Debates of June 15th, 2023

Justice and Human Rights

[Gérard Deltell]

Pardon me?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Am I not allowed to say “damn”?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It is always a question of whether or not it offends another member. In this case, it struck a nerve.

I recommend that the hon. member use other words.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague will surely agree with me that there is irony in this. I withdraw the word. We are then sitting every evening until midnight. That was my introduction.

Now, we need to talk about this serious and very important subject of victims’ rights. This committee report seems fundamental to me. However, we need to be very vigilant on the issue of jurisdiction. The report’s first recommendation refers to creating a national working group to agree on consistent standards and practices—or at least as consistent as possible. I understand the merits of that proposal. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord mentioned it earlier. However, we will have to be very vigilant when working with the governments of Quebec, the other provinces and the territories, because they are the ones responsible for the administration of justice, and therefore all these conditions.

As indicated in the report’s second recommendation, the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights must be reviewed to include the right to support. This is fundamental.

I will tell a sad story from last year. There was a traffic accident in my riding. It was an accident caused by someone who was intoxicated. It therefore became a criminal act. The body of a 17‑year‑old youth who was killed in the accident—I find it hard not to get emotional when I talk about it because I knew these people really well—became an exhibit in court. That is an example of victims’ rights. Members may look at me funny, but they will understand the connection. This young person's body became evidence. After three days, the mother called me in terrible distress because she was unable to retrieve the body of the child she had just lost.

I understand the police investigation and everyone understands there are processes, but we can all see the hole in our system. During all that time, the parents were being told nothing; they were not there. They are the direct victims of the criminal act that was perpetrated, and they were not being looked after. The member for Quebec was contacted and this was then resolved. However, those people suffered for many hours.

Maybe that could be fixed, and we could do better. People need to be informed because, in my example, no one was giving the parents any information or telling them when it would be over. I am sure we understand what I mean. It is very important that we take care of victims of criminal acts.

The fourth recommendation of the committee’s report pertains to information for victims. This too is fundamental. This information should be provided automatically, and victims should not have to fight for it. That is not normal either. The person has already been victimized by a crime and their life is destabilized; we need to help them, not put new obstacles and new challenges in their way. This is fundamental. Again, it is clear that this victim will want information. To me, making the information available seems central to everything.

Next, information should be provided to people who are victims. In the case of the mother I talked about earlier, no one gave her any information. We need to inform people about their remedies and their rights. Doing that will take money. That was mentioned earlier.

Victims should also be allowed to participate in the process and be informed. Let us imagine a victim of an extremely violent crime. A release process is under way, but the victim was not informed; she is then faced with a done deal. Imagine this person’s anguish. The victim may wonder whether this person will come back to see them or whether there will be reprisals. It is important that victims be included in the judicial process, that they be respected and properly supported. That, too, is a question of resources.

My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord also stressed the importance of the recommendations that deal with publication bans. Sometimes, people can act very quickly and these bans will be issued. If I believe the findings of the committee’s report, that is being done without the victim’s consent.

However, the first person that should be consulted in the entire process is the victim. It may be that the victim does not want the publication ban. That also carries a risk. For example, a person who was shaken, who communicated but made a mistake by conveying too much information, may be found in breach of the ban by the court. This is clearly not acceptable.

Beyond all that, there is the issue of resource allocation. I approached one of my Conservative colleagues who gave a speech this morning to ask him whether we had the necessary resources in our justice system to properly represent, among others, the Crown. I have major doubts about this. Perhaps more money should be transferred to Quebec and the provinces. This is also very important.

Let us talk about support resources. What we are seeing when we work in our ridings is that there are a lot of community organizations. These community organizations have extremely dedicated people who are there for the right reasons, to help people. When we inquire about these people's living conditions, we realize that they work an incredible number of hours for a scant wage. That requires moral fortitude. Those who deal with human suffering have a hard time shaking it off when they go home to have supper with their families. These people provide extraordinary services to the community. I dream of the day when there will be enough funding for these people, who I see as discounted government subcontractors because taking care of people is a collective responsibility.

