44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 18, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my personal congratulations to the new Minister of Justice. I have worked with him in a number of capacities in Parliament and have always found him to be reasonable and a hard-working member of Parliament. I am sure he will bring the same to his new job.
I would also like to congratulate the new parliamentary secretary, who is sitting next to him, with whom I have also had a good relationship in the past. I look forward to our making progress on issues important to Canadians with these two new people in place in justice.
The minister said today a lot about getting this done today. I am going to express my hope that there is actually a plan rather than rhetoric involved with the idea that we pass this today. Certainly, New Democrats understand the urgency of tackling bail reform, both in the violent crime area and also in assisting those who get trapped in the justice system because they cannot get bail.
Does the minister actually have a plan for advancing this today?
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Mr. Speaker, I would say that I have tremendously appreciated working with the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke in different capacities in this Parliament and in previous Parliaments.
In terms of the plan to advance this legislation, I will say quite openly and candidly that the plan has been worked on for some months. What I mean by that is that we had incidents of violence that were occurring at the end of last year. We had a call-out from premiers around the country. That was in January. In March, we convened an ad hoc meeting of FPT officials, and we developed an idea and a consensus around what could be done. Within about eight weeks, we had legislation tabled in Parliament. That is a lightning-fast pace of proceedings in terms of the development of legislation. I do believe the important work has been done.
I would point out to the member opposite that the premier in his province of British Columbia, Premier David Eby, has been one of the most vocal proponents of this. In terms of addressing the needs expressed by Premier Eby and his government, as well as the needs expressed by so many other premiers, I think it is incumbent upon us to do this as quickly as possible. That is not a desire to short-circuit any sort of parliamentary oversight; it is far from it. I think a lot of that work has already been done in the co-development of this legislation with legal actors, law enforcement actors and other intergovernmental colleagues. I think that work has been done, and we owe it to Canadians to be promoting this as quickly as possible.
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the minister on his new role. He referenced the fact that this bill is widely supported throughout the country. I believe that all premiers are on board. I believe that most, if not all, associations of police are on board. I note that, in particular, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, said, “I’m urging the federal government to use this time to quickly pass their bail reform bill.”
I am curious whether the minister can expand on the widespread support for this and how important it is, given not just what we have hearing across the country but also what we have been hearing in the House, in particular from Conservatives, over the last number of years, to move very quickly with this.
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Mr. Speaker, the member's question underscores a very important aspect of how this bill has come to pass. It is not just the premier of the province of Ontario who has been getting behind this bill. My first meeting with a provincial analogue was with Doug Downey in my home province of Ontario. He said in his statement that he has been working in close collaboration with us to develop a bail reform plan. He personally thanked the government for the partnership that we have been showing and for “taking direct action to ensure violent and repeat offenders stay behind bars.”
Jennifer McKelvie, at that time the acting mayor of Toronto, and Guelph mayor, Cam Guthrie, said that they are pleased with this initiative. The Ontario police association has indicated the same, and the Ontario Provincial Police Association itself has indicated its support.
This really cuts across a lot of different sectors. After eight years in this place, I know pretty confidently that I can say that this level of co-operation and, indeed, unanimity, is quite rare to find in this place. That is what gives me the confidence to say, quite boldly, that if we are going to take people to be true to their word, there is a path forward to get this done and to get this done very quickly and on to the Senate and ultimately to royal assent, where it needs to be to ensure the safety of Canadians. We rarely see this type of unanimity. I think we deserve to recognize it, work on it and act on it.
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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 thank the member opposite for her continued collaboration. I think she knows, after my last eight years in this place, that advancing equality and curing systemic overrepresentation have been a hallmark of all of the work I have always tried to do. This bill would not impugn that objective. This bill is targeted. It has been called for by indigenous communities and Black communities around the country. Those communities need to be safe from violence exactly the same as everyone else, and the work that we continue to do to cure overrepresentation is represented by Bill C-5, by the impact of race and cultural assessments, by dealing with anti-hate strategies and by the work we will continue to do on curing online harm.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House for unanimous consent to split my time.
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- Sep/18/23 12:29:48 p.m.
- Watch
Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Mr. Speaker, this past summer, on July 7, a mother of two young children, Karolina Huebner-Makurat, was fatally shot by a stray bullet from a gunfight between drug dealers near a so-called safe injection site in Leslieville, just east of downtown Toronto. The alleged suspect responsible for her death was out on bail at the time. He was also banned from possessing weapons and was obviously not allowed to deal illegal drugs. A man out on bail involved in a drug deal gone wrong got into a gunfight with another drug dealer, and a mother of two young children was shot to death in Toronto.
