I’m speaking today on the issue of provincial bail reform. News story after news story, Ontarians are losing faith in their justice system. I hear from small businesses in Toronto about how the accused are released back into the community without access and pathways to housing or rehabilitation. Innocent people are getting hurt. Iconic businesses like Dudley’s on Church Street have experienced smashed windows caused by people out on bail without supervision, thus threatening their staff and their business.

Risk to community safety needs to be screened properly and adequately in the courts before anyone is released back into the community. People at high risk of committing violent offences are not having past violence considered. People at low risk are being detained for far too long. Police officers and other first responders are being put at unnecessary risk, as we have tragically learned through the murder of OPP constable Greg Pierzchala.

The Premier can do more than just write letters to the Prime Minister. The Ontario NDP will continue to push for real provincial bail reform, including taking immediate action to (1) ensure timely bail hearings, compliance and enforcement; (2) restore the Ford government’s $130-million cut to legal aid funding; (3) ensure that the targeting of the most dangerous offenders does not criminalize people are who are experiencing poverty, mental illness or addiction; and (4) ensure that everyone who needs it can access adequate housing and mental health care.

We call on this government to do more than to point fingers. Start implementing provincial solutions immediately.

Thank you, Speaker. I’m sure that all members of this House would extend our well wishes to our friend who just took a little tumble. Hopefully, she’s going to be okay. It looked like a spill.

When it comes to bail and remand, Canada only appears moderate when we’re compared to New Zealand, Australia, and the prison capital of the world, the United States. I cannot stress enough, when making that point, that countries that imprison more citizens per capita than any other OECD country—the United States is a far more dangerous country to live in than Canada.

To be frank, I think it’s important for us to recognize that sometimes when language about being tough on crime is said, it oftentimes is a dog whistle for “tough on crime on specific people.” When the rates of incarceration are much higher for Black, Indigenous and people of colour; the most vulnerable, including the homeless, those living in poverty, those living with mental health and addictions, we know that “tough on crime” means “tough on them.”

Statistics will show that the number of people held on remand in Ontario jails is evidence of how bail systems have become more, and not less, strict. In the 1980s to the 1990s, pretrial detainees represented 23% to 30% of the prison population. Today, remand prisoners account for more than 70% of all inmates held in Ontario’s correctional system. Ontario simply has one of the highest proportions of such inmates.

So it’s incredibly important for us to task the solution to the right problem, and in this case, I think that we will probably benefit by listening to the experts who specifically work in the systems we are talking about. I want to be really clear in my remarks and to say that those who work in our correctional services are exceptionally hard-working, dedicated individuals. They have very difficult jobs, but they’re also not being resourced for success, and they have been really clear that we’re not going to create safer societies simply by under-resourcing those systems. You can use a lot of words, but unless you actually look to innovate and put forward resource solutions, it’s not going to produce any results.

As noted by the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, the Office of the Chief Coroner recently released a report on the conditions in Ontario jails which identified overcrowding, mistreatment, the lack of supports and programming. According to the Elizabeth Fry Societies, these findings make it difficult to argue that holding more people in pretrial custody—they have not been sentenced—would enhance public safety. Rather, it would cause significantly more harm to the individuals and public.

In her written submission to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, Dr. Jennifer Foster stated that being held in detention forces inmates to harden in order to cope, and that is happening without them even being convicted. Hardening continues after they are released, requiring further support and treatment to recover from detention. You put them in detention, and they don’t have pathways to rehabilitation or services. The longer you keep them in detention before they’re convicted—if they’re sentenced—they come out more dangerous.

Witnesses to the committee stressed to members of this House that our criminal justice system cannot be expected to eliminate all risks.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association pointed out that a pattern of breaching court orders does not necessarily mean dangerousness, yet we continue to release people on bail conditions such as curfews, prohibitions from returning to home, and perhaps bans on possessing drugs and alcohol. According to the CCLA, people who fail to comply with those court orders oftentimes do so not because they disrespect the court, but simply because they’re struggling to survive; they physically, mentally can’t do it. They need supports and programs to ensure that they can comply.

