House of Commons Hansard #76 of the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was c-16.
This summary is computer-generated. Usually it’s accurate, but every now and then it’ll contain inaccuracies or total fabrications.
Protecting Victims Act Second reading of Bill C-16. The bill C-16 amends criminal and correctional matters, addressing child protection, gender-based violence, and court delays. It includes provisions for criminalizing coercive control and banning deepfakes. While Conservatives support many measures, they contend the bill undermines mandatory minimum penalties by allowing judges to impose lower sentences. Liberals argue it reinstates mandatory minimums with a safety valve and accuse Conservatives of filibustering crime legislation. 15500 words, 2 hours in 2 segments: 1 2.
Relieving Grieving Parents of an Administrative Burden Act (Evan's Law) Second reading of Bill C-222. The bill aims to amend the Employment Insurance Act and Canada Labour Code to allow parents to continue receiving maternity or parental benefits and maintain leave if their child dies during the benefit period. Members across parties support this compassionate measure to relieve grieving parents of an administrative burden. Some criticize the government's delays in addressing this long-standing issue and highlight broader gaps in the EI system. 7000 words, 45 minutes.
The House resumed from January 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Speaker, it is quite something that after 10 years of tearing down our criminal justice system and throwing victims of crime under the bus, suddenly the Liberals want to appear to be the heroes of their own story.
One crime I regularly speak about is human trafficking. It is a heinous and growing crime right here in Canada, and it is having an impact on victims all across Canada. Non-government organizations and law enforcement have been devastated by the changes the Liberals have made over the last number of years.
In December a trafficker was arrested in Lethbridge, Alberta, after the police responded to a girl in medical distress. They found a 14-year-old girl, along with two other girls, ages 15 and 16. All had been confined for days, and the youngest had been drugged and exploited by other men. At his court hearing, Skye Atoa was released on bail thanks to the Liberal bail system. Thankfully the police were waiting and rearrested him 30 minutes after his court hearing, for breaching the conditions of his bail.
More recently the Alberta RCMP arrested a man from Brooks, Chad Jensen, for sex trafficking offences. He is facing eight charges, including two counts of sexual assault and two counts of trafficking, and the police believe there are more victims. Guess what happened. He was immediately given bail.
I do not think it is too much to ask that we could live in a country that does not release child traffickers on bail. A Conservative government would fix these bail problems and ensure that human traffickers face justice.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, what we have witnessed from the Conservatives is their not responding to what Canadians are asking them to do, including Canadians in Conservative ridings. What we have witnessed over the last number of months is a Conservative Party that continues to want to filibuster. Interestingly enough, they finally say they are going to pass Bill C-14, the bail reform legislation, which is a very important part of the government's agenda. We could have passed it in December. Fingers are crossed; hopefully they will pass it.
Does the member not recognize this as an important part of the whole crime package? Canadians want it. Can he give his personal assurance that he would like the legislation to pass before the end of February?
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Speaker, I find that incredibly rich coming from the member, who adamantly defended Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 in previous Parliaments and also defended the carbon tax. Now, with a new leader in front of the Liberal Party, suddenly he and the Liberals are going to do a complete 180° on all these things and change them.
The reality is that the Liberals had the opportunity to pass Bill C-14, the bail reform bill that would fix their own problems, in the last Parliament. They did not bring it forward at committee; therefore, there was no opportunity to pass it in the last Parliament.
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Speaker, emotions are running high in this debate. We are thinking about all the women who have been victims of femicide and the fact that femicides are on the rise. The bill does contain one measure that women's groups have long been calling for. On their behalf, I spearheaded a study on the criminalization of coercive control at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
Bill C-16 paves the way. What does my colleague think about that?
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Speaker, I recall that in the last Parliament there was a bill precisely to deal with coercive control. I seconded that bill and am disappointed that the government has not adopted it wholesale. I know this has been an ongoing issue over the last number of years. There was another bill in the last Parliament that the Liberals voted against as well that I was hoping they would take on; it was around the element of fear required in order to press charges for human trafficking. We should not have to examine the heads of victims to determine whether they are being human trafficked.
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
Mr. Speaker, I think the intervention from the member for Winnipeg North requires a little more unpacking.
I will put it to the member for Peace River—Westlock that it is in fact the government. The member for Winnipeg North is the parliamentary secretary to the House Leader. The government House leader has tremendous control over the agenda of this place, and the fact that the government cannot get or have not yet had Bill C-14 approved says everything about the priorities of the government, which was more content to have protracted debate around Bill C-9 than to get on with Bill C-14.
