It’s a pleasure to be here today in support of my colleague and my boss, the Solicitor General, and, of course, my colleague from Etobicoke–Lakeshore, who I was on that committee with, and who does such a great job in speaking up on intimate partner violence. I told her, “Make sure you touch on that”—because in my remarks I don’t, and I think it should come from her. She did an able job there.

We’re here today to stand in support of safe communities, as the Solicitor General said. We’re also here today to stand up for Ontarians. We’re here today to demand justice for those whose lives have been lost to violent crime, including our police officers. Because when we have safe communities, we have everything.

Unfortunately, the federal government continues to be soft on repeat offenders of violent crime. Let me remind you, Speaker, that when a motion to strengthen bail reform was presented before the House of Commons in February of this year, it was shot down immediately by a federal government set on their view that there’s nothing wrong with the current Canadian bail system. I think the general public would differ with that.

That’s why we’re here today. That’s why I’m standing here today in support of the Solicitor General’s motion. The motion, once again, calls on the federal government to repeal measures which force judges to be lenient towards repeat offenders and dangerous career criminals. There’s no room for leniency and wishful thinking when we’re talking about repeat criminals who have demonstrated a pattern of endangering our communities through reoffending time and time again. The federal government must respond to the call to action from the provinces and the territories—I actually represented the minister in Ottawa at that conference, and there was unanimity amongst the whole room, from all across the country and territories. They need to ensure that repeat violent offenders, especially those accused of serious firearms charges, do not find themselves back in our communities because of a negligent bail system. The safety of law-abiding citizens of Ontario and Canada must take precedence. The very concerns that this motion aims to address have been echoed not only across this province but nationwide.

Speaker, I was honoured to join our government in March at the federal-provincial-territorial meeting in Ottawa on bail reform. There, we said, in no uncertain terms, to federal minister David Lametti that the time is now for meaningful national bail reform. Safety can’t wait. Our Premier and our Solicitor General led the way in establishing consensus among the Premiers of all 10 provinces and three territories and in calling for bail reform, along with the Solicitors General and Attorneys General of those other provinces. It’s clear to me that we’re all on the same page in wanting safer communities for Canadians. Why, then, is the federal government continuing to reduce the penalties for violent criminals, placing reoffenders back in our communities to wander the streets without any accountability? This is unacceptable.

Violent crime under this federal government has gone up over 30%, and gang-related crime is up over 100%. Given this grim reality, our provincial government will continue to fight for real federal bail reform.

That’s exactly what the Standing Committee on Justice Policy has worked on and presented in its report, as my colleague mentioned earlier, on March 20. As a member of that committee, it was important to me that we had a chance to listen to the OPP commissioner, in addition to the police chiefs and association leadership from across the province.

The people of Ontario and the people who keep us safe have a clear message: Bail reform will save lives. If you’re a repeat weapons offender, you should not get out on bail if you fail to demonstrate that you can be a safe member of this community. As of right now, the catch-and-release bail system is not the right solution.

I want to reassure every member here that I, along with the Premier and the Solicitor General, believe in the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” But it is not right to shift the burden on police services by leaving them to deal with repeat offenders being allowed back in the community.

With the introduction of federal Bill C-75 three years ago, the system that was built to ensure public safety has become preoccupied with clearing backlogs. This has undoubtedly led to more dangerous criminals being released on bail when taking these individuals into custody was the appropriate action—not only this; we have seen that our current system has been failing to ensure that repeat offenders released on bail show up and attend court. This is also unacceptable.

As I’ve already mentioned, these very same concerns have been echoed across the province.

I’d like to share the words of someone from my own community, Sarnia police chief Derek Davis, who explained the issue very clearly: If there is a warrant for someone’s arrest for missing their court date, “we arrest you and immediately release you, and if you don’t attend that court date, rinse (and) repeat.”

This harmful catch-and-release has left the local police force in my riding—and I’m sure across this province—among others, to urge the government to take another look at the rules as written.

I encourage all members of this House to speak with your own local police chiefs and police association members. Learn about the challenges on the ground. It will become evident to you how necessary today’s motion is and how much we need meaningful bail reform. The purpose of this motion today is to answer those calls for change.

