44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 2, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/2/23 1:17:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is very interesting that my colleague pulls out a statistic. I have not seen that particular one, but I can say that just within the last few days my local newspaper, the Peace Arch News, has blasted headlines about the increase in property crime in White Rock and Surrey with respect to how bad it is and how victimized the community is feeling.
We are actually here to talk about bail reform and repeat violent offenders, not necessarily property crime. However, if one talks to any Canadian on any street in my communities in B.C., they will say both are up and that this makes them feel insecure and unsafe.
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- Feb/2/23 1:32:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. I admire him greatly, but I do not agree with what he is saying. Bill C‑75 was not perfect. We all agree on that, on both sides of the House. There are some improvements to be made.
I would like my colleague's opinion on the remarks made by Carolyn Yule, a sociology and anthropology professor who studies bail. She says that there is no evidence to suggest that a tough-on-crime approach to bail would improve public safety.
Can we please trust these academics?
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- Feb/2/23 1:33:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my Bloc Québécois colleague started by clearly stating that Bill C‑75 was not perfect. That is precisely what we are talking about today. We want to improve Bill C‑75 as passed, by making changes to it.
My colleague talked about an academic, but we are not questioning all grounds for bail. We want to make it clear today that we are targeting violent criminals, criminals who use firearms. We are not asking to overhaul the entirety of Bill C‑75 as passed, although we should. We are being specific. We are targeting one particular aspect. We do not want to completely revamp what was passed, and they need to stop thinking that way. We want to take focused action in the name of the overall safety of all Canadians.
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- Feb/2/23 1:36:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, at the outset, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Sudbury. I am thankful for the opportunity to join today's debate relating to the criminal justice system, focusing on bail and repeat violent offenders.
I would like to thank the hon. member for Fundy Royal for his motion and his long-standing commitment to public safety. His motion provides me with an opportunity to discuss recent reforms to the Criminal Code, specifically former Bill C-75, and reflect on what is happening in my community and what we are doing in Richmond Hill.
Bill C-75 was introduced on March 29, 2018, in the House of Commons and subsequently received royal assent on June 21, 2019. The changes enacted by the bill came fully into force in December 2019.
While the reforms were enacted principally to address delays and criminal justice system efficiencies related to the concerns raised by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2016 Jordan decision and 2017 Cody decision, they also modernized and streamlined Canada's bail regime. These reforms represented the most significant changes to Canada's bail regime since the Bail Reform Act of 1972. Bill C-75 also reflected the reasoning of Canada's top court in the 2017 Antic decision. It was a product of significant consultations with the provinces and territories. It was a thoughtful and broad-ranging reform.
With respect to the bail amendments in Bill C-75, they were designed to specifically streamline the bail process by increasing the types of conditions police can impose on accused in order to avoid sending unnecessary cases to court and to reduce the need for unnecessary bail hearings, and by no means were they designed to reduce the conditions assigned during bail; codify a principle of restraint to ensure that release at the earliest opportunity is favoured over detention when appropriate, and I will go into detail on that later; provide guidance so the bail conditions imposed are reasonable, relevant to the offence and necessary to ensure public safety; and finally, require that the circumstances of indigenous accused and of accused from vulnerable populations be considered at bail to better address the disproportionate impact that the bail system has on these populations.
My colleagues suggest that Bill C-75 has broken Canada's bail system, that its reform forces judges to release violent repeat offenders back onto the street, and that receiving bail is easier now than ever for violent repeat offenders. By no means does the data support this. These claims are, at best, ill-informed and, at worst, very misleading. We have the data to prove that.
In the past 15 years, more than half of the admissions to adult provincial and territorial facilities were for remands to await trial instead of admissions to sentenced custody. A lot of people were waiting to be sentenced or were waiting to be heard. According to Statistics Canada, the proportion of admissions to remand has increased from 54% in 2006-07 to 67% in 2020-21, despite a constant decrease in the number of adult admissions during the same period.
This increase in the remand population has disproportionately affected indigenous people and persons from vulnerable populations. As a result, Bill C-75 enacted in the Criminal Code a requirement that the circumstances of indigenous accused and of accused from vulnerable populations be considered at bail in order to address the disproportionate impact that the bail system has on these populations.
