Mr. Speaker, Canadians have become very familiar with Liberal rhetoric on public safety, unfortunately. We hear their words about combatting crime, standing with victims and protecting women and children, but words are not results, and rhetoric does not keep communities safe, unfortunately. Bill C-16 is a case study in the government's approach to justice: announce the right intentions, borrow Conservative ideas, and then quietly undermine accountability in the fine print.
We will admit that this bill contains provisions that will genuinely help victims, provisions Conservatives have long supported, proposed, and defended in this House. However, it also contains structural changes that would weaken sentencing certainty, expand judicial discretion and erode Parliament's authority, all while violent crime continues to rise.
Make no mistake. Conservatives are ready to get to work, and we will work with the Liberals. They are more than welcome to take our ideas, as they already have, but Canadians deserve honesty, not more Liberal spin. We cannot claim to be tough on crime while systemically weakening consequences for the most serious crimes.
Where C-16 is grounded in reality rather than the same old Liberal ideology, it deserves some recognition. The creation of a Criminal Code offence targeting intimate partner violence is an important first step, because we know violence rarely begins with a single act. It begins with patterns like control, isolation, intimidation, surveillance and financial pressure, all designed to dominate another person. By recognizing this behaviour as criminal before physical violence occurs, the law can intervene earlier. This approach aligns with Conservative principles of protecting victims, taking threats seriously, and deterring violence before it escalates. If the Liberals are serious about addressing intimate partner violence, Conservatives stand ready to strengthen this provision, along with this bill, not just more Liberal announcements.
Much of what the government is now promoting as progress in Bill C-16 is, in fact, a long-standing Conservative policy. Let me start by saying that making the murder of an intimate partner automatically a first-degree offence was first advanced by the Conservative member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. Expanding protections against the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, like sexually explicit deepfakes, also came from Bill C-216, from the Conservative member for Calgary Nose Hill, which the Liberals expressed opposition to before they finally embraced it. Mandatory reporting of child sexual exploitation material was built on the laws enacted by the previous Conservative government.
We are glad that the Liberals have finally recognized the value of these Conservative proposals. They are welcome to take our ideas, because Canadians are safer every time they do so, but this record also exposes a contradiction that Canadians are noticing. If Conservatives were right about protecting victims, why does the government continue to be wrong on sentencing, bail and accountability?
This is at the heart of the problem with Bill C-16. Buried inside this omnibus bill is a so-called safety valve that would afford judges with significant discretion on sentencing for nearly every serious offence in the Criminal Code. We have seen how this has played out in several instances where the Liberals have enabled judges to give discounted sentences based on the race or immigration status of the accused. Parliament would explicitly authorize courts, because of Bill C-16, to impose sentences below mandatory minimum penalties whenever a judge concludes that applying the minimum would be cruel and unusual for that particular offender. That is not a narrow exception. It applies to nearly every mandatory minimum in the Criminal Code, excluding only murder and treason. In other words, judges could ignore mandatory sentences for crimes like various sexual offences, robbery with a firearm, weapons trafficking, child sexual abuse material offences, robbery and extortion.
We know that mandatory minimums exist for a reason. They ensure the uniform denunciation of serious crimes. They provide a predictable and baseline consequence for the most dangerous crimes. They provide deterrence and incapacitation of dangerous offenders.
Bill C-16 replaces legislative certainty with subjective offender-specific assessments, thereby fragmenting sentencing across cases, courts and jurisdictions. It is another example that the Liberals are putting criminals first. If a mandatory sentence could be ignored whenever a judge disagrees with Parliament, then Parliament would no longer be setting sentencing policy. Judges would still be left to fill the gap. That is not progress, as Liberals like to describe it; it would mean a quiet erosion of democratic accountability, leaving the criminal justice system unaccountable to the Canadian electorate. The result of this is that Canadians all across the country will live with rising violence, and victims will ultimately pay the price as mandatory minimums are not enforced.
We need to take a step back and look at how we got here. Perhaps the clearest measure of the government's priorities is what it has not done. It is impossible to ignore that it has been nine months since the last election, and still, in those nine months, despite daily headlines, police warnings and community fear, the government has delivered no meaningful bail reform to scrap the weak Liberal bail and no serious action targeting repeat violent offenders, and shown absolutely no urgency in restoring public safety.
Since the Liberal Prime Minister took office, not a single public safety bill has been passed so far, despite multiple attempts by Conservatives to make concrete proposals after months of work to fix the justice system that the Liberals broke in the first place. This has resulted in violent crime being up 55%, sexual assaults up nearly 76% and human trafficking up 84%. These are not just abstract statistics. Behind these numbers are victims, families and neighbourhoods that no longer feel safe all across the country because the Liberals set into motion this catch-and-release system not too long ago.
Police officers, prosecutors and premiers have all said the same thing, that the Liberal bail system, which they are responsible for, is now broken. Repeat violent offenders are being released again and again, sometimes within hours, only to offend again. What is even worse is that, instead of scrapping the weak Liberal bail and fixing the bail system for good, the government first focused its attention on Bill C-9 back in the fall, repealing long-standing and important Criminal Code safeguards that protect religious freedom made in good faith. Without these long-standing safeguards for individuals acting in good faith that is reasonable and without malicious intent, core freedoms are put at risk. The preaching of religious doctrine or the reading of sacred texts could be swept into criminal law if a government of the day deems it objectionable.
At the same time, the proposal introduces a vague and elastic definition of “hate”, one that invites abuse and risks criminalizing lawful expression that has always been protected in a free society. Fixing bail should come before policing beliefs, and protecting communities should come before restricting liberty. Conservatives will always defend freedom of religion and expression, especially when government overreach hides behind these so-called intentions.
Conservatives are not here to obstruct. We are here to stand ready to work with the Liberals to strengthen victim protections and scrap the weak Liberal bail system, which the Liberals set in motion. We are here to restore sentencing certainty, reassert Parliament's role and make communities safer. The Liberals are more than welcome to take our ideas, as they already have, if it delivers real results for Canadians, except we know the Liberals always water down our ideas and then take the credit for it. They are free to take the credit for it if it delivers for Canadians, but rhetoric must finally match reality.
Canadians do not want speeches, Canadians do not want photo ops or press releases, and they certainly do not need another public safety summit so the Liberal government can figure out what is wrong after 10 years. They want safety, they want accountability, they want action and they want a justice system that puts victims and law-abiding Canadians first. Conservatives stand ready to deliver that.
