44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 18, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, the member left out of his remarks that, under the government over the past eight years, we have seen the reversal of a decades-long trend of lower rates of crime and lower rates of incarceration. We have also seen the emergence of chronic, repeat violent offenders running amok in Canadian cities and burdening local police, who repeatedly arrest the same people. They arrest them over and over again. This bill is, in part, damage control; it is undoing what the government did in its first Parliament.
Will the member take this opportunity to admit that the Liberals' approach has been wrong and that they will be reversing the approach that got us to this point?
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Madam Speaker, as a government, we have collaborated and acted in unison with provinces, territories and police organizations to come up with a bill, Bill C-48, that is charter compliant. It also brings in a number of provisions to make sure that our streets, our communities and our families feel safe. We want them to know that they are safe, the law is on their side and they can enjoy their livelihoods and their families. Kids can be in their communities, and their families will know they are safe.
We have three daughters at home and lots of kids in our neighbourhood. We understand the issue of property crime. We want to make sure that all Canadians feel safe in their communities, and this bill is one large step in that direction. It is great to see that unanimous consent was received from all parties regarding Bill C-48.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Obviously, this bill will be passing with unanimous consent, but I would like to get my hon. colleague's thoughts on something. Yes, we did pass this with unanimous consent, but I feel as though Conservatives were ready to do that from the get-go. However, it took the Liberal government 246 days to table the legislation after the premiers wrote their letter.
Can my colleague comment on what appears to be a discrepancy between words and action?
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Madam Speaker, it is great to see the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo back here in Ottawa. Our families have known each other for approximately six decades, if I am not mistaken.
As a government, we are always taking action to protect the citizens of this country, as well as to ensure that our streets are safe and our families are even safer. That is a very important priority for all 338 members of Parliament here. Our citizens sent us here to ensure that we do the right thing. Bill C-48 is a great piece of legislation that will keep Canadians even safer.
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Madam Speaker, since this is the first time I am standing up in the House since my appointment, I want to thank the Prime Minister for the faith he has in me. I want to assure all Canadians that I will be working very hard for them each and every day.
My friend from Vaughan—Woodbridge gave a really good speech, and I want to congratulate him for that. I know the member opposite just asked a question about timing. My recollection of what happened was that this bill was tabled months ago, well before we rose, and there was an opportunity to pass it. We pleaded with the Conservatives to get it passed. I appreciate the gesture today. Now that it is passed, I want to make sure that the Senate is able to pass this without any delays on the part of caucus members from the party opposite in the Senate.
Can my friend elaborate on how we can ensure that this law comes into effect as soon as possible?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations on his appointment; it is well-deserved.
We want to see the Senate deal with this bill effectively and efficiently, as all 338 members in this House did by providing unanimous consent for it. We would like to see the same thing done in the Senate as expeditiously as possible.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to split my time with the hon. opposition whip.
I know that we are at the point where we are going to pass this legislation, but I must put on the record that we do not believe that this is enough.
I will start with this question: How did we get here? After eight years of the Liberal government, we often ask this. The problem is almost always worse, and the answers are never satisfactory. The Liberals allocate blame to everyone and everything else. They are always claiming that it is outside of the government's control. The excuses are near endless, and either the policy prescriptions are absent in their entirety or they lack basic common sense.
Are crime rates up, or do we just think they are up when everything is actually fine? The justice minister in the Liberal government believes that Canadians simply think it is worse, even though crime is, in fact, getting worse. He basically says that it is all in their head.
Let us play back the tape, because two days after the new justice minister replaced the last one, he actually said this when asked if the country was less safe than it was before: “I think that empirically it's unlikely.... But I think there's a sense coming out of the pandemic that people’s safety is more in jeopardy.” That is a direct quote.
The reason people believe that safety is in jeopardy is because of the very fact that this country is less safe, and this is backed up by empirical evidence. The overall crime severity index was up 4.3% from 2021-2022, while the violent crime severity index was up 4.6% compared to the year earlier. Since the Liberals took office in 2015, the violent crime severity index has gone up 30%. Youth crime has risen by 17.8% in a single year.
The evidence is not hard to find. These numbers are from Stats Canada. They are the government's own statistics. In fact, Stats Canada said that the overall crime rate may be resuming an upward trend that was interrupted by the pandemic because of lockdowns and other government measures. This is what the latest data indicates. Somebody should let the minister know.
