Debates of Sept. 18th, 2023

Criminal Code

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question underscores a very important aspect of how this bill has come to pass. It is not just the premier of the province of Ontario who has been getting behind this bill. My first meeting with a provincial analogue was with Doug Downey in my home province of Ontario. He said in his statement that he has been working in close collaboration with us to develop a bail reform plan. He personally thanked the government for the partnership that we have been showing and for “taking direct action to ensure violent and repeat offenders stay behind bars.”

Jennifer McKelvie, at that time the acting mayor of Toronto, and Guelph mayor, Cam Guthrie, said that they are pleased with this initiative. The Ontario police association has indicated the same, and the Ontario Provincial Police Association itself has indicated its support.

This really cuts across a lot of different sectors. After eight years in this place, I know pretty confidently that I can say that this level of co-operation and, indeed, unanimity, is quite rare to find in this place. That is what gives me the confidence to say, quite boldly, that if we are going to take people to be true to their word, there is a path forward to get this done and to get this done very quickly and on to the Senate and ultimately to royal assent, where it needs to be to ensure the safety of Canadians. We rarely see this type of unanimity. I think we deserve to recognize it, work on it and act on it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly wish to add my congratulations to the hon. member on his joining cabinet in his very critical position as Minister of Justice. I have also seen, as my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke and others have said previously, nothing but really strong relationships and non-partisan and strong collaborative efforts from the member.

I know that the public is very alarmed by people being released on bail who go on to commit violent crimes, but we know that the bill by itself could actually make things worse given the institutional biases and racism in our system of justice. Pretrial detention offers very little, and even less once people have received their sentences, in the way of mental health supports and the attention that would assist in keeping people off the streets to avoid recidivism. A balance will need to be struck that would not be struck by the bill alone.

Because I know we want to see the bill passed quickly, and I think it is likely there will be an effort to get it passed today, I want to flag another concern that I hear from prosecuting attorneys: When people do get bail, and the surety is often a family member who puts up money for the accused's bail provisions, it is almost unheard of to go after the person who puts up the money to collect the money, so there is even less incentive for a person out on bail to observe their bail conditions.

I wonder if the hon. Minister of Justice has turned his mind to this aspect of needed bail improvements and reforms.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for her continued collaboration. I think she knows, after my last eight years in this place, that advancing equality and curing systemic overrepresentation have been a hallmark of all of the work I have always tried to do. This bill would not impugn that objective. This bill is targeted. It has been called for by indigenous communities and Black communities around the country. Those communities need to be safe from violence exactly the same as everyone else, and the work that we continue to do to cure overrepresentation is represented by Bill C-5, by the impact of race and cultural assessments, by dealing with anti-hate strategies and by the work we will continue to do on curing online harm.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House for unanimous consent to split my time.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this past summer, on July 7, a mother of two young children, Karolina Huebner-Makurat, was fatally shot by a stray bullet from a gunfight between drug dealers near a so-called safe injection site in Leslieville, just east of downtown Toronto. The alleged suspect responsible for her death was out on bail at the time. He was also banned from possessing weapons and was obviously not allowed to deal illegal drugs. A man out on bail involved in a drug deal gone wrong got into a gunfight with another drug dealer, and a mother of two young children was shot to death in Toronto.

Just the other day, on September 14, a man who had been charged with first-degree murder for gunning down a person sitting in their car pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was out on bail following that. He is now wanted on a second charge of homicide, after killing someone else when he was out on bail.

On June 14, in southwest Edmonton, a man shot multiple rounds, killing another man in a back alley. At the time of this murder, he was wanted by police for failing to attend a sentencing hearing for murdering another person in July 2020. After pleading guilty to manslaughter for that murder, he was let out on bail, then failed to appear in court and murdered someone else.

Murderers are being let out on bail and are murdering more people. All of this is in the past number of months.

Also in June, a video went viral that I am sure members probably saw. I know a number of Conservatives did. It was very alarming and disturbing. The video that went viral online was of a man stabbing another man multiple times on a subway in Toronto. The suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and two counts of failing to comply with a release order, was out on bail at the time.

