44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 24, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/24/22 11:52:13 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I am happy to respond to that. When it comes to the administration of justice within my constituency, the RCMP members, the hard-working men and women who wear the Serge, are the ones facing the consequences of Liberal mismanagement. The reason it has such a close correlation to Bill S-4 before the House is because it is fundamentally associated with access to justice.
I talk about many of these things, and made it very clear in Facebook Live, and I have been happy to endeavour to expand Canadians' access to this place, as is fundamental. Democracy is not simply about election day, but each and every day in between. It certainly has been an interesting experiment. I found it interesting, but very disappointing, that members specifically of the Liberal Party would hate any attempt to be progressive in the ability of Canadians to access our democracy.
The rule of law is fundamental to a modern functioning democracy, and we are seeing an erosion of that. We need to prioritize access to justice in every way possible. In some ways that has to do with ensuring there are video conference options and that administrative details can be sorted out so there are no unnecessary delays.
Our Criminal Code was written by Prime Minister John Sparrow back in the 1800s, although it has been updated significantly since then over the course of our country's history. We need to ensure it is updated to ultimately ensure that Canadians have access to justice, that victims are protected and that those who commit crimes face the time that is due them.
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- Nov/24/22 2:35:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows full well, we are actively engaged in discussions with the provinces and territories on health investments, but we are in the process of ensuring that we are delivering concrete results.
We are very concerned about the trend toward privatization that we are seeing in some parts of the country. That is why we remain deeply committed to the principles of the Canada Health Act.
We will be there to help the provinces deliver results, but we will be there to ensure that those results truly help individuals, families, those who need it.
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- Nov/24/22 3:52:29 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock.
The pandemic taught us many things. It taught us about how viruses spread or do not spread, whether asymptomatic victims of a virus can be contagious, whether vaccines prevent us from being infected or only prevent us from being very sick when we are infected and also what effects isolation has on mental health. The jury is out on many of these issues. People will be writing Ph.D. theses on the lessons we learned or failed to learn from the COVID-19 experience, but it is not just medical and scientific things that we learned through the COVID-19 years.
We also learned that we could do business differently. More and more people are working remotely and that kept many businesses afloat during the most severe periods of lockdowns and restrictions. Admittedly, working remotely works better in some sectors than others. In my profession of law, for example, working from home or from the office was completely seamless, or from my cabin, for that matter. My clients did not typically ask me where I was, as long as I was serving them. My clients did not tell me where they were. I did not ask. They did not tell me, and it did not matter in most instances. I remember that, after a lengthy conversation with a client one morning, I suggested that we meet for lunch that afternoon and he said it was a five-hour flight from Hawaii where he was and that would be difficult to do. I did not know and it did not matter. Business was seamless in some sectors.
This was before the pandemic, but the pandemic accelerated the need for us to become more and more digital in the way we do business, and that is why we are here today. We are looking at draft legislation that originated in the Senate, Bill S-4, an act to amend the Criminal Code to allow for the use of electronic means, for example, to select a jury and allow jurors to participate in hearings via video conferencing. It would allow us to expand the availability of remote appearances by video conference and/or audio conference, and it would modify case management rules, fingerprinting procedures and the issuing of warrants, such as search warrants, just as examples. There is a long, exhaustive list of what this bill would reform in our judicial system. All of this was born out of the pandemic. None of this is novel and very little of it is controversial.
Conservatives have always supported finding new and innovative ways for government operations to be more efficient and cost-effective, but we must raise some concerns.
For video conferencing to be effective, it must be reliable. We have seen even here in the nation's capital, in Ottawa, where one would think the Internet would be world class, that hybrid meetings often get interrupted because a participant in the meeting, perhaps a witness at a committee, gets frozen or the audio is so bad that our highly qualified and professional interpretation teams cannot make out what is being said. It is one thing if a parliamentary or Senate committee is disrupted because of technological deficiencies, but it is quite another when it is a criminal trial and a person's rights, freedoms and liberties are at stake. We must get it right.
That brings me to reflect on a big challenge we have in Canada, particularly in some parts of this vast country, and that is Internet connectivity. Canada's Conservatives have been calling for an end to the digital divide between urban and rural areas in our country. Every aspect of our 21st-century economy is becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet and, therefore, we must ensure that everyone has access to good, reliable broadband.
Canada's productivity metrics lag those of our main competitor nations, our trading partners. For every $100, for example, that an American worker pumps into the economy, the Canadian counterpart contributes only $67. That is a big productivity gap. The Minister of Finance has acknowledged that gap and on several occasions called it our Achilles heel.
In the recent fall economic statement, she said, “We will continue to invest in tackling the productivity challenge that is Canada’s economic Achilles heel.” Earlier in the year, in delivering her budget, the Minister of Finance had this to say about Canada's lagging productivity. She said, “we are falling behind when it comes to economic productivity.... This is a well-known Canadian problem and an insidious one. It is time for Canada to tackle it.”
I could not agree with that more. It is time for us to tackle our productivity lag, and a good place to start would be to vastly improve our Internet accessibility, not only here in Ottawa, not only in my community of Langley where it is far from perfect in some areas, but across the country and particularly in rural areas. We can talk to any worker, any tradesperson, any health care worker, professional, trucker or teacher. They will all tell us that the best way to improve productivity is to get better tools, and the Internet is anyone's tool these days, including for the legal profession, our criminal justice system and our courts. There is nothing special about courts. They need to conduct business like everyone else.
Getting back to Bill S-4, an act to amend the Criminal Code, to improve efficiency in our courts, we want to move them toward greater use of electronic tools in jury selection, in jury participation, in witness appearances and even in the appearances of the accused, when the accused and the Crown both agree. We support these measures, but we must listen to the experts.
In her May 2021 report to the standing committee, our former federal ombudsman for victims of crime, Ms. Heidi Illingworth, had this to say on this specific topic. She said, “many courthouses across [the country] have old infrastructure, and implementing videoconferencing has been a challenge. For some in remote areas, bandwidth and internet access remains an issue.”
Ms. Illingworth was saying this in a study being conducted by the justice committee on formerly Bill C-23. Bill S-4 is almost a mirror image of it. Bill C-23 had the support of all parties, but it got bogged down because the government called an election that nobody wanted and was not necessary. That is for another day.
Ms. Illingworth had this to say in support of increasing the availability of technology. She said, “It is my hope that these measures will help to relieve the pressure on the courts by leveraging video and teleconferencing technologies to help speed up filings and hold hearings in an inclusive and efficient way.”
She was the ombudsman for victims of crime. In that capacity, she had this to say in support of victims. She said, “ensuring access to internet service across Canada would address concerns regarding access to justice for victims of crime during COVID-19, by ensuring that victims have a means to participate in the process should they so choose”, but she also warned, “Unfortunately, not all Canadians have equal access to the internet.”
I am hearing from many people in my home province of British Columbia about how important good access to the Internet is for Pacific economic development, which is something I have a great deal of interest in, but that too is for another day.
Today, I am speaking in support of improving access to justice through Bill S-4. It is a step in the right direction. We will be supporting it. I look forward to a deeper dive into the details of Bill S-4 at committee. I welcome any questions.
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