Finally, the committee was urged to consider that for young people in particular, rehabilitation and reintegration are the key to long-term protection in communities. We need to invest in young people so that they can have a speedier resolution to those youth-oriented cases, so that they can access community services and they can come back and be with their families. That pathway to wellness requires investments and interventions.

Speaker, these objectives demand that we need to better resource the court and corrections system—changes that this motion does not address.

What kind of changes did the committee ask us to consider? Let’s start with the biggest gap in our bail system—the one that I would love to spend more time investigating, should this government hold a full study on bail reform.

One particular speaker at the committee really left me with a lot to consider. I was quite struck by how much knowledge and deep understanding he had about the corrections system. Mr. Scott McIntyre, a 30-plus-year probation and parole officer with the Ministry of the Solicitor General, outlined for the committee a proposal to create a new unit responsible for all aspects of community supervision in the criminal justice system, including bail, parole and probation. As explained by Mr. McIntyre, probation and parole supervision and bail supervision have a number of things in common. In addition to the fact that both involve community supervision, they both also have a “common defect.” Under this government, which has now been in power for five years, the system currently lacks certain things. The system needs to ensure compliance monitoring of those conditions, such as house arrest and curfews. The system needs to seek the whereabouts actively of individuals who have breached their bail and probation, conditional sentence or parole conditions. The system needs to have arms and legs to go out and get individuals who have breached. We have a system that issues warrants—but no one going to investigate afterwards.

Mr. McIntyre proposed the creation of a community corrections compliance unit consisting of a separate classification of peace officers under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Solicitor General—and that those responsibilities could be split evenly between the Attorney General as well as the Solicitor General. These new peace officers would then have a mandate to do some of the following: conduct community compliance checks of persons subject to community supervision orders for bail, probation, parole sentencing; and we would attach certain conditions to them, such as house arrest, curfews, geography, employment, and non-association. It could also seek the whereabouts of individuals wanted for breach of release conditions and execute outstanding warrants for their apprehension. It could also transport individuals back to the court of jurisdiction, and this could help address situations where the police come in contact with jurisdictions out of the area. Oftentimes, that’s hundreds of kilometres away, because people are not bound to one neighbourhood; definitely, they’re not bound to one city and certainly not one province. The police officers and the associations and the forces and services do not have the time nor are they resourced to actually transport people back and forth between the jurisdictions, and that’s where, oftentimes, people fall through the cracks.

Mr. McIntyre also suggested that bail and show-cause hearings for accused people with a supervision history with probation and parole services—those officers could use supervision records to provide the courts with information regarding a person’s risk, including the record of compliance with prior terms of community supervision, and make recommendations to the courts on the suitability for release. This was actually quite interesting. Why is this not being done?

The fact that Mr. McIntyre came forward with these very tangible solutions—and he informs me that he has actually brought this before several governments, so the responsibility doesn’t lie squarely at the feet of this current government; in the previous Liberal governments, the same recommendations were brought forward, and actions were not taken.

I think we need to be able to clearly recognize that the subject matter experts who came to our committee brought forward a number of excellent recommendations, but they’re not in this motion, and they certainly weren’t acted upon during the budget release, which is, of course, one of the most powerful tools—the most powerful tool, the apex of all policy tools—that could have actually effected real community safety and change.

Mr. McIntyre also noted that the bail supervision transfer payment agencies such as the John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry Society and Salvation Army are not able to perform the feet-on-the-ground supervision around compliance and monitoring that’s needed. So you have organizations that the government has asked to work with those who are out on release, but you haven’t provided them with any of the resources to do that on-the-ground work.

There are over 4,500 warrants for offenders who breached their release conditions, whose whereabouts are unknown. This is a very serious matter, where there’s a gaping hole in the bail monitoring and supervision system that the government has the powers to take action on today—this government—but has not.

