It’s an honour to rise today to speak to this matter. I want to thank my colleagues for taking the time to speak to this critical matter, and the members of the Standing Committee on Justice Policy for their thoughtful dialogue, debate and contributions that produced a strong, clear and comprehensive document entitled A Report on the Modernization of the Bail System: Strengthening Public Safety. This cumulative effort will save lives, and it’s far more than symbolic. It’s important to note that the findings and recommendations contained in this report were only made possible by the contributions of highly credible, caring leaders who invested their time to share their experience, insights and research, with the goal of improving safety in our communities and the safety of those sworn to protect us. Of those credible, caring leaders, Premier Ford took early, decisive action to lead his fellow Premiers and territorial leaders with integrity in standing united and without partisanship to urge the Prime Minister to take immediate action in this regard. My hope is that this document and our motion today can send a clear message and influence our federal lawmakers to update a crucial component of the Criminal Code of Canada, while making the necessary investments to our justice system to achieve tangible outcomes and prevent the needless loss of life and injury from the few who have no regard for anyone but themselves.

And let’s be clear, Speaker: None of these proposed amendments to this motion were heard by the participant members of this committee at committee. I didn’t hear it. I was there every day.

The need for bail reform in Canada to protect everyone from this very small percentage of violent, chronic, repeat offenders is long overdue, and the call is not a new one. The murder of Provincial Constable Greg Pierzchala, sadly, highlights an issue that our practitioners have known about for many years and are forced to live with daily.

Police officers in Ontario and across Canada face significant challenges and risks that are unique to this profession. The oath police officers swear to serve and protect our communities and the risks they assume to place their lives in harm’s way so that we can live and prosper in safe communities places these professionals at a very unique vantage point that few others have.

I’m privileged and fortunate for having that lived experience as a long-serving police professional, and now, I serve alongside you to share that perspective. I placed my life at risk, and I understand and appreciate this perspective uniquely, like they do. This experience allows me to better understand people—people at their worst and people at their best.

I also carry some of the burdens that our front-line first responders carry every day. I have felt first-hand the frustration and anguish of seeing persons accused of violent crimes against people they know, against strangers and even intimate partners, brought to justice by our law enforcement members only to be released on bail conditions to “keep the peace and be of good behaviour.” This has impacted and continues to impact the morale of our hard-working front-line members because it diminishes the dangerous and difficult work they do every day.

The risk to the safety of police officers while bringing a violent offender to justice takes a tremendous toll on their lives and on their families’ lives. This burden includes, of course, the inherent danger of dealing with a violent person or an armed violent person; the high level of scrutiny, checks and balances that are rightfully built into the system to ensure accountability and integrity; and most certainly the time-sensitive nature and the keen sense of urgency, which few understand, that accompanies all criminal investigations to ensure that an accused is brought before justice in a timely fashion.

The safety of law enforcement officers is of paramount importance because it fundamentally is linked to the very foundation of a safe society. Section 7 of the charter, eloquently read by my colleague, says, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” Our society functions based on this premise. If someone chooses to live outside the law and harm others, they’ll be brought to justice and there will be consequences. In Canada, persons accused and then duly convicted of serious indictable offences could suffer the consequence of incarceration.

The component in between the accusation of committing a crime and the conviction or acquittal is an opportunity to see what Canadians and Ontarians should celebrate as some of our most precious legal rights also enshrined in the charter, particularly section 9 that says, “Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.”

Moreover, section 11(e) states that any person charged with an offence has the right “not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause.” This feature should be championed, notwithstanding circumstances where the evidence of crime is so egregious and the risk to our safety is so great that that accused must remain in custody pending trial. Used properly, the application of this section saves lives, and it would have saved the life of Constable Greg Pierzchala.

Unfortunately, the bail system in Canada has long been proven to be ineffective, leading to the release of violent offenders who go off to reoffend and continue to pose a significant threat to all our safety. This is unacceptable. There is a myriad of reasons why the current bail system is failing to protect us from violent repeat offenders. The conditions for release on bail are often inadequate and do not consider the actual risk posed by that individual.

In my own experience, I’ve witnessed first-hand many cases where individuals with lengthy violent histories are released on bail with few conditions or with conditions that are impossible to enforce. This puts the safety of police officers and the public at risk—our families.

The bail system for individuals accused of violent crimes, all crimes involving weapons and firearms, and crimes against intimate partners should be examined with greater scrutiny and by the appropriate member of the judiciary with specific training and expertise, and they should be held accountable for their decisions.

