“Liberals pretend to care about women. My bill would have let a woman relax with protection for two years. Liberals cut that in half. Don't lecture me about protecting women. Liberals don't really care.”
What they said. What they meant.
Plain-language translations from the House of Commons.
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A bill with various measures aimed at better protecting victims of crime and violence, especially intimate partner and sexual violence. It would make coercive control of intimate partners a crime, create a specific offence of femicide (the killing of women and girls), allow courts to consider whether a homicide is femicide or a hate crime when sentencing, expand the criminal prohibition on distributing intimate images without consent, criminalize distributing depictions of bestiality, enable shorter sentences than the mandatory minimums in cases where the mandatory minimum would be 'cruel and unusual punishment', and more. In debate, Liberal MPs expressed the bill's urgency and highlighted its historic nature. Conservatives were skeptical, worried the bill may be designed to fail. One Conservative MP argued mandatory minimums do prevent crime by incapacitating criminals. Bloc MPs were supportive but raised concerns about abusive legal defense tactics causing trial delays. Many MPs shared personal anecdotes of gender-based violence in their communities.
“There are good parts in this bill. We helped make it. But it still lets judges go easy on violent criminals. That's bad. I don't like that. We tried to fix it. The Liberals said no. They won't work with us. They just play politics.”
“I want mandatory minimum sentences for child porn. The Supreme Court struck them down. I want the notwithstanding clause to force our way and overrule the court. I want my bill. This soft-on-crime bill is bad. You should have taken my bill instead.”
“I don't care what the Supreme Court said. I want mandatory minimum sentences for child porn no matter what. The notwithstanding clause is there to overrule the court and that's what we should have used. We had our chance to force our way and didn't take it.”
“Does the bill let judges ignore mandatory minimum sentences more? Is that a good idea when crime is rising?”
“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later. I want the bill but I don't want it. I wish the government would do its job so I don't have to.”
“I want the government to support my bills to protect women. It's a failure that they didn't.”
“I'm frustrated. Things are limited and frustrating. The federal government should spend more and fix it! Immigrants are making court problems worse.”
“Mandatory sentences prevent crime while people are in jail. This bill lets people ignore laws they don't like. That's bad.”
“The government keeps making laws with poison pills that go easy on crime. People see the good parts of a bill, then the poison pills that protect criminals instead of protecting people. My constituents are even starting to say 'poison pill' to describe it.”
“I don't want the government calling us unsupportive. One of our members suggested a change to this bill. We wanted to protect some mandatory minimums using the notwithstanding clause. The government said no. Why didn't they protect victims like we suggested?”
“I'm asking you to imagine a specific situation where a person is convicted of a third DUI offence. If that person is the only breadwinner for their family, don't you think a judge might use a safety valve to avoid giving them the mandatory minimum jail time? I want you to admit there are situations where mandatory minimums might not be the best approach.”
“I want harsher punishments for criminals. The government's bill is not strong enough. Conservatives tried to make the bill stronger with amendments, but the government voted them down. I think we should fight for victims and challenge the Supreme Court if needed. The government is not doing enough to protect women and children.”
“That's not my point. I want mandatory sentencing. I think the bill is weak because it doesn't have stronger punishments like my party suggested.”
“The bill could be stronger. The government rejected amendments to make it stronger. I think the government should have made the bill stronger.”
“The Liberal government used to say mandatory minimums were bad. They got rid of them even though the court didn't say they had to. Now the government says mandatory minimums are good again but they want a way to not enforce them. I think this is self-contradictory.”
“The gun buyback is punishing people who followed the rules. We should punish criminals instead.”
“I don't want judges to have wiggle room on sentencing. They should have to do what we already decided.”