Criminal Code—Youth Criminal Justice Act
Bill to Amend--Thirty-second Report of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee Adopted
June 11, 2019
Moved the adoption of the report.
He said: Honourable senators, I listened to the debate that took place before I stood up before you to move the thirty-second report of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I was thinking of the complexity of Bill C-75. I hold it here in my hand. Honourable senators, it contains 406 clauses. I look at Senator Patterson. It’s more than half of the clauses of the Criminal Code. This is the Criminal Code, honourable senators, the most complex statute on Canadian statute shelves, and this bill amends the Criminal Code with 406 clauses.
You can imagine that your Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, which has been tasked to study this bill, I cannot but thank the vice-chairs of the committee, Senator Dupuis and Senator Boisvenu, and all the senators on the committee. I have the impression, as chair of the committee, of being the moderator of the legal seminar of a law faculty in any university in Canada because, of course, there is not a single statute in Canadian law that is more complex and more difficult to connect with all its implications, because each clause refers to a number of other clauses that are all intertwined.
When a bill amends subparagraph (i)(e) of subparagraph (e) of clause 406(17), you might understand that just finding that in the Criminal Code, where it stands and in which context it takes place in the code is a very difficult operation and exercise.
Your committee was tasked with reviewing this bill in early April of this year, this spring. I’m very proud to report and give you, in lay terms, the substance of the bill, because not all of you will delight in reading that kind of legislation.
Nevertheless, you are parliamentarians and you are legislators and you will be called to pronounce on it, and that gives you a right to know what this bill contains.
The first objective of Bill C-75 is essentially to modernize the Criminal Code and to give effect to two decisions of the Supreme Court in the Jordan and Cody cases. You will remember those decisions of the Supreme Court three years ago, which compelled any trial or audience in relation to the Criminal Code be conducted within a specific limited time of 18 months or a longer period, depending on the gravity of the offence.
Those decisions really turned the system upside-down. The Criminal Code needed to be amended to give effect to those limits under which the criminal system would operate in the future.
The objective of the bill was to address the delays that were plaguing the criminal justice system before the Jordan case. I remind you that the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of former Senator Runciman, and Senator Baker, who was the vice-chair at the time, produced a specific study titled, Delaying Justice Is Denying Justice.
All of us, collectively, as an institution, were also considering that there were deficiencies in the criminal justice system that were producing too many delays and we had to address that because, as I just mentioned, justice delayed is justice denied. If you can’t go to court in a reasonable period of time, you don’t have a right because the fees accumulate, you get frustrated and the witnesses lose their memory. There are all kinds of incidental elements that happen so that by the end of it you don’t really receive the legal treatment that you’re entitled to receive.
Our committee produced that report with 50 recommendations. A fair number of them are in Bill C-75, plus, of course, those suggestions that stem from provincial, territorial and federal justice minister conferences that regularly produce recommendations and conclusions to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system.
Among that work, the committee made 14 amendments to Bill C-75 and we also produced seven observations. I will come to them later in my presentation.
First, I want to outline the eight essential elements of Bill C-75 in a very short time. I won’t do a legal dissertation. I won’t abuse your patience. I will try to put this in the simplest terms possible because, as my brother would say, when lawyers involve themselves in too much intricate reasoning and the obscurity of legal language, you, in fact, lose people instead of trying to enlighten them. I will try not to lose you by explaining to you the eight essential elements of Bill C-75.
The first element, honourable senators, is to reclassify offences that were the object of indictment procedures, which are often the most serious in the Criminal Code and usually incur a sentence of 10 years or less, and offences that are under summary conviction procedures — lighter offences and lighter sentences — in order to allow for the possibility for a Crown prosecutor to decide if that accused will go under indictment instead of under a summary conviction.
In other words, there would be flexibility in the system, considering the seriousness of the offence, all the facts around the facts and considering what would be the need to have a sentence that would be scaled within 10 years maximum or 2 years maximum.
