44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 21, 2022 02:00PM
Uqaqtittiji, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Edmonton Griesbach.
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- Sep/21/22 5:23:46 p.m.
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A request for unanimous consent to share time has been made. Are we all agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Uqaqtittiji, I would like to first thank my constituents in Nunavut for putting me here, for putting their trust in me. I will continue to work hard to ensure their needs are being met and to ensure their voices are being heard.
I also extend a warm welcome back to all the MPs. I hope they had a good summer, and I am hopeful that we will make changes that will have positive impacts for indigenous peoples and for Canada, in general.
I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the New Democrats on Bill C-29, an act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation. The basis of this bill stems from important recommendations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. I honour it for its work. I truly believe that when the commission made its calls to action, it did so founded in the knowledge that systemic changes would be made.
This bill has the potential to advance reconciliation efforts for Canada and for people who call Canada their home. However, the language of this bill requires amendments for clarity. The wording of this language is not strong enough for the important role it has. It does not reference the important legal obligations enshrined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and case law.
There seems to be a disconnect between indigenous-led recommendations and how the government will implement these changes. Without a clear process in place, communication and actionable change can fall through the cracks, as they have done for decades. New Democrats will propose changes so that indigenous peoples take the lead on reconciliation and the government, to implement recommendations made by the council that will be created. The government needs to hear the voices of indigenous communities and implement changes based on the solutions offered to it.
Indigenous peoples know what changes need to be made. Indeed, the Government of Canada has been told where the disconnections are. Canada must now continue to reconcile its relationship and perceptions with indigenous peoples. Indigenous people have completed a lot of research and advocacy on reconciliation. The government's response must acknowledge this work and be guided in its actions going forward. The many areas requiring reconciliation demand that this council be created so that reconciliation is acted on, measured and maintained.
Before I turn to some of these areas, I will share a personal story. I have spoken in this House about government interference in my life. This summer, I was reminded of some of this interference. I was contacted by a former teacher, and she emailed the following: “Did you attend grade 5/6 at Maani Ulujuk School in Rankin Inlet for part of the school year? I taught grade 5 and 6 and had a student in my class, a lovely little girl, who one day was suddenly called to the office by social services and put on a plane with her mother (and maybe brother) and sent somewhere, if I recall, Pond Inlet. I never heard after what happened to her. Was that you? It would have been 35 years ago.” The sad fact, in addition to this, is that this was not the first time I was taken out of a class to be flown to yet another community.
Having shared this, I ask members, what does reconciliation mean? Unfortunately, my story as an indigenous person is not unique in Canada. Unfortunately, my story is too common among indigenous peoples.
Compensation for the confirmed discrimination against first nations children in the foster care system continues to be fought by the federal government. Changes in housing accessibility and affordability, employment opportunities based on their existing strengths, and language accessibility for federal services are areas of great concern.
Mental health services need to be highlighted across Canada. Processes that have worked and proved to be successful are those run through indigenous practices, and they could be acknowledged. Social justice support for victims of crime and funding in support of such services can be acknowledged through this process. The needs of indigenous persons are important. They are the needs that they see and speak to.
There need to be mechanisms for stronger language and incorporating indigenous laws. Many Canadians recognize the two official languages of Canada as only French and English. With many federal and territorial services being translated into only these two languages, many people are left out of conversations. These conversations are essential and need to include those who speak languages that are indigenous, including Inuktitut.
The public should learn more about indigenous cultures through their viewpoint, which is critical to educating the next generation to prevent future atrocities like those that have occurred here in Canada. By learning history through indigenous perspectives, there is a bright future in which Canadians can know and learn from the past.
We support the passing of this bill to help support indigenous-led reconciliation. Bill C-29 would offer support in facing what has happened here in Canada. Too long has Canada ignored the voices of indigenous peoples. Too long has there been inequality in safe, accessible housing and meaningful infrastructure.
The Government of Canada must take a rights-based approach to ensuring that efforts toward reconciliation have positive impacts on indigenous peoples. We will, at debate, push for the use of such instruments.