In Toronto, major crime is up this year by more than 20% since last year. Their cops are saying that; it is not us. That means more assaults, thefts, sexual violence and break and enters. Last year, I documented some of what was happening on Toronto's public transit. Public transit used to be an option for many in my community, until those who could do so simply opted out; those who cannot opt out have reason to feel unsafe, because what is happening on public transit in Toronto is unacceptable.
Here is a review from the last full year on record for the very city that the new justice minister represents. I will start with February 9 of last year. A TTC employee was randomly stabbed at Dupont station while just trying to do his job. One week later, a TTC bus driver was stabbed at Keele and Lawrence. Just over a month after that, a TTC operator was assaulted by six people in a swarming attack. In April, a man was shot dead on the TTC, this time at Sherbourne station, and 12 days later, another man was randomly stabbed at St. George station. That same month, a woman narrowly survived after being pushed onto the tracks. Less than a month later, a 12-year-old girl was sexually assaulted while riding a bus. Then in June, we all read the horrible story of a woman who was set on fire at a subway station. She later succumbed to her injuries.
This violence is already unconscionable, and we are only halfway through last year. In July, a man was assaulted while two men committed robbery at Don Mills station. The next month, a woman was the victim of a random assault at Sheppard-Yonge station. In October, a man fell asleep on the TTC and was assaulted and robbed. Just a few days later, a woman was stalked when she got off a bus in Scarborough; she was sexually assaulted. Then in December, things started to get worse.
On December 8 of last year, two people were randomly stabbed at High Park station, with one woman dying from her wounds. Two days after that, a TTC operator in Etobicoke was assaulted and robbed. In the same month, a woman was arrested for allegedly assaulting six different people on the subway.
In a separate string of incidents, a man allegedly sexually assaulted and exposed himself to multiple TTC riders. Toward the end of the month, an 81-year-old woman was left with a concussion after being assaulted on our city's transit system.
It is the fall of 2023, and the violence still has not abated. In fact, it has gotten worse, which is what the empirical evidence also says. It is not in anyone's head. Now, these are not all repeat violent offenders, but many are. However, my point is that the new justice minister ought to go outside, because this is happening in our own neighbourhood.
I will go back to my original questions: How did we get here? How did it get so bad?
In 2019, with Bill C-75, the Liberal government eased access to bail considerably. Bill C-75 legislated the principle of restraint concerning bail for police and courts to ensure that release at the earliest opportunity is favoured over detention. The principle of restraint is a linchpin that supports a catch-and-release justice system. This is clear in the numbers and the pressure on the federal government to fix issues with the bail system. It had no options. This is where we are at now. What Conservatives said would happen at the time is happening all over the country, including in the city where the justice minister and I both come from. Repeat violent offenders became the unintended consequence of changes to the bail law in 2019, which made it difficult to hold violent offenders in pretrial custody.
First, there was pressure that came from provincial and territorial justice ministers. Then, in December 2022, as members might remember, there was the murder of OPP Constable Greg Pierzchala. He was shot and killed by a 25-year-old who was out on bail. This shocked us all. The killer had a lengthy criminal record, including assaulting a peace officer, and he was subject to a lifetime firearms prohibition. Then, 13 premiers sent a letter to the Prime Minister calling on the Liberals to reverse their catch-and-release policies in order to protect the public, as well as first responders. The justice committee of the House also heard witness after witness calling for changes to the bail system. Witnesses from law enforcement to victim services and municipal leaders right across the board all said the same thing. In the face of random violent attacks committed by repeat offenders out on bail, the government is now touting this long-awaited plan to address the catch-and-release justice system it has enabled and overseen until it could no longer ignore the pressure and the evidence.
The bill before us would add the reverse onus provision for just four firearms offences and for individuals previously charged with intimate partner violence facing similar charges. This is not going to reverse the disastrous course that I just talked about in our own city. I do not know how to say this nicely, but it is not going to work. The Criminal Code amendments in Bill C-48 are only a tiny step to reversing the damage that the Liberals have done in masquerading as the be-all and end-all solution to the danger and the chaos unleashed on our neighbourhoods. It is hardly a solution.
The bill is very specific about what it considers violence, but it is not specific in a helpful way. To qualify for the new reverse onus provision, the suspect has to be charged with a crime involving violence and the use of a weapon, and their record over the last year has to have the same conviction in it. Therefore, it would not apply if a person committed a crime with their hands, if a person repeated a property crime that put somebody in danger, or if a person's second crime did not use a weapon but the first one did, or vice versa. One starts to get the picture.
