44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2023 10:00AM
- May/9/23 6:16:21 p.m.
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She was referring to Dr. Jordan Peterson, who has absolutely nothing to—
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- May/9/23 6:16:21 p.m.
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This has nothing to do with this bill.
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- May/9/23 6:16:21 p.m.
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The hon. members have a certain capacity to use arguments to defend their points, and that is what the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre is doing.
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- May/9/23 6:16:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order.
I know the topic is sensitive, but ever since the debate started, we have had to endure what we might describe as vocal interference from the Conservatives.
I consider it my parliamentary right to be able to listen to the debate without disruption. In my opinion, this crosses a line and intervention may be appropriate.
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- May/9/23 6:17:12 p.m.
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That is a different matter.
The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock is rising on a point of order.
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- May/9/23 6:17:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think you would agree with me it is my right as a member of Parliament to raise a point of order, bring it to the Speaker's attention when I think it is appropriate, and I will not be shut down—
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- May/9/23 6:17:29 p.m.
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The hon. member for Mirabel was not referring to rising on points of order. I think the hon. member was referring to comments that were being made while other members were speaking.
The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has the floor.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Carleton has a history of supporting anti-choice legislation that impacts a woman's right to choose, including, now, his support of Bill C-311. He also has a history of backing up and holding up folks such as Jordan Peterson, who has spoken out aggressively against the trans community and its members' right to bodily autonomy. This is about bodily autonomy and the right to choose. It is very much a part of the debate.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada opposes this bill, saying “The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada opposes this bill and urges MPs to oppose the bill as well...The bill is redundant.” It goes on to say that the anti-choice movement is using it as a vehicle to advance fetal rights, saying, “Several anti-choice groups have been promoting this Bill C-311 as a means to recognize two victims. They are looking for a route to establish fetal personhood in law, and if this bill passes, they would leverage the bill for that purpose”.
This is very much an anti-choice bill. This is not coming from me, although there have been points of order raised. I know what I am saying might be troubling, but I want to let people know that the NDP opposes Bill C-311. We are committed to fighting for the reproductive rights of all Canadians. We oppose, and I am proud that we oppose, anything that restricts these rights, and we support expanding access to abortion services, removing barriers and protecting the right of women and gender-diverse people to make decisions about their own bodies.
That is what this debate is about tonight. From my perspective, and we have certainly heard from several experts in the field, this bill is the latest attempt in a long line of attempts by anti-choice Conservative MPs to undermine Canadians' reproductive rights. I know not all Conservative MPs are anti-choice, and I urge them to vote against the bill. It is unfortunate the Leader of the Conservative Party is supporting anti-choice legislation.
We are opposing the bill, as it does not provide pregnant women with additional protection, but it does provide anti-choice MPs and organizations a new tool to promote the legal restrictions on abortion.
Let us look at what is happening south of us. I am worried that we will have, just like what is happening in the States, 10-year-old girls who were victims of sexual assault being forced to carry babies to term. Do we want a country that forces that kind of abuse on children? New Democrats are going to resist, vocally, any sort of attempt to limit abortion rights. We could ensure that a pregnant woman and others who experience gender-based violence are safe. That is not what this bill is about.
We could ensure that pregnant women are safe without undermining reproductive rights and the right to bodily autonomy for anybody, including the trans community. We know abortion rights are under attack. This is a real threat, even in this country. We must do more than oppose bad legislation. We already need to improve, for example, in real time, access to this right. There are places in Canada where people cannot access an abortion.
We have to ensure that we do not just recognize that human right, but that we ensure all women have access to the right. We know that Conservatives cannot be trusted on this issue. We know that. They have had several attempts to undermine women's and gender-diverse individuals' right to choose. We know that many Conservatives MPs have introduced and supported anti-choice bills that would undermine Canadians' right to access a safe abortion.
Quite frankly, the Liberals have talked a good game, but their record is deeply underwhelming. While they pay lip service to defending abortion rights, they still have not removed the charitable status from anti-choice crisis pregnancy centres, and they do not enforce the Canada Health Act when provinces fail to uphold the right to access abortions.
