44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 9, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/9/24 11:01:17 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on January 16, a young mother dropping off two of her three children at an elementary school in my riding was fatally stabbed by her estranged husband, and it was witnessed by the children. The killer, who was found dead a few hours later, had multiple breaches of restraining orders, had been released on bail several times on charges including sexual assault, and had a warrant out for his arrest on the morning of this tragic event. These children are now without parents and are emotionally scarred for life as a result of what they have witnessed.
Now, we hear time and again government members standing up in this place, decrying gender-based violence, yet Statistics Canada reports that instances of domestic violence have gone up every year since 2015, since this government took over. It is time the Liberal government stopped talking and started to act on domestic violence. Victims need protection, not more hollow statements by Liberal MPs, and abusers need jail, not bail.
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moved that Bill C-320, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (disclosure of information to victims), be concurred in.
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- Feb/9/24 1:46:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I just want to humbly thank my colleague and also all members of the House. Members of all parties have come to talk to me about the bill and about the compassion of the House for victims; it is something we all realize.
I feel such sincere respect for victims of crime, such as Lisa, who bravely, over a decade ago, walked into the office of a member of Parliament and wanted to do something not just for herself and her family but also for victims in the future.
Anybody who reads the bill will see that it is 10 words that would be added in the English version. It is a small change, but it would make a big difference. As we move these changes forward, we have to remember that this is for the victim.
My colleagues mentioned the hon. Senator Pierre Boisvenu. His life's work, as a survivor himself, was to make an attitude change here in government so we actually put victims first. I applaud the colleagues who have supported me, and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. I know Lisa does as well.
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- Feb/9/24 1:48:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing this matter forward. At committee we also heard that some victims and family members are not always ready, or do not always want, to hear about those who have impacted their family. Therefore I appreciate that the member has worked across the aisle on this to ensure that those who want the information are given it, but there is also a recognition that it is up to the victim and the victim's family to decide what information they receive. Could the member comment on that?
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- Feb/9/24 1:49:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Pickering—Uxbridge brings out a very important point. Every victim and every victim's family is different, and what they want to hear during the grieving process is different. One of the things that is really important about the bill is that it would allow choice; it would allow victims and their families to choose whether or not they want to receive that different information. Over a time period, because they would be getting transparent, clear information as they heal, if that is at all possible, and they want to get more information about the process and what is going on, they would be able to.
We have listened to victims, including Lisa as a victims' advocate. I applaud her courage for bringing this forward; it is not an easy thing to do. She is so darned determined. It has been over two decades that she has worked at this. We have the opportunity to give her success and to give victims of crimes and their families success. Hopefully colleagues today will understand that and take it into account as we move forward with the debate and move it to the Senate.
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- Feb/9/24 1:50:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague, the member for Oshawa, for championing the bill. In his tenure as a member of Parliament, he has consistently been a champion for the rights of victims. The bill is common sense.
One of the recurring themes I have heard from the families of victims is that they feel that they do not have support and they do not have information, long after the trial and conviction of the perpetrator who took the life of their loved one. Could the member comment on that?
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Mr. Speaker, it is moving to hear and observe how far we have come. The Bloc Québécois is eager to proceed with third reading.
I would like to add some more information and take the discussion a step further based on the situation before us. Members will recall that there was a surge in femicides in Quebec and in a number of locations in the west during the critical period of COVID‑19. This already alarming situation evolved into a true scourge. Every week, and almost every day, we woke up to media reports of a new femicide. The situation was alarming. Between 2009 and 2019, violence perpetrated against women, simply for being women, increased by almost 7.5%.
I am a woman. I am the mother of two young women and, on top of that, I am a member of Parliament. I have a responsibility, but at the same time I am still a person, and this news deeply upsets me. A mixture of disbelief, at times rage, and powerlessness often comes over me. I do not understand how this can still be happening in 2024. Women have the right to live in safety. It is not a luxury. It is not a privilege. It is a fundamental right. It seems to me that violence against women is condemned at every turn and has never been more socially unacceptable.
That said, women are unfortunately still the victims of men who are suffering or violent, who think that the life of their spouse, ex-spouse or the mother of their child is worth less than their own. There is still far too much misogynistic violence. Too many women still live in fear. From now on, fear must change sides. That is what the bill will do: turn the tables on fear.
Women living with a physically or psychologically abusive man must no longer be submissive. They must be supported. We need to work together to successfully turn the tables on shame and fear.
As legislators, it is up to us to bring about change. Obviously, we have come a long way, as my colleagues mentioned a few moments ago.
We in the Bloc Québécois are all allies. We will always be there to ensure that women's fundamental rights are all respected. We will not just use our defence of women's rights as a calling card. We truly believe in them. We in the Bloc Québécois will not pick and choose the issues on which we will defend women's rights. We will always defend women, their rights, their freedom and their safety. This is not just posturing for the Bloc Québécois. It is part of our DNA. We are a feminist party.
