44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 23, 2024 10:00AM
- May/23/24 2:51:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in conversations, women more than men face being constantly interrupted. When women express their ideas, those ideas often go unrecognized until reiterated by a man. When women push back, they are seen as less likeable, and negative labels are disproportionately applied to them. It is critical now more than ever that men speak up to defend women's rights and underscore their support for lasting gender equality.
Can the Minister of Justice reiterate our government's support on the importance of male allyship and ways our government is addressing this issue?
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- May/23/24 2:51:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am an ally and I am speaking up. I am speaking up about the epidemic of gender-based violence. I am speaking up about women having full control over their bodies and their reproductive rights. That includes the right to abortion and the right to free contraception.
When we as men make spaces for women's voices, we not only learn but we also help create better, more inclusive policies. I urge every man in the chamber, from every single party, to stand up and to be an ally. The fight for gender equality in this country is a fight for all of us.
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- May/23/24 3:11:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the charter protects our right to free expression. It protects our right to worship whom we choose. It protects our right to equality. It protects our right to be presumed innocent.
If we stand for freedom, we do not get to cherry-pick which rights and freedoms we defend, but that is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has said he would do. He has openly declared that he would use the notwithstanding clause to trample on these very charter rights. No federal leader has ever done this in Canadian history.
Our government enacted the charter, our government stands by the charter, and we will always defend the charter rights and freedoms of every Canadian.
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Mr. Speaker, I notice once again that I have given the minister a lot of opportunities, and he has not answered any of my questions directly.
He knows the answer to this one, and he is not going to give it, so I will have to give it on his behalf. The Victoria Police Department statement says, “Bill C-75, which came into effect nationally in 2019, legislated a 'principle of restraint' that requires police to release an accused person at the earliest possible opportunity”.
The police laid the blame for this individual being released three times in a row to revictimize Canadians squarely at the feet of the minister. A woman was injured in the process of one of the thefts.
On the issue of the Liberals' draconian Bill C-63, which Margaret Atwood has described as “Orwellian”, has he completed a charter statement for this bill that clearly threatens the rights of Canadians?
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- May/23/24 7:26:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first, let me start by thanking the minister for his remarks and saying that it is a privilege to serve alongside him in his capacity as Minister of Justice.
The minister made some remarks about our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Throughout my entire adult life, this has been a document that Canadians have come to rely on, and the expectation is that their rights will be protected. However, about two weeks ago, the leader of the official opposition said something that can only be described as astonishing. In fact, it is frightening. He told Canadians that he, and he alone, would be the sole arbiter of my rights, and all Canadians' rights, which he would defend. That is not the way Canada works. That is not the way the federal government works. Never in the history of our country has the federal government ever invoked the notwithstanding clause.
Perhaps the minister could expand on his comments, on the importance of the charter and on this reckless suggestion by the Leader of the Opposition.
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- May/23/24 7:28:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians need to understand what the charter protects. It protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, lawful assembly and Canadians' right to equality. It also protects Canadians' right to be presumed innocent under the law. These are quite fundamental.
What I find absolutely cavalier and astonishing is that instead of speculation, we have the Leader of the Opposition, a man who would purport to one day trying to become prime minister, openly declaring that he would use a clause within that document to trample on those charter rights.
That is really quite astonishing. First, because it has never been done before at the federal level, and that is for good reason. With the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we do not get to sort of cherry-pick which rights we are talking about and which rights we would purport to defend. The Leader of the Opposition talked about it in the context of criminal justice reform that he would purport to put in place.
Next, the charter deals with protections of things such as women's reproductive rights, Canadians' ability to marry the person they choose and their ability to use pronouns of their choice. These are fundamental rights for Canadians, and they deserve to be protected.
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- May/23/24 7:29:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are the party that invented the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We created it and passed it into law.
We are the party that will always stand by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that includes all charter rights and freedoms. We do not selectively choose some of them. We will defend every Canadian's rights under the charter, and not cavalierly invoke the notwithstanding clause.
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- May/23/24 8:56:02 p.m.
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Madam Chair, how many years ago did he promise to enforce and to review the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights?
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- May/23/24 8:56:56 p.m.
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Madam Chair, they were called to do a review in 2020 on behalf of victims everywhere. What a shameful representation from the Minister of Justice that this Canadian Victims Bill of Rights has never been reviewed. I ask the minister today, he is the Minister of Justice, to name the four issues that have been asked to be reviewed, because in this country, criminals have more rights than victims. What are they? Please tell the victims watching.
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- May/23/24 8:57:24 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what I would say to these questions is that I am encouraged by the member's passion in the defence of victims, including women who are victims of violence. What I would hope is that her leader would demonstrate the same commitment toward women's rights generally, including women's rights—
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- May/23/24 8:58:02 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I reject categorically the accusation that raising the issue of a woman's right to choose, a woman's control over her reproductive rights, is something that should be the subject of scorn by any member of Parliament. These are constitutionally protected rights that are protected by section 7, which is one of the provisions that is subject to the notwithstanding clause her leader is—
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- May/23/24 9:02:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as a point of clarification, the Victims Bill of Rights was reviewed by the justice committee last year. With respect to decisions about individual cases of bail, those are made by independent and impartial justices of the peace in Ontario.
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- May/23/24 10:22:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to the question of the Victims Bill of Rights. When the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights was going through this place, I had the honour to be a member of Parliament at that time. I worked with then ombudsperson Sue O'Sullivan, who was trying to get some specific ways of enforcing the Victims Bill of Rights. It is one thing to write the Victims Bill of Rights, but Canada is pretty well known around the world as having rights for victims that cannot be enforced.
