Murray Rankin

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I did not have the pleasure of serving on the committee, so I am unable to be specific on the merits of the Quebec first patent program, although I understand, as the member correctly pointed out, it has been deemed a success.

The member talked about his disappointment that this is a pilot project, but I do not share his disappointment with the recommendation that the government do a pilot project to provide small businesses access to strategic intellectual property advice. I like pilot projects. I like the fact that people can take a look at it and not use a whole bunch of money to create a permanent program, because if it does not work, we can go and try another one. That is the nature of this high-tech sector. In fact, we do not want to dig in and get locked into something that may not work, or that may work for biotechnology but not very well for ocean research technology, for example. I would not want to be seen as denigrating the committee's excellent report with the notion that a pilot project is somehow less valid. I think it is actually a benefit.

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have a challenge here. The member put his finger on a problem that needs to be addressed and that we ought to look at head-on as Canadians.

I told members how painful it was to see people go to the United States with their ideas and commercialize them there. However, the problem that often arises is more complicated. I have heard so many entrepreneurs tell me that they do not want to go to the United States because there is not a health care system they can afford or depend upon, and they look with pride to the health care system that Canada has. Yes, there are lower taxes, and I do not think that is going to change any time soon, but there are other quality of life factors.

I can speak to my riding of Victoria. When Mr. Gunn sells a high-tech company on relocating to Victoria, he tells me that he is often selling the sizzle and not the steak—that is, he is selling the fact that the quality of life in our community is so extraordinary that people want to live there, even though it might be a little more expensive with taxes, even though they might make a little less, because they have to think of families and so forth. That is the first point.

The second point is new Canadians. When I think of the brain drain from developing countries to the United States and Canada, increasingly those people are not interested in going to the United States, for reasons I need not explain to the House. As a consequence, we could be the beneficiaries of those brains, of that entrepreneurial zeal. Do not get me wrong: we have done a good job, and I am proud of our record with respect to bringing in new Canadians, but we should enhance that.

I was in Pakistan recently, and a number of people told me that because they could not get visas to come here to study, they or their kids went to Australia or the U.K., and even begrudgingly to the United States, because our rules seemed to be hamstringing them. It made me angry, because we could get so much from them and they could contribute as other generations of new Canadians have to our economy, yet we find ways to tie them up in red tape. That is one of the ways we can improve and protect intellectual property and create more jobs for Canadians, new and old alike.

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the way for her intervention, recognizing our shared admiration for Dr. Naylor. That is something we would agree on 100%. His contribution to this country is not understood well enough by enough Canadians. On that we agree.

On superclusters, I have heard some skepticism in some circles that the number of superclusters seems to align just perfectly with the different regions of Canada. I hope that they are entirely merit-based. I have no position or opinion on that, because I simply do not know, but I know some have noticed just how miraculous it was that it lined up so perfectly for the government. Nevertheless, the concept of superclusters, which I think is the main point of the member's remarks, is something that one has to accept.

I know that universities now, with the Internet and Skype, are talking to each other in a way that was unprecedented even 10 years ago. It is remarkable to see how modern research is conducted. We collaborate across regions in different sectors, and I think that this success will be built upon by the notion of superclusters. Unfortunately, as always, there are winners and losers, and we hear grumbling from people who were not successful in different parts of the country, but promoting collaboration is key.

The other point, however, that the industry committee talked about is that it is fine to have universities create great ideas, great intellectual property, but the next step involves using intellectual property regimes to harness it, to protect it, to sustain it, and then to see if we can commercialize it in a way that works for Canada and not just places like Silicon Valley.

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here this afternoon, speaking about such a critically important, although I must admit somewhat boring, topic. When the words “intellectual property” are put together in the same sentence, most Canadians would probably be turned off about now.

However, for reasons that have been well expressed already by my colleagues, this area truly is a significant part of Canada's future. We need to ensure that we have harnessed intellectual property and, as I will argue, worked more closely with our universities in order to do so. That, of course, is the thrust of many of the excellent recommendations, all 12 of them, that were made in this report of the industry committee, entitled “Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer: Promoting Best Practices”.

