Senator Gold: The government takes very seriously the impact of the criminal law and the criminal justice system on Canadians and is very aware — as we all are — of the disparate impact that any otherwise neutral law has on those with means and those without. Independent of whether it’s a reverse onus, if you have the means to have a good lawyer, you’re going to navigate the system far better than if you’re impecunious. That’s a fact of life in our society.

This government has taken these issues very seriously, and again — at the risk of saying more than is necessary at second reading — to its credit, as compared with previous governments.

That said, this builds upon an existing body of law in the Criminal Code and an existing body of law in our courts that recognize that it’s appropriate, at times, to reverse the onus because otherwise the risk to public safety, individuals and communities is unreasonably compromised, potentially. Judges always retain the same discretion, for better and for worse, in the face of someone accused of a crime in applying for bail.

These are proper questions for the committee, proper questions for the minister and the officials and for the other witnesses, but I am assured that the government is taking these considerations very seriously and believes that the collateral impact of these changes, modest though some of them may seem — and some of them are, as I explained in my speech — will not materially change what is the unfortunate disparate impact of our criminal law on those with more and less means.

[Translation]

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, if Bill C-48 on bail reform had been in place in Canada for the last five years, how many criminal offenders would have stayed in jail as opposed to being released on bail? Given what you have described, this Trudeau government bill has a very limited scope, so my guess is that the actual number of offenders this would actually apply to is tiny.

Hon. Mary Jane McCallum: Senator Gold, I was invited to attend a brunch with the police association and the premiers on bail reform this summer, and I raised a concern at that time. One of the panellists gave an example of an offender who had stolen a bottle of liquor and, 10 years later, he is a hardened criminal is what she said. Because of the way the system is set up, at that time, we were told that 70% of the people in the provincial jails were Indigenous and the majority had not even been to court.

Indigenous relationship with police administration, police officers and the justice system is already precarious. How will racial profiling and racism be addressed? If they are not, there will be a continuous flow of new criminals, and no law will be able to handle the load, even if additional resources are given. An example I’ll use is 80% of the Indigenous prisoners who are in the pen were children who were apprehended. So we need to look at reducing the flow of child apprehension so we don’t have that flow going in, because we’re not going to change the penitentiary system. How will this be addressed?

One comment that came up was people were so upset in there that they said, “Throw them in jail and throw away the key,” which caused me great concern. Thank you.