Murray Rankin

[Expungement of Certain Cannabis-related Convictions Act, December 7th, 2018]

moved that Bill C-415, An Act to establish a procedure for expunging certain cannabis-related convictions, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House this afternoon to present my private member's bill, Bill C-415. My bill would have the effect of expunging or erasing criminal records for the half million Canadians who have records for the possession of small quantities of cannabis, which became a perfectly legal activity in October of this year.

This is a matter of fundamental justice and I urge all members to support this initiative. I urge government members to keep an open mind and to study the bill and amend it so we can move it forward as quickly and effectively as possible.

As far back as 2012, the Liberal Party passed resolution No. 117 on cannabis legalization and it is curious that it used the words of elimination of all criminal records for simple possession. I am pleased that the Liberal Party agrees with me that expungement and not merely record suspension is what is required in this circumstance.

According to a report commissioned by the Department of Public Safety, fully 86% of those surveyed agreed that completely erasing criminal records for minor offences, particularly cannabis possession, was the right thing to do. Judging by the enormous outburst of editorial support that I am pleased to have received from coast to coast, Canadians get it. They support this initiative because they are fair-minded people who recognize the unfairness inherent in continuing to burden people with the effects of a criminal record for something that is now legal.

I stood yesterday in the House with a prominent aboriginal leader from British Columbia, with people from the John Howard Society and with Senator Pate, the former executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society. They all called on the government to get with this, expunge records and not to rely, as I will explain why, on merely criminal record suspension in this context.

I have three fundamental arguments in the short time available that I would like to make. First, I want to challenge the government's assertion that it will be bringing on immediate pardons. The word “immediate” means now and I will explain why that is simply not possible. Second, I want to address the government's apparent argument that expungement is somehow reserved for only one category of past historical injustices and not things like this. Only record suspensions apparently, in the Liberals' mind, are appropriate in this context. Third, it is important to tell Canadians about how the unjust application of cannabis laws in our country has happened. I think it is undeniable that there has been an injustice.

On the first point about the timing, the government has had several years to address this signature initiative on cannabis legislation. Other jurisdictions like California and Vermont, when they brought in their laws, brought this piece in at the same time and automatically expunged the records for people with convictions for a small quantity of cannabis. The Liberals chose not to do that. They said they should wait for record suspensions, sometimes they called them pardons, and that will happen sometime soon, maybe with legislation introduced, I presume, in the spring.

Canadians know there will be an election in October. They know any initiative has to pass through both Houses and be proclaimed in law, so it is likely that this will not take place until 2020, if my arithmetic is right. When Canadians hear the word “immediate”, they think of something different. I would urge the Liberals to work with my bill and make it better so we can get on with the task that should have been commenced when we brought in legalization in the first place.

The second argument is the arbitrary distinction between expungement reserved for something called historical injustices and pardons for something else. I do not know who is giving legal advice to the Liberals on this point. I have had the good fortune of getting opinions from Benjamin Berger, Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall, and noted constitutional lawyer Professor Kent Roach at the University of Toronto. They see absolutely no distinction in law. I see none in public policy for what the government seems to be insisting upon.

Let me quote from a leading Toronto criminal lawyer, Annamaria Enenajor of the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty. She said, “the government...leaves the impression that restrictions exist on the government's ability to issue expungements for the offense of simple cannabis possession that are beyond its control. This is false. There is nothing in Canadian law that prohibits our government from issuing expungements for offenses that, in their application, unjustly targeted racialized and indigenous communities. It simply chooses not to. This is a policy decision.”

Professor Kent Roach says that “The charter is the minimum not the maximum in terms of our sense of justice. The government's proposed pardon scheme also reveals larger problems with our pardon system which, among other drawbacks, is conditional on future good behaviour.”

There is no distinction possible, although the government wishes to make it. I urge it to keep an open mind so we can do what is right for Canadians.

That takes me to my third point. The application of this law is a historic initiative to address a historical injustice. It is a fact, and I commend the government for acknowledging that black and indigenous people across this country have been disproportionately burdened with criminal records for possessing small quantities of cannabis. That prevents these people, who are often already more marginalized and impoverished than other citizens, from getting their foot on the social ladder. Why? It is because they now have a record. It means they are last in line when they want to rent an apartment. They are last in line when they want to get a job and have to answer “yes” about having a criminal record.

