Justice Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I agree that this is a really important issue to focus on. We need more contested hearings, and we need to have more information at these hearings before people are just released with conditions.

Here is one thing I wanted to ask about. I may be wrong, but in certain provinces—I think Ontario, which you guys would be more familiar with, is one of them—a justice of the peace does not have to have a legal background.

Is that something that should change? Should the justice of the peace be required to have a legal background to at least have a better understanding of the criminal law?

[Brian Sauvé]

I can touch on that.

I don't necessarily think JJPs or whoever is conducting that hearing has to have a legal background.

For example, all police officers have a considered equivalent training across Canada, whether it's in use of force, knowledge of the law, provincial or federal statutes and all of those great things. Why doesn't our provincial justice system have a consistent standard in the enforcement of bail, the decisions on bail hearings or how they present a bail hearing? Nova Scotia is different from Ontario, which is different from British Columbia, which is different from Alberta, which is different from Nunavut.

For some cases, our members are the Crown. That has been left to them. I was in Whatì, Northwest Territories, a little while ago. We are the only representative of the government in that particular small town. That training should be available to them to meet that standard, but that standard doesn't exist across Canada. Hence, every province does it differently.

I don't know about legal training, but a consistent level would be appreciated.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I have one last question.

In terms of youth exploitation and recruiting young people, Mr. Fortin suggested a double sentence or a sentence of twice the duration.

Do you guys have any good suggestions, briefly, on what is the right way to deter in that instance?

[Clayton Campbell]

I agree that sentencing has to be looked at. When you're seeing gang members or organized crime members recruiting youths as young as 13 and 14 years of age to be involved in this level of violence, I think there should be increased consequences for these individuals.

[Tom Stamatakis]

You could build something into the reverse-onus provisions, for example, when you identify a person engaged in that behaviour.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thanks very much, all of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Thank you, gentlemen.

We're on to the third round. We'll be led off by MP Shipley for five minutes. Then we'll go back again to Madam Dhillon for five minutes.

Then Mr. Fortin will have two and a half minutes.

We'll then have Andrew Lawton for another five minutes and Wade Chang for five minutes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

In the new round, don't I have five minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

No.

You have only two and a half minutes. You can always count your party's seats in the House and do the math to figure it out.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Is that a challenge for me?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Yes, it's a challenge for me, but I will maintain my neutrality.

Enough chatter. Let's move on.

Mr. Shipley, we'll go over to you for five minutes.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I had a nice list of questions here that I was prepared to ask, but Mr. Campbell, you said something that really piqued my interest. I want to get into this a little bit with you, because I've been thinking about this for a while now.

You mentioned that the justice system seems to have leaned more towards—and I'd like all three to weigh in on this, please—the rights of the accused than towards those of the victims. I scribbled that down as you were speaking. I think I pretty much quoted you there.

I was recently present at a swearing-in of three justices of the peace in Toronto. There were many speeches that night, not just from the new JPs coming in, but from some senior justices, management, really a cross-section of people. I left that event a bit perplexed, quite frankly, because in all the speeches I heard that night, all I heard was that everybody was there to protect the accused. The word “victim” was never spoken once.

I left that, and I said—I was actually with my wife and I drove home—did you hear that? She agreed. Not once did anyone mention that they were there to protect the victims.

Could you expand on what you were talking about, Mr. Campbell, and if you really feel the justice system has leaned that much.... I'm sorry, I'd like all the gentlemen to comment on this and explain, maybe, what's really going on in the courts.

[Clayton Campbell]

In terms of our recommendations, if it's around parole, we have some recommendations there, some parole hearings for those really high-risk offenders, talking about victims' rights and making sure they understand when someone's released, but I think it's a big difference when our members, the ones I represent, are out there seeing this extreme level of victimization. It's not something you're reading on a piece of paper. You're seeing someone shot and killed. You're seeing a child raped. You're seeing that eight-year-old I keep coming back to, shot in his bed at eight o'clock in the morning, and it's our members who have to deal with these people. It's our community officers who have to go back into those communities and try to build relationships. It just seems like it's always focused on the offender.

I get that every person has rights and there's a presumption of innocence, but we need to put victims first. I think Canadians are fed up with it. Even in the city of Toronto, they want to see consequences, real consequences, for this small number of individuals causing the violence in our streets.

[Tom Stamatakis]

What they also want is relief, because the repeat violent offenders, that small number of people who are chronically committing these crimes, are effectively terrorizing citizens in these communities, and they want relief from that. Even worse than the actual crimes themselves is this atmosphere of an unsafe environment that it's created for citizens who are just going about their daily lives. That's why we all emphasize an opportunity for weighing...and it gets back to making sure that people who are making decisions around release, whether it's bail or parole, have all the information available.

There are some things happening in our parole system right now that everybody should be worried about. We're getting to a place where parole boards are talking about making decisions about releasing murderers without hearing from victims or the affected families of victims.

To me, this is a problem, and we need to rethink that.

[Brian Sauvé]

I'll make it quick, but I'd urge you to consider why victim impact statements are only received post conviction. Why not pre conviction and during a bail hearing? Having someone accused of domestic or intimate partner violence and not hearing from the victim at a bail hearing.... How big of an impact is that going to have on that victim, should they be released on bail?

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you. I have very little time left, but I would like to expand on this issue. It sounds like we have agreement that this is going on. Can anybody pin down why this is happening and when? All you gentlemen have been in law enforcement for a long time. When did you start to see this switch—because it hasn't always been there—and why?

[Tom Stamatakis]

In my experience, what I would say is that we have gotten away from holding people accountable and expecting individuals to take responsibility for their actions. I can get into a long story about why I think that's all happened, but I think when we shifted away from that notion of holding people accountable and expecting people to be responsible for what they do, making excuses for them and attributing what they're doing to all the underlying issues, that's where we lost our way, and that's where I think the voice of the victim and the average community member who's just trying to live their life in the community got lost.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

I'm sorry, but we have to move to the next....

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Can I be very quick?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

No. I don't want to cut in. I'm letting you guys finish your thoughts, and if these guys can fire a question off within the time period, then we're allowing some....

What was that?

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Can he submit it in writing to us, if he has something to add?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Absolutely, you could submit it in writing. We have a lot of time left until 5:30, so another member could capture that. I'm just trying to allow our witnesses to finish their thoughts, and I will cut members off if they're talking past their time. I think, for these guys, it's important to finish it off, but I don't want it to go on too long, because it looks like favouritism.

MP Dhillon, you have five minutes.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you so much.

I will continue with Mr. Sauvé. You were mentioning that it's important for bail decision-makers to have a legal background. Could you please explain, go into detail, why you think it's important?

[Brian Sauvé]

Not necessarily.... My perspective is not that they need to have a legal background but that the training across the country needs to be consistent. If that means some form of legal background, then, okay, that's for the decision-makers to come up with, but there needs to be consistent training in every jurisdiction across the country. Right now, it's a hodgepodge.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Provinces such as Manitoba have launched or expanded electronic monitoring for high-risk accused. What lessons should inform any future federal-provincial work tools so that this is targeted, effectively, in the same manner? You mentioned just previously, during one of your responses, that there is a hodgepodge, that different provinces are doing different things, so would you be able to elaborate, please, using Manitoba as an example?