It will not surprise the House that I will say a few things about my riding of Victoria, because we are the home of a number of universities and colleges that have been integrally involved in intellectual property accumulation that has then been transferred to our burgeoning high-tech sector. Many Canadians will be surprised to learn that our main industry, in fact, is high tech, which depends on some of the things that the committee has quite astutely observed and made recommendations upon.

Let me therefore begin by looking at some of the recommendations. I would like to highlight only a couple of them that I think are important. Then I will talk about the situation in my part of the country. Lastly, I will end with something that is rarely talked about in this House but which ties very directly into this issue, and that is the so-called Naylor report.

Let me start with the recommendations that I think are particularly important to the university and college sector.

Recommendation 3 of the industry committee report is that the Government of Canada facilitate access to information relevant to technology transfer for Canadian small and medium enterprises.

Why? It claims “in order to promote collaborations between post-secondary institutions and the private sector, notably for the purpose of the commercialization of academic research.”

Sometimes Canadians think that universities are simply an ivory tower place, and that is so far from the reality that exists today. Many of the discoveries that are happening across our country—and Canadians should be immensely proud of those discoveries and the researchers that are making them—can be commercialized and should be commercialized. It troubles and pains me that so many of our young entrepreneurs think there is no sense in trying to commercialize it in this country and that they should just go down to Silicon Valley or Boston or maybe Ireland, which has become such a high-tech sector in and of itself.

That should not be the future of Canada. We need to keep the best and the brightest who make these discoveries, so we need to provide the protection of intellectual property that is needed to keep them in this country, where they create jobs and a better future for us and our children and grandchildren.

That recommendation deserves some emphasis.

Recommendation 5 reads like this:

...that the Government of Canada consider launching a pilot program designed to provide small businesses access to strategic intellectual property advice.

That will be a challenge thrown directly to the Government of Canada, which I hope they will take up as a pilot project.

The last one that I will focus on is that the committee recommends:

...that the Government of Canada study the opportunity to renew and expand funding allocated to programs supporting technology transfers between post-secondary institutions, (universities, colleges and polytechnics), and Canadian enterprises.

It is abundantly clear that the committee gets it and sees the incredibly important need. However, forgive me if I focus this debate on the community with which I am most familiar, Victoria.

I confess a lot of Canadians do not understand it and have a very unfortunate stereotype about what our community is, thinking of it perhaps as a retirement centre, a government centre, and so forth. That is why I think Canadians need to understand that greater Victoria's technology sector is now a $4-billion industry, making it the largest industry in the capital regional district. It is $4 billion. It is the largest industry. I think that will come as a surprise to Canadians. It has been that way since 2007, when it quietly moved up the ranks and hit $1.6 billion. According to recent studies, for every high-tech job, four other jobs are created.

Here I need to do a shout-out to Mr. Dan Gunn, who deserves a lot of credit for that. He heads up the Victoria Innovation Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council, which uses an enormous number of very amusing and engaging techniques to engage the young members of that burgeoning high-tech community. He deserves credit for putting it together, creating that umbrella, having fun with people, getting them to collaborate informally at what they call “Fort Tectoria” on Fort Street, and has helped to turn the downtown area into what San Francisco calls “the mission district”, full of entrepreneurs and young people.

A long time ago the Liberal government of British Columbia moved many of the government jobs away. It downsized and moved them to different parts of the province. Those buildings are now increasingly being occupied by 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds who are creating a future.

The law firm I used to be with rented the building where all these computers were just sitting, because the people we took the lease from simply sold their entire business and moved to Silicon Valley, leaving thousands of dollars of material laying around.

That is just one of many start-ups that have been so successful in our community, and we are very proud of them. To return to the point I made earlier, it saddens me that many of them think they have to go abroad to succeed.

I commend the committee for recommending that there be a pilot project to make sure we know how to best harness this future and grow it, as we have done so well in our community.

As I said earlier, the high-tech sector employs a younger group of talent compared to workforces like those in government. It is also very diverse. Moreover, its employees make more money than the average worker in other industries.

How about this? Technology employs about 5% of British Columbia's workforce. That is more than forestry, mining, and oil and gas combined. If I said that to most Canadians in other parts of the country, they would scratch their head and say, “That's not what I understand. That's not the image of British Columbia that appears on TV. It's totally different.”