By carefully applying and better aligning our bail system provisions with goals to better protect communities and our law enforcement officers, we can avoid the unintended consequences that are contributing to increased recidivism and prevent those accused of non-violent offences from spending lengthy times in provincial jails awaiting trial. As noted during the committee hearings, a great number of persons are incarcerated in provincial jails awaiting trial. This is costly and ineffective.

Enhancements to the bail system and investments to support the capacity and resources of our law enforcement officers to conduct bail monitoring, and embedding clinicians with specialized training in mental health and addictions to work more closely with our police officers will also protect persons from marginalized communities by reducing systemic biases and increasing equality in our justice system.

As a former and proud law enforcement professional, I agree with Ontario’s police leaders, who unanimously agreed that bail reform will save lives.

To address these issues, the federal government need not look further than this motion today and the articulate, eloquent report that was completed unanimously by the committee members. These reforms are necessary to ensure the bail system is fair, equitable and just in protecting the public and deterring reoffenders. This will help to improve the safety of police officers and improve the safety of the communities we live in. By working together and supporting this motion today, we have a real opportunity to create a system that is truly just and effective.

Bail reforms will reduce violence and ensure our communities across Ontario and Canada are safer, while strengthening the confidence in our justice system by all participants and all citizens—and respect for the great work our police officers do every day on our behalf.

The member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin.

It’s a good day. It’s always an honour to be able to speak on behalf of Kiiwetinoong, but also to provide a voice for First Nations.

I’d like to acknowledge OPP officer Constable Greg Pierzchala, who was shot and killed on December 27, 2022. I know that at times like this, it is a time to come together as politicians, as people, to acknowledge the issues that we face. There is always so much work to be done to address the issues at hand with respect to bail reform.

I’d also like to acknowledge the OPP officers who suffer from PTSD. A couple of days ago, I was talking to an officer on the phone. He’s on leave. He talked about suicide to me: “Can you talk about it in the House at some point, what we suffer, what we go through?” I tried texting him earlier. It’s not delivering. I hope he’s okay. Two, three years ago, I had a long chat with him as well for about a half-hour. When we hanging were up the phone, we said goodbye. I debated with myself: “Is he saying goodbye?” It took me about one hour to reach out to his partner that we had to call 911. When we say we can do better—that’s what I mean by that. So to any officers who are out there, who are suffering, who need more support because they see things that we do not see—I remember this conversation in my head: “Can you guess how many dead people I’ve seen?” I said a number—but it was way up. So I think all officers—we have to acknowledge that. Thank you for the work. There are people today who are suffering from PTSD, who are thinking about suicide. Another question he asked me was, “Do you know how many OPP officers have died by suicide?” I can’t remember the number. This was two days ago. I just wanted to share that story.

With regard to the reform of Canada’s bail system, I’m going to read part of the submission from the Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corp. This is a group that represents 49 First Nations in northern Ontario. And I know we’re going back and forth about amendments, subamendments. When I, as a First Nations person—that’s your system that you guys play, whatever system that is.

Just last year, we put up the Seven Grandfather Teachings. I don’t know who started naming them the Grandfather Teachings, but the Seven Grandfather Teachings are just ways of life. As First Nations people, that’s how we grew up. When you see the wolf, it’s humility. When you see the bear, it’s bravery. When you see the raven, it’s honesty. When you see the beaver, it’s wisdom. When you see the turtle, it’s truth. When you see the buffalo, it’s respect. When you see the eagle, it’s love. Sometimes when we are here, we do not function like that. Your system does not function like that. It’s just a little reminder.

I know that sometimes in Kenora Jail, the Thunder Bay Jail—it has been a while since I visited. I visited Kenora about two years ago. I never know what to expect—but I know what to expect on my second visit. It was 98% First Nations people. Sometimes I’m really surprised at the people you know there, when you walk in there, when you walk by the cells. They’re so happy to see you—the people you know from growing up in northern Ontario. It’s the same with Thunder Bay. Thunder Bay is not in my riding, but a lot of people go there.

I remember this kid who was working out like this, just by himself in the corner. I said, “Where are you from?” and then he told me the community. I asked him, “How long have you been here?” “I just got here.” I asked him how old he was. He’d just turned 18.

About the reform of the bail system: “Accountability of individuals who cause harm needs serious consideration and must be weighed carefully against the overarching principles of access to justice, fairness and equality before the law.”

We don’t have courts in fly-in First Nations. We have fly-in courts. There are only certain times that you will have access to court.

“As such, in balancing these important principles”—I know one of the things that the Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corp. has identified is areas of concern that should be reformed with the bail system, as requested by the Premiers, and I told those stories earlier, because of the disproportionate impact on First Nations people, on Indigenous people.