They need to take action, not words, to ensure that a woman's right to health care, is available. Abortions are health care. We are going to continue to hold the government to account.
I will continue to watch the Conservative leader, the member for Carleton, who is actively supporting a bill that—
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- May/9/23 6:23:06 p.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock has the floor.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand today in support of Bill C-311, the violence against pregnant women act, because I thought that is what we would be debating tonight. However, what I have been listening to is far from that. The speakers have gone far afield in their discussion of a bill that is squarely before them.
I want to thank the member for Yorkton—Melville for bringing forward this important legislation. It is my honour to second it at this stage of debate. I will speak to this bill, not some other bill or bills, or a history of bills. We are talking about Bill C-311, which would amend the Criminal Code to specify that knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman and causing physical or emotional harm to a pregnant woman would be considered aggravating circumstances for sentencing purposes.
I support this bill because mothers who have faced and are facing violent assaults need to know that they are heard and that the pain and depression caused by harm to their babies are not left unseen by others. I have fought for women's rights all my career as a lawyer, especially during my career as a family lawyer, and now as a politician. This bill is about the rights of pregnant women, no more and no less.
I am the mother of four children who I have been fortunate to raise into adulthood, but I was pregnant five times. My last child, a boy named Mackenzie, or little Mack for short, never got the chance to know his family, work, speak, go to school, play with friends or grow up. His waiting family, which was me, his dad, his brother and three sisters, never got to meet him. We lost little Mack halfway through my pregnancy because of the negligence of an interning doctor who wrongly handled an amniocentesis procedure and suffocated him in utero.
At the time, his loss sent me into a deep situational depression for months. I was off work for the first time in my adult life, and I grieved his passing desperately. I still do many years later. Because of this tragic event in my own life, I know and understand how the deliberate act of a person who knows that someone is pregnant and does harm to them and their baby impacts a mother and her family.
It is well documented that pregnant women in Canada are easy targets for violent assaults, yet the consequences of these offences have not increased. Just this year, the Court of Appeal for Ontario overturned a seven-year sentence for an offender who stabbed the pregnant mother of his unborn child in the neck and left her for dead. The mother lived, but the baby did not. This violent attacker's sentence was upped to 15 years when an appeal judge pointed out that the initial sentence did not address the issue of domestic violence or that the victim was pregnant with his baby. A violent crime against a pregnant woman needs to be treated as the serious crime that it is. Right now, criminal sentences in Canada do not consider harm done to a pregnant woman when an assault is committed.
Nelson Mandela said, “Safety and security don't just happen. They are the result of collective consensus and public investment.” Violence against women, especially pregnant women, is not a private family issue. It is a public safety and security issue, and it needs the urgent attention of this House.
Among Canadian women who have reported being abused by an intimate partner during pregnancy, 40% said that the abuse began during pregnancy. In recent years, there have been more than 70 cases in which pregnant women have been murdered, and the effect of the death of the unborn child was not a factor at sentencing.
The story of Tashina General from Brantford is particularly disheartening. In 2008, a Brantford man strangled Tashina to death. She was his 21-year-old pregnant girlfriend. He then attempted to hide Tashina's body by burying her in a shallow grave. He committed this gruesome and horrific crime against Tashina, as the evidence came out, simply because he did not want to bear the responsibility of being a father, despite Tashina's choice to be a mother.
Only eight years later, this murderer was set free. Tashina's grandmother, Norma General, still wonders what her great-grandson would have looked like and what kind of personality he would have had. She never had the opportunity to hold her first great-grandchild because of the despicable actions of a misogynistic killer.
It is not only intimate partner violence to which pregnant women are vulnerable. Pregnant women are also the target of unprovoked attacks by strangers. Last year on Vancouver Island, a pregnant woman walking down the street with her four-year-old daughter had a brick thrown at her stomach in a random attack. The fact that the victim was pregnant was not seen as an aggravating factor. I will let that sink in.
