44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 18, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I certainly wish to add my congratulations to the hon. member on his joining cabinet in his very critical position as Minister of Justice. I have also seen, as my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke and others have said previously, nothing but really strong relationships and non-partisan and strong collaborative efforts from the member.
I know that the public is very alarmed by people being released on bail who go on to commit violent crimes, but we know that the bill by itself could actually make things worse given the institutional biases and racism in our system of justice. Pretrial detention offers very little, and even less once people have received their sentences, in the way of mental health supports and the attention that would assist in keeping people off the streets to avoid recidivism. A balance will need to be struck that would not be struck by the bill alone.
Because I know we want to see the bill passed quickly, and I think it is likely there will be an effort to get it passed today, I want to flag another concern that I hear from prosecuting attorneys: When people do get bail, and the surety is often a family member who puts up money for the accused's bail provisions, it is almost unheard of to go after the person who puts up the money to collect the money, so there is even less incentive for a person out on bail to observe their bail conditions.
I wonder if the hon. Minister of Justice has turned his mind to this aspect of needed bail improvements and reforms.
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Mr. Speaker, I did raise, with the minister, the same issue that my colleague has raised, which is the lack of services in pretrial detention. We should attend to that issue.
I want to know if he has more clarity than I do on the position of the official opposition. I appreciate he is exhorting us not to be partisan, but I am frankly confused. I thought the hon. leader of the official opposition said publicly we need to get this bill passed as quickly as possible, but on a direct question from the Minister of Justice, he seemed to duck the answer.
Does the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke have more insight on whether we will have all-party collaboration today to get the bill passed today?
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- Sep/18/23 3:19:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member for emergency preparedness, we have to do far more. We know that, not only as the member for Kings—Hants says, the cell service is inadequate, cell service goes down even where we have it during climate emergencies. We lose power. We lose land lines. We need a national firefighting force, a national water bomber fleet and a permanent national task force for climate emergency preparedness for better warnings, better communications and better response time.
Will the minister set up such a task force immediately?
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- Sep/18/23 3:39:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek unanimous consent to join my colleagues in response to the horrific and chilling news that the Prime Minister has shared with us. I was particularly grateful for the tone taken.
The first person to speak after the Prime Minister was the Leader of the Opposition. I heed his words to link arms and join hands in the quest for justice, which was so passionately and eloquently spoken of by the hon. member for Burnaby South, the leader of the New Democratic Party.
On behalf of all Greens, we pledge to join with our colleagues in a non-partisan fashion, support our—
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- Sep/18/23 3:55:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, as someone who knew Monique Bégin, I ask for unanimous consent to add some words to the tributes that have been made so eloquently by my hon. colleagues, the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, the member for Vancouver Kingsway and all those who have spoken about the extraordinary legacy of a champion woman, parliamentarian and trailblazer, the Hon. Monique Bégin.
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- Sep/18/23 4:04:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to the best of my information, it has not been passed to us to consider whether we are in favour or not. We would require—
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- Sep/18/23 4:05:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as is the usual practice, I would have assumed the right to have unanimous consent for non-contentious motions as the previous two times the Conservatives just blocked me from speaking in honour of Monique Bégin.
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Madam Speaker, I hope my hon. colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo had a good summer. I know his area was also affected quite heavily by smoke.
I heard the exchange with the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. I know it is tempting in this place to paraphrase what another member has said, and in some way, make their comments seem less responsive to public will.
I just know that when my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke commented about offenders who were shoplifting, it was not to trivialize what they were doing. Rather, it was to clarify a statistic used earlier in this place by a different member, who categorized a large number of offences as due to violent crimes. The member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke was merely providing a factual context that a lot of those crimes were not violent. I do not think he trivialized them.
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