If that record were expunged, as my bill would do, they could honestly answer that they do not have a criminal record. It would be deemed in law that they do not such a record. Imagine how many thousands of impoverished Canadians we could assist by doing the right thing.

Jaywalking is not an offence under the charter. However, if nine out of 10 people we go after for jaywalking ho are black or indigenous, then it is a charter violation. Again, I commend the government for acknowledging this data as being valid. If someone is indigenous in Regina, they are nine times more likely to be charged and have a record for cannabis than non-indigenous people; and seven times more likely in Vancouver; and if someone is black in Halifax, they are five times more likely to be charged and have a record; and three times more likely if they live in Toronto. This is wrong. This is Canada. We should fix that, and let these people get on with their lives.

I want to address head-on the government's argument about record suspensions. It chooses to call it “pardons”. It does not do the job. What is the difference between a pardon and expungement? An expunged record is erased; it is completely destroyed. Under my bill, the offences would be deemed in law to have never happened. Therefore, a person whose record has been expunged could truthfully say on a job application that they do not have a criminal record. That makes all the difference.

What about a pardon? A pardon merely reclassifies the record. It may still be released, and even revoked, in the future. Most importantly, with a pardon, an individual can still face those obstacles I talked about. Furthermore, a pardon talks about forgiving, by implication, and not expungement, which would be an acknowledgement of the historical injustice in how cannabis laws have been applied in our country.

For a long time, cannabis amnesty has been a policy of the NDP. Since 2004, we have been calling for amnesty for people with records for cannabis possession. My colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, who has done excellent work on this file, introduced a motion in the House asking the government to immediately pardon all criminal records for simple possession. The government said no.

Let me go to the argument I have heard the government use as recently as this morning. It is wrong. When a landlord or employer asks a person if they have a record, the question they are supposed to ask is whether they have ever been convicted for a criminal offence for which a pardon has not been granted. Now, the government says that if there has been a violation of that requirement, they can go to the human rights branch or the human rights tribunal in their province. I do not know whether the government has dealt with people from the inner city.

I used to do legal aid in downtown Toronto. People who are illiterate and do not speak English have enough trouble already. Do we think they are going to get lawyers, with legal aid in this world being so scarce, and take this to the human rights branch? I do not really think so and neither does Samantha McAleese, who is doing her Ph.D. on this very topic at Carleton. She has worked in the inner city of Ottawa with The John Howard Society for many years. She said that many people struggling with criminal records can often have barriers like literacy or language, making these formal complaints to the human rights codes very daunting. She further said that requiring individuals to muster through a complaint process in order to access employment, housing or any other social domain seems quite ridiculous. People with criminal records already face enough barriers in the community and are often already doing everything they can to get by day by day.

Even if the government is right, why would it not go far enough to complete the job with expungement? Even if there is a legal, technical reason for being right, which I urge the government is not the view of the leading criminal and constitutional lawyers I have consulted, why would it not complete the job?

I was so proud to have stood in this House when another expungement initiative took place not long ago: Bill C-66. It was the expungement of what the government termed, and I agree, historically unjust convictions for people convicted in the past for same-sex sexual activity and yet thousands of racialized and marginalized people have also been treated unfairly in the past. I have demonstrated that and the government accepts it.

People have barriers to renting apartments or getting jobs. Mothers from Saskatoon have cried on the phone to me that their child, busted a couple of years for having a couple of joints, cannot coach the soccer team because of these vulnerable people initiatives that require that people not have records for reasons we well understand, dealing with children and so forth. Their lives are also affected by this. After years of injustice, why would the government settle for a process that will not fully relieve the burden of a criminal record? The only way to right the wrong and finally give the half million Canadians a fair chance is expungement, to erase the records for simple possession.

The evidence is pretty clear that the argument about pardons may be good in theory, but in practice, people in the real world do not always ask those precise questions that the government says landlords and employers should be asking, “Have you ever been convicted for a criminal offence for which a pardon has not been granted?”, that magic incantation. In the real world in downtown Ottawa or Toronto, we were told yesterday, people do not always ask those questions and, therefore, people cannot get on with their lives because they have criminal records, they are already the poorest among us often and they are disproportionately indigenous and black Canadians.

It is simply the right thing to do. Why the government did not do it at the time, like other jurisdictions they modelled their legalization on, I do not know, but it is time to do it now and it is time to do it right. A half-measure is not good enough for Canadians. Expungement is the answer. Record suspension does not do the job. Let us get on with it. I urge all members to do the right thing and support my bill in the House.

