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Protecting Victims Act

2026-06-04 Sitting 129 Showing 21–30 of 30

A large bill amending many criminal laws, focused on child protection and gender-based violence. Changes include new or expanded criminal offenses like coercive control of intimate partners, femicide, non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and child sex trafficking. It also amends procedures for sexual offense trials and victims rights. In debate, the opposition accused the government of rushing the bill and limiting discussion, while the government insisted the changes are urgently needed to save lives and prevent violence.

Official Hansard ↗

Gord Johns

NDP 11:50 a.m.

“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later. We must pass this bill now instead of waiting a few months. I want to blame the Conservatives for the delay and say they don't really care about victims.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, we all want to prevent discrimination and violence in this country, but fast-tracking and shutting down debate is not going to help improve this legislation. We have a lot of important questions. We do not want to wait until there are complaints, tribunals or criminal sanctions after the fact. We want to talk about what we are going to do to prevent it. We have not heard from the minister or the government on how they are going to invest in anti-bullying in schools; in mental health supports for vulnerable youth; in housing and homelessness, which is something that we have heard is clearly important on this; in community-based violence protection; in support for victims of hate incidents and discrimination; and in training in federally regulated workplaces, which is under the purview of the federal government and the minister, before complaints happen. We have a lot of questions that have not been addressed by the government. Can the minister explain when the funding is going to come in on prevention, instead of it happening after the fact?

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Hon. Sean Fraser

Liberal 11:55 a.m.

“I want to look like I'm saying something thoughtful, but I'm just repeating talking points. We know this bill won't prevent crime, but we need to pass it anyway. We're spending lots of money on other things too, but don't let that stop this bill.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for a thoughtful intervention, which is very important if our goal is to not only penalize bad actors after they have committed a crime but also prevent violence in the first place. Each time I have introduced a bill to reform Canada's criminal law in the House and spoke about it publicly, I begin by laying out the public safety strategy that the Government of Canada is moving forward with. The first pillar is to strengthen Canada's criminal laws, but we recognize that, largely, this has an impact after a crime has taken place. We also want to give tools to law enforcement and community organizations on the front line to support victims and to investigate and prosecute crime, but the most important pillar of our strategy is those upstream investments. They may be outside the scope of this bill, but they are moving forward in parallel. This includes investments through Build Canada Homes to build assisted, supportive and affordable housing for people at risk in Canada. This includes working with the Minister of Health and provincial governments to advance services and treatments for mental health and addictions. It also includes long-term investments, particularly in at-risk youth, including through the youth employment and skills strategy, as well as investments in infrastructure that builds safer and stronger communities. If we want to end violent crime in the long term, we need to take a holistic view of how we build safe communities and healthy people. Part of that equation also demands reforms to the criminal law. The protections contained in this bill, though penalizing crime after the fact, can in fact have some preventative nature. I mentioned coercive control and intervening before violence becomes deadly. However, we should not delay the important work in this bill until the work around affordable housing, mental health and addictions and the at-risk youth prevention programs is done, because that work is going to continue in perpetuity for many many years. We have an opportunity to take action today to strengthen Canada's criminal laws to offer protections. I think we should avail ourselves of the opportunity.

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Gérard Deltell

Conservative 11:55 a.m.

“I don't like that the government limited debate on this bill. We all want to protect victims and punish criminals, especially for sex crimes. When the government shuts down debate, democracy loses.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I do not at all appreciate the government's decision to invoke closure on this debate. Nobody wins when the government limits debate on a bill, especially one that deals directly with justice. When it comes to the basic principles of this bill, we all agree that we need to ensure greater protection and get tougher on crime. As always, the devil is in the details. That is particularly true when it comes to justice and crime. We are all in favour of tougher laws. We all agree that we need to better protect victims and that we need to crack down on criminals, especially in cases involving sex crimes or other related offences. Does the minister agree that, unfortunately, democracy as a whole loses when the government shuts down debate on such a sensitive subject?

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Hon. Sean Fraser

Liberal 11:55 a.m.

“I want this bill to pass quickly. The other party wasted time before. Many people want this. We need to make penalties harsher now.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I do not agree. The facts in this situation are very different from what my colleague is describing. For example, a few months ago, the Conservative Party prolonged the debate at the Standing Committee on Justice. The Conservatives were talking about a preference between puppies and kittens, wasting time for the sake of wasting time, and carrying on meaningless debates outside the scope of the criminal laws that we are seeking to implement. There was an opportunity to advance these protections in a timely way with full debate. I would point out to the member the fact that we are seeing people from across Canada calling for these actions, and there was a debate at the justice committee. We have had an opportunity to debate this bill in the House. The Senate will have an opportunity to debate it. In all honesty, we have judges from the bench crying for some of the protections that this bill would afford to Canadians. We see femicides taking place at an ungodly rate in this country, and we have an opportunity to help prevent those with stiffer penalties, and importantly, upstream investments as well. I do not see this process as being a function of democracy breaking. I view the inappropriate behaviour to stop the work of the justice committee previously demands that democracy be allowed to work and that the House adopt the important reforms included in the bill.

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Amandeep Sodhi

Liberal 12:00 p.m.

“I want the minister to say his bill will help people. I told a story about fear to make you feel bad. Please pass this bill.”

