes. Unfortunately, it also falls heavily on new Canadians and on immigrants and refugees.

The first solution to that, of course, is to have adequate funding for the justice system, so that we do not have such large delays before cases get dealt with in court. That is probably the easiest thing we could actually do. For a long time the appointment of judges was slow. The Liberal government took a long time to get going on this, but it has now been filling those vacancies more regularly. This will help cut those delays before people reach trial.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

This morning we are again seized with some sort of motion addressing one of my Conservative friends' favourite topics, namely law and order and justice.

This morning, my colleague and other members spoke about the fact that it is also important to proactively address poverty indicators, including housing, mental health and addiction. How would all the investments that the government could make impact the number of people who get arrested and the time they spend in jail?

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

Mr. Speaker, we could pass all the laws we want in the world, here in the House of Commons. However, if we fail to address the crisis in addictions in this country, the mental health crisis and the housing crisis, then all those laws would make no difference at all in what happens at the community level. It would make no difference in how safe members of our communities actually are or how safe they feel. Therefore, the member is quite right that we do need to spend at least part of our time in this House making sure we are addressing those serious social, mental health and other housing problems. This is fundamental to getting society back on track and to having safe communities.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I hope my friend from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke will not mind that I change from the subject of bail and the efficacy of our current bail system to something slightly outside the Conservative motion. Does he have any comments on the nature of bail conditions and family members putting up bonds and surety for people awaiting trials?

The actual day-to-day reality is that when someone breaks their bail conditions, their mothers or family members almost never have to come up with the money because the person violated bail conditions. Does the member have any thoughts on whether, if we focus on this to increase the likelihood that bail conditions are observed, perhaps we do not need to tinker with making the system more punitive?

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

Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question. It is outside the scope of the Conservative motion, but it is important. However, I would back up a step and ask us to look at why people fail to meet their bail conditions. Seriously, most of the time it is because people have mental health, addiction and poverty problems. I cited the example in my speech of someone with a mental health problem who needed their supervisor on bail to actually contact them regularly to get them to those meetings. It was not because they were evil or deliberately breaking bail conditions; it was because their grasp on reality was sufficiently disturbed that they simply could not get it together to make those meetings.

Oftentimes we also do things like say someone cannot go to an area of town. We would have a red zone, and part of one's bail conditions would be that one does not go there. It is unrealistic to ask somebody without a fixed address, when maybe all their friends and associates hang out on the streets in those areas, never to have contact with their support networks in their communities.

As such, before we ask about that, I think we need to ask whether those are reasonable conditions and why people are breaking those conditions.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, on the issue of the violence we are seeing, certainly the opioid crisis, the homeless crisis and the lack of mental health supports have really exacerbated senseless violence, but the issue of bail conditions also has to be addressed because we have violent offenders who are seriously impacting public safety.

However, I want to question my colleague on the fact that the justice committee is set to do a review, and yet the Conservatives, once again, are doing a massive fundraising drive on what they are pushing now. I remember the Stephen Harper government, when they would get up every week on a new “tough on crime” bill and they had more recalls than the Ford Pinto because they were never about doing “smart on crime”. They were just about hitting their base and coming forward with laws that, time and time again, broke the charter and the Supreme Court threw them out.

What does my hon. colleague think is with the Conservatives, that they are not willing to work with us on trying to find the solutions to get proper bail conditions, but they are just looking to get fundraising with their base?

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

Madam Speaker, as I have said a couple of times this morning in the debate here, I was pleased on Monday when the Conservatives put forward a very reasonable motion to have us work in the justice committee to find practical solutions that would contribute to community safety across the country. I am disappointed in the Conservatives today with a motion that seems designed to divide us in the House. Maybe the purpose of the motion today is to contribute to the Conservative line, which we hear every day, that everything is broken, and it is kind of embarrassing for them to have to admit that on this question we had actually reached agreement among all parties to work together to find solutions.

I do not believe the House is broken. I believe the justice committee can find real solutions to the two problems, and, let me say, there are two problems. One is the problem of serious violent offenders, and the other is the public disorder problems that result. Bail affects both of those, and we need to separate those two issues and look at how to solve each of those problems. I know the justice committee will do great work in doing so.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, everything feels broken. After eight years, we have half of Canadians cutting back on groceries and 20% of them skipping meals because the Prime Minister's carbon tax, with the help of the NDP, has made food prices unaffordable.

