BUILDING A STRONGER CANADA
Keeping Canadians Safe
Canadian communities are fundamentally safe and peaceful places to live, work and play – but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more work to do. We will continue to move forward with the things that keep Canadians safe today, as we build a safer and more secure world for our children and grandchildren
Gun Control We will ban assault rifles and crack down on gun crime. Gun crime is on the rise, and too often people are killed or injured because criminals have used military-style assault rifles. These guns are designed to inflict mass casualties and have no place in Canada. Canadians are tired of excuses and know that “thoughts and prayers” don’t make our communities any safer.
Unlike Conservatives, who want to weaken Canada’s gun laws, we will make gun laws stronger. We will move forward with a ban on all military-style assault rifles, including the AR-15, and will take other steps to keep people safe from gun violence, including:
introducing a buyback program for all military-style assault rifles legally purchased in Canada, with fair market prices for owners and more resources for law enforcement to administer the program;
working with provinces and territories to give municipalities the ability to further restrict or ban handguns; and
protecting the rights of hunters and farmers, by not bringing back the long-gun registry. Hunters and farmers do not use or need assault weapons. To crack down on gun crime and make our communities safer places to live, we will:
continue to fight gang-related violence, by investing an additional $50 million each year, for five years, in a dedicated funding stream to help municipalities meet the needs of communities at risk;
work to expand successful diversion programs to keep at-risk youth out of the criminal justice system;
make sure the Canada Border Services Agency and Royal Canadian Mounted Police have the resources they need to detect and stop the flow of weapons at our borders;
require everyone importing ammunition to show proof of a valid firearms license;
make it harder for legal weapons to get into the hands of criminals by further strengthening safe-storage laws;
address the problem of gender-based and intimate-partner violence head on, by temporarily suspending firearms licenses for people who are suspected of posing a danger to themselves or others, including their partners or kids;
introduce a system for flagging bulk purchases of guns;
strengthen penalties for people seeking to smuggle firearms into Canada; and
limit the glorification of violence, by changing the way firearms are advertised, marketed, and sold in Canada.
Access to Justice
We will give more support to survivors and victims and help bring more criminals to justice.
Canadian communities are overwhelmingly safe places to live, but when crime does occur, it’s essential that people get the support they need, and that perpetrators be brought to justice.
To ensure that the rights of survivors and victims, and the principles of justice are upheld, we will move forward with:
providing free legal aid to survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence, to make sure that they have access to quality, affordable legal representation;
establishing an independent Criminal Case Review Commission, to make it easier and faster for potentially wrongfully convicted people to have their applications reviewed;
requiring that all judges in Canada undertake mandatory training on sexual assault law, including myths and stereotypes about victims and the effects of trauma on victims’ memory (the “Ambrose bill”); and
providing additional support to the provinces and territories, to enable them to hire as many as 425 new Crown prosecutors, and 225 new judges, to help reduce delays.
National Security
We will keep people safe, while safeguarding Canadians’ rights and freedoms.
Canadians should feel safe in their communities, and confident that their rights are being respected and upheld.
In the last four years, we have helped make our borders more secure, and taken steps to make sure that our security agencies are better able to manage cybersecurity threats, including threats to our democracy. At a time of greater uncertainty and unrest, we need to build on this progress, not slow down.
To better coordinate efforts to prosecute terror suspects to the fullest extent of the law, we will move forward with the creation of a Director of Terrorism Prosecutions. This new office will make sure that Canadians who travel abroad to join terrorist organizations, or who participate in terrorist organizations here at home, are brought to justice.
We will also move forward with more support for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, so that they can hire and train 100 additional officers for offices and embassies abroad. This will improve our ability to combat terrorism, human trafficking, drug smuggling, money laundering, and other forms of organized crime.
We will also move forward with reintroducing legislation to create a review body for the Canada Border Services Agency – the only remaining security agency that does not have its own independent review.
Drug Use and Addiction
We will make it easier for people to get the help they need, with better access to treatment.