“Indigenous women, who comprise less than 5% of the population in Canada, represent 50% of the women locked up behind bars across the country.” It’s a fact. “Overall, Indigenous people make up 32% of the prison population while representing 5% of the Canadian population. In 2017/2018, Indigenous youth (aged 12 to 17) made up 43% of admissions to correctional services.... The situation right now as it stands in Canada’s jails and prisons can only be described as a mass incarceration of Indigenous people.

“The numbers keep rising despite the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R. v Gladue being released more than 20 years ago. Gladue states that a court that imposes a sentence should consider for all offenders all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances, with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders.

“Gladue principles are not limited to sentencing—they apply in all circumstances when an Indigenous person’s freedom is at risk. This includes at bail and sentencing hearings, appeals, parole hearings, mental health review board hearings, not-criminally-responsible hearings, dangerous and long-term offender hearings, and civil contempt decisions.”

Speaker, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services—“Nishnawbe” is First Nations people, people from the land. “Aski” is land. So that’s basically what it means.

“The bail stage is arguably the most important and critical moment in a criminal matter—should the accused person not be granted bail, the chances of them entering a guilty plea go up significantly. This is simply because no one would rather wait for trial in jail for months, when they are offered the option to be released on time served. In Gladue and Ipeelee, the Supreme Court recognized Indigenous people are more likely to be refused bail and that this contributes to Indigenous over-incarceration.”

I see it. We see it, we live it, in the Kenora district jail. We see it, we live it, in the Thunder Bay district jail.

We have to understand: “The criminal justice system is already imposing increased challenges on Indigenous people at the bail stage by:

“—routinely requiring sureties;

“—failing to accommodate accused persons living in remote communities;

“—imposing onerous and legally unjustified conditions;

“—requiring extensive background information about the accused, etc.

“‘Strengthening’ Canada’s bail system will disproportionately affect individuals who are already overrepresented in the criminal justice system, primarily Indigenous people, by making it less likely that they will be granted bail—hence perpetuating colonial practices.

“The impacts of the proposed bail reform are compounded by the upcoming changes to the Firearms Act through Bill C-21.”

Another thing that they talk about at Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services is the lack of consultation with Indigenous communities and First Nations. Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services said, “The standing committee’s hearings are being rushed in the face of growing calls for action—the adopted approach is reactive instead of deliberate. The proposed changes to the bail system will profoundly affect the rights and liberties of all Canadians, but specifically Indigenous people. Meanwhile, consultation with Indigenous communities and First Nations is lacking.” We saw that when we had 20 minutes for some of the police services whereas Indigenous police services only had seven minutes.

“Moving forward with reconciliation also means that Indigenous communities and First Nations must be included in the decision-making process, must be heard and consulted by provincial and federal governments alike, especially knowing that Indigenous people are disproportionately involved and adversely affected by the criminal justice system.”

The third thing that they talked about was the erosion of the presumption of innocence: “One of the proposed changes by the Premiers, namely to introduce a reverse onus on bail for the offence of possession of a loaded prohibited or restricted firearm in s.95 of the Criminal Code, is concerning. The presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of our criminal justice system and is entrenched in our Constitution.. This is why at bail, it is the crown’s onus to convince the court to detain an accused person pending trial. A reverse onus is and must remain an exception to the rule. Increasing the reach and the reliance on the reverse onus in the Criminal Code, thus putting the burden on the accused person to convince the court that they should be released, further erodes the presumption of innocence and weakens our overall justice system.”

There was a written submission from the Canadian Mental Health Association: “The justice system is often the first point of access for individuals to receive any type of mental health and addictions services.” That quote reminded me of the people without homes in Sioux Lookout. I don’t know if any of you have ever campaigned with people without homes. You should try it sometime; you’d learn lots. In the wintertime, that’s exactly what people do—they go to Kenora because they get fed and they have a bed. They get better services in jail rather than being free and walking around without a home in these towns.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin. I am very honoured to be able to be able to speak today. Remarks in Anishininiimowin. That’s all I have for now. Meegwetch. Thank you.

Further debate?

It’s an honour to rise to speak to the government motion calling on the federal government to implement bail reform. This motion speaks to the public safety concerns related to acts of criminal violence, especially the tragic increase in the deaths of police officers, and I believe every member of this House is deeply concerned about the alarming number of police officers lost in the line of duty during the past year.