The amendments in the bill sought to reduce the imposition of bail conditions that are unreasonable, irrelevant and unnecessary, which was also a codification of the rules developed by the Supreme Court of Canada. However, the criteria for when accused persons can be released by police or justices were not changed. The law remains clear that detention of an accused person is justified if it is necessary to protect the safety of the public.
We hear so often about the repeat offenders. It is in the hands of the justice system to ensure that it has the tools to be able to detain them. We have not changed that. Moreover, police are required to detain an accused person if there is a risk of reoffending.
The Bill C-75 amendments significantly expand protection for victims of intimate partner violence, particularly within the bail regime. The bill created a definition of “intimate partner” that applies throughout the Criminal Code to clarify that it includes a current or former spouse, common-law partner and dating partner.
It also created a reverse onus provision in the Criminal Code for an accused person charged with an intimate violence offence if the accused has an prior conviction for an offence involving violence against an intimate partner. This reverse onus applies regardless of whether it is the same partner, a former partner or a dating partner. What this means is that the presumption that the accused should be released pending trial no longer applies. The accused, not the prosecutor, would have to justify their release to the court. All the tools needed to prevent recidivism are there.
The change to impose a reverse onus reflects what we know about the heightened risk to safety that victims of intimate partner violence face. It also signals to bail court the seriousness of the alleged offences, as well as the increased risk of reoffending in this context.
Bill C-75 also added two new factors a judge must consider before making an order to release or detain an accused person. First, in an important change, bail courts now have to consider an accused's criminal record, something that may have occurred but was not mandated by the legislation. Second, the court needs to consider whether an accused has ever been charged with an offence that involved violence against an intimate partner. These two factors help ensure that courts are better informed and have a more a complete picture of prior history of violence that could threaten the safety of a victim or the public at large.
As a result of these changes, bail courts are now required to take these factors into account when making a number of different possible bail-related determinations, including the decision to impose an order not to communicate with a particular victim, witness or other person, a detention order or an order to release the accused on bail.
If the accused is to be released on bail, the court would have to consider whether the alleged offence was against an intimate partner in determining whether bail conditions are necessary and, if so, what type of conditions are appropriate, such as a condition prohibiting contact with the victim.
Requiring bail courts to consider the safety of intimate partners before releasing an accused on bail affords increased protection to victims of intimate partner violence. Bill C-75 made changes to the bail system that respond to guidance on bail-related charter rights of the accused as found in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. These changes aimed to help address the overrepresentation of indigenous people and vulnerable populations in the criminal justice system, while also increasing the efficiency of the bail system.
I emphasize that Bill C-75 did not change how the bail system should respond to violent or repeat offending, and it made some admirable changes to bail for those charged with offences relating to intimate partner violence.
In closing, contrary to the hon. member's suggestion, Bill C-75 has strengthened our bail system and helped protect victims of intimate partner violence.
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- Feb/2/23 1:45:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Richmond Hill gave us a very long overview of what the bill is intended to do and what Bill C-75 is supposed to do. However, I want to share some facts.
In my riding alone, in December of this past year, in a drive-by shooting, one of the charges was possession of a firearm contrary to a probation order. In December as well, a man was attacked with a hammer and, again, there were several charges, including several counts of breach of probation. In November, a man and a woman were arrested on numerous drug charges, but again the man was charged with additional two counts of a breach of a weapons prohibition. There was another one in my riding, with multiple agencies in a drug bust, where again charges were tied to a prohibition order.
If this bill is so good and we do not need bail reform, why do the stats show that it is not working and we desperately need changes to our bail system?
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- Feb/2/23 1:48:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the issue of dealing with crime is that we actually need to take the evidence, we need to have the witnesses and we need to put them together in a way that makes sure we actually get the results the public trusts us to get. This is our job as legislators, so I am very pleased that the justice committee agreed to look at bail reform and the serious issues that have arisen from the examples of violence.
The horrific killing of that young police officer in Ontario shocked us all; it should never have been allowed to happen. However, this issue is very different from what the Conservatives are doing, which is having a motion, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into it and demanding that we stand up in the House today and rewrite the whole law without the evidence and without doing the work. I have been here long enough to remember the Harper government days when every one of the Conservatives' crime bills got tossed, with more recalls than the Ford Pinto, because they were not doing the job right.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague about doing this right on bail reform.
