- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $148,586.11
- Government Page
- Jun/15/23 11:45:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am of two minds about this debate this morning, because a concurrence debate about a unanimous report, which is on a very important topic, is a good thing, but I am also concerned if the real intent behind this debate is a diversion from others business of Parliament rather than actually talking about the important recommendations of this report.
Certainly, we heard from a wide range of people in the committee on this report. Many individual victims of crime came at a great personal cost and retold their stories of what had happened to them and the effects of being a victim of crime. We heard from many organizations that provide services to victims of crime. I want to pay particular thanks to the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has a very active victims' advocacy program.
We heard from the victims ombudsman, and I want to pay respect at this point to both the previous victims ombudsman, Heidi Illingworth, and the current ombudsman, Benjamin Roebuck, for the important research and advocacy work they do on behalf of victims in this country.
I hope what we can do in this debate is maintain the focus on what we heard from those victims and those victims' advocates and the recommendations that were unanimously approved in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. An important function of this debate today could be to encourage the government, in the many different departments involved, to make progress on these recommendations.
There are other mechanisms available in this House for holding government ministers to account. I know the hon. members of the Conservative Party know that, they have been using those, so again I will stress my concern that we are not actually doing this debate for some other purpose when there are other mechanisms available. No matter what one thinks about that issue, they are there, they have been used and they can continue to be used. I hope the impact of this is not going to focus on another issue, which is important, yes, but another issue rather than the issues that were raised in this report. Again, I am concerned we keep that focus on moving forward on the recommendations in this report.
There are a number of chapters in this report, and it kind of amazed me that in the end, on a topic that has often been contentious in Parliament, we were able to reach a consensus on 13 recommendations. That is a bit of a miracle, especially in a minority Parliament and especially on an issue that has previously been so contentious.
I bring attention to chapter 4, which talks about services for victims of crime, and I will come to that in just a minute. There is a whole chapter on the right to information about the legal process in this report. There are recommendations on the rights of victims to participate in the legal process and how we meet the challenges victims face when they try to participate in this legal process. There is a chapter on the right to protection of victims while they are participating in the process, and I will return to that one a little later on.
There is an important chapter on the idea of restitution, on how often victims of crime cannot be made whole again in both financial and circumstantial areas. There is a final chapter on complaint mechanisms and remedies, so when the system goes wrong for victims what they have available to them to make that known to the system and to those who have the power to change that.
If we talk about services, one of the important things I learned from this is that in the Victims Bill of Rights there is no right to access to services for victims of crime. I think that is an oversight, and this committee, in recommendation 2, says that we should fix that. We know it is going to be a challenge. The federal government shares the justice field with the provinces and administration of justice belongs to the provinces.
That is why in recommendation 3 in this report it talks about working together to set some minimum standards of what is available to victims, in terms of support services and participation in the various parts of the legal process. I was very pleased to hear my hon. colleague from the Bloc Québécois agreeing we do need to work together to achieve some minimum standards. Again, that is part of the miracle of this report, which is that even on contentious federal-provincial issues we were able to reach agreement on how to better serve victims.
What do victims really need? There is a whole range of things, but the thing we heard most often is they need support services that are tailored to their needs and that quite often those needs are different.
Victims from different backgrounds have different needs to support them participating in the process and also to recover as a victim of crime. Lots of times, the services that we have available do not actually take into account the different circumstances, especially of those who are most marginalized in our society and especially of indigenous people. Having culturally relevant and culturally appropriate services available to victims is something we often fall down on and we do not do such good job.
When we are talking about services for victims of crime, we have tended to ignore mental health services. Again, my colleague from Comox has been a great advocate for mental health services. This report acknowledges that victims quite often need very specific kinds of therapy in order to get back to full participation in society, after having been victimized by criminal activity. I commend that chapter to everyone in the House. It is a very important chapter on the gaps in our approaches.
I was surprised to learn that is legal aid is generally not available, in any form, to victims of crime. Even though I taught criminal justice for many years, I had not really thought about this from the perspective of victims. We provide legal aid to defendants, and of course we have prosecutors who are paid for by the public. However, when it comes to victims of crime participating, legal assistance is generally not available to them. We depend on advocacy organizations to provide that advice and that assistance to victims of crime.
