SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 83

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 7, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22
Mrs. Karen Vecchio (Elgin—Middlesex—London, CPC)
Mr. Speaker, it is truly an honour to stand here as we discuss the business of supply and the main estimates for 2023. I would like to begin by thanking a lot of people who have been talking to me over the last three weeks about the Supreme Court ruling that was made on May 13. I would like to thank the member who just spoke earlier, the hon. member representing New Brunswick. I would like to thank people from the London Abused Women's Centre, especially Jennifer Dunn and Megan Walker, and all those who have connected with me to ask if this is really the truth, if this is really happening. I want to go to what happened on May 13 and the discussions that started following a Supreme Court ruling. On May 13, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a major decision indicating that criminal defence in cases involving assault, including sexual assault, would be able to use a defence known as self-induced extreme intoxication. It is really hard for me to look at this. I am not a lawyer. I am just a normal human being who has children, who has family and who loves her community. I want to ensure that things like this do not exist in a court of law. I have reached out to some of these lawyers, to some Crown attorneys, and we have amazing support here from the member for Brantford—Brant and the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, just the work they have done to share with me what is going on here. These are the things we need to talk about. I am not going to blither anymore. I am going to talk about what has actually happened. On that date, there was a ruling saying that extreme intoxication could be used, because otherwise it goes against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, sections 7 and 11. I started looking at this, what it actually means and how it happened, and I went back to the history of why section 33.1 exists in the Criminal Code in the first place. This had to do with the fact that someone had been charged and there was a problem because at the end of the day, they were allowed to use this type of defence, the fact that this person was totally intoxicated and yet sexually assaulted someone. I started looking at some of the different cases and asking why this is such an important thing to Canada and how we can ensure that this would never happen again. How can we ensure that someone would never be able to use extreme intoxication, especially when it is an offence on another individual, especially when it has to do with sexual assault, bodily harm, or any type of violence against a person? This is why I am so concerned with this. When this Supreme Court ruling came out, I asked my colleagues about three key issues: What needs to be addressed in the Criminal Code? What are the specific loopholes? What can we do to address this issue immediately? The first thing we did as a group, and there were four of us who signed on, was to send a letter to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada explaining that we wanted to talk about this and that we knew there was an issue. We indicated that these decisions imperil the safety of sexual assault victims by permitting the dubious defence of non-insane automatism due to self-induced intoxication. Sexual offences disproportionately affect women and vulnerable people. The Attorney General has had sufficient time to study this ruling. The ruling clearly implores the government to act. The government has not. We have only heard silence from the government. That is why I am here today. This judgment was made on May 13. Today is June 7. We already know that when it comes to victims of sexual abuse and exploitation, the chances of people coming forward are already very slim, going into the criminal justice system. We just finished Bill C-233 last week, where we talked about judges' training and we talked about the fact that there is such a disconnect there. Understanding domestic violence, understanding criminal law, understanding what it is like to be a victim is so important. That is why l will continue to ask and continue to advocate for judges having training on domestic abuse, on sexual exploitation, on rape, all of these things, and how important it is. Although Bill C-233 is expected to pass through the Senate, we still need to make sure that judges are taking this. That is why, when we look at this decision, we say, oh my gosh, the victim is lost throughout the entire discussion. That is why I have so many issues with this. We sent this letter over two weeks ago, and we are still waiting for a response. I recognize that the minister has spoken to us in question period, but we are waiting for action, and that is what I am calling for today. We want action. We have people like Jennifer Dunn, the executive director of the London Abused Women's Centre, who said, “Women are already disproportionately affected when it comes to assault and sexual assault so this will affect them tenfold.... To be able to use that as an excuse and potentially not be convicted for their crimes is absolutely absurd.” That is why I want to continue to have this discussion. We are talking about a person and the fact that if people are violated, there is a fear of coming forward after everything. Whether it is the judge's training, or whatever it may be, the fact is that someone could even use extreme intoxication as a defence. I am sorry, but if it were my daughter who was raped and someone used extreme intoxication, as a mother watching my child, I would ask, how could anyone let that happen? I ask every person out there to reflect on this: If this was a member of their family or a member of their community, how would they feel if they knew that they did nothing? It has been three weeks now. Let us get this done. I am just going to ask the minister to get this done. We know that section 33.1 is unconstitutional, based on the nine Supreme Court judges saying it is unconstitutional, and they have come back to the government and indicated, even in their decision, that the government could do something, so I am asking where the government is on this. Why have the Liberals not done anything? I know that on an issue just a month ago, they had an immediate response. At that moment they were talking about oil and gas. That day, they talked about the fact that they were going to appeal that decision. We are talking three weeks later, and we still have not heard from the government what it is planning on doing. I want to go back and talk about why section 33.1 was put there in the first place, so that members have an idea of what can happen and why this is so important. I am looking through these notes, and there were two cases that involved men who were high on drugs when they killed and injured family members. The extreme intoxication was used to acquit one man and order a new trial for the other. Right there, we have people high on drugs who killed and injured family members. With the case that just came up here recently, I know there has been lots of discussion on that one. It is not up to me as a parliamentarian to judge what is right and wrong, but it is to fill in those holes. We sit here and ask if this is fair. This is where the rights of the victims are lost and the rights of the criminals are talked about as being charter rights under sections 7 and 11. I ask members, what if they were the ones violated and every single right was gone because the violator took those rights away from them? What if their rights were taken away and all we were worrying about were the criminal's rights? I sit here and think that the criminal's rights are outweighing the victim's rights. Something is absolutely wrong there. The case that brought this all up, and the reason we are having this discussion, was the May 13 decision. It was about a case that involved a man who had consumed alcohol and magic mushrooms. He broke into the home of a female victim and violently assaulted her with a broom handle, leaving permanent injuries. He was declared by the courts to have been in a psychotic state and to have had no will to control his actions. I sit here and wonder how we define extreme intoxication. How many times have people gone to somebody's Facebook and seen that somebody had written “I was extremely intoxicated”? I have spoken to friends and different people who will talk about not remembering what happened that night. What we are doing here is actually saying that if people are not able to make that choice, although they voluntarily consumed the alcohol or the drugs, they are involuntarily doing the thing, because they do not have the state of mind to make the right judgment. I go back to point one: They had the choice to drink, and they had the choice to take drugs. There are some cases where awful things have happened when people have been given drugs. We understand that this happens as well, so we have to look at that, but when people are voluntarily doing something and then the next time they are actually victimizing somebody else, why are we sitting back and allowing that to be the case? Why are we sitting there and saying extreme intoxication can be used? We know that it is very minute, because we know that there is a threshold, but my problem is that one is too many. That could be somebody's daughter. That could be anything like this. We have to look at the victims first. We have to look at the violators first, and that is what we are not doing. I think the decision made by the Supreme Court, whether it is right or wrong, gave direction to the government to do something, and I am asking the government where it is at making this decision. We know that, as I said, people are not going to come forward if they think this can be used, so I am very concerned as we are moving forward. There is a lot of work we need to do here. When it comes to intimate partner violence, when it comes to violence and when it comes to offences on other victims, I believe we can all agree that the victims matter and that they should come first, so I urge the government to do something now, not three weeks from now, but now.
1881 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border