44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 21, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/21/22 10:38:34 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, as I was sharing, we all have EDAs and campaign teams. Although it is our names on the ballots, there is a huge group of people, and I count almost 200 volunteers over the course of my last three or so years in politics, who have helped fight for the cause. I am so thankful and blessed because of my EDA and campaign team and all those people who have worked so hard to fight for the principles that I am so proud to stand in this place to represent.
When it comes to the reason we are all here, I often joke when I speak with classes in my constituency that there are only three job qualifications to be a member of Parliament in Canada. Just three; that's it. Number one, we have to be Canadian. Number two, we have to be over the age of 18. Number three, we simply have to get more votes than the other guy or gal. That process, that participation in our democratic system that each parliamentarian has, with, at least in the current standing, 338 different paths, different types of individuals, different parties represented, different backgrounds, different experiences and different professions, brings a unique cross-section of Canadians to this place.
I cannot thank the people of Battle River—Crowfoot enough for the last three years. I have spoken over 400 times in this place, being up in question period, giving speeches, speaking over 500 times in committee, being part of interparliamentary groups, meeting with delegations and being a part of international trips, representing the people of Battle River—Crowfoot here in Canada and around the world, voting almost 400 times, jointly seconding private members' bills, and all the various ways of communication.
Last night we talked about mental health and being able to break some of the stigma surrounding things like mental illness. There are things like constituency communication, social media outreach, more than a dozen mail-outs and visiting 63 communities. I represent a constituency that is about the same size as the province of Nova Scotia and has about 60 or so self-governing municipalities. I have visited each one of those communities over the last three years, some more than once, and attended hundreds of events, doing dozens of town halls and helping when it comes to the base of what being an elected official is about: helping people and taking thousands of calls, helping with practical issues regarding case work or the Phoenix pay system, helping veterans and members of the military, and helping people with passport issues or immigration or whatever the case may be.
There is so much that goes into what we do in this place. The headlines always grab the big news items of the day, but as I reflect on the last three or so years that I have had the honour of taking my seat in this place, looking back at my experiences, those who helped me get here, my family and the impact this has on them, and those who mentored me, I truly am very blessed and thankful for the opportunity to serve in this place.
I appreciate the latitude given me for a moment to share some thoughts on three years of being able to serve in this place.
To the substance of Bill C-9 before us, I would note that this is the sort of bill that should have been passed a while ago. I know there have been a few questions asked about why Conservatives are speaking to this bill. I am speaking for myself, and I think for many of my colleagues, when I say we like to do our jobs to make sure that we comprehensively look at, evaluate and examine everything that comes forward in this place.
When the government talks about this bill in particular, I believe it was Bill S-5 in the last Parliament, and there is a constitutional intricacy that the government, especially, likes to dismiss or not elaborate on when it blames Conservatives for somehow obstructing the democratic process by doing our jobs. Bill S-5 was something that died on the Order Paper when an unnecessary election was called in the summer of last year.
I could certainly get into the many aspects of that, with our returning to this place with almost an identical makeup, the frustrations that were felt by so many Canadians and the erosion of trust in our institutions. I will expand on that a bit more. I would share with the member for Durham how many of those frustrations manifested themselves over the course of that last campaign, with the selfishness of a Prime Minister who tried to use what seemed to be a few polls bending in his direction, even when he promised to do the exact opposite of what he did.
The reason I bring that up today is not only to highlight the hypocrisy of government members. They seem to want to blame everybody but themselves for some of these things. I suggest they would be best positioned to look in the mirror to truly self-evaluate some of the reasons we find ourselves in those places.
This is a bill that addresses a very practical issue, which is that over the course of the evolution of our legal system we have the need for changes to be made. Specifically, Bill C-9 addresses that there would have to be a review process, even though a judge is and should be a lifetime appointment. Certainly we see the consequences of when politics are injected into the selection of judges and some of the challenges associated with that, but there could be the need for a review. We saw that need in the case that brought this whole conversation forward a number of years ago, when a judge made some very disparaging comments that certainly called into question the integrity of his ability to oversee that specific court case. There has to be a process. There has to be the ability to discipline individuals on the bench.
Of course, we all need to have accountability and integrity checks within each of our professions, whether it be in this place as members of Parliament, in Canada's Senate or in our judicial branch of government. We have created many instances of this with the Ethics Commissioner, the Lobbying Commissioner, reporting requirements and all of those associated things. Bill C-9 is just a practical response to ensure that we address one of the key aspects of where we have seen what I alluded to earlier, which is that erosion of trust in our institutions.
There are many reasons for that erosion of trust, certainly some of which are very political and some of which are very practical. Many of which, I would suggest, need to be unpacked so that we can truly get to the bottom of them. Because this is a justice bill and specifically relates to the Judges Act, I am going to focus on some of my constituents' experiences when it comes to how they perceive the justice system.
I have been asked a number of times by the Minister of Justice and other Liberal members why I do not trust judges. This bill actually speaks to why there has to be firm parliamentary oversight. In the Westminster system. Parliament is supreme, and I am thankful for that. That is one of the things that makes our system of government the best in the world: that Parliament and the voices of the people ultimately have that final say.