There are 94 calls to action. These calls to action must be used as a framework for reconciliation.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be implemented in all its intents. Many elements of UNDRIP are incredibly important when speaking about reconciliation within Canada. In particular, I want to highlight the focus on education, health, and social and economic security. Article 21 states:
Indigenous peoples have the right, without discrimination, to the improvement of their economic and social conditions, including...housing, sanitation, health and social security.
Finally, another instrument that must be drawn upon is the landmark Supreme Court decision in Haida Nation. This important case stated that reconciliation must be enacted honourably. Haida Nation states:
The controlling question in all situations is what is required to maintain the honour of the Crown and to effect reconciliation between the Crown and the Aboriginal people with respect to the interests at stake.
I have tried to respond to the former teacher who reached out to me. I was so touched by the fact that my long-forgotten memory of such government interference was indeed real. It felt so long ago that I wondered if it was a memory that I had made up.
I now stand here among members, having been elected by my constituents in Nunavut. As an indigenous MP, with my unique experience and voice, I stand among members as an equal. I plead for us to be the parliamentarians who stop the deprivation of indigenous people's rights and who respect, protect and govern based on indigenous people's strengths.
In creating this council, the federal government must implement its recommendations. With a clear plan and process in place, Canada can start to move in a new direction, a direction that acknowledges the past and seeks justice for the future—
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- Sep/21/22 5:34:47 p.m.
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I apologize to the hon. member, but we are well beyond time.
Questions and comments, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations.
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Madam Speaker, I realize that the member was cut off in the delivery of her speech. I wonder if she would want to conclude with some thoughts and if she could direct her thoughts to the portions of the TRC calls to action around education that she supports. Does she think that the education that we currently have is satisfactory in terms of what Canadians are learning about indigenous history?
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Uqaqtittiji, I just had one sentence left, which is basically that Bill C-29 is one of many ways that reconciliation can be stewarded.
In terms of education and the calls to action, I go back to the calls to action quite frequently, because it is such an important document. When we talk about education, we must ensure that the education is not just among first nations, Métis and Inuit communities. All Canadians must be taught about Canada's history, because all Canadians have been robbed of that history as well.
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Madam Speaker, I want to commend my hon. colleague. When she speaks, I listen.
The concern I have is that this would become just another Liberal-appointed or government-appointed board, and then we would have the same inaction that we are faced with today. I wonder if the member has concerns about the appointment process in terms of who would be there, and whether perhaps she has some guidelines as to how we can make that a better process.
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Uqaqtittiji, I share the same concerns about the appointment process. I have seen gaps in the text in terms of who could make appointments. At this point, I struggle to share ideas of how that can be improved, because I know that Canada, as a diverse country, has many first nations, Métis and Inuit communities that we must ensure are heard through this whole process. I am sorry, but I cannot answer that question at the moment.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech.
I would like to know whether she thinks the council should also have a mandate in relation to indigenous languages. How could it support indigenous language learning so that each language eventually becomes the common language in the territories where that is possible?
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Uqaqtittiji, I thank the member for that excellent question.
Indigenous peoples have been oppressed through language laws and making sure that we lose our language through residential schools. It has to be a measure, absolutely, to make sure that as a part of reconciliation there are better protections and practices to ensure that indigenous languages can be revitalized.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her excellent speech and her excellent presentation in the House. I represent the region that is just south of hers, and we share some of the same beautiful waterways.
Nunavut is established as its own region, but in other parts of the country the struggle for self-government is the key. There is a lot of symbolism, there are a lot of promises and we hear a lot of nice language, but in my region, say with Treaty No. 9, the right of communities to self-determination and the right of communities to decide how health dollars are spent and what resources are developed or not developed is still something that is not respected or understood.
Would my hon. colleague have some thoughts on how we have to move towards real reconciliation, which is self-determination?
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Uqaqtittiji, absolutely there has to be a full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We cannot just keep paying lip service to it; we need to make sure that all of us, as parliamentarians, are doing what we can to ensure that UNDRIP is respected in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Nunavut, for outlining what I think is a really important message to all parliamentarians.
With respect to this file, I have sympathy for the government and even the official opposition. This is a very difficult topic, understanding indigenous people, who are so absent from this place, and the ways we can create laws to have a better outcome. There is a deep irony in that.