British Columbia has the University of Victoria, Royal Rhodes University, and Camosun College. It has enormous tech innovation centres that are succeeding. It also has what I think is the most important thing, a commitment in our communities to make this happen.

I salute entirely the report that has been provided.

I promised that I would also refer to the Naylor report. What is the Naylor report? David Naylor is the former president of the University of Toronto. He did a remarkable job for Canadians, and I am here to salute him today.

Last year, he chaired Canada's fundamental science review and produced an enormously important report called “Investing in Canada's Future: Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research”. That report is, as we might expect, very detailed.

One of the things he recommended, which I think dovetails quite nicely with the recommendations I referred to earlier, is that we create a panel to look at Canada's federal research infrastructure and that the Government of Canada by an act of Parliament create what he calls the national advisory council on research and innovation.

After enormous consultation, the committee thought that we needed such a federal statute to create such a council if we were going to have oversight of the federal research and innovation ecosystems around this country. It is obvious how that dovetails with the recommendations the industry committee made. I commend this Parliament to think about whether that act of Parliament ought to be created. I think it should.

Among the responsibilities of that committee would be to advise the Prime Minister and cabinet on federal spending, as well as broad goals and priorities for research and innovation; to improve the co-ordination and strategic alignment of different elements of federal support for research and innovation; and to evaluate the performance of the extramural research enterprise and so forth and so on.

The report spends an enormous amount of time talking about our proud funding agencies, NSERC, SSHRC, the medical research council, and the funding agencies, but makes very specific recommendations. I am advised that our universities are in broad agreement with the Naylor report, so it would be a win-win for the government to introduce that act of Parliament, and do what Dr. Naylor and his team suggested and get on with the job of harnessing the technology of intellectual property, which I have spoken about and the committee addresses and takes so seriously.

The new economy, the digital economy, is not based on land or money or the resources one normally thinks of, but on information. Technology in a digital economy is harnessing that intellectual property, be it medical research or research into applications on the Internet and the like. If we do not get our hands around how we can preserve and protect that intellectual property, obviously we are not going to thrive in the 21st century. We are not a country anymore of hewers of wood and drawers of water. We are not a country that simply uses the land and the resources provided to us as Canadians as our legacy and our heritage to create a new economy.

Our children are working in jobs many of us do not even understand. My son has a high-tech job that I do not even know what it involves. I am not the only parent in that situation. He does geographic information systems. I do not even know what they are, but all I know is that he is doing well, making money, and staying in Victoria because in our community we have people who do that. It is part of this new economy that I speak of.

However, if we do not have intellectual property rules that are effective in the 21st century and that understand the technological basis of that new economy, as a Canadian public, we are going to be the losers. Every time I see one of those planes going from the airport in Victoria down to the Bay area, which happens a couple of times a day, I do not know whether to laugh or cry. Many times they are going down to get the financing they need to advance the technology, which I am delighted they do. However, many times, they are going down so that people can take up new jobs in the Bay area, and we are losing that opportunity for our children and grandchildren here.

I commend the industry committee for recognizing the urgent need to get our hands around the preservation of intellectual property, the commercialization of the research it generates and, finally, to get jobs for Canadians, high-paying, family-supporting jobs in technology that will sustain the future of our country.

As for what those jobs are, let me talk about my community and the technology sub-sectors in greater Victoria. I do not think people will believe this. These jobs are in software; performance marketing and ad tech; fintech, which is technology for the finance industry; gaming; virtual reality; aerospace; life sciences; biotech; advanced manufacturing; telecom and wireless; ocean sciences and marine technology; technology services; and clean tech. It goes on and on. Again, not every Canadian knows what each of those words means, but they do know when their daughter or son comes home with a big paycheque from something they are working at. They do not even have to know what the word means. I had to look in the dictionary when my son came home and told me he got a job in this field, because I did not even know what it was. That is a bit disconcerting, but that is the new reality many of us here will understand only too well.