As of December 30, 2022—to go back to my community—in the community of Sarnia, the local police had been in contact with 230 individuals 20 or more times in the previous calendar year. That’s 4,600 times that police had to respond to these same individuals.

Considering such frightening statistics, how can anyone argue that the current status of the bail reform system is adequate enough to keep the people of Ontario and our nation safe?

Let me elaborate further on one specific case in my community. A serial offender facing probation, assault, mischief, and break and enter charges had contact with the police 116 times in a one-year period—that certainly is “rinse and repeat.” Included in that number were well-being checks, warrants, arrests, conversations, and being the subject of complaints. I can’t think of a worse case of resources being wasted on one individual—where there are many other calls that get put on the back burner because of one individual. Imagine how many times this is happening across this province every day. Placing the burden on police officers to deal with such repeat offenders time and time again consumes a vast number of resources and prevents them from being able to respond to emergency situations, where they’re needed most. This is just one example. Unfortunately, this is not unique to my community.

The current bail system certainly needs serious changes.

How many chances must a repeat offender of violent crime be given before it is time to prioritize the rights of law-abiding people who deserve to feel safe on the streets of their communities?

It’s my hope that through this motion, we no longer will have to ask these questions, and that the federal government will finally listen to the calls from our province.

The immense and proven threat to public safety will continue to grow out of control without drastic and immediate reform to the Criminal Code of Canada. For the safety of the people of Ontario and right across this great country, this matter cannot wait. The time for action is now.

It’s always an honour to rise in this House—and today to talk about the motion put forward by the government and amended by the official opposition. It’s regarding bail reform.

I’m going to say at the outset that it’s an honour to follow the Premier. We don’t agree on a lot of things, but on bail reform, I think we have some things where we do agree—not all, but some.

I was also a member of that committee that studied bail reform. I don’t pretend to be an expert on bail reform or an expert in policing.

I am one of the millions of Ontarians who has ultimate respect for the job that the police do. They’re not perfect. No one is perfect. They’re human. But we expect them and ask them to put themselves in harm’s way, to make themselves one of the vulnerable groups that we put forward in that motion.

On behalf of the official opposition, we’d like to pay our respects to the families of the officers who have fallen. We would also like to pay our respects to all the other people who are in the vulnerable groups, who have also lost family members, who have also paid the ultimate price for the failures of our system.

There are failures in our system. Our system isn’t perfect, and the bail system certainly isn’t. Sitting in that committee, the one thing that I sensed was frustration—frustration on behalf of the police who presented; frustration on behalf of some of the other presenters, who would not always agree with the police. The frustration was there from all sides. I would have to say that that committee showed us that this issue is much deeper than can be discussed in two days.

Do we agree with the spirit of this motion? I say yes. I think we, deep down, agree that this isn’t a one-shot one and done. We all know this.

We talk about what happened at that committee. I would like to quote some of the presentations from that committee which, quite frankly, I wasn’t surprised at but that I learned so much from.

Some of these quotes are from the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. “Our message to you today as police leaders is this: We want to look at ways to improve how the bail system addresses repeat violent offenders, firearms offences and intimate partner violence. This is an issue that cannot be addressed in isolation and requires a coordinated, multi-faceted approach involving all levels of government and criminal justice system actors, including federal legislative reform to the bail provisions in the Criminal Code; provincial amendments to the Ministry of the Attorney General’s policies, guidelines and directives on bail; and sufficient resources and funding from all levels of government to ensure adequate staffing and expertise in bail courts, improved training, and sufficient police resources to enforce bail compliance.”

That seems a lot more complicated than just one-shot “strengthen the bill”—it’s a lot more nuanced. We’re not saying that we shouldn’t ask the federal government to modernize the bail system, but we can’t look at it in isolation. There is a lot in there that the province needs to do, as well.

I will continue: “In relation to the Ministry of the Attorney General, the OACP also urges the government of Ontario to invest in additional crown and judicial resources. Resource shortages in Ontario have resulted in overburdened bail courts and systemic delays. Funding for additional crowns, with a focus on specialized bail/firearm crowns, is required to ensure the bail system works efficiently and in a way that promotes public safety and respect for the charter.”