Thousands of people in Canada die from overdoses related to drug use. Last year, more than 4,400 of those deaths were from opioid use alone, and methamphetamine addiction is also on the rise. The opioid crisis is the greatest public health emergency since the AIDS epidemic, and could lead to a decrease in Canadians’ life expectancies for the first time in modern history
To help more people access the addiction treatment services they need, we will move forward with new investments that help provinces and territories expand community-based services, build more in-patient rehab beds, and scale up the most effective programs – such as extending hours for InSite and other safe consumption sites.
We will also make drug treatment court the default option for first-time non-violent offenders charged exclusively with simple possession, to help drug users get quick access to treatment, and to prevent more serious crimes.
Elder Abuse
We will help protect our seniors from abuse.
Every year, about one in ten seniors is a victim of crime, but many seniors are reluctant to report it – with only half of violent crimes against seniors reported to police, and only about a third of financial crimes being reported.
To help combat elder abuse and better protect victims, we will move forward with a national definition of elder abuse, invest in better data collection and law enforcement, and establish new penalties in the Criminal Code relating to elder abuse.
First Responders
We will take care of the people who take care of us.
Our firefighters, police officers, and paramedics put their own safety on the line every day in service to all Canadians, at great personal expense. We will continue to support our first responders and public safety workers by recommitting to advancing Canada’s first-ever National Action Plan on post-traumatic stress injuries.
In recognition of this unique service, we created the Memorial Grant Program for First Responders, which provides a lump-sum, tax-free payment of up to $300,000 to family members of first responders who have died as a result of their duties.
We will expand the Memorial Grant Program to include correctional workers by the end of 2020, and will continue to consult with other public safety workers to further broaden the program as appropriate.
People who work in Canada’s correctional system also play a critical role in protecting the public, doing difficult work in a uniquely challenging and often dangerous environment. Thankfully, work-related deaths are rare for these employees, but when they happen, we need to be there to support the families they leave behind.
Privacy and Data Protection
We will protect consumers’ rights online, and bring forward new regulations for large digital companies.
Today, a limited number of very large companies hold an extraordinary amount of personal data about Canadians. This can help to make things like online shopping and connecting with family and friends easier and more convenient, but the lack of regulation for online platforms like Facebook and Google – as well as companies that possess large amounts of data, like banks and credit card companies – also means that people have less control over their own personal information.
To make sure that people can exercise more control over their online lives and the use of their personal data, we will move forward with Canada’s Digital Charter. Overseen and enforced by a more powerful Privacy Commissioner, the Charter will establish a new set of online rights, to help people feel more confident about and in control of their personal data, including the right to:
data portability, so that people can take their data from platform to platform;
withdraw, remove, and erase basic personal data from a platform;
know how personal data is being used, including knowing who has access to it, supported by a national advertising registry where companies would have to report with whom your data is being shared or sold, with the ability to withdraw consent at any time;
review and challenge the amount of personal data that a company or government has collected;
data security, compelling those who use personal data to take proactive steps to adequately protect it;
be informed when personal data is breached, and to be compensated accordingly; and be free from discrimination online, including bias and harassment.
To better protect people’s personal data and to encourage greater competition in the digital marketplace, we will also move forward with new regulations for large digital companies, overseen by a newly-created Data Commissioner.
Promoting Equality And Diversity
Canada is one of the most diverse and welcoming countries in the world – a place where people can be themselves, find comfort in community, and build better lives for themselves and their families. At a time when intolerance and hate is on the rise around the world, we will recommit to being a place where everyone matters, and where no one is left behind.
A Renewed Commitment to Equality
We will renew our commitment to reaching full gender equality. The federal government made a commitment to considering the gender impacts of its decisions more than two decades ago, dating back to the 1995 World Conference on Women – Conservative governments failed to live up to that promise.
Because public policies affect women and men in different ways, we made gender budgeting and Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) a permanent part of the federal budget-making process. We will continue to move forward with their use, and in recognition of the Conference’s 25th anniversary next year will:
renew our commitment to a Federal Plan for Gender Equality, including a coordinated strategy built on the Gender Results Framework and other international agreements; and ensure that rigorous GBA+ continue to be performed on all policy proposals.