That brings me to the chapter on the right to information. Again, we did something peculiar when we established victims' rights and we said that the victims have rights to ask for information about the system. What we heard, again and again, from victims and their advocacy organizations is quite often victims do not even know what to ask. The system is so unfamiliar, so complex and so unforgiving. In particular for people who suffered trauma, it is so difficult to navigate that they do not even know what rights they have or to ask how to access those rights.
An important recommendation in this report, recommendation 4, is that we change the onus of providing information to an automatic provision of information to victims. Some jurisdictions do a better job than others in making sure victims understand what their rights are and what services are available to them. Again, we largely depend on those volunteer organizations to inform victims of their rights. However, if someone is not in touch with one of those organizations, they are left in the dark about how this very complex legal system of ours actually works.
Let us change this from saying that it is on victims to request information to it is on someone specific. We have not tried to solve that problem in this report, but we have indicated that it needs to be someone specific. We cannot just say there is right to information without saying who is actually going to deliver that information. It is up to the governments, again, because we have a justice system that is split over jurisdictions. It is up to those jurisdictions to work together to figure out who is going to make sure that victims actually do get the information.
One of the things we could do is provide core funding to victim organizations that are actually already doing this work. If we provided better funding to those organizations, they could make sure that victims were getting the information that they need on how to participate in the legal system, how to make sure their voices are heard in our legal system, but also on the very services that might be available to them in the community.
Now chapter 7 deals with the right to the protection of victims' identity and the right to privacy of victims. Again, this is probably one of the most surprising parts of the report. We heard very moving and effective testimony from victims of sexual assault, like Morrell Andrews, who talked about something we did many years ago in our legal system. We set up a system of publication bans so that the identity of victims of sexual assault would not become public.
Over the years our understanding of sexual assault has changed, and many of those victims of sexual assault were surprised to learn that they were subject to a publication ban, that they were not allowed to talk about what had happened to them in any way. Many of those victims of sexual assault also felt the publication ban, by protecting their identity, ended up protecting the identity of the perpetrator.
What we heard quite clearly in the testimony that was before us, and it was very eloquent, very difficult testimony for people to give on their personal assault experiences, was that the current arrangements take away agency from victims of sexual assault.
Therefore, in recommendation 11, the committee has recommended: first, that those who are subject to publication bans need to be informed and consulted before that publication ban is put in place; and second, that they need to have the right to opt out of that publication ban.
Many members know that I have spoken several times in the House about being an adult victim of child sexual assault. The veil of secrecy that was put around me at that time was helpful, but it was most helpful to the perpetrator, who had eight other victims. It would have been quite important for me, though as a minor I probably could not make that decision, for someone to make the decision that it was information the public needed to have. We have heard quite clearly from adult victims of sexual assault that they want their agency back. They want the ability to talk about their experience, they want the ability to warn others and they do not want to be treated as if they are minor children when it comes to the issue of sexual assault.
Those are just a few of the highlights in this report.
When I talk about trying to keep our focus on those recommendations so we can move forward, I want to talk a bit about one step forward that the government has taken as a result of this report.
We have Bill S-12 currently in the Senate. The last time I checked two days ago, the Senate justice committee was just about finished its consideration of Bill S-12. It would take recommendation 11 from this report and put it into law. When that recommendation is finished in the Senate, it will come back to the House and we will have the chance, in approving Bill S-12, to give that agency back to victims of sexual assault, to give them the right to know about publication bans before they are imposed and the right to have the ability to opt out of those publication bans.
When I say that focusing on these recommendations is important to make progress, there is a very specific example of the many things that are in this report so that, if we keep the focus on the unanimous support for those recommendations, I believe we will be able to make progress on victims' rights and services for victims.
Again, this is a minority Parliament and often fractious. However, in the justice committee, somehow, on very many issues we have been able to work together to achieve unanimity. The report on improving support for victims of crime is my best example of how Parliament can work, Parliament can be very functional and we can make recommendations that are important to the lives of everyday Canadians.
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- Feb/2/23 11:44:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as members of the House know, I am always pleased to rise to talk about issues of criminal justice and public safety. My background, before I came here, was 20 years as an instructor in this field. I am also always pleased to talk about this as a former member of a municipal police board. Of course, right now, I am particularly pleased to get to address this question as a member of a community that, like many others across the country, has seen a rise in public disorder, which is of great concern to citizens and, I have to say, specifically small businesses in my riding, which quite often bear the brunt of that public disorder.
