Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-16. It is good to be back after the winter break. It certainly got colder. I welcome back all of my colleagues and wish everyone a very happy and healthy new year.
On December 9, 2025, the government introduced Bill C-16, known as the protecting victims act. The bill proposes reforms to the Criminal Code “to protect victims and survivors of sexual violence, gender-based violence, and intimate partner violence, and to keep our kids safe from predators.” That is certainly a very worthy goal. I thank the Attorney General for making an effort here.
The act includes a reclassification of femicide as a first-degree crime. It would criminalize coercive control, increase penalties for sexual assault, ensure better protection for sexual deepfakes and outline new guidelines on stays of proceedings under Jordan's principle. It would provide some new measures to assist victims. However, the bill fails on mandatory minimum penalties. Even worse, it misses a key opportunity to tell the Supreme Court that it cannot strike down a mandatory minimum penalty when it comes to possession and distribution of child pornography.
I will take some time today to talk about Bill C-16, the good, the bad and the ugly. I want to start by talking about child protection. Protecting our nation's children should be the highest order for any judicial or law enforcement officer. With the evolution of technology, and criminal elements getting more vicious and more sophisticated, the law must catch up.
Bill C-16 would build on a Harper-era child protection law called the Mandatory Reporting Act. It would redefine “Internet service” to clarify that the Mandatory Reporting Act applies to all types of Internet services, including online platforms, social media and other apps, and that providers with a connection to Canada must report child sexual abuse and exploitation material to law enforcement. This is important for operators that operate outside of Canada. The bill would also require Internet service providers to include transmission data when reporting material that manifestly includes child sexual abuse in the material itself to law enforcement. That is all good.
The bill would also centralize mandatory notification to a designated law enforcement body. This is fairly important. I hope we are not going to create another bureaucracy here. We should probably do that within the RCMP. It would be good to centralize all reporting of such criminal behaviour to one body.
The bill would also extend the preservation period of computer data related to child sexual abuse from 21 days to one year. That is very important. I spoke to an RCMP officer recently, and that officer told me about the chronic delays at the RCMP. While well intentioned, sometimes the RCMP does not have the resources to move on a matter quickly. The bill would require interim providers to maintain child sexual abuse materials for at least a year to allow law enforcement to catch up.
Separately, Bill C-16 would create a new offence of inviting a child to expose his or her sexual organs for a sexual purpose. I would be surprised if that type of criminal behaviour is not already criminal. It probably is, but it does not hurt to clarify that. The bill also proposes to create a new offence of recruiting a child to be a party to a crime. All of that is good; the bill would close a number of loopholes. I welcome the child protection elements of this bill.
There is another component that would apply to children and adults but would likely help a lot of children. The bill would amend the Criminal Code to address non-consensual distribution of deepfake images. It would expand on the offence of prohibiting non-consensual distribution of intimate images to capture sexually explicit fakes. Now, the bill draws directly from a Conservative private member's bill, that of the Conservative immigration critic, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, Bill C-216.
The government is welcome to steal Conservative ideas. Technology moves fast, and the law must keep up. Between AI and virtual reality, it is hard to tell what is real or not, sometimes. This technology is out there already. It is open source, which means that anyone can basically get it off the web and access it. There is no place where this is more dangerous than in schools. Unfortunately, sometimes schoolchildren bully each other by sharing these fake images. By the time a school catches up, those images are already out there and are being picked up and distributed by predators.
I welcome this provision of Bill C-16. It is long overdue. Again, I congratulate my colleague the member for Calgary Nose Hill on the incorporation of her proposal in Bill C-16.
I will move on to talk about the much-needed protection of women.
The bill proposes to define femicide in criminal law. Murders that meet this description would automatically qualify as first-degree murder. Those found guilty would get harsher sentences: jail with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years, rather than the 10 years for second-degree murder. This is not a new concept in our criminal law. We already prescribe first-degree murder for a number of criteria. For instance, the murder of a peace officer or a correctional officer would attract a first-degree murder charge, or a murder during a carjacking or hostage taking, murders committed during sexual assault, contract killing, killing during terrorist activity and more.