It’s evidently clear that if such a unit was created, as suggested by Mr. McIntyre—obviously, we need to have further study and consultation, but it could also yield extraordinary results and close a massive gap that’s before us right now, which is why Mr. McIntyre’s recommendations to me were so illuminating, because they were practical, they were very specific; they weren’t just symbolic. They were bang on, based on what we have now heard about the so-called catch-and-release system.

I believe that Ontario needs to place bail supervision under the Solicitor General’s correctional services’ control, like the vast majority of Canadian provinces. Therefore, Ontario is not a leader; we’re the laggard. Ontario, right now, is one of the few provinces where bail is not under a community corrections compliance unit—where there’s a separate classification of peace officers employed under the Solicitor General’s correctional services.

These are just a few examples of the recommendations that were brought forward. There are so many more, and although I have some time to speak about the recommendations, I don’t have enough time to bring forward the recommendations of two full days of hearings that I really think members of this House would actually benefit from listening to.

I want to be able to also speak a little bit about the officers of the community corrections compliance unit, and specifically about how it’s so critically important to have them in place because they’re going to be on the ground and providing supports. Probation services have great records on offenders’ needs, risks and responsivities, but unfortunately, that information is not shared with the bail court. So you’ve got people who are appearing before judges and the judges are deliberating without a full context and history in front of them. The judiciary would actually be making a more informed decision as to the risk of releasing an accused on bail if they had that prior information.

We know there are 4,500 warrants that are out and this government doesn’t know the whereabouts. Mind you, Speaker, this information came from a 2017 freedom-of-information request, but I’m pretty sure that those exact numbers can be, perhaps, even higher today, based on what we now know were the trends.

We know that officers are doing a fantastic job of writing up breach warrants and then putting them into the system, but then we also know that there’s nobody chasing after them. This is a significant barrier and a gap in the system, Speaker.

The province of Ontario currently has a repeat offender parole enforcement unit. It’s called ROPE; that’s their acronym. Their website indicates that the ROPE unit “is a multi-agency, provincial team that locates and apprehends parolees unlawfully at large in the province of Ontario, as well as anyone who:

“—escapes from secure custody;

“—escapes from or walks away from non-secure custody;” and

—who has become “unlawfully at large by violating bail, parole, or intermittent sentence terms.”

“The ROPE squad also assists other police services with locating and apprehending high-risk dangerous” individuals.

Officer Pierzchala was killed by someone who was out on bail and who failed to appear in court. Why was he at large? Was there no one looking for him if he was so dangerous? We heard about the rap sheet as long as an arm.

Carolyn Jarvis, a reporter, found out this information about the ROPE squad: They pull in 800 offenders per year and an estimated 90% of them are federal parolees. The problem there is that there is nothing like this for provincial offenders. This is a provincially run unit looking after federal parolees. It’s not chasing after provincial parolees. The provincially run ROPE unit does not perform compliance monitoring. It appears only to write warrants. It executes warrants, but it doesn’t follow up.

Mr. McIntyre asked this government, as well as the previous government, to do the following: Bring bail supervision under the corrections umbrella, like the majority of Canadian provinces, cancelling expensive transfer payments to agency bail supervision contracts and creating that Ontario community corrections compliance unit with the aforesaid mandate. It is only then you will have a viable solution within corrections that will be able to respond to the challenges of the day. It will do a lot, I think, in restoring public confidence. It will do a lot in ensuring that the threat to public safety is reduced, and it is entirely within the power of this government.

Speaker, it wasn’t just Mr. McIntyre who had a lot to share with us. There were other individuals, as I noted. It was important that the honourable member from across the way who represents Etobicoke had repeatedly asked in her questions to every speaker who appeared at the committee, “Does bail reform save lives?” The answer, largely—with two exceptions, as I recall—was, “Yes, but,” and then they would go into a list of other things that would be extended from bail reform that could also improve life quality and save lives.