Diversity in Leadership
We will continue to build a government as diverse as Canada. Government makes better decisions – and Canadians are better served – when the people making decisions reflect Canada’s diversity. We have made some important progress in the last four years, but it’s clear that there is more work to be done.
We will continue to show leadership with another gender-balanced Cabinet that reflects the diversity of Canada, and will move forward with other measures that help to build a more diverse government. We will improve diversity in appointments to federal agencies and bodies, and will promote more qualified, diverse Canadians to senior positions within the public service.
An End to Gender-Based Violence
We will take more steps to protect Canadians from violence based on their gender or gender expression. The roots of gender-based violence are all around us – in the ads and commentary that objectify women, the jokes that demean members of the LGBTQ2 community, and with the expectation of rigid gender norms.
In the last four years, we’ve made a difference with investments to prevent gender-based violence, stronger supports for survivors, and a more responsive justice system. Still, not everyone is able to get the help they need when they need it the most.
To help protect more people and bring an end to gender-based violence, we will build on the foundation we laid with the Gender-Based Violence Strategy and move forward with an additional $30 million investment to develop a National Action Plan. This will help ensure that anyone facing gender-based violence has reliable and timely access to protection and services, no matter who they are or where they live.
Sexual and Reproductive Health
We will protect a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, and make family planning and sexual and reproductive health care more accessible and affordable.
We believe that women have the right to make all decisions about their own bodies – full stop. That is why we will always protect a woman’s right to access an abortion should she make that choice.
Meanwhile, Conservative candidates in Canada are cozying up to organizations that want to take that right away – and after decades of progress, the fundamental right for a woman to choose what she wants to do with her body is being thrown into question.
We won’t take Canada backward to the debates Canadian women have already fought – and won. Instead, we will move forward and work with provinces and territories to make sure that sexual and reproductive health medications are covered under national pharmacare.
Better Health Care for Women
We will work towards equal treatment in health care for women.
Canada’s publicly-funded universal health care system is a source of pride for Canadians – it keeps us healthy, cares for us when we are sick, and makes sure that everyone who needs care gets it, regardless of their ability to pay.
At the same time, not everyone receives the same quality of care – and this is especially true for women. To deliver better health care for women, we will move forward to find and eliminate the gaps in the quality of care women receive. We will:
work with the Canadian Institutes of Heath Research to integrate sex and gender-based analyses, as well as diversity analyses, to ensure research takes diversity factors into account to improve women’s health care; and
create a National Institute for Women’s Health Research, the first of its kind in Canada. The Institute would bring together experts in women’s health from across the country to tackle persistent gaps in research and care – taking an intersectional approach that includes race, ability, indigeneity and more
Funding for LGBTQ2 Groups
We will provide more funding to LGBTQ2 organizations doing work in the community.
Members of the LGBTQ2 community and their allies have always been on the frontlines of the fight to make it easier for people to love honestly and live openly.
To support this important and life-saving work, we will move forward with additional investments to help more LGBTQ2 organizations hire staff, expand services and reach a greater number of people. This will be supported by an investment of $10 million a year, over three years.
LGBTQ2 Support Lines
We will make sure that LGBTQ2 people get the mental health support they need.
The challenges that LGBTQ2 people face – from bullying and discrimination to isolation and alienation – are closely linked to their higher rates of mental health challenges, including an increased prevalence of suicide and suicide-related behaviour. To support more LGBTQ2 people in need, earlier this year we launched a pan-Canadian, 24/7 mental health crisis hotline.
To ensure that the community continues to be well-served by hotlines and other support services, we will move forward with an additional investment of $2 million a year to continue this work, including support lines that provide sexual education.
A Ban on Conversion Therapy
We will amend the Criminal Code to ban the practice of conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy is a scientifically discredited practice that targets vulnerable LGBTQ2 Canadians in an attempt to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. There is international consensus in the medical community that conversion therapy is not founded in science and does not work.