Just the other day, on September 14, a man who had been charged with first-degree murder for gunning down a person sitting in their car pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was out on bail following that. He is now wanted on a second charge of homicide, after killing someone else when he was out on bail.
On June 14, in southwest Edmonton, a man shot multiple rounds, killing another man in a back alley. At the time of this murder, he was wanted by police for failing to attend a sentencing hearing for murdering another person in July 2020. After pleading guilty to manslaughter for that murder, he was let out on bail, then failed to appear in court and murdered someone else.
Murderers are being let out on bail and are murdering more people. All of this is in the past number of months.
Also in June, a video went viral that I am sure members probably saw. I know a number of Conservatives did. It was very alarming and disturbing. The video that went viral online was of a man stabbing another man multiple times on a subway in Toronto. The suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and two counts of failing to comply with a release order, was out on bail at the time.
I have taken public transit and the subway in Montreal and other cities on multiple occasions. We could be sitting next to someone who is out on bail for a violent crime, like this man who stabbed another man multiple times, and that is not something that Canadians deserve to deal with every day. I do not think that is not something Canadians ever thought they would have to deal with, yet if we read the news on a regular basis, we know that assaults, stabbings, shootings and murders inside and outside public transit have unfortunately become the norm in many parts of our great nation.
I will just wrap up with a few more examples. I could go on all day. We have all heard and read about them. It is endless.
In August, news broke that a man accused of four cold cases of sexual assault in Vancouver was released shortly after being charged. A rapist, accused of four counts of rape or sexual assault, was released on bail into the community. He could be walking among us. I did not realize that Canada had become like this. When researching for today, I saw tale after tale of violence against women, murders, shootings, stabbings and physical assaults, over and over again.
The crime stats back this up. It is not just in our heads; we are not just paying more attention to the news or social media, not that we can get the news on social media anymore thanks to the Liberal government. The stats from Stats Canada back this up. In fact, since the Liberals formed government in 2015, violent crime has gone up 39%, murders are up 43%, gang-related homicides are up over 108% and violent gun crime is up 101%. Again, this is in light of OICs and so-called gun control legislation that go after law-abiding hunters and sports shooters in this country that the Liberals have promised will end gun violence. After all of that effort and all of that division, gun crime is up over 100% under the Liberals' watch in the eight years that they have been in power. Obviously it is a very failed approach to addressing violent gun crime in this country.
Sexual assaults are up 71%. Again, this is a feminist government, as they say at every opportunity. We know that sexual assaults are mostly against women, and there has been a 71% increase in sexual assaults since 2015.
The next stat is difficult to say, but sex crimes against children are up 126% since 2015. Also, car thefts are up 34%, which pales in comparison to sex crimes against children, but as MPs we hear that car thefts are through the roof, especially in major cities. People cannot leave their cars outside. Even if they are in the garage there are devices to steal them now. We hear about this over and over again.
I will remind the House that of the 44 shooting-related homicides in Toronto last year, 17 of the accused were out on bail at the time. In Vancouver, the same 40 offenders were arrested 6,000 times. There were 6,000 interactions with police in one year with 40 people. The people of Vancouver deserve far better. Why can we not do something with those 40 people who are causing mayhem, who are causing hardship, assaults, harms, rapes, thefts and abuse? Why is it that they continue to walk free time and time again?
Even more troubling is that the overall severity of crime in Canada, tracked by the violent crime severity index, has increased by nearly 30% under the Liberal government during its eight years. I will remind the House again that under former prime minister Stephen Harper, the same metric fell by 25%. It was down 25% and now is back up 30% under the Liberal approach.
Crime is one of the top things I hear from my constituents in Winnipeg. It is not just in their heads. In fact, violent Criminal Code violations increased from 9,400 in 2015 to over 14,000 last year. There were 9,400 in 2015 when the Liberal government took the wheel, and there are over 14,000 eight years later. The statistics speak for themselves: The Liberal approach to dealing with public safety and violent crime is failing Canadians. It is actually costing lives, as we have seen. This is not just a partisan issue or just a difference of ideology. This is really about the safety and security of women, children, the elderly, people riding public transit and men and women who are just going about their day.
It is very important that we are having this discussion. The Conservatives have been leading the charge on violent crime reduction discussions in the House for years. We have been talking about bail reform for a very long time, and it is just in the past few months that the premiers have sounded the alarm. Premiers from every political party have written multiple letters to the Prime Minister demanding bail reform. Every police force across the country that I have talked to says we need bail reform. There are also issues with people getting out early on parole. There are issues with conditional sentencing, with people given house arrest instead of jail time, not following that house arrest and going out and creating more mayhem for people in their communities.
