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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 329

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 11, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 329 - Jun/11/24
Hon. Arif Virani
  • Jun/11/24 5:03:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I respect the member and his work on the justice committee. I do not respect the interpretation he has just put on the floor of the House. What the bill talks about is that rights of appeal must be exhausted. Appealing to a court of appeal per existing case law or appealing all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada would not be necessary. What I explained in French, and I will explain again in English, is that we heard repeatedly at committee from interveners who talked about the fact that even pursuing an appeal can be an impediment to accessing justice for people who are impecunious, racialized, disadvantaged or vulnerable. In certain exceptional circumstances, the law should safeguard the possibility for even a person who has not exhausted an appeal to raise their hand to say that they believe they have been treated unfairly by the system and have been wrongfully convicted. In exceptional circumstances, those types of cases should be permitted to be heard by a review commission. Does it guarantee that a review commission would decide that it should go back to a trial court or to an appeal court on a question of law? It does not. The key point is that it would allow them an entry point. It would not determine the final outcome. The notion the member is positing, which is that we are somehow subverting the entire justice system, is simply false on its face. We are replicating a system that has been well-used in the United Kingdom, where they are finding these cases. We are not. We are not serving Canadian victims. That party tends to prize itself as always being on the side of Canadian victims, except when someone is a victim of a wrongful conviction, it would appear.
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