Quebec is once again setting an example for many jurisdictions around the world. In 2021, following tireless work by citizens' groups, women and MNAs from the Quebec National Assembly, including Véronique Hivon, who is someone you know well, Mr. Speaker, and someone I hold in the highest regard, Quebec created specialized courts for victims of sexual violence and domestic violence. I will take 30 seconds to quote what the Government of Quebec said about it:
The creation of this court specialized in sexual violence and domestic violence within a new division of the criminal and penal division of the Court of Québec is intended to ensure that victims receive better support and guidance before, during and after the legal proceedings. While respecting the principles of criminal law, each step of the judicial process will be reviewed to improve the experience for victims by being more responsive to their needs.
To turn the tables on shame, it is essential that we establish legal structures that treat women who are victims with respect and, most importantly, that make them feel that they are being heard.
Quebec became the first jurisdiction in Canada and the seventh in the world to implement electronic devices to give a sense of autonomy and safety back to women who are victims of domestic and sexual violence. It is a major step for the safety of women, but it is also a paradigm shift. Now, it is the abusers who will have to live in fear—fear of their tracking device and fear of getting too close to their victims and violating their release conditions. Women will be able to slowly but surely return to living a healthy life, knowing that they will not come face to face with their abuser.
Bill C-320 has the exact same objective, which is to put information mechanisms in place to make sure that the victim can get an explanation on how correctional decisions were made regarding their abuser. That is worth mentioning. This mechanism will allow victims to access additional information on their abuser's status. It will only make the justice system stronger, which will improve confidence in the system.
I would like to conclude with a quote from Simone de Beauvoir, who said, “What's scandalous about scandal is that we get used to it”. We must never get used to violence against women or femicide. Our actions must reflect our humanity.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Oshawa for bringing this bill forward.
He spoke very eloquently about the Freeman family. I certainly hope that the debate today, the fact that this bill is moving forward and that there seems to be consensus within the chamber provides some small measure of peace to that family.
New Democrats are supporting Bill C-320. We believe that providing information to victims to help them understand the parole process is a vital part of transparency and justice for victims and victims' families. That is why we are supportive of this legislation.
We also believe that we need to be doing a lot more for victims. Of course, we are aware of the fact that often victims are left aside following some of the most horrendous crimes. It is the victims that are not provided with the appropriate transparency from our justice system and with the appropriate supports. This is something that needs to be reinforced, that victims need to be provided all the supports that they should be getting from the system.
This bill is one example of how having that transparency around parole is vitally important. I will come back in just a moment to the vital function of parole, of that transition to avoid reoffending. Where societies have been most successful in lowering the reoffending rate is where there is a properly supervised and monitored transition in place, including parole systems. These are absolutely fundamental. I will come back to that in a moment.
With the Paul Bernardo case, we saw another example of victims not receiving information that was critical. We had a transfer within the system, but the reality is that that information flow, that transparency, that providing of information to victims, was not present. The public safety committee held a number of hearings with the victims and victims' families. In a trauma-informed way, I think all members of the committee really tried to ensure that this was removed from the standard type of political comments that sometimes occur at committee.
All members of the committee received that trauma-informed information so that, when the victims' families and representatives of the victims came forward, I think all parties were able to provide an appropriate level of questioning and really got the information that was so important about what happens when there are transfers within the correctional system.
With parole, which is targeted by this bill, it is absolutely essential that that transparency be there as well. I said earlier that I would talk a bit about the importance of parole. When we see, within correctional services around the world, where there is a properly monitored, properly supervised parole system, the level of reoffending goes remarkably down. Norway is often pointed to. The Norwegian correctional services, at one point, did not have that type of transition or parole. Offenders served their full sentences. The reality was the reoffending rate was very high. Norway tried a new approach, where there was parole put into place, a properly supervised, properly monitored system. As a result of that, the reoffending rate for offenders who were leaving the correctional services went down remarkably.
When we look at correctional services around the world, the reoffending rates are much lower. Where there are properly supervised, properly monitored parole systems, offenders do not reoffend. There is a consistent field of study that shows the difference.
Certainly, in a number of American states, where they have continued to ensure that offenders serve their full sentence without that transition, the reoffending rate is much higher. We can take lessons from that. Canada has a parole system that is often not properly supervised and monitored because of a lack of resources; this is unacceptable. We have the essential need of ensuring that offenders have every tool to not reoffend, and that victims' families are fully advised and apprised of situations.
Bills like Bill C-320 are an important component of that, but resources are absolutely essential. That is where we are coming from. In this corner of the House, we believe that there need to be more supports for victims. The transparency is essential, but we are also looking for transparency within transfers and correctional services, and ensuring that victims are provided with the supports that are so essential.
When victims' families are apprised of this information, often they are not provided with psychological and mental health supports. This is something that needs to change if we are really going to ensure that we have a correctional service that serves justice and provides for the lowest possible reoffending rate, but also does justice for victims and victims' families. We need to ensure that those supports are in place.