I have taken public transit and the subway in Montreal and other cities on multiple occasions. We could be sitting next to someone who is out on bail for a violent crime, like this man who stabbed another man multiple times, and that is not something that Canadians deserve to deal with every day. I do not think that is not something Canadians ever thought they would have to deal with, yet if we read the news on a regular basis, we know that assaults, stabbings, shootings and murders inside and outside public transit have unfortunately become the norm in many parts of our great nation.

I will just wrap up with a few more examples. I could go on all day. We have all heard and read about them. It is endless.

In August, news broke that a man accused of four cold cases of sexual assault in Vancouver was released shortly after being charged. A rapist, accused of four counts of rape or sexual assault, was released on bail into the community. He could be walking among us. I did not realize that Canada had become like this. When researching for today, I saw tale after tale of violence against women, murders, shootings, stabbings and physical assaults, over and over again.

The crime stats back this up. It is not just in our heads; we are not just paying more attention to the news or social media, not that we can get the news on social media anymore thanks to the Liberal government. The stats from Stats Canada back this up. In fact, since the Liberals formed government in 2015, violent crime has gone up 39%, murders are up 43%, gang-related homicides are up over 108% and violent gun crime is up 101%. Again, this is in light of OICs and so-called gun control legislation that go after law-abiding hunters and sports shooters in this country that the Liberals have promised will end gun violence. After all of that effort and all of that division, gun crime is up over 100% under the Liberals' watch in the eight years that they have been in power. Obviously it is a very failed approach to addressing violent gun crime in this country.

Sexual assaults are up 71%. Again, this is a feminist government, as they say at every opportunity. We know that sexual assaults are mostly against women, and there has been a 71% increase in sexual assaults since 2015.

The next stat is difficult to say, but sex crimes against children are up 126% since 2015. Also, car thefts are up 34%, which pales in comparison to sex crimes against children, but as MPs we hear that car thefts are through the roof, especially in major cities. People cannot leave their cars outside. Even if they are in the garage there are devices to steal them now. We hear about this over and over again.

I will remind the House that of the 44 shooting-related homicides in Toronto last year, 17 of the accused were out on bail at the time. In Vancouver, the same 40 offenders were arrested 6,000 times. There were 6,000 interactions with police in one year with 40 people. The people of Vancouver deserve far better. Why can we not do something with those 40 people who are causing mayhem, who are causing hardship, assaults, harms, rapes, thefts and abuse? Why is it that they continue to walk free time and time again?

Even more troubling is that the overall severity of crime in Canada, tracked by the violent crime severity index, has increased by nearly 30% under the Liberal government during its eight years. I will remind the House again that under former prime minister Stephen Harper, the same metric fell by 25%. It was down 25% and now is back up 30% under the Liberal approach.

Crime is one of the top things I hear from my constituents in Winnipeg. It is not just in their heads. In fact, violent Criminal Code violations increased from 9,400 in 2015 to over 14,000 last year. There were 9,400 in 2015 when the Liberal government took the wheel, and there are over 14,000 eight years later. The statistics speak for themselves: The Liberal approach to dealing with public safety and violent crime is failing Canadians. It is actually costing lives, as we have seen. This is not just a partisan issue or just a difference of ideology. This is really about the safety and security of women, children, the elderly, people riding public transit and men and women who are just going about their day.

It is very important that we are having this discussion. The Conservatives have been leading the charge on violent crime reduction discussions in the House for years. We have been talking about bail reform for a very long time, and it is just in the past few months that the premiers have sounded the alarm. Premiers from every political party have written multiple letters to the Prime Minister demanding bail reform. Every police force across the country that I have talked to says we need bail reform. There are also issues with people getting out early on parole. There are issues with conditional sentencing, with people given house arrest instead of jail time, not following that house arrest and going out and creating more mayhem for people in their communities.

I did congratulate the new Minister of Justice for his new role. It is a very important role in Canadian society. He is tasked with the Criminal Code. He alone is responsible, in addition to his boss, the Prime Minister, for fixing these problems. What concerned me, though, is that mere days after being appointed, he unfortunately said, as quoted in Reuters, that “empirically it's unlikely” that Canadians are becoming less safe. Those are his words. I asked him about it today and he seemed to backtrack, but that was his initial position.