When I was first elected I knew, coming from my position as the national director for the Métis of Alberta, that my experience there would in many ways influence my experience here. The conclusion I came to, when deciding whether or not my presence in this place would in fact be beneficial for the outcome of indigenous peoples, I returned to what I learned from folks who were houseless living in Edmonton Griesbach. That was the idea of harm reduction, that for every form of violence or oppression that could be committed by this institution to impact people there is also an ability for it to restrict its ability to harm people.
Where I come from in Alberta this actually happened. To make a quick reference, I was born in a small place called the Fishing Lake Métis Settlement. It is unique in Canada. It is the only place where Métis people have a land base still today. I should note, just to one of the official opposition member's comments, that the people were not consulted, nor are they planning to be consulted on this, which is a huge red flag.
However, returning to the point, indigenous people often see that if we can reduce the level of unilateral impact this place can have on our nations, that is a good thing. Therefore, when I decided finally that it would be a good decision for me to be in this place, it was to understand and share that message with all parliamentarians, through you, Madam Speaker, that we have a role. It is not just to make laws and to govern, but to have a responsibility to reduce harm where we see it.
This piece of legislation is important. It will seek to do that work. The government has tabled what has been a call to action by many survivors and many indigenous nations for a very long time, codified in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. I really commend the government for its ability to table this legislation, but I agree, in many ways, with many of the speakers who have made mention of the criticisms and failures of the bill as drafted.
One is that the government may unilaterally, by the minister's discretion, appoint two of the board members it feels would be appropriate to sit there. That is a huge concern when we think about the mass diversity of indigenous peoples in Canada. There is no one body or one function that can truly represent the interests of the many nations and the many people who live in Canada who are indigenous. That is a huge concern that I think the current government should be willing to address.
What I heard from the government today is that it is willing, through committee, to listen to these very important aspects presented by both the official opposition and the New Democratic Party. It is important that we understand that consultation, when we do it wrong, creates a generation of people who feel left out. It is my greatest caution to the government that it not replicate the systems that have excluded people for so long.
I invite the minister to come to Alberta and seek permission from indigenous peoples in all provinces, ask what a national body toward the implementation of these TRC calls to action means for them, and do it in a way that is public and transparent so that Canadians can join the conversation. Right now, this happens behind closed doors. Canadians do not know what is happening. Many indigenous people do not know what is happening.
I know my time is limited and I will have another opportunity to speak on this in the future. I just want to make sure that we can do this work at committee. I encourage the government to work with members of the opposition to do that.
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- Sep/21/22 5:43:59 p.m.
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It being 5:44 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill S-206, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding disclosure of information by jurors, because it interests me. Last June, I listened carefully to my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord's speech on the subject, followed the debate and asked a question.
I am the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and I have substituted on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and even the Standing Committee on National Defence when they were dealing with very sensitive issues, such as rape and other types of sexual violence, so I understand the effect that this type of speech can have.
That being said, Bill S‑206 amends the Criminal Code “to provide that the prohibition against the disclosure of information relating to jury proceedings does not apply, in certain circumstances, in respect of disclosure by jurors to health care professionals”. The bill would enable jurors to disclose information that they heard during a trial or jury proceedings when consulting with a health care professional, whether it be a psychiatrist, doctor or psychologist.
The Bloc Québécois's position could not be clearer. We fully support this bill. Jurors take on a very big responsibility, and that responsibility itself can affect people who have a hard time being forced to make decisions that could change several people's lives. The juror may then be exposed to horrific testimony or evidence, compounding the trauma.
Today I want to speak from a legal perspective. I will be talking about the help that jurors need to cope with what they hear and about the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder in some cases.
I remind members that these people do not choose to become jurors. They are selected and have a legal obligation to fulfill that duty. They are not always prepared to live with what they hear. The legislator must help make this duty as painless as possible. Some jurors have their lives upended and are left to deal with their trauma alone. The government has a responsibility to these people.
