Debates of April 16th, 2026

Strong and Free Elections Act

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his institutional knowledge, as I am a relatively new MP.

If the bill were to go back to committee, and if it were decided that some things were proven to be wrong, specifically the removal of the $1,000 deposit, would that be something we could put back in to help eliminate some of the problems we already have?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked a very common-sense question. Unfortunately the answer is that the window for the government to appeal the decision has already come and gone. Now we would have to use other mechanisms that would require us to basically say that Parliament is not going to listen to the courts, and we all know that this does not happen very often in Canada.

Instead we are going to look at other methods, such as making sure that nominees cannot sign more than one form for a candidate. We heard lots of different proposals, such as that a financial agent could not be the agent for more than one person in a particular constituency. I expect we are going to be in a tit-for-tat with the longest ballot committee for quite some time. As I mentioned in my comments, it is limelight seekers who are doing this. They think this is good fun and good sport.

Eventually, I think, we are going to have to come back to deal with this in a way that makes it so we protect the integrity of our system, but the Liberals are not there yet. They are going to run up costs and try to find every way possible to avoid recognizing the fact that they made a mistake in not appealing the court decision. Eventually we are going to have to get back to a place where something like that is looked at in order to prevent frivolous candidates from being involved, because that actually undermines the integrity of the system.

Every member of the House agrees that there should be as few barriers as possible to entering into the debate and to running for elected office in Canada. I do not think anybody disagrees with that, but if someone cannot find 100 people to sign their form and give them $10 each, there is a problem.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Ponoka—Didsbury's speech was inspiring. It is a pleasure serving with him on the committee that studied the bill.

We know that a foreign influence registry is going to be set up. We have appointed a commissioner for that now. I wonder if my colleague could comment on how viable that commission will be now that we have a Prime Minister who is willing to enter into a security-sharing agreement with the police authorities in Beijing, a regime that at one time he said was an existential threat to Canada's security.

How is that going to interplay with the foreign influence registry?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague is asking me to explain Liberal logic, and that is going to take a lot more than 45 seconds.

To circle that square is an amazing thing. My colleague is exactly right. The Prime Minister said that the greatest threat to Canada and its democracy was the PRC regime in China. However, we have seen him take the candidate from Markham—Unionville, immediately enter into this agreement, and call it a new world order, while at the same time the Liberals were dragging their heels on appointing the foreign registry commissioner. The commissioner has come before the committee and basically said that all he is going to do is put names on a list and watch them. I do not think that is going to do all the things we had hoped for, but it is a step in the right direction.

We are going to keep the pressure up because it is only Conservatives who actually care about the integrity of this institution and care about the values and the traditions Canada has. We are going to fight every day to maintain that here in Ottawa.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, Fisheries and Oceans; the hon. member for Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay; Mental Health and Addictions; the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Justice.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a privilege to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry in eastern Ontario. I am proud each time I have the opportunity to take the floor to share some perspectives on the issues before us here in the House of Commons.

Today we are dealing with an important piece of legislation, Bill C-25. I want to start with a bit of a backgrounder when it comes to amendments to the Canada Elections Act, my personal passion for it and why it is so important to get this right.

I have had the pleasure of serving in the House for just a little over six years and have been on one parliamentary committee. I am not on a committee right now, but I served on the PROC committee in a few different iterations in time. It has a longer title: the procedure and House affairs committee. It was a real opportunity to learn a lot about the democratic process. If Bill C-25 is successful at second reading, which I believe it will be, it will be referred to that committee for further study. It is where witnesses would come forward and where certain amendments could be made to further improve the legislation.

The PROC committee deals with the Canada Elections Act. I was involved in riding redistribution, which is an important part of our democratic process every 10 years. PROC deals as well with issues of foreign interference, which I will be talking about in my 20 minutes here on the floor today.

PROC also deals with the relationship with the Conflict of Interest Act for members to educate themselves on and abide by, the Ethics Commissioner, the lobbying commissioner, of course the administration of this wonderful place that we call the House of Commons, working with the Speaker and with the Board of Internal Economy to make sure that this place functions on a day-to-day basis so we can do what is most important in our jobs: represent our constituents from 343 ridings all across the country.

Election legislation and getting it right is also a bit of a personal passion of mine. By way of background, again, I have participated in this myself. I will be 39 years old this year, but I have been in elected office for 20 years, which is kind of hard to believe. I started off at the ripe young age of 18 in my first election. I say I was broken in gently into politics. I ran in three municipal elections, so I am very familiar with that process, having been a candidate in 2006, 2010 and 2014, and also with the important work it takes from the clerks of the municipality.

In my case, it was in the Township of North Dundas, which was under the service at the time of the now retired clerk, Jo-Anne McCaslin. I have a real appreciation and respect for the people at the local level. Actually, at the municipal level, believe it or not, there is phone and Internet voting. There are no paper ballots available in the municipality of North Dundas. It has done it through online or telephone voting, which increased participation in municipal elections and was effective in doing that.

I have also had the honour of being a candidate on a ballot three times at the federal level, in 2019, 2021 and 2025. With respect to the legislation before us, being a candidate is important. I valued being nominated as a Conservative candidate in Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry.

Actually, one of the best experiences I had for understanding our Elections Act and the workings of Elections Canada was serving as a campaign manager, which I had the honour of doing six times. I was campaign manager three times provincially for my good friend and former provincial colleague, Jim McDonnell, who is now happily retired in Williamstown, and I had the honour of serving as campaign manager three times for my predecessor, Guy Lauzon, in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, as it was known at the time.

Serving as a campaign manager gave me a great opportunity to work with the local returning office and the official agent, or chief financial officer, call it what we will, for the campaign process. Being involved in our electoral district association helped me understand the local aspect of politics and working with volunteers to bring a campaign together.

It is absolutely essential we get the legislation right. It is a bill about the Canada Elections Act, a piece of legislation that is now nearly 26 years old. It does need some modernization to keep up with the times. As we talk about ballot integrity, the threat of foreign interference and the roles of new technologies and the challenges those bring in terms of security for our democratic process, it is absolutely vital that we get it right. There is an internal dynamic to getting this right that we are responsible for in the House, as well as providing the proper resources and legislation to Elections Canada, from its CEO right down to the frontline poll workers.

As Canadians go into the voting booth, we want to make sure that we provide a process and resources that make it as smooth and as easy as possible to vote, so that when a Canadian goes in, there are poll workers there, the ballot process is fair and there is an integrity to the process so that Canadians can have confidence, and they should, at the federal level in Canada. We have a nationalized election system that has paper ballots. They are done the old-fashioned way, the way I like it. On election night, in tens of thousands of polling locations across the country, with tens of thousands of workers, those ballot boxes are opened and advance poll votes are counted by hand on paper, the way it should be at the federal level. This ensures a smooth process, but a lot of work goes into that process, into the experience that the elector has when they walk into a voting location of having a smooth process. There is also the stuff behind the scenes, and the political financing that we have in this country. It is important to get it right and make sure that we have that.

