Debates of June 9th, 2026

Protecting Victims Act

[Giovanna Mingarelli, Liberal, Prescott—Russell—Cumberland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be honest. So much more has to be done to protect women and children from violence and from domestic violence and abuse. There is no question that more needs to be done.

This bill is bringing forward and would essentially be providing a generational approach to reforming the Criminal Code to do, as much as possible, more than has been done in the past generation to support these issues. It never stops. We have to continue addressing the issues as they evolve, as technology evolves, as the judicial systems evolve and as instances of violence evolve. We have to keep going, but I do see in this legislation that the most we could do would be done, and that does not stop today.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank my colleague for her eloquence and for the way she presented this bill and its various provisions. I would like to highlight a very important aspect of this bill, and that is the support it provides to municipalities and police forces.

I would like to ask my colleague if she could elaborate on the issue of victims' rights, expand on her thoughts on that and, obviously, tell us how this bill will provide more protection for survivors of violence.

[Giovanna Mingarelli, Liberal, Prescott—Russell—Cumberland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is built on four fundamental pillars to support victims: combatting gender-based violence and intimate partner violence, protecting children from predators, strengthening victims' rights and reducing court delays.

Together, these reforms modernize the Criminal Code to address contemporary threats, intervene earlier to prevent violence and ensure that the justice system operates more quickly and more fairly for victims and survivors.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

We have time for a very short question.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the protecting victims act would remove mandatory minimums. It would give judges that freedom. My question for the member opposite is very short. When a victim's offender walks out of—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I did say a very short question.

The hon. member for Prescott—Russell—Cumberland has 15 seconds or less.

[Giovanna Mingarelli, Liberal, Prescott—Russell—Cumberland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I did not actually understand the question, but I thank everyone.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my intervention by asking for unanimous consent to split my time with my colleague, the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure and a privilege to rise on behalf of the good people of my riding.

This is now the third, or possibly the fourth, substantive intervention I have made on Bill C-16, not to mention the numerous interventions during our study at the justice committee and our extensive discussions during clause-by-clause consideration. I want to take this opportunity to pivot in a new direction. I want to take this opportunity to explain to Canadians the truth behind the bill, not the fiction and not the utopian world that the Liberal government is trying to portray.

We have heard so often that it is like Chicken Little. The new Liberal government says that it is so serious about community safety and victim rights and that it is taking its responsibilities seriously. I have always said, during the numerous town halls I have conducted across this country, that the number one responsibility for the tired Liberal government is to keep Canadians safe. Why is it that after the 2025 election, there are three pieces of criminal legislation that would only move the needle so far but would not complete what is necessary to restore balance in our criminal justice system?

We could take, for instance, Bill C-9. Everything was progressing reasonably at committee on Bill C-9 until a backroom deal was brokered between the justice minister and the Bloc Québécois to remove a 52-year-old statutory defence in the Criminal Code and potentially criminalize preachers and faith leaders who read out passages from their religious texts. That is Bill C-9.

On Bill C-14, the government heard from all major stakeholders in this country for years. They were pleading and begging the government to give them the tools to keep violent repeat criminals off the streets. They were terrorizing communities and terrorizing victims. The government claims that it listened to those calls. It introduced Bill C-14. We talked about the principle of restraint in Bill C-14, which the government introduced under Justin Trudeau in 2019. It mandated that all accused were to be released at the earliest opportunity on the least restrictive conditions. We Conservatives said that we needed to put the appropriate brakes on those who would terrorize our communities repeatedly. We needed to replace the principle of restraint with the principle of protection of the community.

Hence, the member for Oxford, my colleague, brought the jail not bail act, a reasonable piece of legislation supported by major police associations and chiefs across this country. The government rejected it, and now we are debating Bill C-16.

Again, I want to separate fact from fiction. The fiction the government is trying to demonstrate and argue is that Conservatives were always obstructionist when it came to debating Bill C-16 in committee, when we were looking at and studying the bill. The fact of the matter is that 99% of Bill C-16 was always supported by the Conservative Party of Canada. There was a poison pill and a red line, which is contained in clause 63 of the bill, that would completely upend the effectiveness of our criminal sentencing regime. It would cause mandatory minimum penalties to no longer be considered mandatory minimum penalties by allowing judges, of their own accord or through application by the accused or their defence counsel, to argue that the application of a mandatory minimum penalty would result in cruel and unusual punishment.

Where did this discussion come from? It came from that disastrous decision by our highest court just a few blocks down from this hallowed House, the Supreme Court of Canada. It ruled in Senneville that a one-year mandatory minimum penalty for the collection and the accessing of child sexual abuse material is contrary to section 12 of the charter.