But that hasn’t been the focus of the government. The government hasn’t spoken to the “but here are the other solutions” in the body of this symbolic motion.

The committee members were asked on a number of occasions, “Would it be helpful to have a province-wide, centralized body to oversee bail monitoring, compliance and supervision?” The answer was, “Yes, of course. Do it. Why is it already not being done?”

Toronto Police Chief Demkiw responded that he absolutely supports the idea of having that province-wide, centralized body to oversee bail monitoring and compliance. He then shared with us that the Toronto police already have taken steps on their own to actually move toward a development of a bail-compliance dashboard, something that he was really—and I would say rightfully—proud of. He shared that he was already working with Durham Regional Police to make sure that the information on that dashboard could be shared with the two jurisdictions that are sitting side by side.

Chief Demkiw noted that the Ontario Provincial Police and the government have already expressed some, albeit limited, interest to expand that dashboard concept. This government has the power to bring it province-wide. Yet we know it has hasn’t been done.

Speaker, I honestly believe that this government’s time would be better spent not debating a symbolic motion, but in pursuing the idea that Chief Demkiw brought forward to help us that day, to create that province-wide compliance unit.

But Chief Demkiw was not the only witness who brought forward tangible solutions that could be operationalized. The Ontario Association of Police Services Boards also said that Ontarians would benefit if there was a province-wide bail monitoring system. They also further added this—and I want to share the spokesperson from the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police’s remarks today. I want to read this into the record. He said, “Our message to you today as police leaders is this: We want to look at ways to improve how the bail system addresses repeat violent offenders, firearms offences and intimate partner violence. This is an issue that cannot be addressed in isolation and requires a coordinated, multi-faceted approach ... including federal legislative reform to the bail provisions in the Criminal Code.” Here’s the other piece: “provincial amendments to the Ministry of the Attorney General’s policies, guidelines and directives on bail; and sufficient resources and funding from all levels of government to ensure adequate staffing and expertise in bail courts, improved training, and sufficient police resources to enforce bail compliance”—not in the motion.

The spokesperson from the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police continues with this: “In relation to the Ministry of the Attorney General, the OACP also urges the government of Ontario to invest in additional crown and judicial resources. Resource shortages in Ontario have resulted in overburdened bail courts and systemic delays. Funding for additional crowns, with a focus on specialized bail/firearm crowns, is required to ensure the bail system works efficiently and in a way that promotes public safety and respect for the charter.”

Speaker, I now wish to focus on the kinds of reform that we need in social services so that it can interact with the administration of justice and bail. I don’t want us to cover this motion that’s before us today and not consider some of those substantial limitations, because the other experts that came to the committee shared this with us. This includes a submission from the Canadian Mental Health Association: “CMHA Ontario makes the following recommendations:

“Further investment in bail support programming to ensure that vulnerable individuals, including those living with mental health and substance use issues are connected to community mental health, addictions, and other social supports.

“Mental health and substance use supports must be more readily available and accessible within the community:

“—Community mental health and addictions agencies are experts in supporting vulnerable populations.

“—CMHA branches provide mental health and addictions treatment and counselling, mobile crisis services, court diversion and supportive housing.

“Mental health and substance use/addictions screening of all individuals on admission to a correctional facility is necessary to ensure individuals with mental health and substance use issues receive the medical support they require.”

This is part of the solution, Speaker—another very important set of recommendations that were brought forward by the Canadian Mental Health Association. It’s not just words; they’re already on the ground, embedded in our community to deliver those supports. What they need is more money. And interestingly enough, the government voted against it just a few weeks ago.

So all of those solutions—and we only heard from two days of speakers. I already shared with you the limitations of not hearing from the justices of the peace, the crown attorneys and the judges. They haven’t even added their voices to this debate yet. And guess what? They administer the system. All of those opportunities and all of those recommendations should be informing this debate, but instead, we’re debating how it is that the federal government should do more to improve the bail system, when almost—actually, I do think every single expert that came before us said everybody has a piece of ownership on this problem.