We owe a great deal of gratitude to the poll workers who step up in every one of our communities and ridings across the country. From those who serve at the local polling station on election day or in an advance poll, to the staff who work at the local returning office in 343 ridings across the country, they have a very difficult and intense job to do. It is intense in the fact that they have to ramp up and conduct an election. Elections can be longer, but most have typically been 36 days. Sometimes, depending on the scenario and the setup, there has been a runway or a ramp-up to let people know to expect an election, but in the business we are in, we could have a snap election called at any time over the course of a mandate, so we have poll workers, staff and returning officers in our communities who could ramp up and do a very intense job in a short period of time.

They have to ramp up and get a returning office. They have to staff up that office. They have to recruit hundreds and hundreds of advance poll and election day workers: not only recruit them, but train them, do the HR for all those processes and make sure they are equipped with the skills needed to have a smooth voting process. They have to take the nominations in for local candidates and go through and vet the signatures for nominations that go through, and then there is the post-election vote validation process. To do all of that in 36 days, which is generally the election period, and to do it times 343 ridings across the country, is quite the job.

The geography of our country makes the job even more unique in the need to get it right. I have been interested in this, in my time on the procedure and House affairs committee, when we studied reports of by-elections, general elections and the election process. What is difficult to do, in a country as vast as ours, is to not have the process be too cookie-cutter. We need to have regulation and we need to have structure, but we also need to make sure we understand the difference between ridings. Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry is a rural riding, but not as rural and remote as, for example, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories or Yukon. We then go all the way to, for example, Ottawa Centre or Vancouver Centre. We have some ridings that are a couple of square kilometres, and in some cases a riding is thousands of square kilometres. That is the geography of administering an election. The returning offices, the staff, the training, the distribution of ballots, all of these issues continue to come up, and we need to work on that to make sure that Elections Canada can give that feedback to the procedure and House affairs committee, give it back to us as parliamentarians, about the important work they do and what we need to do.

I just want to make a note as we talk about this legislation. I want to put this on the record, and, again, this is getting a bit nerdy in my personal passion. It is about what is not in this legislation, which has been proposed in previous attempts by the government and has been discussed as we look at ways of improving the voting process for Canadians. One thing that was not put in this piece of legislation is a change to the advance poll days and the number of hours for advance polls.

Why am I mentioning something that is not in the bill? Frankly, I am glad that it is not. Sometimes something looks good on paper, related to improving the democratic process, but there is an old saying that it does not matter how flat one makes a pancake; there are still two sides to it. There has been a push to increase the number of advance polling days, for example, when electors can cast their ballots in advance of election day. While on paper it sounds good to add a day or two or three to give Canadians more days to do it, it would come with logistical challenges that I have raised before at committee and will continue to raise. I am not saying I am completely opposed to any increase, do not get me wrong, but we have to make sure we hear from Elections Canada staff about the ability to do two things.

One is the ability to recruit workers. If we were to go from three or four days to six days of advance polls, we would have to have that same team working up to 10 hours a day. It is not just the hours that the polls are open. They need to report half an hour to an hour before. They are often there 15 minutes to half an hour after shutting down the location, driving back home, getting up the next morning and driving back to their polling location. I talked about rural and remote ridings, and some of those are very difficult to access and find workers for. To find somebody who is willing to give up three straight days for an advance poll is one thing. To have them give up four or six straight days, we would run into the ability to recruit effectively the number of staff, the tens of thousands of Canadians, who are needed to step forward to work for Elections Canada in these roles. That can be an unintended consequence.

The second thing, which can be difficult as well, and why I am glad changes to advance polls have not been made at this time, is the ability to secure venues. In those longer ranges of time, there may be other bookings at those church halls, community halls, schools, wherever the locations may be. We may feel it is great that we have added x number of days, but at the end of the day, what happens, particularly in rural communities, in my experience, is that driving to a local venue can take 10 or 15 minutes, but when one in a rural community is not available and people have to drive another 15 or 20 minutes, that starts to disenfranchise voters from casting a ballot.

We can say we mean well by adding more days, but all of a sudden, certain venues are not available, and we are actually making it more difficult for people to vote because Elections Canada cannot recruit enough staff, as I mentioned, or the closest regular voting locations may be not be available because of the increased period.

I apologize for the technicality on this issue, but I wanted to put that in Hansard and note my concern. Again, I am not opposed to increasing it in the future, but it certainly warrants more conversation. I am glad to see, as we debate the legislation before us, that it is not included at this time.

In this piece of legislation to amend the Canada Elections Act, there are various amendments and additions that would modernize several aspects. As mentioned, several of my Conservative colleagues here today are in support of this bill moving to the PROC committee for further study and to continue discussions on this. I will say, frankly, that Bill C-25 is a big improvement to changes to the Canada Elections Act compared with the last attempt, in Bill C-65.

Members may not remember from the last Parliament what Bill C-65 was by its number. It was the NDP-Liberal pension protection act. In the midst of a variety of changes the government was proposing in its coalition with the NDP, the Liberals were caught blatantly trying to benefit themselves by pushing the election day back a couple of weeks. For those who might lose out on having their pension vested by a couple of days, they moved it back. It was a very selfish move on their part, one that rightfully did not resonate with Canadians very well. That bill, thankfully, did not advance. It died on the Order Paper when the last election was called. It was not a serious attempt by the Liberals and, at that time, their coalition partners, the New Democrats, to meaningfully, respectfully and with integrity make the various amendments and additions to the Canada Elections Act that are needed.

There are several provisions in here that we can get behind. For example, there are new offences that would be added to this legislation. Before, there were no specific offences in the Canada Elections Act for intentionally spreading false election information, tampering with election computer systems, or using AI and deepfakes to impersonate. Now all three of those would be criminal offences. We have also added an extraterritorial application, so offences committed outside Canada would be captured and charges could be pursued in the event of nefarious actions by players outside Canada.

Anonymous contributions would be banned. Before, cryptocurrency, money orders and prepaid payment products were permissible methods to make a donation to political entities or third parties. This loophole has now been closed. All three would be prohibited as contribution methods, closing anonymous and hard-to-trace funding channels.

There would be changes to personal information disclosures. One of the things I did not know, until the suggestion came up to change it, was that returning officers' full home addresses were published in the Canada Gazette. Preliminary voters lists were distributed broadly to any party that requested them. Now, the listed address for the returning officer would be limited to the municipality and province. Voters lists would be restricted to qualifying parties only, namely those with House representation, those with prior candidates running again or those that had candidates in two-thirds of ridings in the last election. This is to make sure that data and that information would be protected as much as possible.