In other words, we would have more flexibility in the code. This is, of course, very important because if you take the corridor of an indictment procedure, this corridor is fraught with all kinds of delay possibilities because there are all kinds of motions that can be made by the parties. There are all kinds of requests for additional elements of proof and so forth. If you allow the Crown prosecutor to opt for summary conviction, I would say this is a fast track, a faster way of addressing the criminal offence that has to be addressed by the system.
That was the first element of the code. In other words, flexibility in the option of deciding if you would opt for indictment instead of summary conviction and adjusting the maximum penalty accordingly. According to the code, most summary offences now are under two years maximum penalty. That means for many summary offences, the penalty has been increased to allow that if you choose that route, then the accused will face responsibility that is higher because he or she is not the object of a decision to go under an indictment procedure. That’s the first fundamental element in the code.
The second, you will understand, is also very important. The bill originally abolished preliminary inquiries. Those of you who have watched TV or movies will know the first thing is to allow the elements of proof and come to a conclusion on whether there are enough elements of fact and proof to go to trial. That is also a first step. It’s a preliminary step to the trial — there’s no doubt there is ample documentation in relation to that. This is an element of the procedure that is usually used to delay everything.
The decision, after due consideration by the provinces and by all those who consider the way to address a modern system of justice, was to abolish preliminary inquiries and reserve them only for adults facing a charge of life imprisonment. In other words, only in those cases would there be a compulsory preliminary inquiry and one will understand why because, at the end, is life imprisonment.
I will later explain that the committee decided to amend that section of the original proposal in Bill C-75.
The third element of Bill C-75 is to protect victims of intimate partner violence. When I use the term “intimate partner,” you will ask me what is an intimate partner? I don’t want to make a bad joke, but I will assert back, “What are your intimate parts?” If I say “intimate partner,” you know what it means. It is somebody with whom you share intimacy; let’s put it that way. The bill introduced that concept for the first time in the Criminal Code.
This is very important because we know that if we want to address violence in a contemporary context, the victims of intimate partner violence is a contemporary phenomenon that needs to be addressed in a much more efficient way. The bill provides if there is a repeat offence by an intimate partner then, of course, the sentence is higher and when the judge has to decide about bail, he or she also has to take that into consideration that there is a repeated offence.
That is the third fundamental element of changes in the Criminal Code. The fourth one is about modernizing bail practices, especially due consideration to Aboriginal people. We all know that bail is a procedure whereby those who are the most vulnerable in our society have less capacity to defend themselves at bail hearings. They end up in bail custody, being denied and going into custody. The bill addresses that, to make it much more efficient in terms of dealings with bail hearings with due consideration to vulnerable populations, especially Aboriginal people.
The fifth is to give more discretion to police and judges in dealing with the administration of justice offence. In other words, administration of justice offences is more in the nature of an administrative offence, an administrative failure. It doesn’t per se endanger the life or integrity of other people. Unless there is that element, the administration of justice offences should be more flexible and responsive to the special circumstances into which they take place.
The sixth is about the strengthening of the management case power of judges. The judge is master in his or her court. It’s the judge who presides. We have judges here, Senator Andreychuk, Senator Sinclair, Senator Dalphond and Senator Wetston. They will tell you that in their courts, they were the masters of their ship. It is important that judges, when they realize that one of the parties is really not cooperating as fast as possible, the judge can decide that we’re going to move forward. I give you this date to come before us.
Honourable senators, when we prepared our report on Delaying Justice is Denying Justice, we heard, in camera, associate Chief Justices in many regions of Canada. In all our discussions and exchanges, they requested that additional power because they said if we really want to move things forward, we need to have the capacity to decide. That is one of the key elements —
Your time has expired, Senator Joyal. Are honourable senators willing to grant five more minutes?
I will go quickly, honourable senators. Of course, the other reform, which is especially important, is about jury selection. I’m looking at Senator Batters, who was very much involved in discussion at committee. In jury selection, there is a peremptory refusal. You have seen movies. The lawyers are there and they say, “I refuse this person.” They do not need to give any reason. We removed that from the code. If there is a reason to refuse a candidate for jury selection, it is the judge who will decide if they accept the person, yes or no.