Mental health, substance use and addictions screening for all individuals being admitted to correctional facilities is a very simple baseline. Who is going into those facilities? What is required to keep them safe, but also to keep others safe? Because they’re not going to be locked up forever, Speaker. They will come back out, and if they haven’t received the supports that they need in order for them to be rehabilitated and to reintegrate back into a general population, then you’re going to be, at some point, releasing them hardened and making the general population less safe.

And we cannot ignore the fact that the Ontario courts and correctional systems are overrepresented with people living with mental health and addictions, which is actually a health problem. There has been no consistency in the mental health and substance use screening upon the admission of going into a correctional facility. You don’t know who is going in. You don’t know what their needs are. You don’t know how they’re going to come out. Many individuals who do need support will never get the support while they’re being held in remand. In detention centres, they don’t get those supports, but they’re also staying in the detention centres far too long, which is why their sentences, when they do get sentenced, are so short, and they have not received the proper supports that they need so that they can be rehabilitated.

The Canadian Mental Health Association of Ontario recommends that all individuals be screened for mental health and substance use within 24 to 48 hours of entering a correctional facility. I’m sure that’s a standard that’s never met, but it’s a standard that they would like to see in order for us to really be smart about addressing the issues of public safety.

Mental health supports within correctional facilities should be implemented with the co-operation of mental health and community-oriented facilities and services. Something that I learned during the COVID pandemic was that people were being released from the detention centres in great numbers—just congregate settings, two-metre separation distance; got to let them go. Well, you never did an assessment when they were in there, but you also released them without a housing plan. That’s something that I know that the Toronto police flagged repeatedly, over and over again, and I suspect that other police associations did the same thing. If you’re releasing people in the communities, then you better be sure that they are safe to go back into the general population. That was never done. I understand that it was the pandemic, but you never had the information beforehand. You had no data to work with. And what did we see? An explosion of some of the violence that we are seeing right now in public spaces and on the TTC because of the effects of those actions.

This is getting worse largely because nothing is being done to address the systemic problems. It just so happens that the social determinants of health are also the same social determinants of safety. They’re exactly the same. So if you want a safer Ontario, you invest in the social determinants of health, and that includes proper housing and employment opportunities. It ensures that the people have access to health care and mental health care when they need them, that they live a life free of discrimination and violence, and so forth. It’s well documented.

Speaker, the point about housing is absolutely critical, which is why I want to drill down on this: because the Standing Committee on Justice Policy heard from many witnesses and there were many written submissions about how inaccessible and unaffordable housing makes compliance. Therefore, the bail terms people are given are most likely impossible for them to honour, so we’re setting them up for failure.

The worst part is that it’s very expensive. Every time you have somebody cycle through the system without a proper resolution to safe, adequate housing, so that they can start on a path of recovery and rehabilitation, guess who’s paying? The Ontario taxpayer. So not only are we less safe, but we’re paying for a system that doesn’t work, and we’re debating this symbolic motion.

Neighbourhood Legal Services provided another submission, and I want to share this: The major issue that they encounter is bail conditions in which people don’t have a home to return to. You pick them up, you put them in a detention centre, they’re charged with one thing or another, they aren’t receiving services, and at some point in time they’ve been in there for too long and you’ve got to let them go. They come back out hardened, as we have now learned, and it’s not their fault anymore, because now they’ve touched the system. Once again, now it’s our fault, our collective responsibility, where we failed.

So many of the social challenges that we have today are complex, and certainly we do need to recognize that we cannot police our way out of homelessness. The police officers will be the first ones to tell you, “I don’t want to go there.” They used to tell me all the time, “Oh, please don’t send us there.” I mean, I’m not sending them anywhere, but they have to respond to a public disorder, responding to another matter. They know that if that person had access to housing, mental health supports, addiction recovery, there would be a lot less police calls. That would make police officers safer. That would make our communities safer.

