44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2022 02:00PM
- Nov/23/22 5:31:45 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his question.
Obviously, we will develop our proposed amendments when the time comes, but evidently, the four Barreau du Québec recommendations that I just mentioned will be central to our proposed amendments. They must be taken into consideration.
Again, I am one of those who think it would be a little obtuse not to adapt to the new reality, not to use the tools that are available to us. I am also of the opinion that we must use them with discernment. If I may circle back to the example of the screwdriver and the hammer, they are both very useful tools, but they are not used in the same situations.
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- Nov/23/22 5:32:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I really liked what my colleague from Rivière‑du‑Nord had to say, as well as what we heard from the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, who spoke before him and is a member of our party.
The member's comments were based on his experience. We all had lives before politics and we all want lives after politics. When we speak from our experience and when lawyers talk about justice when we are studying a bill about justice, that tends to be very interesting, as we saw today.
When I talk to lawyers in my riding, their main concern is delays in the justice system and the fact that no judges are available to hold trials. These delays cause people to lose confidence in the justice system.
Based on his own experience, can the member tell us whether Bill S‑4 will speed up access to justice and restore people's confidence in the justice system? Some people think that new technology can speed things up.
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- Nov/23/22 5:33:36 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I hope that he and I both enjoy our lives after our time serving here in Parliament. I am sure we will.
I agree with my colleague. The bill could indeed speed up the process. As a lawyer, there were times when I had to wait all morning in a courtroom because of various procedures that unnecessarily had to be done in person. Some of these procedures could easily have been done remotely, virtually or in writing.
These days, the courts are constantly working to improve the flow of the legal system. I think the proposals in Bill S-4 are a step in that direction. As I said earlier, people are travelling unnecessarily. When we know that a hearing postponement is going to be requested in a case and that the lawyers all agree on this request for postponement, is it really necessary for everyone to travel there, to clog up the court and to take up five, 10 or 15 minutes of the court's time just to hear everyone tell the judge that they all agree?
I think this could all be done remotely and efficiently as long as everyone agrees. If a litigant is at home and cannot follow the proceedings in an efficient and intelligible way, then that would be counterproductive and would create unwanted frustration.
Yes, remote proceedings, like all the provisions set out in Bill S-4, will be a useful tool if used with the consent of the parties and with discernment.
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- Nov/23/22 5:35:21 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, we are always learning in our careers as politicians. A couple of the things my staff have learned are to log death threats and harassment, and how to deal with police.
I am looking at this bill about updating the courts, and I actually had to go to court to deal with a serial stalker, a harasser. It was at the height of COVID, and we did it through video conferencing. To me it was a real eye-opener because I thought of the women who have to deal with threats and male violence, and who have to be in the courtroom with their accuser.
I had to go deal with the guy who was being threatening and abusive. I found that the system that had been set up for video conferencing was a very good system. I thought that, for people who have less privilege than me and less power in society, it could be a very good way of levelling the playing field for survivors who come forward.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks about the provisions for using technologies, such as video conferencing, to help ensure there is fairness when survivors have to confront people who are threatening or violent?
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- Nov/23/22 5:36:35 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I would like to once again thank my colleague opposite.
I share his opinion on that. I too believe that victims of domestic violence, harassment or sex crimes, among others, would fully agree most of the time or be enthusiastic about proceeding remotely.
However, in committee, I realized to my great surprise that that is not always the case. Some victims want to confront their attacker. That is a good example showing that choice is important. Some victims do not want their attackers to hide; they want to see their faces when they tell them what they have to say. They want to see how they will react when they are told they are guilty and what they did is unacceptable. For those men and women, it is important to be there in person. That also happens to men occasionally. For some litigants, it is important to be there in person.
Others found their experience so troubling that they never again want to have anything to do with their attackers. They do not want to see them.
Yes, my colleague is quite right, and I have a lot of empathy for the victims and the litigants. I believe we must respect their choice with regard to the judicial process.
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- Nov/23/22 5:38:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge my colleague's considerable expertise; he has a lot of experience in this area. It is a great honour for the Bloc Québécois to have a resource like my colleague speak to this bill.