In the case of victims of crime, in particular, people need to be taken by the hand, accompanied and informed about what they can do. They need to be asked what they want and what they do not want. For instance, if they choose to allow a publication ban, they need to be told what that means. They need to be asked if they are ready to live with that. Often, things move quickly, and things are not explained because the resources are not there, because there is no time. People must have the time to take care of victims.

In closing, let us talk about the amendment. We will not start defending the minister, who seems to be aware of very few things in his life. However, a bit like my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord, I question the relevance of tying that to this report, although there is indeed an indirect link. I think there are other ways of addressing that. The importance of the report must not be overlooked, and it must be adopted.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am impressed with the speech of my colleague. I have heard clearly, in every word he has said, how he feels about this issue and how important it is that we move forward on the recommendations in this report. It covers many of the issues of victims' rights.

A constituent of mine was the victim of a drive-by shooting that left her completely paralyzed. That is when I found out how little services and support we have, whether they are financial compensation, or the avenues that are recommended in the report, the avenues for people to talk to someone, and some sensitivity. Resources that are there are clearly not sufficient.

I would like to hear more from my colleague on what more he thinks we need to do, over and above these great recommendations before us.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and her kind words.

What more should be done?

At every level of bureaucracy, the people being served should be taken into consideration. Public servants should look beyond financial considerations and look after their needs. Certainly, if they have to deal with 18 cases in a single day, that becomes impossible. For example, some youth protection cases have been dragging on for a long time, so resources are needed.

Beyond that, I think that the culture needs to be changed, hence the importance of launching awareness campaigns and setting standards. That is why we agree on the principle, with the usual caveat of respecting Quebec and the provinces.

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

Madam Speaker, I think the previous speaker raised a very important point, which is our dependence on volunteer organizations that deal with victims and the struggles they have to raise the necessary money not just to provide the services, which are sometimes done on a contract basis, but to keep the lights on and the doors open at those organizations. There is very little support for that core funding that is very necessary for those organizations.

I would like to hear a bit more from the hon. member on his views on core funding for victim support organizations.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

What a nice softball from my colleague, Madam Speaker. I thank the member for this great question.

Not only is it abnormal, it is revolting. These dedicated people who want to help others have to spend half their week, if not more, filling out damn paperwork.

Keeping an organization on mission for six months or more takes funding, but once they do manage to get funding, after six months they have to account for how those funds were used, which involves filling out more than a couple of forms. They have a stack of papers to fill out. I imagine that that answers my Liberal colleague's first question.

What more is there to be done? Let us look at how administration can be burdensome and tedious for those who want to help people.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke emotionally about the need to provide and share information.

My question is quite simple. What concrete steps can we take to improve these processes for both victims and the system?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for her question.

What more can we do? It comes back to the same thing. We need to fund our resources properly. We need to provide them with permanent and adequate funding so that they do not have to wonder every year whether they will be able to continue operating. We need to make sure that we have quality resources.

Earlier, I talked about something important, and that is a culture change in the justice system. The most important thing is to take care of victims. I think that is what it comes down to.

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

Madam Speaker, I am of two minds about this debate this morning, because a concurrence debate about a unanimous report, which is on a very important topic, is a good thing, but I am also concerned if the real intent behind this debate is a diversion from others business of Parliament rather than actually talking about the important recommendations of this report.

Certainly, we heard from a wide range of people in the committee on this report. Many individual victims of crime came at a great personal cost and retold their stories of what had happened to them and the effects of being a victim of crime. We heard from many organizations that provide services to victims of crime. I want to pay particular thanks to the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has a very active victims' advocacy program.

We heard from the victims ombudsman, and I want to pay respect at this point to both the previous victims ombudsman, Heidi Illingworth, and the current ombudsman, Benjamin Roebuck, for the important research and advocacy work they do on behalf of victims in this country.

I hope what we can do in this debate is maintain the focus on what we heard from those victims and those victims' advocates and the recommendations that were unanimously approved in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. An important function of this debate today could be to encourage the government, in the many different departments involved, to make progress on these recommendations.