Furthermore, if the juror feels the need to consult a professional who can help them overcome the trauma they have experienced, that professional is also bound by professional confidentiality requirements. Currently, section 649 of the Criminal Code makes it a criminal offence for jurors to disclose non-public information about the trial they are sitting on. The section states:
Every member of a jury, and every person providing technical, personal, interpretative or other support services to a juror with a physical disability, who, except for the purposes of
(a) an investigation of an alleged offence under subsection 139(2) in relation to a juror, or
(b) giving evidence in criminal proceedings in relation to such an offence,
discloses any information relating to the proceedings of the jury when it was absent from the courtroom that was not subsequently disclosed in open court is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
The jury secrecy rule, also known as “Lord Mansfield's rule”, is a cornerstone of common law and the British criminal justice system, which I heard about while studying law. The rule not only protects members of the jury, it also protects the integrity of the deliberation process and the validity of the decision.
Jurors' contribution to a trial is an important one. It strengthens public trust in the justice system because decisions are not made in an insular fashion by a single individual mechanically interpreting the law. The jury's importance has been noted and commented on in many different rulings, but one of the most eloquent was written by Justice L'Heureux‑Dubé, who neatly summed it up as follows:
The jury, through its collective decision making, is an excellent fact finder; due to its representative character, it acts as the conscience of the community; the jury can act as the final bulwark against oppressive laws or their enforcement; it provides a means whereby the public increases its knowledge of the criminal justice system and it increases, through the involvement of the public, societal trust in the system as a whole.
Lord Mansfield's rule is guided by three principles. There are three main rationales for the jury secrecy rule.
The first rationale is that “confidentiality promotes candour and the kind of full and frank debate that is essential to this type of collegial decision making. While searching for unanimity, jurors should be free to explore out loud all avenues of reasoning without fear of exposure to public ridicule, contempt or hatred”.
The second rationale is “the need to ensure finality of the verdict. Describing the verdict as the product of a dynamic process, the court emphasized the need to protect the solemnity of the verdict, as the product of the unanimous consensus which, when formally announced, carries the finality and authority of a legal pronouncement”.
Similarly, the rule also seeks to ensure that the “deliberations remain untainted by contact with information or individuals from outside the jury”.
The third rationale is “the need to protect jurors from harassment, censure and reprisals...This in turn is dependent, at the very minimum, on a system that ensures the safety of jurors, their sense of security, as well as their privacy”.
Allowing a juror to consult a mental or physical health professional is not likely to violate any of these principles. This was also the view expressed by Vanessa MacDonnell of the Canadian Criminal Lawyers' Association while testifying before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in 2018. We have been discussing this for four years. She specifically said: “For many of the concerns that animate the juror secrecy rule, such as the desire for decisions to be final, the desire to preserve the integrity of the deliberation process, and preventing jurors from being subsequently harassed, none of those concerns are really at play if you create a narrow exception”. That argument is even stronger should the therapy take place after the trial has ended.
Bearing in mind the importance of helping jurors, the strongest argument in favour of relaxing the jury secrecy rule is the fact that physical and mental health care professionals are members of professional associations and are bound by the professional confidentiality obligations set out in their association's codes of conduct.
Quebec's Professional Code, chapter C‑26, sets out strict guidelines for professionals who are likely to come in contact with personal and confidential information. Division III of this legislation reserves the titles of certain professions for registered members of the relevant professional order who have a valid permit. This is the case for social workers, psychologists, human resource advisers and psychoeducators.
Section 60.4 of that legislation states that every professional must preserve the secrecy of all confidential information except in certain circumstances. If a professional is being sued by their client, they can sometimes disclose information that is required for their defence, even if such information is confidential. Furthermore, a professional can disclose confidential information “with the authorization of his client or where so ordered or expressly authorized by law...in order to prevent an act of violence, including a suicide, where he has reasonable cause to believe that there is a serious risk of death or serious bodily injury threatening a person or an identifiable group of persons and where the nature of the threat generates a sense of urgency”.
In all of these scenarios, the professional can disclose only information that is relevant to the situation at hand.
It would be surprising if highly specific details of witness testimony or court proceedings had to be shared in the case of any of these exceptions. The legislation specifically states that the “professional must furnish and at all times maintain security to cover any liability he may incur because of any fault committed in the practice of his profession”.