I would like to share a personal anecdote. My husband had a career with the Sûreté du Québec. I cannot remember how many times he was called to court. He often went in on overtime, because it was not part of his regular schedule, only to be told, upon arrival, that the hearing had been postponed. When he came home, he told me how ridiculous it all was. It had cost the government a lot of money to have all those people show up and then go home because the hearing had been postponed for whatever reason.
I wanted to add to my colleague's comments that, in some circumstances, it is really effective to have a bill like S‑4, but not in all cases. I think he is right. I want to commend his position of taking into account the legal context and of not passing this legislation as a whole, but making amendments. I think that will happen in committee. I hope so. With my colleague there, we will be very well equipped.
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- Nov/23/22 5:39:42 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I want to say what we often hear in question period, that I thank my colleague and commend her for her excellent work. What a great question.
All joking aside, I completely agree with my colleague. She raised an important point. Her husband is a police officer. He experiences these types of situations. I experienced them myself as a lawyer. Many of us have, in various capacities, regardless of our respective careers, or as litigants. I know how frustrating it can be for an officer of the court, a police officer or anyone else to see how much money is being needlessly wasted the morning of a hearing. I can guarantee that it is just as bad for the litigants in the room, who may have travelled in a snowstorm, and who are told that the hearing they prepared for is being postponed. They also often have to pay their lawyer who prepared for the hearing the evening before and who showed up at the courthouse in the morning. If such situations can be avoided, then everyone will be happy about Bill S-4 being passed.
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- Nov/23/22 5:41:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill S-4, although I have to place it in the category of “better late than never”. This legislation responds primarily to what we learned as a result of court delays during the pandemic. How quickly we forget that the court system in Canada essentially shut down completely, sometimes for weeks and sometimes for months in different parts of the country, as a result of widespread illness and the fear of illness. Essentially, we had a collapse of the court system looming.
Therefore, in this Parliament, through all-party agreement, we enacted quickly some measures that allowed the courts to keep functioning during the pandemic. Most of those measures are now appearing here to become permanent, because they were adopted on a temporary basis. They would now be made permanent in Bill S-4.
We also tend to forget that this bill was on the Order Paper before the unnecessary election. Most of my constituents have completely forgotten we had a 2021 election. People talk to me about the last election as though it were 2019. However, this bill was one of the casualties of the Liberals' calling that election during the pandemic, and it died on the Order Paper.
Therefore, I am glad to be back here today talking about Bill S-4 and how to address delays in the court system.
It is very clear that we already had delays before the pandemic. In the period between the Supreme Court decision called “Askov” in 1990 and the decision called the “Jordan decision” in 2016, we had more than 50,000 criminal cases dismissed in the province of Ontario alone because of delays of the court system. This included literally hundreds of cases of sexual assault that were dismissed because of court delays.
Therefore, it is important that we tackle this in the long run and not find ourselves back in that situation where delays deny justice to the victims of what are quite serious and horrendous crimes, in many cases.
With the Jordan decision, the Supreme Court specified that depending on the seriousness of the case involved, a reasonable time to get to court is something between 18 months and 30 months. That is a deadline that we face in our court system. If we do not have the system functioning for that, we will see dismissals of cases again. We have large backlogs in the system as a result of the pandemic, and we are in danger of seeing more dismissals of cases again in the future if we do not get moving. That is why Bill S-4, which would improve the efficiency of the court system, is really important.
The other thing about delays is that they affect public confidence in the justice system, both for those who have been accused, who would like to see their case dealt with in a reasonable time and who have a right to that under our Constitution, and also for victims of crime, who do not want to see cases drawn out for months and years. Victims of crime do not want to have this necessity of reliving the trauma and having what happened to them come back again and again over long periods of time, so we have this important task in front of us to try to reduce those delays.
There are some obvious obstacles that would cause delays in court. I will give credit to the government that it has tried to tackle one of those obstacles, which is filling vacancies on the bench. In doing so, the government has paid a lot of attention to making the judiciary look a lot more like Canadians as a whole, and that is a good thing.