Would the member for Peace River—Westlock like to further unpack where the responsibility is for the absence of meaningful bail reform to fix the system that the Liberals broke?
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Liberals are the government. They do control the agenda of this place. It is incumbent entirely upon them to schedule these things.
I would like to remind the Liberals, in addition, that they have a minority government and that they should be working with opposition parties to pass things we mutually agree upon. Fixes to Liberal bail has been something that, apparently, the Liberals agreed with us on. It should have been the first thing they put on the agenda, rather than muddying the waters with a bunch of other bills.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. I at one time asked if we could sit for a couple extra weeks until midnight, and the Conservatives said no. The Conservative Party of Canada is the reason we do not have bail reform or bail legislation today.
Will the member apologize for misleading Canadians on that point?
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Speaker, that is bullocks. The Liberals entirely have the control of this place in terms of scheduling. The member should look in the mirror, and perhaps he should figure out which way he is going, as he has reversed his position on a number of things over the last years.
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would first like to take this opportunity to recognize Waves of Changes for Autism, a charity in Vaughan that is celebrating its 10th anniversary. I would like to congratulate Ellen Contardi and her entire board for all their efforts over the years.
Waves of Changes for Autism helps families that have children with autism. It helps them offset the cost of therapies. It has funded over 700 applications and has raised over $2.5 million since 2016. Since its inception, it has made sure that every single dollar has had an impact. In 2026 we dedicate this milestone by marking a decade of hope, a decade of opportunity and a decade of giving. Again, I congratulate Waves of Changes for Autism.
It is an honour to rise today to discuss a very important issue in our country related to public safety. Canadians expect Parliament to approach criminal law with seriousness and humility. Our decisions have the utmost real-life impacts on Canadians. They determine how we protect victims, how we hold offenders to account and whether people feel safe in their home and in their community. That responsibility demands clarity, discipline and honesty. Bill C-16 would meet that standard in many important respects. In others, it would not.
I want to be clear from the outset. I have witnessed, upon returning to Ottawa in this winter session, the falsehoods coming from the Liberal government: that Conservatives are obstructing legislation on public safety. Many of the victim-focused provisions come directly from legislation introduced by my Conservative colleagues prior to the introduction of Bill C-16.
Making the murder of an intimate partner automatically first-degree was a measure first proposed by my Conservative colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola in Bill C-225. Expanding the offence prohibiting the non-consensual distribution of intimate images to capture sexually explicit deepfakes draws directly from my Conservative colleague's bill, the member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill's bill, Bill C-216. Of course, updating the mandatory reporting requirements for child sex exploitation material legislation was originally enacted by a previous Conservative government and later modernized through Conservative initiatives.
We support these measures. We have supported them consistently. We have called for them long before the government had decided that public safety had become politically inconvenient to ignore. That context matters because Canadians are being told a story by the Liberal government. They are being told that Conservatives are blocking progress. They are being told that we are unwilling to move legislation forward, and they are being told that democratic debate amounts to indifference toward victims. That narrative collapses under even modest scrutiny.
Allow me to highlight the case of Bill C-14, the Liberals' bail reform legislation. We all know that for years Conservatives have been calling on the government to get tough on crime and tough on repeat offenders. Bill C-14, while not going far enough, is better than what we have now. It would not address the underlying issue of removing the principle of restraint from Bill C-5 and Bill C-75, which is leading to the catch-and-release issues we are plagued with today.
Since the Liberals are making their rounds in the media, suggesting we are obstructing bail reform, for the people watching at home let me highlight how the Liberals play politics with crime. The Liberals finally introduced their bail reform legislation on October 23. On November 18 they went to committee. Instead of advancing the legislation at committee so it could get expert testimony and be sent back to the House of Commons for a vote and be passed, from November 18 all the way to January 27 they chose to prioritize a different bill, Bill C-9, and support a Bloc amendment that attacks freedom of expression and religious freedom, an amendment they knew we could not support.
We asked 20 times before the Christmas break for bail reform to be moved ahead, but this was denied. Why? The Liberals did so in order to advance a narrative that because we are fighting back against Bill C-9 and their attacks on freedom of expression, we are therefore obstructing bail reform. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of how Liberals are playing politics with public safety.