One of the comments that is often made to me is that we do not have a justice system anymore, but we have a legal system and that legal system is failing. That is not my perception. That is the perception of many constituents who share with me those feelings and their experiences associated with it.
I mentioned before that there are 338 different paths to get here, but I have no doubt that each and every person in this place will have heard from constituents who have had their own experiences when it comes to the way that the legal system, Canada's justice system, is not serving them well. I am going to highlight a few of those instances from the perspective of being a rural Canadian.
I mentioned in my observations of being in Parliament for three years that I represent a large rural area. My constituency is 53,000 square kilometres of what I would suggest is the most beautiful countryside in the world. When somebody asks me what the area I represent is like, I say it is a lot like cowboy country. It is the beautiful rolling hills and wheat fields as far as the eye can see. The only thing dividing one piece of land and the next is a simple barbed wire fence, and even then sometimes it is hard to find those with how vast the space is. I think about the many people who live there, and although sometimes it is sparsely populated, it would work out to be about two individuals per square kilometre. That is the density of my constituency, approximately.
We have some significant challenges. Specifically when it comes to our justice system, we see how the dynamics associated with rural crime have changed significantly in the last number of years. From both when I was elected in 2019 and also my work being involved in politics in the community prior to that, I have seen the crime severity index increase dramatically.
It is astounding, some of the stories I hear from constituents, members of the community and law enforcement officers who are on the first line. There are crimes that just a few years would never have been thought possible to be committed in a small town of only a few hundred people, yet with the Internet and access to gangs, drugs and all of these associated things, some of the things that happen are astounding. Then, there is the revolving door of the justice system.
Before I get to the revolving door of the justice system, I will share that I was invited to attend a town hall in a small town. It was about 200 people in this community. There were about 100 people who came to the town hall. It was on rural crime, organized by the mayor and council. They had invited their member of Parliament and their MLA, who was not able to make it, but also their local law enforcement, the RCMP.
I got there and, as is often the case, the RCMP had planned to be there but got a call, so they were not able to be there when the town hall started. I listened for probably an hour to story after story, and we were not just talking about hypotheticals. We were talking about real lived experiences and tragic instances where people's homes were broken into and where individuals were terrorized, and after multiple instances of calling the police, somebody would be arrested and taken away, but a few days later they would be back in that same community terrorizing the streets again.
There were dozens and dozens of examples, and there was a lot of frustration there. There was a lot of frustration at lawmakers and there was a lot of frustration at local law enforcement. It was one of the things I endeavoured to highlight during that time, and I was thankful that the RCMP came for the last third of the meeting. I would suggest it was providential that, when I stood up and said, to the room of about a hundred people, to be sure not to blame those men and women in uniform for some of the challenges and that they were working as hard as they possibly could, only a moment later the Mountie who serves the area, in a detachment with only three officers, walked into the town hall.
I was happy to cede the floor to him, and it was amazing. We could see in the eyes of many that they were frustrated, because sometimes it would be a four- or five-hour response time after calling 911. With something like a serious break-in with a firearm, it could be four or five hours before a police officer even got to somebody's door. We are talking about serious stuff here, but that Mountie started to unpack what his days looked like and some of the rules and restrictions he, as a law enforcement and peace officer, was forced to abide by.
I saw after that instance many others like it. I highlight specifically that town hall in the community of Amisk, but there have been many other instances like that, where we see that erosion of trust taking place within specifically, because we are talking about the Judges Act, the legal system in our country.
Therefore, when the Minister of Justice stands up and says something like those who do serious crimes in this country will serve serious time, it is almost laughable. It is laughable I would suggest in a tragic way, because the experience of so many of my constituents speaks to the exact opposite of that.
When I look back as a political observer, although I would have been quite young when there was a change from a past Liberal government to a Conservative government, I know that crime was a big issue. One thing that was interesting is this. The Liberals like to blame Stephen Harper somehow for imposing mandatory minimums. However, some of the mandatory minimums of Bill C-5 that the justice minister blames Harper for have actually been around significantly longer. I believe some of those were put into place by former prime ministers, including Chrétien, Mulroney and even Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Often the demand for mandatory minimums is something that comes from a true frustration from the public. I would suggest that if we are not careful, we will end up seeing that erosion of trust take place to the point where people may end up taking the law into their own hands. I do not think anybody in this place, regardless of party, wants to see that happen. When we see a government focus more on demonizing law-abiding firearms owners than dealing with smuggled guns coming across our border, that is a problem and it is demoralizing for those who have been robbed by a firearm or been the victim of a crime that should involve serious time.
Therefore, when it comes to Bill C-9, we need to do everything we can to ensure that we address some of the erosion of trust within our institutions and, in this case, make sure there is a mechanism to ensure that those on the bench are held to a high account, as Canadians expect us to do.
I believe we should expect those who are appointed as judges to be held to that higher account, and Bill C-9 is part of a practical mechanism to ensure that.
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