Speaker, every worker in this province, including the women and men who serve and protect our communities as police officers, deserves to come home safely at the end of the day. Calls for bail reform have grown since the tragic death of Constable Greg Pierzchala, an Ontario Provincial Police officer killed in the line of duty on December 27 by an accused person out on bail. I want to offer my sincere condolences to Constable Pierzchala’s colleagues and family, as well as to everyone who has lost a loved one to criminal acts of violence and violent crime.

So yes, Speaker, I think the federal government should implement meaningful bail reform, taking the time to listen to front-line officers, legal scholars, criminal justice advocates and others on the best ways to increase public safety. And I say to the federal government, follow the evidence; study the statistics; listen to the experts and the victims—to talk about the best way we can implement bail reform in a way that increases public safety and community well-being.

And at the same time that the province is calling on the federal government for bail reform, I believe we have to look in the mirror, Speaker. I believe the provincial government also needs to take action to reform the bail system and the administration of justice while we invest in programs that prevent crime and promote community well-being. As the chiefs of police have said, we cannot look at bail reform in isolation. My hope is that we can have one of these rare occasions where we work across party lines to protect people and front-line officers by making changes to improve the province’s justice system and to invest in programs that improve people’s lives and community well-being.

I think it’s important to put on the record some of the reforms that experts have called for in Ontario:

(1) Timely bail decisions: People are waiting a year or longer for trial, and I believe it’s unacceptable that 77% of the people imprisoned in Ontario are in pretrial custody. We have a principle that you’re presumed innocent until guilty, and so we need a justice system that has more resources, more judges, faster processing and more funding for legal aid.

(2) We need to improve access to community services for the most vulnerable. Homelessness, mental health challenges, substance use, addiction and/or trauma are realities that make access to bail and adhering to bail conditions extraordinarily challenging. We will not arrest our way out of addressing these challenges.

(3) More funding for enhanced bail supervision programs: Bail supervision programs are a cost-effective way to monitor accused people with higher risks or needs in the community. We need the resources in place to do compliance checks and to have a more rigorous bail monitoring system in order to enhance public safety.

(4) Better inter-agency communication that increases communication among social service agencies, courts and police to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of our bail system in Ontario.

(5) Systematic collection of statistics: Collecting data and disaggregating it in meaningful categories is essential for informing evidence-based responses to ensure that we have a bail system that best protects the public in an evidence-based way.

Speaker, I want to close with a plea to all members of this House and to people across this province that we begin to actually invest in the root causes of crime and violence. I have spoken to so many front-line officers and chiefs of police who tell me that we cannot arrest our way out of the mental health, addiction, poverty and homelessness crisis that we face in this province. We’re asking front-line officers to respond to challenges in our community that they were never trained to respond to. It’s not right, it’s not fair for them and it’s not fair for the most vulnerable members of our community.

And so I say that we need to care for and support our front-line police officers and our most vulnerable because we cannot have bail reform without social justice reform. That’s how we build the Ontario we want.

I’ll be splitting my time with the member from Mississauga Centre. I want to tell you why I’m supporting this motion. The member from Toronto Centre said that we had to listen to the experts that work within the system. I was part of the committee that came up with this report on bail reform. I performed bail hearings in Ottawa, Pembroke, Brampton, Oshawa, Brantford, Kitchener, Goderich, Guelph, Stratford, Walkerton and St. Thomas, just to name a few. At a conservative estimate, I’ve probably performed about 4,000 bail hearings and bail decisions in my time as a crown attorney. So frankly, I would consider myself to be an expert within the system. The reason that I ran for office was because of my experience as a crown attorney. I want to explain why this motion is so important and why it is the farthest possible thing from being a symbolic motion.

I would also like to specifically thank the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane and the member from Orléans, who is no longer here. Those members attended the days of testimonial on our committee, but also attended the days on which we debated the amendments and recommendations and therefore informed it very helpfully in that manner, not leading to last-minute amendments as we are seeing today.

When I began as a crown, began in criminal law, it was about—I was called to the bar in 2014. So this was before the original bail reform considerably and, at that time, it was a completely different landscape. What a lot of people don’t understand when they talk about calling for bail reform is that an aspect of bail reform already happened. What we are calling for is a reform to the reform.

So coming up on 2015-16, I was a crown at that point in time, and what we were seeing in Alberta, in Ontario and all across Canada was, I will full on say, an overreliance on utilizing sureties in Alberta specifically, and in Ontario, an overreliance on conditions that could not be complied with. For example, it was common to require an accused person to give their address, and then on their bail, include a term to reside at that address. Many individuals were homeless, could not possibly provide an address, and yet if they were found not residing at that address, they would then be charged for breaching their recognizance, arrested, brought back to court and very likely held for breaching. Those were issues that were widespread. Crowns were aware of it, defence counsel were aware of it, and police were aware of it.