Honourable senators will understand that those changes are pretty important. The committee was mindful in making sure those changes would reflect the other sections, the other dynamics of the code. We realized, for instance, in that context, there was no protection for obtaining DNA proof or fingerprinting when we were reclassifying the offences. We were losing the capacity to put DNA in the bank or to have fingerprints in the bank. The committee amended the code to make sure that what we were doing in reclassifying the offences was in sync with the protection of the DNA and the fingerprints.
The committee also amended the bill to allow for the refusal of preliminary inquiry — the objective of the code. If the two parties, the Crown prosecutor and the defence lawyer, agree to request a preliminary inquiry, they could obtain authorization from a judge for a preliminary inquiry; or one or both parties could obtain such authorization. This provides more flexibility, rather than just wiping it out. In order to expedite the trial process, I think the committee was wise to introduce this in the bill.
On the other elements of the bill — and I say this while looking at my colleagues who introduced these elements — two other sentencing principles were introduced at section 718.2 of the Act. I don’t want to recite to you all the subparagraphs.
Honourable senators, I can’t resist saying that when I was a student lawyer, we had to learn this by heart. During the bar exam, a question could be: According to section 718.2(e), here is the question.
So you had to know. You could not use your computer or anything; you had to know the code almost by heart. Of course, today it’s another world, but I just wanted to remind you of that.
In the context of new sentencing principles, it was suggested that we must take into consideration victims of intimate partner violence in order to determine the sentence, be they Indigenous women or other vulnerable groups of women. That is an important element. If you read the report of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls, it is one of the recommendations put forward by the commission last week.
Honourable senators, I also want to bring to your attention the victim surcharge. Last year, in a decision called Boudreault, the Supreme Court declared the surcharge unconstitutional, in breach of section 12 of the Charter. Amendments were introduced by Senator Sinclair to ensure flexibility in the imposition of the surcharge so that there is no undue hardship, and to take into consideration the seriousness of the offence, which also inserts some common sense into the imposition of the surcharge.
On the observation, honourable senators, I will stress — I’m sorry. I will conclude on this, honourable senators. I know my colleague Senator Boisvenu will be able to complete the observation. I thank you for your attention, honourable senators, to this complex legislation.
Who could criticize a performance as theatrical as the one delivered by my committee chair, Senator Joyal? Thank you so much, Senator Joyal. I always enjoy listening to you speak with such ardour and enthusiasm.
Honourable senators, today I am speaking to Bill C-75 at report stage. As the critic for this bill, I will focus primarily on those elements that affect victims of crime.
This is an omnibus bill. As Senator Joyal said, it would amend 407 sections of the Criminal Code. This was a colossal job that we had to complete in very little time. I will comment on that at the end of my remarks.
A number of witnesses, including some victims who are, sadly, worried about their fate, expressed concerns about this bill. I will highlight their concerns about the reclassification of criminal offences, also known as “hybridizing criminal offences,” which will become hybrid offences, and the reversal of the onus of proof in cases of intimate partner violence. Those are the two elements I will focus on in my speech.
The Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime is concerned about the reclassification of several offences that will be hybridized, thus giving the Crown the choice to prosecute them as summary conviction offences rather than indictable offences.
The bill proposes to hybridize or reclassify more than 116 offences in the Criminal Code, including acts as serious as forced marriage and human trafficking. The ombudsman expressed concern about the reclassification of offences such as the kidnapping of children under the age of 14 and human trafficking. Human trafficking is the fastest growing crime in Canada, certainly in Quebec and Ontario.
The ombudsman said the following:
When you proceed by summary conviction instead of indictable, then you’re sending a message that those crimes are potentially less serious. It’s our view that these crimes against women and children are very serious.
With respect to crimes related to trafficking in persons, Arnold Viersen, MP and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, which brings together people from all parties of the House of Commons and of which I am also a member, talked about the sections that Bill C-75 proposes to hybridize, specifically those pertaining to the material benefit from trafficking, material benefit from sexual services, and withholding or destroying documents for the purposes of human trafficking. At present, those are all indictable offences.
