44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2022 02:00PM
- Nov/23/22 2:58:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have now passed legislation to address the overrepresentation of Black Canadians and indigenous people in the criminal justice system.
What Canadians deserve is legislation that goes after criminals while protecting our communities and that holds up in court, which is where the Conservative Party's tough-on-crime approach consistently failed to protect Canadians. If it is being struck down by the courts, it is not protecting communities.
We will not follow the Conservatives' failed approach, which does not protect Canadians and violates people's fundamental rights.
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- Nov/23/22 3:14:12 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that harsh, ineffective policies from the previous Conservative government did not succeed in making our communities safer. They also contributed to the over-representation of indigenous people and racialized and marginalized Canadians in our justice system.
Can the Prime Minister inform the chamber of the concrete steps we are taking to move past those policies and adopt a better working approach to making our justice system accessible, efficient and fair?
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- Nov/23/22 3:14:41 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge for the hard work he does for his constituents.
I am proud that Bill C-5 has now received royal assent. It is a long-overdue and essential step for our criminal justice system. It will give judges the flexibility to impose sentences that fit the crime and contribute to addressing the overincarceration of indigenous, Black and racialized people. We believe in a justice system that is tough when it needs to be tough, but is always fair.
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- Nov/23/22 3:15:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the genocide against indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people is ongoing and only getting worse as violence increases. Despite their promises, the government has not taken action. The last budget has no investments to help indigenous women and girls, and funds meant to build shelters have been left unused. The Prime Minister must show leadership to keep his government's promises. What is the Prime Minister going to do to accelerate the implementation of all the calls for justice?
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- Nov/23/22 4:32:36 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I can assure my friend opposite that the government has been working very hard on a number of very important criminal justice matters, including with my friend from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. We look forward to working with him on the passage of Bill S-4.
This is something that has already passed the Senate, so in many ways we are working on the bill backwards. The Senate has passed it. Now it is in the House, and it is up to us to get it passed as soon as we can.
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- Nov/23/22 4:34:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, the bill allows for the accused to appear virtually in respect of preliminary inquiries, provided all the parties agree to it.
As to his question about possibly changing the routines for inquiries, I look forward to having a conversation with him, as we all often do, and to having a broader discussion on how that could be incorporated in our criminal justice system. That is something we will definitely be open to discussion on.
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- Nov/23/22 4:37:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I addressed most of my friend's concerns in my speech. First and foremost, we are investing in technology. We have invested $40 million in the criminal justice system to modernize this technology. We have also committed to ensuring that there is rural connectivity across Canada.
What is important for colleagues to understand is that Bill S-4 would allow for virtual hearings where appropriate, where it is not impeded by Internet access or technological limitations, and it is really subject to the consent of the parties involved, including both the accused and counsel, as well as the Crown.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill S-4 is yet another piece of legislation that the Department of Justice is looking at. I know the member has been a very strong advocate for Bill C-5 and has a few thoughts on it that would be of benefit in terms of reinforcement. We recognize that when it comes to Bill S-4, the modernization is an absolute. It is relatively non-controversial and should pass. There has been time on it in the Senate already.
I know the member has some very strong thoughts on Bill C-5, and I would ask him to maybe provide a different perspective on another piece of legislation that he is bringing through.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a very relevant observation, because what we are trying to do is modernize our court system and our justice system. With Bill C-5, it is the first time in Canadian history. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is the first attorney general to repeal many mandatory minimum penalties that were seen to be harmful to indigenous, Black and other racialized communities. It was not based on a focus of keeping people safe, but putting away people who ought to have off-ramps in the criminal justice system.
Bill C-5 is very similar to Bill S-4 in the sense that we are modernizing. We are looking at the 21st century, the science and the technology available and moving forward on very important reforms that will help make sure our justice and court systems are modernized.
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- Nov/23/22 5:04:10 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my hon. colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo on his very eloquent speech. He said that he had 15 pages to read.
The member raised a major issue with the justice system, namely its efficiency, as well as another directly related issue, access to justice. Would the member agree with me that Bill S-4 could improve the justice system in terms of accessibility and efficiency? Could he continue his speech by telling us more about what should be added to Bill S-4 to make it even more effective in terms of access to justice? Maybe he covers that in the other 15 pages of his speech.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for a great speech.
He talked about the backlog in the justice system, especially when considering the massive rise, a 32% increase, in violent crime in Canada since the Liberals formed the government.
First, how important is this legislation to addressing that backlog? Second, can he comment on the hypocrisy of the government waiting so long to bring this bill forward compared to its bringing Bill C-5 forward to eliminate the mandatory minimums for violent crime in Canada?
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- Nov/23/22 5:32:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I really liked what my colleague from Rivière‑du‑Nord had to say, as well as what we heard from the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, who spoke before him and is a member of our party.
