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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 152

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 2, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23
Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)
  • Feb/2/23 10:54:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my brother drives the Bloor-Danforth line every day. He says that the violence in the subways has become much worse, but he also says that it is caused by the homelessness. At 6 a.m., the subways are full of homeless people. It is also caused by the lack of mental health services and the crisis of the pandemic. That being said, the need to address bail reform is a huge issue, because we have seen senseless acts of violence. I know my New Democrat colleagues in the justice committee have pushed for a review of this, because we need to do this right. I was here in all the Harper years, and every single one of their tough-on-crime bills was tossed out by the Supreme Court because they were playing to their fundraising base as opposed to doing smart, intelligent review so the laws lasted. Would my colleagues support our call to investigate bail reform to make sure we get this right and we keep people safe? We also need to put the resources on the ground to deal with the clear mental health and homelessness crisis that is driving a lot of the senseless violence we are seeing in the city of Toronto.
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Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23
Hon. David Lametti
  • Feb/2/23 10:55:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question comes from a very sincere place. First of all, with respect to what is happening in Toronto, certainly his assessment of it is similar to the assessments I have heard, which is that there is a real problem with homelessness and mental health and mental health supports. This is exacerbated by cold snaps in the winter, which make the subway system an ideal place to get warm, and other things happen. We are working on that with the provinces. I can assure him we do have that goal in mind, to work with the provinces to improve that situation. With respect to his question on bail, we will work with members of the House. I am looking at the hon. member from Sooke as well. We will work to look at good-faith attempts to reform the bail system. We know there have been issues. We have been well aware of these issues. We are working with other governments and will certainly work with parliamentarians in this place.
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Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23
Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)
  • Feb/2/23 11:11:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was glad to hear that the minister wants to engage in addressing the causes of crime. In my riding of Vancouver East, and particularly in the Downtown Eastside, we have a major homelessness crisis. We have people with mental health issues who cannot get mental health supports. We have people with an addiction issue who cannot get support or treatment on demand. People are dying in the community. The fallout of that is that it impacts the entire community in all its ways. Will the minister support and will he have the government initiate what had been done before, which was the Vancouver agreement, bringing all levels of government together, working together, to address the crisis in the Downtown Eastside? That is a possible approach to bringing forward solutions to the problem.
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