I cannot overemphasize the critical importance of the work this industry committee has done for Canadians. Of course, the question then always turns to this side of the House and whether they get it and if they want to keep Canada on track. I support some of the things the government has done with technology development and innovation. I accept that it has done better than the last government, that there is funding required, and that it has made significant investments in this. It would be disingenuous of me not to recognize and salute that. However, intellectual property preservation, boring though it might sound, is at the root of this. The government needs to figure out with us in this place how we can harness it.

Naylor suggested that we have a statute. I think that is a very good idea. Most university professors and presidents with whom I have spoken accept that as a critical first step to do what has to be done. There is lots of work we can do as Canadians to get on with the job.

I salute this report, I salute the committee, and I say, “Let's do it.”

[Natural Resources, May 25th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Victoria is surrounded on three sides by water. The Canadians I represent keep asking me why the Liberals want to impose the real risk of a catastrophic spill of bitumen upon our shoreline. They remember the recent devastating spills on the Pacific coast and reminded me that when the Prime Minister came to Victoria, he promised on the media to redo the Kinder Morgan process, then broke that promise. Now they are asking me again why the Liberals are willing to use our tax dollars to write a blank cheque to Texas billionaires. What can I tell them?

[Criminal Code, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, given the time constraints imposed upon me, it will be difficult to do justice to the two questions put.

I am not denying that there was consultation with thousands of Canadians. I am sure that judges were involved. At least one important and very experienced deputy attorney general from the past says this is nothing but downloading. I would be interested in what others have to say about that.

I personally support the provision on peremptory challenges. It would mean that the colour of a person's skin would not be sufficient reason for someone to simply stand in a courtroom and challenge a proposed juror because the person does not think that juror would do justice as an indigenous person. We know cases where that has occurred recently, and that is why I thought this was useful, but on the condition that we have a more robust ability to challenge for cause. The Americans do that much better, much longer, and with much more gravitas than we do. We need to put that out there as well: the quid pro quo for not having that historic right.

[Criminal Code, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Windsor—Tecumseh for the question and for the opportunity to elaborate on this subsection.

It is subsection 657.01(1), for anybody listening, which would allow “routine police evidence” to be brought in by an affidavit rather than having, usually, the police officer come and testify. However, “routine” is left completely to our imagination. Many people have pointed out that it could include eyewitness testimony, and in that case we would not have the ability to cross-examine a police officer, look them in the eye, and see if we conclude that they are telling the truth. Not being able to face one's accuser is a very serious problem. Putting it all on paper and pretending that is all we need to do is deeply disturbing.

I ask the government to think about the consequences. It is only going to add to further delay, because I cannot imagine a judge, when a defence lawyer wants to cross-examine a police officer and it is not routine evidence, ever denying that request. If a judge is never going to deny it, then it will require a subsequent trial where the police officer may come back in two weeks and we do it all again. How on earth does that address the stated objective of the bill, which is to deal with the Jordan decision and the consequences of overburdened courts?

[Criminal Code, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question, because I think he is absolutely right. I would love to know what the record of consultation of which the minister spoke earlier would say about this point.

I consulted with a former deputy attorney general for one of our provinces, who told me in no uncertain terms that it was inextricable, that this would lead to further clogging of the provincial courts where most of the our criminal matters are dealt with already. To make it worse by adding more of these offences to be dealt with summarily in the provincial court is deeply problematic.

If the Government of Canada is serious about dealing with Jordan head-on rather than simply making it more efficient for the superior courts, it must figure out a way to work with the provincial courts to fix this problem.

[Criminal Code, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, there are two points.

First of all, my understanding on the preliminary hearings is that they account “for only about three per cent of all court time.” Maybe we have a difference in terms of the statistics here, but if that is all preliminary hearings do, then I think most people would agree that on a benefit-cost analysis, they are not effective. I would point out that there is still the ability to have preliminary inquiries on some of the more serious matters.

In terms of re-victimization and the trauma of having to testify, I completely agree that there are cases in which that aspect is indeed relevant. We heard in the justice committee about human trafficking and some of the trauma that victims face when they have to testify not once but twice. I am sensitive to that, but I think drafting can provide better discretion to deal with that problem head-on. It is an issue, and I acknowledge that issue, but in terms of a time saver, it troubles me greatly, and it should trouble all members of the House, when an experienced criminal justice lawyer like William Trudell, head of the association, says that it is going to result in more wrongful convictions. I have to say that I find that very troubling.