On foreign interference, here is an interesting thing we talked about. To combat foreign interference, third parties were banned from using foreign contributions for regulated activities, but they were not banned from making those contributions. Leadership contests had no foreign funding restrictions. In the legislation we have before us, foreign entities would now be banned from contributing to third parties at all. Foreign funding would be banned from leadership contests, and foreign corporate activity would be more broadly captured, regardless of where it occurred.

The most important piece of this proposed legislation is the attempts made to address the longest ballot committee's nefarious efforts to cause chaos and confusion in our ballots and in our democratic process. We saw this in the riding of Carleton in the last election. We saw it in the Battle River—Crowfoot by-election. We just saw it in the by-election in Terrebonne. These were attempts by a small group pretending to protest. These were not protests. They were an abuse of the democratic tools that we have in this country.

The longest ballot committee would get people to go in, the same 100 people, to sign 100 people's nomination papers, and one person would serve as a financial agent for every single one of those people. All of a sudden, we would have a ballot that was three, four or five feet long with 100 candidates on it. This was an absolute disrespect of our democratic process. It was not a protest. It was done to cause chaos and confusion and disenfranchise voters from the process.

We have an amendment now. I am glad to see that the Liberals have agreed with our call and have included in this proposed legislation that one person can only sign the nomination papers for one candidate in that riding. A person can only serve as official agent for one campaign. These changes would be put in to ensure that candidates on ballots are serious candidates, and are not just doing it for some form of political protest, causing a ballot to be cancelled and the name needing to be written in, or creating a ballot that is four feet long, as we saw in the last election. This not what Canadians want. They do not want a joke made of the democratic process. They want it to be respected. This specific change to ballot integrity, I believe, will go a long way.

I will wrap up my comments just by saying it is important that we see this legislation advance to committee for further study and debate. I look forward to hearing those contributions from my colleagues on this legislation and others. I think it is vitally important that we get our Canada Elections Act right so Canadians can have full confidence in our electoral system.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member told the House he is 39 years old. Based on my math, with 20 years in public service, that is more than half a lifetime already. I congratulate him on the work that he has done both here in the House of Commons and in municipal forums as well.

I agree with a lot of what the member talked about, particularly the work in this bill on extending foreign interference concerns into nominations and leadership, where the Elections Act had previously not been, and some of the work on returning officers and their privacy.

Political fundraising is an important aspect of democracy as well, so all parties have the resources to be able to contribute in this place. Whether it is in Kings—Hants or elsewhere in the country, people want to step up, and sometimes they want to be involved with registered events. I have seen increasing activism around that, particularly around the idea that political parties have to give five days' notice of the location of these public events.

I wonder if the member would agree that it is a reasonable step to protect participation and try to avoid the manifestation of unreasonable protests with transparency still in place.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the backgrounder on that.

It is important that when we go to the procedure and House affairs committee after second reading, as the legislation I believe will advance through the House to that process, that we look at that, because there is always this balance, as my colleague alluded to. There are several changes in the bill to protect the home addresses of returning officers, for example, in the Canada Gazette, as well as making sure there is privacy and security when it comes to safely going through, maybe it is for a fundraiser, a political process to do all of that. I will let my colleagues on the procedure and House affairs committee listen to some of the witness testimony that may come forward on that.

However, I am certainly open to making sure that we balance the privacy versus the transparency aspect in the legislation. Sometimes it can be a delicate balance, but I look forward to the debates and discussions on that.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's attention to detail. I have attended several meetings of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with him.

I have a question for him. What about public funding for parties? The goal is to promote fairness, justice and democracy. Clearly, one of the things that public funding does is reduce the number of friends and loved ones with deep pockets.

That is what was done in Quebec. The donation limit was lowered to $100 a year, regardless of how much each individual can afford to give, and the limit goes up to $200 during an election year.

In 2011, the Conservatives eliminated the per-vote subsidy. Basically, to compensate the parties, the allowable amount was increased. This amount is now more than $1,780. It must be even higher, in fact, and honestly, it is really unfair.

Would my colleague be willing to revisit the idea of a limit of $500 per person, for example? How about that? This is a topic that will likely be discussed at committee.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc, who I did serve with on the procedure and House affairs committee. I will say that, frankly, returning to the per-vote subsidy is not an issue that I find I am in agreement with her on.

There are a couple of things to note that I think are important when it comes to political financing. Businesses, corporations and unions are barred from making donations to riding associations and political campaigns, which I think is the right decision. Donations are also capped at, I believe, $1,725 per year. It might be $1,750 if I missed the increase, or that will be coming up next year. I think that is a very reasonable number.

We are not seeing, in contrast to the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries, donations of tens of thousands of dollars being used by businesses and wealthy people to influence the political process. Barring businesses, corporations and unions, and having only individual Canadians contribute up to a maximum of about $1,700 a year, is very reasonable. The tax credits that are provided to Canadians for making donations are generous but reasonable and are another incentive for people to make those donations.

I believe that part of the democratic process is going out, fundraising and doing all of that, using those tools within reason. It is not going out and getting tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars in donations from individual people or corporations. It is getting from individuals, through the democratic process, $25, $50 or $100, which helps create the viability and momentum of the grassroots aspect of our democracy.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech on Bill C-25, the strong and free elections act. He mentioned our former colleague, Kenny Chiu, who was elected at the same time as the two of us in 2019. He introduced a foreign influence registry private member's bill, something that the Liberal government should have done but failed to do.

Madam Justice Hogue noted in her report that this was one of the reasons why Mr. Chiu may have lost his election, because of the foreign interference that followed, in the Chinese language on social media to people in his riding, criticizing him unfairly for introducing this private member's bill. I wonder if my colleague could comment on that.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly miss having Kenny in the House. He was a great colleague, like my colleague who just asked the question, from the class of 2019.

Actions and circumstances of foreign interference were concluded to have taken place in several different forms by many. It is absolutely appropriate to have a foreign agent registry in this country. It was an effort that Kenny was very vocal on, and rightfully so. It is something the Liberals are dragging their feet on introducing. It has been several years since they promised one, and they are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the process. We are still not seeing that fully enacted.

The sooner that could get done, the better for our democracy. I look forward to seeing it ASAP.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, during the last election, I noticed this increasingly, with the way in which political commentary is happening online, on social media, Facebook, Instagram and a whole host of different mechanisms, including TikTok in some cases.

We see the rise of artificial intelligence in society writ large. AI can have the benefit of creating good in the world, but if wrong actors are trying to misinform the public about what is and is not true, it can also have the ability to deliberately sway or have an impact on elections. There is a provision about creating an offence for digital impersonations and provisions for AI deepfakes.

I am wondering if the member has any thoughts about this. Beyond the provisions of what is in the act, what are the member's thoughts or commentary on whether he has picked up on the same thing and has started to see a rise in certain actors, perhaps trying to manipulate at a local level, what is and what is not true?

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will say that, although it is a very serious issue, the way some of the memes and videos can be created with it is amazing. Sometimes it is humorous, but in respect to this legislation, it is very serious and we do need to tackle this.