In another case, a pregnant woman in Surrey was attacked at a bank. An unknown man approached her from behind and violently threw her to the ground. Women who are pregnant are vulnerable, and they should be treated as vulnerable when it comes to sentencing. Offenders will often cite an unplanned pregnancy or the stress caused by having to potentially financially support the baby as excuses for these crimes.
The uncaring government has turned its back on women who choose to have a child. Its members are blinded by differences with the member for Yorkton—Melville on other matters, and that is blinding them to this bill. A vote against this bill is a vote against choice and women, and it would be misogynistic. They say that they are for choice, but only if we agree with that choice, and that is no choice at all.
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The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be resuming, in the remaining time that the Liberals and the NDP have permitted me. Of course, they are silencing me in this debate in the House and they are going to be further silencing us in committee on Bill C-21, despite the millions of people whom this bill impacts.
I want to acknowledge that it has been a terrible year for police, to say the least. This comes during a violent crime wave across the country. We have seen a 32% increase in violent crime since the Liberals formed government about eight years ago. We are seeing the result of their soft-on-crime, catch-and-release policies that they work very closely on with the NDP. Those are coming home to roost, and people are being violently assaulted and murdered on public transit.
Our police officers, of course, are on the front lines, fighting these violent criminals. Often it is the same criminals every single weekend whom our brave, dedicated men and women in uniform are putting their lives at risk to deal with. They actually sometimes know these violent repeat offenders on a first-name basis.
I think it is important that we acknowledge, in the House, the failures of the policies of the current government, working with the NDP, and the consequences of that in real life.
Of course, there are multiple factors that contribute to violent crime, but we know, from police, that Bill C-75, which was a Liberal bill from a number of years ago, exacerbated the catch-and-release policies. This was evident on a Victoria police department news release that was talking about a vile rapist who committed 10 counts of sexual assault with a weapon, rapes with a weapon. On the bottom of the press release, because the police wanted to ensure that the public knew that it was not their fault that this horrible, vile man was being released, they said that this person was being released because of Bill C-75, the Liberal bill from a number of years ago.
The Liberals just passed Bill C-5, which I alluded to yesterday, and I talked about the series of violent crimes that no longer will have mandatory prison time as a result of Bill C-5. Talking about rapists, one result of Bill C-5 is that a man in Quebec who violently raped a woman will get zero days in prison, and gets to serve his sentence, a conditional sentence for 20 months, from the comforts of his home.
These are real consequences. As I mentioned, I know that there are a multitude of factors in violent crime, but we are hearing directly from police that the Liberal bills have impacted these things.
It has been a very tough year for police, and Bill C-21 would do nothing to solve the violent crime problem in Canada, because, when it talks about firearms, it goes after law-abiding citizens, who, of course, by definition, are law-abiding. That is why they have the ability to own firearms, because they have been proven and vetted to be law-abiding. They are the only people who would be impacted by the firearm measures in this bill.
Meanwhile, while this is happening, with all of these resources and all of this time and all of these announcements from the Liberals, who are targeting law-abiding citizens, we have had many police officers, just in the past few months, who have been murdered.
I would like to name them today: Constable Andrew Hong, September 12, 2022, murdered by gunshot on the job; Constable Morgan Russell, October 12, 2022, gunshot; Constable Devon Northrup, October 12, 2022, gunshot; Constable Shaelyn Yang, October 18, 2022, stabbing; and Constable Greg Pierzchala, whom I talked about yesterday. He was murdered on December 27, 2022, by gunshot, by a man who was out on bail and had a lifetime prohibition against owning firearms and a very long rap sheet of violent crimes, yet was out on bail.
This is the state of public safety and crime under the Liberal government. Greg Pierzchala is dead because of our weak bail system. This is what we have heard from Toronto police, who deal with this on the front lines more than anybody else. There are more: Constable Travis Jordan, March 16, 2023; Constable Brett Ryan, March 16, 2023; Sergeant Maureen Breau, March 27, 2023; and Constable Harvinder Singh Dhami, April 10, 2023.
It has been a rough couple of years for police. The morale is very low. Recruitment numbers are very low, and, at the same time, Canada is dealing with 124,000 more violent crime incidents in 2021 than in 2015.