Conservatives have been calling for stronger responses to violent crime, which is up 55%; to human trafficking, which is up 84%; and to sexual assaults, which have gone up 76% in this country since the Liberal government took office. We did so when the government dismissed rising crime as a perception problem. We still have former Liberal members of Parliament, like the one from Vaughan—Woodbridge, suggesting that crime is just a perception problem by using year-over-year statistics instead of a multi-year average to look at the actual trends. We did so while Liberals repealed mandatory penalties, expanded constitutional sentences and pursued a bail framework that has left communities, including Vaughan, less safe.
Bill C-16 combines measures that strengthen public safety with a sweeping restructuring of sentencing law that is fundamentally weakening Parliament's role. That is the problem and that is why the bill should, indeed, be split. The creation of coercive or controlling conduct offences within intimate relationships is a serious and necessary reform. Earlier intervention before abuse escalates into severe violence or homicide is very important. Conservatives support this approach. The expansion of deepfake offences is necessary to respond to modern forms of sexual exploitation. Conservatives support this as well. The procedural reforms aimed at reducing trial delays deserve careful study. Justice delayed serves neither the accused nor the victim. Conservatives are prepared to engage constructively on those provisions.
However, embedded within the bill is a sentencing provision that does not belong with the rest. It is a provision that would transform mandatory minimum penalties into discretionary suggestions. It is a provision that would apply across almost the entire Criminal Code. It is a provision that would fundamentally alter how Parliament expresses denunciation for the most serious crimes. Under Bill C-16, judges would be required to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum whenever applying the minimum would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for the offender. That provision would apply to nearly every mandatory minimum in federal law, excluding only murder and high treason.
In practical terms, mandatory minimums would no longer be mandatory at all. That includes offences such as aggravated sexual assault with a firearm, human trafficking, extortion with a firearm, weapons trafficking, drive-by shootings and multiple other firearms offences. Parliament set these penalties deliberately, not casually or symbolically, because certain conduct is so dangerous, so destructive and so harmful that incarceration was deemed to be the baseline, not the exception.
The Supreme Court has never held that mandatory minimum penalties are unconstitutional per se. It has never stripped Parliament of its authority to impose them. Section 12 of the charter prohibits punishment that is “grossly disproportionate”. The House should pay close attention to what the court actually said, particularly in Quebec (Attorney General) v. Senneville. In that case, the court was sharply divided. The majority relied on hypothetical scenarios to invalidate mandatory minimum penalties for child sex exploitation offences, but the dissent, led by Chief Justice Wagner, issued a warning that Parliament would be reckless to ignore.
That dissent reaffirmed a foundational principle. Hypotheticals must be reasonable. They must have a real, factual and legal connection to the offence before the court. Parliament is not required to legislate for the least serious imaginable application of an offence. Using remote or extreme hypotheticals to dismantle sentencing floors risks undermining democratic accountability itself. Those words matter.
Bill C-16 ignores that warning entirely. Instead of responding to Senneville with discipline by clarifying offence definitions or crafting a narrow and targeted safety valve, the government chose the most expansive option available. It used a contested decision as justification for wholesale retreat from Parliament's sentencing authority. The government will point to law enforcement organizations and victim advocacy groups that have welcomed parts of the bill. Conservatives respect those voices. We listen to them and we agree with them on many of the reforms contained within the bill. However, broad support for certain provisions does not mean Parliament should abandon its duty to scrutinize the whole.
Millions of Canadians voted for the official opposition to do precisely that: Hold the government to account, improve legislation and demand excellence, especially on matters of public safety. Conservatives stand ready to work. We stand ready to improve this legislation. Of course, we stand firmly on the side of victims, communities and public safety.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. The Conservatives have not been supportive of getting legislation passed. I will give us the ideal example of Bill C-14. The Prime Minister and 70 new Liberal members were elected. The government said that bail reform legislation was critically important. We did the consultations, and the provinces, law enforcement and other stakeholders brought forward the legislation. The Conservative Party of Canada is the reason it has never passed. It is as simple as that.
We are now talking about Bill C-16, which is, again, important crime legislation. The Conservatives are coming up with excuses as to why they do not want to see it pass.
Will the member opposite agree that it is time for the Conservative Party to allow Canadians' crime agenda to pass? After all, even Canadians in Conservative ridings want this type of legislation to pass. Will the Conservative Party commit to passing the legislation before the end of February?
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that statement, although, unfortunately, much of it is placed in some alternate universe that must exist out there. As everyone is well aware, Conservatives have been advocating for a tough-on-crime agenda for years at this point.