The results of decisions where clients don’t have housing have been catastrophic for Neighbourhood Legal Services. It includes a long list of conditions that are just not being met. It’s very important, Speaker, for us to recognize that people who don’t have housing are not going to be safe to themselves, and are not going to be safe, unfortunately, to others. I want to be very mindful that we should not be directing attention specifically on this population, because certainly not everyone is violent—I know that—but we do need to recognize that these systemic failures need systemic solutions.

And so it’s important for us to be smart on crime. It’s important for us to really focus on how we’re going to address bail reform in a way that makes everyone safer. That includes making the system work better, because those expert subject-matter witnesses who came before our committee brought smart solutions; they really did. But will the government be smart enough to implement them? That has yet to be seen.

Neighbourhood Legal Services made a number of recommendations, and I want to be able to share them with you and read them into the record. What they said is, “(1) There must be adequate legal resources provided to ensure that accused persons are able to meaningfully bring forward arguments about their housing in bail hearings, and that they can get legal assistance to seek variations of conditions which prohibit them from attending their homes.

“(2) There should be a presumption that accused persons will not be put under conditions not to attend their home or building.

“(3) Bail courts should be required to consider housing impacts on an accused. They should be given explicit guidance on factors to take into account, including the availability and viability of alternate accommodation, the costs of alternate accommodation, and the ability of the accused to afford alternate accommodation. Bail conditions should be subject to review if an alternate housing option becomes unviable.”

If they can’t go back to their home because it’s not safe, or if they don’t have a home to go back to, then where are you sending them? Into the TTC? Into the subway tunnels? Where are we sending them? Into vacant homes? Into the stairwells and in front of door stoops of businesses? Where are you sending them, if they’re not being sent home or if their home is unsafe? If they are trying to get away from the criminality that they are embedded in, they really probably shouldn’t go back there.

Bail courts should be given guidance on constructing the narrowest possible conditions so the conditions can actually be met. If they are so general, they may not work, such as:

—not to attend the same floor as a complainant, witness or co-accused;

—not to communicate with a complainant, witness or co-accused;

—to maintain a certain distance from a complainant, witness or co-accused;

—not to attend locations in the building when it becomes known that the complainant, witness or co-accused is present in those locations.

All that being said, if people are under-housed and the conflict that brought them into direct contact with the criminal justice system or the correctional system—you can’t send them back there. They’re going to be back out on the street in no time. How are we going to be safer? We are not. It makes absolutely no sense.

I think it’s important for us also to be able to smartly talk about the history of colonialism and systemic racism. I want to note that, even though the Black and Indigenous populations are overrepresented in the courts and the criminal justice system, they certainly were not overrepresented in the hearings. We didn’t hear from them. It just was a shame that there was no opportunity to hear from them.

I know that I was scrambling as I was trying to understand that we’re going to have a conversation about bail reform and not we’re talking about the people who are actually directly impacted, which is why I want to share with you the written submission that we received from the Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services. This organization was created in the 1990s to address the shortcomings in the administration of justice within Nishnawbe Aski Nation and to improve access to justice for members of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

According to this organization, Indigenous people are vastly overrepresented in Canada’s jails and prisons. Moreover, the numbers continue to rise, despite the release of a Supreme Court of Canada decision, R. v. Gladue, more than 20 years ago. That decision required the courts to consider all available sanctions, other than imprisonment, that are reasonable in the circumstances, with particular attention to the circumstances of Indigenous offenders. Subsequent court rulings have held that the Gladue principles were not limited to sentencing. They also apply to all circumstances where an Indigenous person’s freedom is at risk, including bail hearings.

This organization has argued that the most important and critical moment in a criminal matter is bail. What happens is so predictable. If the accused is not granted bail, the chance of them entering a guilty plea goes up significantly. This reflects the reality that no one wants to wait in jail for a trial when they are being offered the option of being released for time served. The Supreme Court has noted that Indigenous people are more likely to be refused bail and that this reality contributes to the over-incarceration of Indigenous people.