[Committees of the House, December 7th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 23rd report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights concerning Bill C-78, an act to amend the Divorce Act, the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act and the Garnishment, Attachment and Pension Diversion Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[Justice, December 7th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, yesterday I stood in Parliament with leaders from the John Howard Society. They said pardons do not provide enough protection for people with criminal records. They said this:

If people's convictions are expunged, rather than pardoned...they will be able to respond 'no' to any questions about their criminal history—no matter how the question is phrased.

The government admits that black and indigenous Canadians have been disproportionately burdened with criminal records for possession. The application of this law has been fundamentally unjust, so will the government do what is just by erasing their records?

[Justice, December 7th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, according to a Department of Public Safety report, fully 86% of participants agreed that the government should completely wipe out, not merely suspend, criminal records for minor offences, particularly convictions for cannabis possession. Half a million Canadians have criminal records for this. They continue to face significant barriers to employment and housing for an activity that is now entirely legal. These Canadians deserve freedom, not forgiveness.

Will the Liberals commit to expunging criminal records for cannabis possession?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, December 6th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I very much respect my colleague, the parliamentary secretary and appreciate his very kind words. I enjoy working him a great deal and appreciate his very wise words.

I am still disappointed that the party of the charter would not see this as something it could embrace. I have no doubt that the government would not invoke the notwithstanding clause. I do not think that is going to happen. However, we are looking for leadership from the government.

He talked about the Prime Minister's commitment to debate and conversation. What better place to do that than the justice and legal affairs committee. He said that the committees were independent. It certainly did not seem that way when I put the motion forward just after the premier designate in Quebec decided he would go this route and follow the route that apparently the Government of Ontario had contemplated, namely routine use of the notwithstanding clause to overrule people's rights.

I am surprised and disappointed that the Government of Canada does not see fit to show leadership in this important area.

[Intergovernmental Affairs, December 6th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, my presentation tonight emerges from a question that I asked of the Minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade on September 25, which in turn resulted from a motion I had made at the justice and human rights committee, of which I am proud to be the vice-chair.

The motion asked that the committee study something that I think most Canadians would agree is very much within the purview of justice and human rights and that is the status in Canada of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Members will know that over the summer the new Premier of Ontario decided that he would invoke, as he has said on a routine and repeated way, the notwithstanding clause, section 33, of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That of course would allow for the suspension of the charter for five years in that province for the first time in the 36 years that we have had the charter in Canada. That overrules therefore freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of association and the right to life, liberty and security of the person, which of course was the foundation of a woman's right to choose upheld in the Morgentaler case.

This is a very grave situation. It was not about simply one province saying that it would do so in what most people thought was a rather strange context, on electoral reform in the City of Toronto.

The new Premier of Quebec has also indicated that he would not hesitate to use the notwithstanding clause. He would do so in the context of making sure that people wearing religious symbols would not be able to be in authority and make any decisions. It would therefore prevent public servants like teachers and judges from wearing religious garments like the Muslim hijab or the Jewish kippah when they interact with the public. It perhaps might also apply to large Christian crosses or turbans. We do not know. He would simply use the charter's notwithstanding clause to overrule the rights that Canadians have taken for granted in the 36 years we have had the charter.

My question was: Would the government please have a study at the justice and human rights committee so we could have at that? We could hear from the people who were there at the time, some of whom are still very much alive, like former prime minister Chrétien, Mr. Romanow, Mr. Davis, people who were there to tell us what their intent was. We could hear from experts and human rights-seeking groups that the notwithstanding clause was never intended to be used in the way that these two premiers have chosen to suggest they would use it.

What better place is there than the justice and human rights committee of the House of Commons to convene such a meeting in the interests of Canada? The government has said no. I would like to know why.

[Anti-Semitism, December 4th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada reports that last year the number of hate crimes increased by almost 50%. We now know, all too well, that online hate can lead to real-life violence.

At this time of Hanukkah, Jews gather with family to celebrate the festival of lights. They light candles to dispel darkness. Yet this year, their celebrations are marred by sadness since the darkness of anti-Semitism has spread, even in Canada. Jewish, Muslim, black and LGBTQ2 communities have all been increasingly targeted. Hate has grown, especially online, since the Internet enables the hateful to find one another.

B'nai Brith's excellent “eight-point plan to tackle antisemitism” calls for a national action plan.