We supported sending Bill C-14 to committee for study, yet it was put behind Bill C-9. Then the Liberals decided to use their time to try to ram through attacks on freedom of expression. Why? We called for that bill to be moved ahead [Technical difficulty—Editor].
Bill C-16 Sitting SuspendedProtecting Victims ActGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker John Nater
We will have to pause momentarily.
(The sitting of the House was suspended at 10:20 a.m.)
(The House resumed at 10:31 a.m.)
Bill C-16 Sitting ResumedProtecting Victims ActGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker John Nater
I think the problem has been sorted out. We will continue. We were on questions and comments. The question had been asked. I will invite the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge to respond to the most recent question.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Mr. Speaker, again, I thank the hon. member for his comments, although they seem to be derived from an alternate universe. The facts on the ground are that Conservatives have always supported and advocated for tougher sentencing laws and have wanted the government to get tough on crime.
Bill C-14 was introduced on October 23. We advanced that bill to committee on November 18 with the understanding that it would be moved quickly through committee so it could be passed into law. The government then decided to ram Bill C-9 through and support a Bloc amendment that attacked freedom of expression. All this is to say that, because we are defending freedom of expression, we are therefore obstructing bail reform.
Conservatives have always been in support of tougher crime laws, and what Canadians need to ask themselves is why. The Liberals broke the bail laws to begin with. We are here to—
Bill C-16 Protecting Victims ActGovernment Orders
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is true that there are a lot of measures in Bill C-16. That is why it will be important to carefully study the bill in committee.
Earlier, I spoke about the work that I did to spearhead a study in committee. I have been advocating for years about the importance of revisiting the issue of coercive control and criminalizing it. I have been waging this battle at the request of the Quebec National Assembly. Finally, we have something about that in this bill.
My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord has been waging another battle, that of creating guidelines for the application of the Jordan decision. My colleague spoke about that in his speech. As a result of the Jordan decision, some offenders got away with their crimes, even in cases of assault, because of court delays. The women who appeared before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women were very critical of that.
I will close by commenting on a situation that I found very concerning. A woman came to share her experience with us. She spoke mainly about the importance of developing criteria for the application of the Jordan decision. In her case, because of unreasonable delays, her abuser got off scot-free under the Jordan decision. However, to be frank, rather than actually listening to the victim, the Liberals and the Conservatives dug in their heels and played petty politics at committee.
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Mr. Speaker, we have supported, and are in favour of, these provisions in the bill.
Just to be clear, we think the bill needs to be split, specifically around the provisions with respect to mandatory minimums, because the bill is essentially a test. What it would do is open up for debate, again, all past rulings where a particular sentencing was deemed unconstitutional. It would remove the guardrails Parliament has, remove the instructions from Parliament and create more delays and more litigation. This is something that needs to be clarified in the bill.
Helena Konanz Conservative Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that Canadians, and Canadian municipalities in particular, have been crying for help from the Liberals for years. They have been burdened with crime and criminals walking the streets.
Why does the member think this is suddenly such an important issue for the Liberals? They have finally put it on the agenda, as if it were something brand new they had never heard of before.
Michael Guglielmin Conservative Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' own ideology has finally gotten in the way because public safety has become too politically inconvenient for them to ignore.
As I said earlier, we have been advocating for tougher sentencing laws and bail reform for years at this point. We are ready to advance bail legislation. We are ready to get serious on cracking down on crime and criminals, keeping them behind bars where they belong.
Conservatives will always stand up for public safety.
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-16, and in doing so, we need to first set out some of the context for why we are having this debate, how we got here and where we are right now as a society in Canada.
One of the unfortunate outcomes of this past 10 years of Liberal government has been a measurable, significant rise in the incidence of crime in Canada. This is not an opinion. This is measured by Statistics Canada and many other observers. In every category of crime, the rate is up after 10 years of the Liberal government. Some of the crimes for which the rates are up spectacularly, in such a negative way, are violent crime on transit systems in our cities, extortion and violent crime. We have seen an increased incidence in the murder of police officers. These are really serious and troubling crimes that Canadians are very concerned about.
How did we get here? Well, the government undertook very specific legislative changes that have affected the incidence of crime in our cities and towns and in all places across Canada. In the 42nd Parliament, the Liberals brought in Bill C-75, which was the catch-and-release bail law change. That is not just a clever political phrase. It is literally what that bill did to our system. The government brought in and legislated the principle of minimum restraint and compelled by law the principle that judges must always apply minimum restraint. Therefore, this plays itself out in our courts, where people are arrested and released and rearrested and released and rearrested and released and so forth.