There are other mechanisms available in this House for holding government ministers to account. I know the hon. members of the Conservative Party know that, they have been using those, so again I will stress my concern that we are not actually doing this debate for some other purpose when there are other mechanisms available. No matter what one thinks about that issue, they are there, they have been used and they can continue to be used. I hope the impact of this is not going to focus on another issue, which is important, yes, but another issue rather than the issues that were raised in this report. Again, I am concerned we keep that focus on moving forward on the recommendations in this report.

There are a number of chapters in this report, and it kind of amazed me that in the end, on a topic that has often been contentious in Parliament, we were able to reach a consensus on 13 recommendations. That is a bit of a miracle, especially in a minority Parliament and especially on an issue that has previously been so contentious.

I bring attention to chapter 4, which talks about services for victims of crime, and I will come to that in just a minute. There is a whole chapter on the right to information about the legal process in this report. There are recommendations on the rights of victims to participate in the legal process and how we meet the challenges victims face when they try to participate in this legal process. There is a chapter on the right to protection of victims while they are participating in the process, and I will return to that one a little later on.

There is an important chapter on the idea of restitution, on how often victims of crime cannot be made whole again in both financial and circumstantial areas. There is a final chapter on complaint mechanisms and remedies, so when the system goes wrong for victims what they have available to them to make that known to the system and to those who have the power to change that.

If we talk about services, one of the important things I learned from this is that in the Victims Bill of Rights there is no right to access to services for victims of crime. I think that is an oversight, and this committee, in recommendation 2, says that we should fix that. We know it is going to be a challenge. The federal government shares the justice field with the provinces and administration of justice belongs to the provinces.

That is why in recommendation 3 in this report it talks about working together to set some minimum standards of what is available to victims, in terms of support services and participation in the various parts of the legal process. I was very pleased to hear my hon. colleague from the Bloc Québécois agreeing we do need to work together to achieve some minimum standards. Again, that is part of the miracle of this report, which is that even on contentious federal-provincial issues we were able to reach agreement on how to better serve victims.

What do victims really need? There is a whole range of things, but the thing we heard most often is they need support services that are tailored to their needs and that quite often those needs are different.

Victims from different backgrounds have different needs to support them participating in the process and also to recover as a victim of crime. Lots of times, the services that we have available do not actually take into account the different circumstances, especially of those who are most marginalized in our society and especially of indigenous people. Having culturally relevant and culturally appropriate services available to victims is something we often fall down on and we do not do such good job.

When we are talking about services for victims of crime, we have tended to ignore mental health services. Again, my colleague from Comox has been a great advocate for mental health services. This report acknowledges that victims quite often need very specific kinds of therapy in order to get back to full participation in society, after having been victimized by criminal activity. I commend that chapter to everyone in the House. It is a very important chapter on the gaps in our approaches.

I was surprised to learn that is legal aid is generally not available, in any form, to victims of crime. Even though I taught criminal justice for many years, I had not really thought about this from the perspective of victims. We provide legal aid to defendants, and of course we have prosecutors who are paid for by the public. However, when it comes to victims of crime participating, legal assistance is generally not available to them. We depend on advocacy organizations to provide that advice and that assistance to victims of crime.

That brings me to the chapter on the right to information. Again, we did something peculiar when we established victims' rights and we said that the victims have rights to ask for information about the system. What we heard, again and again, from victims and their advocacy organizations is quite often victims do not even know what to ask. The system is so unfamiliar, so complex and so unforgiving. In particular for people who suffered trauma, it is so difficult to navigate that they do not even know what rights they have or to ask how to access those rights.

An important recommendation in this report, recommendation 4, is that we change the onus of providing information to an automatic provision of information to victims. Some jurisdictions do a better job than others in making sure victims understand what their rights are and what services are available to them. Again, we largely depend on those volunteer organizations to inform victims of their rights. However, if someone is not in touch with one of those organizations, they are left in the dark about how this very complex legal system of ours actually works.

Let us change this from saying that it is on victims to request information to it is on someone specific. We have not tried to solve that problem in this report, but we have indicated that it needs to be someone specific. We cannot just say there is right to information without saying who is actually going to deliver that information. It is up to the governments, again, because we have a justice system that is split over jurisdictions. It is up to those jurisdictions to work together to figure out who is going to make sure that victims actually do get the information.