In our common humanity, Canadians of good will must urgently band together to counter the forces of hate and division. Government must speak out against bigotry. Our government must also work with the communities affected to investigate, punish and prevent these crimes of hate. Enough is enough.

[Criminal Code, November 28th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, when I made my speech on Bill C-75 at second reading, I mentioned that we were eager to work with the government to improve the bill. I am disappointed to report not enough was done to enable us to support this legislation. The government's stated goal was to reduce court delays in accordance with the Supreme Court's decision in Jordan and to continue with trial fairness imperatives. I am afraid the bill comes up short on both counts.

This was a 302-page bill so I will not be able to address in my short time the questions I wanted to. However, I would like to speak on four themes very briefly. First, the failure to address mandatory minimum penalties; second, the hybridization issues we have heard about; third, restrictions on preliminary inquiries; and fourth, the patchwork approach to agent representation. These are among the many issues we heard testimony on at the justice committee.

We heard testimony that the measures proposed would, in fact, make matters worse in many cases. I will elaborate. Most of the action in criminal justice in Canada takes place in the provincial courts, and hybridizing offences and pushing more cases onto to those courts is hardly a solution that is going to make things better.

However, I commend the government for a number of things. I commend it for deleting the routine police evidence provision that was agreed to be problematic at the committee. I am pleased we, at the committee, persuaded the government to change that odious provision. I am also pleased to have moved, along with my colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton Centre, a provision that would repeal the bawdy house provisions and vagrancy sections of the Criminal Code that have been used so often to criminalize consensual sexual activities, particularly among the LGBTQ2 community.

However, there were hundreds of amendments brought to the committee and a number of them were not accepted. For example, the New Democratic Party brought 17 amendments to committee designed to help vulnerable people impacted by our justice system. None of them were accepted by the government.

Every day there are real people who are self-represented. They cannot afford lawyers and there is not enough legal aid in this world to represent them. Who are these people? They are primarily indigenous, poor and marginalized. It is our submission that this bill simply does not do enough to address their realities.

Many of the stakeholders we consulted have told us that the key reforms in Bill C-75 are not evidenced-based at all. The stated objective of this bill is to respond to the Jordan judgment, with its mandatory time limits, yet there is considerable doubt the changes proposed would speed up the criminal justice system. Arguably, they would have the opposite effect.

The Liberals claim that this is somehow bold criminal justice reform, yet the elephant in the room is that they failed entirely to address former prime minister Harper's regime of mandatory minimum sentences, despite their political promises and public commitments to do so. Defence lawyers and legal academics agree the reversal of this practice would have been a huge step to unclogging the delays in the system, yet the Liberals failed utterly to even address the topic at all. We believe we need to deal with the root causes of the delays, things like addiction and poverty issues, which are really the root of the crime we are dealing with.

Let me start with mandatory minimums. This is one thing that would have increased compliance with Jordan and alleviated court burden from multiple charter challenges, and it is unfathomable why the Liberals ducked this issue. So many people came to our committee and talked about it. I do not have time to list them all but they included, from Barreau du Québec, Dr. Marie-Eve Sylvestre, who is a professor at the University of Ottawa, and Jonathan Rudin of Aboriginal Legal Services. I could go on and on. All of these people have spoken out about the failure to address mandatory minimums.

There are so many quotes I do not have time to address, but Jonathan Rudin, who is the program director for Aboriginal Legal Services reminded us that even the justice minister herself acknowledged the issues with mandatory minimum sentencing, saying, “This government knows that mandatory minimum sentences do not work.” She spoke eloquently on this issue on September 29, 2017, almost a year ago.

The justice minister said:

There is absolutely no doubt that MMPs have a disproportionate effect on Indigenous people, as well as other vulnerable populations. The data are clear. The increased use of MMPs over the past decade has contributed to the overrepresentation in our prison system of Indigenous people, racialized communities and female offenders. Judges are well-equipped to assess the offender before them and ensure that the punishment fits the crime.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this bill to address that issue.

I am pleased that Senator Kim Pate has introduced Bill S-251, sponsored by my colleague, the member for Saskatoon West, which provides for judicial discretion to depart from the mandatory sentence when it would be just to do so. Then the opportunities for plea bargaining when judges have the discretion that they used to have, as all the experts have said, would go a great deal of distance to solve the issue of delays.

I do not have time to do much with the issue of hybridization. I think there has been enough said about that, and in the interests of time I will skip that.

