SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24

May/23/24 10:08:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to say. First, I added people to my ministerial team. I sped up background checks for candidates. I extended the eligibility period for a candidate who has already been assessed to three years. I extended the terms of each committee that makes recommendations on judicial appointments. I am working in close collaboration with judges themselves to understand their needs, for example in Quebec, in such expertise, in criminal law, in family law, et cetera. We are working as fast as we can to appoint more judges and to provide judges to the courts that need them.

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Mr. Martin Champoux

May/23/24 10:09:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, will the minister reconsider the decision not to require French-English bilingualism for the commissioners of the future miscarriage of justice review commission, or will French once again be optional in Canada?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:09:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that the creation of this commission is centred on access to justice. In order to have access to justice before this commission, people must be understood, which requires a translation system that—

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The Speaker

May/23/24 10:09:41 p.m.
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The hon. member for Drummond.

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Drummond

Mr. Martin Champoux

May/23/24 10:09:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-316

Mr. Speaker, my next question may be a little long. I am going to present a scenario, which will give the minister plenty of time to answer. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is currently studying Bill C-316, which deals with a program that we want to create a framework for and that we hope will become permanent. The Bloc Québécois defended this program during the years of the Harper government, which wanted to abolish it. We fought alongside other opposition parties at the time to protect this program, which is very important for advancing the rights of francophones outside Quebec and for advancing the human rights of many individuals and groups. The current program includes a provision that prevents the federal government from funding challenges of Quebec or provincial legislation through the human rights branch. We think it would be appropriate for Quebec, as a nation repeatedly recognized by Parliament, to have access to a similar provision, an asymmetry provision for Quebec, to ensure that the program cannot fund challenges to the Charter of the French Language. This would help us protect the French language in Quebec while continuing to actively advocate for the advancement of francophones outside Quebec. Will the minister accept the Bloc Québécois's offer of help and agree to consider suggested amendments to Bill C‑316 to this effect?

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The Speaker

May/23/24 10:11:01 p.m.
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It was a long question. The minister therefore has only 49 seconds to respond.

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:11:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have several responses to give. First, the court challenges program was created by a Liberal government. It was eliminated by Harper's Conservative government and then reinstated by our government. Second, the program is not managed by me, but by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, because the Attorney General and the Department of Justice are significantly involved in many cases. We are always either the defendant or the complainant in the cases. Finally, with respect to the situation he mentioned, I will follow up to get a little more information about those concerns.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

May/23/24 10:11:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to do something. The canvassing of issues this evening has been extraordinary and, I am afraid, all too often, superficial. I want to dive into a couple of things and just ask the minister for his reflections because this is tough stuff. I do not think there is a single Canadian who is not grieved whenever somebody “out on bail” commits a crime and some innocent person's whole life is ruined. They may have lost a relative. They will never get over it. The family that was involved in the high-speed crash on Highway 401 is a heartbreaking example. During the conversation about this earlier tonight, it was said that the man responsible for this was out on bail. When one examines it, the individual who died in the crash, and who clearly had violated a number of laws, or was accused of violating laws, and who was under bail conditions not to be behind the wheel of a vehicle, should not have been chased. It is complicated. Who is responsible for a high-speed crash going the wrong way down the 401 that kills grandparents and an infant? It is all too simple to say that it is the person who was under bail conditions not to drive, but the high-speed chase that ensued was, from everything I have seen, against all police protocols. The person who had committed the crime had committed the crime of a liquor store theft. He was not thought to be at risk of violently offending or about to kill, abduct or kidnap someone. The high-speed chase was seen to be, by many law enforcement officials, the wrong reaction at the wrong moment, and it led to tragedy. Does the minister have any thoughts on that particular example?

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Hon. Arif Virani (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.)