After eight years, Bloomberg says we have the fifth-worst housing bubble on planet earth as a nation, and Toronto, according to UBS, is the most overpriced housing market in the world. After eight years of the Prime Minister, rent for the average apartment has gone from $1,000 to $2,000, and the average mortgage payment, from $1,500 to well over $3,000. People's finances feel broken after eight years.

What else is broken? It is our laws, literally broken. Our violent crime laws have been broken 32% more than when the Prime Minister took office eight years ago. There are major parts of our cities that have turned into crime zones after eight years of the Prime Minister. We see this not just in the staggering anecdotes of people being hit in the face with ice picks on transit stations or doused in flammable liquids and lit aflame. We see it in the random attacks on strangers on the streets of Vancouver and Toronto. We see it in the half-dozen police officers murdered, in some cases by multiple offenders who were out on early bail, because after eight years of the Prime Minister bail has become easier and more automatic to get for the violent offenders who do the most crime.

When we speak up against this broken bail system that the Liberals have created, they respond with their typical divide-and-distract. They attempt to convince people to be afraid of the solution rather than solving the problem. They claim that Conservatives want to bring in some kind of Dickensian system of criminal justice, which is actually false. Our approach has not only been tough on the repeat violent offenders, but it has been smart, and now we can all say, having looked at the data, it has been proven right. Let us look at the data.

Actually, before we look at the data, I want to talk about the general principle that guides our approach to criminal justice. Contrary to the false rhetoric of the Liberals and the NDP, and the dishonest reporting from the CBC and other Liberal outlets, our approach narrowly targets the most violent, dangerous offenders. We agree that long criminal sentences are not helpful for a young person who makes a small mistake and wants to start over and rebuild their life. We believe that a young person making such a mistake should get rehabilitation and support.

Also contrary to the false and dishonest reporting of the Liberal media, we do not believe that someone who is suffering from a drug addiction should go to prison; we believe they should go to treatment, something that is not happening today. We believe those who prey upon drug addicts should pay the real penalties and not the addicts themselves.

Finally, we believe that the government, instead of flooding our communities with dangerous and lethal drugs, should put our resources into recovery and treatment, as the Alberta government has done with great success in bringing down the overdose deaths that have afflicted people right across this country. We see the alternative in British Columbia, where there has been a 300% increase in drug overdose deaths since the Prime Minister took office eight years ago. His and the NDP's approach in that province has been a disaster. It has created a living hell in certain communities throughout Vancouver, where addicts lie face down on the pavement, live permanently in encampments, and six people die every single day from overdoses. That is the empirical evidence about the approach the Liberal government has taken.

It is time to rescue our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbours, to help them: yes, with the medications that reduce the symptoms of withdrawal, and yes, with the medications that reverse overdoses, but also with recovery and treatment and not by flooding our communities with drugs. That has not worked and that is not the way to go.

Now, on to violent offences, there were two different approaches. Conservatives believe that the most violent repeat offenders should serve longer sentences. This is the approach we took when we were in government, which led to both a reduction in crime and, interestingly, a reduction in incarceration numbers.

Let us look at the data on the first point. When the Conservative government left office, there were 382,000 violent crimes, obviously too many, and that was in the year 2015, but that has risen now, after eight years of the Prime Minister, to over 500,000 violent crimes, an increase of 32%. Now, one might assume, listening to the rhetoric from the far-left media, that this is because everyone went to jail. Well, that is false, actually. During the previous Conservative government, the number of people behind bars actually dropped from 238,000 to 201,000, a reduction of roughly 37,000. That is 37,000 fewer people who were behind bars.

How is it possible, then, that we call it “tough on crime”? The answer is that we targeted the worst offenders, the repeat offenders, the frequent flyers, those who come back to commit one crime after another, and we see this phenomenon now reversed as this government has allowed those frequent-flyer criminals to go back out on the street again and again.

Let me turn members' attention to a letter from the B.C. union of mayors, where they highlight the problem we are trying to address today by fixing the broken Liberal bail system. In the letter, they say that the same 40 offenders had 6,000 negative interactions with police in one year. That is 150 interactions per year per offender: on average, about one every two days. Across British Columbia, the same 204 offenders had 11,648 interactions with the police. Most of these, by the way, are arrests. So, again, these same 204 offenders in all of British Columbia had about 50 interactions with police per year per person.