These offences are at the core of human trafficking, which, unfortunately, is very lucrative. Its victims are often minors. According to Mr. Viersen:
If the amendments to hybridize these three offences in Bill C-75 are accepted, a trafficker found guilty of these offences could end up with a fine for $5,000 and face no jail time.
He continues:
The deterrence provided by a $5,000 fine is minimal compared to the $300,000 a trafficker can make for only one victim in a year.
He points out the following:
In considering the extreme violence and degradation and torture that these victims of human trafficking often endure, the punishment proposed for the offence clearly does not correlate to the nature of the crime. In short, hybridizing offences that degrade the human condition is a step backwards for human rights and victims rights.
With respect to human trafficking, I want to point out that according to Statistics Canada’s most recent report, 90 per cent of the victims of this crime are women, 72 per cent are under 25, and one in four victims is under 18. These victims are often isolated, do not have a voice and are left to fend for themselves. They will suffer the consequences of this reclassification.
I will quote the 2009 decision in Dudley:
Parliament’s enactment of dual procedure offences recognizes that certain crimes can be more or less serious depending on the circumstances and provides the Crown with discretion to choose the most appropriate procedure and range of potential penalties.
The good news is that the maximum penalty for all summary offences will increase to two years less a day. Opponents to mandatory minimum penalties say that such penalties increase the Crown prosecutor’s discretionary power in exercising the Crown election. That is exactly what the new hybrid offences will do. The Crown will no longer have discretionary power.
However, when prosecutors are confronted with delays in the justice system, as Senator Joyal pointed out, they will be more tempted to choose a summary prosecution, since the process is shorter and less onerous, plus there is no jury. Another risk is that provincial governments could draft directives to deal with more cases through a summary trial, which will lead to penalties of less than two years.
We must ask ourselves what impact these decisions will have on provincial prisons, many of which are overcrowded.
In Montreal, if the Crown chooses to proceed with a summary conviction in a human trafficking case, the trial will be held before a provincial, or more specifically, a municipal court. The municipal courts will have to deal with more of these types of cases. Bill C-75 will then transfer more cases to the provincial and municipal courts.
Since Statistics Canada does not collect data on the criminal cases heard before the municipal courts in Montreal and elsewhere in Quebec, I think the statistical profile of crime in Canada will now be less representative.
I interact regularly with the victims of assailants who have been designated long term offenders — another problem with hybridization — and I think it is irresponsible to reclassify this offence as a hybrid offence. We are talking about long-term offenders here. Let’s not forget that the long-term offender designation was created in 1997 and primarily targets sexual offenders.
This designation was created in response to concerns that many sexual and violent offenders required specific attention.
The “long-term offender” designation is given to individuals convicted of a serious personal injury offence. Bill C-75 would make that a hybridized offence with a maximum potential penalty of less than two years in prison or just a fine if the Crown opts for summary conviction. I will remind you, we are talking about hardened criminals.
That brings me to the issue of the lack of data, statistics and studies that should have accompanied the introduction of this omnibus bill.
How many more cases will be heard in provincial and municipal courts? What impact will this have on provincial prisons? We have no idea, and no information was forthcoming in committee. We don’t even know which victims’ groups were consulted.
If the government had provided us, as legislators, with a detailed description of how hybridizing each offence would affect provincial correctional systems, pardon applications, and the number of cases likely to end up in provincial or municipal courts, then we would be looking at a clearly articulated bill with a vision for the justice system.
Instead, what we have here is the unknown.
If the members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice managed to amend Bill C-75 so that incitement of genocide is no longer a hybrid offence, then why not do the same thing in the Senate for human trafficking crimes?
The Liberal members removed the incitement of genocide offence from the bill because it would have marginalized that type of criminal behaviour.
I was very surprised when the Minister of Justice offered us the following justification for reclassifying offences:
However, the facts are such that, sometimes, some cases should be treated differently. Our goal is to make the system fairer, more transparent and more efficient, to give discretion to the prosecution service so they can take the necessary measures.
I would respond to the minister by saying that some crimes must remain serious, regardless of the circumstances. Crimes as heinous as human trafficking or forced marriage should never be treated differently, regardless of the circumstances.