I wonder if the minister is open to looking at the way the State of California pursues protecting victims' rights to information, emotional support and so on through what in California is called Marsy's Law.
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- May/23/24 10:45:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House, particularly at this time and with this august group, and indeed in the presence of wonderful colleagues across the way.
The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle and I had the opportunity to speak on a panel yesterday. It was wonderful to see that he is continuing his ongoing masterclass in misinformation in the chamber. It is important for all of us as Canadians to reflect on the consequences when misinformation is spread, or perhaps when elected leaders choose to openly challenge the rights of others.
I want to talk a little today about a woman's right to choose. I want to start by asking all of us whether or not we truly believe in freedom, the freedom of a woman to make decisions for what happens to her body. On this side of the House, we have been very clear that this is a priority for us. It has always been something that we will defend. That is why it is of grave concern to many of my constituents in Vancouver Granville to hear so many members opposite willing to really question or begin to put doubt into the minds of Canadians as to whether or not their party would indeed defend a woman's right to choose.
In fact, we have heard members opposite making comments such as that women who have abortions end up needing redemption, needing forgiveness and needing God. One of the members opposite said this and said that she spoke for all MPs from the Conservative Party. That was a week ago, not 40, 50 or even 20 years ago. It was seven or eight days ago. If Canadians look at the chamber as the chamber that is supposed to uphold their freedoms, I do not understand how members opposite in the Conservative Party could truly be purveyors of freedom when all they want to do is take away the rights of women.
We have seen Conservative governments across this country try to curtail the rights of 2SLGBTQI+ individuals because they do not believe they fit with their socially conservative way of living. That is also a concern for any of us that purport to care about freedom. If we in the chamber truly care about freedom, then every member of the House, including members opposite, would be actively supporting the rights of others, even those who may be different from them.
That is why I think it is so important for us to continue the fight for freedom. However, our definition of freedom, on this side of the House, is not to obfuscate, misinform or mislead unintentionally, but really to do the things that would cause Canadians to feel as though their Parliament, their parliamentarians, have their back.
Let us talk about ways in which members opposite have chosen not to have the back of Canadians, particularly when it comes to the question of freedom. We have seen the Leader of the Opposition openly cavorting with ideologically motivated violent extremists from Diagolon. We have seen him visit camps where people have made claims that Canada is broken or that the Prime Minister must be hanged. They have been actively engaging with white supremacists, brought them into this place and had meals with them.
How is that freedom? Is that the type of freedom that Canadians want? I think it is not. I think Canadians would like to know that their parliamentarians, the leaders whom they elect, care deeply about protecting their rights. That is why it was so disturbing for me to hear the Leader of the Opposition talk so freely about using the notwithstanding clause, about how he would choose to override the rights of others under his laws, and about how he would decide what laws were constitutional.
I have seen governments of all stripes, and I wonder what Canadians would ask. I wonder what Progressive Conservative prime ministers of the past would ask or would be thinking if they were to hear their once-grand party becoming the party of misinformation, the party of taking away the rights of others.
It makes perfect sense. The Leader of the Opposition and many of his acolytes were trained under Stephen Harper, who sought to set up a snitch line. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition was a key player in that and defended it.
They sought to take away the right to vote of women who wore the niqab. They sought to take away the right to vote of many Canadians. In fact, today, the Minister of Immigration had to make a decision to overturn many of the misguided policies of the members opposite in curtailing the rights of lost Canadians.
When I talk about freedom, members opposite are only interested in taking away the freedoms of people they do not like and preserving their own freedoms, the freedom to run up large expense accounts on the public purse, to have expensive champagne on the public purse or to travel to conventions on the public purse, but not the freedom for a woman to choose what happens to her own body, for a young person questioning their sexuality to feel like they can be safe in their community or for all those women and others who have been marred by violence in the home to feel safe. They want to put guns back in the homes of Canadians and in the hands of Canadians who may not need guns. Why anybody in this country would need a semi-automatic weapon like an AR-15, I do not know, but that is what members opposite want to do.
It is really important for us to spend a bit of time on this concept of freedom every single day and ask ourselves what kind of freedom we want for Canadians. Frankly, I would want freedom from the types of imposing views that the members opposite have on the rights of those who they may not consider the types of Canadians they want in this country.
We have heard members opposite talk openly about taking away a woman's right to choose. We have seen them cavort with people who would like to take away the rights of people who look like me. We have seen them spend time with people who openly want to overthrow our democracy and undermine it at every turn, and they do it by spreading misinformation and hate and trying to sow discord among communities in this country. It is well past time that all members of this House take a position and say that it is no longer acceptable for us to say freedom for me, but not for thee. That is the position that the Conservative Party has chosen to take.
I will end with the following thought. If we truly believe in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, if we truly believe in our Constitution, if we truly believe in the notion of freedom for all Canadians, then are we not willing to stand up and say that these may not be rights that I need, but they are rights that others in this country might need? Is that not the type of country we want, where each and every one of us is prepared to stand up and defend the rights and freedoms of people we may consider different? On this side of the House, that is exactly what we seek to do. I am very fearful that members opposite will persist in trying to take away the rights of people who do not share their far-right, extremist views.
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- May/23/24 10:58:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in that regard I have serious doubts about that, based on the voting pattern that I have seen thus far and the actions that I have observed thus far from the Leader of the Opposition in terms of interactions with the LGBTQ community and willingness to stand up for the rights of the LGBTQ community. I do not see that demonstrated by his actions thus far, and I think that is quite amplified by the fact that I also have not seen him criticize invocations of the notwithstanding clause that are already occurring in provinces in this country against that very same community. I will judge him by his actions, and his actions leave a lot to be desired.
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