However, there is another way of reducing delays that the government would not take up the NDP proposal on, which would be reducing the number of things that we consider criminal offences. One of the things we did was put forward the proposal that we decriminalize the personal possession of drugs. This would have taken literally hundreds of cases out of our court system in which there is no victim to the crime. Also, for cases in which we are talking about the use of very serious drugs, it would help get them into the health care system instead of the criminal justice system. Therefore, the government has not always taken our advice on the best way to reduce delays, but we are glad to see the changes that are coming forward here.
I want to talk quickly about two major changes and then two other changes in this bill.
Probably the change that is most important for the elimination of delays is the change with respect to remote appearances. Previously, there was no provision in our system for the accused to appear by video in preliminary inquiries, in trials, for lodging pleas or for sentencing, so a lot of time was spent moving accused individuals around, back and forth to the courts, so they could appear in person.
The changes here will remove the necessity that was there to make sure someone was always in person for what was sometimes two minutes of a routine proceeding, for things like lodging a plea. It will also make a change to allow those who have been selected for possible jury duty to make their appearances by video or remotely and reduce the inconvenience to members of the public who might be called to jury duty.
That is an important section of the bill, to allow the greater use of technology and remote appearances.
The second part, probably not so publicly visible but related to efficiencies in the court and policing system, is the provision for updating telewarrants. Our law before the pandemic envisioned that for a narrow range of criminal cases only, a judge could be called by phone. What we found during the pandemic was that we could use remote technologies to expand the range of cases in which a warrant could be obtained through remote methods.
Again, the bill provides for a wider variety of cases where a wider variety of technologies can be used in order to get warrants. This will save the time of both judges and police in our system.
I have a couple of things I want to mention quickly. One is the changes in case management rules for the unrepresented. One of the problems we have in our court system is that while people have the right to appear in court unrepresented, a lot of people are not exercising some kind of right. Rather, they cannot afford a lawyer to assist them in their case because they do not qualify for legal aid. Perhaps they earn just enough money to be out of the range of legal aid programs.
I think it is a significant improvement, both in terms of case delays but also in terms of justice for ordinary Canadians, who cannot always afford to get a lawyer. This would allow court administrators to provide a lot more assistance to the unrepresented.
The justification is often the court delays, but I think there is a second justification that is important there, and that is improving access to justice for those who are unrepresented.
There is obviously a better solution, and that would be to expand legal aid, so that people do not end up appearing in court on serious matters unrepresented. Again, though, that takes a lot of federal-provincial co-operation, something that is sometimes in short supply in our legal system.
The fourth thing I want to talk about, and I mentioned it briefly, is the provisions that make it easier for the public who are called for jury duty to participate remotely. Here is an area in which I think we have a lot more to do. We need to make sure jurors are not in fact penalized by serving on a jury. In our federal system, most of the rules about compensating jurors are in provincial jurisdictions, even though they are sitting on cases under the federal Criminal Code.
We need national standards on how we compensate jurors and what kinds of things they are compensated for. When we look at how people are compensated for jury duty right now, it ranges usually between $40 and $100 a day. Very few people have compensation in terms of getting paid leave from their employers. It increases people's resistance to serving on juries. There are lots of other expenses that are covered in various ways in various provinces. Are meals covered? Is parking covered? The one that is most important to me, which is rarely covered, is child care.
The Province of Quebec allows compensation for child care on a case-by-case basis. I think it is on the basis of application. That is also true in Nunavut. I believe that is the only other place where there is compensation for child care. If we really want to make sure juries represent the breadth of Canada and the face of Canada, then parents quite often are going to be very reluctant to serve if they do not have compensation for the child care that is going to be required.
Some people might say they would already be going to work so they would have child care, but we have a lot of parents who make choices about who is going to stay home and do child care. If that person is summoned for jury duty, that is a big expense.
That is something that is not in the bill, but I look forward to our taking this spirit of co-operation we have on this bill and maybe making some progress on what I would call a national standard of how jurors are compensated for serving in this country.
I want to say again that we have broad agreement on the bill. That is a good thing. It took a long time to get it here, but maybe now that we are in gear it will not take so long to get it out of here and into committee, and maybe it will not take so long in committee to get it back to the House. I share the optimistic suggestion of my Conservative colleague, who wanted to see us get this done by Christmas. I think that would be a good thing, and I think we can all work toward that.