Additional privacy protections are also included, namely the fact that the “professional must respect the right of his client to cause to be corrected any information that is inaccurate, incomplete or ambiguous with regard to the purpose for which it was collected, contained in a document concerning him in any record established in his respect. He must also respect the right of his client to cause to be deleted any information that is outdated or not justified by the object of the record, or to prepare written comments and file them in the record”.
There are similar codes of conduct in the other Canadian provinces, including Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick. There is also a Canadian code of ethics that takes into account the provinces' legislation and regulations.
Let us talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. There have been countless media reports about jurors developing PTSD after sitting through gruesome trials. The case of young Victoria Stafford is one example.
In conclusion, I am well aware that the trauma jurors go through can lead to PTSD. Jurors themselves have said the horrific cases they heard left them scarred. There is also the case of Mark Farrant, who was a juror on a murder trial involving a young woman who had been severely burned.
As a student at the CEGEP de Jonquière in 2011, I researched PTSD in the armed forces. The consequences can take a toll on family members, in the form of alcoholism, violence or mental health problems. We need to realize that and take action as a society.
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Madam Speaker, I would normally say that I am happy to rise to speak on a bill such as this because it is a fairly simple bill. We have a rule against exposing deliberations of jurors for very good reasons: to make sure those decisions are final, to make sure there is no harassment of jurors and to preserve the rights and integrity of that deliberation process.
Bill S-206 would create a very narrow exception. It would allow those who have suffered post-traumatic stress and other mental health challenges as a result of serving on juries to disclose details of that experience to mental health professionals. It is a simple bill, one that is very necessary.
I want to take a moment to thank the former jurors who have spoken out on this issue, and in particular Mark Farrant for the work he has put into bringing this to the attention of those of us in the House.
Why am I not happy? Well, I am not happy because sometimes when we agree on something that needs to be done and agree that it is a good thing, and we do all agree, it seems to take us a very long time to get the job done.
There was a study at the justice committee, with a unanimous report tabled in 2018. All parties supported taking this kind of action and other actions to support former jurors. This was then introduced as a private member's bill in October 2018 by the member for St. Albert—Edmonton. It passed the House on April 12, 2019, with all-party support in the 42nd Parliament. Here we are, two Parliaments later, and we have not gotten this job done.
That is the reason I am not really pleased to be standing to speak to this bill today. In fact, I had hoped we might actually finish with this bill today, because if no one stands to ask for a recorded vote, this would be done. I know there are those who believe there are good reasons to have a recorded vote, and I will be happy to see the virtually unanimous support that I expect in this House for the bill. However, I have to say that what I really believe is that we need to get on with this and get it done. Let us not delay further former jurors who have suffered mental health challenges from being able to seek the professional help they need and deserve as a result of doing their civic duty.
I am proud to support this bill. I urge us all to finish with it as quickly as we can.
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Madam Speaker, I want to provide a quick warning before I speak. My testimony today contains a lot of graphic facts, and I may struggle getting through it.
I ask my colleagues, my friends and Canadians who are listening to stop for a moment and close their eyes. We can imagine we are a new RCMP constable in northern British Columbia. We are in our car on a dark isolated highway. It is late November, it is cold and it is just past 9 p.m. There is a light dusting of snow that covers the road in front of us as we drive down the dark deserted highway. Spruce and pine trees line the side of the road, illuminated only by the glow of our headlights.
Just up ahead, coming out of an old abandoned logging road, we see another set of lights, an old GMC pickup, and they veer onto the road in front of us. It picks up speed and is driving erratically. We wonder where it was. Why was it down there? Who is in it? Where is it going, and what was it doing down that road? As the questions flood into our minds, suspicion gets the best of us. It is probably a poacher, we think. We make the call, decide to pursue and then pull them over. It is a routine stop on a dark deserted road in the middle of the winter. We cannot possibly imagine that we are about to stumble upon one of Canada's most notorious serial killers.