These two individuals who brought their case to the Supreme Court of Canada had amassed hundreds and hundreds of still images and videos of victims as young as three years of age engaged in the most grotesque form of sexual activity with adults. Our learned justices down the road deemed that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to subject those two sadistic perverts to serve a one‑year mandatory minimum penalty. If I were the justice minister, I would say one year is not enough. Lock them up for five years, because that is where they belong, or longer. If we were talking about a similar case a few hours away from the Ottawa region in the United States, in New York state, those two sadistic perverts would be looking at double digits in prison. That is the difference between our two justice systems. What is even more appalling about that decision, and this is the problem with Bill C‑16, is that the trial judge on their own determined that notwithstanding the size of the collection and the content, as disturbing as it is, a one‑year mandatory minimum penalty was too harsh. That trial judge gave those two perverts a 45‑day weekend sentence.

What was our reaction? The collective will of Canada was shaken at its core. What is going on with our judges? What is going on with our justice system? It is no small wonder that Canadians and victims have a lack of confidence in our criminal justice system, when they see the highest court in this country ruling in the fashion that it did. We urged and pleaded with the government to come up and deal with this and use the notwithstanding clause. Section 33 of the charter has been enshrined in our charter since 1982. We would not have a charter but for section 33, but no, the government cannot do that. No, we now have to give judges that ultimate discretion to determine on their own whether a mandatory minimum penalty is appropriate in the circumstances, and there are only a few guardrails. Condition number one is that the only two offences they cannot touch are murder and treason. Condition number two is that they have to impose a jail sentence. However, in that regard, there is nothing stopping judges across this country from imposing a one-day jail sentence or a time-served jail sentence. Under Bill C‑16, that would be a lawful sentence.

I asked the justice minister repeatedly in this House and repeatedly at committee, if they wanted to bring back mandatory minimum penalties that have been struck down, why can they not go further and include everything that was eliminated by Bill C‑5? Bill C‑5 is that disastrous piece of legislation that I warned David Lametti, then justice minister, would lead to adverse consequences. Now we have drug traffickers of fentanyl and other kinds of synthetic opiates, whom the judges across this country are calling the merchants of death, enjoying conditional sentences. They were once to be locked up for years, but now they can make an argument for a conditional sentence. Our justice minister shamelessly refused to bring back mandatory minimum penalties for all the drug offences and the majority of the weapons offences, including extortion with a firearm, which is raging across this country.

For all those reasons, as indicated, I would encourage this entire House to vote against Bill C‑16.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite talks about the notwithstanding clause. Your government has said publicly that it would use the notwithstanding clause to take away the rights of Canadians, whether it is religious freedom or any others. This is why your party voted in favour of Bill C‑21, which would take rights away from Canadians.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I would remind members to address their comments through the Chair.

The hon. member for Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is completely wrong in that assessment. We have always said, as a party, and our leader has been very clear, that we will use the notwithstanding clause when it comes to absurd criminal law and absurdity that has flowed from the Supreme Court of Canada when dealing with child sexual abuse material, which is a classic example.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I know that he has taken an interest in the issue of women's safety. He even participated in a few meetings of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Bill C‑16 incorporates many of the recommendations made by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. These recommendations are based on requests from survivors and victims, particularly with regard to court delays and the criminalization of coercive control. The Standing Committee on the Status of Women made these recommendations and they have been incorporated into Bill C‑16.

Did he discuss this with his Conservative colleagues?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I heard a question there, but I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague. There are definite enhancements when it comes to victim safety and victim procedure in Bill C‑16, which is why I said at the outset that 99% of the bill is supportable. We would be very supportive of splitting the bill and having the good parts, that 99%, pass into the Senate, but split off that poisonous safety valve consideration in proposed section 63, which is what we would like to have taken off.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for both his compassion and his expertise.

The member examined the fine print of the bill. The party opposite stands here promising to restore mandatory minimums, and on the very next page, would hand the judges' clauses to sentence below them, and no proportionality test. The Supreme Court told us in the Senneville case exactly how to draft minimums that survive. The bill ignored that road map.

My question for my colleague is simple. When a victim's offender walks out at below the minimum sentence under the bill, who does he believe the party opposite will blame, the court or the bill that was written to let this happen?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would hope they would blame the justice, and more importantly, the tools that the justice relies upon, which the federal government provides, and this tool, Bill C‑16, is going to lead to absurd, obscene results across this country.

I asked the justice minister to name one accused who is not going to say that a mandatory minimum penalty is going to lead to cruel and unusual punishment. Every single accused facing criminal charges where there is a mandatory minimum penalty is entitled to use that argument.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is not the defence lawyer who ultimately makes the decision. It is the judge. What is very apparent is that the Conservative Party has absolutely no confidence in judicial independence or the ability of judges to make good decisions.

