Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak to an important legislation, which is Bill C-14, bail reform and sentencing reform. However, before I do that, I want to advise that I will be sharing my time with the very effective member of Parliament for Souris—Moose Mountain.
Here we go again with bail reform 2.0. In the 44th Parliament, we had Bill C-48, brought to us by the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau. The bill was in response to several high-profile violent crimes committed by people who were, at the time of the crime, out on bail on charges for other violent crimes.
Let us take, for example, Randall McKenzie, who murdered an OPP officer, Constable Greg Pierzchala on December 27, 2022. That murderer was out on bail at that time, awaiting trial on charges of a violent, weapons-related crime against his girlfriend. We call that intimate partner violence. He was in breach of his bail conditions, of course, having a weapon in his possession, having removed his ankle bracelet and having left his home. That is where he was supposed to be. There had been a warrant for his arrest for about six months, but the police had failed to apprehend him. There were too many people out on bail and not enough police resources. This man was getting away with murder. There were too many people out on bail. That was the problem at the heart of this. This man should have been behind bars in pretrial incarceration.
There were other high-profile cases at that time. I raise this one because it really woke up the public to weaknesses in our criminal justice system. When the public gets concerned over a public policy issue, politicians scramble to get ahead on the story. In a rare show of cross-country, cross-party co-operation, all the premiers of the 10 provinces and of the three territories wrote a letter to the then attorney general and to the former prime minister demanding bail reform. The response to that was that AG Lametti introduced a very weak bail reform bill, Bill C-48, which made it just slightly more difficult for people like Pierzchala's murderer to get out on bail while awaiting trial.
The accused now had to convince the judge that he could be trusted to be out on the streets instead of the government lawyer having to convince the judge the accused should stay behind bars. We call that a reverse onus. It is a slight improvement, from a law and order perspective. We, the Conservatives, supported the bill because it was a step in the right direction. Provincial politicians and law enforcement agencies across the country supported it too although many expressed disappointment that it simply did not go as far as they had hoped.
Why did the Liberals not go further when public sentiment was clearly on the side of going for the bail reform? The underlying challenge for them was a previous bill from the 42nd Parliament, Bill C-75. It was one of the last enactments of the 42nd Parliament before it rose for the summer. The bill introduced the principle of restraint in bail hearings, the principle that directs a judge to release the accused at the earliest possible time and with the least onerous conditions. This is set out in section 493.1 of the Criminal Code, which states, “consideration [should be given] to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances”.
This is what happened to Mr. McKenzie, the murderer of Constable Pierzchala. He was out on bail under his mother's supervision, with an ankle bracelet. He was not to leave home, and he had a weapons prohibition. This was all for a man who had been charged and was awaiting trial on charges of a violent crime against his girlfriend with a weapon. How is that even right? How can that happen in this country?
It is easy to point the finger at the judge, as some people did, but the judge was responding to the principle of restraint introduced by the Liberal government in Bill C-75. We hear the Liberals say they had no choice, the court told them they had to do that in a case called R v. Antic. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Canada, with Chief Justice Wagner writing, did say that “release is favoured at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous grounds.” It is true that the court said that.
We have always argued, as Conservatives, that the Supreme Court of Canada never directed Parliament to throw open the gates to unfettered bail. It did not direct Parliament to introduce new legislation. It did not direct Parliament to do anything. Antic was a case that simply clarified some confusion around the rights of the accused when it comes to bail: the right to be presumed innocent; the right to a fair trial, with the burden of proof on the Crown's lawyer; and the right, of course, to reasonable bail as set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Antic was not a case in which the court had struck down any legislation under section 52 of the Constitution Act 1982, the so-called supremacy clause. That does happen from time to time, as happened a few years ago in a case called R v. Ndhlovu, which was decided in 2022. According to that decision, certain subsections of section 490 of the Criminal Code, the ones mandating automatic registration of anyone convicted of a sexual offence, were unconstitutional and contrary to section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects life, liberty and the security of the person.
The court, in that case, gave Parliament 12 months or 18 months to correct the impugned legislation. I forget exactly how long it was. That was exactly what we did in the last Parliament. All the parties worked together co-operatively to make that happen.
I want to be clear: Antic was not that kind of case. The Supreme Court just wanted to clarify things. It was the Liberal government, under Justin Trudeau, with David Lametti at the time, that introduced Bill C-75 and introduced section 493.1 to the Criminal Code. This was of their own volition. This was the Liberals appealing to their base, trying to distinguish themselves from law and order Conservatives.
They are now seeing the effects of that legislation. There is public outcry about what members of the public are calling catch-and-release provisions. They are blaming the Liberals for that. There are widespread calls for bail reform from premiers, police services across the country, police unions and public safety advocacy groups.
What do they do? They introduce Bill C-14, which is before us today. They are bringing in workarounds around their own defective legislation. We ask why they do not just get rid of section 493.1 altogether. It was not mandated. It is not necessary. It is not helpful. It has been harmful to the administration of justice in this country. It is time to get rid of it.
Our judges on bail hearings know what the common law says about the right to bail. They know what the charter says about reasonable bail. They know what the Supreme Court and other courts have said to guide this age-old principle.
Bill C-48, from the 44th Parliament, took a small step in the right direction, a timid step. It did not go nearly far enough. That is why we are here today.
I am more hopeful today with the current Attorney General and Minister of Justice signalling that perhaps Bill C-75 went too far. Perhaps Bill C-5, another enactment, which I did not talk about too much in my speech so far but which relaxed some sentencing rules, had gone too far. Perhaps the two bills have had a negative impact on the public's confidence in the administration of justice. It is time to fix it.
Like Bill C-48, Bill C-14 does not go far enough. At committee, Conservatives will introduce amendments to get Canada back on track, putting public safety first and putting public confidence in the administration of justice first, because that is what Canadians deserve. That is what Canadians right across the country have been demanding for a long time. It is time to get it fixed. We will do our best to make sure that Bill C-14 comes out of Parliament as strong as possible, to protect Canadians.