So I hope that, as the province is pushing the federal government, they are also looking seriously at the issues that the Ontario chiefs of police have put forward—things that the province can do right now to also protect the vulnerable, because one step won’t protect; it’s a multi-faceted approach.

The Attorney General spoke about reverse onus, and he did a good job of explaining—so I’m not going to repeat it.

The Ontario chiefs of police said, “While a reverse onus is not appropriate for all cases, it is appropriate for cases where there are significant public safety concerns. We’re seeking expansion of reverse-onus provisions to include firearm-possession offences, repeat violent offenders and intimate-partner-violence offences where there are prior convictions against an intimate partner, including criminal harassment and distribution of intimate images, regardless of whether overt violence was used or threatened.”

This is one of the reasons why we put forward the amendment—because it needs to look at violence as a whole.

Further, from the Toronto Police Association—again, someone we respect, front-line people: "The reality is, there’s no time or resources for proactive initiatives. There’s no time or resources to seek out individuals on bail. There’s no time or resources to seek out those who fail to appear.... I bring this up because while we may revisit our bail system, and while we may make amendments to shift priorities, the reality is that reasonable bail is a constitutional right, and many people will return to their communities until such time as they have their day in court.... When accused parties are on bail, they sometimes fail to appear in court. While I’ve already suggested that courts and prosecutors treat those failures to appear strongly, we as the police also need resources to track these individuals down proactively. Again, these initiatives require resources, and they require investments in people.”

My colleague was speaking—I believe the last time we could find stats, there were 4,500 people in the wind. I believe it would be partly a provincial responsibility to find those people—not enough resources. At that committee, there were suggestions made on how to do that. I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about how, but there’s obviously an issue when you’ve got 4,500 people out in the wind that haven’t shown up for their warrant. That’s a big problem.

From the Toronto Police Association: “Police have a responsibility—in fact, it is their most important responsibility—to maintain public safety. However, it is not their responsibility to shoulder this alone. As an example, years ago, here in Toronto, across every division, we had bail compliance units: a team of officers whose sole purpose was to monitor and conduct compliance checks at local divisional levels within their communities. While we still have some capacity to do that, we have removed that from the local divisional level. We’ve removed the community notion of it. The initiatives require resources.”

Again, I’m not saying this; this is the Toronto Police Association saying there are not enough resources to monitor people. That’s a problem that the government is aware of. The government members also heard this, and I’m sure that the ministers responsible knew this well beforehand, because I’m sure the police have told them before. This is a long-standing issue—it predates this government; it predates others—but if the government is serious that this is coming to a head, and I have no doubt that they are, this also has to be addressed, because if you just address one issue, it won’t work.

I take the government at its word, but this motion seems to point the finger at another level of government, trying to divert from their own responsibility. We all have responsibility—we all need to take it, because we’re all talking about vulnerable people.

I continue, from the Toronto Police Association: “In discussing this, I would be remiss in failing to mention our other justice partners and stakeholders and the resourcing that they require. It is not lost on me, nor our members, that our assistant crown attorneys are also overworked, overburdened and require more resources. Also, our colleagues in probation and parole are overworked and require more resources. These are all important investments in public safety.”

There’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a community and it takes wraparound services to keep that child safe—and what we heard at that committee is that there’s more than just the problem with the federal bail system. I think everyone acknowledges that. Let’s all move forward and talk about that. Let’s ask the federal government, as this motion is doing, to do their part. We’re in favour of that, but let’s also do our part.

I have a quote from some of the other witnesses at that committee, from the Law Society of Ontario, and it’s about clearing the judicial backlog: “Clearing the backlog should be a priority. The ministries that would be responsible would be the Ministry of the Attorney General and Ministry of the Solicitor General. These ministries need the resources in order to deal with the causes of the backlog. They need the resources to deal with getting disclosure out in criminal prosecutions and the resources to be able to identify the most serious cases that pose a risk to community safety and be able to prioritize them.”