To ensure that no one is subjected to this practice, we will move forward on our promise to work with provinces and territories to end conversion therapy in Canada, including making amendments to the Criminal Code that will prohibit this harmful and scientifically disproven practice, especially against minors.
An End to the Blood Ban
We will end the discriminatory blood donation ban.
In 2015, we promised to end the blood donation ban – one that is discriminatory to gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. Since then, that lifetime ban was reduced to one year, then down to three months in 2019. But we know there is more to do.
We are committed to eliminating the ban altogether, and will move forward in partnership with Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec to support the implementation of a behaviour-based model that eliminates the ban once and for all.
Fighting Racism in Canada
We will do more to fight racism and discrimination in Canada.
Addressing racism and discrimination is important to Canadians, because our country’s diversity is a source of strength. At the same time, Canada is not immune to racism. Systemic racism and discrimination can affect the way people are hired or promoted, the kinds of service they receive, or how they interact with institutions like schools and courtrooms.
To address systemic discrimination and unconscious biases, we introduced the new Anti-Racism Strategy. The Strategy will help build awareness of the historical roots of racism, and empower communities to draw on their lived experiences as we work together to build a more accepting and equal country.
To continue this important work, we will move forward to:
strengthen the Anti-Racism Strategy and double its funding;
boost funding for community-led initiatives to promote inclusion and combat racism; and
improve the quality and amount of data collection Statistics Canada does regarding hate crimes in Canada, to help create effective and evidence-based policies to counteract these crimes.
Equality at Work
We will improve equality in Canada’s job market.
Our economy is strong and growing, with more than a million new jobs created since we came into office. While that is good news for people looking for work, it’s little comfort to anyone who finds good opportunities out of reach because of their gender, race, ability, or other intersectional identity factors.
To help more visible minority newcomer women find and keep a good job, we will build on the research, support and employment projects announced earlier this year, and move forward with an additional $9 million investment over three years.
To ensure that racialized and Indigenous young people face fewer barriers at the beginning of their working lives, we will both enhance the Youth Employment Strategy and ensure that the upcoming State of Youth reports take an intersectional approach that includes race.
We will also work with economic development, agricultural and trade organizations to ensure that underrepresented communities are better served and more informed about the programs and services that can help them find and keep good, middle class jobs.
And we will provide funding to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research so that they can create academic research grants for studies on race, diversity and gender in Canada.
A Fairer Justice System
We will make sure the criminal justice system works for all Canadians.
Visible minorities are overrepresented in our criminal justice system. This needs to change.
To make sure that the criminal justice system works for all Canadians, we will move forward with mandatory training on unconscious bias and cultural competency for all judges in Canada.
Building on Canada’s ground-breaking Bias-Free Framework in National Security, we will also invest an additional $11 million over four years to ensure all officials in Canada’s enforcement and security agencies have access to this critical training.
And to better address the root causes of crime and help break the cycle of reoffending, we will work with the provinces and territories to establish a Community Justice Centres program, which puts courts alongside other critical social services.
Online Hate Speech, Exploitation and Harassment Online
We will target online hate speech, exploitation and harassment, and do more to protect victims of hate speech.
Social media is a powerful tool – it connects us to our family and friends, lets us be a part of important social movements, and helps us learn about people whose different views can challenge or strengthen our own.
At the same time, it can also be used to threaten, intimidate, bully and harass people – or used to promote racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, misogynist, and homophobic views that target communities, put people’s safety at risk, and undermine Canada’s long-standing commitment to diversity. We believe that when social media platforms are used to spread these harmful views, the platforms themselves must also be held accountable.
To help stop the proliferation of violent extremism online, we will move forward with new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant financial penalties. This will also include other online harms, such as radicalization, incitement to violence, exploitation of children, or creation or distribution of terrorist propaganda.
Because hate speech continues to harm people offline as well, we will also look at options for civil remedies for victims of hate speech.
