44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 2, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/2/23 10:41:04 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the Conservative Party and these are parliamentarians. We are going to take action through every avenue at our disposal as an opposition for now. We are going to take every avenue in the House, at committee and everywhere to ensure that the government listens to the police, to victims, to communities and to the 13 premiers in this country who are calling for bail reform. We make no apologies for that. We will take every action we can to get the job done.
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- 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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- Feb/2/23 10:56:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for the opportunity to have this important debate about bail reform. Before I come to the remarks that have been prepared for me in advance, I want to take a few moments to acknowledge the grief, trauma, loss and the sense of suffering being felt by communities across the country. I had the chance to visit with many communities, whether it was out west in Vancouver or out east in the Atlantic communities with the families and the victims in Portapique and Truro.
More recently, it was in Quebec City, with all the families and survivors at the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the mosque shooting.
It is also in my hometown, where we are seeing a recent spate of violence in our public transit system. It is imperative that we have a thoughtful discussion based on a number of pillars. Yes, we need to take a look at our policies and our laws.
I want to commend the Minister of Justice for many of the reforms he has advanced to improve the administration of justice so that we can focus on serious offenders who do, in many instances, need to be separated from the community for protection. Also, I want to underline the work that he and our government are doing to address many of the systemic challenges that have led to overrepresentation in federal incarceration facilities, as well as provincially, when it comes to indigenous peoples and racialized Canadians. We cannot have these discussions in isolation.
I have grieved with families. I have grieved with the community of law enforcement officers who have lost five of their own. We owe it to them and to every single Canadian to make sure we are informing our discussion on the basis of principles that are underlined in the charter, but equally by the experiences of those who have suffered. It is in that spirit that I hope we can have this debate today.
My colleague, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, has spoken about an openness to receiving proposals with regard to the bail system. I have worked on the front lines of the criminal justice system. I have seen how these laws are applied in a very real, practical and tangible way. Even as we navigate the proposals being put forward by the various constituencies, including the law enforcement community, I hope all members will appreciate that there is no one cure-all for the challenges we face. We need to take a look at the entire suite of laws and policies, not only with regard to bail but also with regard to how we are tackling gun violence.
There is a bill currently being studied by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Bill C-21, which would equip law enforcement with additional tools to tackle gun violence by raising maximum sentences against hard traffickers and by giving law enforcement additional surveillance tools to interdict the organized criminal networks that would seek to traffic illegally firearms that make their way into our country, potentially to be used in violent crime to terrorize our communities.
We also need to take a look at the other investments the government is making to support law enforcement in keeping our communities safe, including a $450-million allocation over the last few years for CBSA. That will enable law enforcement agencies to acquire the resources, the technology and the techniques that they need to build on the progress that they have made in the last two years where they have seized a record number of illegal firearms.
Beyond those investments, I do think it is important as well to talk about prevention. One of the challenges I find around the debate on public safety is that we place great emphasis on laws and policies. We talk about Bill C-21. We talk about the acts that have been passed, and led and shepherded by my colleague, the Minister of Justice. We talk about Bill C-75, which, by the way, was a piece of legislation aimed at addressing the systemic and chronic backlogs in our court system so we could focus on the most serious offenders who commit the most serious crimes and pose the most serious risk to public safety. That was the genesis of Bill C-75.
The purpose of Bill C‑75 was to reduce the case completion times.
To hear some colleagues from the Conservative Party mis-characterize that bill as catch-and-release legislation does a disservice to this debate. We do not need slogans; we need concrete solutions. I would submit to the chamber that this is precisely what the Minister of Justice and this government have been doing. I would also say the same thing with respect to Bill C-5.
We heard a colleague from the NDP point out that the last time the Conservative government had the reins of government, it introduced a number of policies that were reviewed and then struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada. We do not need a return to the failed policies and overreach, which detract and diminish from the independence of the judges to assess on the merits and based on the facts and circumstances of each offender who comes before them. What we need is a thoughtful, constitutional approach to this matter, and that was the point of Bill C-5. It was not to promote catch-and-release policies, which has been overly simplified and distilled. That may play well on YouTube or in social media, but, again, it does a disservice to the complexity of the challenges that are faced when it comes to keeping our community safe.