The system has become accustomed to immediate bail for violent offenders. If the Liberals are going to showboat about an eight-page bill that would change the structure of bail hearings, they might want to ensure that there is something that would ultimately result in a prescription for judges to make different decisions in the face of this system. There is nothing in here that would change that, so it would not end the catch-and-release policies that were initiated by Bill C-75. The bill before us would not even have restricted bail for the accused killer of Officer Greg Pierzchala, which is one of the very obvious cases that led the government to be forced into admitting failure and presenting Bill C-48. The question is this: Why not fix it?
I hope that the Liberals go back to the drawing board and actually solve for the problem, which is backed by empirical evidence in every single one of our communities right across the country. It is not in the heads of Canadians; violent crime is a problem, and these guys are not the solution.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
One of the things my hon. colleague highlighted is the fact that what we are dealing with is really a small piece of the overall crime pie. The pie itself, and the difficulty that we are in, really lies with the Liberal Party, whether it be Bill C-75 from the last Parliament, Bill C-21 or Bill C-5. We now have sexual offenders or people who have committed serious gun crimes who can serve their sentence from the comfort of their home.
I would ask my hon. colleague this: How much further do we need to go, and is this going to help in a meaningful and significant way?
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Madam Speaker, I think the solution is very clear. Violent suspects who break their conditions of bail should be automatically remanded to jail until their court date. It is the jail, not bail solution. It is what is going to keep our communities safe. It is what is going to stop the incidence of repeat violent crime that is a problem in every one of our neighbourhoods, on every transit system, and in the justice minister's own community. I suggest that if Canadians want a solution to bring home safe streets, they will have the option to elect a Conservative government in the next election.
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Madam Speaker, my question for the member for Thornhill has to do with solving the large number of repeat offenders who are not involved in violent crime. I wonder if she would agree with me that part of the solution for most of the people who cause most of those cases the Conservatives like to talk about is to get people into substance abuse treatment and mental health programs and lift them out of poverty so they can truly become more productive members of our Canadian society.
Instead, the Conservatives have been arguing against a lot of the decriminalization of drugs that would lead to better treatment programs. Which is it for the Conservatives? Are we going to put money into resources and treatment so we can reduce this incidence of crime in our local communities?
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Madam Speaker, I am actually glad to hear my hon. colleague talk about treatment, because it is often something that is overlooked in what the NDP consistently pushes, which is safe supply. It is not working. There is a 300% increase in overdoses in this country. The member would know that in the city of Vancouver, in his own province, 6,000 crimes are committed by 40 criminals, which on average is 150 crimes per criminal. I do not know how this bill or anything the member suggests would be a solution to putting those 40 people away and solving 6,000 charged crimes. That is a countless number of victims of those crimes who do not come home every night to their families. We could stop this, but this bill would not do that.
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Madam Speaker, I do not want the member to give the impression that crime did not exist during the Harper and Conservative governments. I was a justice critic in Manitoba when we had serious issues with automobile thefts. It was the highest per capita in the whole country. I think there were close to 12,000 in one year. At the end of the day, we have to recognize that it is not just Ottawa. Our justice system is a shared responsibility, and it took the province to take action in order to get rid of some of those issues. I wonder if she can provide her thoughts on this. Instead of blaming Ottawa for all these problems, does she not recognize that the provinces and territories also have a role to play?
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's intervention, but today we are talking about provisions in the federal Criminal Code, which can be changed to make things better.
I will make a plea to those who are watching in my own riding. I have never in my entire life growing up in my community, in the city of Toronto, taking transit, been afraid until this year. I have rattled off the incidents and I could not even get through it. I know that is how people at home feel. I know that is, in large part, due to the soft-on-criminal-justice policies that the current Liberals have enacted in this country.
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Madam Speaker, let me first echo the comments of the Leader of the Opposition in response to the news earlier today and offer my sincerest condolences to the family of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was murdered near my home in Surrey.
Crime, chaos and disorder is the Prime Minister's legacy after eight years. This is the direct result of his dangerous soft-on-crime policies. Canadians' lives and sense of security are being destroyed in record numbers by criminals who should never have been out roaming the streets in the first place. Canadians are not feeling safe in their communities, on public transit, at public events or in coffee shops. They are rightly worried that they may be the next victim of the Prime Minister's crime wave.
The government's own statistics illustrate a stark reality. Violent crime has gone up 39%. Gang-related homicides are up 108%. Sex crimes against children are up 126%. Gun crime has increased every year and is up over 100% since 2015. The Prime Minister's response is to go after law-abiding hunters.