May/23/24 10:13:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her contribution. I would underscore that bail decisions are made by individual justices of the peace or provincial court judges across the country all of the time. They are always trying to work according to the three principles I mentioned, which are flight risks, the likelihood of reoffending, and the message being sent to the community to ensure confidence in the administration of justice. With respect to police actions, I think that bears some inquiry into why a police pursuit was taking place in the wrong direction on the highway in that instance. I will share with the hon. member the incredible sadness and sympathy that I feel for the family that suffered such a horrific loss. What we are working constantly to do is to ensure fewer fatal accidents of that nature and that we are keeping Canadians as safe as possible at all times.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

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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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:16:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Umar Zameer case exemplifies the importance of being judicious in our language and ensuring that we do not wade into decisions that govern criminal prosecutions and decisions that are being made by our courts and our justices of the peace. There has never been a more clear example to my mind. However, I would underscore that the presumption of innocence also includes a presumption and an entitlement to not be denied reasonable bail without just cause. That is protected under section 11(e) of the charter, and its salutary impact is demonstrably exemplified in the Umar Zameer case. What I found very troubling is that a number of politicians of various stripes waded into that matter, decrying, in the first instance, the abject horror of the notion of someone like Mr. Zameer being granted bail. He was ultimately vindicated and found to have been not guilty. I think that demonstrates that the work the system does is necessary, and it is doing the work that it needs to do in an impartial and independent manner. It goes back to some of the interventions we heard earlier from the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo when he talked about my attendance in court during open court processes. Attempts to influence actively, or even the perceptions of such influence, are untoward in this country. That is inappropriate behaviour that should never be countenanced, and comments on the appropriateness or not of a bail decision in a given matter are equally inappropriate and not suitable in a democracy such as ours, where we need to safeguard the lines between independent prosecutions and adjudication and political involvement.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/23/24 10:18:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it seems that the bail supervision programs, which are cost-effective, are quite underfunded. Am I correct that those are funded through provincial and territorial governments?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:18:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, bail supervision and the monitoring bail in how changes land on the ground, who is getting bail and who is not, is absolutely funded by the provinces. We have been encouraging them to track this information better so that we can make any further changes that are required.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/23/24 10:18:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I mentioned what is cost-effective because it is about $120,000 a year per inmate to keep people in jail, and there are currently more legally innocent people awaiting trial, who are still legally presumed innocent until proven guilty, in the jails of our provinces and territories than there are people who have been proven guilty. Does the minister understand that to be the case?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:19:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely understand that to be the case. It really undercuts this narrative that bail is somehow too facile to obtain in this country when 70% of the population of prisons around the country are actually on remand. That is exactly commensurate with other peer countries. I think that underscores the point that the issues that need to be addressed are widespread and include how we track bail and the decisions that are being made by justices of the peace.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

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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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:20:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a very important suggestion. I do not have that data, but I can assure the member that, at my next federal-provincial-territorial meeting, which is in Yellowknife in the fall, I will raise this very issue. We have raised issues about how we are changing the bail rules at the federal level, but how they are landing on the ground in terms of supervision of bail, and when bail is violated, whether monies are collected, is an important issue that I will raise at that meeting.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/23/24 10:20:42 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-63

Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to Bill C-63. I support Bill C-63, the online hate bill, but I do not think it adequately gets to some of the questions of algorithms. I think we have a real problem with rage farming. Some of the examples I have raised tonight are specifically useful because they raise ire and quick reaction and can be used to change public opinion through the manufacturing of a degree of rage that might otherwise not exist if all the facts were thoroughly discussed. Does the minister believe that Bill C-63 could get at something like rage farming without getting at the algorithms?

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Hon. Arif Virani

May/23/24 10:21:26 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-63

Mr. Speaker, I have a few responses. First of all, Bill C-63 contemplates a responsibility to file a digital safety plan with the new commissioner to indicate how one is going to moderate risk for one's users, and lastly, to be vetted against that moderation and to be subject to penalties or orders by the digital safety commissioner. It also contemplates the idea that the digital safety commissioner could green-light researchers at universities around the country to get access to some of the inner workings of the platforms. This has been hailed by people like Frances Haugen, the famous Facebook whistle-blower, as internationally leading legislation on promoting some of the transparency the member opposite is seeking, which I seek as well.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

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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