I would like to talk about other resources that we believe need to be brought in. Crime prevention programs were ended under the former government 10 years ago, like the B.C. crime prevention centre and others. They were closed across the country as crime prevention funding was cut back; it was simply wrong-headed. The reality is crime prevention funding is an essential tool to ensure that there are no further victims. We know that one dollar invested in crime prevention saves about six dollars in policing costs, court costs and prison costs. It is a no-brainer.
In this corner of the House, we believe in substantially funding crime prevention right across the country to ensure that there are fewer victims and that we are bringing the crime rate down. We believe this is an absolutely essential tool. Yes, providing supports to victims is a critical step, but actually ensuring that there are fewer victims is a much smarter approach. We believe in being smart on crime and smart on the causes of crime. This is how we can reduce the crime rate.
I note, sadly, when talking about resources, that last December, the official opposition proposed significant cuts with votes 23, 24 and 25. It was a sum of over $300 million in cuts to correctional services and the court administration services. It seems to me that it is wrong-headed to cut $300 million, when what we actually need to do is ensure that there is further funding to support victims, further funding to support the transparency that is a necessary aspect of correctional services, and further funding to actually ensure, for example, that the important recommendations of Bill C-320 are actually kept. The funding is a critical part of ensuring that we are responding, in a complete way, to ensure that the needs of victims are kept in place.
Once again, I would like to thank the member for Oshawa for introducing Bill C‑320. The NDP will support this bill. We feel it is an important step in ensuring that victims and victims' families have access to absolutely critical and important information. We look forward to its passage through the House and the other place in the days ahead.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand and speak to my friend from Oshawa’s bill, Bill C-320. Nowhere could 10 words and an explanation of how the date has been determined make such a difference, such a profound impact on so many Canadians.
I have stood in the House so many times over the last eight years to talk about victims' rights. We talked about the Paul Bernardo case. We talked about the Tori Stafford case, in which Terri-Lynne McClintic, the murderer of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, was moved to a healing lodge.
We talked about Catherine Campbell, the Halifax police officer who was heinously murdered by a murderer who then claimed he had developed PTSD from the actual murder. He was put to the front of the line, ahead of victims of violence, ahead of veterans and ahead of first responders, to receive treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder. It is absolutely shameful.
There is the case that I have stood in the House to talk about so many times: the case of Canada's youngest serial killer, Cody Legebokoff, who was found in 2010, just 20 years of age, in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George. He had murdered Natasha Montgomery, Jill Stuchenko and Cynthia Maas. He had murdered a friend of mine's daughter, Loren Leslie, who was 15 years old at the time.
I have stood in the House time and time again and asked, “Who speaks for the victims?”.
Cody Legebokoff was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in December 2014. That should have been the end of it. We found out, not through Corrections Canada's releasing information to the families but through the press, that Cody had been moved from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security prison just five years later, transferred mere kilometres down the road from Loren's sister.
Who speaks for families? When I questioned Corrections Canada and the public safety minister at the time on how this could happen, the answer I got was that it is not an exact science.
In Canada, “life” does not mean “life” for those who commit heinous crimes. It means “life” for the families' victims. They have a life sentence, and oftentimes they cannot get the information they require and deserve on why these transfers are happening.
Bill C-320 would simply promote transparency and victims' rights, equally important principles for democracy and criminal justice. It would simply give victims of violent crime and their families rights.
Finally, we are seeing some movement. This bill came to fruition thanks to the advocacy of Lisa Freeman, a constituent of our colleague from Oshawa. Her father was murdered in 1991. We heard the story. She was caught off guard when her father's killer was eligible for early parole 20 years into a 25-year life sentence. Often, the victims of violent crime and their families, the survivors, find these things out through the media. They are not told in advance. We heard earlier that they are the ones who have to keep pressing for more information. They have to be on it all the time.
Common decency would say that, if a loved one is murdered, whether a child, father, uncle, brother or mother, we owe the victims of violence just a modicum of decency. Thus, we should inform them when these killers are being moved, transferred to a different level of security or released into the community.
Our Bloc friend said that the aggressors need to fear. We see this now and again in the statistics on repeat and prolific offenders, on how crime has gone up, on how there are more victims of violence and on how that is impacting not only female Canadians at an alarming rate but also our families.
I applaud my colleague from Oshawa for his tenacity and undying pursuit of justice for victims and their families. By all accounts, from what we have heard here in the House today, Bill C-320 should pass here. It should go to the Senate, where we hope it will be unamended and swiftly receive royal assent; then, once and for all, we can all stand in this House and say that we fought for the rights of victims.
In preparing for this speech today, I looked over messages to me from Mr. Doug Leslie, a friend of mine, whose daughter Loren was murdered by Legebokoff. His messages are always the same: “Who speaks for me? Who speaks for the victims? Who stands up for them?” Today, we can say that we do, by passing Bill C-320, an act with, really, 10 little words that mean so much.
I opened my speech today by saying that nowhere in any of the legislation that we have done to date are there 10 little words that can provide such profound help to so many Canadians as those in Bill C-320. I will mention them again: “and an explanation of how that date has been determined”.
I applaud my colleague from Oshawa and those in this House who have offered a reasonable debate. I am thankful for this time.
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