On November 27, 2010, at approximately 9:45, a rookie police officer by the name of Aaron Kehler was patrolling off of Highway 27 when he noticed an old pickup truck pull out onto the highway from an old remote logging road. Constable Kehler knew there was nothing down that rugged road and thought it was odd that somebody would be down there late at night in the middle of winter. Seeing the truck veer, speed off and drive erratically, Kehler decided to pull the vehicle over. Constable Kehler's routine stop would lead to the arrest and eventual conviction of Canada's youngest serial killer, Cody Legebokoff.
Legebokoff was convicted of killing four women in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George. When the RCMP pulled him over, the first thing they noticed was the blood smears on his chin. A quick examination of the cab of the truck revealed a pool of blood on the floor. Searching the vehicle, they found a bloody wrench, a multitool, a monkey backpack and a wallet that contained a children's hospital card with the name Loren Leslie on it.
When the officers asked Cody about the blood on his face, he said he was hunting deer and had clubbed one to death. RCMP called a wildlife conservation officer with tracking skills. They followed Cody's tire tracks and then his footsteps into the bush. They made a horrifying discovery. It was not the body of a bleeding deer. It was the body of a 15-year-old girl. It was the body of my friend's daughter, Loren Donn Leslie.
I will fast-forward to four years later.
We can picture ourselves in a small, cramped courtroom filled with media, the victims' families, the accused and 11 of our peers. We can try to imagine listening to the gruesome details of what I have just discovered, of how Legebokoff raped and brutally murdered 15-year-old Loren, 23-year-old Natasha Montgomery, Jill Stuchenko and Cynthia Maas. The trial lasted almost four months. We can imagine sitting through that, day after day of gruesome testimony: brutal blunt force trauma, penetrating knife wounds, a broken jaw and cheekbone.
Jurors heard testimony that one of the victims was found with her pants around her ankles and that she died of blood loss and blunt force trauma. All four women were badly beaten before they died. DNA from one of the victims was found on a pickaxe inside Legebokoff s apartment. Natasha Montgomery's body has never been found, yet her DNA was found 32 times in Legebokoff's apartment, on clothing, on bedsheets and on an axe.
Jurors in this trial listened to the unspeakable acts. They listened for days, weeks and months. When the trial ended and Legebokoff was convicted, they had no where to turn. They had no one they could legally talk to. They had no help to deal with the trauma they experienced reliving these horrific crimes.
I want to commend Senator Boisvenu and my honourable colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton for their work on Bill S-206. I agree with the hon. colleague who spoke earlier and said this bill has taken too long.
For decades, mental health issues have been pushed to the back burner. Men, women and our society in general have viewed mental health through a skewed lens. We have been raised to believe that mental health issues are a weakness of character, a weakness of person and a weakness to be hid and swept under the carpet. Thankfully, in the past few years we have all come to realize that this is not true and that mental health is just as important as physical health. Without mental health, we have no health.
Although we are slowly making progress, there is more that can be done. My latest motion to create a national easy-to-remember three-digit suicide hotline, 988, has finally been approved by the CRTC and will be up and running by fall of next year. However, 988 is just one tool in the tool box. It is not a panacea for all the problems facing us.
The bill before us today is another instrument that can and will help those who often suffer in silence. As the law currently stands, jurors are bound by the jury secrecy rule. They can never reveal what was said and what evidence they were subjected to. They have nowhere to go and nowhere to turn. If they are having trouble dealing with the psychological trauma they have been subjected to, the law forces them to suffer alone. This is not right.
During a study of this issue in the 42nd Parliament, the justice committee heard testimony from another friend of mine, Mark Farrant. Mr. Farrant was called to serve as a juror for another very graphic murder trial here in Ontario. He was subjected to autopsy photos, detailed photos of the victim and the crime scene and detailed photos of the wounds. It was a very incredibly violent homicide.
In his testimony, Mark explained:
As a juror, you are extremely isolated. You cannot communicate with anyone in any form about the events in court or even really with other jurors. I would leave the court in a trance, not remembering even how I got home. I would stare blankly into space during meetings at work or at home while my three-year-old daughter tried desperately to engage with me. My then pregnant wife, who had such an engaged husband during her first pregnancy, now had an emotional zombie in me, unable or unwilling to communicate.