This is what is happening. The same repeat offenders are committing, in many cases, dozens and dozens of offences, and then when police arrest them, they are released on bail the same day, because of the Prime Minister's catch-and-release policies. They then go out and reoffend the same day and police officers have to arrest them again. Ironically, this does not reduce the incarceration rate. What it means is that the same people are incarcerated, but their incarceration is punctuated by a short-term release during which time they can go out and smash someone's face in, if I can be blunt about it, because that is what is happening with these random attacks.

What we, as Conservatives, propose is that those offenders who have a track record of multiple reoffences, but then are charged again, should be kept behind bars to await trial until such time as they are either acquitted or they complete their sentences. Why? It is because the evidence has shown that they are a danger to public safety, and that is why we want them behind bars. It is not because we hate the offender, but because we love the victims, and we want to protect them from future harm.

As my deputy leader, the member for Thornhill, will say, as I am splitting my time with her, our purpose in this is to protect public safety, to follow the evidence and the data, and to listen to the true experts, which is to say, the police officers, the prison guards and those who work in rehabilitating and helping those who have been in crime, the real experts who do the real work. Let us listen to them. Let us protect our people. Let us fix what is broken and let us bring safety and security home to our people.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about the Conservative approach. What we know about the Conservative approach as it relates to their “tough on crime” legislation is that on multiple occasions the Supreme Court has shot down their legislation saying that it is unconstitutional and infringes upon charter rights. In fact, Bill C-75 only mirrors exactly what the Supreme Court has ruled.

In order for the Conservatives to use their approach, they would have to do one of two things: either invoke the notwithstanding clause or change the charter in a way that suits their ability to bring forward the legislation they want. My question for the Leader of the Opposition is quite simple. If he was the Prime Minister and wanted to bring in this legislation, which of those two choices would he do? Would he change the charter or would he use the notwithstanding clause?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the proposal that we make today in this motion is constitutional, so I would not have to choose between the charter and the common-sense proposal. We can actually have both.

If it were challenged, then we would go to court and present the evidence. What is the evidence? The evidence is that the broken Liberal bail system has led to the violation of rights of victims. I point to the data again from the B.C. union of mayors showing the same 200 people being arrested 11,000 times in a single year, 55 arrests per offender British Columbia-wide.

In Vancouver, it is much worse, with 40 people being arrested over 6,000 times. Imagine if we had a pinpoint approach to target those 40 people, how many other people would be spared victimhood? The 6,000 victims would have been spared just by targeting the worst offenders. That is common sense, and it will stand up in court.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his speech.

This is a very emotional subject. We all want disinformation to be set aside. To some extent, we all want to be able to rely on science and research to make changes. Clearly, Bill C‑75 is not perfect. We would like to comment on that.

We must focus on the good elements and work towards implementing them, which is not happening now, in my opinion. Furthermore, there is clearly a vote-seeking aspect to the Conservatives' motion.

I would like to ask the Leader of the Opposition what his reaction is when I talk about science and research. Carolyn Yule, a professor of sociology and anthropology—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I apologize for interrupting the member, but I must leave time for other questions.

The hon. leader of the official opposition.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. He said that this is a very emotional subject, and I agree.

Of course, when someone's life is destroyed by a criminal act, it is bound to be emotional. However, my speech was not emotionally charged.

I presented the facts, and the facts are very clear. The Conservative approach reduced the number of criminals and the number of violent crimes. Ironically, we did it while reducing the number of people in prison. Why? It is because we very carefully targeted the most violent repeat offenders. That is what we are proposing today.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, we know that denying bail and using pretrial detention disproportionately impacts black and indigenous people and it makes it more likely that people will reoffend, not that he cares about indigenous peoples or colonization after meeting with the Frontier Centre leading residential school denialists. Just like his opposition to harm reduction, the member ignores the evidence when it conflicts with his ideology, including evidence coming out of the Canadian Public Health Association.

Instead of going back to Harper's tough on crime, which we know does not work, will the member support investing in crime prevention, like outreach, like a guaranteed livable income, like mental health—