One of the things we could do is provide core funding to victim organizations that are actually already doing this work. If we provided better funding to those organizations, they could make sure that victims were getting the information that they need on how to participate in the legal system, how to make sure their voices are heard in our legal system, but also on the very services that might be available to them in the community.

Now chapter 7 deals with the right to the protection of victims' identity and the right to privacy of victims. Again, this is probably one of the most surprising parts of the report. We heard very moving and effective testimony from victims of sexual assault, like Morrell Andrews, who talked about something we did many years ago in our legal system. We set up a system of publication bans so that the identity of victims of sexual assault would not become public.

Over the years our understanding of sexual assault has changed, and many of those victims of sexual assault were surprised to learn that they were subject to a publication ban, that they were not allowed to talk about what had happened to them in any way. Many of those victims of sexual assault also felt the publication ban, by protecting their identity, ended up protecting the identity of the perpetrator.

What we heard quite clearly in the testimony that was before us, and it was very eloquent, very difficult testimony for people to give on their personal assault experiences, was that the current arrangements take away agency from victims of sexual assault.

Therefore, in recommendation 11, the committee has recommended: first, that those who are subject to publication bans need to be informed and consulted before that publication ban is put in place; and second, that they need to have the right to opt out of that publication ban.

Many members know that I have spoken several times in the House about being an adult victim of child sexual assault. The veil of secrecy that was put around me at that time was helpful, but it was most helpful to the perpetrator, who had eight other victims. It would have been quite important for me, though as a minor I probably could not make that decision, for someone to make the decision that it was information the public needed to have. We have heard quite clearly from adult victims of sexual assault that they want their agency back. They want the ability to talk about their experience, they want the ability to warn others and they do not want to be treated as if they are minor children when it comes to the issue of sexual assault.

Those are just a few of the highlights in this report.

When I talk about trying to keep our focus on those recommendations so we can move forward, I want to talk a bit about one step forward that the government has taken as a result of this report.

We have Bill S-12 currently in the Senate. The last time I checked two days ago, the Senate justice committee was just about finished its consideration of Bill S-12. It would take recommendation 11 from this report and put it into law. When that recommendation is finished in the Senate, it will come back to the House and we will have the chance, in approving Bill S-12, to give that agency back to victims of sexual assault, to give them the right to know about publication bans before they are imposed and the right to have the ability to opt out of those publication bans.

When I say that focusing on these recommendations is important to make progress, there is a very specific example of the many things that are in this report so that, if we keep the focus on the unanimous support for those recommendations, I believe we will be able to make progress on victims' rights and services for victims.

Again, this is a minority Parliament and often fractious. However, in the justice committee, somehow, on very many issues we have been able to work together to achieve unanimity. The report on improving support for victims of crime is my best example of how Parliament can work, Parliament can be very functional and we can make recommendations that are important to the lives of everyday Canadians.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on a wonderful report. The recommendations cover so many different areas that I have concerns about when it comes to victims' rights.

As I had mentioned earlier, a constituent was the victim of a drive-by shooting and left paralyzed. That is when I started asking questions about what kinds of supports there were, both financial and restorative as well as emotional supports. I found out that there was very little there.

I congratulate my colleague for the excellent work the committee did on bringing this forward. I would like to hear him spend another minute or so speaking about other suggestions over and above the recommendations that are here today.

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

Madam Speaker, I am going to stick to the member's question a bit more about what we heard from victims, because it is important to remember that this report is based on what we heard from victims of crime.

There are two general themes in what we heard. One of those was that victims wanted to ensure that justice was done, absolutely.

However, there is a second theme of victims that gets missed in some of the debates in the House of Commons. That second theme that was almost always there was that they wanted to ensure that no one else would become a victim of the same thing that happened to them. That compassion for others that almost all victims have displayed is how their trauma and terrible experience can be used to inform public policy so that this does not happen to any other family and does not happen to any other community. That is an important part of this debate and it is an important part of what is reflected in the report, which I hope we all respect.

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

Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the tone of the debate in the past hour. I find that the report contains good recommendations. The focus is clearly on the victims, and that is really important.