We do not always co-operate well in the House. Sometimes our divisions keep us from dealing expeditiously with things that are real problems. I think delays in the court system are a real problem, and I am very happy all parties have come together to try to address this in Bill S-4.
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- Nov/23/22 5:52:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for his learned presentation. I think there are some very important elements there. I wanted to just pick up on the issue of access to justice and how this bill would expand that. I know it has been one of those challenging issues that, across provincial jurisdictions, we have had to deal with.
Can he maybe talk about his province of British Columbia and how it has been able to adopt this, how that has impacted access to justice and how that has informed Bill S-4?
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- Nov/23/22 5:52:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to have to say that I cannot speak extensively on that. I know that certainly the previous provincial attorney general, David Eby, and the current Attorney General in British Columbia have both had access to justice front and centre, and I know they have expanded access to legal aid as one of the main concerns about people having to go to court unrepresented.
Also, it is not just in criminal law, but also in family law, where we have a large problem in all provinces. Quite often one partner of a dispute, and it is usually the husband, has access to much greater legal resources than their partner in those kinds of cases. I know British Columbia has been both trying to encourage mediation processes in family law to tackle that problem and trying to right that balance between parties in those difficult cases.
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- Nov/23/22 5:54:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I think one thing we all agree on across all party lines is the need for justice reform. Sometimes we may disagree on where that reform should be, but we need a system that protects the rights of victims and survivors, and also makes sure those who are being accused have access to justice and justice in a fair manner. However, one of the issues that comes up again and again in Canadian society is overrepresentation of racialized communities, and particularly indigenous communities.
The courts are being used to handle situations that could be handled better within community and other alternate structures, so that we are not creating a class of criminals, but actually pulling people out of some very sometimes toxic relationships or sometimes bad behaviour. The community can actually help restore and bring people back within their communities.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague, from his extensive work, about the steps he thinks we need to take to start looking at the powers we can put in place to make sure those who should not be in jail can be taken out of that system and put on a better track.
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- Nov/23/22 5:55:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the first thing we need to address is that many first nations have their own ways of dealing with things we tend to send to court and prison that are much more effective than the methods we use. The problem is that those traditional communities and traditional systems are under-resourced, so we need to make resources available to first nations that wish to pursue their own justice initiatives, which in the end would be far more effective than the adversarial and correctional system we tend to support as a whole.
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- Nov/23/22 5:56:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a well-researched and well-delivered speech. I would agree with him on one thing and that is that access to justice in Canada is getting harder and harder.
In my opinion, and in my experience as well, access to justice depends more and more upon accessing a system through money. When he talks about people not being able to access that justice system and the requirement for lawyers, he is hitting the nail right on the head. I want to congratulate him for that.
Does he see that the system itself has gained so much weight in the middle that it is just being run by the people who are making money from the system? Is there a way through this that does not mean that one can only get there through lawyers, a more streamlined system of solving our disputes in Canada, so we do not have as much strain on our legal system?
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- Nov/23/22 5:57:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his compliments. I do not think I share the same view of the system. I do not think there are a lot of people within the system who are there just to make money.
In my experience with the legal community, certainly in my own community, there are some who make more than a good living out of the legal system, but most people are there because of their commitment to justice, whether they are working as prosecutors or as defence attorneys.
However, I do agree with the hon. member that, as I just said about first nations, there are alternative methods to the traditional arrest, send to court and send to prison process that we have tended to overly rely on in Canada. That is appropriate for some people. That is the only way to deal with some criminals in our system, but for most people, that is not the underlying problem and not the real solution. I agree with him that we need to look at alternative methods of dealing with things such as drug addiction and poverty, which cause a lot of people to end up in the court system.
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- Nov/23/22 5:58:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague could provide his thoughts on how the legislation would ultimately provide more flexibility, and how, by providing that additional flexibility, it would make the system more just, more efficient and more effective at delivering justice. Could he provide his thoughts on that specifically?