Across the country, murders are up 43%, the highest rate in 30 years. In Vancouver alone, murders have gone up 55%, and firearms-related offences are up 22%. In the last seven months alone, eight police officers were killed in the line of duty. There were eight in seven months. These statistics are alarming. We in the federal government, charged with national security, can never forget that they are more than statistics. These are real crimes happening to real people, with devastating consequences.
There are commuters carjacked at gunpoint, students lit on fire on the bus, teenagers stabbed at the subway and executions in the street, parking lots and driveways. This crime wave is a direct result of Liberal legislation passed, which was sponsored by the most radical minister of justice in Canadian history, the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. His bill broke the bail system. Where is he now? He is no longer in cabinet. Under his bill, Bill C-75, the catch-and-release act, violent offenders are arrested, then released on a promise that they will appear in court. They then commit another offence within hours. They have time and opportunity to commit crimes literally morning, afternoon and evening.
Take Vancouver, for example. As my colleague just mentioned, the same 40 offenders were arrested 6,000 times in a single year. That is 150 arrests each. Last year in Toronto, there were 17 gun-related murders committed by violent criminals out on bail. This summer in Edmonton, a father of seven children was stabbed in the chest, murdered at a transit station. Again, the accused was out on bail. The crime wave is evident in B.C. as it is elsewhere. In Surrey last April, a 17-year-old boy named Ethan Bespflug was stabbed and killed on a bus. A few days later, a young man was stabbed on the SkyTrain. In August, a man was shot in the face at a Surrey bus stop.
Recently, at Vancouver's Light Up Chinatown! festival, meant to bring the community together, a man who previously had murdered his teenage daughter by stabbing her stabbed three people. Last Thursday, Vancouver police arrested a man for four assaults committed in the span of 45 minutes. He used a chain and a concrete block.
One of the most horrific incidents in downtown Vancouver was last March. It was videotaped and shown on social media. A man standing outside a Starbucks was brutally and senselessly attacked, stabbed to death in front of his wife and daughter in broad daylight. We are talking about mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours.
Sadly, the urgency of this crime wave seems to be lost on the new Minister of Justice. Just days after he was sworn in, he said, “'I think that empirically it's unlikely” Canada is becoming less safe. He is in complete denial of the dangerous reality on the streets. He is telling victims of crime and Canadians who are rightly concerned, many living every day in fear, that it is all in their heads. Even by Liberal standards this was a ridiculous statement. Frankly, he should apologize for it.
For Liberal elites in their ivory towers, understanding the reality Canadians are facing in our communities is a difficult concept. I am pleased to see that the Liberals have finally woken up and are paying some attention to the heinous violence committed by criminals on bail. They should be listening to the experience of frontline law enforcement officers.
Constable Shaelyn Yang was tragically and senselessly stabbed to death while on duty by a man who was arrested for assault and out on bail on the condition that he would appear in court. He failed to appear. A warrant was issued for his rearrest, and when Constable Yang found him living in a park in Burnaby, he murdered her.
The case of Constable Yang is sadly not isolated. Last December, Constable Greg Pierzchala was shot and killed in the line of duty. The accused was out on bail, had a lengthy criminal record, including assaulting a peace officer, and was the subject of a lifetime firearm prohibition. Did I mention that he was shot?
Following this despicable murder, all 13 premiers wrote a joint letter to the Prime Minister demanding urgent action. Finally, after public blowback, the united call for change from the premiers and fierce criticism in the House from the Conservatives, the Liberals have admitted that they broke the bail system.
Today the Liberals have brought forward Bill C-48. We should all support this bill because it imposes a reverse onus on certain firearms offences and requires courts to consider the violent history of an accused. This is the reason the Conservatives asked for unanimous consent to pass this bill today. The NDP initially denied consent but has since agreed with the Conservatives that this bill should be passed today at all stages.
It is our view that Bill C-48 is a good start but still falls short, and a Conservative government will take steps to strengthen it. The legislation in its current form ignores several key recommendations put forward by the premiers, including the creation of a definition within the Criminal Code for serious prolific offenders and to initiate a thorough review of Canada's bail system.
Under Bill C-48, the accused killer of OPP Constable Pierzchala and countless other repeat violent offenders would have still been released back into the community. Under pressure from the Conservatives, the Liberals have now proposed a partial fix to an obviously broken bail system. The Conservatives can be counted on to fight for common-sense, thorough and meaningful improvements when we form government. It remains doubtful that the dangerous NDP-Liberal coalition will ever put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals.
