44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 23, 2024 10:00AM
- May/23/24 7:57:07 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the purview of the Attorney General of Canada, with respect to the conduct of litigation, is not to wade into criminal prosecutions. There is a very strong line that has existed for over 20 years. That is why we have a Director of Public Prosecutions Act. That is why we have an arm's-length entity and an individual who is the director of public prosecutions so we do not have potential political direction being given about investigating crimes or laying charges in this country in any respect.
If people have evidence of a potential crime being committed, they should contact law enforcement, not the Office of the Attorney General of Canada.
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Madam Chair, extortion is a Criminal Code violation currently and there is already a mandatory minimum penalty that applies to repeat extortion with a firearm. The mandatory minimum is seven years. The maximum penalty for extortion is life imprisonment. With respect to not tolerating extortion, what we are doing is looking closely and trying to work with law enforcement officials to understand the nature of the problem, particularly in the South Asian community in B.C. and in Ontario, to target this in a more robust manner.
I would also encourage the member to look at what we are doing with Bill C-70, the foreign interference legislation that we recently tabled in this House, which looks at organized criminality that is being orchestrated by criminal elements that are operating abroad but manifesting here.
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- May/23/24 8:21:04 p.m.
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Madam Chair, from the situations that have been described to me by police officers in Quebec, we need to target the Criminal Code. We are making changes—
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- May/23/24 8:22:35 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would like to clarify something to the member across the way. When we amend the Criminal Code to increase a maximum prison sentence we are sending a message to judges and the justice system that we very strongly condemn auto theft.
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- May/23/24 8:24:01 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the measure is completely useless because there has never been a case where a criminal was arrested and received a maximum sentence for car theft. How can the minister try to make people believe that his proposal will change anything about auto theft?
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- May/23/24 8:27:34 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I work diligently on Criminal Code reform, including bail reform, to ensure to keep Canadians safe.
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- May/23/24 8:33:15 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the hon. member should know that is categorically incorrect, and I encourage him to read the Criminal Code. If someone commits an extortion with a prohibited firearm, that person is subject to a mandatory minimum.
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- May/23/24 8:34:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Chair, the minister is incorrect. I will give him one more chance.
Does he think it was wise to make it easier for a criminal to commit extortion with a gun through a Bill C-5, yes or no?
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- May/23/24 8:34:59 p.m.
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Madam Chair, we know it is on the rise since 2015 because of soft-on-bail policies. Does the minister think a four-year mandatory minimum is too long for a criminal who commits extortion with a gun, yes or no?
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- May/23/24 9:01:37 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what I would emphasize is that bail is governed by certain fundamental precepts that are in the Criminal Code of Canada. It is about ensuring that people are not a flight risk or likely to repeat an offence. It is also demonstrating the community's denunciation.
In Ontario, individual bail determinations are mainly made by justices of the peace.
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- May/23/24 9:03:15 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what I can further indicate with respect to bail decisions is that the Criminal Code provides that one can bring a review application for a bail decision—
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- May/23/24 9:19:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely can. I will say that cross-party collaboration is happening, at least, between the federal and the provincial governments, with my counterparts in Ontario and Quebec, where I have a strong collaborative relationship with Attorney General Doug Downey. What we have said is that we need to be working together. That is why we are investing in law enforcement, which assists the province.
That is why we are making changes to the Criminal Code. What are those changes? We are introducing an aggravating factor where, if an adult organized criminal is using a child or an adolescent, we will ensure that they are subject to a tougher penalty. We are ensuring that if one does a carjacking, a violent car theft in broad daylight, one is subject to a tougher penalty of up to 14 years. If there are threats of violence or the involvement of organized criminality, that will trigger differential penalties.
In addition, the possession and distribution of the device that is used, the key fob theft devices, etc., will trigger additional penalties. These points are critical for tackling the pressing issue of auto theft. They have been welcomed by the law enforcement community and partisan people of every political stripe around this country at multiple levels. The only people who do not seem to be welcoming and embracing these changes are those in the official opposition, and it leads me to wonder why.
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- May/23/24 9:31:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister referred to a miscarriage of justice.
Does the current minister respect Canada's Criminal Conviction Review Group, yes or no?
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- May/23/24 9:31:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, under the current process, the minister relies on a recommendation from the Criminal Conviction Review Group. That is the system we have now.
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- May/23/24 9:32:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, did Minister Lametti seek other opinions to determine whether he was going to make his decision, apart from that of the Criminal Conviction Review Group?
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- May/23/24 10:14:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think all these specific examples that are exploited end up leading people to doubt some of the fundamentals of our British common law criminal justice system, which is that one is innocent until proven guilty. People out on bail are essentially legally innocent people. They have not been found guilty of crimes.
We can take the example, recently, of Umar Zameer, who was involved in a tragic accident in which a police officer was killed in July 2021. The prosecution and the justice system decided to charge him with first-degree murder, which would indicate that he knowingly knew this was a policeman and that he deliberately killed him. He was not released. He was only found not guilty nearly three years later, and in the court, in an extraordinary measure, the judge apologized to Mr. Zameer.
His lawyer, Mr. Nader Hasan, reports that he was also harassed and received hate mail for the horror that he would represent someone who was charged with first-degree murder. Again, this was someone who nearly had his liberties taken from him forever, in what was a very harsh prosecution, but the essence of the response, immediately when he was released on bail, from public figures whom I respect, such as former Toronto mayor John Tory, was “How could this happen?” and “this is dreadful”.
Does the minister have any concerns, as I do, that if we fail to remember that we are innocent until proven guilty in our criminal law system, we are at larger peril than the individual cases we are talking about?
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- May/23/24 10:19:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have never practised criminal law, but members of my family have been prosecutors. The question that occurs to me often, and one of the things that seems outside the jurisdiction of the federal government, is whether it would not be salutary to find some way that, when someone violates bail conditions or their surety is not observing them, bail would actually be collected, As a general matter, people put money forward as bail money for someone to be released on bail, but when those conditions are violated, does the minister have any data as to how often the bail money is then collected from those who put it forward?
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- May/23/24 10:34:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as a former Crown attorney, he knows that even the mere appearance of the chief law officer of the Crown could render potential suspicion of influence on a process. That is why I would not appear during a live criminal proceeding.
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- May/23/24 10:34:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, avoiding court appearances in criminal matters by politicians would also be—
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- May/23/24 10:41:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that as a former Speaker, the member used to consult Speakers' decisions, but I also would appreciate that he knows about Supreme Court jurisprudence. What Bill C-75 did was codify a Supreme Court decision called “Antic”. The law was already in place. We took that law from the court cases and put it into the Criminal Code. That is what codification involves.
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