Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, I didn’t intend to participate in this debate until Senator Klyne asked his question just now.

This is a difficult matter. I want to say that I respect Senator Martin and the leader of my group, Senator Tannas, for what they have said. But I also want to mention that, as a representative of Inuit in Nunavut — and by the way, it’s International Inuit Day today; I didn’t get a chance to make a statement on that — as a representative of a region with a population that is 85% Inuit, I do have to say that the national Inuit organization, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents Inuit in all four regions of Canada, has recently released an open letter to Canadians about the erosion of rights and status. They are very concerned about what President Obed has said is “. . . a tidal wave of false claims to Indigenous identity.”

You might wonder why I feel this is relevant to the debate on this amendment today, but I think it is relevant and will influence my vote against the amendment, with all due respect to Senator Martin. I was a part of the committee. I heard all the witnesses and the debate. I heard from CAP, and I think Senator Tannas has very eloquently described the steps that got us here today. But the issue for the ITK is that there is a concern about a member of CAP which has been endorsed by the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, called the NunatuKavut Community Council, or NCC. As President Obed said in a recent public letter, they have made efforts:

. . . to engage federal leaders, academic institutions, and Canadians in an attempt to advance its illegitimate claims to Inuit rights and status. NCC seeks to secure the lands and rights of legitimate Indigenous peoples and to further misappropriate the already limited resources that are intended to benefit Inuit, First Nations, and Métis.

NCC is not an Inuit rights-holding organization, and the organization has no affiliation with the four Inuit treaty organizations that collectively represent all Inuit in Canada.

Instead, their affiliation is with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, or CAP.

In light of the strong concerns about this organization, which is part of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, usurping Inuit identity according to their claims — and I have met with the community council, and I know they were greatly encouraged by a previous minister of Inuit-Crown relations who signed a memorandum of understanding, which led them to believe that they would be recognized by the federal government as a rights‑holding organization — I cannot in good conscience, as a representative of Inuit in this chamber, support the inclusion of CAP along with other rights-holding organizations on the truth and reconciliation council as recommended in this amendment.

I would note that the Innu Nation — who are also neighbours with the NunatuKavut Community Council as are the people of Nunatsiavut in Labrador — have also questioned their rights‑holding identity, and have supported Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, in rejecting what ITK called their false claims to Indigenous identity.

This is not an easy vote for me, and, like Senator Tannas, I am acutely aware of my non-Indigenous status. However, as a representative of Inuit in this chamber and having discussed this matter with President Obed, who represents the Inuit of Canada, I will be voting against the amendment.

Thank you.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (bail reform).

Colleagues, as I get closer and closer to retirement, I find myself becoming increasingly reflective about our role here as senators. We are a lot of things: We are champions of our regions, as well as the voices of minorities. We are advocates, leaders and mentors, but first and foremost, we are legislators. That places within our purview an incredible power to help or hinder the lives of all Canadians. So, for me, I become incredibly uncomfortable when we pass legislation that many committee witnesses speak out against.

This bill is one of them. I want to say that I agree in principle with being tough on crime. I personally believe in the importance of ensuring that we are not letting dangerous criminals in danger of reoffending out on bail. However, I was disheartened to hear throughout the committee’s study of this bill that many respected legal professionals disagree with this bill. We heard time and time again that this bill is politically motivated and would essentially do nothing.

I don’t say this lightly. After I heard from a number of credible, experienced and acknowledged expert witnesses in committee, I made a note that the committee had heard a litany of warnings that this bill — these are my words — was a knee-jerk reaction to recent events, which raised a chorus of alarms, but that it would not make a difference. Our committee’s observations on this bill state this in more diplomatic language, but in speaking to this bill on third reading, I believe it is important for all my colleagues to hear these clear warnings.

Kat Owens, a lawyer and Project Director at the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund told us that:

. . . changes to the bail system like this do nothing to address the underlying causes of gender-based violence, and they actually may make things worse in terms of the impact of detention on people, like losing their jobs, homes and mental health supports . . . .