How do we trust the Liberal government given this is its record and given that it has made no moves to make any changes until recently because of public pressure from the premiers and from police? Everybody and their dog is asking for bail reform and tough-on-crime measures. Now the Liberals are doing something. They are bringing forward a small bill of about seven pages to fix a problem that was created by a bill that was over 200 pages, Bill C-75, from a few years ago. That was a Liberal bill from about five years ago that made it easier to get bail, bottom line.

Now they have brought forward a piddling little seven-page bill that they are telling Canadians will solve all the problems. I do not believe them. I believe the minister's words when he said he did not really believe there was a lot of crime going on, though I am paraphrasing. The Liberals have sort of downplayed the concerns of Canadians. I have read the statistics and the stories, and clearly there is a problem.

I do not think there is any way we are going to solve this problem unless we have a change of government. The Conservatives have a proven track record of reducing crime in this country. It has been proven. It is in the data. The Liberal approach has failed, and people are being harmed as a result. We have a justice minister who, right out of the gate, downplayed these concerns, making it seem like they are all in our heads.

I will quote from the National Post. Adam Zivo wrote about this recently, which will sum it up really well. He said, “Canadians deserve political leaders who don’t gaslight them about violence in their communities. If the Liberals want to tackle this issue half-heartedly and do only the bare minimum needed to temper public anger, then that’s their choice—but it will be the end of them.” I very much agree with Mr. Zivo.

I hope we will see much more effort to address public safety in the remaining days of the current government, but if not, this side of the House is ready and waiting to get to work, roll up our sleeves and clean up our streets.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her contributions in this chamber in advancing public safety. I appreciate that she is committed to public safety.

The member comes from Manitoba. Manitoba justice minister Kelvin Goertzen has himself said that the bill appears to be “hitting on a lot of the themes that ministers were concerned about” at the recent federal-provincial-territorial meeting. The justice minister in her home province is aligned with the sentiments she just expressed. The leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition said this summer, literally one month ago today, that he is ready to get this bill passed by midnight as soon as Parliament is back.

My question to the member is simple. Parliament is back. We are ready to sit until midnight. Are the Conservatives going to support us in getting this bill to the Senate?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, even if the Liberals give us an inch when we need miles of reform on public safety, it is very important that we move forward with the small pittance they are providing us in this bill.

However, Bill C-48 is not bail reform, which is what premiers, police forces, provincial justice ministers and civic leaders are all asking for. They are not asking for tweaks on the margins; they are asking for broad bail reform. What the Liberals are proposing today is not that.

I will draw the minister's attention to the fact that there has been a consistent Liberal government theme over the last number of years of going soft on criminals. It is not just Bill C-75 that made it easy to get bail. Bill C-5 removed mandatory minimums for violent gun offences and permitted more house arrest for rapists. Bill C-83 allowed mass murderers, like Paul Bernardo, to be transferred to medium-security prisons.

This is a theme, a perspective that the Liberals bring to the table, which has resulted in more violent crime, and that will not be solved by a measly seven-page bill, Bill C-48.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague about an interesting aspect of the bill that warrants further study. It is also a request from women's groups who have been thinking about a specific issue.

The bill reads in part:

expand the reverse onus provision for offences involving intimate partner violence to ensure that it applies to an accused person who has been previously discharged for such an offence;

This has been debated a lot in Quebec. There was a report entitled “Rebâtir la confiance” about rebuilding trust in the justice system.

Given this mention of intimate partner violence, would this bill not be a good way to send victims of domestic violence a message that we care about the issues they are facing? Would that not be an important first step?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, aspects of the bill need to be studied to ensure they are effective. Anything regarding violence against women should be paid special attention. As I have said, since the Liberals formed government eight years ago, sexual assault is up 71%.

I would kindly remind the Bloc Québécois that it supported Bill C-5, which passed in the fall under the former justice minister. It removed mandatory prison time for a number of dangerous gun offences. It also facilitated more house arrest for rapists.

In Quebec alone, there have been five cases where convicted rapists have not served one day in prison. Instead, they are serving house arrest. They get to be in the comfort of their homes after violating women in the most horrific way. The Bloc Québécois supported that.