That is the record of this Liberal government. It does not like to acknowledge it. It does not like to talk about it. It likes to brush off responsibility and blame everybody else.
The fact is that, compared to 2015, there are 124,000 more violent crime incidents per year in Canada. Meanwhile, police morale is in crisis, recruitment and retention are in crisis, and police officers are being murdered every other week. However, we hear more announcements from the Minister of Public Safety about going after law-abiding citizens than about going after anybody else. I do not know how many times we have to say this. The Liberals are going after, and spending resources and precious time on, the wrong people, the most vetted people in the country, who, statistically, are one-third as likely to cause crimes as anybody else, than non-firearm owners. It is insane, if someone just looks at the raw data. These are heavily vetted, tested and trained Canadian citizens.
The Conservative Party firmly supports responsible gun ownership laws. We are talking about licensing, vetting and safe storage. These things are very important. Only responsible Canadians should ever come near a firearm. If there are any gaps in that, we are happy to have that discussion, but we have a very robust system in Canada.
We are seeing 124,000 additional violent crimes and hundreds of thousands of other violent crimes every year. They are going up every year as a result of the Liberal government's policies, as pointed out by many police forces. Of the hundreds of thousands of violent crimes that happen every year, do members want to know how many are as a result of long guns, for example, which have been the primary target of the Liberal government in recent months? I am referring to long guns belonging to law-abiding citizens, not criminals, because, of course, they do not listen to the laws. Do people know how many are a factor in those hundreds of thousands of violent crimes? It is less than 0.5%.
We also know that, of those who do commit violent crimes with firearms, the vast majority are not legally allowed to own firearms. Therefore, any law and all this time wasted would have no impact on them whatsoever. We are talking about a fraction of a fraction of people whom the Liberals are spending all this time and resources on.
I will remind the House that the Liberals are bringing forward phase two of their regime of confiscation of private property from law-abiding citizens. They call it a “buyback” program. They never owned the firearms in the first place, so I am not sure how they are buying them back. They are going to be spending billions of dollars on it.
There is an estimate from the Fraser Institute. Before the latest round of long gun bans coming forward with this so-called new definition and the hidden list that is being passed over sneakily to the firearms advisory committee, which would add hundreds of firearms to the ban list, the Fraser Institute estimated that the original May 2020 order in council, in essence, would be $6 billion.
Do people know how much good could be done in fighting violent crime and gun crime by criminals and gangsters with $6 billion? We could equip every port of entry with scanning technology. We could hire so many more police officers. We could heavily invest in youth diversion programs. We have seen that, in addition to the responsible gun ownership measures I have mentioned that have been in Canada for a number of years, which Conservatives firmly support, other measures that are important are getting youth when they are just getting led down the path of crime.
If we can get a 12-year-old when he is romanced by the gang to steal his first car, if we could just catch him then, extend a hand and show him a better way, speak to him in a way that is relatable, and have members of his community have the resources to support him, that young man could have a real life. He could have a family and a job, and be a responsible contributing member to his community. That is when we have to catch them.
If we could just take all the money the Liberals would be wasting, which would do nothing, as it says right in the data, to prevent violent crime and gun violence, we could do a lot of good. However, the Liberals are not open to that conversation. They do not want to talk about that. They are too busy fearmongering.
I mentioned this earlier, and I got a bit emotional about it, but the turn that the Minister of Public Safety has taken with his rhetoric against me and members of my party is very concerning. We can have a professional debate. We can have this factual discussion. We can have our viewpoints. They do not want anyone to own firearms, no matter how vetted they are. We believe in protecting the culture and heritage of Canadians. We can have that robust debate; we have been having it for decades. For him to have taken the turn he has taken, to go so dirty on this when I have done my best, as have members of our party, to ensure that this is a professional conversation and that we are leading and protecting people who are being kicked by the government and used as a political wedge on a daily basis, particularly in rural Canada, is very upsetting. I mean that very honestly.