I understand that greater disclosure is possible now, unlike when we first brought preliminary inquiries into our system, but that is not a sufficient answer to look the witness in the eye, recognize that they are going to be a terrible witness in trial, and in fact not have a trial because we realize that it would never stand up with that witness.

[Criminal Code, May 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and contribute to what has been a passionate debate. Who knew that criminal justice could be that? Like the colleagues who have spoken before me, we, on the NDP side, have done an enormous amount of consultation with folks from the criminal defence bar, university prosecutors, deputy attorneys general, and the like. Regrettably, as a consequence of that, we have had to conclude that we must oppose this bill.

However, I want to make it clear to my colleagues that our goal is to work with the government, take it at its word, and offer our hand to see whether we can make this a better bill in the justice committee. After all, it is over 300 pages. It is an omnibus criminal justice amendment. We want to work constructively to make it better for Canadians and get it to committee as quickly as possible for that purpose.

Obviously, in any criminal justice reform, there are two goals. The goal of efficiency is clearly the government's stated objective: making our courts more efficient, doing away with the backlog, and dealing with the consequences of the Jordan case, in which the Supreme Court confirmed that we need to have speedy justice in this country. Efficiency is the government's stated objective, and I will come back to that. At the same time, we can never, of course, lose sight of the rights of the accused in our justice system.

With the research and consultation we have done, I want to say at the outset that we recognize there are some good things in this bill, which I will refer to, but there are also some deeply problematic things, which, in some cases, everyone we spoke to thought to be problematic. It is in that spirit that we engage in this debate.

For example, Ms. Sayeh Hassan, a Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer, summarized what many have told us when she wrote:

While there are parts of Bill C-75 that have the potential for improving the criminal justice system, many other parts will not only be unhelpful when it comes to reducing delay but will also wipe out numerous rights currently afforded to an accused person.

The big, ugly elephant in the room is the fact that the government chose to completely ignore what so many people have talked about, which is the need to get rid of mandatory minimum sentencing. That was a hope that people had the right to expect the minister to address. After all, justice writer Sean Fine of The Globe and Mail notes:

As far back as October, 2016, the Justice Minister told the Criminal Lawyers' Association in a speech that she would change the minimum sentencing laws “in the near future.” Days later, she told The Globe that new legislation would be coming soon, “certainly in the early part of next year.”

It is now 2018, and here is a 300-page bill that does not even talk about that reform initiative, which would have dealt with the issue of delay in a much more effective way. I also note that it was in her mandate letter and was ignored in this 300-page bill. Although I have enormous respect for the minister, it needs to be pointed out that the absence of reform of mandatory minimum sentencing is a significant missed opportunity.

We all know we have a clogged-up justice system and so forth. As has been pointed out, we all know the serious injustices that have occurred. Just last month in Calgary, there was a high-profile case involving Nick Chan, an alleged gang member and leader, who was acquitted of charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and leading a criminal organization. Why? Because of the inability to have a court trial resolved in a short period of time, according to the 2016 Jordan decision. All Canadians find that unacceptable.

The question that must be asked is whether this bill helps address that problem head-on. The argument from many is that it remains a serious problem. For example, in its position paper, the Criminal Lawyers' Association states:

Mandatory minimum sentences frustrate the process of resolving cases by limiting the crown’s discretion to offer a penalty that will limit the crown's ability to take a position that will foster resolution before trial.

Here is what happens. Defence lawyers have this mandatory minimum sentence, so they are not going to take a chance on the court's discretion, because the Harper Conservatives essentially took away the discretion that our trial judges had. The result is that we have people going to trial who, in the past, would not have chosen a trial; they would have pleaded to a lower charge. It is inexcusable that this issue did not even get addressed in this bill.

Another thing, which my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith has spoken about numerous times, is that we have a crisis in Canada with the overrepresentation of indigenous women, in particular. My colleague has done that work as a member of the status of women committee. During testimony at that committee, Jonathan Rudin, of Aboriginal Legal Services, highlighted the government's inaction with regard to abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing and its effect on indigenous women. He said:

[W]e have to look at the fact that there are still mandatory minimum sentences that take away from judges the ability to sentence indigenous women the way [the judges] would like [them] to be sentenced. There are still provisions that restrict judges from using conditional sentences, which can keep women out of prison.