I will say that Emilie Taman, one of the witnesses, a prominent lawyer in Ottawa, said this:

Indeed, of the 136 indictable offences that are to be reclassified as hybrid by virtue of Bill C-75, 95 are offences punishable by five or ten years. Consequently, this Bill now gives the Crown, rather than the accused, control over whether trial by jury is on the table for these 95 offences. This is problematic because the Crown’s exercise of discretion is done without transparency and is only reviewable on the very high standard of abuse of process.

In other words, we are giving the Crown counsel of the land the ability to make up their minds about which way to go in the privacy of their offices. Contrast that with judicial discretion, where in open court judges decide whether the penalty fits the crime. How different. How far we have come and how far away we are from justice. The potential for bias is real.

I believe that time will not allow me to do much more, but I am so enticed by what the hon. parliamentary secretary said about preliminary inquires that, in the interest of time, I want to address that issue head-on.

The government appears to believe that restricting preliminaries will save court time and protect vulnerable witnesses. The Canadian Bar Association, the Criminal Lawyers' Association, the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, and the Alberta Crown Attorneys' Association are among the witnesses that utterly disagree with the parliamentary secretary.

We heard considerable testimony about preliminaries actually reducing court delay. We heard extensive, compelling testimony that preliminary inquiries are a necessary tool to preserve trial fairness.

The Criminal Lawyers' Association of Ontario said:

Eliminating preliminary inquiries for all cases other than those for which a maximum period of imprisonment of life is available will not further the interests of justice or assist with the orderly and efficient administration of criminal justice. The Committee should recommend that these changes not be made.

I had a dozen quotes to give on this, but I think my favourite witness was Professor Lisa Silver of the University of Calgary's faculty of law. She said that we have to protect people from having a trial where none is necessary and that the “preliminary inquiry, at its core, exists as the legislative 'shield' between the accused and the Crown.”

She gave an example, a story which members may well remember, that of Susan Nelles, a nurse at the cardiac ward at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, who was accused of murdering children. During the preliminary inquiry, they found a complete lack of evidence. The result was the charges were dropped. The result, in Professor Silver's view, was that preliminary inquiries are a vital step in ensuring due process and fair trials.

The other issue I want to talk about involves restricting agent representation. Upping the penalty for summary offences to two years less a day is going to have an adverse effect for agent representation across our country. I am talking about law students, paralegals and other agents that currently represent a large “gap population”, as they are called, in our country. There are many individuals who simply do not qualify for legal aid and are too poor to afford a lawyer.

The government has decided it is up to the provinces and territories to regulate what type of agent can represent what crime. This is not co-operative federalism; this is creating a patchwork effect to justice across Canada. Access to appropriate counsel should not depend on where people live, but now it will. We have student legal aid services, people such as Lisa Cirillo, Suzanne Johnson and Doug Ferguson, who asked the government to reverse the measure that would limit agent representation, and yet nothing appears to have been done on that point.

Let me be clear. An unrepresented accused will absolutely increase court delay and deprive that person of his or her right to a proper trial. It often forces the Crown and judges into an uncomfortable position where they must occasionally advise, assist and support the self-represented accused when this is contrary to their official role in the process.

We proposed a number of changes to increase jury representativeness. They were rejected. Professor Kent Roach talked about the shameful situation of juries, such as the failure to have any indigenous jurors on the Gerald Stanley case, and suggested, as did the Criminal Lawyers' Association that we have the ability to look at the jury and the judge given the discretion to decide whether it was representative or indeed embarrassing. That was rejected by my colleagues.

I am sorry I do not have time to say much more, but I will say this. There is a real opportunity lost. We do not do comprehensive criminal justice reform very often in our country. The Liberals brought in a 302-page bill. Some of the key issues I have addressed will only exacerbate the problem before us, making less justice and further delays. There are some things in this bill we like, but on balance we have to say, sadly, we cannot support it.

[Criminal Code, November 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour, on October 29, to second Bill C-417 introduced by my friend and colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton. As he indicated, we worked together, along with the member who spoke earlier, the hon. member for Mount Royal, the chair of the justice and human rights committee. I enjoy working with him there and note that today he spoke with his typical eloquence.

I get many letters from my constituents urging me, when it serves Canadians, to work across party lines to do what Canadians ask us to, which is to make laws that are going to make their lives better. If ever there were an example of that, it is tonight. I am delighted to support this initiative. It is a non-partisan issue. It is what I would call a no-brainer. It is really hard for me to understand how people could resist such an obviously right thing to do.