The Quebec national assembly has called on the House to review that and undo the harm. We are the only party that did not support Bill C-5. Does the Bloc Québécois regret its decision to support it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit perplexed by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul's speech. We have a bill before us today that has had broad support from premiers who demanded action. I think it has had broad support from all political parties, with the the leader of the member's party saying that he was prepared to pass it on the first day of this sitting.

In her speech, we heard some things get mixed up, things that had nothing to do with bail reform and had to do with other parts of the justice system. We have a disparaging of this bill, which has broad support from police and other members in the law enforcement community.

Is the Conservative Party serious or not? Is it standing by its leader's statement that it would like to get this done expeditiously or not?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, with my remaining seconds, it is difficult for me to take questions from the NDP seriously when it has supported, every step of the way, the Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach. The reason we are here is because of its support. If it does not like the government's approach, it should not vote for it anymore, and we can go to an election today.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, the cost of living is going up because of an inflationary tax that the Bloc supports and that they want to drastically increase. The cost of living is also going up because of inflationary deficits.

It no longer pays to work and the cost of housing has doubled. The desperation that these policies have caused is leading to a crisis of homelessness, drug use and crime. That is the situation after eight years of this Prime Minister.

Today, we are rising in the House of Commons to talk about the utter chaos that the Prime Minister has unleashed on our streets with his changes to the bail system. He introduced Bill C-75, which was passed. That law allows criminals who have been charged dozens of times to be released on the very day they are arrested.

That bill was supported by the Bloc. Yes, voting for the Bloc is not worth the cost. A vote for the Bloc is a vote for Liberal policies that cause crime in our streets. What are the consequences of that Liberal-Bloc policy?

After eight years of this Prime Minister, violent crime has increased by 39% and homicides by 43%. Gang-related homicides are up 108%. Gun crime is up 101%. I will stop there for now. The Prime Minister thinks that fighting gun crime means banning hunters’ weapons. He stated in his comments that he wanted to ban firearms that are used for hunting. That is what he proposed in Bill C-21, to which he added 300 pages containing the list of hunting weapons he wanted to ban.

The Bloc Québécois was beyond happy, it was ecstatic. The Bloc said it wanted to adopt that list and that it had been waiting many years for this major ban on hunting weapons. Now the Bloc leader is trying to do an about-face, trying to make the people in Quebec's regions forget that the Bloc betrayed them with its agenda of banning hunting weapons. The Bloc Québécois also voted in favour of a law that allows criminals who use firearms to commit violent acts to return to our streets on the day they are arrested.

That approach did not work. We Conservatives will protect hunters and put the real criminals in prison. We will allocate resources to the border to prevent weapons from entering the country illegally from the United States.

Moreover, we see that assault causing bodily harm has increased 61%. Sex crimes against children increased 126% after eight years of this Prime Minister. Car thefts increased 34% after eight years of this Prime Minister.

This is the record of this government’s approach of freeing the most violent criminals while banning hunting weapons. This does not actually work. It does not make sense. That is why the Conservative Party is the only party in the House of Commons that had the common sense to oppose this and stand up for the rights of hunters. We are going to put criminals in prison and protect law-abiding citizens.

We know that the Conservative approach works, because when we were in power the crime rate decreased by 26%. We targeted the most violent and vicious criminals and made sure that repeat offenders were sent to prison. All the other parties said that this would increase the prison population. In fact, the number of prisoners decreased by 4.3%. There were fewer people in prison and less crime on our streets. In addition, we were able to eliminate the gun registry to protect our hunters.

Our approach works because by targeting the most violent criminals and denying their release to prevent them from committing the same crimes again, we can protect society and deter crime by others. We will take that common-sense approach again when I am prime minister of Canada.

Today, we have a bill that partly reverses the damage that the Prime Minister has caused. We all know that after eight years of the Prime Minister, life costs more, work does not pay, housing costs have doubled, and crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are common in our streets. We know that his policy of freeing repeat violent offenders the same day they are arrested came to us in Bill C-75, supported by both Liberals and their coalition partners. In fact, the NDP wanted to go even further.

What are the consequences of their catch-and-release policy? Violent crime is up 39%. Homicide is up 43%. Gang killings are up 108%. Aggravated assault is up 24%. Assault with a weapon causing bodily harm is up 61% increase. Sexual assault is up 71%. Sex crimes against kids is up 126%. Kidnapping is up 36%. Car thefts are up 34%. These crimes are almost always committed by a very small minority.