I am also pleased, as always, to get to talk about solutions, and that is why I am not so pleased to be discussing the Conservative motion before us today.
As I mentioned earlier in a question, something perplexes me a bit. On Monday, we came together in the justice committee on a very reasonable motion put forward by the member for Fundy Royal, which I supported and which the government eventually supported, to agree that the committee should work on practical solutions to the real problems that have been raised by municipal leaders, the public and premiers to find practical and effective solutions that would increase public safety by changes to the bail system.
There we were on Monday getting ready, and we have actually scheduled those hearings to start within two weeks, so we are moving rapidly, for the House of Commons, to try to find those solutions. I must say that we are moving more rapidly in the Commons than the government has moved. These issues were presented to the government months ago by the premiers, and we have not seen much happen. However, I am optimistic, I and was very optimistic on Monday, yet here we are, three days later, with the Conservatives bringing forward a very divisive motion full of inflated rhetoric, sensational statistics and claims about the bail system that are really not true.
As I said before, it makes me wonder which is the real Conservative Party on this issue? Is it the one that is doing this sensational motion, which I cannot help but conclude is about motivating its base and fundraising, or is it the party that put forward a reasonable motion that we could all agree on, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP, to work together in the justice committee to find practical solutions to the real concerns Canadians have about the bail system?
I guess the proof will be in the pudding when we get to the committee, where we will see if the Conservatives will work with the rest of us to find those practical solutions, because this motion really does fan the flames of public fear rather than make a contribution to solutions to the problem.
New Democrats agree that we need to find ways to address the problem created by certain violent criminals who have been previously charged and convicted of serious offences and who have ended up receiving bail. We need to look at how we tighten up the system in that aspect.
At the same time, we are also concerned about the public order questions. We know that there is probably not an easy legislative fix to those public order problems. They create real fear among citizens, rightfully so, but we know that most of those public order problems are rooted in things such as mental health issues, addiction and poverty.
Until we as a society address the poverty, the addictions and the mental health questions, and until the federal government actually delivers on its promises to provide more funding for those kinds of programs and to the provinces, then I do not think we will have a real solution to the public order problems before us.
At the heart of what we are talking about today is something that is sometimes lost, and that is the presumption of innocence. In any just society, those who are accused of a crime have the right to be presumed innocent, which is enshrined in our charter, until they are found guilty.
In our system, we do have a presumption against pretrial detention. We really believe that we should not be penalized by being detained before one has actually been convicted of anything.
It is quite disturbing to me to look at our system and find that up to two-thirds of people in provincial detention centres, on any given day, have never been convicted of anything. They are there awaiting trial. That is a very large number.
When we hear people talk about our bail systems as a catch-and-release system, it is not a catch-and-release system. We detain very large numbers of Canadians before trial. Who ends up being detained? Who does not end up getting the benefit of bail? It tends to be indigenous people, racialized Canadians, new Canadians and low-income Canadians.
Why is that? It is because for people to get bail, we demand certain things. We say that people must have a stable job, a stable address and someone who can supervise them while they are out on bail. Of course, the people who have the least resources in society have the least ability to meet those fundamental conditions for getting bail. If they do somehow get bail, they also have the least resources for meeting the conditions that might be imposed on them.
I know someone quite well who worked with an individual with mental health challenges who was required to report to their bail supervisor on a regular basis, but they could not get it together to do that because of their mental health challenges. Those people risk ending up with bail violations, with another offence, even if they were not guilty of what they were charged with in the first instance. What we have, honestly, operating in our system contributes to the overincarceration of indigenous people, racialized people and poor people in this country, starting with the bail system.
While, yes, we acknowledge there are some problems with the bail system that we need to look at, New Democrats would expand that to take a look at what we can do to make sure we are not penalizing people unnecessarily by putting them into detention for long periods while awaiting trial.
Most upsetting to me in this bill is the misuse of statistics by the Conservatives. We all know that the overall rate of crime in this country has been on a 30-year decline. That is still the general trend. We know, though, that in the past five years there has been a spike in public order crimes, violence on the streets and serious violent crime.