The definition of femicide would cover murder committed against an intimate partner. Over the last seven years, there were over 1,300 female deaths in Canada by intimate partners. The need to act is apparent, but this proposal is not new either. I am proud of the Conservative member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, our public safety critic, since Bill C-16 essentially draws on Bailey's law, his Bill C-225, which unanimously passed second reading just last month. Compliments to the government for picking up another Conservative bill. This legislative change would have a significant impact on how the justice system treats violence against women. It would alter how cases are prosecuted and increase accountability for offenders. Again, I congratulate another friend, this time the shadow minister for public safety, and I thank the Attorney General for copying the Conservatives yet again.
On victims' rights, the bill is also good. I am often surprised by how little standing victims have in law in Canada. They have almost no control over the criminal process. Victims are not even referred to as “victims” or the “alleged victims” during a criminal process. They are referred to as the “complaining witness”. I watched this at legal aid in law school. The Crowns are too busy, and the victims often do not understand the law or the challenges. However, Bill C-16 would take a few steps in the right direction. It would entitle victims of violent offences to testimonial aids. It would require that victims in court proceedings be treated with respect and compassion. By the way, it is important to note that this provision should not cut into the presumption of innocence, which probably needs a little bit of thinking, because a defence lawyer must be able to confront an alleged victim and test their credibility. Nonetheless, every witness, and especially the complaining witness, must be treated with compassion and respect.
The bill would require authorities to share information with victims about the status and outcomes of an investigation. It is not unusual for a victim not to know what transpired with the charges brought against a person who offended against them. It would require that the time and location of relevant court proceedings be shared, giving victims an option to request and receive information with respect to a release of an offender, and it would require authorities to tell victims about their rights. This is also good. I thank the government for looking to highlight the fact that victims require greater participation in the justice process.
I will now move to some of the more challenging elements of the bill.
I know criminal defence attorneys who have made a career out of dismissal for delay by virtue of Jordan's principle. In the Jordan decision, the Supreme Court interpreted the speedy trial provisions of the charter and required that charges be suspended, stayed, if an accused had to wait for an unreasonable amount of time to be brought to justice, to face trial. The Supreme Court, in its wisdom, decided that for a summary offence in the lower court, the provincial court, such time would be 18 months, and in the Superior Court for hybrid or indictable offences, when the Crown proceeds by way of an indictment, such delay cannot exceed 30 months, or the charges would be stayed.
Bill C-16 includes measures to respond to a very high number of dismissals for delay. For example, it would direct courts to consider specific factors relating to the case's complexity. There are cases that are incredibly complex. I have witnessed a lot of white-collar cases that take a significant amount of time to investigate and prosecute. The bill may exclude certain time periods from the calculations that go into the total delay. It would require courts to consider alternative remedies before granting a stay of proceedings.
It is important to note that Jordan's principle already sets out certain criteria under which delays by the court proceedings are justifiable, so the bill would basically expand on these criteria. In 2024, 30% of sexual assault cases across Canada breached Jordan's principle. In Ontario, that number is 39%, almost 40% in the province I come from. Four out of 10 sexual assault cases are thrown out or could be thrown out due to delay. Notably, Bill C-16 proposes procedural streamlining for sexual offence trials.
This is no reason to absolve provincial governments from providing adequate resources in the courts. Too often, we read that there is not enough court staff or no courtrooms are available in the province of Ontario. Nor is it a reason to excuse the federal government from its failure to appoint enough judges. However, the practical reality is that provinces are breaching Jordan's principle far too often. That is not to say that the right to a speedy trial should be done away with, as it is a charter right, but the federal government is correct in stepping in to provide the system with some relief. That is not an unreasonable proposition. One thing I have often found odd is that delays incurred because of the accused or the defence team count in the total amount of delay. It never made sense. There is room for improvement of Jordan's principle, and I welcome further discussion about this at committee.