As we focus on laws and policies, we do not talk enough about the underlying root causes. We do not talk enough about the need to provide additional support for mental health care, homelessness and poverty. We do not talk enough about the need to provide additional skills, experience and confidence to those who are most at risk of being exposed to criminal elements, which I have seen across the country and in my own community.
When I had the chance to travel to James Smith Cree Nation and grieve with those families, community members told us that they knew their own, that they knew how to ensure they could take care of them and put them on the right footing. It is only through collaboration and partnership with those communities through initiatives like the building safer communities fund, a $250-million federal initiative that is administered out of Public Safety Canada, that we can start to address these challenges at the root cause so we can stop crime before it starts.
In the context of the debate we are having today, we need to put as much emphasis on looking at preventative strategies, which we can work together on to advance, to see crime come down. No matter which side of the debate we are on, no matter which party we belong, no matter which constituency we represent in the chamber, the one thing I am assured of is that all Canadians are unified behind the common cause of wanting to reduce gun crime, wanting to reduce any kind of violent crime, which may find its stem in the systemic challenges that I have discussed. We need to come together to have that debate and not resort to slogans, bumper stickers or any of the other catchy phrases that we heard in the to and fro of the heated debate in the chamber, but have an actual and thoughtful debate that is based on facts and constitutional principles. That is precisely what I hope we can do today.
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- Feb/2/23 11:06:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of the Minister of Public Safety today, although I did not hear specific, concrete changes that he or his colleague, the Minister of Justice, would like to make concerning the Criminal Code. Therefore, I am assuming there are no changes coming.
We have heard from every premier in the country, asking for changes to the Criminal Code concerning bail. We have heard from the Toronto police, proposing three proposals concerning bail reform. Again, this is all in light of the fact that a young new police officer was killed over the holidays by a violent repeat offender who was out on bail and also had a firearm prohibition. He shot and murdered a young police officer, and I did not hear anything to satisfy me that the government would be doing something in the next few months to bring forward some change.
What concrete steps is Minister of Public Safety going to take, working with the Minister of Justice, to ensure that this is the last police officer who is murdered by a violent repeat offender?
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- Feb/2/23 11:23:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member has done tremendous work on the public safety committee. She is concerned, as we all are, about the increase of gun crime and gang violence in cities across this country.
This motion is a call to action. Never before have I seen, and I am sure my colleague has not seen this either, a coming together of so many organizations, individuals, big city mayors, police chiefs across the country, police associations, community groups and advocates talking about the need for bail reform.
This motion is more of a call for action, reflecting what those organizations are telling us. They are on the ground. They are seeing it. If we talk to police officers, and my colleague likely has, they are telling us that the system is broken and it needs to be fixed.
My question to my hon. colleague is as follows: What are some of the solutions that she would propose to fix the broken bail system in this country?
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- Feb/2/23 12:33:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on bail reform, we absolutely agree with the frontline police officers, including those in Winnipeg, who have called for bail reform. We agree with the 13 premiers who have all agreed that the Prime Minister needs to fix bail reform. If the member opposite wants to get up and yell at the government and then support them at every juncture, she is free to do so.
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- Feb/2/23 12:35:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to hear that my hon. colleague believes there is a problem in our bail system and that she is willing to support some reform. That is exactly why we are here today, and I hope that she supports this motion. There is no disagreement that it needs work. This is not about a young person who made a mistake who we are putting away forever. That is not what Conservatives do, so any suggestion of that, frankly, is just false.
I know that there are bigger problems, but it starts here and it starts with bail reform. There are hundreds of frontline police officers out in the streets who have said that this will save lives, so I hope that she supports that.
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- Feb/2/23 12:37:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is really disappointing and sad, quite frankly, to hear the other members of the House talk about this motion in terms of rhetorical or playing to a base. These are very real problems happening in our country. There are organizations, police chiefs, big-city mayors and police associations that are all coming together to ask for bail reform in a non-partisan manner.