What is important to note in this, from my understanding of the legislation and the way that I read it, is that it is about deliberately misleading and giving false election information. Now, that is not going to limit the free speech of someone saying that a Conservative government would do X to reduce crime or a Liberal member saying that is false information. I do not believe it is going to do that. That is not what we are talking about.

What we are talking about is a situation to make sure that we have very clear laws that state someone cannot use AI or a deepfake to pretend that they are a returning officer or a candidate saying that the voting location at the Ramada Inn has been cancelled today and is now over at this spot, or giving wrong information along those ends.

It is very important, not only with AI and deepfakes but also with people using social media to abuse or confuse electors, that we make sure that anybody who does that type of activity is charged and convicted. We need to make sure the proper legislation is in place to allow those convictions to take place.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member brought up AI in reference to our elections. Canada is so far behind in data centres and AI. It is becoming a bigger issue in the House of Commons.

How much more work does the member think we have to do, with the technologies already in place, in places like China, that are interfering with our elections?

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that AI is a major challenge. We are behind the eight ball and playing catch-up on that issue, as we are playing catch-up on foreign interference as well. These are major issues that we need to address.

A criticism of the current Liberal government right now, and a concern that has been raised many times today, is that, on the Prime Minister's recent visit to China, he was signing a security agreement with the PRC's Ministry of Public Security to share information. That is a real challenge. It is going in the wrong direction. I know there will be a lot more discussion on that in the coming weeks and months.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating the strong and free elections act, Bill C-25, the government's response to several recent developments, both local and international, that have challenged the integrity of and public confidence in one of our most important democratic institutions, our elections.

After the 2021 election, the federal government appointed the Hon. Marie-Josée Hogue as commissioner for the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions. It is a very long name and also a very long report of seven or eight volumes. The commissioner's final report came out on January 28, 2025, about 14 months ago. I am going to read a couple of quotations from the report because they set the context for what this proposed legislation is all about. This is what she had to say at page 3 of her report:

The first observation I would like to make from the evidence is that it is true that some foreign states are trying to interfere in our democratic institutions, including electoral processes. This is nothing new and comes as no surprise—states have been trying to interfere with each other’s business since time immemorial. What is new, however, is the means deployed by these states, the apparent scale of the issue and the public discourse on the topic.

Members can think about it. We have been talking about AI. We have been talking about the influence of social media on people and the ease of spreading misinformation and disinformation. All of that is affecting our democratic institutions. Today, we were talking about our Canada Elections Act.

In anticipation of the commissioner's conclusion at the end of seven or eight volumes, she wrote this at page 15: “I have found no evidence that the overall result of any election has been swung by a foreign actor and have identified only a small number of individual ridings where foreign interference may have had some impact.”

Reading between the lines, the report says that, with or without foreign interference in the 2019 election, we would have had a minority Liberal government under the leadership of then prime minister Trudeau, and we would have had the Conservatives being in the opposition with the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who was the leader of the Conservative Party, as the Leader of the Opposition. That would have been the result, and I believe that is what Madam Justice Hogue meant by saying that she saw no impact on the overall result of that election.

It was the same in 2021. With or without foreign interference in Canada's 2021 general election, we were going to have the Liberal minority government under then prime minister Justin Trudeau, and the Conservative opposition, with Erin O'Toole as the Leader of the Opposition.

I accept Justice Hogue's findings that, in those two elections, Canadians got both the government and the opposition that they chose, but I note that her report also says this, which is highly important in the debate going on today: “I...have identified only a small number of individual ridings where foreign interference may have had some impact.”

Therefore, at the macro level, Canadians got the government they chose, but at the local level, maybe they did not get the MP that the majority of people had actually wanted due to foreign interference in our electoral system. That is what we take out of this report.

Justice Hogue drills down and looks at the riding of Steveston—Richmond East. We were talking about that just a couple of minutes ago in debate. This is what the Hogue report says at page 33: “In 2021, Mr. Chiu, the Conservative Party MP for Steveston—Richmond East, was the target of false narratives related to his proposal to implement a foreign influence registry.”

If I have some time at the end, I will talk a bit more about the history behind the foreign influence registry, but for now, I am just going to continue with the Hogue report. It goes on to note that Mr. Chiu and the Conservative Party of Canada requested, very shortly after the election, that these issues be brought to CSIS.

CSIS took on the investigation, but it did not get back to Mr. Chiu and the Conservative Party until almost two years later in the fall of 2023, and then only after media reporting about alleged leaks of the CSIS intelligence report. CSIS dropped the ball. Did it do good work? It probably did, but it was just too late. It was delayed, and it did not keep Mr. Chiu and his party in the loop.

However, this story is not primarily about Mr. Chiu, my friend and colleague, and it is not primarily about the people of Steveston—Richmond East, although they are obviously players in the whole story. This is a story about the Canadian public and our confidence, or lack thereof, in our electoral system.

Justice Hogue did not pull any punches when criticizing the government's slow and inadequate response to these allegations. She stated, “I could not fulfill my mandate to help build public confidence in our democratic institutions if I minimized the ways in which efforts have come up short.” She was very critical of the government. She went on to list some of these shortfalls. There was slow reaction to issues that were very urgent and very serious and should have been given a much higher level of attention. There was the failure to get information to the right decision-makers and policy-makers, and when the information finally did get to those decision-makers and policy-makers, they did not know what to do with it. They did not appreciate the seriousness of it. This was obviously under the guidance and inspiration of the Liberal government that, at that time, was not taking foreign interference as a serious issue. Also, there was a lack of coordination. There was confusion about the roles and accountabilities. However, in the end, she summed it up with rather a positive tone. She said, “However, on the whole, I am satisfied that the government now appreciates the foreign interference threat that Canada faces and is serious about responding to it.”

It was 15 months ago that Justice Hogue wrote that, and here we are, finally, in the next Parliament, acting on it with the proposed strong and free elections act. It is a step in the right direction. We are going to support it to go to committee where I look forward to drilling down to see that it truly answers the legitimate concerns that have been raised in this report that Canadians have about the integrity of our democratic institutions.

Here is one more quote from the Hogue report that I think sums it up nicely:

Foreign interference—and our fear of foreign interference—has taken its toll. For some, their faith in our system has been challenged. I hope that for those who take the time to read this report, what they learn—what I have learned—will not only enhance their understanding of the foreign interference threat but also go some distance in rebuilding the confidence and trust in our democracy.

I hope indeed that Bill C-25 will do exactly that, and that it will go some distance in rebuilding the lagging confidence that so many Canadians have in our democratic institutions.

I would note that, in the last election, the voter turnout of younger people increased, and so that is a reason for optimism. A larger number of first-time voters came out, and once people vote the first time, they are probably going to vote in subsequent elections. Perhaps that curve is going in the right direction. However, unfortunately, overall, election turnout has not been particularly good. How much of that is tied to Canadians' skepticism about the integrity of our electoral system?

