44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 15, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/15/23 2:32:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what do the Minister of Public Safety, the President of the Privy Council, the former minister of foreign affairs and the Prime Minister have in common? Obviously, they are unable to check their email. That can be dangerous. Is this government aware that it is retraumatizing the families of the victims of one of the most fiendish murderers in Canadian history?
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- Jun/15/23 2:33:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have seen fiasco after fiasco with the government. The level of disorganization and negligence from Liberal ministers is often appalling.
After the public safety minister was failed to be informed of the transfer of one of the most brutal criminals in Canadian history, we now know that the Prime Minister's Office was informed three months ago. The Liberals could have used that time to ensure the victims' families were warned.
How does this keep happening on such serious files? Why are the Liberals showing such clear incompetence? When will they fix this?
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- Jun/15/23 6:45:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's service to Canada, but the fact is that we had even greater problems with many of the things he raised in his speech when the Harper regime was in place.
I lived through the lack of access to documents and the refusal of ministers to talk to members of Parliament; I saw it first-hand. As for the things he is raising now, for example, the time it takes for the House to vote, last Friday, we saw how Conservatives stretched a vote from what should have been 10 minutes to over an hour, through inconsequential, dilatory points of order. We see this in terms of committees. We have had to cancel committees because Conservatives have filibustered to block legislation, such as putting in place dental care and ensuring a grocery rebate for all Canadians, including in their ridings.
Conservatives have been the cause of many of the problems that the member is raising.
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- Jun/15/23 7:01:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I like the member, I remember his speech and I appreciate his consistency. He is saying something that the Conservatives have been trying to hide, which is that they are absolutely opposed to the hybrid Parliament. They are absolutely opposed to remote voting and the voting app.
However, we just had a vote in which over half of the Conservative caucus actually used the voting app to vote to try to block the use of the voting app, which is, to say the least, a contradiction.
We also know, dating back to The Globe and Mail exposé in June 2020, that Conservatives have the highest absentee rate when it comes to virtual Parliament. They were absent 53% of the time. The NDP showed up 85% of the time.
How does the member explain this contradiction?
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- Jun/15/23 7:44:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I like the member. I know that he shows up. Many of his colleagues do not, and this is the problem. The Globe and Mail exposed the fact that the Conservatives are the most absent in this virtual Parliament. After the first couple of months in a virtual Parliament, The Globe and Mail showed us that Conservatives only show up 47% of the time. New Democrats showed up twice as much: 85% of the time.
That member shows up; I am not trying to pretend otherwise. I am saying his colleagues do not, and the real concern is about MPs abusing this. It really comes from the example Conservative MPs have set themselves, being more absent than any other party in this House.
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- Jun/15/23 9:52:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate the minister on his work. Of course, the NDP will also support the government's proposals. I must say that I very much appreciated his praise for the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, who does a tremendous and excellent job every day as the NDP justice critic.
We are talking about the Senate amendments, of course, but I would like to come back to the House of Commons stage. The NDP brought forward an amendment that broadened the definition of “discrimination” in subclause 90(3) of the bill, adding something very similar to discrimination. The government rejected this amendment. I would like to know if the minister can explain why. This is an NDP amendment brought forward by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke.
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- Jun/15/23 10:27:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives said that they wanted to pass the bill. Now they have put in an amendment that provokes hours of additional debate on the bill. How do they reconcile that contradiction of always blocking legislation, even when they say they support it?
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- Jun/15/23 10:48:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always find it interesting to hear what my colleague from Saint-Jean has to say.
It has been 50 years since there has been any reform of the complaints process. We thought that we were just about to complete this process, but then we just received an amendment from the Conservative Party that will add another debate on all these issues. I wanted my colleague to tell me if she is worried, because we are starting another debate on another amendment, when there have already been very long delays.
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- Jun/15/23 10:54:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise at this late hour in Ottawa, where it is almost 11 p.m., to speak to the Senate amendments to Bill C-9.
I would like to start by saying hello to my constituents in New Westminster and Burnaby. In British Columbia it is almost 8 p.m. and so the sun is still up. I know that is also the case in the ridings of the member for Langley—Aldergrove, the member for Kelowna—Lake Country and my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. For the people of British Columbia and for everyone listening to the debates in the House of Commons, we are in the thick of things. I know that there are some constituents listening and I applaud the fact that they are listening after supper to what is happening in the House of Commons.