What would this bill do? It would make it possible for someone to seek mental health assistance if a person has served on a jury and is one of very few people deeply affected or traumatized by that experience. Who could possibly oppose such a measure? Perhaps there are ways the law could be improved through drafting, which is the role of committees to delve into it further, but, in principle, how could one possibly oppose this measure?

Along with my other colleagues, I want to salute the work of my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, who pushed us to do this and produced, as my friend from Niagara Falls pointed out, a unanimous report, which everybody joined hands around. I commend him for doing so. The member for Mount Royal described some of the recommendations that are part of that report, but as he pointed out, many of them are in provincial jurisdiction. The beauty of this very simple and clean amendment to the bill is that it is entirely in federal jurisdiction. It is an amendment to section 649 of the Criminal Code that very narrowly addresses the problem he has described today.

I grew up in a place called St. Catharines, Ontario. That community was traumatized by the Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka trial. To his eternal credit, Mr. Justice Patrick LeSage did something for which he had really no authority: he provided counselling for jurors who were affected by that horrific testimony, videotapes and so forth that changed people's lives. I know that to be true because I know people who were affected by that horrible experience.

The committee heard other people, including Mark Farrant, who both of my colleagues have spoken of, who has become a leader in this initiative. He stood with the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton and me at a press conference to tell his story. He is not afraid to tell the story of what happened to him by doing his civic duty.

Both of my colleagues have stressed that one of the few remaining things, if not the only remaining thing, that Canadians can be compelled to do is do their duty on a jury. We depend on them. Our system of criminal justice depends on them and they put their lives, once in a while, in real jeopardy by doing what is required of them.

The thing that also needs to be said is in that criminal courtroom the Crown counsel will, no doubt, have access to effective medical assistance. The judge will as well, because judges have that kind of support. Probably the defence lawyer would as well through the Canadian Bar Association insurance program or the like. People who choose to sit in the courtroom do so voluntarily, but who does not have any support? It is jurors. They get nothing, but they put themselves sometimes at great risk. That is wrong. I will provide some examples of the poignant testimony heard at the justice committee to prove that point. The state of Victoria figured out that it was the right thing to do and fixed it, and Canada should as well.

One juror named Tina Daenzer said, “What I had to watch—those girls being raped and tortured—wasn’t just watching evidence; it was sitting in a box where I felt I couldn’t do anything to save them. It was excruciating for me.”

She goes on to say:

It's been over 22 years. I still have residual effects. If your 85-year-old granny is standing on the side of the road waving me down to help her with her broken-down car, I ain't stopping. I'm not stopping for anybody. I'm distrustful of most strangers. My family life is back to regular, but as a societal person, I'm highly distrustful of people.

That is what jury service did to that Canadian citizen.

Sonia Chopra, a former juror, said this:

I experienced nightmares, recurrent thoughts, loss of sleep, loss of balance, weight loss. Grinding of teeth at night escalated to clenching of teeth during the day, which led to headaches. I had a general feeling of anger all the time, and the feeling of helplessness.

I could go on.

Psychologist Vivien Lee said to our committee that because of stigma, jurors “often do not recognize or seek help until much later, when their difficulties have impacted many aspects of their work and personal lives.”

The point of this legislation is to say that it is okay to go to a health professional, seek counselling and obviously take the steps necessary at a time when it is perhaps easier to make the changes that would make their lives better.

According to the World Health Organization, every dollar we invest in mental health results in about $4 in savings to the Canadian and world community. I think that is applicable in this situation as well.

I want to commend the member for St. Albert—Edmonton for his leadership. I am proud to have served with the people who have spoken and others in this chamber tonight who are on the justice committee, effectively led, as I wish to confirm, by the member for Mount Royal.

I urge all members to support what the member for St. Albert—Edmonton properly called a common sense bill.

[Pharmacare, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Liberals gave $14 billion in tax breaks to rich corporations and left families struggling to make ends meet. Now Canadians and Canadian businesses are continuing to spend billions on medication for themselves or their employees. A universal single payer pharmacare system would save Canadians and small businesses billions of dollars, but the Liberals chose to invest in the 1% instead of helping those in need.

Will the Liberals help people by implementing a universal single-payer pharmacare system or will they keep giving handouts to the richest corporations?