I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks that the bill before us is a response not only to international affairs, which I think I talked about quite adequately, but also some local issues that have developed right here in Canada. In the last few general elections and by-elections, a group of local troublemakers or pranksters have interfered with our elections. They call themselves the “longest ballot committee”. We have all heard of their tactics, most recently in the by-election in Terrebonne. They find loopholes in our election act that allow them to nominate large numbers of people, sometimes in the hundreds, to run in a specific riding. They present themselves as being on a noble quest of wanting to initiate a citizens' forum, as they call it, to review our age-old first-past-the-post electoral system, which they do not like. They found a number of loopholes.

One of the participants actually appeared as a witness at the procedure and House affairs committee a couple of months ago. What they have discovered is that, under the current Canada Elections Act, they can have the same 100 people sign 100 or even 200 nomination forms, nominating 200 different people. They can have the same person acting as a financial agent for all 200 or 100 or however many people they manage to get on the ballot. We want to shut that down. We are saying that this is inappropriate.

I want to go back to their comments about wanting a citizens' forum. I can say that, being a British Columbian, I have some experience with that. We have had quite a lot of experience with citizens' forums and citizens' institutions. Over the years, I think we have had two or three of them.

These were groups of responsible people coming together, appointed by the government, to have an intelligent and high-level discussion to review our electoral system, and to possibly come up with options with regard to the first-past-the-post system, which, over the years, has been challenged many times. The citizens' forum put the options to the voters in British Columbia on at least two occasions. Both times, citizens, after looking at it, studying it, trying their best to understand how the different options would work, said that they were comfortable with the first-past-the-post system and that they wanted to keep it.

The pranksters behind the longest ballot committee are very aware of this history. We put it to them. They know it. They knew that if they were to go through that process again, a rational process, a legal process supported by the government, they would be unsuccessful. They thought they would try something else, guerrilla war tactics, instead. That is what they are doing. They are not serious. They know that they will not succeed. They know that this is nothing more than a stunt that is making people angry. They must be stopped. That is what the bill would do.

I am happy to see that the drafters of the legislation have picked up the recommendations of the procedure and House affairs committee by implementing a couple of very important changes. There would now be a prohibition on a person signing nomination papers of more than one prospective candidate. There would be another prohibition on a person acting as an official agent for more than one candidate in the same electoral district.

We looked at this very carefully. We listened to experts. We wanted to be as flexible as possible.

We recognize that Canadians have a constitutional right, protected by section 3 in the charter, to be fully involved, in an unrestricted manner, in our electoral system. We want to encourage people to put their name forward and to be candidates. We want to encourage people to run as independents. One does not have to run for a political party. One does not need the endorsement of a party. Someone can just go out, be an independent candidate and get all their friends out to listen to them at the debate. This is all good for democracy.

We did not want to stand in the way of that. We made this as permissive as possible, and I am happy to see that the government has actually picked up on this. We heard from legal experts that these restrictions are reasonable limitations on Canadians' charter-protected rights to participate fully in the democratic process.

I agree that we need to put an end to the nonsense of the longest ballot committee. I also agree that these changes that we are proposing and which have found their way into Bill C-25 are reasonable and supportable. I want to send this to committee now for a further drill-down, to make sure that they actually would withstand the charter challenge and that they would provide the guidance that people need when they decide to get involved in the democratic process.

I want to go back to my comments about the foreign influence registry. Our former colleague from Richmond East—Steveston introduced a private member's bill. I remember him asking why the government side of the House was not doing this. Many other western democracies have implemented and set up and authorized a foreign influence registry. It is not only China or Beijing but there are other countries as well that like to interfere in western democracies.

Our trading nations, our fellow Westerners, have set up foreign influence registries. Why have we not done that? I believe it is because the Liberal government was not taking it seriously. It certainly was not at that time. Mr. Chiu took the brave step to introduce a private member's bill. I am going to go back to what Madam Justice Hogue said:

In 2021, Mr. Chiu, the Conservative Party MP for Steveston-Richmond East, was the target of false narratives related to his proposal to implement a foreign influence registry.

He was doing the work that the government should have been doing and he paid the price for it. I was very disappointed at the time. I still feel sad when I think about Mr. Chiu not being our colleague right now.

I just want to underline that this bill is a step in the right direction. Much of it is supportable. In some things, it does not go far enough. In some things, I think it requires a further drill-down at the committee to ensure the proposals are actually going to meet their objectives. Certainly, we need to also hear from experts to ensure that it can withstand any sorts of challenges in court or challenges by people who want to find loopholes to get around them and find ways to interfere with our democratic institutions. That is what this bill is all about. We want to stop that.

We want to support our democratic institutions. We want to support our free and fair elections. We want to ensure that Canadians are getting the government that they deserve and that they voted for. We want to ensure that Canadians are getting the local member of Parliament they want to choose and whom the majority are behind.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for his thoughts in more detail about why the government has failed to enact the foreign registry. The government outlined during debates in the last Parliament that it was an important and necessary tool. It was partly in response to the Hogue commission, yet here we are. On three or four occasions, the government changed the timeline. Why is it being so slow to act on something that is so important?

I also mention this in the context of the new security agreement the government just signed with China. How can we, as parliamentarians, be confident in the approach taken with a foreign government that the Hogue commission outlined as the greatest threat to Canadian democracy and with the new security agreement, when the government has not not enacted the foreign registry to date?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my next-door neighbour, the member for Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford for a very thoughtful question. Indeed, there have been delays. The member asked me why the Liberal government has delayed that. I do not know. He would probably have to ask someone in of the Liberal government. I know he did not expect me to actually have an answer to that.

However, this is the good news. We have now appointed Anton Boegman, the former chief electoral officer of British Columbia, to be the commissioner of the foreign influence registry. His job, number one, is now going to be to set up the registry. He came to our committee. We are optimistic that his appointment will actually be a meaningful one.

However, my colleague raised a very interesting point. In light of the Prime Minister signing this security agreement with China, the greatest threat to our democracy, I wonder how effective the registry is actually going to be.

The House resumed from November 3, 2025, consideration of the motion that Bill C-238, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (restitution orders), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal Code

[Shannon Miedema, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to rise today and speak about Bill C-238, an act to amend the Criminal Code, restitution orders.

I would like to begin by thanking my colleague for bringing forward this bill and for drawing attention to the important work that community organizations, emergency services and victim support services provide to communities across Canada every single day. Often, these organizations provide vital services to victims of crime at moments when help is critically important.

We speak frequently in this place about how the criminal justice system is a shared responsibility in Canada and all levels of government have an important role to play in addressing the needs of victims and survivors of crime. As the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights noted during the last Parliament in its report on improving support for victims of crime, “collaboration between governments and community organizations is key to providing holistic, effective services to victims”.

I know I speak for many Canadians when I express my sincere gratitude for the constant efforts of the people who work in these organizations and their dedication to assist members of their communities when they need it the most.

