Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on December 4, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 157, An Act to amend various Acts in relation to the courts and other justice matters / Projet de loi 157, Loi modifiant diverses lois en ce qui concerne les tribunaux et d’autres questions relatives à la justice.

Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here with you in the morning. Thank you to my colleague from Toronto Centre for that long talk; it’s hard to do. We worked well together at city hall—we were seatmates for eight years—and I know how hard you work for your community and all of Ontario, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

Just with regard to this bill and your ideas for it, that it’s not going far enough: Can you give us maybe your top two suggestions for improving this bill?

Good morning. I want to thank the member for her contributions this morning.

One of the things that I like to emphasize is positive moves within time, and this bill has made changes under the Victims’ Bill of Rights, expanding the list of crimes where victims are presumed to have suffered emotional distress. Right now, under this section, that only includes assault by a spouse, sexual assault and attempted sexual assault. This is now proposed to be expanded to include human trafficking and certain sexual offences, including those committed against a minor.

My question to the member is, does the member opposite think that these modifications are a positive move?