44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2021 11:00AM
- Dec/13/21 2:39:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, by renewing the lease for these border facilities, the government is making it clear that it has no plan to shut Roxham down for at least five years.
This obviously comes with a price tag, and I am sure it will reassure no one to hear that a Liberal is benefiting from the deal. The federal government signed the lease without a tender in 2017 with a donor who contributed around $23,000 to the Liberal Party. The lease was even renewed for five years, again without a tender. This is a huge problem with a simple solution.
Why not shut down Roxham instead of jumping right into another Liberal ethics scandal?
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- Dec/13/21 2:40:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, things are not going well at Roxham Road.
First, by announcing that it will do nothing for five years, the government is ensuring that crossings at Roxham Road will continue and become normalized, even though these crossings are illegal. Second, it is paying a Liberal donor for these border facilities and there was no tender. Third, the government refuses to tell Quebeckers how much this is costing. These are three serious ethics violations that are not even necessary because there is a solution here. The government should suspend the safe third country agreement.
Why is the government choosing another Liberal ethics scandal over shutting down Roxham Road?
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- Dec/13/21 6:18:23 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member from Kingston and the Islands, who said earlier that the debate was philosophical in nature. I would say that that is absolutely the case and that I am ready to participate in it since my background is in philosophy.
Bill C-5 amends the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
After spending 25 years as an ethicist, I simply cannot leave ethics at the door just because I have become a politician. People associate ethics with its notions of obligation and punishment, but I would to suggest that being ethically minded requires that we be flexible in our thinking so we can try to imagine a more just future. Indeed, ethics is the search for what is just.
That is really what we have to do here as legislators. We need to know that being just is an elusive target. Doing what is just is not a given. We must nonetheless attempt, with what is being proposed in Bill C-5, to find what is just knowing that it may be changed by those who come after us. Any law, any bill has an ultimate goal. Ultimately, a law or bill is the means to an end, it is a means to an ideal that transcends it.
During my career, I had the chance to see two different sides of crime. I worked with the police force, but also with correctional institutions. I will start with the latter.
I was at the Bordeaux jail as an invited guest as part of a rehabilitation program called Souverains anonymes, which gives a voice to inmates on radio shows. My last meeting was last December, for Christmas, and we celebrated the fact that we were in lockdown both inside and outside the walls.
Among the inmates I met addicts, hardened criminals, people who did not get it. I also met many unintentional criminals, people who might have gone down the wrong path because of tough life circumstances, but I cannot second-guess the judge.
I met a lot of people who were not where they should be; they knew it and they felt it. Of course, this was in the context of a rehabilitation program. I also saw how overrepresented some groups were, including racialized populations. We talked a lot about indigenous peoples today, but what I saw more was the racialized populations. It was shocking for me to see them with my own eyes. It was not a statistic, a simple number on a page. I could see that there was prejudice at play and we have to question that.
I also served as an advisor to the police chief of the Montreal police force. In that capacity, I had to advise him on the difficult choice of whether to go to court or not. Some cases were easier than others. However, when it comes to petty crime, when we want to promote neighbourhood policing and community living, it is tough to take legal action every time. During that period, I saw the best and the worst, including punishment, conciliation and community policing.
When we are talking about diversion and deregulation, we must bear in mind that these are powerful words. Ethics seeks to give meaning to conduct, and meaning is the direction we need to go in.
Decriminalization means removing a given offence from the Criminal Code, whereas diversion sets criminal justice proceedings aside in favour of a more restorative approach to justice. The reason we are talking about these terms today is that the world is changing, as is our understanding of what is just.
Scare tactics and a tough-on-drugs approach did not work. Public policy must strike a balance between three imperatives. The first imperative is moral order, because losing one's freedom is a big deal. It means losing one's dignity. The second is the public health imperative, because drug use is often a public health issue. The third is the public order imperative because, when it comes right down to it, this is about protecting the public. What are the values underpinning these imperatives?
Obviously, if we want to foster reconciliation and community living, I believe we must look beyond the offence itself. Drug use is a public health issue that must be treated as such, without ruling out criminal prosecution when it is warranted.
Diversion is one solution that Quebec has chosen to address a public health issue. I believe in rehabilitation. I have seen inmates turn over a new leaf and move forward, reducing the number of people in prison and the costs associated with their incarceration, and most of all the social costs that come with the stigma. Mandatory minimum sentences are costly and, as everyone has said today, there is no guarantee they will work.
In the Bloc Québécois, we support eliminating certain sentences. However, no one can ignore what is happening in Montreal and in a number of Canada's major urban centres, where readily available firearms have become a scourge. For this reason, we believe that this is not the time to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences related to firearms.
Rather, we believe that, in this area, the Trudeau government has failed in its duties. It should be exercising its powers rather than delegating them to the municipalities or provinces.
To sum up, Bill C‑5 has noble objectives, but I nonetheless believe that it should be sent to committee to iron out its kinks. While I do not believe that mandatory minimum sentences are a deterrent to criminals, we must move beyond partisanship and take a serious look at this bill.
In conclusion, the federal government must ensure that people feel safe or safer. Police officers often say that people do not fear being unsafe; they fear feeling unsafe. We must therefore do everything we can to ensure that people do not feel unsafe.
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- Dec/13/21 6:26:36 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I am new here, so maybe I can be perfectly honest.
There are ideological differences between certain parties, and I am prepared to accept this and participate in debate. However, I do not want partisan differences to taint the debate. Partisan differences, or at least partisan obsessions, muddy the waters and make it difficult to debate. Intense partisanship has no place in a discussion on feeling unsafe.
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- Dec/13/21 6:27:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about punishment, but I do not think that is relevant here.
I want to take a broader perspective on the question and point out that, notwithstanding the ideological difference I mentioned earlier, the Bloc Québécois does not support abolishing mandatory minimum penalties for firearms offences. We support maintaining these minimum penalties. It is important to understand that there is a big difference between a minor offence and a serious one.
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- Dec/13/21 6:29:15 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
I would just like to clarify one thing. I stated that the federal government should exercise its prerogatives in its jurisdictions. Gun control is a federal jurisdiction.
I do not believe that this responsibility can be delegated to a province. It is a power of the Crown and it belongs to the federal state.
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- Dec/13/21 6:29:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I have to agree.
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