I also share my colleague's concern about the catastrophic impact of illicit drugs on Canadian communities. I have no doubt that every one of my colleagues here has personally witnessed the consequences of this crisis in their communities across the country. We must all work together to fix this.

While there remains much work to be done, I do wish to highlight that the Government of Canada is taking action. As one example, the government has already introduced legislation, through Bill C-12, the strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act. This bill proposes measures to ensure that law enforcement has the tools to keep our borders secure, combat transnational organized crime, stop the flow of illegal fentanyl and crack down on money laundering. While this is not an easy fight, it is one that I am proud the Government of Canada is committed to.

My hope today is to assist our debate by discussing the way the current restitution framework in the Criminal Code operates and by raising some considerations that may be helpful for members to consider as this bill moves into study in committee.

To begin, restitution is a part of the criminal sentencing process. It is one of the tools a judge has in their tool box when sentencing or discharging an offender, and it is something that a judge can use in the important task of imposing a fit sentence on an offender that is proportionate to the gravity of the offence and their degree of responsibility. When it is ordered by a judge, a restitution order requires an offender to pay for specific expenses that are linked to the offence they committed. Restitution can be a component of a probation order or a conditional sentence, or it can be included as a stand-alone order.

Bill C-238 would amend the stand-alone restitution order provision found in section 738 of the Criminal Code. As it currently reads, section 738 outlines several different types of expenses that an order under that section can apply to. Some of the expenses listed in this section are more general and apply to a number of different offences in the Criminal Code, while others are drafted to respond to specific offences. As examples of the more general types of expenses in the section, a restitution order under section 738 can address property damage resulting from the commission of an offence or the arrest of an offender, or it can address bodily injury or psychological harm due to the crime, including loss of income or support.

Section 738 also covers costs related to specific crimes. It allows for the payment of reasonable expenses incurred for housing, moving, food, child care and transportation if the spouse, common-law partner, child or any other person must move out of the offender's household because of bodily harm or threat of bodily harm. It allows for the reimbursement of expenses incurred by a victim to re-establish their identity or correct their credit rating following identity theft or identity fraud. Lastly, section 738 applies to expenses incurred by victims to remove intimate images published without their consent from the Internet or other digital network.

While I have spoken to what restitution orders under section 738 can do, it is important to note that there are also things they cannot do. I mentioned earlier in my remarks that restitution orders are a part of the criminal sentencing process. In all of the examples I have described, the amount set out in a restitution order must result from the offence the offender committed, or their arrest or attempted arrest. Restitution amounts must be easy to calculate and not seriously contested.

Restitution under the Criminal Code is not intended to replace the system of civil courts in Canada, and criminal courts are not the right place to settle complex questions about the amount of money that should be paid in the order. There are types of impacts on a victim of a criminal offence that can be significant, but which restitution orders cannot address: for example, pain and suffering or emotional distress.

With this in mind, we should consider, as we study this bill, which kinds of expenses restitution is designed to capture. Many of the expenses that community organizations must pay in order to provide the important services they do may be impossible to link to specific offenders and offences. It will be important to ensure that any action in this area provides a clear direction to sentencing courts about what kinds of expenses can be sought in a restitution order: that those expenses are appropriate subjects of restitution and that they result from the offence an offender is being sentenced for.

While the subject of this bill is restitution orders, given our discussion about the important work of community organizations, I would also like to take a brief moment before my time is up to note some of the ways in which the Government of Canada supports community organizations, including community-based victim services.

One example of how this support is provided is Justice Canada's victims fund. The victims fund provides grants and contributions to support projects and activities that encourage the development of new approaches, promote access to justice, improve the capacity of service providers, foster the establishment of referral networks and increase awareness of services available to victims of crime and their families. In 2025-26, over $24 million was provided through the victims fund to assist or support non-governmental organizations. This money supported important projects and services throughout Canada that made a real difference for victims.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this bill, and I look forward to the committee's consideration of it.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-238, a bill that attempts to address a very real and serious issue in our country, the issue of growing crime in our communities.

Let me be clear. The intent behind this bill is understandable. Across Canada, frontline organizations are carrying an enormous burden, shelters are overwhelmed, hospitals are dealing with constant overdose cases, first responders are stretched thin and victim support organizations are under pressure like never before. These are the people who show up when everything is falling apart, and they are paying a price for crime.

The bill is attempting to respond to this reality by allowing courts to order offenders involved in human and drug trafficking to pay restitution to community organizations. On its face, this is reasonable. If crime creates costs, offenders should help pay the cost. However, as someone who practised law before coming to this House, I understand that just because something sounds good, it does not always work in practice. Unfortunately, I do not believe this bill would work in practice.

The first fundamental problem is causation. We cannot just point to a harm and say who should pay. The basic legal standard is it must be proven that a specific individual caused a specific loss. This bill would be asking the courts to do something extremely difficult: to take broad system-wide costs, like shelter demand and harm reduction services, and tie them to a single offender; to decide which dealer caused the overdose that required opioid overdose reversals like Narcan; or to decide which individual caused the need for shelter security upgrades. These are not simple questions and in many cases they cannot be answered in a way that meets required legal standards. If it cannot be proven, then this bill simply will not deliver.

The second problem is enforceability. Let us say the courts do establish causation. There is the question of whether the money can even be collected. The reality is the vast majority of offenders pertaining to this bill would not have the means to pay, with no assets, no steady incomes and likely facing significant sentences. What would happen? Courts would issue restitution that exists on paper, but not in reality, not collected, not enforced and providing no meaningful support to those community organizations. We would be left with only the illusion of accountability.

The third issue is the impact on our justice system. The courts are already under strain, dealing with delays, backlogs and increasing pressure on judges, prosecutors and defence counsel. The bill would add another layer of complexity at the sentencing stage. To determine restitution, courts would need detailed financial records, documentation of expenses, witnesses to establish those costs, arguments over whether those costs were caused by a specific offender and so on. What would this really mean? It would mean more time, more paperwork and more delay. The result would be a system that moves even slower at a time when Canadians are already losing confidence in it.

There would also be a practical burden falling on the organizations this bill is supposed to help. To access restitution, they would need to track expenses in detail, link those expenses to specific incidents, prepare documentation for court and participate in legal proceedings. That is more administration work, more time spent in courts and more sources diverted from frontline work.

Most smaller organizations will not have the capacity to do such things. If they do go ahead with it, we go back to the issue of enforceability. Will they even get any money? Are the court resources used not overwhelmingly more expensive than the damages?

Let us talk about this crime crisis briefly. It is a crisis we are dealing with right now in communities across the country, including Edmonton. In Edmonton, we are seeing the impact of crime and addiction every single day. We see rising drug use on the streets. We see increased overdoses on deadly street drugs, and we see immense pressure on shelters and emergency services.