The NDP will support Bill C-9 and the recommendation on the amendments. I will come back to that in more detail later. First of all, I am concerned that the Conservative Party is once again trying to block a bill. This has been going on in the House systematically for years. As I have said before, there are two blocks in the House: the Bloc Québécois and the block-all Conservative Party, which never misses a chance to block a bill, even the ones it says it supports.
We just heard an excellent speech by my colleague from Langley—Aldergrove who spoke about—
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- Jun/15/23 10:56:14 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, I was just complimenting my colleague from Langley—Aldergrove by saying that he gave an excellent speech. He talked about the fact that the Conservatives support the bill and that they want it to be passed. After 50 years, it is time for us to make that change.
However, at the end of his speech, after spending 20 minutes talking about how important it is to pass the bill, he presented an amendment that is going to further delay the passage of the bill. I do not understand that contradiction at all.
What is more, earlier, the Conservatives voted against a motion to maintain the hybrid Parliament. However, today, they used the hybrid application 291 times to vote on the matter of a hybrid Parliament. I have to say that that includes the Bloc members as well. Together, they used the hybrid app 291 times to vote against the hybrid Parliament. That is another contradiction. I think that everyone can see that there is a problem here. Members are saying that they do not want a hybrid Parliament, but then they are using the hybrid application to vote against the hybrid Parliament. I will move on to another subject because Parliament already ruled on that.
Let us get back to Bill C‑9. An amendment has been tabled that will further delay the passage of the bill, and that is unfortunate. The process has been lacking for 50 years. The public does not support it and it is not particularly clear that justice will be served through this process. Furthermore, it does not allow people to have more confidence in our justice system.
It has been 50 years. First, there were the promises from the former Harper regime, which wanted to amend this process. It did nothing, and that is not surprising. There were a lot of broken promises.
I spent 10 years in the House during the Harper regime, and we saw that regime's lack of respect for Parliament. We saw broken promises, including the promise to set up a process for judges and for complaints about the judicial system. We saw that time and time again.
Then the Liberals came to power and promised to do the same thing. It was put off. I think that the member for Saint-Jean said it well earlier. We ended up with a bill passed by the Senate, but it took years to get to that point. This evening, we believed that the bill would finally pass. There was a consensus. However, the consensus has just been broken again by the Conservative Party amendment.
We certainly support this process to modify the entire complaints process for the judicial system. We believe it is important to put this in place as quickly as possible. This means that we must vote. It seems to me that, once again, because of this party that blocks everything, the government will have to resort to a time allocation motion to pass the bill and bring the legislative process to a successful conclusion. Instead of going round in circles, we must pass this bill.
As all parties have said, including my colleague from Langley—Aldergrove, this bill is necessary. However, the Conservatives moved an amendment to further delay passage of this bill.
There is no doubt that New Democrats support the modernization of the complaints process, no doubt at all. We also support aspects of the bill that allow for varied sanctions, such as counselling, continued education and other reprimands. With the current system, which is hopefully not going to continue for much longer, though with the delays that we are seeing provoked tonight, we will have to see about that, the current option is really only removal from the bench. That is why we believe that increasing public confidence in federal judges is absolutely essential, and we need a modernized complaints system.
We believe that this system could have been put into place already. We will recall that this was moving along and then, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister called what was, I think it is fair to say, an unnecessary election in the midst of COVID. At a time when Canadians were preoccupied with getting through COVID, the Liberals provoked an election. Canadians right across this country basically told parliamentarians to get back work, that they were going to give us the same Parliament we had before the Prime Minister called the unnecessary election.
That has caused further delays that have brought us to tonight, when we were hoping to see passage of the bill. That is obviously not to be because of the blocking amendment brought forward by the Conservatives. New Democrats believe there are many other aspects of the judicial system that we need to be tackling. My colleague, the NDP justice critic from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, has been extraordinarily eloquent about this. Yes, he worked on Bill C-9, and yes, he worked to improve it. He brought forward a number of amendments, which I will come back to in just a moment.
The reality is the member from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke had a tremendous influence over this bill moving forward and the quality of the bill. He sought to improve it at a number of different stages, but he has said, and he is right, that we need to move on to other things. There are other pressing issues, such as the opioid crisis and systemic racism in the judicial system. These are all things that need to be tackled, yet we are still dealing with Bill C-9, hopefully with not too many more delays.