Again, those are issues completely in, I would say, the province’s domain—could be addressed in this House; should be addressed in this House; hopefully will be, but don’t seem to have been, because they came up at this committee. This committee was to discuss changes to bail, but these were the issues brought forward by expert witnesses.

Another one came in a written submission—but it stuck to me—from the Canadian Mental Health Association. I think this one, as someone in northern Ontario—I don’t think it’s a secret, and it’s not on purpose, but our resources are farther apart, wider spread. We don’t have the same access. There’s more access to resources in the city, simply because there’s more people; they’re closer together. 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. This leads to the overrepresentation of people with serious mental health issues in Ontario courts and correctional and remand facilities.” That is one of the saddest statements, if you think about this—and specifically, where I come from, I know this. For police, as well—because police play an incredibly vital role. I couldn’t be a policeman; I know it. They also need to have the support of other experts, so that when they encounter someone—the only way for that person is the justice system. That’s just not right in a society like ours. We disagree about lots of things, philosophically, but I don’t think any of us disagree about that—that the first point of access for mental health is the justice system. That’s just not right—that that person, whose main issue is mental health, might become a repeat offender, simply because there is no other service available. We have to be very careful with that.

As MPPs—this is an incredible job, and one of the things that I find most incredible is that we all come from different walks of life. In what other walk of life would a farmer get to talk to a mining executive and former crown attorney, all on a one-to-one basis? I think it’s incredible—and we get to tour places that we wouldn’t be able to do.

One of the most chilling things I’ve ever done is tour the Haileybury Jail, the North Bay Jail and the Monteith correctional centre. That’s when I realized that most of the people in the Monteith correctional centre have never been convicted of a crime; they’re waiting to see a judge, and a lot of them aren’t violent, repeat offenders.

There are a lot of things to fix in our system. We should concentrate on that, so that the people—and there are violent, repeat, dangerous people who need to be incarcerated, but there are lots of people in those facilities who don’t fit that description. So we have to be really careful that we’re not throwing away the key on people who have never really done anything to warrant that, and there is a danger of that now. It’s actually happening now.

With that, we are in favour of the spirit of this motion. We hope that the government accepts our amendment.

I thank you very much for giving me the time to speak.

I’ll be sharing my time with the members from Orléans and Don Valley West. I just want to say I’ll be supporting this motion, because I believe that our responsibility as legislators—and any government official, anybody who’s in government—is primarily public safety. There’s an issue of public safety here that we have to address.

But I do want to say a couple of things that we need to be thinking about in this Legislature beyond encouraging the federal government to take this on.

In my riding of Ottawa South—and my friend from Ottawa Centre would remember this—Anne-Marie Ready and her daughter Jasmine were murdered on June 27 last year by a young man who was their neighbour, who was let out by a justice of the peace. Their father and husband, Raf, has been trying to sort out what happened there.

One of the challenges that we have in our justice system—it’s not just now; it has been through previous governments—is communication and making sure that people who make decisions have the information they need when they make that decision.

The second thing is to apply the principles that they’re given to make decisions each time. I hope that the government will help the Ready family, very much so.

The other thing I want to mention is we’re sending this message to the federal government, but we have the Community Safety and Policing Act that received royal assent four years ago. What that act does is it provides some protections for public safety around policing. We have an individual who’s charged with very serious crimes, including sexual assault, who has been allowed to collect a publicly funded salary for seven years. So the government dropped the ball with this act. It should have been enacted. It received royal assent four years ago.

The second thing is there’s the Accommodation Sector Registration of Guests Act. This is something to protect people from human trafficking. It has been on the books for two years—still hasn’t been enacted.

I’d ask the government to pick up that ball and run with it, because these are two important issues of public safety. If we’re going to preach about public safety, then perhaps we better do our own homework.

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.

Good afternoon. I’m pleased to rise today in support of government notice of motion 13, which calls on the federal government to immediately reform the Criminal Code of Canada to address the dangers facing our communities and implement meaningful bail reform to prevent violent and repeat offenders from being released back into our communities.

I want to thank the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler for sharing her very, very unique and valuable experience as a crown attorney, which really helps to illuminate our discussion today.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, I had the opportunity to listen in on many testimonials from stakeholders on both sides of the equation—