Senator Plett: Well, yes, what are they, Senator Gold?

Senator Gold, you say you don’t have the names of the candidates. I trust you will get them for us. Senator Gold, this is a matter of national security and confidence in our democratic institutions. Parliament requires this information. Senator Gold, will you agree to a process where Parliament can have this information if required for an initial period and then in an in camera setting?

Senator Plett: Certainly.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Plett, Senator Dalphond has a question. Would you agree to answer a question?

Senator Plett: Senator Gold, saying it does not make it a reality.

The government has not shown any of what you have just said. Leader, the urgency of this threat seems to be evident to our Canadian intelligence officials, to experts on China and to our allies, and yet not to your government.

We know that the Chinese regime is targeting our democratic process. We know that they are targeting Chinese Canadians through police stations operating on Canadian soil. And yet the Prime Minister continues, leader, to sit on his hands.

Leader, when will your government abandon its failed strategy of appeasement, which only emboldens this rogue regime in China?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, your government’s inaction on the issue of interference in Canada by the Communist government in China is putting Canadian democracy increasingly at risk.

According to reports by Global News, the Prime Minister was warned by Canadian intelligence officials in January of this year that China has been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference. This included funding a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates who ran in the 2019 election and conducting research into Canadian MPs who were critical of China’s human rights abuses against the Uighur population in Xinjiang.

Leader, my question is simple: Why is your government not responding forcefully to the Communist regime’s interference in our democracy?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Leader, I continue with the matter of Communist Chinese interference in our affairs.

Yesterday, leader, we learned that the RCMP arrested Hydro‑Québec employee Yuesheng Wang and charged him with espionage. In a statement, authorities said that Mr. Wang obtained trade secrets to benefit the People’s Republic of China to the detriment of Canada’s economic interests.

Senator Gold, the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, has interfered in our electoral processes. They have set up police stations to intimidate Chinese-Canadians and they have infiltrated our industries.

What, Senator Gold, is it going to take for your government to recognize the real threat posed by this totalitarian regime and finally take the steps needed to protect our national interests?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I rise today to speak in support of Senator Boisvenu’s amendment, which I believe to be a carefully considered, thoughtful approach to proposed changes that have yet to be fully explained or justified.

At the outset, I want to commend Senator Boisvenu for his continued dedication to the pursuit of justice, both inside and outside of this chamber. When it comes to the protection of victims of crime, Senator Boisvenu has always ensured that nothing falls through the cracks. Canadians are truly better for his passion, tenacity and insight.

Colleagues, Bill C-5 proposes to end a significant number of mandatory minimum penalties for serious offences. The merits of mandatory minimums and the role of Parliament in establishing sentencing parameters has been debated at length. While I personally believe it is not only appropriate but indeed responsible for Parliament to set out mandatory minimum penalties on offences that impact public safety, I recognize that others do not share that perspective and view such stipulations as an infringement on judicial discretion. On this, I believe reasonable people can disagree. However, Senator Boisvenu’s amendment focuses on a problem that has been identified by those most affected and most in tune with the experience of survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Bill C-5 proposes to allow for greater use of conditional sentence orders, such as house arrest, for a number of offences where the offender faces a term of less than two years of imprisonment. The offences eligible under this bill include sexual assault, kidnapping, human trafficking, assault with a weapon and more. Women’s groups and victim advocacy groups — those who have real-world experience dealing with the ramifications of violent offenders post-release — have highlighted a glaring oversight with this proposal: Bill C-5 in its current form will allow for instances in which violent offenders serve their sentences from home, in the same community as their victims. They can be right across the street, as was said, sitting in a lawn chair.

As this is a new proposal, we do not have any data on compliance with conditional sentence orders for these particular violent offences. However, Senator Boisvenu provided data indicating a 44% failure-to-comply rate with existing conditional sentences. We also have data that demonstrates a stark increase in crimes against the person — specifically family violence, criminal harassment, sexual assault and human trafficking. The Senate’s Legal Committee heard testimony about the experience of survivors of abuse when their abuser has been released on parole. The committee heard stories of intimidation, a lack of compliance and a general feeling of a lack of safety among abuse victims, which would only be exacerbated by this expansion.

Colleagues, while we all support the objective of rehabilitation, we also know that the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour. There is nothing in a conditional sentence that would protect women from a future violent attack.

I raised this issue with Justice Minister Lametti when he appeared before this chamber for ministerial Question Period. Unfortunately, as with most of his answers, this one provided no explanation and gave skeptics of this proposal no comfort. In my question, I highlighted the testimony of Jennifer Dunn from the London Abused Women’s Centre from her appearance at the House of Commons Justice Committee, when she said:

Women and girls are five times more likely than men to be victims of sexual assault, and sexual assault is a violent crime on the rise in Canada. With conditional sentencing, many women will be stuck in the community with the offender, which places them at even higher risk.

I asked the minister, given the rising statistics, what message it sends to victims of sexual assault to extend leniency to sexual offenders through this measure. He answered by saying, “It will always be the case that serious crimes will attract serious penalties . . . .”

We all know that this is, in fact, not the case, even under the current law. We can all point to examples of heinous crimes receiving shockingly low sentences that resulted in public outrage. However, given the minister’s answer, I must ask: What could possibly constitute a non-serious sexual assault? Nobody has provided an answer for that — not the minister, not the officials, and not the sponsor of this bill.

Senator Simons did try to draw a distinction between rape and what she considered to be a less serious type of sexual assault. However, there is a reason the offence of sexual assault is broad and encompasses a range of behaviours, and that is because, as the Supreme Court outlines, sexual assault violates “the sexual integrity of the victim.”