The good news is that we do not have a lot of criminals in Canada. The bad news is they are very productive. They are allowed to be productive because of the catch-and-release policies passed in Bill C-75 that allow an offender to be arrested often within hours of their latest crime. In Vancouver, the police had to arrest the same 40 offenders 6,000 times, because the police and the system required them to be released under the Prime Minister's bill, Bill C-75.

The bill before us today partly and modestly reverses the catch-and-release bail system that the Prime Minister created, but it does not go far enough. Our policy is very clear. A common-sense Conservative government led by me will bring in jail and not bail for repeat violent offenders. Those offenders with a long rap sheet who are newly arrested will be in our jails today.

When we brought in policies of this sort under the previous Conservative government, we not only reduced crime by 25%, but we actually reduced incarceration rates. That was against all of the rhetoric of the radical left that said that we would have to build mega prisons to accommodate all the criminals. In fact, our laws were narrowly targeted at the worst repeat offenders and they scared the rest of the criminals away. We actually had fewer criminals, less crime and, therefore, fewer prisoners. That meant safer streets.

The Prime Minister has unleashed a crime wave over the last several years.

I was just in Whitehorse yesterday at Antoinette's restaurant. The owner told me that his restaurant had been robbed 12 times in 18 months, multiple times by the same offender who was released again and again. In fact, police officers told him they were going to stop arresting the offender because it was not worth the time of having him arraigned and being released almost immediately. It was easier and more cost-effective to just leave the thief on the streets and let him do his business.

That is how broken our criminal justice system is after eight years of the Prime Minister. Now he has appointed a radical justice minister who says that crime is all in the heads of Canadians, that their imaginations have gone wild. However, the data proves otherwise.

It turns out that Canadians and Conservatives are right. A common-sense Conservative government will fix the mess the Liberals made. It will fix what is broken with jail and not bail. Now, let us bring it home.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the safety of our communities is a non-negotiable priority; it can never be partisan. As do parents across this country, I need to know that my sons are safe when they are on their way to school each and every morning.

The measures contained in this bill, Bill C-48, are focused on keeping repeat violent offenders off our streets. We have the support of all law enforcement around the country. We have the support of 13 different provincial and territorial governments, including many Conservative governments that the member opposite works with closely.

The one Conservative who is equivocating on this issue is the Leader of the Opposition. I want to ask him about a statement he gave to journalists, where he said, “We'll pass it this afternoon. In fact, call [the minister] and tell him I'm happy to bring back Parliament today. We'll pass bail reform by midnight.”

Was the Leader of the Opposition being honest when he made that statement?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes I was. In fact, I would have undone the Liberal bail law in Bill C-75 six years ago, the day it was passed.

Not only did the minister go on vacation before addressing bail, but he also went to a radio station and claimed that we were holding up the reversal of Liberal bail policy. He thought no one would find out about this. In fact, he was on vacation and had allowed Parliament to rise without bail reform occurring in the first place. Let us not forget that what little good this bill would do is just undoing the damage his party already did.

Finally, I would ask the minister to stand in his place and apologize to Canadians for trying to gaslight them and tell them that rising crime is just a perception issue. I have given him all the data published by his own government, which shows that violent crime has raged out of control after eight years under the Prime Minister. These are data points. These are facts. Will he admit it and apologize for gaslighting Canadians?

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Conservative Leader of the Opposition, whose innuendo is calculated to deceive the public, does not really like what the polls say in Quebec. When he speaks of Quebec, he speaks in French and when he speaks in English, he speaks of the NDP to make his point.

We must separate fact from fiction. When they talk about the carbon tax that does not apply to Quebec, that is nothing but a sham. When they make no distinction between hunting weapons and assault weapons, that is nothing but a sham.

Is the leader of the official opposition actually able to separate fact from fiction?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, now the Bloc Québécois wants me to talk about them in English. Bizarre.

Here are the facts. The Bloc Québécois supported the ban on hunting weapons. Their MP on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights received the 300-page list of hunting weapons banned by the Liberals. He thought it was excellent and said that people had been waiting for this ban for years.