It is a comment.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the member opposite supports the trial judge's decision in Senneville that a 45‑day, weekend sentence for possessing hundreds of images of three-year-old girls being sodomized by men is entirely acceptable.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is 9:45 p.m. in the House right now. Most Canadians are putting their kids to bed, helping them fall asleep, finishing up their day, finishing their evening and getting ready to go to sleep. They are not watching the work of Parliament, and that is exactly what the Liberals want. They are very happy when people are not watching what is happening here, because what the Liberals are doing right now, this evening, is ramming through bills that should be worked on over the course of a year, in collaboration with the opposition parties, in order to finally get everyone's agreement.

It is not about getting their bills passed. It is about getting bills passed that all Canadians can relate to. Instead of doing that, they worked very hard to cobble together a majority behind the scenes, only to end up falling behind and trying to save what they can by speeding things up and making MPs sit in Parliament until midnight to try to get their bills passed.

If you want a concrete example of what is happening right now and how the government operates, then just look at what is happening at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security with Bill C-22. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, who is a completely independent individual, an officer of Parliament, whose job is specifically to protect the privacy rights of Canadians, has asked to testify on Bill C-22, a bill that will require electronic service providers to retain everyone's metadata for one year so that the government can access it. We are talking about Internet browsing history, phone numbers, the devices we use, and the people we are with. The commissioner said that this bill falls squarely within her mandate, that she has genuine concerns about Canadians' privacy, and that she wanted to testify.

Parliament has a procedure known as “unanimous consent”. Any member can request it. It means that we now all agree to do something. Conservative members have requested unanimous consent to have the Privacy Commissioner of Canada participate in reviewing the bill. The Liberals refused. How strange. So the Conservatives tried a different tack. They moved to suspend a study of this clause in order to study it a short time later so that the commissioner could participate. Once again, the Liberals voted against it. There were two attempts and two refusals.

The Liberals are forcing the Privacy Commissioner of Canada into silence to essentially stop her from protecting the rights of Canadians, whom she protects every day. This is not a procedural matter. This is a government that fears transparency. We see that on many issues, and we are seeing it right now with the massive Bill C-16. It contains some good things, and I am going to talk about that, but it also contains a little poison pill that needs to be discussed.

It is important to understand that, when we vote on a bill, we are not just voting on a single one of its lines. We are voting on the whole document. As I was saying, there are some good things about this bill. Making sure that the killing of an intimate partner is automatically classified as first-degree murder is a very good thing. Our colleague, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, is the one who suggested that. The bill seeks to ban deepfakes of intimate images. Once again, it was a Conservative member who suggested that. These are good things about the bill. However, unfortunately, this bill contains clause 63, and when it comes time to vote, we have to vote on the whole bill, including that provision.

What does that provision say? As things now stand in Parliament, elected representatives have said that, if someone commits a serious crime, then they should go to prison for a predetermined minimum number of years with no exceptions. If a person commits a crime, then they know what they are facing. This is called a mandatory minimum sentence. It is the lower limit. It cannot get any lower than that. That is guaranteed. That is a promise that Parliament made to victims, that their perpetrators will have to face real consequences.

However, clause 63, which the Liberals are proposing in Bill C-16, breaks that promise by saying that, if a judge considers the minimum sentence to be too harsh for a particular defendant, then the judge can disregard it and impose a lighter sentence. The Liberals want this new approach to apply to all or nearly all serious crimes in Canada, including aggravated sexual assault with the use of a firearm, human trafficking, shootings and weapons trafficking, just to name a few. Minimum sentences will not be required in any of those cases.

Making minimum sentences optional for these crimes is really bad. Canadians are afraid, and rightly so. After a decade of Liberal government, human trafficking has increased by 84%, sexual assault has increased by 76%, and violent crime has increased by 55%. These are not just statistics on a page; these are families. These are women, these are children, these are victims. These are communities like mine, in Montmorency—Charlevoix, where people get up in the morning, work hard, raise their children and expect the government to protect them.

Meanwhile, what are the Liberals doing in response to rising violent crime across the country? They are introducing a bill that makes it easier for judges to hand down lighter sentences to people who commit serious crimes. Why are they doing all this? Do they want better incarceration statistics? Who are they doing this for? It is certainly not for victims and their families.

Why are the Liberals always telling the House that criminals have rights, but never talking about victims' rights and what happens to them? It is an awful thing to behold.

I am going to talk about what is actually happening in prisons right now. These are not theories. These are facts. Everything I am about to say is connected. Chapter one begins in 2019. With Bill C‑83, the Liberals ended the use of administrative segregation for the most violent inmates. Instead, these inmates, who are violent in prison, have comfortable living quarters and access to psychologists, nurses, even pet therapy and social support. How nice. All of this is funded by taxpayers.