Because it has taken so long, because COVID delayed it and because finally, after 50 years of moving it forward, a completely unnecessary election derailed it, we have finally gotten to the point where Bill C-9 was sent to committee. This is where the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke had substantial impacts. I am going to talk about the amendments that he brought forward at the committee stage that are very relevant to the recommendation we have tonight, which is to accept two Senate amendments and reject the rest. That was prior to the Conservative amendment that would delay all of this discussion, but I think there was substantial consensus around the idea that two of the Senate amendments should be brought forward.
What NDP members brought forward at committee is the following. First, there was an amendment that would have expanded the definition of “discrimination” in clause 12 of Bill C-9 by adding “or improper conduct that is substantially similar to discrimination” to the grounds which would have prevented dismissal at the screening stage in paragraph 90(3) of the act.
This concern, as we know, was brought to committee by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, which appeared as a witness because, in both the current process and under new provisions in Bill C-9, complaints could be dismissed without proper investigation at the initial stage because the behaviour does not meet a narrow legal definition of discrimination.
This was an important amendment brought forward by the member. As members would have heard when I asked the Minister of Justice just a few minutes ago, ultimately Liberals and Conservatives voted against that amendment, so it failed. It would have made a difference. We are talking about looking beyond the issue of judicial conduct to the issue of discrimination, which is fundamentally important, as the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke has said on so many occasions, and as has our leader, the member for Burnaby South, yet that amendment was rejected.
The second amendment that was brought forward added a requirement that when there is a decision to dismiss a complaint at the initial stage, both the decision and the reasons for dismissing that complaint would be conveyed to the complainant, instead of just a summary of the reasons. The complainant would receive both the decision and the reasons for the dismissal of the complaint.
This amendment was brought forward by my old colleague Craig Scott, who was a member of Parliament. He was a fantastic member of Parliament for Toronto—Danforth who took over after Jack Layton passed away. He is a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and he appeared as a witness on this study. He detailed for the committee that no such information was provided to him when he was a complainant proceeding through the judicial review process. He had gone through the process and understood that information was not providing transparency. In other words, it was not leading to that growth in public confidence that is so critical in a democracy.
The amendment was aimed to provide openness and transparency and, as one of the high points of Parliament at the committee stage, all members of Parliament from all parties at the committee agreed to that amendment. It helped to improve the bill.
The third amendment that the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke tabled added a requirement that when a review panel made a decision on a complaint, both the decision and the full reasons would be given to the complainant. This added to what Craig Scott, the former NDP MP for Toronto—Danforth, brought forward.
Those two amendments, in series, helped to ensure that the bill would increase transparency, and this was important.
There was discussion around the right of appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal. The member for Langley—Aldergrove raised that idea in his speech. The reality is that we now have a twofold system of appeals, as the Minister of Justice described in discussing the Senate amendments. In a very real sense, that has helped to provide for the appeal process without making it an unduly long process.
Let us come now to the heart of the matter, which is the issue of the Senate amendments. There are two amendments that the government has proposed accepting from the Senate. The first is removing the words “as far as possible”. The member for Saint-Jean talked about this a number of times during her speech.
It is from the section requiring panels that convene to investigate complaints to reflect the diversity of Canada. We support this amendment, as well as the Senate amendment that adds sexual misconduct to the list of complaints that may not be dismissed without a formal investigation.
Those are two amendments that the Senate has put in place that the government is proposing be retained and that the NDP supports as well.
There were a number of other amendments, including the amendments regarding the Federal Court of Appeal. As I mentioned, we now have a two-stage process for appeals, so the rejection of those Senate amendments, to our mind, seems to be a fair-minded approach.
The most important thing is that we have been going back and forth for several years. There has been no change in the complaints process for 50 years. Improvements are obviously needed. However, we have been going around in circles for three years now. At committee, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke managed to get the NDP amendments I just mentioned adopted to improve the original bill, which is extremely important. This contributed to the quality of the bill.
The bill was then referred to the Senate, which proposed a number of amendments that we can support.
As members know, supporting these two Senate amendments is a bitter pill for the NDP to swallow. Our official policy is actually to abolish the Senate, which is a second chamber made up of non-elected members, as New Zealand and a number of other countries have done. Senators have been appointed, and not elected, for years. I would say they do not have the same credibility as the members of the House of Commons.
