Senator Boisvenu: Senator, can you provide this chamber with the number of requests to review criminal cases and the percentage of those cases where the sentence was reduced, either by the appeal court or by another court?

[English]

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Senator Gold, on December 7, I asked you a question about the position of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. For five months, victims of crime have had no representation in our federal institutions. Your government has again shown that victims are not a priority by violating their rights, which are guaranteed by the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights.

I would like to quote a passage from an article published on January 17 in the Toronto Star, describing the position of former ombudsman Heidi Illingworth.

[English]

Illingworth told the Toronto Star that it’s a “significant gap” when the position is vacant and expressed hope that it’s “filled sooner rather than later” given what she described as “high levels of private violence and victimization” happening in homes during the pandemic.

Illingworth suggested that the position “has a critical role in highlighting and reviewing systemic issues that negatively affect victims and emerging issues.”

[Translation]

Senator Gold, you promised this chamber that you would come back with a response from the government explaining these delays.

The position of Correctional Investigator, the ombudsman for criminals, has never been vacant longer than 24 hours in the past 10 years. What do you have to say to victims of crime about the fact that the position of Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime went unfilled for a year in 2017 and has been vacant for the past five months?

Senator Boisvenu: I would remind you that in the past six and a half years, the Liberal government has not introduced or proposed a single bill to improve the lives and rights of victims of crime. The article I mentioned earlier also pointed out that the five-year review of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights was scheduled for 2020 but still has not been completed by the government.

When will the government do its job and complete the review of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights?

Senator Simons: I’m sorry, Senator Boisvenu, I have no capacity to answer that question in such granular detail at this point. I simply don’t have access to that data up to date at the moment.

(On motion of Senator Duncan, debate adjourned.)

[Translation]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Carignan, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator Housakos, for the second reading of Bill S-220, An Act to amend the Languages Skills Act (Governor General).

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Thank you for your speech on this bill.

I am always shocked when you try to justify abolishing minimum sentences by using extreme cases as examples.

I will share some current data from Quebec. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of house arrests increased by 22%. Between 2020 and 2021, 5,047 criminals were sentenced to house arrest instead of receiving intermittent sentences, which are served on the weekends.

How can you say that our justice system doesn’t give judges the freedom to hand down more lenient sentences in general, aside from individual cases?

[English]