I am wondering if the hon. member could comment a little more on that.
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- Feb/2/23 12:37:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that we saw, by who led off this debate, the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice in this country, that the Liberals know this is a problem. The Liberals know they have not dealt with the problem. The Liberals know that everybody has been asking for bail reform in this country. I look forward to actually seeing and hearing them say they are going to do this and they are going to support this motion.
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- Feb/2/23 12:48:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the whole point of this is that there is no flip of a switch. No one piece of legislation is going to fix the issue of bail reform in our country. As I was trying to say, this is a multi-faceted problem. We need to engage the provincial, territorial and regional governments, and we need to ensure they have the support they need to administer justice.
Over the past seven years of our government, we have been slowly putting in place legislation that is helping to improve the bail system and the bail regime in Canada, but we would really appreciate the opposition's support on all of these bills as they go forward.
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- Feb/2/23 12:52:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my hon. colleague's question is an important one, and it goes back to what I was saying: We really need to put the harm reduction principle at the centre of bail reform and how we administer justice in our country as it is.
I agree with him. I think tackling the opioid crisis is a big step and is part of the key to resolving the whole framework of providing safer communities. I look forward to working with our hon. colleague to ensure that we are looking at this issue on a fulsome basis.
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- Feb/2/23 1:01:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, a while ago, a wise man told me never to argue with a fool because they will never know I am right, so against my better judgment I stand up here.
The difference between the Liberals in government and the official opposition party, the Conservatives, putting this motion forward is that we are actually listening to the voices of Canadians, those of police chiefs, police associations, big-city mayors and the premiers of all the provinces and territories in this country who are demanding bail reform as a result of the failures of Bill C-75 and Bill C-5. They are seeing it on the streets. What happened with Constable Pierzchala was the top blowing off a volcano. As sad and as difficult as that situation was, it was festering underneath in the judicial system, and now all of these groups are calling for changes.
Why will the government not listen to these groups and implement the changes that are being called for?
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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 4:31:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed. I joined this debate this afternoon, and all I hear from the Conservatives is that everything is broken. Everything I hear from the Liberals is that everyone is wrong. We have an opportunity here to talk about bail reform, which is really important. This is something we have heard from municipal leaders and something we have heard about from premiers that has to be fixed. These are legitimate concerns.
We also have not talked about the current bail system and how it is not working for many people. There are far higher rates of pretrial detention for indigenous people, for racialized Canadians, for new Canadians and for low-income Canadians. It is mainly because they do not have the necessary resources, or even a stable address or stable employment.
My friend Martha's son, Mike Martin, was in pretrial detention. He had an opioid addiction, and he had been in there for repeat offences of drug-seeking and related crime. He did not get the medicine he needed and took his life.
Will the parliamentary secretary talk about some solutions, so we do not lose more people like Mike Martin?
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- Feb/2/23 5:16:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I got to know my colleague from the Bloc quite well last year in Europe. However, I would like him to reread the motion. He made a statement that was factually incorrect when he said that our motion is calling for the complete repeal of Bill C-75. The motion does not state that. It states that we want to repeal those aspects that are allowing violent repeat offenders to get out there and commit additional violent crimes and murders.
My question is simple enough. Does the member agree the bail system does need reform and, as all the premiers have called for, including the premier of la belle province, we need that reform immediately and it needs to happen now?
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- Feb/2/23 6:38:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, maybe we will try a different tack. That response sounded very similar to the last time I got up here and asked the parliamentary secretary about a very similar issue.
We just spent the day debating the requirement for immediate bail reform. My question is to the parliamentary secretary. He stated earlier today, as has the minister, that he is committed to working with the premiers of all the provinces to address the needed bail reform in this country. Could he commit tonight to how quickly they are going to act on making these necessary changes to bail in Canada, and for once to start standing up and making this country safer versus, again, as I keep saying, bringing forth legislation like Bill C-21, which targets law-abiding Canadians, not going after criminals?
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