Where does that come from? We need to take a serious look at what causes those increases. We have had some unusual things happening in the world and in this country in the past five years. Therefore, some of it is related to the pandemic; some of it is related to the mental health challenges that we honestly failed to deal with, which resulted from the pandemic. When we are talking about finding solutions to these problems, it is not good enough for me to look at a spike in statistics and say we must make general changes in our system. That is really throwing out the baby with the proverbial bathwater.
We have specific problems we need to address, and we need to look very carefully at those problems and find effective solutions that really contribute to public safety.
As I mentioned earlier, provincial and territorial ministers of justice brought concerns forward at the justice ministers' meeting in Nova Scotia last October. They had concerns about serious violent offenders and the bail system and about the public order crisis at the community level, and the Minister of Justice promised to review the bail system. I am told again and again that the government is working on this. Maybe we need a faster gear; this is something we often hear from the New Democrats when we are talking about the Liberals. Yes, they have said the right thing; now let us actually complete that task.
In January, after the high-profile murder of an Ontario Provincial Police constable, where one of the accused was on bail, the premiers had heard nothing specific from the Liberal government. They drafted a letter making a very specific suggestion to the Prime Minister that reversing the onus for additional serious and violent offences should be considered as a reform to the bail system. This is something I take very seriously, and I think New Democrats are quite prepared to look at it.
To be clear, reversing the onus for bail means that one would need to demonstrate why one should be released rather than the prosecution demonstrating why one should be retained in custody, which is the norm. There is a list of offences already for which there is reverse onus for bail, including murder and serious violent firearms offences. This also includes something Bill C-75 did, which was reversing the onus in domestic violence cases. The presumption is now that those who are charged and have been previously charged or convicted with domestic violence offences need to show why they should be released rather than the prosecution showing why they should stay in jail.
Considering this issue means hearing from some experts, police and prosecutors about how we can fix the problems and what we specifically need to do. What offences should be added to that list?
Again, there is a bit of irony. We tend to hear the Conservatives as defenders of firearms owners, but in this motion, they are saying that any firearms offences should get a reverse onus, that it should get a restriction on bail.
That seems peculiar to me coming from the Conservatives because my concern is about serious violent offences, not technical violations of gun laws. Therefore, when they say we should get rid of all of Bill C-75, it begins to sound like this was a bill about bail reform. Actually, it was an omnibus criminal justice bill that had many things the New Democrats supported and many things that I had long advocated for, including reversing the onus on bail in domestic violence cases. However, the claim that Bill C-75 somehow forces judges to do things is simply false. The claim in this motion is not true.
What Bill C-75 did was put into law the Supreme Court decision from 2017, called R. v. Antic. In that decision, the Supreme Court was very clear that fundamental justice and the charter require that those who are awaiting trial be released at the earliest reasonable opportunity and under the least onerous conditions in order to respect the principle of the presumption of innocence. Are there some unintended consequences of that decision in Bill C-75? Perhaps there are. I am looking forward to the committee looking at the specifics of what we can do if we have those unintended consequences. However, as the member for Saint-Jean so rightly pointed out, repealing Bill C-75 would not change anything about the law on bail because the charter and the Supreme Court decision would still exist. Therefore, to single out Bill C-75 for repeal is really not realistic as a solution to the problems.
What is it I want as a New Democrat and a member of Parliament? I want us to do that hard work at committee to figure out how we can reassure Canadians that those who are accused of serious violent crimes and already have a record of serious violent crime do not get bail before a trial for another offence.
I also want us to take a look at that broader question of how we make sure that changes in the bail system do not inadvertently contribute to the denial or inordinate detention of indigenous people, poor people or racialized Canadians. We cannot make sweeping changes to that system and still respect the need to make the justice system fair for all Canadians.
With that, I am going to conclude my remarks today. I want to say that I am disappointed with this motion, and for that reason, New Democrats are voting against it. However, it remains obvious that there is at least a part of the Conservative Party that came to the justice committee on Monday prepared to work seriously on these issues and find real solutions to the concerns that the public has about public disorder and violent crime. They are prepared to find things that are effective in increasing public safety as a way of addressing those, and not a motion like this, which sensationalizes the problem and provides no real solutions.
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