44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 2, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/2/23 11:28:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few seconds to wish you a happy new year, good health, happiness, love and anything else your heart desires. I want to also send that message to my constituents in Saint-Jean, as this is the first time I have spoken in the House this year.
I am not going to put the Conservatives on trial for their motion today. I would like to believe that this idea stems from a genuine desire to reduce violent crime and prevent the proliferation of illegal firearms. I hope that I will not be put on trial either, despite the fact that I am going to describe the problems with this motion. In my opinion, it does not provide a solution. I will be disappointed if I hear, yet again, during question and comment period, that the Bloc Québécois has helped put dangerous criminals back on the street and refuses to admit that there is a problem. I hope that does not happen, but I will be sure to manage my expectations.
There are a few problems with the motion, and I will go through them one at a time. For instance, no distinction is made between correlation and causation. Some members have presented statistics showing an increase in certain crimes and said that this is caused by Bill C-75. That is correlation. There is a theory about that, known as the hemline economy theory. According to this theory, when short skirts are in fashion, the economy is doing well, and when long skirts are in fashion, the economy is doing poorly. If we were to rely solely on this index, we would probably all make some very poor choices in the stock market. Similarly, if a temporal correlation is the only correlation that exists between an increase in crime and the passage of Bill C‑75, then we are probably overlooking the real solutions to a multi-faceted problem.
Another problem is that some of the “whereas” clauses and demands in the motion are based on somewhat fallacious arguments, and some are not supported by any evidence. I will come back to that aspect when I go through the motion in greater detail.
The arguments raise another problem. We are hearing a lot of references to the case of Randall McKenzie, who allegedly killed a police officer in December while out on bail. If we look at this case more closely, we might find that it is not just him being out on bail that is the problem. Randall McKenzie had already been locked up and was released on bail with some of the strictest conditions possible. He was on house arrest 24 hours a day, he wore an electronic tracking device and he was allowed to leave home only for medical reasons or to get legal advice from his lawyer. The question is, what happened? How did he end up out in public when the company monitoring the GPS device should have sent an alert to have him immediately apprehended? There may be a problem there too. No one has raised that issue yet, but the analysis should go beyond the simple issue of bail.
I heard it said that if Randall McKenzie had not been out on bail, the police officer would still be alive. I am sorry, but we have still not heard all of the evidence in this case. The authorities are not certain that he is the one who pulled the trigger. There is a co-accused in the case, so the argument is perhaps a little thin. This is only a secondary point, I only wanted to mention it. However, it is perhaps a stretch to say that a life would have been saved if bail had not been awarded.
I would like to point out a fourth problem with the motion. Making it more difficult to obtain bail in the case of illegal arms possession will not dissuade people from procuring illegal arms. The motion will not have an impact on first offences with a firearm. Adopting the motion could leave us with a false sense of security.
I will quickly review some of the points in the motion.
The motion states, “That, given that, after eight years of this government's soft on crime policies, (i) violent crime has increased by 32%”. According to Statistics Canada, this number includes sexual assaults.
In recent years, thanks to greater awareness among other things, there has been an increase in the number of crimes reported, which contributes to the increase in this number. When we talk about violent crime in general, we are not necessarily referring to violent gun crime or cases in which the accused was awarded bail. That, however, is how the question for the government is being framed.
The motion states that “violent, repeat offenders are obtaining bail much more easily”. I still have not heard a clear explanation of whether this is true, and, especially, if it is related to the repeal of certain aspects of Bill C‑75 requested in the motion.
The motion also states that “five Canadian police officers were killed in the line of duty in just one year”. That is both deplorable and tragic. We should do something about that. However, no connection is made between the murder of these police officers and the bail system. Statistics are used to justify strengthening bail provisions, but there is not necessarily a rational link between the statistics and what the motion is asking for. That is deplorable. I think that the Conservatives could have been more thorough in presenting their motion.