I called him out on it today, and he did not apologize for his disgusting remarks. I found it very disappointing. Why can we not have a civilized conversation based on facts when it comes to this? I do not know. Maybe it is because they are not doing so well in the polls and we are doing pretty well. Maybe they want an election soon and this is a real winner for them, or has been in the past.
Now that we are building on the work of all the Conservative members and we are talking about the people this really impacts, it is resonating with people. Nobody believes it in the suburbs. Nobody believes it in Winnipeg. I represent an urban riding, and no one believes that Grandpa Joe and his hunting rifle are responsible for the gangsters in Toronto who are 3D-printing guns, smuggling guns, wreaking havoc and murdering innocent people and police officers. No one believes that going after hunters is going to solve that, yet we are seeing billions of dollars, countless resources, misinformation, disinformation and disgusting rhetoric from the public safety minister and others on the Liberal benches. It does not make any sense. There is no science or data to back it up whatsoever.
I could go on for quite some time, but of course I have been silenced by the Liberal-NDP coalition. In my remaining moments, I will move an amendment to the motion.
I move, seconded by the member for Peterborough—Kawartha:
In paragraph (a) by deleting all the words after the words “expand its scope” and substituting the following: “to (i) address illegal guns used by criminals and street gangs, (ii) modify provisions relating to bail rules in offences involving firearms to ensure serious, repeat, violent offenders remain behind bars as they await trial, (iii) bring in measures to crack down on border smuggling and stop the flow of illegal guns to criminals and gangs in Canada”;
In paragraph (b) by deleting all the words after the words “by the committee” and substituting the following: “the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety, other ministers of the Crown and senior officials be invited to appear as witnesses from time to time as the committee sees fit,”;
In paragraph (c) by deleting all the words and substituting the following: “Standing Orders 57 and 78 shall not apply to the consideration at the report stage and the third reading stage of the bill”; and
by deleting paragraphs (d) and (e).
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- May/9/23 6:43:07 p.m.
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The amendment is in order.
Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- May/9/23 6:45:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have listened to the member for, I believe, over an hour and a half in debate on this particular piece of legislation. It is very clear that the Conservative Party of Canada just does not support the legislation and will do whatever it can in order to prevent its passage. Given that, one has to expect that, if the general feeling of Canadians is that we should be strengthening our laws, the only way we are going to be able to do it is through some form of time allocation or closure. Otherwise, the Conservative Party would never allow the legislation to pass.
Given that, can the member indicate why it is that the Conservative Party will do whatever it can to prevent this legislation from passing?
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- May/9/23 6:46:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, actually, the member is misleading the House a bit. His own government spent $200,000 in taxpayers' money on a consultation on firearms. There were 133,000 people who responded, and 77% of 133,000 respondents to the Liberals' own consultation said that nothing more was needed to limit access to so-called assault weapons. It is very interesting, because it is not what we hear from them, yet that is what their own evidence said. Again, “assault weapons” is a completely made-up term from that member and other members on the Liberal benches.
Further, of the 133,000 people they surveyed, 81% said no to limiting more handgun access, and 74% said the focus of any new measures should be on the illicit market, so I am not sure where he is getting his evidence. I am not aware of any other poll that polled 133,000 people, but the government's own consultation shows that he is wrong.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, which she started yesterday. I applaud her public speaking talent.
I agree with her on many of the points she raised, but I disagree on others.
I agree that the reason we have reached this point is that the government has been unable to do the work people need it to do. Bill C‑21 was introduced a year ago. The amendments went back to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security last week. We have really only been working on Bill C‑21 for less than a week so far.
Suddenly the Conservatives are filibustering. Things are not moving fast enough and this is urgent. The government is the reason it took so long. I agree with my colleague on that. However, I do not agree that this motion and Bill C‑21 as written are still anti-hunter.
She asked officials some questions. She is well aware that the government backtracked on the infamous list it tried to put in the Criminal Code. At this point, Bill C‑21 does not affect hunting guns.
I would like to know if she agrees on that much at least, because it is a fact.