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- Feb/2/23 1:51:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to enter this very important discussion. I appreciate the concerns raised by the member for Fundy Royal about Canada's bail system, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss how bail law operates in Canada, and in particular, how it deals with violent offences and addresses some of the concerns we are hearing from across the aisle.
The bail system in Canada contributes to public safety and confidence in the criminal justice system. It allows accused persons to be remanded in cases where there is just cause to do so, such as when there is a need to protect public safety. I am encouraged to hear that our government is working to strengthen the regime while respecting the rights of Canadians.
Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all accused are entitled to liberty and presumed innocent until proven guilty. Paragraph 11(e) of the charter provides that any person charged with an offence has the right not to be deprived of release or reasonable bail without just cause. The Supreme Court of Canada has provided us with important guidance on interim release and relevant charter considerations. For example, the court noted in the St-Cloud decision in 2015 that “in Canadian law, the release of accused persons is the cardinal rule and detention, the exception”. However, such exceptions are important. For example, some offences have what is called the reverse onus for bail, which means the burden is on the offender to make the case for bail. These include firearm offences and some intimate partner violence offences, which were added by our government.
Subsection 515(10) of the Criminal Code sets out the three grounds on which an accused person may be refused interim release.
First, they may be detained when this is necessary to ensure their presence in court. That is known as the main ground.
Second, they may be detained to protect the public, victims and witnesses, particularly when it is likely that the accused will commit another offence or harm the administration of justice if released. This is known as the secondary ground. The protection of the public is certainly central to this ground. Several factors may be taken into account when the court considers this ground, including the defendant's criminal record, whether the defendant was on bail or probation at the time of the charge, the defendant's personal circumstances and any interference with witnesses or evidence. The court may also consider the seriousness of the offence and the strength of the Crown's case, based on the principle that the more serious the offence and the greater the likelihood of conviction, the greater the need for public protection.
Third, the accused may be detained where necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice, taking into account particular circumstances, such as the strength of the prosecution's case, the seriousness of the offence, the sentencing range for the offence and whether a firearm was used. This is known as the tertiary ground.
In the St-Cloud decision, the Supreme Court noted that the scope of the tertiary ground has been unduly narrowed by the courts in certain cases. The court affirmed that the tertiary ground is a ground for detention in its own right, independent of the other grounds, and that it should not be interpreted narrowly, applied narrowly or limited to exceptional circumstances. We agree with the court.
The general rule is that, when a Crown prosecutor seeks to detain an accused in custody, they must persuade the court that there are grounds to do so. However, the Criminal Code includes several provisions where the burden of proof shifts to the accused. When these provisions apply, the accused must demonstrate why their detention in custody is not justified based on the primary, secondary or tertiary ground. This is referred to as the reverse onus.
Reverse onus provisions play an important role in the criminal justice system. They balance the right of an accused person to a fair opportunity for bail with the need to protect the safety of all Canadians. To ensure the protection of the public and reduce the rate of recidivism in the criminal justice system, the reverse onus provisions target certain types of reoffending and specific serious offences. For example, where the accused is charged with failing to attend court or failing to comply with a previous bail order, the reverse onus will apply. It also applies when the accused is charged with certain serious offences. One of the best-known reverse onus situations is when someone is charged with murder or attempted murder.
However, other serious offences, such as weapons trafficking, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage-taking, robbery, and drug trafficking, importing or exporting all engage the reverse onus provisions. To protect Canadians from gun violence, the reverse onus provisions are applied to offences involving firearms where the accused is subject to a weapons prohibition order, as is called for by the motion today.
I am happy to say that this is already the law, and I again express concern that the opposition is trying to create fear by implying the law is different than it is. That said, I am aware of the call to expand this to more firearms provisions from provincial and territorial premiers, and I am encouraged to hear that this idea is under serious consideration by our government.
The bail provisions also recognize the need to protect victims of intimate partner violence. For an accused charged with an offence involving intimate partner violence who has previously been convicted of such an offence, the reverse onus will apply. This provision directly targets repeat offenders and strives to ensure the safety of victims of intimate partner violence. I am proud to be part of the government that made this change.
A court must cancel an accused person's previous form of release where it finds that the accused has contravened or is about to contravene their bail conditions or where the accused has committed an indictable offence while being bound by a form of release. When cancelling the previous release, the court must order the detention of the accused unless the accused establishes that their detention is not justified.