One of the things the House is being called to do is the following:
(a) fix Canada's broken bail system by immediately repealing the elements enacted by Bill C‑75...which force judges to release violent, repeat offenders onto the streets, allowing them to reoffend;
As my colleague mentioned, there is a fallacy in this paragraph. There is nothing in Bill C‑75 or the Criminal Code forcing judges to release people. In fact, when we get right down to it, the only thing that forces judges to release people is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
There are two fairly specific rights in the following paragraphs of section 11 of the Charter:
Any person charged with an offence has the right...
(d) to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal;
(e) not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause;
The charter, not the former Bill C‑75, sets out that requirement for judges. The charter and the sections that allow for bail have established criteria.
Custody of an accused is only justified by the Criminal Code in certain cases, for example, “(a) where the detention is necessary to ensure his or her attendance in court”, such as someone with dual citizenship who is afraid of losing citizenship in another country, or “(b) where the detention is necessary for the protection or safety of the public”.
There are pre-existing criteria that judges can use to maintain institutional custody. Where “(c) the detention is necessary to maintain confidence”, the judge has the discretion to keep an accused in custody.
Section 515 of the Criminal Code also provides terms and conditions. For example, consideration must be given to “(iii) the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence, including whether a firearm was used”, which we already do, and “(iv) the fact that the accused is liable, on conviction, for a potentially lengthy term of imprisonment or, in the case of an offence that involves, or whose subject-matter is, a firearm, a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of three years or more.”
The Conservatives are saying that they want to, and I quote:
strengthen Canada's bail laws so that those who are prohibited from possessing firearms and who are then accused of serious firearms offences do not easily get bail;
However, that is already included in section 515 of the Criminal Code. Will that really change anything? It is a fair question. When we talk to criminal lawyers about the gun problem, we see that it is getting harder and harder to get bail when a firearm was used to commit a crime, so the motion contains some things that are already covered.
The motion seeks to repeal the former bill without really explaining what it is about. It attacks Bill C‑75, which actually does some other worthwhile things. For example, it creates a reverse onus for domestic violence. The accused must prove that they will not be a danger to the public if they are released on bail, whereas for other crimes the opposite is true. With regard to gun violence, the onus is already on the accused, or in other words, it is up to them to prove that they do not pose a risk to society.
As I mentioned, although this motion addresses a real and serious problem, it may not be the right solution. As I also mentioned, if a person makes their stock market decisions based on the hemline index, then they will likely make poor choices.
I think the same applies here. We need to have conversations about the best way to proceed so we do not opt for a bad solution to a real problem.
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- Feb/2/23 5:05:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my Conservative Party colleague from Lakeland. Not surprisingly, I will be sharing my time, but not the same views.
I want to put all this in context. Today is the Conservative Party's opposition day. The motion was moved by the member for Fundy Royal. It is a direct attack on Bill C-75, which was passed in 2019, three years ago already.
The Bloc Québécois feels that Bill C-75 is a good bill overall, but there are some flaws. We do not believe that there is such a thing as a perfect bill, to be honest. Eventually, at some point in the future, there will be amendments, additions or deletions made to certain elements of Bill C-75.
The day is winding down, and we have been discussing this bill all day. Everyone knows that the Bloc Québécois is opposed to the Conservative motion. Yes, we know there are real problems when it comes to crime, but the solutions proposed by the Conservative Party are not the right ones we need to make the changes that we will eventually have to make.
As we have been seeing all day, this bill really gets people fired up. Everyone's emotions are running high, and everyone keeps firing off demands. This bill also opens the door to a lot of misinformation. Certain groups of people hide behind their ideology, which, sadly, has nothing to do with science. Others adopt a more sensationalist approach and, as in the current case, appear to be electioneering.