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Madam Speaker, there are a number of things to point out. The list, first and foremost, may have been withdrawn from public scrutiny, but we have heard from the Liberal parliamentary secretary that it is going to go over to this so-called expert firearms advisory committee. Yesterday in the House, she said that they will look at what they should ban from that list. Those were her words. Therefore, I do not think the list is gone; it is just going to an unelected advisory committee with less transparency. The committee will have meetings in the dark behind closed doors, so to speak, so there is that.
I think part of the member's question was in response to the Liberal member who asked me the first question, and I would agree with most of her assessment. The committee has been working very well. Had the Liberals not been so sneaky with their underhanded amendment in November, we would have been past Bill C-21 a long time ago. This is on the Liberals for being underhanded and sneaky, bringing forward the worst amendments to attack hunters in generations, at the 11th hour in committee. That is not on us; that is on them. They dragged this out.
The minister then made us wait for six weeks. Now we are resuming. They call what the Conservatives have done a filibuster. The NDP lead on committee has spoken more than almost anybody else; I will make that very clear. It is ridiculous. Therefore, I reject completely that this is on the Conservatives. It is the Liberals' fault that we are in this mess with Bill C-21. People just have to look at the committee record to know that.
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Madam Speaker, I have a lot of criticism reserved for the Liberals for when I give my remarks in a little bit, but I do want to turn to the remarks that were made by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul.
I will say, first of all, that I have great respect for her, and I enjoyed working with her at committee very much. However, I have to take issue with the remarks that she brought forward in the House when she said she is being silenced. I have spoken with the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, and on several occasions, he has tried to extend the sitting hours of the public safety committee to give the Conservatives and every party more time to look at these amendments. Every single time, the attempts were either rejected or filibustered. There were attempts made multiple times; that has to be made very clear.
I will wrap up with the second point I want to make. The member talks about rural communities; these communities also care about RCMP oversight and transparency, especially the indigenous communities in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. Why must they be made to wait for their turn to speak to Bill C-20, which has been waiting in the wings of the public safety committee and is an equally important piece of legislation? There has been ample time given. Why have the Conservatives not taken advantage of those offers?
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Madam Speaker, I have to say on a personal note that I do greatly miss the member at public safety. As the NDP lead, I found him to be more reasonable. He was strong in his own convictions, but he was reasonable to work with. I am just learning how to work with the new member, and I am hoping for the best. However, from the rhetoric, I have some concerns about what he said about Conservatives so far, because these things are not factual or true. However, I will get to that in a second.
In terms of what the member said on rural communities and the RCMP, I agree that we have to talk about oversight. However, the member has to send that question over to the Liberals. How dare they put the committee at a standstill for months? That is not on us; that is on the Liberals. They did this, and I know that he agrees, because he said as much. Again, the member's question needs to be directed to the Liberals on why they made this situation at committee on Bill C-21.
Overall, on the idea that Conservatives have voted down the new NDP member's efforts to extend sitting, and there have been two times that he has done that, when the Liberals delayed this, the minister made us wait six weeks to get started, and there were shenanigans. Again, we could have been done this probably before Christmas actually, because we were going quite well throughout Bill C-21, even though we did not all agree. We would have been done before Christmas. That is on the Liberals.
However, now that the bill is back, he was suggesting that we have to go all the way to midnight today, tomorrow and then Thursday. Why would the committee members and the interpreters and everything else that goes into it have to do nine hours straight three nights in a row because the Liberals held this up, because the Liberals blew this up? That is on them. All those questions need to be directed to the Minister of Public Safety and the Liberal parliamentary secretary.
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- May/9/23 6:53:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. She is a real force and knows this file, and really what this comes down to is knowledge. It comes down to knowledge of the innocent people who are being targeted with the legislation. She knows them, and she listens to them; I think that is critical.
One of the things the member spoke about that I think is really important is the diversion and utilizing money, especially for young people, when we look at public safety, which is completely eroded in this country. In my own hometown, the police have basically had to put out a public awareness campaign about a violent offender whom they cannot hold on bail. That is how we protect our communities under the Liberal government; there is a public awareness social media campaign with a man's picture.
What does the member think we can be doing? What can the Conservatives do to undo this and divert young people especially to live a life of purpose instead of crime?
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