Organized criminal activity is becoming more viable and more aggressive. Extortion is a huge issue in my riding, and I hear constantly of cases from my constituents. Small business owners are being targeted, especially through WhatsApp. They are being threatened, intimidated and told to pay or face consequences. These are people who have worked hard to build something and are being forced to live in fear. When they look at the justice system, they are not looking for symbolic restitution orders years down the line. They are asking for protection, for enforcement and for a system that actually stops the people causing the harm. This is where we need to focus, because accountability is not about new processes that look good on paper. It is about outcomes. It is about strengthening and enforcing laws.

This is where the Liberals have failed. They have failed to stop repeat offenders who are committing most of the crime. They have created an in-and-out bail system that puts criminals back on the street. They have relaxed sentencing laws, making it difficult for people to go to jail. They give violent criminals house arrest and no punishment. They have grown the addiction crisis and have focused on safe supply instead of getting people off drugs. Instead of doing the real work, they are pushing legislation that just looks good and does nothing to solve the real issues. This bill is a prime example. We all agree that communities are paying the price for crime. We all agree that frontline organizations deserve support, but good intentions are not enough. If a law cannot be proven, if it cannot be enforced, then it does not achieve its purpose.

Canadians deserve better than that. They deserve a justice system that works. They deserve policies that deliver real results. They deserve communities that are safe, not just in theory, but in reality. For those reasons, and for the reason that I am not convinced it will be viable and practical to collect money from the offenders, even though I have great respect for the intent behind this bill, I cannot support this bill.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for presenting their opinions on Bill C‑238. Now it is my turn to do the same on behalf of the Bloc Québécois.

The purpose of Bill C‑238 is to make restitution available for organizations, often community organizations, that provide frontline services to the community. It would allow organizations to claim damages and interest through criminal proceedings from offenders who commit crimes related to illegal drug trafficking, kidnapping and human trafficking.

The addition proposed in this bill would permit organizations, meaning incorporated entities, to obtain restitution. At present, the law regarding restitution is set out in section 730 of the Criminal Code. A number of restitution orders may be requested at sentencing.

Currently, organizations are excluded, but victims can obtain some degree of restitution through damages and interest in consideration of the harm caused. For example, restitution is available if property was destroyed during the commission of an offence. If an offender enters a home and causes damage during an armed assault or a break and enter, a restitution order may be sought and the offender would be required to pay it.

A restitution order may also be sought in the case of bodily or psychological harm to any person. For example, sexual assault is sure to leave psychological scars, and the Crown prosecutor may apply for an order. The court may also make a restitution order. This is always for damages and interest, but restitution may also cover loss of income. A victim of crime who cannot work may apply to the court for a restitution order. This also covers the threat of bodily harm.

The Criminal Code already contains provisions for ordering an offender to pay amounts to victims in cases of intimate partner violence when the situation results in the children or the mother or father having to relocate for a period of time. An order for restitution may be sought in such situations. The same applies for costs incurred as a result of identity theft. A victim who wishes to re-establish their identity must take certain steps, and the court may order the offender to pay damages. The same applies for reasonable expenses related to removing intimate images from the Internet.

That is the law as it stands. The bill before us would add provisions such that not only victims, but also community organizations that provide services, such as helping individuals with drug addiction or providing shelter, can apply to the court for a restitution order for crimes related to drug and human trafficking, as stated in the bill.

As my colleague mentioned, the intention is laudable. The member sponsoring this bill says that she wants to increase funding for community organizations. That is a laudable intention. To do so, she wants to hit drug traffickers and pimps where it hurts.

The intention is laudable, but unfortunately, the proposed approach is flawed. That is why the Bloc Québécois will vote against this bill. The approach is flawed for several reasons. First, if this measure were adopted, it would force victims to compete with community organizations. As has been mentioned, people may think that drug traffickers are extremely wealthy. Some of them are, but criminals are often poor.

In any case, if the bill is passed, there will come a time when, during sentencing in court, restitution will be sought by both victims and an organization, and the victims could lose out. To get a sense of what this could look like, let us consider the case of a woman who is a victim of human trafficking. One person is charged, and the woman we are talking about is the victim. The defendant pleads guilty. Then comes sentencing. At that point, the court will have to determine who should receive restitution. That is one issue.

One of the obstacles in the bill has to do with causality. My colleague mentioned this. Let me give an example. Let us say it is a case of human trafficking, and a community organization, such as a shelter for abused women, wants to obtain an order. It will have to demonstrate that, as a result of the offence, it incurred expenses for the person's services, for example, or to provide shelter. There is a challenge, because causality will not be easy to prove in every case. It is also important to always remember that most people who are convicted do not have significant financial resources. How effective would this measure actually be?

Another rather significant obstacle is the red tape involved in all this. I think that everyone here must visit community organizations in their ridings from time to time. In my riding, some community organizations recently said that they are stretched thin. They are few in number, they work very hard and they perform miracles. If they wanted to go ahead and use this provision, they need to be aware of the criminal remedies available to them. There is a lot of that in court. A number of charges are dealt with in court. Community organizations should monitor what is happening in the criminal court and make sure they are there at the time of sentencing. Take, for example, an organization that offers addiction treatment. First, they would need to know that there is a court hearing going on that day, and then they would have to show that it was the methamphetamine that was sold by this particular drug dealer that caused the overdose of this specific victim who turned to the organization's services on a specific date. This is not necessarily an easy process for organizations that are already doing outstanding work with limited resources.

The other argument—and I believe this is the decisive one—is that measures already exist to fund community organizations. One specific measure already exists in the Criminal Code and is known as the victim surcharge. Under section 737 of the Criminal Code, the court may impose an additional fine, a victim surcharge, once a person is convicted. The Supreme Court has ruled on this and set parameters, but it used to apply in all cases. Now it is at the discretion of the judge, who may or may not order it. There are certain fixed fine amounts, but it is a mechanism that exists and serves much the same purpose: to take money out of criminals' pockets and use it for good. In Quebec, this money is sent to a fund to help victims of crime, the Fonds affecté à l'aide aux personnes victimes d'infractions criminelles. According to the fund's activity report, only $3.2 million was collected in victim surcharges across the whole of Quebec in 2024–25, so we can see that this is not a panacea and that, in fact, criminals often have limited means. Still, it is better than nothing.

Another existing mechanism involves funds derived from the proceeds of crime. Our justice system already has the means, when conducting criminal investigations and bringing charges, to seize the proceeds of crime and transfer them to the state so they can be used for good. This is already the case in Quebec. CAVAC, the crime victims' assistance centre, is already funded with this money. Several other organizations, including Plaidoyer Victimes, SOS Violence Conjugale, and Éducaloi, are also funded this way.

There are many other options available. If the government truly wants to increase funding, I simply suggest that it increase transfers to the provinces so that we can pass the funds on to our community organizations.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the law-abiding Canadians in the compassionate riding of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke and speak to Bill C-238. This private member's bill proposes to allow community organizations to seek restitution for drug crimes or human trafficking crimes. Making criminals pay for the consequences of their crimes has an undeniably popular appeal.