The member's comments were based on his experience. We all had lives before politics and we all want lives after politics. When we speak from our experience and when lawyers talk about justice when we are studying a bill about justice, that tends to be very interesting, as we saw today.
When I talk to lawyers in my riding, their main concern is delays in the justice system and the fact that no judges are available to hold trials. These delays cause people to lose confidence in the justice system.
Based on his own experience, can the member tell us whether Bill S‑4 will speed up access to justice and restore people's confidence in the justice system? Some people think that new technology can speed things up.
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- Nov/23/22 5:52:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for his learned presentation. I think there are some very important elements there. I wanted to just pick up on the issue of access to justice and how this bill would expand that. I know it has been one of those challenging issues that, across provincial jurisdictions, we have had to deal with.
Can he maybe talk about his province of British Columbia and how it has been able to adopt this, how that has impacted access to justice and how that has informed Bill S-4?
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- Nov/23/22 5:52:57 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I am going to have to say that I cannot speak extensively on that. I know that certainly the previous provincial attorney general, David Eby, and the current Attorney General in British Columbia have both had access to justice front and centre, and I know they have expanded access to legal aid as one of the main concerns about people having to go to court unrepresented.
Also, it is not just in criminal law, but also in family law, where we have a large problem in all provinces. Quite often one partner of a dispute, and it is usually the husband, has access to much greater legal resources than their partner in those kinds of cases. I know British Columbia has been both trying to encourage mediation processes in family law to tackle that problem and trying to right that balance between parties in those difficult cases.
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- Nov/23/22 5:54:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I think one thing we all agree on across all party lines is the need for justice reform. Sometimes we may disagree on where that reform should be, but we need a system that protects the rights of victims and survivors, and also makes sure those who are being accused have access to justice and justice in a fair manner. However, one of the issues that comes up again and again in Canadian society is overrepresentation of racialized communities, and particularly indigenous communities.
The courts are being used to handle situations that could be handled better within community and other alternate structures, so that we are not creating a class of criminals, but actually pulling people out of some very sometimes toxic relationships or sometimes bad behaviour. The community can actually help restore and bring people back within their communities.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague, from his extensive work, about the steps he thinks we need to take to start looking at the powers we can put in place to make sure those who should not be in jail can be taken out of that system and put on a better track.
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- Nov/23/22 5:55:23 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Mr. Speaker, I think the first thing we need to address is that many first nations have their own ways of dealing with things we tend to send to court and prison that are much more effective than the methods we use. The problem is that those traditional communities and traditional systems are under-resourced, so we need to make resources available to first nations that wish to pursue their own justice initiatives, which in the end would be far more effective than the adversarial and correctional system we tend to support as a whole.
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- Nov/23/22 5:56:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a well-researched and well-delivered speech. I would agree with him on one thing and that is that access to justice in Canada is getting harder and harder.
In my opinion, and in my experience as well, access to justice depends more and more upon accessing a system through money. When he talks about people not being able to access that justice system and the requirement for lawyers, he is hitting the nail right on the head. I want to congratulate him for that.
Does he see that the system itself has gained so much weight in the middle that it is just being run by the people who are making money from the system? Is there a way through this that does not mean that one can only get there through lawyers, a more streamlined system of solving our disputes in Canada, so we do not have as much strain on our legal system?
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- Nov/23/22 5:57:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his compliments. I do not think I share the same view of the system. I do not think there are a lot of people within the system who are there just to make money.
In my experience with the legal community, certainly in my own community, there are some who make more than a good living out of the legal system, but most people are there because of their commitment to justice, whether they are working as prosecutors or as defence attorneys.
However, I do agree with the hon. member that, as I just said about first nations, there are alternative methods to the traditional arrest, send to court and send to prison process that we have tended to overly rely on in Canada. That is appropriate for some people. That is the only way to deal with some criminals in our system, but for most people, that is not the underlying problem and not the real solution. I agree with him that we need to look at alternative methods of dealing with things such as drug addiction and poverty, which cause a lot of people to end up in the court system.
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- Nov/23/22 5:58:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague could provide his thoughts on how the legislation would ultimately provide more flexibility, and how, by providing that additional flexibility, it would make the system more just, more efficient and more effective at delivering justice. Could he provide his thoughts on that specifically?
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- Nov/23/22 5:58:35 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-4
Madam Speaker, I think the question brings up an important point. In this bill, we are looking to adopt a broader use of technology, not just for the sake of a broader use of technology, but to provide greater access to justice, as part of this, and that flexibility.
I think we had the important suggestion made by the member for Timmins—James Bay about how sometimes using technology allows victims to participate more freely in these kinds of systems than if they have to appear in front of someone who has caused them great harm in person.
I think that there are lots of advantages, in addition to the efficiency advantages, in Bill S-4.
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