Notes for an address by The Honourable David Lametti at the Canadian Bar Association - 2022 Annual General Meeting

Ottawa, Ontario
February 7, 2022

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Hello. Thank you for inviting me to join you today.

I am speaking to you today from Montréal, which has served historically as a site of meeting and exchange for Indigenous peoples.

Thank you, Stephen, for inviting me to join you for the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) Annual General Meeting. Congratulations on your appointment.

I would also like to thank your former president, Brad Regehr, for his strong leadership during a particularly challenging time.

This is the fourth time that I have spoken to this assembly as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and it is always a pleasure to do so.

I want to use my time today—not too long, don’t worry—to speak to you about what we have accomplished and what we are going to accomplish.

When I became Minister just over three years ago the climate was, let’s say, a bit different.

But from that challenging beginning, I am proud to say that the task of transforming our justice system is well underway.

This is a big ship to turn around. We have done that and we are moving in the right direction.

Across a broad range of important issues, our government has taken this portfolio in a progressive and positive direction.

Criminal Code reform, family law reform, judicial appointments, reconciliation, program funding and other desperately needed supports. Big issues, every one of them. We promised to transform the system and we are doing that.

I want to thank you, the CBA, for your role in moving these files forward. You are driving change right across the legal profession.

Some of these changes are of a practical kind, forced by circumstances, such as the way we have had to work for the past two years.

Virtual courtrooms, remote work, online courses and paperless filing are among the examples of good ideas, which have been long awaited.

These also reveal a lesson. During the pandemic, we have been open to approaches that would have seemed too new or too different not so long ago.

This is important, because we know that there are numerous challenges in our justice system. To deal with them will require not only good ideas but also new ways of putting them into practice.

Our government is doing its part.

It starts with criminal justice reform. Bill C-5 is now at second reading in the House of Commons. This is an important step.

It eliminates a number of mandatory minimum penalties, restores access to conditional sentences and brings a public-health focus to simple drug possession.

I am looking forward to seeing this bill debated, studied and passed.

We are all aware of the damage caused by mandatory minimum penalties. We know that access to conditional sentence orders can slow down or even stop the revolving doors of the criminal justice system for those who are trapped in it.

When we divert someone who is struggling with an addiction away from the justice system and send them to treatment instead, we are making a bet that this person will take that second chance.

In the longer term, I see better outcomes resulting from these changes: fewer Indigenous people, Black people and other vulnerable individuals in our prisons or having to navigate our criminal justice system.

Getting there means getting C-5 passed. It is an important step, one that I hope leads to others.

When we talk about transformation, a major focus remains reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. C-5 plays a role in that, as do a number of other measures.

I want to thank the CBA for your continued focus on Indigenous justice and reconciliation, and for your commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

In particular, I want to highlight your accredited Indigenous-focused education program, The Path. This program provides comprehensive, accessible information about an essential part of our past and present—a history of our country that many lawyers, many Canadians, did not learn in school.

This is reconciliation in action.

Last time I spoke to you, I talked about our government’s commitment to reconciliation.

This is an important part of my mandate.

This is reflected in Bill C-5, as well as in the work that we are doing to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to create an Indigenous Justice Strategy.

It is also central to our government’s promise to appoint a Special Interlocutor, an idea informed by what we heard from Indigenous leadership.

This person will work with First Nations, Inuit and Métis governments, representative organizations, communities and families to provide independent advice for a new federal legal framework to ensure the respectful and culturally appropriate treatment of unmarked burial sites of children at former Indian residential schools.

We have been engaging with key Indigenous partners and experts on the mandate for this role, and I look forward to being able to announce progress on this important work in the near future.

The work ahead is daunting. Reconciliation challenges all of us in government to think and act in new, and at times uncomfortable, ways.

I am well aware that the task of undoing 150 years of colonialism will continue long after I am Minister.

There are two other initiatives that are important to me as Minister, and that I believe speak to our fundamental values as a country. Each has the potential to be transformational, in their own way.

Last year, as many of you know, I asked former judges Harry LaForme and Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré to study the criminal conviction review process.

They published their full report last week.

I am currently reviewing the report and its recommendations. But I can already state that we intend to put in place an independent Commission to review criminal cases.

This is a fundamental issue for access to justice, which I campaigned for long before becoming Minister.

The fact I needed to appoint two retired judges to look at this issue speaks to what has been missing from the Canadian legal community: a body focused on generating the ideas to modernize, improve and reform our laws and institutions.

We are bringing that body back to life.

To that end, we have revived the Law Commission of Canada.

In December, we launched a selection process to find the President and two commissioners.

I am looking forward to seeing the Law Commission resume its critically important work.

I know that I don’t have much more time and that you have questions. Anyone who has read my mandate letter knows that I could keep going for a long time yet.

I mentioned at the start how we have been transforming our justice system.

The work is not finished.

We have made great progress in ensuring that our justice system reflects Canada as it is.

But we need your help.

You can be a candidate for an appointment.

You can be the mentor to a future generation of judges.

You can support the diversity that Canada needs.

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms—a model of inclusion that helps define our identity and aspirations.

It also inspires what we are doing as a government as we work to build the kind of society the Charter envisions. The CBA plays a critical role in that work as well.

You can see that I am happy that we are working together to improve both our profession and our country.

Thank you for your leadership, and partnership, as we continue to build a fair, accessible, and equitable justice system for all Canadians.

Thank you.