She also recommended to the committee that we begin the review in three years as opposed to five years after Royal Assent, stating that:

We know there’s a significant risk that this bill will negatively impact marginalized communities, and so as soon as we have the data . . . let’s get this review started so that we can make evidence-based policy changes.

On October 4, we had three witnesses on the same panel who all spoke out strongly against the bill. It seemed to me at the time to be a veritable indictment of the bill. Danardo S. Jones, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor, told the committee:

I want to begin by saying that the recent tragic incidents that we’ve seen in Canada cannot be attributed solely to one piece of legislation. I know there have been talks around Bill C-75 and some of the measures that piece of legislation brought in. This is a much more complex issue, which we can’t target with one piece of legislation. It is overly simplistic to suggest otherwise.

Really, the question that this committee should be considering is the constitutionality of Bill C-48 and whether or not this bill would withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Now, to uphold the constitutional right to bail under section 11(e) of the Charter is not to be confused with being anti-public safety. To frame the narrative in that way is dangerous. The courts have engaged in this balance since Morales and Pearson. It is an important and delicate balance to strike. Public safety is paramount, but ensuring the rights of Canadians is also paramount.

Similarly, Nicole Myers, an associate professor with the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University, was clear that this bill will not solve the many issues facing our bail system. In her testimony, she said:

Our bail system is not working well. It is a system in need of reform. The reforms in Bill C-48, however, will do nothing to address the multi-faceted and entrenched issues with the bail system.

Incidents of repeat violence are both tragic and alarming. These events, however, are not the result of legislative failure. Creating more reverse onus provisions —

— as this bill does —

— will not improve public safety. Instead, it is likely to cause disproportionate harm to the most marginalized and overrepresented people in our criminal justice system.

Her testimony was followed by Michael Spratt, a partner at AGP LLP, who drew on his more than 20 years of experience in practising criminal law to state:

It is vitally important that criminal justice legislation be fully studied and considered at every step of the legislative process. When it comes to justice issues, the stakes are too high to legislate without careful consideration of all the available evidence.

He went on to say:

We must remember that people denied bail are presumed innocent, and we shouldn’t seek to punish people before they have been found guilty of anything. Pretrial detention is punishment of the worst kind, and we should be incredibly reluctant to throw behind bars people who haven’t been found guilty of anything — but we aren’t. . . .

The truth about our bail system is that it doesn’t apply equally. The wealthy and the privileged, in my experience, are much more likely to be released and much more likely to be released more quickly than people who are impoverished and racialized and have faced other challenges in their life. That’s the built-in inequity in our system, and this bill does absolutely nothing to remedy that.

More importantly, the measures in this bill are performative. The government itself has admitted they don’t have sufficient data to say what impacts, if any, this bill would have had or will have in the criminal justice system. The current discussion about bail and firearms offences has been driven by some very high-profile and tragic cases, but there is not one iota of evidence that this bill would have saved one life.

The reversal of onus for firearms and intimate partner violence offences — and we can have a discussion about this — I don’t think is going to change very much. The system is already bad. It’s already broken. This will make it worse, but worse in a way that when you’re falling 999 feet out of a plane without a parachute and you know you’re going to hit the pavement, the guy with the parachute beside you says, “It could be worse.” You say, “How could it be worse?,” and he says, “Well, you could be falling from 1,000 feet.”

That last line struck a chord with me, and I thought it important that I include it here today.

Honourable senators, I’ve quoted heavily from our transcripts because, while I think it’s important for us to share our opinions in this chamber during debates, it is just as important, if not more important, for us to act on the advice of the experts that we have identified and called on to share their expertise with us during the committee’s consideration of this bill.

None of us can be experts in everything, so I believe it is important, as we undertake our important duty to legislate, to listen to those who are subject-matter experts. All we can do is attempt to make the best possible decision based on all of the information available, and as we are not all members of the committee, I felt it was important to share this testimony, which I found very compelling, to aid senators as they prepare to vote on third reading.

I also feel that it is particularly important to take these observations seriously in light of the other place, in their wisdom, passing this bill at all stages by unanimous consent, meaning that it skipped study at committee there. That makes the Senate the only place where subject-matter experts have had an opportunity to share their views with legislators. Thank you for your attention. Qujannamiik.