Now, perhaps the Bloc Québécois leader has forgotten how his party voted. Speaking of the carbon tax, yes, it does apply in Quebec.

We moved a motion in the House of Commons to cancel this tax. The Bloc Québécois voted to keep the tax. One Bloc member said it should be drastically increased.

I, for one, am going to stand up for Quebec taxpayers, not add to the burden that the federal government has put on them.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a bill before us today that has the support of all the premiers and broad support in the law enforcement community. It incorporates many of the things the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights studied and recommended in the hearings it conducted.

Since we already had hearings, we have broad support from the premiers and we appear to have at least some level of support from all the parties, I am back to the original question for the Leader of the Opposition: Is he serious about passing this, even if it is not the perfect bill for him? Can we get this done? Can we get this passed expeditiously? Is he serious about this or not?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are the only party that has been serious about this for the last eight years.

This member, along with the NDP, has voted to release repeat violent criminals into his community. He has helped unleash a crime wave on Vancouver Island. NDP and Liberal policies have brought about tent cities, chaos and drug overdoses; the member's only solution has been to ban the hunting rifles of the decent, hard-working, law-abiding people who live on Vancouver Island.

The NDP is totally out of touch. Common-sense Conservatives will stand up against crime and for hunters on Vancouver Island.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I too want to congratulate my colleague opposite, the new Minister of Justice, and his parliamentary secretary. I look forward to working with them in the future to move things forward, particularly on the issue of criminal law—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I am going to take a minute to allow the members who are leaving the chamber to exit.

There we go.

The hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord can now resume his speech.

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

Mr. Speaker, I started by saying that I wanted to congratulate the new Minister of Justice and his parliamentary secretary on their appointments. I will have the pleasure of working with them over the coming months and the coming years. I hope we can improve the lot of our people, in Quebec and in Canada, particularly in the area of criminal law.

It is no secret, as people have been saying for a while, that the Liberal government's lax attitude has allowed senseless situations to drag on. I find that unfortunate. I will come back to that.

I look this morning at what is happening with our colleagues in the official opposition and I find that just as unfortunate. What I see is that the official opposition is against everything, except the leader. They falsely claim that the Bloc Québécois supports the creation of a carbon tax when, contrary to the leader of the official opposition's claims, there is a carbon exchange in Quebec. We are not subject to the carbon tax.

For all kinds of good or bad reasons that are their own and that I do not wish to discuss, provinces have decided not to take part in a carbon exchange and prefer to see the carbon tax applied. That is a debate between the Prime Minister of western Canada, who invested in oil in order to be understood, and the leader of the official opposition. They can debate between themselves the rate at which they wish to impose the carbon tax but, in Quebec, we have a carbon exchange. However, the leader of the official opposition does not take that into account.

The leader of the official opposition says that it is thanks to him that hunting rifles were removed from Bill C‑21. We will have to reread the transcripts of the House and committees. The official opposition opposed Bill C‑21, just like it opposes anything that comes from anyone other than the leader of the Conservative Party.

Who worked on getting Bill C‑21 passed and getting rid of the lists that prohibited hunting rifles? It was us, the Bloc Québécois. It was my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia who stepped up to ensure that the original version of Bill C‑21 was not adopted. She did this extensive and exhausting work day and night for weeks and months. I commend her on that. I am truly grateful for her. The Conservatives kept filibustering to stop our work. It bothers them to see us work.

In the House, the Conservatives are prepared to say just about anything against the party in power, and against the Bloc Québécois and the NDP as opposition parties. I have not heard their thoughts on the Green Party, but I would not be surprised to hear the Conservative leader speak out against the Green Party. The Conservatives are against everything.

That is unfortunate, because there are some Conservatives I really respect. Some of them are excellent members, smart people who would be able to get things done and help us pass bills that would be good everyone and move Quebec and Canadian society forward. They are hamstrung, though. They have to support an ideological leader, a leader who is not interested in concessions and who is against any ideas but his own. What a shame. That is the Canada we are stuck with, and we, the people of Quebec, hope to get out of it ASAP.

