Françoise Boivin

[Special Committee on Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, April 26th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, that will be the only apology I make today.

It was perhaps not appropriate, but at the same time, I found it rather odd to see a motion that affects women that was mainly...

[Special Committee on Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, April 26th, 2012]

We were very respectful during the member's speech, so I would appreciate the same level of respect. We listened carefully to what he said, even though we sometimes found it hard to hear.

What the member is trying to do is involve us in what he calls a “conversation on the fetus”. Wow. When I was elected in 2011, if someone had told me that I would be here on April 26, 2012, having a “conversation on the fetus”, I would have asked what planet this was.

It is all based on a false premise. According to my colleague's basic premise, which is false, this provision is 400 years old. We are starting from certain comments that have been made.

It is like saying “thou shalt not kill” or something like that. Certainly, I could go back to the Old Testament and suggest we re-examine the issue of first degree murder, because that commandment has been around for so long and perhaps it is time we re-examined the concept.

However, it is even more false than that. We need to come back to the basics of his motion, which seeks to review the definition of subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, which establishes when a child becomes a human being. According to the Criminal Code, which was created in 1892 and not in 1600:

223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother...

It is clear, within the meaning of the Criminal Code, that the child must be born alive. This has nothing to do with whether one is for or against abortion. It is in the homicide section of the Criminal Code.

At first I was not sure what the member wanted to do. I thought that perhaps he was sincere and that he wanted to form a committee—as though there were not enough of them—to hear from a multitude of leading scientists.

This is the first time that the Conservatives have shown an interest in anything scientific. It had to be something to do with the fetus and abortion or something that goes against women. Congratulations. Nonetheless, the Conservatives have decided that we will hear from a multitude of people working in medical science, who will talk to us about the fetus and show us different things.

The Conservatives pretend to be interested in the answers, in listening and hearing them. A committee usually hears both sides of the argument, but that is not the case here. Let us make no mistake. This is a direct attack on a woman's fundamental right to choose.

Whether you are for or against abortion, one fact remains and it is not 400 years old: the Morgentaler decision, the Daigle decision, in fact all decisions on various aspects of the issue gave a central place to a woman's inalienable rights concerning her body. The Conservatives really have a hard time accepting this concept. It is an aberration for them.

What we have to say is that it is fine if they do not like our views on this matter. But I do not wish to impose my views on anyone. They are mine alone. It is not my place to tell a pregnant woman what to do. Perhaps she was raped, but no matter what the reason is, it is none of our business. Perhaps the Conservative members would never resort to abortion. Good for them. I recognize that they have this right. But who are they, the men sitting opposite, to judge?

I use the word “men” because that is who I see in front of me. I do not mean it in a pejorative or sexist way. They can object as much as they want, but that is what I see before me. Ah, excuse me, I do see one woman, no, two women. That is excellent, lovely.

Having said that, it is not up to us to say what a pregnant woman should do. I would like to remind my colleagues opposite that case law has established that when a woman is pregnant, her fetus is a part of her body. I do not want to start lecturing about medicine and science, but it is part of her body. Often, the rights of one may be in conflict with the other's.

That is why I asked him the question. If my colleague had been smart, he would have said that he intended to wait for the committee's findings, and he would have won me over a little. But no, we know what he thinks. At least he has the courage of his convictions and was not afraid to say that he is categorically against abortion because he believes that a fetus is a fully fledged human being. Which is why he said, “a human being is a human being,” a phrase he trots out constantly at all his press conferences and elsewhere.

That is the definition that my colleague subscribes to. The problem is that section 223(1) of the Criminal Code stipulates that the fetus is not a human being. This definition makes sense.

Imagine what will happen. We will end up criminalizing abortion again. Think about it. If a child becomes a human being from the moment of its conception or two or three weeks thereafter, will someone in this chamber then turn around and say that we are going to kill a human being? No way. That is the problem. It will mean that we are once again criminalizing abortion, but it will not stop there.

Imagine the pregnant woman for a moment. For a government that claims that the state must be as small as possible, in its simplest form, in all senses of the term, imagine the government now taking an interest in the way in which a pregnant woman experiences motherhood and pregnancy.

If the fetus, a human being according to what the mover of M-312 tells us, is protected, and if we accept his theory, are we going to have to start delving into the lifestyle of a woman who has alcoholism or addiction problems, for example? We have a Charter of Rights. It may gall our friends opposite to no end, but thank heaven that we have this Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Sometimes, when I see this government, with its 39% of the votes cast by 62% of the electorate, telling us that this is what we have to do and trying to interfere in people’s lives, in how they live their lives, in what they believe in their innermost selves, in what affects them personally, it scares me to death.

I have talked with colleagues from every party. The even greater fallacy in their argument is when we come to the question of an abortion at eight or eight and a half months in a pregnancy. For heaven’s sake, the people listening to us have to know that under most of the protocols at all the various hospitals in the provinces, no one is performing great numbers of abortions after the twentieth week of pregnancy. I will say again that this is a decision that must be made by the woman and her doctor. If there are any such abortions, it is often because there may be a medical problem for the pregnant woman, who could possibly die from it.

So let us stop scaring people and abide by the Charter and the decisions, not the ones made 400 years ago, but the ones made in 1988 and 1990 and 2000 and so on. Let us stop these constant attacks on the women of Canada.

[Special Committee on Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, April 26th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I find it infinitely unfortunate that we are talking about this subject. That being said, my speech will be very respectful.

In the hon. member's speech, one fundamental element stood out by its absence, and that was women's rights. In fact, I think the word “woman” was used only once in Motion M-312. The word appears only once in the entire text, even though pregnant women are at the heart of this matter; there is no getting around it.