The problem is that the report was brought up this morning when we were supposed to be talking about something else. That has been happening a lot in recent weeks and months in the House. We are behind in much of our work. There are always distractions. There are always attempts to obstruct our debates. For that reason, we will be working until midnight until June 23. Important bills were supposed to be passed, but may not be before we adjourn for the summer.

I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about the partisan game that has been going on between the Conservatives and the Liberals since the beginning of the session.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are always issues of importance, issues of the day perhaps that are in the media, but there are many mechanisms in this Parliament to deal with those. The purpose of moving concurrence in this report seems to be to divert other business of Parliament and not focus on the recommendations of the report. That is why I have not been talking about those other issues. I hope we can remain focused on the recommendations of the report and let the parties in this Parliament use the other mechanisms available for dealing with other issues.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure serving with my colleague and southern neighbour from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke in this caucus.

I have been here long enough and have witnessed in the House of Commons that sometimes the crimes that are reported in the news can be sensationalized in this place and the statistics are torqued up to make political arguments. That is why I was glad to hear him underline the complexity of our justice system. I want to commend all members from all parties of the justice committee on the fact this report was adopted unanimously in a minority Parliament, and for putting that work in and arriving at a unanimous report.

I want to direct my colleague's attention to recommendation 8, which asks the government to expand and promote restorative justice, and to ensure there is adequate funding. We often hear about the soft-on-crime or jail-not-bail approaches. Restorative justice is a very complex procedure and centring it on victim's rights is about asking the offender to take a measure of responsibility. It does not always involve incarceration but really a variety of different processes that allow victims and offenders to come to some kind of a conclusion, which can be different in whatever the case may be.

I would ask my colleague to expand a bit on what was heard at committee and to put it into the victim context.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend raises a very important point, and I want to give a very specific example, because I think often restorative justice is not taken seriously, which is why it is not funded seriously.

We had a very horrific incident of anti-Semitism in my riding, where some horrible graffiti was inscribed on The Chabad Centre for Jewish Life and Learning. It was done by two non-rocket scientists who were fairly young. It was done on camera, which they apparently did not notice, and they were fairly easily apprehended.

The police worked with the Chabad Centre for Jewish Life and Learning to create a restorative solution to the problem, which was that these two young people, who had been influenced by online publications and who I think had no real idea of the harm they had done, sit down with the members of that congregation to understand the harm they had caused. I really commend that community for taking a very horrific incident and, as a whole, trying to turn it into something positive.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to provide an opportunity for my hon. colleague and neighbour from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke to explain more fully what we are debating today and why we would be better served to debate other issues that we have to resolve in the few days that are left before, we hope, a parliamentary recess will occur, and not because we want to be on vacation but because we need to get some bills passed in this place.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is really tempting me off what I am trying to do here, which is to say that, once this motion for concurrence has been moved, I would like us to focus on the recommendations in the report and the ability to move forward on those.

However, she is absolutely right. I do not believe that the motion for concurrence was moved for those reasons. I think it was moved to displace other business of Parliament that is also quite important, which I hope we get through before we rise.

We can really make progress on improving support for victims of crime if we all continue to work together as we did on this report.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of themes in the report is the necessity to do a better job at consulting with victims before decisions are made, whether with respect to parole or within corrections services.

Bringing it back to the amendment we are debating, I would like the member's take on the importance of ministerial accountability to consider the victims who need to be informed as a priority. When ministers do not taking accountability and hide behind their staff, it reharms the victims. I would like the member's comments on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I have said several times now, and I will say it again, when we are talking about ministerial accountability there are very good and robust measures in the House, question period being among them, where we can deal with questions of accountability. I do not think that a concurrence motion on a unanimous report is the place to do that.

His question about victims is an important one, but I want to give a caution here. There is a difference between listening to the victims of crime about what will help them recover and about what is needed for them to participate fully in the system, and taking traumatic incidents in our society and exploiting them for political purposes. I worry that this is what we see happening today.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I came in here this morning expecting to be dealing with Bill C-35. I certainly agree with the recommendations in this report. As my hon. colleague indicated, we should stay very focused on these recommendations but move forward.

