Senator Boisvenu: No, I think we’re ready to vote on the matter.

Senator Boisvenu: Coming from you? Of course.

Senator Boisvenu: I would like another five minutes, please.

Senator Boisvenu: Yes, exactly. We’re not dealing with pardons. I may have used that word, but we’re talking about a discharge. This has nothing to do with pardons.

Senator Dalphond: Thank you, Senator Boisvenu.

Honourable senators, we would have to also compare the growth rates of Nova Scotia and British Columbia in terms of population and economic output, for example. We must note that there are many possible explanations for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, because the more factories there are, the more carbon emissions are produced.

Senator Boisvenu, you’re absolutely right in saying that the fight against climate change requires determination. We can’t look at the numbers in the abstract. We need to tackle the problem head-on, specifically by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. That’s what the carbon tax does, and it’s designed to change behaviours. Economists, including Nobel Prize winners, have said so. Everyone agrees that this is the best policy.

Thank you.

[English]

Senator Boisvenu: I take it, then, that there’s no connection between discharges and overcrowding. However, you’re saying that there is a connection between the reverse onus for offenders from all walks of life and overcrowding. Will you be voting against the bill?

Senator Boisvenu: Would the senator take a question?

Senator Boisvenu: Would you be willing to answer a question or two?

Senator Boisvenu: Honourable senators, I think an important clarification needs to be made. We are studying a bill that deals with domestic violence involving a firearm. It does not address all cases of domestic violence, only those committed with a firearm.

Madam Senator, don’t you think that when a woman is assaulted, if the man, the assailant, has used a firearm, we’re looking at one of the most violent cases?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Would Senator Dalphond take a question?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Therefore, honourable senators, in amendment, I move:

That Bill C-48, as amended, be not now read a third time, but that it be further amended in clause 1 (as amended by the decision of the Senate on October 26, 2023), on page 2, by replacing lines 28 and 29 with the following:

Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: I’m sorry, but the time allotted to this debate has expired. Senator Boisvenu, another question?

The Hon. the Speaker: I’m sorry, but the time allotted to this debate has expired. Senator Boisvenu, another question?

Hon. Bernadette Clement: Honourable senators, I’d like to raise two points in response to Senator Boisvenu’s amendment.

First, we heard from many witnesses at that committee that there was an absolute lack of data to support that this change was actually going to be helpful and make communities feel safer. In fact, we heard the opposite — that this reverse onus does not work and actually creates inequities that are absolutely unacceptable for racialized, marginalized communities.

Second, the discharge piece affects Indigenous women and women who are caught in a cycle of violence and then charged along with their spouses. We call that dual charging. Often they will then be discharged.

Those are the people who will be affected by this reverse onus. I proposed that amendment, which passed at committee, to remove the discharge piece because this is where we see the overrepresentation of Indigenous women in prison.

In August, I went to visit Grand Valley Institution for Women. I had never been inside a prison before. I know the statistics; I’ve heard the statistics. We heard them when we were having the debates around Bill C-5. But when you sit in that prison in a town hall gathering, you actually see the overrepresentation. You see that more than 50% of the women sitting there in front of you are Indigenous and realize that those statistics have real and true meaning.

My point is that we did not hear any data from the witnesses to support that this reverse onus would be helpful, but it could create more overrepresentation of Indigenous women in particular. Thank you.