[Special Committee on Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, April 26th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, since I will have the opportunity to reply to the hon. member, I will simply ask him a question.

The hon. member likes to quote Justice Wilson. There is nothing more extraordinary than hearing lawyers sharing quotes from the same decisions, the same judges.

What the member opposite seems to be forgetting is that Justice Wilson also said, in the context of the 1988 Morgentaler decision, that section 251 of the Criminal Code limits a pregnant woman's access to abortion and violates her right to life, liberty and security of the person within the meaning of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a way which does not accord with the principles of fundamental justice.

The impression that I got from listening to the hon. member's entire speech was that, in the beginning, he was trying to make us believe that his motion, Motion M-312, was a serious one and that he really wanted to conduct a comprehensive study. Yet he already has all the answers.

I would like to ask him this question. Is he waiting for answers regarding his motion or does he have them already? Has he already answered his own questions?

[Justice, April 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian women of all political stripes have seen the hypocrisy of this Prime Minister, who promises one thing in public and then does the opposite in the House.

During the election campaign he promised not to reopen the abortion debate, but today he cannot even control his caucus and prevent his ministers from saying that violating women’s rights is a personal choice.

The Prime Minister has to do more than tell us he is going to vote against motion M-312. Is he going to send his backbenchers and his ministers a clear message to make them understand that the right to an abortion is not negotiable?

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague whom I am glad to see before me. This morning, during my speech, I thanked my colleague from St. John's East for the extraordinary work he did on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as the justice critic. He has been a very good mentor.

I would like to go back to the committee's deliberations on Bill C-26. It is true that much has been said about the Lucky Moose part of the bill, but there is also everything to do with self-defence. What is more, some legal experts had concerns about how to define “reasonable defence”, and we had to strike a balance between objective and subjective criteria.

I would like to know whether my colleague, who has been in the House for a long time, is pleased that we managed to uphold defences that might be used by battered women, for example. In that regard, the bill is well balanced. Not all of our amendments were adopted, but some of them were approved by this government, which often turns a deaf ear.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We are very pleased to have the benefit of his knowledge in this matter.

I especially appreciated that my colleague pointed out that Bill C-26—as I mentioned in my speech this morning—is an example of the work we can accomplish, even with the members opposite, when there is a little goodwill, instead of continual gags, time allocation motions and so forth. This bill is a fine example. We were able to discuss it without being told that it had to be passed at all costs in a certain time frame. There were discussions and debates, which were a little heated at times, but it was all done for the well-being of Canadians, the people we represent.

My colleague was also a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety, where we saw how difficult it can be sometimes to understand this government's reasoning. It accepted the bill introduced by our colleague for Trinity—Spadina. However, does he think that we will ever again have this type of co-operation from the government?

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated the hon. member for Welland's speech. I support and share his rather serious concerns about the fact that corner store owners and others can decide to take justice into their own hands.

In committee, we heard from representatives of the Association of Professional Security Agencies. Most of their presentation involved asking the government to give the association more authority in order to allow the police to take care of more important matters.

I would be curious to hear my colleague's opinion in this regard. It seems to me that the training security guards receive is not necessarily the same as that received by police officers. This is one of our concerns about this bill—it allows a witness or the person he appoints to make an arrest in lieu of the police. Are we therefore not allowing many other people to take on a peace officer role?

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, those are excellent questions. Indeed, these are the kinds of debates that occur when it comes to amending the Criminal Code.

On the first point, it comes back to what I said in committee. The government members who sit on the committee have assured us that steps will be taken—I do hope that we will see this soon, once the bill is passed—to ensure that people understand that it is not open season and that they cannot make arrests willy-nilly, for example, in the corner store, if they come across somebody who looks a bit suspicious and may have stolen from them yesterday, or something along those lines.

There is still a charter and rights that apply. You cannot detain someone without due cause in just any old way. It is not something that we are recommending that people do. Instead of putting advertisements on television every half an hour about Canada, Action Plan Canada on TV, the government should perhaps screen some public service announcements like these.

The impact when it comes to good Samaritans has not really been addressed here. Could this have an impact? Once again, it might be more likely to have an impact in the case of self-defence, for example, if something happened when someone helped someone else. My colleague referred specifically to something that I often heard when I was on the radio, which is that people no longer even want to stop when there is an accident because they are too worried about the consequences. This will not have any impact on that type of situation. This is still a problem that is not clear in the context of the existing legislation, and this bill will not change things overnight.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I had this thought: it is perhaps because I have had the benefit of participating in all the committee meetings, listening to all the witnesses, thinking things through, knowing what the Criminal Code looked like before, and seeing what has become of subsection 494(2). When I say that I am reasonably satisfied, it is because the bill does not make things worse.

If I had one comment to make to my colleague, who is also a lawyer, it would be to tell her to think of the bill in this light: it does not make section 494(2) worse in terms of citizen's arrest. It creates a number of criteria to which I have no fundamental objection. I do not think that it is awful; it is simply a little vague.

What does the bill mean where it says, “make the arrest within a reasonable time”? For a government that wants to replace judges more often than not, it is again a case of leaving it up to the court to decide what a reasonable time is and believing, on reasonable grounds, that arrest by a peace officer was not possible.

The wording is, notwithstanding, sufficiently serious given the types of cases that will arise and considering the fact that it has been confirmed that these are not situations that occur frequently. The fact that the bill also refers to “a person authorized by the owner” indicates that it cannot be just any old person. Once again, the other criteria must be met.

If we vote against Bill C–26 because it is not perfect, we will be depriving ourselves of an extremely important tool. I would like my colleague to think about that before it comes time to vote.