SoVote

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

May/23/24 9:18:02 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-40

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-40 represents a staggering change in the way we envisage wrongful convictions in this country. It would provide a new mechanism, a review commission, which would have the tools and resources to go out and find the cases. In the same time period, in the U.K., within a 20-year time frame, about 500 cases were unearthed that dealt with wrongful convictions. In the same time period in Canada, 27 cases were found. I know the member to be a strong advocate of the indigenous community in this country. Among those 27 cases in Canada, five involved Black or indigenous men. Given the severe overrepresentation of Black and indigenous people in our justice system, that is a completely disproportionate statistic that is statistically improbable. Does it mean that, in the U.K., they are wrongfully convicting more people than we are in Canada? No, I think it means that we are not finding the cases here in Canada. The bill, unfortunately, was obstructed at the justice committee, but it has now finally left the justice committee. Through it, we have the ability to make a fundamental change in how we deal with wrongful convictions in this country, providing the resources and the outreach capability to find the cases and bring innocent men and women to justice in this country, something that is long overdue.

229 words

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

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

May/23/24 10:11:59 p.m.
Watch

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?

307 words

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

Ms. Elizabeth May

May/23/24 10:14:41 p.m.
Watch

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?

269 words

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

Ms. Elizabeth May

May/23/24 10:18:39 p.m.
Watch

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?

68 words