The amendment that my colleague moved for in the concurrence report is just another effort to politicize another terrible issue that we are concerned about, injuring the very victims who we are talking about in the recommendations from the Standing Committee on Justice and its recommendations to be more sensitive to the victims. With the amendment that was moved earlier, it is exactly the opposite.

I do want to speak today on this and talk about Bill S-12, which is the government's commitment to victims of crime. I will highlight different parts of Bill S-12, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act.

Bill S-12 has three main objectives: first, to respond to the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada last October in R. v. Ndhlovu, which struck down elements of the national sex offender registry; second, to strengthen the effectiveness of the registry; and, third, to empower survivors and victims of crime by changing the rules governing publication bans and a victim's right to information; all three very important.

Today, I want to explain some of the proposed reforms that aim to ensure that the registry continues to be an effective and efficient tool for law enforcement. The RCMP and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have lauded Bill S-12, and we are pleased that the legislation would ensure that the police agencies have what they need to do their jobs to better protect victims of crime and to prevent future crimes.

Bill S-12 would add to the list of offences that qualify a convicted offender for registration. Of particular note, the bill would add the offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images to the list. The bill would also target so-called “sextortion” by adding extortion to the list when shown that it has been committed with the intent to commit a sexual crime. This is an important step forward in helping the police identify perpetrators of offences, which are becoming far more prevalent in the digital age with which we are dealing.

The bill also proposes a new arrest power in the Criminal Code to address the issue of non-compliance with registration obligations. Currently, it is estimated that up to 20% of individuals with obligations related to the national sex offender registry are non-compliant. This is not acceptable to any of us as parliamentarians and it is not acceptable to Canadians.

The only legislative mechanism to facilitate compliance with the registry under the current law is to arrest an individual and lay a charge under the Criminal Code. However, laying a distinct charge does not necessarily result in compliance, which is the goal. The bill would create a compliance warrant to allow police to seek arrest warrants to bring non-compliant sex offenders to a registration centre to fulfill their obligations under SOIRA.

Another important change is that the bill would newly require registered sex offenders to provide police with 14 days advance notice prior to travelling, as well as a list of the specific addresses where they will be staying during to course of their travels. This will allow police sufficient time to conduct a risk assessment and to notify appropriate law enforcement partners, if necessary, in accordance with their existing powers under the SOIRA.

Next, I would like to discuss the publication ban and the victims information measures. These are critical steps to respond directly to victims' requests of our justice system, which is much of what the report that we have from the Standing Committee on Justice refers to, to ensure that we are listening to the victims.

Bill S-12 proposes publication ban reforms that respond directly to calls from survivors of sexual violence. Victims deserve more agency in the criminal justice process and the ability to tell their own stories if they so choose. They clearly are not being given enough priority and enough opportunities to share their stories.

The various publication ban provisions in the Criminal Code are intended to shield witnesses and victims from further harm by concealing their identity. A publication ban can encourage the testimony of victims and witnesses who may otherwise be fearful of coming forward. As we have heard many times over the last several months about publication bans, people who agreed to them for various reasons actually want them removed. Some survivors and victims of crime have found that publication bans have had the effect of silencing or restricting them. Again, we heard that several times in the last week or so. In fact, I recently saw a news report saying that eight women who were all subject to these publication bans wanted them removed so they would be able to speak about the situation that affected them and use it as an opportunity to educate other people.

Under the current system, we have seen victims convicted of violating a publication ban intended to be for their sole protection and benefit. This is clearly unacceptable. These survivors deserve to share their own stories if they so choose, and it is important that it be their choice and their choice alone, not a condition of some degree of settlement that will restrict them forever. One by one, many of the publication bans being removed are being removed at the request of the victims, at the request of the women who are still suffering as a result of some incident in their lives some years back.

To address this issue, Bill S-12 proposes that judges must ask prosecutors to confirm if reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that a victim has been consulted on whether or not a publication ban should be imposed. This proposal is in line with recommendation 11 of the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, entitled “Improving Support for Victims of Crime”. In addition, Bill S-12 would clarify the process to modify or revoke a publication ban after one has been imposed by codifying the process that currently exists only in common law, which is to say through judicial decisions.