The first thing that he urged the committee to recommend was to bring in legislation to give judges that discretion, which the Liberals promised to do. The elephant in the room is that they did no such thing. In 2015, and it is probably worse now, the proportion of indigenous adults in custody relative to their percentage of the population was eight times higher for indigenous men and 12 times higher for indigenous women. Any measure that could address that problem head-on has to be looked at seriously, and the government's failure to address what the mandate letter by the Prime Minister told it to is a serious missed opportunity.

I promised I would focus on some of the positives in this bill, from the perspective of the NDP.

First, the elimination of so-called zombie provisions of the Criminal Code is a good thing. For example, the criminalization that has existed for anal intercourse could have been removed long ago, so we are pleased that finally the government has done it. I wish it had done that with other zombie provisions, such as water skiing at night, which remains an offence in the Criminal Code. Maybe the government will look at that one later.

Second, it is a good thing that the bill would restore the discretion of judges to impose fewer victim fine surcharges or not to impose victim fine surcharges at all. I commend the government for doing that. As I believe my Conservative colleague has also pointed out, broadening the definition of intimate partner violence is also a good step. Creating an alternate process for dealing with some of the alleged breaches of bail is another good step. Codifying the so-called ladder principle, requiring that the least onerous form of release be imposed, is a good thing.

I personally think that abolishing peremptory challenges is a good thing. Although I recognize there is disagreement among many on that, I think it is a good thing. I want to put that on the record.

On the other hand, here are some of the negative things.

Absolutely every single person we talked to said that the provision on admissibility of so-called routine police evidence is overly broad and could be problematic to marginalized people in particular. Everyone agreed that routine police evidence language has to be fixed. Many people were happy that the time of day when the offence occurred, the weather, or routine lab results would be made available. However, the way it is drafted, it could even include the ability of the crown to not have a police officer come and provide eyewitness testimony. I do not think this was intended by the government, but it is an example of what appears to be a hastily drafted bill that needs to be fixed. The irony is that most judges are going to allow cross-examination of police officers, so Sergeant Brown will have to be brought back at some later time, with more delay as a result. That is surely unintended. It is surely something we can work together to fix.

Professor Peter Sankoff of the University of Alberta went so far as to call this measure extremely dangerous and ineffective. It is not just we who are saying this.

We have heard a lot about hybrid offences today. I am sure the government would agree that there seems to be a need to change the hybridization offences aspect. As colleagues have pointed out, the downloading to provincial courts of many offences is only going to move the problem of clogged courts at the superior court level to the provincial courts because more cases will be dealt with as summary conviction matters. I wonder if the consultation with the provincial and territorial ministers has made that point clear. The provincial court in British Columbia already hears 95% of all criminal matters. I am sure it is not that much different elsewhere, so I would invite the government to consider how we can work together to address that problem of obvious downloading.

Another area of concern, perhaps a sleeper, is that the government intends to increase the maximum penalties for summary convictions. In practical terms, what that means is that agents like law students and paralegals, who are currently able to represent people accused of an offence with a maximum penalty of six months or less, will not be able to do so for a whole range of offences if these changes go forward. It is an unintended consequence, but it certainly has to be addressed, because we not only have a problem already with unrepresented people in the provincial courts and judges bending over backwards, appropriately, to help those people who cannot afford or obtain the services of a lawyer, but now they will also not be able to get paralegals or law students to represent them in some cases. That again is something that I would have thought the government did not want to occur, but it appears to be something that would occur.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge that increased funding was provided for legal aid in budget 2018. I think that is something everyone agrees was long overdue. I commend the government for doing it. However, in the province of British Columbia, as we saw in yesterday's Vancouver Sun, it is simply too little, too late. It is a gigantic increase compared to the past, but now, according to Mark Benton, the CEO of the Legal Services Society, “Many lawyers providing services to the poor are doing it at a loss—the tariffs too low for most to earn a living, and so low that LSS is having trouble attracting and retaining lawyers.” We have got to deal with that.