Extremism
We will take steps to better understand extremism and prevent the radicalization that puts people and communities at risk.
Around the world, and here at home, voices of intolerance are getting louder and angrier. Racism, white supremacy, antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, hate crimes, and discrimination are being actively fuelled by those who want to see a more divided world, and a more divided Canada.
Canada is not immune to hate. From Polytechnique in Montreal, to the Centre culturel islamique de Québec in Ste-Foy, to Yonge Street in Toronto, too many families and communities are grieving the loss of people they love because of a rise in extremist behaviour.
To counter this rise in hate and intolerance, we will move forward with strengthened investments in the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence – the federal hub for combatting radicalization to violent extremism. We will dedicate an additional $6 million over three years to this important work.
We will also invest in resources to counter the rise of international far-right networks and terrorist organizations. To prevent the growth of groups that meet the criteria for being designated terrorist organizations, we will continue to collaborate with like-minded countries and international organizations to identify and criminalize these groups.
Arts and Culture
From the writers who tell our stories to the comedians who make us laugh to the artists whose music forms the soundtrack of our lives, Canadians are proud of the creativity we share with each other – and the world.
Culture
We will protect, promote, and strengthen the culture that brings people together and makes us strong.
In the last four years, we’ve made the biggest reinvestments in our cultural and creative industries in Canada’s history – investments that have helped stabilize CBC/ Radio-Canada, given more direct support to artists, and created more good jobs for the talented people who tell our stories.
To ensure that more people have access to Canadian culture here and around the world, and to ensure that Canadian artists can continue to tell our stories, we will:
introduce the Culture Pass, a $200 credit that every Canadian child will receive when they turn 12, to be used to access theatres, museums, galleries, workshops, and other cultural venues and local Canadian content;
strengthen the regional mandate of CBC/RadioCanada, so that local stations can broadcast more local news; and require CBC/RadioCanada to open up its digital platform, so that journalism start-ups and community newspapers can access affordable technology to develop and distribute local content;
continue to support Canadian film by increasing annual funding for Telefilm Canada by nearly 50 per cent a year;
review our national museums policy to make sure that people can access Canadian history across the country, with better access to digital collections; and will move forward with making the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Centre into a national museum;
introduce a new Cultural Diplomacy strategy, with at least one international mission each year to promote Canadian culture and creators around the world; and
move forward, in our first year, with legislation that will take appropriate measures to ensure that all content providers – including internet giants – offer meaningful levels of Canadian content in their catalogues, contribute to the creation of Canadian content in both official languages, and promote this content and make it easily accessible on their platforms.
Preserving Canada’s heritage is essential to understanding the history of our communities, and to fostering a sense of connection between people, yet current legislation offers little direction on how Canada’s heritage places are designated and protected, putting the preservation and care of these important places at risk.
To provide clearer direction on how national heritage places should be designated and preserved, we will move forward with new comprehensive heritage legislation on federally owned heritage places.
Protecting And Promoting Official Languages
Along with Indigenous languages, Canada’s history is rooted in both English and French – our two official languages that helped to build a strong country and make us who we are today. Whether spoken at home, at work, among friends, or online, our official languages continue to be important to our sense of identity and essential to our future success.
Official Languages and Bilingualism
We will support minority-language rights and encourage more people to learn English or French as a second language. Across the country, strong, vibrant minority-language communities are continuing Canada’s proud tradition of linguistic duality, with both English and French as official languages. These communities need our continued support.
To protect and promote the rights of minority-language communities, we will move forward with:
modernizing the 50-year-old Official Languages Act, including making Radio-Canada’s mandate for regional news part of the Act, and making sure that Air Canada provides fully bilingual services to its customers;
reviewing and strengthening the powers of the Commissioner of Official Languages;
appointing only bilingual judges to the Supreme Court of Canada; and
undertaking an enumeration of rights-holders and a thorough post-census survey to better account for – and better serve – minority-language communities. Canada’s two official languages should be reflected not only in institutions but in the ability of people to speak and understand each other in both languages. To encourage more people to learn a second language, we will move forward with:
working with the provinces and territories to ensure that all Canadians can access second language programs, like immersion, in their local schools if they choose to do so;
new investments to help train, recruit and attract teachers in both immersion and second-language programs, based on new targets set by the provinces and territories;
developing and promoting new opportunities for language and cultural exchanges; and
investing an additional $60 million to help build the infrastructure that supports strong minority-language communities, including schools and cultural centres.