The bill would also ensure that publication bans are applicable to online material, an area that is of extreme importance to us as we move forward. Our young people are exposed to a tremendous number of things on our Internet systems, and we are having to deal with more and more issues, as young people are seeing and participating in things that they should not be. However, much of this online material may have been published before a ban was imposed.

Both of these measures recognize that victims and survivors should benefit from the right to change their minds. Choice to revoke or modify a publication ban should be dictated by the wishes of the victim or the survivor, not an employer or some other organization. However, the bill proposes that a residual discretion be given to the judge to refuse such a request if it would, for example, possibly identify a second victim involved who wishes to remain anonymous. It is expected that these types of scenarios would be extremely rare and that, for the overwhelming majority of cases, a publication ban would be lifted in cases where the victim clearly does not want it in place.

There is no good or right way to be a victim. This legislation recognizes the choice of victims and survivors and provides them with decision-making power. Returning power to victims and survivors of sexual violence can be essential for the healing process and can prevent retraumatization in the criminal justice process. Recently at the standing committee on women, many individuals were talking about their experiences and how difficult it was, and how little support there was, for them to talk about the issues they were facing.

It is important that we get this right. I suspect that many members have already heard from survivors while working on this issue, as I have. I am sure that many of my colleagues from all sides of the House have listened to and heard from many people, men and women, who have been victims.

Survivors are looking to us to fix the publication ban regime to better empower them and to treat them with dignity and respect. With a publication ban in place, they are not able to speak with anybody about the pain and suffering they went through. Removing the publication ban, which is what Bill S-12 is suggesting, would allow them to do that.

I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to ensure that we get this delicate balance right. This is an area that we can review at committee to see if the language can be strengthened further.

I want to take a moment to speak about a victim's right to information about the case of an offender who has harmed them. This right is enshrined in the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights in sections 6, 7 and 8. Bill S-12 would make it easier for victims to access information about their case after sentencing or after an accused is found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

To achieve this goal, the bill proposes several measures. First, it would require that the judge ask the prosecutor whether they have taken reasonable steps to determine whether the victim wishes to obtain this information. Second, the bill would allow victims to express this interest through their victim impact statement. Finally, the bill would require the court to provide Correctional Service Canada with the victim's name and the information if they have expressed a desire to receive this type of information. It is an extremely important part of this bill to give victims the option if they want to receive this information. Not everyone would want it because very often it revictimizes the victims.

Once again, this approach is respectful of the needs of victims and seeks to provide the flexibility required to obtain the information at a time of their choosing. I note that this proposal received particular attention and support from the federal ombudsperson for victims of crime.

The changes contemplated by this bill would meet an urgent need to make the laws governing the national sex offender registry compliant with the charter. At the same time, it would make the registry better able to accomplish its vital purpose of providing police with current and reliable information to investigate and prevent crimes of a sexual nature. It would also take an opportunity to make the criminal justice system more responsive to survivors and victims of crime, including victims of sexual offences.

These reforms are targeted, measured and sensible. They will make a tangible difference for victims of some of the most serious crimes under our law. They align with our government's firm support for victims of crime. We will never leave victims behind, and we are constantly working to improve our justice system to better accommodate victims.

The report that was tabled this morning, on which concurrence has been moved, is from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and it has 13 excellent recommendations very focused on how we can make life better for the victims and how we can better respond to the needs of victims. I look forward to discussing those recommendations as we proceed with the hearing today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for highlighting recommendation 11 in this report. It is now in Bill S-12 in the Senate.

I wonder if she shares the optimism that I feel. A lot of the matters dealt with in Bill S-12 have already been discussed multiple times in this chamber. When that bill eventually arrives here, does she believe that all parties can work together to get its provisions enacted quickly?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his work on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

I hope the bill is the kind of thing that has unanimous support from all parliamentarians in the House. It talks about how we can better support victims in Canada and what kinds of resources are needed as we move forward. I very much hope we will have unanimous support when it comes forward.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the member a similar question to one I asked earlier during this debate specifically around the amendment. It gets to the root cause of how victims are not being treated respectfully at times because of a lack of accountability within the minister's office, in this case the Minister of Public Safety.

If the roles were reversed and she was a minister, would she accept staff members keeping her in the dark and not briefing her about something that is impacting victims in Canada?