Let us get back to Bill C‑48. It is not perfect by any means, but we have to take action. For years now, the Bloc Québécois has been asking the Liberals to make our streets safe and make things better for people in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Yes, the Conservatives supported us on that, but they were so incompetent and ideological about it, not to mention completely uninterested in compromise or discussion. It was unproductive and actually did more harm than good.

Yes, we have been fighting for that. We have been demanding it. We in the Bloc Québécois believe that having firearms in our streets is plain wrong, except in certain circumstances. I have no problem with armed police officers, but we do not want people walking around with illegal, restricted or prohibited firearms.

We have been asking the government to do something about this for a long time. Finally, today we have this bill. It was tabled last spring, just before the House rose for the summer, in late May or early June. I do not remember the exact date. Here we are, at any rate, with this bill before us today. It will not fix everything, but it somewhat does address the issue of offenders who are out on bail and who are not always adequately supervised.

I am more than willing to work on that, but that will not solve everything. It is only part of the problem. The real issue with firearms is that they go through the border as easily as going in and out of a Walmart.

We are asking for the creation of a joint task force to counter gun trafficking, made up of officers from the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, the OPP, the Akwesasne police service, or peacekeepers, and the American FBI. We believe we have to get serious about this because guns come in and out across the river and through Akwesasne's territory. The federal government does not seem to think it is that bad. Last year, Quebec invested $6 million to create a surveillance task force to patrol the river and stop gun trafficking. The federal government has done nothing while guns keep circulating. How many more files like this one is the government failing to act on?

Regarding bail, the issue is what we do with people who get arrested before they are found guilty or not guilty. Do we keep these people behind bars, or do we let them go with or without conditions? The bill is looking to get tough on crimes committed with restricted or prohibited firearms. Offenders will be automatically held in custody unless they can show that they pose no threat to society and that they can be set free until their trial. The onus is reversed, which seems to me like a good idea. We are going to get tough on people who carry firearms, who commit robberies for the purpose of stealing firearms or who engage in acts of intimate partner or interpersonal violence. This seems reasonable to me. However, again, the government has done nothing about gun trafficking.

Nothing has been done about the appointment of judges either. We know that the justice system in Quebec and Canada has had to operate under rules set by the Supreme Court in the Jordan decision. Trials now have to take place within specific time frames. Are these time frames reasonable? The Supreme Court, in its wisdom, has decided that they were, and I accept that.

Saying so is just the beginning, though. Judges have to be appointed if those trials are going to be held within the reasonable time frame set by the Supreme Court. If judges are not appointed, if the provinces do not get funding for better administration of justice, then we end up where we are now. There are no courtrooms. There are no clerks. There are no judges. What then? People are being released before their trial even starts. Has the Liberal government saved us from gun-related problems on our streets? I think not. On the contrary, I think the Liberal government has been negligent for years. As people were saying earlier, the Liberal Party has been in power for eight years, but it has been ignoring these problems for years.

The joint task force must be created. Arms trafficking must be stopped. Judges must be appointed. That seems pretty straightforward to me. A selection committee does the lion's share of the work. It sends a list of five or six names to the Minister of Justice, and the minister picks one. How can that possibly take months? Sooner or later, judges have to be appointed and the government has to transfer money to the provinces for the administration of justice. If that does not happen, we wind up where we are now.

People are saying that Bill C‑48 will solve the problem once it it is passed, but it will not. It will solve part of the problem. It will deal with people who are released even though they should not be. The committee will rework the bill, and I am glad we have come this far, but I am really disappointed that this is as far as it goes.

I would like my colleague, the Minister of Justice, to tell us what he is going to do about judicial appointments. In the coming weeks, can we expect judges to be appointed and all vacant positions to be filled, not 10%, 50% or 80% of these positions?

That is all the federal government has to do. The administration of justice is a provincial responsibility. The only thing the federal government has to do is appoint judges. The other thing it has to do, in terms of substantive law, is to adopt the Criminal Code and amend it. Can it do some serious work on this?

I hope that my colleagues in the Conservative official opposition will finally stop filibustering and allow the work to unfold in committee. I hope it will not take 20 years to get Bill C‑48 passed. We will not be here 20 years from now. This Parliament has only a year or two left to run, at most. It is really sad to see the Conservatives keep griping that the Liberals are doing nothing, but then turn around and filibuster when the Liberals do try to do something. I want to get going on this issue. Back home, in Rivière‑du‑Nord, people are fed up with crime. So am I, and I am sure that the same is true everywhere, across both Quebec and Canada. We need to address the situation.