This is serious, colleagues. Regardless of whether people in this chamber find that to be a laughing matter, sexual assault, in all its forms, has the potential to cause serious, lasting trauma for victims, and our laws need to continue to condemn sexual assault in all its forms.

Colleagues, we must ask ourselves: What specific problem is this conditional sentence expansion seeking to fix? Some have cited the overincarceration of Indigenous peoples as a justification for this measure. However, on that point, the committee heard no specific evidence that expanding conditional sentencing measures would have an impact on the Indigenous incarceration rate. In fact, University of Ottawa criminology professor Dr. Cheryl Webster and PhD graduate Dawn North testified on this specific misconception. While they wholeheartedly support the stated goal of prison reduction for Indigenous peoples, they cautioned that the data and multiple subsequent evaluations, in fact, demonstrate that the expansion of conditional sentence eligibility as a prison alternative has no meaningful impact on incarceration rates of Indigenous peoples.

Ms. North stated that there is “. . . little reason to believe that the sanction will now contribute to significant prison reduction, especially for Indigenous peoples.”

In particular, Ms. North described the data in great detail:

The research does suggest that even when conditional sentences were broadly available, Indigenous populations or offenders didn’t proportionately benefit from them. There were instances when they were benefiting, but it wasn’t in the same proportion as other offenders. There’s also data suggesting Indigenous offenders tend to have higher breach rates even when they are granted conditional sentences. This becomes, of course, a problem for overall incarceration rates when they’re imprisoned upon breach.

Colleagues, if the reduction of Indigenous incarceration rates is the rationale for this expansion, it is not rooted in evidence and, according to researchers, could actually have the opposite effect when breach rates are considered.

Not to mention, the data is clear that Indigenous women are at an increased risk of experiencing domestic and sexual violence. In fact, colleagues, more than 4 in 10, or 43%, of Indigenous women have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. How could it possibly benefit an Indigenous survivor of abuse to have their abuser serve their sentence in the same community — across the street?

In my follow-up question to Minister Lametti, I asked what impact he believed this would have on a victim’s likelihood to come forward, given that sexual assault is estimated to be the most under-reported crime in Canada. The minister refused to answer the question. Instead, he used the opportunity to tout his government’s record on helping victims of crime. Quite a rich retort from the minister who refused to appoint a Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime for 361 days, meaning that a year’s worth of legislation impacting victims did not undergo this critical review. In fact, it would have served us well to have such a review on this legislation as we consider its impact on victims.

While the minister did not have the answer, those who work with victims of sexual violence know exactly what is at stake. When Jennifer Dunn was asked about this during the Senate Legal Committee, she indicated that she heard from a victim in her centre’s care that very day that she testified — the victim stated, unequivocally, that less protection in sentencing means fewer women coming forward, which would be a real setback for the fight against sexual assault.

Senator Boisvenu, in bringing forward this amendment, has carefully selected the offences that are most highly correlated with domestic and family violence — offences for which a house arrest in the community would pose the greatest risk to victims.

Some senators in the Legal Committee noted that criminal defence lawyers want this bill passed as quickly as possible, specifically the conditional sentence expansion — “imperfect as it may be,” they said — because it would benefit their current clients.

Colleagues, I submit that this is not a consideration we need to concern ourselves with. It is not our job to make sure that defence counsel can ensure a better result for their clients. I recognize the important role that the defence plays in a fair and just trial. However, I have a hard time believing that many in this chamber are rushing to pass imperfect legislation that would benefit the Crown in ensuring a harsher sentence for the offender.

Rather than worry about which side of the courtroom this legislation helps, let’s, instead, listen to victims who have the experience to understand the real-world impact of this expansion.

One abuse victim in the care of the London Abused Women’s Centre said that:

. . . it seems as if we are focused on the men that have created the problem and are not listening to the women who are on the other side as victims.

Colleagues, the proposal to expand conditional sentence eligibility to perpetrators of violent offences is misguided. There is no data to suggest that it will impact the overincarceration of Indigenous peoples. Yet, it will certainly have an impact on the safety of abuse survivors — a category in which Indigenous women are tragically overrepresented as well.

Please consider, colleagues, what is at stake for all victims of sexual assault. Let’s concern ourselves with the victims — not the perpetrators — of sexual violence and all other violent crimes against people. Let’s listen to what victims are asking of us, and support this very thoughtful amendment.

Thank you, colleagues.

Senator Plett: I’m not sure, Senator Dalphond, that I even understand the question properly.

I think if a person commits a sexual assault, that person needs to be incarcerated, simple as that. The judge has the discretionary powers to say whatever the minimum is and give that minimum. We, as parliamentarians, have an obligation to fulfill that — not to allow individual judges who may have had a bad day to allow that bad day to influence their decision. We need to have rules in place. We have had rules in place. You alluded to Senator Boisvenu speaking to 2012 and how he had been part of a different government. Yes, that government brought in what was considered good mandatory minimums.

I’m not sure where you would possibly think that I would have somewhere changed my mind on that. If that person has committed a sexual offence against somebody I know — some woman or girl I know — I don’t want that person living beside her, period. The longer we can keep that person away, the better it is, yes. That is what I believe.

Senator Plett: Senator Dalphond, in all fairness, we’re having a debate here. It’s not a question. You heard my speech. You know what my answer is. Yes, I believe if a person has committed a sexual assault, then that person needs to be punished accordingly.