Government fast-tracks passage of ‘extreme intoxication’ bill

MPs unanimously agreed to pass Bill C-28 by Tuesday evening and to convene a study by the Standing Committee on Justice this fall on the implementation of the bill.

Even before receiving the bill, the Senate was meanwhile conducting its own expedited process, convening a committee to debate the bill.

Justice Minister David Lametti came before the senators and urged them to share his sense of urgency: it is important to fill this gap.

Bill C-28, introduced last Friday, would update the Criminal Code to create a new standard of criminal liability when someone commits a crime in a state of extreme self-induced intoxication due to negligence.

Five weeks earlier, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the previous wording of section 33.1 of the Criminal Code.

Its unanimous decision upheld two acquittals on the basis of a defense extreme intoxication and ordered a new trial in a third case.

The senators wonder about several aspects

Mr Lametti has repeatedly condemned misinformation on social media that falsely suggests the ruling meant someone drunk or high on drugs can get away with sexual assault and other violent crimes .

He referred to this false notion of pass asking senators to quickly approve the bill, saying victims’ groups he consulted support its speedy implementation.

Still, several senators have raised concerns about whether meaningful consultation could have taken place in five weeks and whether there could be unintended consequences on the bill.

In a letter to senators on Tuesday, National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) National Steering Committee Chair Kerri Froc wrote that her organization had been consulted only a few days before the bill was introduced and that his concerns about the bill’s flaws had not been meaningfully addressed.

The parliament should not act hastily and enshrine a flawed bill in lawMs. Froc wrote, explaining that it might be too difficult for prosecutors to prove, as the wording of the bill would require, that a reasonable person could have foreseen that the intoxicants could lead her to become violent.

Several senators wondered if this burden of proof was realistic. My concern here, Minister Lametti, is that the proposal, no matter how sincere, will miss the mark, and that hardly anyone will be able to be convicted under this provisionsaid Brent Cotter, an independent senator from Saskatchewan.

Lametti said he understood the concern, but disagreed, noting that the Supreme Court itself had suggested this approach as one of the government’s legislative options to fill this gap.

He said the criminal negligence standards used in the bill are already widely used, including in drunk driving cases.

In response to senators’ concerns about the lack of time to consider the bill’s implications, he suggested that the Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs could schedule a study into the bill’s implementation this fall. , just like his House counterpart did.