Madam Speaker, as I did at second reading, I would like to reiterate how hard it is to face a difficult issue like this, given the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Constable Wynn.

Every one of us in the House recognizes that this kind of tragic event, a murder, comes to us and strikes at the heart of the work we are trying to do to improve things. In this sense, I would like to thank the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton for his efforts. He urged us to hold this debate, even though it is an extremely difficult and very emotional one.

It goes without saying that getting involved in political life on an issue, going to a parliamentary committee, and so forth, is already difficult enough for anyone. I certainly admire Constable Wynn's widow who had the courage to appear before the committee. I think all my colleagues would share that view.

We appreciate the opportunity to have been able to discuss this fundamental issue. I want to thank my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton for putting us on a path to try to fix this issue, regardless of whether we agree or disagree on how to fix it.

One of the first things we have to realize is that we are living in a new reality, especially when it comes to justice-related issues. That is the reality of Jordan.

Whether it is in a case like this or another one, we can see that Jordan has created a new reality in terms of the administration of justice and of delays. This reality threatens public safety. Not only do delays impose a heavy burden on the justice system, but they also sometimes result in the release of persons accused of horrific crimes, as we have seen in Quebec. It is not something we want to do. None of us wants to see this happen.

With that in mind, we have a responsibility to study bills in a robust and meaningful way. That is why I was very pleased to support the bill at second reading. I encouraged my colleagues in the NDP caucus to do the same thing. This is an important debate. We need to create a new reality in the justice system so that these kinds of events do not happen again.

To that end, the first big step that was taken was the work done by Nancy Irving in the report that she worked on to try to enure this kind of tragedy did not happen again. The member for Mount Royal quoted from it. For me, that was part of the testimony that was the most compelling, given how closely she had worked on trying to fix the problems that led to this tragedy.

I will read her comments into the record. She said:

I share the concern that this new language could turn bail hearings into mini-trials. That would certainly make bail hearings longer, and it would likely contribute to further delays in a system already struggling to cope with the volume of bail cases and the new time requirements set by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Jordan, which were released last summer.

At a minimum, I think it's reasonable to anticipate that the meaning of this new language will be litigated, perhaps all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, before we receive judicial guidance. That could take years. In the meantime, the crown's standard of proof will be uncertain

Regarding the administration of justice, we must also consider the provinces’ role. Frankly, I do not like injecting partisanship into such a debate, but when the Attorneys General of Ontario and Saskatchewan, two very different provinces ideologically speaking, make the same observation that this could cause problems for the administration of justice and undermine efforts to achieve our common goal of ensuring public safety, I think we should take a moment and think about it.

I am therefore putting the ball right back in the government’s court. As the committee chair and member for Mount Royal just said, a letter from the committee was written and recommendations were made through the motion. This letter turned out to be essential, since the Minister of Justice has an enormous amount of work to do to ensure that justice officials and prosecutors have the necessary resources to fix this problem, even though the bill does not appear to be the best solution.

This is exactly what we are seeing in Quebec with judicial appointments. We are also seeing it in other jurisdictions where they have other problems with resources and the administration of justice. We have not managed to deal with the new reality of the Jordan ruling. This means that there is a lot of work to do. We hope that the minister will be motivated by the excellent work of my Conservative colleague and by the fact that we all recognize the importance of ridding our society of this scourge and this kind of tragedy. I do not doubt her intentions, but let us be honest: after 18 months, it is time to act.

Therefore, despite this difficult file, we are using this opportunity to point out just how important it is for the minister to acknowledge this issue and the testimony heard in committee, particularly from Ms. Wynne. She clearly explained the human cost of government inaction and our collective responsibility to make sure not only that our court system respects our law-based society, but also that we keep in mind respect for victims. We are trying to achieve several things, and in this respect, I believe it is a healthy, although extremely difficult debate.

This is not something I wanted to raise, but I want to acknowledge how difficult this discussion has been. I do not think the motion has to be the end of the debate. We need to re-examine how we can find the proper solution to this problem and ensure we do not create a situation, involuntary though it may be, where dangerous offenders, because of the new reality that the justice system has to cope with among other things and because of the Jordan decision, are allowed back on the streets. That would go exactly counter to what we are trying to achieve when we are debating the motion and the bill it stems from.

I want to end my comments by once again saying how much I admire the courage of Constable Wynn widow for sitting in front of committee, for sharing her experience, and for pushing us all to do better in taking on these challenging issues.

I also thank the member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

Even though I said it in French, and with all due respect to our interpreters, I want to say it again in English. I hope the Minister of Justice will read the Debates and the letter from committee. Most important, I hope she will think of the victims and the human cost of the lack of action on fixing the justice system, which seems to be more and more broken in some ways, and ensure we can achieve an objective of increased public safety, and, most important, no longer see families broken apart by this kind of despicable violence.

Matthew Dubé

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