And to help the more than 600,000 Francophones in Ontario better access post-secondary education, we will move forward with the province to help establish the Université de l’Ontario français.
Helping Canadians Get Better Service
Canadians work hard to take care of their families and communities, and shouldn’t have to shoulder a heavy burden when it comes to getting good quality service – from businesses or from their government. We will make it easier for people to get the help, benefits, and reliable information they deserve.
More Protection for Consumers
We will make it easier for people to resolve complaints against powerful companies, and get the good service from government they deserve. Too often, when people want to make a complaint under existing consumer protection laws, they come face-to-face with confusing and disjointed rules, making it difficult to resolve their problems.
To make it easier for people to register and resolve their complaints, we will move forward with a new Canadian Consumer Advocate. The Advocate will serve as an independent, single point of contact for people who need help with banking, telecom, or transportation-related complaints, and will be empowered to review complaints and, if founded, impose appropriate penalties.
We will also move forward with ambitious new goals to make sure that people are more satisfied with the service they receive from government agencies and departments.
More Accurate Labelling
We will help boost confidence in Canadian fish and seafood products, with new rules for tracing and labelling. Because of illegal fishing and complex international supply chains, it’s estimated that more than 40 per cent of the fish and seafood products sold in Canadian stores and restaurants are mislabelled. This makes it difficult for people to know what they are eating, and undermines confidence in Canada’s own fishing industries.
To combat this type of fraud and help Canadian fishers better market their high-quality products, we will move forward with a “boat-to-plate” traceability program, developed in partnership with industry and environmental leaders.
Strengthening Parliament And Public Institutions
Parliament works best when its members are free to do what they have been elected to do: be the voice for their communities, and hold the government to account. We will take steps to strengthen Parliament and build a stronger public service.
Parliamentary Reform
We will give people a greater voice in Parliament, by improving the way that Parliament works. In the last four years, the changes we have brought to Parliament – from Senate reform to more free votes to regular Prime Minister’s Question Periods – have made Parliament more effective and more accountable to Canadians. But there is still more work to do.
To ensure that Parliament better reflects the people it serves, we will move forward with additional reforms, including:
allocating more time for Private Members’ Business to be debated and voted on in Parliament;
working with Parliament to introduce new technology or other institutional changes to better connect Members with their constituents;
eliminating the use of whip and party lists to give the Speaker greater freedom in calling on Members who wish to speak; and
providing more resources to parliamentary committees so that they have the staff and research they need to deliver meaningful policy recommendations.
We will also continue to move forward with the new, non-partisan, and merit-based Senate appointment process, and will update the Parliament of Canada Act to reflect the Senate’s new, non-partisan role. A
More Effective Public Service
We will work with our professional public servants to deliver better service to Canadians. Canada’s professional public service is one of the best in the world and works hard to deliver the programs and services people rely on. It needs the right resources and the right people to continue to serve Canadians well.
To ensure the best possible service, we will move forward with:
entirely eliminating the backlog of outstanding pay issues for public servants as a result of the Phoenix pay system, so that they can focus on their work and not on resolving long-standing payroll problems;
reducing the time it takes to hire new public servants, with the goal of cutting in half the average time from ten to five months;
improving project management capabilities, so that all major projects in government are led by a certified professional with at least five years of experience; and
reducing the number of significant deficiencies identified by the Auditor General in subsequent follow-up audits of a department or program.
The Roles of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General
We will implement the recommendations of the McLellan review.
We will move forward with all the recommendations put forward by the Hon. Anne McLellan in her recent review of the role and structure of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.