I did congratulate the new Minister of Justice for his new role. It is a very important role in Canadian society. He is tasked with the Criminal Code. He alone is responsible, in addition to his boss, the Prime Minister, for fixing these problems. What concerned me, though, is that mere days after being appointed, he unfortunately said, as quoted in Reuters, that “empirically it's unlikely” that Canadians are becoming less safe. Those are his words. I asked him about it today and he seemed to backtrack, but that was his initial position.
How do we trust the Liberal government given this is its record and given that it has made no moves to make any changes until recently because of public pressure from the premiers and from police? Everybody and their dog is asking for bail reform and tough-on-crime measures. Now the Liberals are doing something. They are bringing forward a small bill of about seven pages to fix a problem that was created by a bill that was over 200 pages, Bill C-75, from a few years ago. That was a Liberal bill from about five years ago that made it easier to get bail, bottom line.
Now they have brought forward a piddling little seven-page bill that they are telling Canadians will solve all the problems. I do not believe them. I believe the minister's words when he said he did not really believe there was a lot of crime going on, though I am paraphrasing. The Liberals have sort of downplayed the concerns of Canadians. I have read the statistics and the stories, and clearly there is a problem.
I do not think there is any way we are going to solve this problem unless we have a change of government. The Conservatives have a proven track record of reducing crime in this country. It has been proven. It is in the data. The Liberal approach has failed, and people are being harmed as a result. We have a justice minister who, right out of the gate, downplayed these concerns, making it seem like they are all in our heads.
I will quote from the National Post. Adam Zivo wrote about this recently, which will sum it up really well. He said, “Canadians deserve political leaders who don’t gaslight them about violence in their communities. If the Liberals want to tackle this issue half-heartedly and do only the bare minimum needed to temper public anger, then that’s their choice—but it will be the end of them.” I very much agree with Mr. Zivo.
I hope we will see much more effort to address public safety in the remaining days of the current government, but if not, this side of the House is ready and waiting to get to work, roll up our sleeves and clean up our streets.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her contributions in this chamber in advancing public safety. I appreciate that she is committed to public safety.
The member comes from Manitoba. Manitoba justice minister Kelvin Goertzen has himself said that the bill appears to be “hitting on a lot of the themes that ministers were concerned about” at the recent federal-provincial-territorial meeting. The justice minister in her home province is aligned with the sentiments she just expressed. The leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition said this summer, literally one month ago today, that he is ready to get this bill passed by midnight as soon as Parliament is back.
My question to the member is simple. Parliament is back. We are ready to sit until midnight. Are the Conservatives going to support us in getting this bill to the Senate?
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Mr. Speaker, even if the Liberals give us an inch when we need miles of reform on public safety, it is very important that we move forward with the small pittance they are providing us in this bill.
However, Bill C-48 is not bail reform, which is what premiers, police forces, provincial justice ministers and civic leaders are all asking for. They are not asking for tweaks on the margins; they are asking for broad bail reform. What the Liberals are proposing today is not that.
I will draw the minister's attention to the fact that there has been a consistent Liberal government theme over the last number of years of going soft on criminals. It is not just Bill C-75 that made it easy to get bail. Bill C-5 removed mandatory minimums for violent gun offences and permitted more house arrest for rapists. Bill C-83 allowed mass murderers, like Paul Bernardo, to be transferred to medium-security prisons.
This is a theme, a perspective that the Liberals bring to the table, which has resulted in more violent crime, and that will not be solved by a measly seven-page bill, Bill C-48.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague about an interesting aspect of the bill that warrants further study. It is also a request from women's groups who have been thinking about a specific issue.
The bill reads in part:
expand the reverse onus provision for offences involving intimate partner violence to ensure that it applies to an accused person who has been previously discharged for such an offence;
This has been debated a lot in Quebec. There was a report entitled “Rebâtir la confiance” about rebuilding trust in the justice system.
Given this mention of intimate partner violence, would this bill not be a good way to send victims of domestic violence a message that we care about the issues they are facing? Would that not be an important first step?
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Mr. Speaker, aspects of the bill need to be studied to ensure they are effective. Anything regarding violence against women should be paid special attention. As I have said, since the Liberals formed government eight years ago, sexual assault is up 71%.
I would kindly remind the Bloc Québécois that it supported Bill C-5, which passed in the fall under the former justice minister. It removed mandatory prison time for a number of dangerous gun offences. It also facilitated more house arrest for rapists.