Section 515 of the Criminal Code currently provides that an accused or someone who is charged with an offence will be detained only if necessary to ensure their attendance in court, for the protection or safety of the public or to avoid undermining the public's confidence. These rules strike me as entirely reasonable and sensible.

However, now the government is going to modify these rules by saying that, in certain cases, such as crimes committed with firearms or involving the theft or manufacture of firearms, the crimes will trigger a reverse onus. In the future, the accused will have to prove that they are not a danger to society and that they can be released without fear of failing to return to court, presenting a threat to public safety or undermining public confidence.

I would like to dwell for a moment on the issue of undermining public confidence. It may seem trivial, but it is the basis of our democracy. If the people of Quebec and Canada no longer have confidence in the justice system, it opens up the possibility of serious disorder with lasting effects. I do not want to see people take the law into their own hands. We already have problems with people leaving hospitals without getting treatment because they are tired of waiting so long. They go home, which only makes their condition worse. The same thing must not happen with the justice system.

This is Parliament's job. We must ensure that the rules are reasonable and that everyone, or the vast majority at least, abides by them. We must ensure that the law is applied in a reasonable and satisfactory manner to prevent citizens from “revolting” against the justice system.

It is true that Bill C‑48 will provide a better framework for bail and ensure that people at risk of reoffending are not released back into society while awaiting trial. That said, judges must also be appointed to ensure that these trials are held. Whether or not someone is detained pending trial, if there is no trial, the work will all have been for naught. Judges need to be appointed, and trials need to be held within a reasonable time frame. I think that is just as important.

It is important to recognize that not all accused persons are guilty, as we have already discussed. This is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other statutes. There are rules to indicate that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Section 6 of the Criminal Code affirms this, as does section 15 of the charter and, implicitly, section 7.

The principle of presumption of innocence must be respected. There are countries where that is not the case, and I would not want to live in those places. I am happy to live here, in Quebec, which is unfortunately in Canada, but at least the same rules of presumption of innocence apply. As we often say, and as the courts have even affirmed, it is better that a guilty person go free than that an innocent person be imprisoned. This can be very discouraging because, for victims, the fact that a guilty person is out on the street makes no sense. However, that is the choice our society has made, and I am willing to accept and uphold that principle.

The decision to release an accused person must be taken very seriously. Bill C-48 seems reasonable to me, but, I as I said, trials must also be held. This requires judges and funding. Is my colleague, the new Minister of Justice, serious about this? Does he intend to do his job properly and appoint as many judges as it takes over the next few weeks to fill all the vacancies? I hope so.

In closing, Bill C‑48 responds to a request made by the 13 provincial and territorial premiers in January 2023. It is now September 2023. I know that things can sometimes take years. In this case, it did not take years because it is still 2023, but the bill has not yet been passed, and perhaps it never will be if my Conservative colleagues oppose it. Regardless, from January of one year to May of the following year is still a rather long time. The government could have acted more quickly, but I still applaud this decision.

I repeat that the Bloc Québécois will work seriously with the government any time its work supports Quebeckers' interests and values. I believe that Bill C-48 does just that, and we support it. We will see what happens after the bill is examined in committee, but we will support it.

However, that will not stop us from continuing to demand that this government get serious about appointing judges, among other things. It will also not stop us from asking our official opposition colleagues to stop obstructing the work of the House when a bill is in line with their interests and those of both their constituents and ours. We are asking the members of the official opposition to take their job seriously and to act responsibly.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

As a reminder, the new Standing Orders require members to ask questions from their seats.

Continuing with questions and comments, we have the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I and many of my colleagues see the legislation as legislation that would ultimately make our communities safer places to be. We are anxious, after building upon a wide spectrum of consensus, whether with provincial governments or law enforcement entities that are very supportive, to see the legislation pass. My friend, toward the end of his comments, made reference to a potential filibuster taking place on the legislation.

It would seem that there is wide support for the legislation. Could the member expand on the Bloc's position on getting this legislation passed in a relatively quick fashion?