I think that is it for the good. Now let us move on to the bad: in the mandatory minimum sentences, the so-called safety valve that the government is introducing. Under the Criminal Code, mandatory minimum penalties, MMPs, apply to a range of serious offences. These mandatory minimums are designed to set the sentencing floor, a minimum term of imprisonment that Parliament deemed necessary for denunciation, deterrence and public safety in specific categories of crimes. In recent years, though, the courts have been striking down mandatory minimums under section 12 of the charter as cruel and unusual punishment more and more. That, of course, includes the Supreme Court up the street.
The Liberals frame Bill C-16 as a response to this line of jurisprudence. They are pointing to a recent decision by the Supreme Court, in Quebec v. Senneville. That is a decision from earlier in this session, just last fall, where the Supreme Court struck down a mandatory minimum sentence for possession and distribution of child pornography. What else do the Liberals do? They add a sweeping change by creating a safety valve. The valve would allow courts to impose sentences below the mandatory minimum when applying the minimum would amount to a cruel and unusual punishment. Effectively, this would convert a mandatory minimum from a binding floor to a discretion and allow a judge to statutorily disregard the mandatory minimum. In practice, it means that mandatory minimums would no longer be mandatory. While jail would still be required, the duration of imprisonment would be left to a judge's discretion.
In practice, that means that if a judge feels that the minimum sentence imposed by Parliament is too extreme, they can just disregard the minimum. This is outlandish. This would erode mandatory minimum sentences. It would result in lighter sentences for serious repeat offenders. The Liberals are doing the exact opposite of what Canadians have asked them to do, which is to take a bite out of crime, especially with violent repeat offenders.
Previously, a constitutional argument was required; a person could not just march in. They previously had to mount an argument that the sentence was cruel and unusual, but now it would be an automatic argument every time. This is not a political argument. This is a basic legal argument. It is common sense. The safety valve is a major concession to judicial activism. It would undermine the role of this Parliament.
This body, this Parliament, sets sentencing policy, and what is worse is that because of the wearing down and the ability to disregard a mandatory minimum sentence, the principle of deterrence, which is one of the key principles of sentencing, is lost. That is very misguided.
Now let us go from the bad to the ugly. Bill C-16 refuses to do what the Conservatives implored the Liberals to do, and that is in response to the Senneville decision and to the Supreme Court's striking down the mandatory minimum sentence for distribution and possession of child pornography. The Conservatives implored the Liberals to invoke the notwithstanding clause to protect the minimum sentences for the possession of child pornography.
This is not about the kids who were already abused, raped or exploited in these pictures or videos. This is about more kids in the future who will be raped because the courts failed to punish these perverts and deter future perverts. We have to go hard here so we can kill this industry.
What was the point of the notwithstanding clause? It was to prevent absurdity. When he was attorney general, Jean Chrétien used the clause to seal the deal on the charter, and he specifically used an example of absurdity that the Supreme Court could come up with. It was a hypothetical that Chrétien came up with that the Supreme Court would find possession of child pornography protected by the freedom of expression. I think people in this room, even the Liberals, would agree that such a finding would be absurd.
That is not the scenario we had here in Senneville, but it was close. He pleaded guilty to the possession of 300 images, mostly of girls between the ages of three and six being sexually exploited. Naud pleaded guilty to possessing 531 images and 274 videos, and in many cases the kids were subjected to rape and sodomy. I am disgusted by this. Striking down the mandatory minimum one-year sentences for either of these two counts is exactly the kind of absurdity that Chrétien had in mind.
I say this as an Ontario lawyer. This is precisely and explicitly what section 33 was meant to do. These criminals are monsters, and I am proud of the Leader of the Opposition and my party for pushing this forward. We would invoke section 33 to prevent the absurdity that the Supreme Court arrived at, but the Attorney General is refusing our suggestion.
That is why I ask my Liberal colleagues to do their jobs to safeguard the line and protect children. Let us amend Bill C-16 at committee to invoke the notwithstanding clause, to restore mandatory minimum sentences for child pornography, and to lock up these monsters who, through their actions, contribute to the rape and sodomy of more children.
I am thankful for the opportunity to address this bill. Let us do away with the safety valve. Let us really stand up for children.