The member for Sudbury's intentions with the bill may be honourable, but they are certainly misguided. It is an overused cliché to say that all good intentions lead to the fiery pits of damnation. Sometimes good intentions just lead to an endless bureaucratic maze. At other times those good intentions lead nowhere at all. Those two options are juxtaposed in the bill. Either it would never be used because the legal hurdles are too high, or it would be used but the accumulated costs would outweigh the benefits. My colleagues with actual lived experience in courtrooms explained how the wording of the bill makes it unlikely the bill would be of any use.

First, the expenses incurred would have to be directly linked to the criminal offence. A convicted drug trafficker cannot be ordered to pay for all overdose costs. The organization would need to show that the specific individual who overdosed purchased a specific dose from a specific trafficker. Second, the organization would have to prove the marginal cost to treat that overdose. Most organizations get naloxone kits from the provinces for free. Given the nature of the work that many of these organizations do, it just might be impossible to disentangle the routine expenses from the marginal expenses resulting from a criminal offence.

The bill lists the types of expenses an organization could claim. Not included on the list is the cost of accountants to ascertain the eligible expenses. One example of an expense perfectly highlights the problem with the bill: “expenses to implement or strengthen security measures, including expenses for security services and equipment”. This expense makes no sense, especially since the bill would limit restitution to cases of drug trafficking and human smuggling.

We could follow the lead of the Supreme Court and create a hypothetical case to highlight the absurdity, or we could look at the tragic events surrounding the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat, a 44-year-old mother of two who was killed by a stray bullet on July 7, 2023, while walking near the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto. The shooting occurred during a fight between drug dealers outside the supervised consumption site located within the health centre. An employee of the health centre aided one of the drug dealers in fleeing the police.

If this bill had been law, and if the Crown had brought additional trafficking charges against the killers, the health centre would have been allowed to seek restitution for any strengthened security measures. Any security measures taken after the fact, such as installing a security camera, cannot be attributed to a specific crime. The crime has already happened. The camera cannot undo the crime. It may have been the impetus, but it is not the direct cause. The camera may reduce the likelihood of another crime, but that means it cannot reasonably be assigned to the initial crime.

The criminal act would also have to be so unusual or so impactful that it resulted in a permanent degradation of the security environment. While the murder of Karolina would certainly qualify as an example, murder is not on the list of crimes covered by the bill.

The South Riverdale Community Health Centre staff were well aware that drug trafficking was occurring outside. The organization had a long history of ignoring community concerns about the criminal activity centred around a safe consumption site. The organization acted as a magnet for traffickers. An employee of the organization fell in love with a drug trafficker and helped him hide from the police.

Measures taken after the fact are not driven by the last criminal acts but are intended to avoid liability for the consequences of any subsequent criminal acts. Proving that a specific criminal act resulted in a specific marginal expense to an organization is so onerous that it likely would never be pursued. If this bill were passed and never used, that would be the best case scenario. If it were used, it could have only one result: It would lengthen the sentencing hearings and further tie up scarce resources in the courts. Defence attorneys would have economists and accountants on speed-dial to contest every expense.

While drug traffickers are having their charges dropped because the cases take too long, the worst thing we could do is add to the delays by passing ill-considered laws. I doubt it is the intention of the member for Sudbury to add further delays to the criminal justice system, but that would be the impact.

At best, this bill is useless. At worst, it will help criminals get off scot-free.

As I said in the beginning, the motivations seem to be coming from a good place. The member for Sudbury wants to make criminals pay for the harms they cause. I think that is something all Canadians can get behind. There should be some way to connect the harm caused to an organization by the person or people causing the harm.

For example, when the government decided it would copy the playbook used by opioid makers and flooded our streets with narcotics, it caused harm. Giving out free hydromorphone like candy had the predictable result of creating new drug addicts. This bill would seek to help community organizations impacted by the surge in drug addiction, yet it is the government's harm production policy that is at the root of many of the problems those same organizations are experiencing.

Since crime rates peaked in the 1970s, they have been on a steady, 50-year decline. The year that mandatory minimums for gun possession were repealed was the last year we saw a decline in crime. The Liberal government saw those same statistics and proceeded to knowingly repeal mandatory minimum sentences for the very crimes this bill would cover. Again, those crimes are drug trafficking and human trafficking. We know the Liberal government is quite literally trafficking in hydromorphone.

The damage the Liberals have done to our immigration and asylum system was also a boon to human traffickers. Ending the visa requirement for Mexico was essentially a two-for-one deal. The cartels would fill up their drug mules, fly them to Canada, unload the drugs and then smuggle the people across the U.S. border. After Justin's “all are welcome to Canada” tweet, the RCMP had to set up welcome centres for all humans smuggled across the border at Roxham Road.

The additional costs being borne by community organizations on the front lines are directly tied to 11 long years of Liberal policies. This bill is like trying to put a band-aid on a machete wound, and the Liberals are the ones wielding the weapon.

I do not blame the member for Sudbury for bringing forward this kind of band-aid bill. She is following the Prime Minister's lead.

The Major Projects Office is another band-aid for the Liberal impact assessment machete.

The Liberals prefer band-aids over doing the hard work and announcements over results. They prefer these types of performative bills. Making criminals pay has popular appeal, but this bill is the wrong approach.

As my colleagues have pointed out, Canada already has mechanisms for victims of crime to seek restitution. If a criminal burns down a safe supply clinic, the Crown attorney can seek restitution for the organization, yet only 1.6% of criminal cases involve a restitution order. Of those, few are ever successfully collected.

There is a reason why drug dealers are more likely to live in their parents' basements: Crime does not pay. Drug pushers and human smugglers belong in jail. While the Liberals prefer that dealers and modern slave runners serve their sentences from home, they still cannot work.

This bill would try to squeeze water from a rock. It is clear that the member for Sudbury has heard from many of the same types of community organizations that I hear from in Renfrew County. They are under increasing financial pressure. Homeless shelters are filled with international students who now claim to be refugees, treatment centres are overrun, our food banks are overwhelmed and businesses are forced to close public washrooms due to rampant drug use.

It was not like this before the Liberals were in power. This is the inevitable and predictable result of Liberal bad policies, including free opioids and open borders with no security checks. The Liberals have spent the cupboard bare, and now they are firing public servants while handing billions to Brookfield.

Canadians and the community organizations they support are being squeezed by a Liberal vice of bad policies and out-of-control spending. Now all they can come up with is this policy that would shake spare change loose from drug dealers.

If the member really cared about the community, she would urge her caucus to cancel the Brookfield clean electricity investment tax credit and put the money toward drug addiction treatment.

Canadians deserve better than Liberal band-aids because they do not stick.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

That concludes debate.

The hon. member for Sudbury has five minutes for her right of reply.