The reverse onus provisions give the courts the tools necessary to protect the public from accused persons who fail to attend court or follow bail conditions. They also give the courts the ability to protect victims of intimate partner violence by compelling the accused to demonstrate why they should be released from custody. These provisions reinforce public confidence in the administration of justice with the knowledge that persons accused of serious crimes must convince a judge that their release is justified before they can be released on bail.
The bail system is integral to the proper functioning of our criminal justice system and contributes to a fair and safe society. As the minister said earlier in the House, we are quickly and carefully reviewing concerns and solutions that have been raised recently by provinces, territories and others. I was also encouraged to hear of the ongoing work and the upcoming federal, provincial and territorial meeting to further explore how we can strengthen our bail system at all levels of government.
In exploring solutions to the concerns raised, I know our government will take the safety of Canadians into account. I look forward to hearing more from both the Minister of Justice and his provincial and territorial counterparts.
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- Feb/2/23 2:50:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, everything feels broken in Canada, including the bail system. Violent crime has increased 32%. Gang-related homicides have increased by 92%, and five Canadian police officers were killed in the line of duty this year.
Bail for violent repeat offenders has become a revolving door. When is the Liberal government going to take responsibility for its actions and stop this catch-and-release bail justice system?
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- Feb/2/23 2:50:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve to be and to feel safe. We all have a role to play in protecting our communities. The laws on bail are clear: If an accused person poses a serious risk to public safety, they should not get bail.
At my direction, since the month of October past, federal officials have been working with their provincial and territorial counterparts to develop ways to best keep Canadians safe. We are open to that discussion. We are open to participating with the provinces to help in the enforcement of bail conditions. We are looking for lasting solutions.
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- Feb/2/23 2:51:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will ask the minister to tell victims, in light of those five police officers, what he just told me.
Most Canadians do not live in homes surrounded by walls and gates, and they do not have the security detail of the Prime Minister. That is a luxury that Canadians do not have. With a 26% increase in crime in New Brunswick over the past five years, rural Canadians are also negatively impacted.
These failed, soft-on-crime, Liberal bail policies are making Canadians feel less safe. When will the Prime Minister put victims ahead of criminals?
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- Feb/2/23 2:51:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I take offence to the idea that any of us are less empathetic towards victims, particularly in these very cases. Our heart goes out to those victims.
With respect to the bail system, I have been working with my officials across Canada, the provincial and territorial counterparts, precisely to see where we can improve the bail regime.
We know that Canadians need to feel safe, and we are moving forward in a positive direction, appreciating that it is a complex issue and a shared area of responsibility with the provinces. With the provinces, we will find a solution.
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- Feb/2/23 2:52:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, well, Canadians take offence to a government that will not listen to the pleas of all 13 premiers, who have seen violent crime go up by 32% in the last eight years. Out of 44 shooting homicides in Toronto last year, half were committed by someone who was out on bail. In a single year in Vancouver, 40 people were arrested 6,000 times. After eight years, in this Prime Minister, career criminals have never had a better friend.
Does this justice minister honestly stand by his claims that our broken bail system is working?
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- Feb/2/23 2:53:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, cherry-picking statistics and taking high-profile cases and using them for political purposes does not help us to attack the challenges that the bail system presents to us.
As I have said, we have been working on that question since the month of October with our provincial counterparts. We are looking at solutions that can be fixed in the law, but we are also looking at the kinds of things that the provinces can do in the administration of the bail system.
British Columbia has taken a leadership role. I met with the attorney general for British Columbia yesterday to go over what B.C. was doing. Ontario is interested, and so are the provinces. We will work together—
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- Feb/2/23 2:54:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier today in the House of Commons, statistics from the Toronto police over the past few years show that offenses committed while individuals are out on bail have gone down over the past two years.
We appreciate that Canadians need to feel safe and Canadians have a right to feel safe—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/2/23 2:55:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-75 codified what were essentially Supreme Court decisions and made it harder to get bail in a number of cases. It did not change any of the severity of bail conditions for violent criminals, yet we are still going to look at other possibilities with the provinces to move forward to make Canadians feel safe.
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- Feb/2/23 2:58:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today the justice minister said that, if someone poses a significant threat to public safety, the law tells us they should not be released on bail, but in reality, in Toronto last year, of the 44 gun murders, 24 of the suspects were out on bail when they committed these murders. Those 24 people clearly posed a threat to public safety, yet they were out on bail.