Last year, this coalition passed Bill C-5, removing mandatory prison time for serious crimes, including robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm, discharging a firearm with intent, drug trafficking and the production of heroin, crystal meth or fentanyl. Bill C-5 also expanded the use of house arrest for several offences, including criminal harassment, kidnapping and sexual assault.
Thanks to NDP and Liberal MPs, those who commit sexual assault can serve their sentence at home in the same community as their victim. Think about that. The Liberals and the NDP would rather be on the side of violent men than their female victims. There is perhaps no greater example of this than the case of Paul Bernardo, a notorious serial rapist and killer of teenage girls. The Liberals allowed that monster to be transferred out of maximum security and into medium security over the objections of the victims' families. We brought a motion to the House calling for Bernardo to be returned to maximum security but Liberal members denied consent.
All of this is proof that the Liberal Party and its partners in the NDP cannot be counted on to protect victims or to restore safe streets. For that, we need a change in government. A common-sense Conservative government will bring home desperately needed safety to our streets, and we will do it by ensuring that prolific offenders remain behind bars while awaiting trial. The days of catch and release will be over.
After eight years, crime, chaos and disorder in our streets is the new normal. It should never be normal. Conservatives know we have a lot of work ahead, but we will fix our broken bail system and bring back safety to our communities.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague's speech was pretty wide-ranging and touched on a number of things. It contributed to the debate, but in some cases it did not.
We are talking about bail conditions and how we deal with people who commit crimes on bail. The member raised the tragedy outside the Starbucks in Vancouver, where Mr. Schmidt was knifed to death. However, that was by a person who was not out on bail, so I am not sure what that has to do with the legislation that is under consideration.
The current bail law in this country is that bail can be denied when an accused's criminal record is taken into account, particularly if they have failed to comply with past bail conditions or court orders. It is the law now that bail can be denied by a judge if someone has failed to comply with bail conditions in the past or if they have a repeat criminal record.
Could the member explain to us why she thinks the current law is not sufficient to keep those people in jail pending their trial, when that is the law right now?
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Madam Speaker, the reference to the horrific murder outside the Starbucks is about the rise in violent crime generally in Canada, and in my province of British Columbia, which we see unfortunately playing out, including on social media where people, and it is hard to even say, tape and send the videos out of actual murders of Canadian citizens.
That was one such situation. It is horrific. It has been brought about by an overall attitude of the Liberals and NDP in their coalition that is soft on crime and that does not deal with the most prolific repeat violent offenders. That is who we want to see targeted in our Criminal Code legislation. We will take the steps to do what is needed to get that job done.
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Madam Speaker, the member did a great job in her speech of going through the litany of what has unravelled in our criminal justice system under the current government.
During the debate, the Liberals are stepping back, as if they have had nothing to do with the problem that needs to be fixed, and they are taking credit for just following the recommendations the provinces made on bail reform.
Could the member take a moment to again reinforce the extent to which specific actions the Liberal government has undertaken over the last eight years have brought us to where we are today?
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Madam Speaker, the concern is over the philosophy of catch-and-release.
It is a term we usually use when fishing. However, it has come to mean someone being arrested, sometimes for a violent crime, early in the day, then the police seeing that person going down the street in the afternoon, and they end up arresting them for another crime. Then the police see that person in the evening, and there they are again arresting them for something they have done with criminal intent.
This idea of catch-and-release, this endless revolving door, does not work. There is no deterrence at all in a system like that when we are talking about people prone to violence, when we are talking people who would attack with chains and concrete blocks, who stab strangers at public events. This is destroying confidence in our justice system.
At the end of the day, the federal government has control over the Criminal Code, over sentencing and how this should go forward.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Before I begin, I just want to recognize a constituent who passed away, Ms. Anna Russo. I know that she leaves behind a daughter, Pina Russo. Her daughter Susie Russo, who was beloved in the Italian community, predeceased her. I send my condolences to the family.
My question to my hon. colleague is this: The member for Vancouver Kingsway just mentioned that people can be detained on their record. I recently spoke to a prosecutor who told me that somebody was in court for a bail hearing with 12 open files. Would my colleague agree that this is out of control, given those circumstances, and that we are not just dealing with one or two times of repeat offenders?
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Madam Speaker, ultimately, we are dealing with an approach to dealing with criminality. When the approach is to do the least amount necessary, that is what ends up happening. The least amount is done in response to egregious acts of criminality.
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