You want to talk about truth and reconciliation, Speaker? Here is an opportunity for us to deal with what has happened within the Indian residential school system. These are real-life situations that aren’t just necessarily about talking points about being tough on crime. “Tough on crime” without getting to actual solutions doesn’t get us to safer communities. I am confident that every parliamentarian here is committed to building safer communities for all of us.

I know I am. My son is almost four years old. He is about to be in school. We live in downtown Toronto. I’ve got to get him across Yonge Street so that at some point in time he is going to be able to walk to school by himself. I am so committed to building safe communities, but we cannot go about it just by talking points. This is so real for me. It’s so real. And it’s real for other community members, including those from the rural and northern communities and Indigenous stakeholders who were not present in the committee hearings.

I think it’s important for us to recognize that for some of the First Nations people in northern Ontario, 23 of the 34 communities are fly-in communities. Where are the courts? Where are the judges? I’ve now heard that you can’t even get a hearing. You can’t even get access to justice because those facilities aren’t there.

There’s just so much more that we can talk about. I want to share with you, Speaker, something that was shared by Roland Morrison, who is the chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service. He described a number of aspects that are unique to the bail system in his jurisdiction. In fly-in communities, bail hearings are conducted either by audio or video, technology and weather permitting—

Interruption.

It’s always an honour to rise in this House to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre. In today’s debate, we’re going to be speaking on a very symbolic motion regarding bail reform in Canada. I’d like to begin my remarks by explaining the context of why we’re having this debate.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause. Bail has evolved along with our justice system, and the people working in the justice system have been calling for sensible reforms to many dimensions of the justice system for decades. It predates this government.

Unfortunately, it took the tragic shooting death of OPP Constable Greg Pierzchala on December 27 to bring bail reform back on the political table. I’m glad we’re having this conversation. It’s absolutely important. This young, dynamic officer, who was at the beginning of his bright policing career, was taken far too soon. He is missed by his family and his friends, both in the general community and within the policing community. I have no doubts about that.

We have seen people fall at the hands of violent crimes, and we must do more to protect our communities, including our front-line officers. The police have a very difficult job. Sometimes we task them with jobs that are far too big. We ask them to be social workers and mental health support workers. We ask them to do everything—and we resource them not with all of those services and supports.

The neighbourhood community officers in my community are exceptional. I have the privilege and honour of working with 51 division of the Toronto police. They are the busiest division in all of Canada. They tell me oftentimes that they can’t do it all.

We know that first responders oftentimes run into a building when others are running out. They are the ones who deserve our gratitude and support.

I want to take a moment to thank the hard-working police officers, the paramedics and the firefighters who keep Toronto and Ontario safe every single day.

The accused who was charged with the murder of Constable Pierzchala was on bail at that time, and he failed to appear for his court date in August, just months before the shooting. This spurred the provinces to write a letter—including the Premier, and thank you for his leadership on this—to demand more of the Prime Minister, asking the Prime Minister to improve and make stricter bail provisions.

The federal government has yet to table their bail reforms. We know that is coming. Minister Lametti has mentioned that on several occasions. I have read about his remarks in the media. They have specifically said that they will work with the provinces to target those bail reforms. All of that is under way. And we have this motion before us.

On January 31 as well as on February 1 of this year, the Standing Committee on Justice Policy met to investigate how we could improve the bail reform system. As the opposition critic for the Ministry of the Attorney General, I participated in both of those full days of hearings. I was a committee member. We heard from many dedicated and brilliant Ontarians who work in law enforcement and the legal system. We had police chiefs, lawyers, executive directors, and corrections officers all take the time to actually come and speak to our committee and offer free advice. We did not hear from everyone, unfortunately, because the hearing process was so truncated and expedited. There were only two days to register for the hearings. We did not get a chance to hear from, for example, judges, justices of the peace, or crown attorneys—the very people who are absolutely critical in the administration of justice in Ontario. Their voices were entirely silent in that process. What we did hear were some really strong suggestions that were real and evidence-based. The speakers who did appear before the committee asked us to consider many other things as a part of the continuum of community safety and bail reform. I’m going to speak to some of that today, because I think it’s important for us to make full this conversation of what is before us.