Chapter two begins in 2022. With Bill C‑5, the Liberals abolished minimum sentences for crimes involving firearms. Judges began imposing community service sentences on men and women who commit crimes involving illegal weapons, as well as gun smugglers and repeat offenders. One judge even wrote that he had to hold his nose after handing down the sentence he was obligated to impose.

Now we are on chapter three. Bill C‑16 would basically make all remaining mandatory minimum sentences optional.

At Donnacona, a prison located about 40 minutes from my riding, there have been four murders in less than a year. The wardens wrote to me. I speak to them regularly. They contact me. They say that there are illegal weapons coming in and that the number of violent criminals is going up. They talk about cleaning up blood and then having to go on with their day, pretending everything is normal. They tell me about the stress they are under every day.

The correctional officers' union says that over 350 positions are vacant nationwide because officers are under so much stress at work these days that they are dropping like flies. Meanwhile, the administration wants to cut back on the number of officers on the job, but that decision would heap even more pressure on the remaining officers.

That is what is going on. Violent criminals are violent on the streets but also behind bars. Criminals who are violent when they are free are also violent when they are incarcerated, yet the Liberals want to reduce these people's sentences. What message does that send?

I was sent here to the House by the citizens of Montmorency—Charlevoix, but not to rubber-stamp bills on autopilot, nor to remain silent while the government strips away the tools that protect my constituents and the entire population of Quebec.

The federal government should excel at a few things and stay out of matters that fall under provincial jurisdiction. Canadian laws are certainly something citizens should be able to trust, and our work here in Ottawa is important in that regard. We should focus on those matters, the ones that are the federal government's responsibility.

The real danger to citizens, however, is not bound by ideology. When Parliament establishes a mandatory minimum sentence, it makes a promise. Elected representatives—people accountable to voters who are not appointed for life, people whom voters have chosen to send here—made a promise to defend them in Parliament.

When section 63 of the bill allows a judge to circumvent that promise, it weakens not only politics, but our entire image and the public's trust in our institutions. The important thing to understand is that it is not my point of view that matters, but that of the people. Their opinion counts. Perhaps it is time for the Liberals to start listening to the people.

I am going to tell Canadians exactly what happened in committee. We moved amendment 22. We said that, at the very least, the safety valve, the escape hatch from mandatory minimum sentences, should not apply to someone who already has a criminal record. We moved amendment 25. We said that sexual offences against children and serious drug trafficking offences should be completely excluded from the lightest sentences. Children deserve to be protected.

In moving amendments 25.2 and 25.3, we said that aggravated sexual assault and extortion should also not be eligible for this safety valve. We also moved amendment 29, which had nothing to do with sentences. We just said that when an offender is convicted of intimate partner violence and released on parole, the victim should be automatically notified. Every one of our amendments was defeated.

I will stop there. Families in Montmorency—Charlevoix are watching what is happening. Quebeckers and Canadians are watching too. The government cannot make Canada safer by making criminals more comfortable.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that through Bill C-16, we would see the reinstatement of a number of mandatory minimums that were actually ruled out of order with respect to Canada's Charter of Rights. As a result, Bill C-16 would reinstate many of those mandatory minimums. It puts in the exceptional circumstances clause in order to protect the integrity of the laws so that they would not continue to be ruled as being against the charter. In other words, it would make them charter-compliant.

It seems to me that the Conservative Party is just trying to find an excuse to justify its position.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my speech. When these people talk about rights and freedoms, they are talking about the rights and freedoms of criminals. What about the rights of victims? Where are they? Victims are afraid, and the crime rate is rising. What message is being sent? We are leaving another loophole to allow violent criminals to get off scot-free and to give judges the option not to impose minimum sentences. No, that is not what our country needs.

We need a strong justice system that makes it clear to criminals what consequences they will face if they commit a crime. The system must not give them free rein by suggesting that, in the end, they might be able to spend the rest of their lives at home while victims are forced to live in fear. That is a terrible message.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix on his speech today. This week, I had the opportunity to sit with him briefly on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, of which I assume he is a full member.

At that time, I had the opportunity to introduce a motion in which I denounced the close ties between the Liberals and the lobby representing the unregulated truckers responsible for the Drivers Inc. scheme, which undermines people's working conditions and causes accidents.

The Liberals seem quite close to these people. Some of them are even Liberal activists who allegedly fund the Liberal Party. I asked that the committee look into the matter. I would like to know if I can count on the support of my colleague and the Conservative Party on this issue.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what an odd question. We are talking about victims' rights. We are talking about laws being loosened. The Liberals want to loosen our laws so criminals do not have to face justice.

I cannot commit myself today and answer my colleague's question on behalf of the entire Conservative Party. His motion was tabled yesterday, and it will be analyzed. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is very strict and works very hard. We want to make sure that ethics is a central consideration in every decision. If there is work to be done and it is important that we do it, we will be there. Holding the Liberals accountable for their decisions is our daily bread and butter.