As a crown, I myself started abandoning those conditions fairly early on, because as an officer of the court and a person with, I think, a strong moral code, I was uninterested in putting conditions on people that they could not possibly comply with that had nothing to do with the real purpose of bail, which was to reduce risk in our society. However, like many things that we see in politics, in society, when a pendulum swings too far one way, the swing back doesn’t stop in the centre. It continues on to the other side. Where we are now is the other side, the other swing of that pendulum.

You’ve heard about Antic. You’ve heard about the ladder principle. You’ve heard about C-75. What Antic did was—in many ways, when it first came out, it didn’t seem like a particularly revolutionary decision. It essentially copied and pasted the provisions of bail from the Criminal Code and said, “FYI, guys, that’s the law. Don’t forget you’re not supposed to be using conditions that are unnecessary or can’t be complied with. A surety is the highest form of relief. Remember that.” However, the federal government stepped in, codified that, and then we got the ladder principle. We got a term that persons identifying as coming from any theoretically vulnerable population should have custody considered as a last resort.

And not particularly gradually—actually, relatively quickly—after Antic and after C-75, I went from being able to—I’ll put it this way: When somebody would come into bail court and you’re making a bail decision, again, I’m an officer of the court and my role is to determine the risk that you pose. Quite frequently, certainly the norm, people are held for bail, and they are not held in custody. They go to the crown. The crown would make a decision, where I would be looking at, say, a domestic offender and decide, “You know what? He’s releasable, but I’m going to need these conditions: that he stay away from the victim, that he not possess any weapons. But he’s good to go otherwise.” And he would go in, he would present that to the justice of the peace, and he would have discussed it with Legal Aid counsel beforehand. It would be agreed on. The person would be released on reasonable conditions.

But what started happening is the justices of the peace, all of a sudden, were so frankly frightened of having some sort of judicial review, of being told that they’d overreached their powers, that the crown’s recommendations, as somebody who—the goal is never to step on the rights of an accused person. That is not the role of the crown. A crown goes in there to try to address risk.

All of a sudden, we wouldn’t be listened to. It got to the point where, particularly during COVID, I could no longer, as far as I was concerned, ever succeed in having the accused held in custody. And these are people with domestic offences, with significant related prior records, who were charged with choking a victim, choking to the point of unconsciousness. These are people with loaded handguns down the back of their pants walking through downtown Guelph at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

We would do the bail hearing and I would present the evidence to the best of my ability, and then we would hear the justice of the peace decision and I would think, were we even in the same courtroom for this? Because from what I can tell, we weren’t. And I would go home every night feeling incredibly anxious, because I knew that I had done my best, but ultimately, I would be worried about that person who was now back out on the street.

The reason that we’re talking, as I said, about the feds here is because, really, the codification of Antic in C-75, that is federal legislation. They do have a very, very significant part to play here when it comes to, as I said, reforming that reform, when it comes to making sure that that pendulum comes back into the centre.

But, yes, the province, of course, also has a role. The idea that this motion somehow—because we are asking the federal government to take necessary steps, that we are somehow absolving the province of responsibility is entirely incorrect. Anybody who reads the report that we created can see that there are a number of clear recommendations set forward for the province—and again, recommendations that I’m happy to have played a part in: for example, the suggestion of training or having certain offences heard by a provincial court judge versus a justice of the peace.

In C-75, interestingly, one of the new offences that was added was the offence of, basically, choking or strangulation. The reason that it was added was because it was considered that strangulation, the act of manually choking somebody, is such a serious offence that it was deserving of its own specific category, its own section number. And yet—I will not name them—I would regularly present cases to a justice of the peace who would refuse to give me a no-weapons condition on any bail hearing where the offender had allegedly choked the victim because, and I quote, “Hands are not weapons.” And this is the type of training that we are dealing with.

So when we talk about femicide, when we talk about protecting women, I would go home regularly, every night, genuinely worried if, the next week, I would find out that the worst had happened. That is what we are trying to address here. That is why we are calling on the federal government to make these changes.

I am proud of the work that was done on the bail committee. As I said, I would absolutely not call this a symbolic motion. This is real, this is substantive and this is addressing something that I saw, day in and day out, in my career as a crown attorney, as I said, performing at least 4,000 bail hearings over the course of my career.

Further debate?

A gentle reminder to not refer to the absence of other members.

Further debate?

Debate deemed adjourned.

The House adjourned at 1800.