In Quebec alone, there have been five cases where convicted rapists have not served one day in prison. Instead, they are serving house arrest. They get to be in the comfort of their homes after violating women in the most horrific way. The Bloc Québécois supported that.
The Quebec national assembly has called on the House to review that and undo the harm. We are the only party that did not support Bill C-5. Does the Bloc Québécois regret its decision to support it?
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Mr. Speaker, I am a bit perplexed by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul's speech. We have a bill before us today that has had broad support from premiers who demanded action. I think it has had broad support from all political parties, with the the leader of the member's party saying that he was prepared to pass it on the first day of this sitting.
In her speech, we heard some things get mixed up, things that had nothing to do with bail reform and had to do with other parts of the justice system. We have a disparaging of this bill, which has broad support from police and other members in the law enforcement community.
Is the Conservative Party serious or not? Is it standing by its leader's statement that it would like to get this done expeditiously or not?
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Mr. Speaker, with my remaining seconds, it is difficult for me to take questions from the NDP seriously when it has supported, every step of the way, the Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach. The reason we are here is because of its support. If it does not like the government's approach, it should not vote for it anymore, and we can go to an election today.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, the cost of living is going up because of an inflationary tax that the Bloc supports and that they want to drastically increase. The cost of living is also going up because of inflationary deficits.
It no longer pays to work and the cost of housing has doubled. The desperation that these policies have caused is leading to a crisis of homelessness, drug use and crime. That is the situation after eight years of this Prime Minister.
Today, we are rising in the House of Commons to talk about the utter chaos that the Prime Minister has unleashed on our streets with his changes to the bail system. He introduced Bill C-75, which was passed. That law allows criminals who have been charged dozens of times to be released on the very day they are arrested.
That bill was supported by the Bloc. Yes, voting for the Bloc is not worth the cost. A vote for the Bloc is a vote for Liberal policies that cause crime in our streets. What are the consequences of that Liberal-Bloc policy?
After eight years of this Prime Minister, violent crime has increased by 39% and homicides by 43%. Gang-related homicides are up 108%. Gun crime is up 101%. I will stop there for now. The Prime Minister thinks that fighting gun crime means banning hunters’ weapons. He stated in his comments that he wanted to ban firearms that are used for hunting. That is what he proposed in Bill C-21, to which he added 300 pages containing the list of hunting weapons he wanted to ban.
The Bloc Québécois was beyond happy, it was ecstatic. The Bloc said it wanted to adopt that list and that it had been waiting many years for this major ban on hunting weapons. Now the Bloc leader is trying to do an about-face, trying to make the people in Quebec's regions forget that the Bloc betrayed them with its agenda of banning hunting weapons. The Bloc Québécois also voted in favour of a law that allows criminals who use firearms to commit violent acts to return to our streets on the day they are arrested.
That approach did not work. We Conservatives will protect hunters and put the real criminals in prison. We will allocate resources to the border to prevent weapons from entering the country illegally from the United States.
Moreover, we see that assault causing bodily harm has increased 61%. Sex crimes against children increased 126% after eight years of this Prime Minister. Car thefts increased 34% after eight years of this Prime Minister.
This is the record of this government’s approach of freeing the most violent criminals while banning hunting weapons. This does not actually work. It does not make sense. That is why the Conservative Party is the only party in the House of Commons that had the common sense to oppose this and stand up for the rights of hunters. We are going to put criminals in prison and protect law-abiding citizens.
We know that the Conservative approach works, because when we were in power the crime rate decreased by 26%. We targeted the most violent and vicious criminals and made sure that repeat offenders were sent to prison. All the other parties said that this would increase the prison population. In fact, the number of prisoners decreased by 4.3%. There were fewer people in prison and less crime on our streets. In addition, we were able to eliminate the gun registry to protect our hunters.
Our approach works because by targeting the most violent criminals and denying their release to prevent them from committing the same crimes again, we can protect society and deter crime by others. We will take that common-sense approach again when I am prime minister of Canada.
Today, we have a bill that partly reverses the damage that the Prime Minister has caused. We all know that after eight years of the Prime Minister, life costs more, work does not pay, housing costs have doubled, and crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are common in our streets. We know that his policy of freeing repeat violent offenders the same day they are arrested came to us in Bill C-75, supported by both Liberals and their coalition partners. In fact, the NDP wanted to go even further.
What are the consequences of their catch-and-release policy? Violent crime is up 39%. Homicide is up 43%. Gang killings are up 108%. Aggravated assault is up 24%. Assault with a weapon causing bodily harm is up 61% increase. Sexual assault is up 71%. Sex crimes against kids is up 126%. Kidnapping is up 36%. Car thefts are up 34%. These crimes are almost always committed by a very small minority.