The crime of sexual enslavement of women and minors will never call for a lighter sentence or a speedier pardon.
As far as the reverse onus in cases of domestic violence is concerned, the representative from the Manitoba Organization for Victim Assistance or MOVA, which works with victims of crime, said, and I quote:
. . . I have a concern regarding the issue of repeat offenders. Currently, the area of intimate partner violence and domestic assault is grossly unreported and, therefore, not addressed nearly as much as it needs to be.
She went on to say, and I quote:
There is no support for victims with this amendment. If someone is the victim of domestic assault, the likelihood of a repeat assault is extremely high.
I would add that, in my view, the likelihood of being killed is also very high.
I will not try to hide my disappointment with the fact that the independent senators rejected my amendment on the reverse onus. My amendment recognized the principle that a man is violent and dangerous to the victim the first time he assaults her, not only after a repeat offence, as the bill would have it.
Basically, my amendment would have ensured that, in order to be released, a violent man who assaulted his spouse or former spouse would have to prove that he was not violent the first time he committed assault, not the second.
I am sure that thousands of Canadian women are disappointed today by what they see as a lack of compassion toward them, in light of this refusal to amend the bill to better protect them.
I want to point out how disturbing it is that the Department of Justice introduced Bill C-75 without considering the consequences it could have on the National DNA Data Bank. If Senator McIntyre’s amendment had not been adopted, the bill we received from the House of Commons would have had catastrophic effects on the administration of justice in Canada and on the safety of women, children and vulnerable groups across the country.
Without Senator McIntyre’s amendment, every time Crown prosecutors decided to proceed with the new hybrid offences as a summary conviction, they would have lost the ability to request a DNA order. That shows a lack of diligence on the part of the Department of Justice in developing these new hybrid offences. I would therefore like to acknowledge the work of my colleague, Senator McIntyre, who proposed this amendment. I would also like to acknowledge the excellent work of Senator Dalphond, who supported the amendment and worked on it with Senator McIntyre.
According to the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, and I quote:
There is also currently no legal duty to inform victims when an offender is released on bail. This means victims with serious concerns for their safety may not be made aware when an accused person is released and what conditions may or may not be in place.
This means that under Bill C-75, there will no longer be an obligation to inform a victim when an offender prosecuted for a summary offence is released. Imagine if you were the victim, the individual was released, and you came face-to-face with him in a shopping mall on the weekend. That shows a total lack of respect for victims.
I will close with an important comment from William Trudell, Chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, concerning the short amount of time allocated to study a bill of this magnitude. According to Mr. Trudell, the committee should have spent more time studying this bill, because it has wide-ranging implications. He said, and I quote:
We look at you as the essential gatekeepers who don’t have to be concerned about political initiatives and have a chance to really look at the wide X-rays of legislation that comes before you.
He went on to say, and I quote:
The changes you are going to ask be made in this bill are historical and fundamental, and you must take time.
Unfortunately, we see that the government was not very receptive to improving the bill to better support victims.
The committee from the other place heard 107 witnesses. Our committee heard barely 55 per cent of that number. Worse still, the Standing Committee on Justice from the other place dedicated 291 hours to its study of this bill, while the Senate committee spent just 20 hours on it. That is 15 times less.
In conclusion, as this session comes to a hectic end, the government is ordering us to study its bills blindly and superficially, without expressing an opinion. I think this sends a very clear message that victims of crime are not a priority for the government.
Senator Boisvenu, your time has expired. Are you asking for five more minutes?
One minute, please.
Is leave granted, honourable senators?
Thank you.
With this bill, as with other bills, the government’s intention is to put criminals ahead of the safety of Canadian women and children. We can only hope that, in a few months, Canadians will have a government they can count on to make victims of crime a priority.
Thank you.
I just want to thank Senator Joyal for the work he did as committee chair during our study of Bill C-75, as well as Senator Boisvenu for his cooperation.