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- Nov/23/22 5:58:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the question brings up an important point. In this bill, we are looking to adopt a broader use of technology, not just for the sake of a broader use of technology, but to provide greater access to justice, as part of this, and that flexibility.
I think we had the important suggestion made by the member for Timmins—James Bay about how sometimes using technology allows victims to participate more freely in these kinds of systems than if they have to appear in front of someone who has caused them great harm in person.
I think that there are lots of advantages, in addition to the efficiency advantages, in Bill S-4.
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- Nov/23/22 5:59:26 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to an important piece of legislation. I had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions of a number of members on Bill S-4. It is a piece of legislation that was in the House previously, but in a different form. It originated in the House of Commons, where there was a great deal of discussion about it, and it has been reintroduced to the House in the form of a Senate bill, with very few substantial changes.
Having said that, I look at the legislation as a form of modernization. I do not say that lightly. I recall a couple of instances from years ago when I was a justice critic in the Manitoba legislature. There was a great deal of talk about how we could utilize technology to ensure that our judicial system was more effective.
One thing that used to really frustrate me was, when I would drive to the Manitoba legislature from home, I would pass the courts and see all the police cars parked there due to police waiting for trial, many of whom would never even get to testify on that particular day and would be called upon to come back another day, or I would be at another facility where there was serious police traffic, all court related. I remember talking to law enforcement officers who indicated it would be far better to capitalize on some of the technology, such as video conferencing, and the positive impact that would have. I believe it would be quite effective.
When I heard about the legislation coming from the Senate, legislation that originated in the House and was then reintroduced through the Senate, I looked at it from the perspective that, at the end of day, Canadians want a system that will be there in an independent fashion, independent of politics. We very much believe in the rule of law and judicial independence, but there is still a role for legislators and parliamentarians to look at ways to improve the system. That is what we are seeing here. This legislation that the government brought forward would ensure better accessibility. It would make the system more efficient and, ultimately, more effective.
As was cited earlier, we hear a great deal about the importance of getting justice as quickly as possible. There are certain things we have learned from the pandemic. We often heard, when the pandemic was at its peak, that we should look for ways to learn from the pandemic to improve our systems. The technology can easily be brought into our judicial system. We should at least provide the opportunity for its usage. I like to think that providing that opportunity would make a difference.
Bill S-4 proposes a range of reforms that would make court proceedings more flexible while protecting the rights of all participants. The reforms would flow from important work that was done and conducted by the Action Committee on Court Operations in Response to COVID-19, co-chaired by the Minister of Justice and Chief Justice Richard Wagner.
When we look at the tangible things coming out of the legislation, we see one would allow an accused person to appear by video conference at a preliminary inquiry, on consent of the parties and where the court considers it appropriate, including when evidence is actually being presented. In addition, it would allow an accused person to appear by video conference for trial for a summary conviction offence, on consent and where the court considers it appropriate, including when evidence is being presented.
Another important point to recognize in the legislation is that it would allow an accused person to appear via video conference for a trial for an indictable offence on the consent of parties and where the court considers it appropriate, including when evidence is being presented, except in the case of evidence before a jury.
I have two more points to highlight. It would allow an accused person to appear by video conference and audio conference for making a plea on consent of the parties and, where the court considers it appropriate, a plea by audio conference. This would only occur when the court was satisfied that video conferencing was not readily available, and the court could still inquire about the conditions of accepting a guilty plea under subsection 606(1.1), despite not being able to see the accused person, which was proposed in clause 715.234.
The last point I would make to Bill S-4 is that it would allow the offender to appear by video conference or audio conference for sentencing purposes, on the consent of the parties and where a court considers it appropriate. Sentencing by audio conference would only occur when the court was satisfied that video conferencing was not readily available, as proposed in clause 715.235.
I do appreciate the importance of video conferencing. My New Democratic friend from James Bay—
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- Nov/23/22 6:07:28 p.m.
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The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay is rising on a point of order.
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- Nov/23/22 6:07:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the member is going to say something nice about me, he needs to say, “the member for Timmins—James Bay, who has brought such wisdom to the House”. It is a simple thing. I do not know why we have been—
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- Nov/23/22 6:07:40 p.m.
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The hon. member knows very well that is not a point of order.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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