I came to Queen’s Park largely to effect change; I know each and every single parliamentarian wants to do the same thing. You want to serve your community as best you can. You want to drive home real solutions to real-life problems and not just tinker at the edges, not just make symbolic gestures or—perhaps, sometimes in the political theatre—be performative. You want solutions, and so do I; most importantly, so do our communities. They expect that from us.

What I am grappling with is that we have a symbolic motion before us which is supportable—but it could be improved, and I’ll speak to that in a bit. We have a motion before us that is asking the federal government to do something that they’ve already said they’re willing to do. We have a motion that points the finger at the federal government—in particular, Justin Trudeau—about how those real changes can be brought into effect but doesn’t speak to what it is.

What we heard from the speakers at those two full-day committee hearings was that there is real change in real time that can actually happen in Ontario, if the government of the day decides to take real action.

What we know is that not all risk can be avoided simply in the administration of bail. Nothing is that simple. We need smart solutions to make sure we get to the smart outcomes that we anticipate.

New Democrats, on this side of the House, really believe that it is possible to reduce crime by ensuring that the most dangerous offenders are not falling through the cracks of that revolving-door system that was spoken about. That revolving-door system is largely in existence because the justice system is under-resourced. We have to ensure that people do not fall through the cracks. We have to ensure that mental health supports and health care as well as housing are in place for people who need them so that they don’t have to be in our system anymore.

Jails are not housing, detention centres are not housing—just like we know that hospitals are not a form of housing.

Speaker, there was an undertone at the committee—and I want to share this, because I think it was really important, and I’m going to name it explicitly today. The undertone was that the responsibility is all at the federal government and that the federal Liberals in particular can do much more to keep Toronto, Ontario and every other jurisdiction safe. I don’t think I’ve heard from the Prime Minister that he’s not going to be there at the table, but we keep having the government point the finger back to the Prime Minister, saying, “Do more, do more,” when he has already said, “Yes, we are going to do more.”

I seems as though there are some in this House who would like people to believe that the responsibility for reforming bail lies exclusively with the federal government, in order to distract from the fact that more can be done provincially to address this issue. This government has been in power since 2018. Five years later, what has been accomplished? How can communities be made safer, and what are the significant reforms that can come forward?

The Ontario NDP will continue to push for real, full bail reform. That’s something we are truly committed to, because getting tough on crime is not enough when you aren’t getting smart on crime.

The Ontario NDP has been and will be wanting to take immediate action by securing additional resources for criminal prosecutors—something that the government can do right now to ensure that everyone receives a bail hearing in a timely fashion.

We also are asking for more increased funding to legal aid—something that will actually ensure the fair and efficient administration of the justice system.

We need to ensure that police resources are allocated to specifically address the most dangerous offenders, and that it does not result in the criminalization of those who are experiencing poverty, mental health issues, homelessness, or who are struggling with addiction.

We need to ensure that everyone has access to housing and mental health supports.

We will continue to push for a full study on bail reform.

It’s absolutely critical that we recognize this motion is part of a campaign by this government to frame the bail system as overly lenient. Frankly, that barely scratches the surface of what experts have been telling us. They’re the same experts who appeared at the committee. This is where we need to be able to lean into it.

So let’s answer this question: Is the criminal justice system too lenient? Based on real data, the pretrial remand imprisonment rate in Canada and Ontario is higher than that of almost every other comparable Western European nation as well as our most obvious comparators: England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Scotland. Countries such as Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands have a bail system that will focus on rehabilitation over incarceration, and they all have intentional homicide rates that are less than what we have in Canada’s intentional homicide rate.

So why is Ontario failing? When it comes to bail and remand, Canada only—

Interjections.