Police forces across Canada all know who the small number of criminals who commit a disproportionate number of offences are, and they can do nothing about it other than rearrest and rearrest. Officials at the City of Vancouver say there are 40 individuals who are responsible for 6,000 annual police interactions. These are people who are arrested over and over again, literally an average of more than three times a week for this small group of criminals. This is the principle of minimum restraint working itself out in the streets of our cities, and every other city police department has a similar story. I have talked to many police officers in my city who affirm this is the case in our community as well.
During the summer before last, I spoke to people at the city police chief's office in Calgary and heard about a series of home invasions where police arrested the same person, the leader of a group of people who were breaking into homes at three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning. When someone breaks into a house at four o'clock in the morning, that is a home invasion. They are expecting the homeowner to be in their bed at that hour. The police figured out who was doing it, they arrested the suspects, and they were released and were able to do the same offence the same week, were rearrested for the same offence, and on it goes.
The other concrete step the government took that has had the result of increasing, or failing to address, crime in Canada was Bill C-5 in the 44th Parliament. In that Parliament, the Liberals passed a bill that stripped away mandatory minimum penalties for a host of offences, including serious drug and firearms offences.
That is where we are today. We have a measurable, demonstrative increase in crime after decades of falling incidence of crime. We had for the first time in many decades a rise in crime over a 10-year period, and the response of the government during that time was to make it easier for criminals to get out of jail and harder for judges to send repeat violent offenders into custodial sentences.
Here we are today debating Bill C-16, and it contains measures that Canadians and Conservatives have indeed been demanding for years and that we have asked for through private members' legislation from the Conservative benches. The member for Calgary Nose Hill had a bill in the last Parliament to ban artificial deepfakes of intimate images and the circulation thereof, to include that in the Criminal Code and to compel Internet service providers to report incidents of child sex abuse material. The member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola proposed, through a private member's bill, the automatic first-degree charge for murder of an intimate partner.
These are things we have proactively suggested to the government, and we are pleased that it has adopted these measures. We are pleased that the government is at least talking about the bottlenecks in the system and that it is introducing legislation about coercive control and about restoring or preserving mandatory minimum penalties. Is it, though?
This bill contains a carve-out that many observers, including prosecutors, suggest would in fact do nothing to protect mandatory minimum penalties, including ones that have been upheld by the Supreme Court for decades and that have been introduced by successive Liberal and Conservative governments exercising their democratic responsibility to determine, as elected officials, what power the state would have to incarcerate somebody for serious crime.
The carve-out contained in this bill may well undo mandatory minimum penalties that currently exist and that have been upheld, while failing to reinstate them in many other cases that the public is demanding, so this bill has problems. This bill is not a panacea to deal with this problem. It really is worth reminding Canadians why we are here.
It has come to my attention that I forgot at the outset to state that I will share my time with the member for Richmond Hill South. I am thankful for the reminder of that, because I am looking forward to his remarks as well.
The carve-out in this bill would potentially take the power of the people of Canada who elect their representatives to come to this place and to determine what the penalties should be for heinous, terrible offences, and turn them into mere guidelines. There are these hypotheticals they always come up with. I was here for the debate on Bill C-5 when David Lametti came up with an outrageous, and actually quite arrogant and offensive, scenario that he imagined for why there should not be a mandatory minimum sentence for the dangerous use of a firearm with intent.
We see this from the Liberals, their trying to imagine a circumstance rather than dealing with the concrete. It goes to an approach, and we do not agree with that approach. That approach is what has gotten us here. I hope Bill C-16 will be examined thoroughly. Probably it will need to be amended, but at the end, we will get to where we need to be and restore the power of Parliament to determine mandatory minimum penalties for serious crime.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, we must recognize that Bill C-16 would actually reinstate mandatory minimums. It would put in a safety valve so that we would be charter-compliant. The Conservative member from Kamloops, who sits right in front of that member, has actually advocated in the past on the need for a safety valve.
The Conservative Party, much like it is doing with Bill C-14, wants to continue to prevent the legislative agenda from passing. I have asked one of the member's colleagues, and now I will ask the member: Would he, or the Conservative Party, agree that it is part of a crime package including Bill C-14 and make a commitment, at least a personal commitment, to allow this legislation to pass all readings before the end of February?