I expected these feelings to subside as I left the courthouse on the day the verdict was delivered. I expected to experience a period of re-acclimatization as I re-entered my life, and then I would be fine. I expected that there would be a thorough discharge and debrief prior to being dismissed, and that perhaps a counsellor would be present who could direct us to services or mental exercises, or indeed talk to us. There was nothing.
My feelings didn't subside. They intensified and deepened. After the trial, I cut off communication with all friends and family, only interacting with colleagues at work, and then only superficially. I became hypervigilant around my kids, refusing to let them walk alone, even a few steps in front of me. I became unable to handle crowds and public spaces. My diet changed. I was unable to look at and prepare raw meat without gagging, something that persists to this day.
Images would haunt me day after day, an unrelenting bombardment of horror. My daughter's red finger painting would hurtle me back to the scene of the crime and I would stare transfixed, seemingly out of space and time. Sometimes I would just start to cry for no reason at all. Intimacy with my spouse was impossible, and I found myself either sleeping downstairs on some kind of vigil, or sleeping in my children's rooms at the foot of their doors, if I even slept at all.
What Mark went through was life-altering. What Mark and his family went through is unacceptable. What Mark and thousands of jurors have endured should never happen again.
Bill S-206 would end this. Bill S-206 would carve out an exception to the jury secrecy rule. It would allow the disclosure of the deliberation process by jurors to a health care professional bound by confidentiality.
Jury duty is a core component of the Canadian justice system and enshrined in our charter and Criminal Code. Jurors are core to the administration of justice. Jurors will continue to serve our communities and must witness graphic evidence and horrific crimes as part of their civic duty, but we must afford jurors access to the same mental health support and quality of care available to first responders, health care professionals, legal counsel and even judges. Sadly, in some provinces and territories, jurors are offered no support at all or the bare minimum of care.
This is long past due. We need to pass this legislation now. It will save lives.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to address the issue at hand. In listening to members speak on the legislation, there are a couple of thoughts specifically that come to mind.
Many years ago, I was a justice critic in the province of Manitoba. I want to highlight the fact that we have discussions in Ottawa and come up with some very good, tangible ideas. As was pointed out, this issue was well debated, discussed and studied in one of our standing committees. Members of the House have already referred to the 2018 standing committee that did a study on this issue. One of the things that Parliament can do and does well is when it identifies an issue on which we can build consensus. Often I will stand and challenge members to support specific pieces of legislation.
This is a bill that does deserve and merit the support of all members of the House of Commons, but we need to recognize the idea of jurisdictional responsibility. Yes, it is in the Criminal Code, but as some speakers have alluded, whether it is was in the study process or even during the debate on this bill or previous bills, we need to recognize that the provinces also play a critical role in this. In fact, I suspect that even if the standing committee did not look at it, which would surprise me, what we would find in Canada is a patchwork system.
Some provinces provide more support than other provinces. In certain areas, and I suggest this is one of those areas, passing this legislation would go a long way in showing national leadership on this important issue and, hopefully, at the end of the day, we would see a more consistent system throughout Canada. I believe we owe that to our jurors.
When we think of the foundations of our nation, we can talk about Parliament or the independence of our judicial system, the rule of law and the fundamental pillars that hold that up. When we talk about the jury process, it is not like people go to court saying, “Pick me, pick me, I want to be a juror.” There is a process by which jurors are selected, and there is an obligation on our residents to fulfill that call to be a jurist when they are put in that position. The member before me referred to a particular incident, a horrific incident. Sadly, we see far too many of those types of incidents in all different regions of our country.
There was a time when mental health, as the previous speaker referenced, was kind of pushed to the side. It is only in the last decade or so that we have seen mental health put front and centre in terms of the need for government policy. When we put that lens on the issue of justice, there are certainly areas that could be clearly amplified, and this is just one of those areas. For all of the reasons the example was cited, one can only imagine the many different horrific examples that have taken place in the last number of years alone that we have asked our fellow citizens to sit and listen to in great detail.
I have never sat as a juror, but I can imagine some of the things that a juror has to go through to ultimately provide that decision, and that decision is absolutely critical in terms of being part of the foundations of our judicial system. I understand and I believe that the vast majority of people would understand and appreciate why it is so critically important that a juror or a jury has to keep what is said within in a very confidential manner.