I want to point out something that hasn’t been mentioned yet, and that is the fact that Parliament also has a duty to protect women. Our committee heard evidence to that effect and was very interested to learn that many types of witnesses, including representatives of women’s groups, advocacy groups and police forces, believe that the criminal justice system is failing all women, with differential impacts on women of colour, newcomer women and Indigenous women.
Our committee decided that it was necessary to make this observation as part of the analysis of this bill. We are concerned that the use of neutral legal language means that the systemic discrimination against women in the criminal justice system will go unnoticed.
Nowhere does it clearly state that the majority of victims of assault, whether sexual or otherwise, are women, nor do women have access to services that enable them to report their assailants. Indigenous women are disproportionately affected. They are left to fend for themselves throughout the process, from reporting the incident to the police to the investigation, to preparing for the trial to the decision to continue legal proceedings or not. In most cases, the prosecution decides not to prosecute. After that decision is made, women are left to their own devices, as the case is tried and judgment is handed down. After the legal proceedings are over, they have to figure out on their own how to live their lives as victims of assault.
Justice Canada was encouraged to implement major systemic reforms to improve the administration of justice for women and take into account what we call intersectional discrimination, which means that women experience different consequences depending on their status, whether they are Indigenous women or immigrants to this country.
The Department of Justice was also invited to carefully study the recently released report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and to amend the Criminal Code to integrate the findings of the GBA+ undertaken on Bill C-75.
I want to emphasize this second point. We asked that a GBA+ be undertaken on every bill and that these analyses be done as part of the study of each bill. We were told, however, that these are confidential documents because they are intended for cabinet. Nevertheless, it was noted that in certain cases the Minister of Justice does agree to publicly release some of the information used in the analyses.
In my view, that is an extremely important observation. In the case of certain bills, I encourage committees in general, and senators, to take advantage of this option to include those aspects in the public debate and to push departments to engage in deeper reflection by attaching comments to committee reports.
Honourable senators, I also wanted to speak to the observations. Most of my comments are with respect to the observations that Senator Dupuis has just highlighted so I will forego those in the interests of time. I note for honourable senators that Observations 1, 3, 4 and 6 all deal with recommendations that came from the 2017 Senate report, Delaying Justice Is Denying Justice: An Urgent Need to Address Lengthy Court Delays in Canada.
I won’t go into the substantive matters except to say that was a very thorough report. It influenced the bill we have before us but there is more to be done — more to be done in the manner of setting up an independent committee that can do a complete review for the modernization of the Criminal Code; more to be done with respect to the observations of that committee report on mandatory minimum sentencing; more to be done to understand that, in order to reduce delays, this bill in and of itself could help but it’s not enough and that there are need to be appropriate resources for federal prosecutors.
Observation 7 deals with the matter of victim surcharges which Senator Joyal spoke to in his speech. I won’t repeat that.
This leaves Observation 5, I believe, which is the unintended risk of deportation for non-citizens. We noted that the changes in hybridization and sentencing could affect potential maximum sentences for a number of offences that were summary convictions. There is an increased possibility of those sentences being over six months and that has an interaction with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
There could be what we believe is an unintended consequence. The government was very clear and the minister was very clear; it’s not their intent to see people unduly punished. However, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, any person seeking citizenship who receives a sentence for serious criminality of over six months could face deportation. In cases where sentences for summary convictions that are now under six months could potentially migrate past six months, there is the possible unintended consequence of people facing what could be seen as a double penalty in facing deportation.
We note the government has said it is unintended. We believe this issue needs to be looked at. In our observation we also suggested the mandate of the independent body of experts that I referred to before, recommended from the previous Senate study on this, should include a review of how the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is impacted by increased sentences for summary convictions in the Criminal Code.
With that, I bring my remarks to a close.
Are senators ready for the question?
It was moved by the Honourable Senator Joyal, seconded by the Honourable Senator Mercer, that the report be adopted.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
An Hon. Senator: On division.
(Motion agreed to, on division, and report adopted.)
Honourable senators, when shall this bill, as amended, be read the third time?
(On motion of Senator Sinclair, bill, as amended, placed on the Orders of the Day for third reading at the next sitting of the Senate.)