In 2024, this was voted on (Palestine statehood recognition) and turned down. So come again? How is this not required? Also, I agree its not easily solved over summer but Uncle Mark stated Canada would recognize Palestine as a state. This summer he said it.
That was a non-binding motion introduced by the NDP. A non-binding Parliamentary motion is simply a procedure by which the House of Commons can vote to put its stamp on some idea or principle. No Parliamentary action is actually required to permit Canada to diplomatically recognize the existence of a foreign state.
In the last parliament, there were numerous occasions were parliamentary committees would go totally sideways with an abuse of "point of order" pauses (Iqra Khalid was terrible for this), childish outburst (Nathaniel Erskine-Smith openly swore at the conservatives in committee) and downright stall tactics (Many of the STDC and arrivescam studies kept getting meetings halted early by Liberal-NDP votes whenever some uncomfortable facts came up).
The parliamentary committee on the status for women turned into an absolute shitshow when Katelyn Alexander (domestic abuse victim who nearly died), was cut off during her testimony by Liberal MP Anita Vandenbelde (she pushed a motion to change the committee discussion to abortion in the MIDDLE of Kate's testimony on a point of order), Anita later apoligized for her disgraceful behaviour.
Now that the NDP is out of play (if they are on committee, its purely a courtesy as they don't have party status now), the Conservatives and Bloc can keep the Liberals feet to the fire.
Sure, they can study stuff and make reports, and may be able to do so with slightly less theatrics? Though I’m not sold that the theatrics are dependent on one party or another. So are you saying that studies and reports are what we need in these issues?
What about the bill that pretty much forces them to release accused on bail? I forget the name of the bill, it gets brought up over and over again. You obviously have first hand experience with this, so fill me in (not with OC spray either), the bail bill that allows repeat offenders out over and over again to keep committing crimes, not federal government legislation? The police chiefs (of Ontario I think it was) were even up in arms about this last year or during the election.
Bill C-49. That was in 2019 I believe. The biggest pet of that is it took various case law that had evolved across the provinces and at SCC and it codified it into law to add clarity and certainty. It did at a principle of restraint to encourage release on bail; it also gave more powers to police to impose enforceable conditions on police undertakings so we can basically handle more simple cases ourself rather than send minor offences to bail court to get the same conditions.
The challenge with bail reform is that reasonable bail is a Charter right. That puts certain constraints on what legislation can do. However we have all kinds of offences or circumstances where there’s a reverse onus. The law as it stands allows prosecutors to request a lot more and for courts to grant a lot more to hold someone in custody than they actually do- and that comes right back to court and remand capacity. For my money, you want to make a fast dent? Work on making sure the
right accused are held in custody with the current capacity, and meanwhile work rapidly to expand provincial court capacity, provincial crown prosecutors, and provincial remand centers so that bail court and jail capacity figure less prominently in decisions to grant bail.
Now, is there room to legislate improvement? Absolutely- and since C-49 that’s already happened once in early 2024. They swung the pendulum back a bit from the 2019 reforms, expanded reverse onus for violent weapons offences and intimate partner violence, and codified that the courts have to state on the record that public safety has been considered. So there was a recognition that there needed to be some further correction.
I can’t say with any expertise what the next step might be. I will say that parties in opposition have a bad habit of trying to make hay with proposed legislation that sounds good politically but that we know would faceplant into the
Charter (see: mandatory minimums).
I’m or co Vince’s any such issue would have been a summer emergency that would call for Parliament to continue sitting, and that would consume the time and resources of the Department of Justice who are already jammed up on border and synthetic drug stuff.
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