I talked earlier about the preliminary inquiry issue with my friend from Niagara Falls and I understand that there is a difference of opinion on this issue. However, the facts are that these proposed changes would only save about 3% of court time. While the government proudly said the legislation will reduce the use by 87%, which sounds great, it did not tell us that it is not going to save a lot of time. Then why do it? Why do it when there is a risk, according to the chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Bill Trudell, that there will be more wrongful convictions? Why would we take away a right? The government says we have the Stinchcombe disclosure and it is a different world from when we started with preliminary inquires, but what is the risk-benefit equation here? We are saving 3% of court time and we are causing perhaps a wrongful conviction. I do not think that lines up. It is overbroad. Therefore, I think it is something we need to worry about.

I commented on intimate partner violence and bail; in the interest of time, I will not say any more.

There is a concern about the impact of this bill on those who have suffered the legacy of residential schools and the like, such as in the sixties scoop. For example, the Criminal Lawyers' Association said as follows:

Sadly, intimate partner violence is one of the recognized legacies of residential schools and the 60s scoop. Creating a reverse onus at the bail stage and increasing the sentence on conviction will likely aggravate the crisis of the over-representation of indigenous people in our prisons.

A similar concern was echoed by Professor Elizabeth Sheehy, as well as Professor Isabel Grant, so I think we need to get our hands around this issue and figure out whether we can find another way, despite the fact that I believe it was well intentioned.

In conclusion, what I want to point out now are some of the things we think could be used to address some of these problems.

First, the government claims it has made judicial appointments, which we heard the Conservatives say as well, but there still appears to be a problem with judicial vacancies. I am not saying that is a singular solution, but it needs to be addressed as part of a comprehensive solution.

Second, as I have said, we wish the government would reconsider the failure to review mandatory minimum sentences.

Third, the NDP believes that decriminalizing small amounts of drugs in this opioid crisis that we are experiencing would definitely have an impact on the clogged courts that we face. Who are the people in our provincial courts often unrepresented? Disproportionately, they are people with mental health challenges, people with addictions, people who are poor and simply cannot afford a lawyer, and legal aid does not have the ability to look after them. That is what is clogging up the system.

If we look at it from that end of the telescope, we would make truly important reform efforts. Jagmeet Singh has made a bold statement that decriminalizing small quantities of drugs is something we need to give serious thought to as part of the solution to our clogged-up courts. Not criminalizing these issues, but treating them as mental health issues and health issues generally is the way to go. We have to find a better way.

In Vancouver and Victoria we have drug courts and some creative ways to address this problem, but they have not been adequate. We still have serious problems.

By criminalizing people, we give them criminal records. What does having a criminal record mean? It means people cannot get a job in many cases. Are we thinking about that? It is really important.

I have talked in the House many times about the injustice of thousands of Canadians having criminal records for possession of small quantities of cannabis. There are still people who are unable to find a job because they are still being charged under the current law, which is about to change. I commend the member of Parliament for Hull—Aylmer for his intention to implement a bill that would see these records expunged. I do not think that goes far enough, but I will certainly join with him in that initiative.

Finally, we would offer greater social supports. They are at the core of this issue. We need greater funding for legal aid, which would surely cut down on the number of unrepresented individuals and ensure that more accused people would have access to much-needed resources.

Earlier today, I referred to an excellent summary about the consultations that the government undertook in this regard, a March 2018 report of the Department of Justice entitled “What we Heard—Transforming Canada's Criminal Justice System”. I want to read into the record its fundamental conclusion and ask the House whether the bill does the job.

It says:

Almost all roundtable participants stressed the same major concern. They said that most people who come in contact with the criminal justice system are vulnerable or marginalized individuals. They are struggling with mental health and addiction issues, poverty, homelessness, and prior victimization. Most felt the criminal justice system is not equipped to address the issues that cause criminal behaviour in these groups, nor should it be. Participants felt these issues are worsened by an over-reliance on incarceration.

We are very much in agreement, and I hope that my hon. colleagues will consider these concerns and work with us at the justice committee to make the kinds of changes to our criminal justice system that are so obviously needed.