When will the minister get his head out of the clouds and commit to reforming our broken Liberal bail system, which he helped to create?
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- Feb/2/23 2:59:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a fundamental principle that, if a person poses a threat to public security, he or she should not get bail. That is balanced with the fact that bail is not only a charter right, but a common law right of long date, because in our system one is innocent until proven guilty.
We allow judges to make that determination based on the arguments that prosecutors and defence attorneys put before them, so I will not revisit an individual case, but what I can say is that we are working with our provincial counterparts to see how we can improve the bail system to make Canadians feel more safe.
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- Feb/2/23 3:00:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I just said, the bail system is a fundamental part of our system. If a person poses a threat to public security he or she should not get bail.
We have to strike a balance and we will work with the provinces, because even though criminal law is under federal responsibility, it is with the provinces that we will determine how to administer the system. We will do that together.
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- Feb/2/23 3:29:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, now that we are back from the holiday break, this is the first chance I have had to rise and ask the government to give us the rundown of what is on the agenda for the rest of this week and for next week.
Unfortunately, the government House leader is not able to answer my question, so I will keep talking about the government's eight years in power. We were hoping for bills to help Canadians, but the sad fact is that Canadians have never suffered as much as they are suffering now. We have seen that on many occasions, including today as we debate a very important motion on bail. Crime rates are going up faster than ever. Why? Over the past eight years, ever since this government took office, violent crime has gone up by 32%. In the coming days, tomorrow or next week, will the government introduce bills to implement stricter bail conditions?
I hope someone on the government side can answer my question now.
I will repeat my question. Can the government House leader, who waited eight minutes to answer my question, tell us why in eight years the government has not been able to find solutions to the length and leniency of bail? Of course, I would also ask that he outline the work that we can look forward to tomorrow and next week.
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- Feb/2/23 3:32:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Barrie—Innisfil.
It is always a privilege to stand in this House to speak on behalf of my constituents of Brantford—Brant. After eight years, the Prime Minister and his government are solely responsible for our failing justice system. This is pressing and urgent; bail reform is needed now. Far too often, we are hearing Canadians use language such as “catch and release”, “a revolving door” and “an unequal justice system” to describe the state of affairs in Canadian bail courts.
In my almost two decades of prosecuting in the trenches of our criminal justice system, I have repeatedly witnessed dangerous criminals being released on bail. I am honoured to add my experience working in the criminal justice system to such an important debate. A major concern during my lawyer years was our inability to keep violent repeat offenders off the streets and in custody where they belong. I was unable to vocally criticize the lenient bail system as a Crown attorney, so I made the decision to become a politician to effect change.
The Liberal government wants Canadians to believe it has crime under control with its justice policies and that it is on the right track. I thank our Conservative leader and all my Conservative colleagues for bringing this debate into the House and for showing Canadians that this Liberal soft-on-crime agenda has broken our bail system and eroded confidence in our judicial institutions.
In 2019, to codify the principles outlined in the Supreme Court of Canada case Antic, the Liberals passed Bill C-75. Although it was intended to modernize the bail system, the effect of this legislation was to allow offenders arrested for violent crimes to be released back on the street fast enough to commit other crimes, sometimes on the same day. In fact, this was an occurrence that I routinely saw as a Crown prosecutor. I would often read Crown briefs noting the accused laughed and bragged to the arresting officers that they would be released in hours.
After receiving numerous calls and emails from my constituents, who shared their concerns about Canada's justice system, I met with the Brantford police chief, Rob Davis, and the president of the Brantford Police Association, Constable Jeremy Morton. It was important to learn directly from them what the root causes are and how we as parliamentarians can address them.
Chief Davis shared with me that it is disheartening to all police officers to see that they are doing their job, they are catching people, they are putting them before the courts, they are asking that they be held in custody but they are being released. He said that criminals are brazen and are laughing at the current justice system. He said oftentimes, they are getting back home before the officers do, and the next thing he knows, they are committing twice as much crime. It is a telltale sign of the level of brazenness among criminals. He also reflected on how the system has dramatically shifted and said that criminals' rights have now superseded the rights of victims.