The good news is that we do not have a lot of criminals in Canada. The bad news is they are very productive. They are allowed to be productive because of the catch-and-release policies passed in Bill C-75 that allow an offender to be arrested often within hours of their latest crime. In Vancouver, the police had to arrest the same 40 offenders 6,000 times, because the police and the system required them to be released under the Prime Minister's bill, Bill C-75.
The bill before us today partly and modestly reverses the catch-and-release bail system that the Prime Minister created, but it does not go far enough. Our policy is very clear. A common-sense Conservative government led by me will bring in jail and not bail for repeat violent offenders. Those offenders with a long rap sheet who are newly arrested will be in our jails today.
When we brought in policies of this sort under the previous Conservative government, we not only reduced crime by 25%, but we actually reduced incarceration rates. That was against all of the rhetoric of the radical left that said that we would have to build mega prisons to accommodate all the criminals. In fact, our laws were narrowly targeted at the worst repeat offenders and they scared the rest of the criminals away. We actually had fewer criminals, less crime and, therefore, fewer prisoners. That meant safer streets.
The Prime Minister has unleashed a crime wave over the last several years.
I was just in Whitehorse yesterday at Antoinette's restaurant. The owner told me that his restaurant had been robbed 12 times in 18 months, multiple times by the same offender who was released again and again. In fact, police officers told him they were going to stop arresting the offender because it was not worth the time of having him arraigned and being released almost immediately. It was easier and more cost-effective to just leave the thief on the streets and let him do his business.
That is how broken our criminal justice system is after eight years of the Prime Minister. Now he has appointed a radical justice minister who says that crime is all in the heads of Canadians, that their imaginations have gone wild. However, the data proves otherwise.
It turns out that Canadians and Conservatives are right. A common-sense Conservative government will fix the mess the Liberals made. It will fix what is broken with jail and not bail. Now, let us bring it home.
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Mr. Speaker, the safety of our communities is a non-negotiable priority; it can never be partisan. As do parents across this country, I need to know that my sons are safe when they are on their way to school each and every morning.
The measures contained in this bill, Bill C-48, are focused on keeping repeat violent offenders off our streets. We have the support of all law enforcement around the country. We have the support of 13 different provincial and territorial governments, including many Conservative governments that the member opposite works with closely.
The one Conservative who is equivocating on this issue is the Leader of the Opposition. I want to ask him about a statement he gave to journalists, where he said, “We'll pass it this afternoon. In fact, call [the minister] and tell him I'm happy to bring back Parliament today. We'll pass bail reform by midnight.”
Was the Leader of the Opposition being honest when he made that statement?
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Mr. Speaker, yes I was. In fact, I would have undone the Liberal bail law in Bill C-75 six years ago, the day it was passed.
Not only did the minister go on vacation before addressing bail, but he also went to a radio station and claimed that we were holding up the reversal of Liberal bail policy. He thought no one would find out about this. In fact, he was on vacation and had allowed Parliament to rise without bail reform occurring in the first place. Let us not forget that what little good this bill would do is just undoing the damage his party already did.
Finally, I would ask the minister to stand in his place and apologize to Canadians for trying to gaslight them and tell them that rising crime is just a perception issue. I have given him all the data published by his own government, which shows that violent crime has raged out of control after eight years under the Prime Minister. These are data points. These are facts. Will he admit it and apologize for gaslighting Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Conservative Leader of the Opposition, whose innuendo is calculated to deceive the public, does not really like what the polls say in Quebec. When he speaks of Quebec, he speaks in French and when he speaks in English, he speaks of the NDP to make his point.
We must separate fact from fiction. When they talk about the carbon tax that does not apply to Quebec, that is nothing but a sham. When they make no distinction between hunting weapons and assault weapons, that is nothing but a sham.
Is the leader of the official opposition actually able to separate fact from fiction?
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Mr. Speaker, now the Bloc Québécois wants me to talk about them in English. Bizarre.
Here are the facts. The Bloc Québécois supported the ban on hunting weapons. Their MP on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights received the 300-page list of hunting weapons banned by the Liberals. He thought it was excellent and said that people had been waiting for this ban for years.
Now, perhaps the Bloc Québécois leader has forgotten how his party voted. Speaking of the carbon tax, yes, it does apply in Quebec.
We moved a motion in the House of Commons to cancel this tax. The Bloc Québécois voted to keep the tax. One Bloc member said it should be drastically increased.
I, for one, am going to stand up for Quebec taxpayers, not add to the burden that the federal government has put on them.
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