Hon. Sean Fraser

Liberal 12:00 p.m.

“I want to agree with my friend and keep talking about how bad things are. Flying numbers make it sound serious. If we pass this bill, the government can say it did something. We should pass this bill today.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Brampton Centre for her advocacy on this issue. She is right to point out the magnitude of this issue. It is 16,000 people from her part of the country, so 16,000 lives changed forever. We have an opportunity to have the legal system intervene more forcefully and with a greater effect. In addition to some of the new infractions and more serious penalties that we put in place, we are also making significant changes to how courts deal with some of these changes. Let us think about the fact that nearly 10,000 cases have been thrown out of courts for delay, including many sexual assault cases. When the complainant is forced to live in the same community as a perpetrator who is walking free in their community, not because they have defeated the charges but because time ran out, that does not feel like justice. We have an opportunity to correct things. This bill provides that opportunity. Let us vote for it today.

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Blaine Calkins

Conservative 12:00 p.m.

“I want to say the other party is wrong. They passed bills we didn't like. We told them their bills were bad. Now I'm going to list some names of people who said things I don't like. I want to blame the other party for causing problems. I don't like that they blame us. We were right and they were wrong.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, to listen to this minister complain about and blame Conservatives for the situation of our justice system in Canada today is laughable. When Bill C-75 was passed, Conservatives opposed that bill because we knew the damage and the consequences that bill would wreak on our justice system. Jody Wilson-Raybould, the minister at the time, said that passing that bill would speed up all of the delays in the court system, delays that seem to still exist. Arif Virani, during the debate, defended the government's use of time allocation and argued the opposition was blocking. Randy Boissonnault did the same thing and argued that Conservatives were holding things up. We were simply trying to warn Canadians about the damage these guys were doing. Fast-forward to Bill C-5. David Lametti, as this bill's sponsor, said that Bill C-5 needed to move forward quickly and efficiently, and again blamed Conservatives for stopping the government from removing mandatory minimum penalties. Now, fast-forward to the current public safety minister and Mark Holland arguing the same thing. All of this is evidenced in the Hansard and the Debates of those parliaments. For this minister to stand here today and actually blame Conservatives for telling them that they were wrong and we were right all along is ridiculous.

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Hon. Sean Fraser

Liberal 12:00 p.m.

“I want to say the other party is wrong. They're not even talking about this bill. They're talking about old bills. I think those old bills were good. I want this bill to pass. I want to say the other party doesn't really care about victims. I think they just want to delay for political reasons. I don't like that. I hope they vote for this bill.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have never seen a clearer example of a straw man argument. He is making allegations about my position in this argument that I did not suggest. My criticism of the Conservatives in this debate was about their behaviour at the justice committee, not for decisions taken under previous governments during different parliaments. It is ironic that the Conservatives are arguing that there has not been enough time to debate this bill, but the questions they have on this debate are not even talking about this bill. The member is talking about bills that were adopted a number of years ago in previous parliaments, which, by the way, he is objecting to despite the fact that it made it harder for people to get bail when charged with intimate partner violence complaints or made house arrest ineligible for people charged with advocating genocide or attempted murder or torture in this country. My own view is that we have an opportunity to offer protections to victims. It seems the Conservative Party has made a decision for political reasons that they wish to delay the implementation of these protections. I find that disappointing in the extreme. I hope that they will put their money where their mouth is and actually place their vote behind this bill to accelerate its expeditious adoption into Canada's laws to offer protections for communities.

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James Bezan

Conservative 12:00 p.m.

“I'm going to call the other party names and say they talk a lot for show. I want to say they don't really care about victims or the bill. I want more meetings to make me look smart. I don't like that the other party is going to pass this without more meetings. I'm going to say they hate democracy.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I just want to poke holes in the justice minister's argument over the length of debate on Bill C-16. We only debated this for two days at second reading, and then we let it go on division so we could get it to the justice committee for study. We asked for eight meetings to actually do a proper study on this bill and to bring in the proper witnesses. The Liberals shut it down to only four meetings. We have only had one day to debate the bill at report stage, and they are already moving closure. My question is for the minister who wraps himself in this paper tiger, saying that we do not respect the process and that there has been plenty of debate. We know that on the Liberal side, the only person who ever gets up and talks is the member from Winnipeg North who has said the most words ever, but has said the very least. Why does this minister hate democracy, and why is he undermining parliamentary processes?

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Hon. Sean Fraser

Liberal 12:00 p.m.

“I hope we can all stop calling each other anti-democratic. I think we all want to protect democracy and the rule of law. The other party has stopped making real arguments. They just want to call us names instead of passing this bill. I want them to help pass this bill but we will do it without them if we have to.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I hope, regardless of political affiliation, we can refrain from accusing one another of hating democracy. I think each person, regardless of their community, the language they speak, the community they represent or the party to which they belong, is a defender of democracy. I hope they would align themselves with the protections of the institutions that uphold that democracy, including the rule of law. We have the opportunity to move forward with protections. It is clear that Conservatives have moved on from making substantive arguments and debates. They clearly just want to label the government with accusations that I do not think are grounded in reality, instead of actually advancing the protections in the bill. We will do this with them or without them. It would be my preference to have them with us.

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