For years, Canadian law enforcement worked hard to build trust in the police and give victims a level of security if they came forward, and the perpetrator was put into the justice system. Now, everything, according to him, is upside down. The Liberal soft-on-crime approach, he says, is bringing the justice system into disrepute, and the concern that law enforcement now has is that if society loses faith in the justice system, we may find ourselves in a situation where citizens will decide to take things into their own hands.
I never thought as a parliamentarian that I would be quoting Oprah Winfrey, but on her show, every Christmas, she would have giveaways. She would point to the audience and say, “You get a car”, or they got another gift. That is precisely what has happened with the Liberal government and the Prime Minister given their approach to the bail system in Canada. With the Prime Minister, for the last eight years we have said, “He gets bail. She gets bail. Everyone gets bail”, regardless of the fact that they have repeated criminal offences on their record, regardless of the fact that they have an outstanding charge and regardless of how serious the charge is.
It is a statistical fact that the majority of serious violent crimes committed in this country are committed by a handful of repeat offenders. For example, in Vancouver alone, 40 offenders were arrested 6,000 times in one year. That is 150 arrests per person, per year. Brantford Police Chief Davis further spoke on this issue and stated that we have entire neighbourhoods that one or two bad apples will terrorize as repeat violent offenders.
The data published by Statistics Canada clearly shows that between 2008 and 2014, under the Harper government, Canada witnessed an annual decrease in the crime severity index. From 2015 onward, this trend changed dramatically.
Since the Prime Minister took office, the number of crimes has grown year after year. Violent crime has gone up 32% in one year. Gang-related killings have gone up 92% since the Liberals formed government. In 2021, there were over two million police-reported Criminal Code incidents, marking an increase of 25,000 incidents since 2020.
Since the fall of 2022, tragically, five Canadian police officers have been killed while on duty. With hundreds of murders in 2021, one Canadian was murdered every 10 hours throughout the year. The 2020 data shows that Canada's homicide rate is roughly double that of the U.K. and France, and four times higher than that of Italy.
Even though the Prime Minister and his government are claiming that Bill C-75 was meant to clear the backlog of people waiting for bail hearings, experts say it has done much more than that. Essentially, the government has told judges dealing with bail applications that they need to make sure anyone accused of a crime is released at the earliest opportunity and on the least serious conditions. Let that sink in. Primary consideration is for the accused, not for the victim and not for society at large. Some judges and justices of the peace feel that the bill has put shackles on them and has resulted in an increase in releases, even by violent offenders.
Last month, all 13 premiers sent a letter to the Prime Minister calling for amendments to keep more people in custody as they await trial. This call was supported by police chiefs, police associations, mayors and provincial attorneys general from coast to coast to coast. Recently, the Toronto police chief opined on the issue of bail reform and argued that only judges and not JPs should be allowed to hear bail cases when serious gun charges are involved.
A multipronged approach to bail reform is required. According to the Supreme Court, everyone is entitled to a speedy trial. However, it can often take years to get to trial. We need to speed up the system so that when criminals show up in court, the judge knows they will get a speedy trial and may be less inclined to bail them out.
The Liberals said they were open to discussions, but that has been their position since the provincial justice ministers raised that issue last March, almost a year ago. Instead, the government has been busy passing Bill C-5 and Bill C-21.
This January, a judge in my riding of Brantford—Brant said that my hometown community is “plagued by gun violence—murders caused by guns and people walking around with firearms. It never used to be as prevalent as it is today.” She said, “Now it’s an epidemic”, and that the Crown should get tougher on offenders.
To put it into perspective, the Liberals and the NDP have ignored the real way that most criminals get their guns under Bill C-21. They eased bail conditions for serious violent crimes under Bill C-75 and decided to put the safety of victims at risk with Bill C-5. The Conservatives have been calling for a balance to the justice system and bail reform for years, but the Liberal Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada continues to defend the current system.
I have a very quick primer on bail. Bail legislation reflects the fundamental principles outlined in Canada’s charter that attempt to balance the rights of the accused by upholding the presumption of innocence with public safety and confidence in the system. The law allows for people who are deemed risky to be detained for certain indictable offences, or when confidence in the administration of justice would be undermined by releasing a person into the community.
Canada needs bail reform now to pull back from the failed views put forward by the government. We cannot continue to endanger our communities by letting repeat violent offenders walk freely on our streets and simply wait before they harm somebody. How much more blood needs to be spilled on our streets? How many more police officers need to lose their lives before the government finally acts?
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