Community organizations that support the victims of drug or human trafficking should be able to recover their costs from the people who commit such crimes, Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe says.

Lapointe, a Liberal MP, made her case this week in a speech to the House of Commons during the second reading of Bill C-238, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (restitution orders).

The bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code to allow judges, in cases of drug or human trafficking, to order restitution directly to community organizations that can demonstrate measurable costs arising from those crimes, such as emergency care, trauma counselling, harm-reduction supplies or security expenses.

“ Across Canada, our shelters, outreach workers and first responders are on the frontlines of two intertwined cr

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