The motion is based on individual cases. All day, we have been hearing about two or three specific cases: murdered police officers and a man accused of rape who is serving his sentence at home. I do not want to downplay these situations, but I do want to point out that these are all individual cases the Conservatives are talking about here today, cases they are using as justification for upsetting the apple cart and going back to square one with Bill C‑75. The Bloc Québécois is against that. We want to move on, and we will vote against the motion.
The Bloc Québécois thinks that there is a bit of bad faith involved in moving this motion and that our Conservative colleagues are trying to create a false sense of security. Repealing Bill C-75 as it was passed is not going to enhance public safety. That is just not true. Let us keep in mind that we are talking about laws, justice and social justice. The Bloc Québécois supports victims. We will always side with the poor and with victims, and we think that, in this case, it is inappropriate to pursue the repeal of Bill C-75.
The Bloc Québécois hopes that we can take a sensible, reasonable and balanced approach to such important bills. We are well aware that Bill C-75 is not a cure-all, but it meets a lot of needs.
Of all of the misinformation our Conservative colleagues are spreading, there is one allegation that really irks us. They are saying that Bill C-75 requires judges to release violent repeat offenders who can then go out and commit other crimes. That is obviously misinformation, and it is easy to prove it. The Conservatives keep making this argument, but it does not hold water for the Bloc Québécois. It is not true at all. Judges still have the final say in the cases they try.
Another thing that is based on misinformation is the presumption that the Canadian justice system puts the rights of violent repeat offenders ahead of the rights of law-abiding Quebeckers and Canadians. That has been repeated all day, but it is totally false. It is clear that the claim that the bail system puts the rights of repeat offenders ahead of the rights of other individuals is a complete falsehood.
Another claim that keeps coming up is that the bail system is bad. To us that is a false claim. Bail is a way of finding a balance between the presumption of innocence, which is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and public safety. That is why we think that statement is false. They are talking about things that do not exist, that are not there, that are purely made up.
Again, this is a very delicate exercise.
On what are the Conservatives currently basing their claim that we have to take an axe to Bill C‑75? Are they relying on empirical data? No, they did not present any empirical data today, absolutely none. Are they relying on peer-reviewed studies? No, they did not present any such studies today.
Of course, we have heard plenty of anecdotes about individual cases. We have been hearing about the same cases all day. However, that does not justify a major reform of a bill like Bill C-75. It is not possible and it is not logical. In a system like ours, to begin with individual points like this and reshuffle the deck would be madness. We could go round in circles forever.
Canada has a population of 35 million people. What do these individual cases represent out of 35 million people? I do not want to minimize the cases that have been put forward, but we cannot decide these things based on individual cases.
What is both interesting and useful about research and science is that they provide for studies to be done on large numbers of individuals. This is what validates research and why it can be presented and shared with some degree of certainty. Not all research results are perfectly accurate. At times, there are contradictory findings from one study to the next, but overall, this is what can be expected.
I want to touch on a couple of pieces of research. Earlier, in a question, my colleague referred to Carolyn Yule, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Guelph. She is an expert in this area and has spent part of her life studying bail. The findings of her studies, of which there are several, suggest that a tougher approach to bail would not improve public safety.
That said, she is just a scientist, just a girl who does research and has spent most of her life studying this topic.
Furthermore, Jane Sprott, a professor of criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University, says that there is no reliable way to predict who will commit a violent crime, regardless of the type of crime. She says it would be fiscally irresponsible and unrealistic to increase the number of people in remand. This is related to what we are talking about today. She also states that pre-trial detention hurts a person's chances of not reoffending and their social reintegration. This is obviously contrary to Conservative values. I would also like to share one other small study, but I do not think I will have enough time.
Seeing as people are making assertions based on nothing, here is a big one: From 2006 to 2015, while the Conservatives were in power, crime rates dropped. Dig no deeper, and that sounds great. Three cheers for the Conservatives. The problem is that as soon as they lost power, crime rates started going up.
Is it fair to say the Liberals were responsible for what happened in that first year or two? No. It takes time for a law—
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