Other countries have abolished their second chambers, but that is not just an international phenomenon. Some of these upper, unelected chambers have been abolished right here in Canada, including in Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario. It makes no sense for unelected people to make decisions that have consequences for a population without being accountable. As members of Parliament, we must be accountable.
When I make a decision, I have to be accountable to my electors in New Westminster—Burnaby. I hope that some of them are watching me this evening. Who are the senators accountable to? That is the big question. I know that this is concerning and I know that these questions are being reviewed. It is true that it is important.
Nonetheless, the NDP is voting in favour of these two amendments because they make sense, even though they originate from the Senate. The most important thing to the NDP is that the bill be adopted with the recommendations that the government proposed and that it be sent back to the Senate so that it can get the Senate's seal of approval. The process will then be complete and we will finally have an improved judicial complaints process.
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- Jun/15/23 11:14:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, public confidence comes from transparency. The member is absolutely right that public confidence comes from a process that people feel makes them heard and understood. That is why we would put all of these measures in place and, I would suggest, have varied sanctions.
Part of the problem with the existing system is that it only has one penalty, with the current option being removal from the bench. However, there is a tendency to take other issues that may not warrant removal from the bench less seriously, because there are fewer options available to ensure that those complaints are upheld. Part of the exercise of getting the bill through is to ensure improving public confidence by giving options so that a judge could have continuing education, other reprimands and counselling, all of which are appropriate where there has been judicial malfeasance.
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- Jun/15/23 11:16:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I like my colleague. He does engage in disinformation, and this is one of those examples.
What happened, of course, was that this was brought forward at committee by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. It was not upheld at committee, and the reality is that there is now in place a twofold appeals process that the member is aware of and that the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke has endorsed. In terms of what needs to move forward from the Senate and what needs to be tucked away, it is very clear.
However, the problem we have in terms of moving legislation through is that the Conservatives are always putting forward amendments or motions that block legislation. They do not move it forward. In this particular case, given the length of time that this has taken and given the importance of the issue and of actually modernizing our judicial complaint process, when we were almost at the finish line, the Conservatives have drawn us back again. That is what I object to.
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- Jun/15/23 11:19:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Saint‑Jean is right. It is true. That is why the NDP has been calling for the abolition of the Senate for decades.
We are talking about a Senate appointed by the Liberals and the Conservatives. We have seen the Senate block very worthwhile bills on several occasions. It is obvious that this process of sending bills to an institution that is not democratically elected is detrimental.
My colleague is quite right. In this case, the bill would have been adopted already had there not been this step. That is something to think about for Canadians who want to abolish the Senate.
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- Jun/15/23 11:21:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley is an extraordinarily strong parliamentarian. Every time when he rises in the House to ask a question or to give a speech, I know that everyone listens to him very attentively because he represents his constituents, who inhabit a region as big as France, extremely well. It is just an enormous part of northern British Columbia. They are incredible communities with extraordinary representation. The member does incredible work, and I know that every weekend, he is down in another part of his riding, making sure that he is hearing his constituents.
The reality is that this does delay the bill, but we have seen Conservatives blocking dental care, blocking a grocery rebate that thousands of people in each of their ridings would benefit from and blocking affordable housing. All these things that the NDP is pushing the government to do, Conservatives try to block. Blocking dental care is incomprehensible to me. Eleven thousand people on average in a Conservative riding would benefit, including seniors, people with disabilities and families with youth under 18. Conservatives, including the member for Carleton, fought so that Canadians in those Conservative ridings would not have access to dental care. How does it make any sense at all to block something that is in the interests of their constituents?
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- Jun/15/23 11:23:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was the process that I felt was disinformation.
What we have is my colleague from Langley—Aldergrove, whom I respect a lot, quoting directly from Hansard. I will certainly look at that quote. I have no reason to doubt his quote. I know he is an honest person. I will look at the blues and come back to him in due time.
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- Jun/15/23 11:47:15 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, does my colleague believe that a party should do what it says it is going to do?
For example, with Bill C-9, if a party says we have to adopt this bill immediately, and then offers a delaying amendment, is that consistent? In the same way, if we have a hybrid Parliament and a party votes against the hybrid Parliament, but votes overwhelmingly using the hybrid tools that they were just saying needed to end, is that consistent? Are these contradictions by the Conservative Party that Canadians need to know about?
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