SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 329 - Jun/11/24

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

Jun/11/24 4:49:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to address that with a measure of credulity, but I find it troubling that the member filibustered this very bill for 30 hours at committee and then proposed report stage amendments that would entirely gut the bill. With respect to my discussions with the former minister, David Lametti, we talked about the importance of the bill. Here is why we talked about it. We talked about overrepresentation of Black and indigenous persons in our justice system. We talked about the fact that only 29 cases in over 20 years have ever seen the light of day in terms of wrongful conviction, whereas in the same time frame in the United Kingdom, 542 have seen the light of day. That does not mean that the U.K. is doing things worse; it means they are finding the cases. What I find most troubling about the Conservative Party's position on the bill is that, somehow, keeping innocent people festering in prison has, incredibly, become a partisan matter. The reason we are time-allocating the bill is that we need to move on correcting an injustice. We will be firm in our conviction in doing so.

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Context: House Hansard - 329 - Jun/11/24

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Jun/11/24 4:50:18 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-40

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that, in the House, we have seen Conservatives blocking every good piece of legislation and refusing to let things go through, such as dental care, pharmacare and affordable housing. Conservatives opposed all those pieces of legislation. With respect to Bill C-40, miscarriage of justice, it would seem to me that it is incumbent on all of us to have a justice system that functions well and does not put innocent people behind bars. That does not seem to be the perspective of the Conservative Party. The Conservatives want to block this legislation. The Conservatives want innocent people to remain behind bars. It is a profound disservice to Parliament that the Conservatives have been blocking this legislation, and they have not really offered any explanation except for the fact that they oppose everything that would benefit people, all measures of justice. I want to ask my colleague why Conservatives have opposed the bill, tried to block it at every step and filibustered it at committee when it would provide justice in this country and a mechanism to ensure that innocent people are not kept behind bars.

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Context: House Hansard - 329 - Jun/11/24

Hon. Arif Virani

Jun/11/24 5:13:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that time allocation is useful if it is used when necessary. In this case, it is necessary. We saw how the Conservatives behaved when the bill was being studied at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. They filibustered for more than 30 hours. In the House, they decided to propose report stage amendments that would completely gut the bill. It is abundantly clear to all Canadians watching that the Conservatives' currently have zero interest, whether in committee or in the House, in reversing miscarriages of justice. They may well say that they are looking for another way of going about it. The fact is that the current method is not working. We are not succeeding right now because we are not finding the cases. There are certainly more cases out there. This commission would give us the tools for doing so. That is why we are importantly promoting the establishment of a commission, because it can make change and have an impact on real people's lives, including the victims that the member for Fundy Royal likes to speak about. He conveniently omits victims of wrongful convictions, which is quite selective, from my perspective, and certainly irrational and intellectually hypocritical.

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