Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to engage in this very important debate we are having about the Liberals' bill, Bill C-16, which comes in light of quite significant violent crime statistics in the country over the last 10 years. For example, sexual assaults have increased by 76% and violent crimes by 55%. That comes after 10 years of the Stephen Harper government, when there was a 26% decline in violent crime, but over the last 10 years of Liberal government, there has been a 55% increase in reported violent crime. Sexual violations against children in that decade as well are up by well over 100%. Human trafficking is up by over 84%, so the bill is arriving at a very dire time in violent crime against women, against children and against the most vulnerable in Canada. As such, I am very honoured to engage in this debate, and frankly, there are a number of measures in the bill that we personally support, notably things that the Conservatives on this side of the House have brought forward over recent years and have championed in recent years. While we welcome those things being adopted in this bill, we have other concerns, which I will get into shortly. For example, there is Bill C-225 from the Conservative member of Parliament for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, our public safety shadow minister. That bill is currently in the Senate and would make the murder of an intimate partner automatically first-degree murder. In fact, that would build on a bill from the Senate from about four years ago, which I helped champion, from former Conservative senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, who is a nationally renowned champion for fighting against violence against women. It is great to see that is part of this bill. I appreciate that. Bill C-216 from the Conservative member for Calgary Nose Hill aimed to ban deepfakes of intimate partners to keep Canadians safe, especially women, from non-consensual intimate images being created and shared. Bill C-16 also includes provisions from that same bill to bring in mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse material, so that has been taken up as well. There are a number of measures that we have championed and that we welcome seeing in the bill. Also, it would update mandatory reporting requirements concerning child exploitation material, but also the bill would criminalize coercive or controlling conduct within intimate partner relationships, which we support. I used to serve on the status of women committee, and we have long been hearing that this is an area that needs very early intervention, so I welcome that in this piece of legislation. However, there is a very divisive piece that we need to discuss. It is clause 63 in Bill C-16, which the Liberals have included. It makes it very difficult for us to support the bill. Despite all the good work that we have done that is reflected in it, there is a very clear red line in clause 63. It is what the justice minister has called a safety valve for mandatory minimum penalties. This really emphasizes the trend in this country of judicial activism and concessions by the Liberal government to that, and would undermine Parliament's role in setting sentencing policy. Ultimately, it would allow courts to impose sentences below mandatory minimums set by the House. It would provide discretion to a judge to determine that a sentence should be less than a mandatory minimum penalty under circumstances the judge deems cruel and unusual punishment. This sounds like quite a significant hurdle, but recent court cases make me question if we should be allowing judges the discretion to determine what exactly that is. In fact, the Liberal government has linked this provision in the bill to a recent Supreme Court decision that I think really rocked the nation. For me, when it came out, it made me feel sick to my stomach. It was the Quebec (Attorney General) v. Senneville decision in the fall. For those who may not be familiar with that ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a one-year mandatory minimum sentence for the offences of possessing and accessing child pornography is unconstitutional. Our Supreme Court of Canada, the supreme judicial body in this country, ruled that a one-year mandatory prison sentence may be unconstitutional in certain hypothetical extreme scenarios for possessing and accessing child pornography. In the case in particular, the two offenders had 475 and 805 files, respectively, depicting child pornography, mostly of girls between the ages of three and six years old undergoing horrific, unimaginable sexual abuse. During this case, the Supreme Court said that, maybe not in that scenario, but in another potential scenario of a 17-year-old sending an 18-year-old an intimate image, if maybe that 18-year-old shared it and that was ever charged by police, prosecuted by the Crown and then brought all the way up to the courts, an MMP could be cruel and unusual punishment in that hypothetical scenario. This is why there is no longer a one-year mandatory minimum, based on this decision. Now they are bringing this forward, saying that this helps that situation. It gives the judges what is basically an out. I guess this is what they are allowing. We would have used the notwithstanding clause on that judicial ruling and been very proud of that. There are a number of other rulings as well in recent years that have us really just questioning the morality we are seeing in this country and, again, the judicial activism. For example, two years ago, in R. v. Bertrand Marchand, the Supreme Court ruled that a one-year mandatory minimum for child luring was cruel and unusual punishment. In R. v. Hills, it struck down the four-year mandatory minimum for reckless discharge of a firearm. These are very dangerous crimes, very horrific crimes in many cases, where the mandatory minimum is being struck down by the Supreme Court. Most egregiously, in R. v. Bissonnette, involving the man who opened fire and killed six people in a mosque, the court decided it was unconstitutional to impose consecutive life sentences on murderers like that. I disagree strongly with all of those rulings. Now Bill C-16, with clause 63, is providing more opportunity for judges to decide, despite Parliament having ruled that certain offences are so egregious that they require mandatory minimum prison time, like child pornography, for example. I look at this, and it is difficult to wrap my head around it when I think about some of the worst examples we have seen. We cannot go a week in this country without seeing some ridiculous ruling by a judge who ruled that someone could be let out on bail despite 50 violent crimes, some including sexual assault, breaking and entering, violent assault. They say, “Oh, yes, you can go out on bail,” over and over and over. There are light sentences for sexual abuse. We see this all the time. Instead of doubling down and asserting our rights of Parliament, the government would allow a “safety valve”, as per the Minister of Justice, for judicial discretion with mandatory minimums. We cannot support that. I will just describe one example: aggravated sexual assault. This is how the Criminal Code defines aggravated sexual assault. It occurs if the person who is being sexually assaulted is wounded, maimed, disfigured, beaten or in danger of losing his or her life. That action at gunpoint has a current mandatory minimum of four years, which, quite frankly, I think is not nearly enough, but that is what it is. At least it is there. Why is it that the Liberals voted against our amendment at committee to ensure that provision is not part of this safety valve? They allow it for treason and murder but not aggravated sexual assault with a firearm? What about sexual abuse against children? We also put forward amendments to ensure that those offences were excused, that those were not included, that those would be in the same category as the treason and the murder, so that this would not apply. That was also voted down. We worked collaboratively in that committee to provide opportunities so that these mandatory minimums would remain, and they voted them down. I would like to hear Liberal members describe to us in what scenario they morally believe a judge should be permitted the authority to allow less than four years for an aggravated sexual assault at gunpoint. If they cannot think of a scenario, why did they not support our amendment? It is so frustrating because there is stuff in this bill that we worked hard to push forward. I have been here for almost seven years. I cannot tell the House how much we have been banging on these tables demanding more justice for women, for children, for victims of sexual abuse, tougher sentencing, jail not bail for repeat violent offenders. Now the Liberals are getting up on their high horse, pretending they have the higher ground, and they are allowing this provision to give more discretion to judges to allow lesser sentences for aggravated sexual assault at gunpoint. I cannot get on board for that, and it is very upsetting. As members can tell, I get quite animated, because there is stuff in this bill we would like to support. We gave them every opportunity to take this out of the bill to ensure that these protections, this justice for victims, remain in our Criminal Code, and they voted them down. It is very disappointing but, unfortunately, not surprising.
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