As I know members of the Liberal caucus do, I suspect, based on the discussions that I hear and the type of support received by previous legislation and the unanimous support of that standing committee I made reference to, that all members of the House understand the issue of mental health and what it is that the individual juror has to go through to reach that decision and fulfill that obligation.
As a society, we are very dependent on that. Given that, and if we take into consideration the issue today of mental health, one would expect we need to be more open to the post-traumatic experiences that many jurors have to deal with as a direct result of their being a good citizen of Canada and participating in our judicial system.
This bill, Bill S-206, is not proposing, as the standing committee is not proposing, that a juror would be able to go out and about and have a press conference and say, “Here is what we dealt with when we went and talked about this case,” prior to conviction or no conviction. What is being suggested here is fair and reasonable. From my perspective and, I believe, the perspective of virtually all members of the House, it is recognizing the needs of that juror, who has had an experience as a direct result of doing the right thing and being there for our nation and supporting our judicial system and who is having a very difficult time coming to grips with what he or she witnessed during the trial.
I think there is an obligation on the government, whether it is the federal government or the provincial government, to take the actions necessary to provide that support. In doing so, we should be thinking about how we maximize the effectiveness of our juries. We have to ensure that the proper supports are there. By doing that, we are minimizing the negative consequences of a juror having to participate.
We are saying, in essence, this: Let us look at ways in which we can allow for that juror to be able to talk to a professional health care provider to seek the counselling and the services that are necessary to support our system and, in particular, that juror.
I think there is an obligation to do that and I believe that is the reason the bill has received the universal support that it has. I suspect that, ultimately, when it does come to a vote, it will be of an unanimous nature.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to speak for what I trust will be the last time on Bill S-206, legislation to support juror mental health.
The idea of this bill came about as a result of a study at the justice committee on juror support, the first of its kind. It was initiated by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I am very proud to say that the member has been a seconder of this bill and a champion of it.
Five years ago, former jurors came before the justice committee and told their stories of going through difficult trials and of how their mental health suffered as a result. During the study, we learned that former jurors are uniquely impeded in their ability to get mental health supports as a result of something called the jury secrecy rule. Section 649 of the Criminal Code actually makes it a criminal offence for a former juror to disclose any aspect of the deliberation process with anyone for life, even a medical professional.
From a mental health standpoint, how can one get better? How can one get the help they need if they are unable to talk about what is often the most difficult aspect of jury service, the deliberation process?
However, there is a solution to this challenge. That solution is to carve out a narrow exception to the rule so that former jurors can confide with a medical professional about all aspects of jury service bound by confidentiality. It was a key recommendation of our unanimous justice committee report.
Too often in this place, we undertake studies on important topics, produce reports with valuable recommendations and then those reports proceed to be put on a bookshelf where they collect dust. Having regard for the impactful testimony of the former jurors who graciously came before the justice committee to tell their stories, I did not want to see that happen in this case. That is why I put forward a private member's bill to carve out this exception and make that the law.
The bill received unanimous support. Four bills and three Parliaments later, we are on the cusp of seeing this legislation pass into law. From a process standpoint, it highlights the real difficulty in getting a private member's bill across the finish line, even one with unanimous support.
There are a number of people I would like to thank, but unfortunately I do not have the time to do so in the time allocated to me. However, I will thank three people: Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu for introducing this bill in the other place and successfully championing it through the other place; Senator Lucie Moncion, herself a former juror who suffered from mental health issues arising from her service and who played an integral role in seeing the passage of this bill in the other place; and Mark Farrant of the Canadian Juries Commission, himself a former juror and one of the former jurors who came before our committee. Mark is a leading champion today of juror mental health supports.
Jurors play an integral role in the administration of justice in Canada, often at a considerable personal sacrifice. Jurors deserve to get the help they need when they need it. This bill would help former jurors do just that. After five years, let us get this done. Let us get it passed. Let us make it the law.
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- Sep/21/22 6:21:45 p.m.
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The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and so indicate to the Chair.
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