44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2021 11:00AM
- Dec/13/21 11:24:14 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, what this bill represents, and what we are going to witness today throughout this debate, is the stark difference between two approaches when it comes to our correctional institutions. There is the approach of the Conservatives, which is “lock 'em up and throw away the key”, then there is the approach of more progressive governments that believe in rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice provide some perspective on the benefits of properly rehabilitating individuals so that they can be reintegrated and become productive members of society?
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- Dec/13/21 11:56:20 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is not like me to come to the defence of members of other parties, but what the member from the Conservative Party just stated was a complete, utter lie and misrepresentation of what was—
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- Dec/13/21 11:57:57 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, on that point of order, you do not even need to check Hansard. I can confirm that I did indeed accuse the member of lying, based on what I heard the NDP member say and what the member for Regina—Lewvan said. Because it was unparliamentary of me to do so, I apologize.
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- Dec/13/21 4:19:31 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I heard on a number of occasions the member talk about the paramount need for public safety after somebody commits a crime and I could not agree more with her. It is absolutely imperative that the number one objective is to make sure that the public is the top priority in terms of what we are looking at.
The problem is that Conservatives do not consider the fact that the proper rehabilitation and reintegration into society of a convicted individual is part of that public safety. This goes to the crux of this issue with Conservatives. Corrections to them is “lock 'em up and throw away the key”, but on the other side of the House—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: They are even saying hear, hear!
On the other side of the House, we believe that rehabilitation and reintegration into society is very important for our overall societal perspective. Would the member not agree that rehabilitation and reintegration into society is part of that public safety?
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- Dec/13/21 5:27:48 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member kept saying this bill is not as advertised, when during his speech, he kept saying that we would be rolling back sentencing. He used the term “roll back” so much that I almost thought his speech was a Walmart commercial.
Can the member explain to us why his speech was not as advertised? In reality, this is not about rolling back sentencing. It is about giving more power to judges to make decisions. The member would lead people to believe that we are actually reducing sentencing when that is not the case.
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- Dec/13/21 5:31:35 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Oakville North—Burlington. It is a great opportunity to rise today to speak to this very important piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that the Conservatives would have us believe is making the sky fall.
In reality, Bill C-5 would remove mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for only 14 of the 67 offences that currently have them. Of course, we have not heard that figure from the other side yet today. Those 14 that would be adjusted are based on data, facts and science, and an understanding that we trust our judges to make sentencing decisions and use their discretion in certain circumstances. I say there are only 14 because Conservatives would have us believe we are completely eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, when in fact this would have an effect on 14 of those related to firearms and six with respect to drug offences.
I have said this before in questions and comments, and I will say it again now. This really comes down to a fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives. I understand and know this from the experiences I have had in the riding that I come from. In the immediate area of Kingston, we used to have seven penitentiaries before the Conservatives closed Kingston Penitentiary Now we have six. We have a great understanding of and community support for the role prisons can play in the rehabilitative process.
The basic premises, the ideas and the philosophies could not be any more starkly different between Conservatives and Liberals than they are on this particular issue. When it comes to Conservatives, the answer to people who break the law is very simple. They lock them up and throw away the key. That is the end of it. On this side of the House, we believe that there is a role for government to play in making sure individuals can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, so they can be productive members of that society.
I brought this up after the speech by the member for Portage—Lisgar. She took great exception, saying that Conservatives believe wholeheartedly in the idea of making sure that criminals, or potential criminals in this case, do not get to the place of breaking the law before we have to start dealing with them.
I would ask her to explain to me why Conservatives spent more money on building megaprisons during their time in power than they did on housing. That should say something. Conservatives built megaprisons at various locations, all the while claiming that they really wanted to ensure people had the opportunity to become rehabilitated. Then why were they focusing so much on building more capacity to house individuals than they were on such a fundamental need as housing? That is what this really comes down to.
It is a philosophical difference of opinion on the role corrections plays in our society. We know exactly where the Conservatives stand on this. I know it is frustrating and hard to hear this, which is why some of them have been heckling me, but it is the truth. Sometimes the truth does hurt. It is the reality of the situation. There is nothing wrong with having that philosophical ideal, but they need to stand by it and say that it is what they believe in. All of their actions have only ever been to support that.
Again, I know this from my time in municipal politics in Kingston. There was a great program that helped rehabilitate individuals in prisons, and these programs were the prison farms. We had those throughout the country. However, the Conservatives came along and decided to get rid of them.
This one is even better. The main rationale of the Conservatives for getting rid of the prison farms was that inmates were not becoming farmers once they were out of prison. The Conservatives were completely unable to realize the value of what inmates were receiving through these programs, which were able to rehabilitate people. There were stories of inmates who had been in and out of prison their whole lives and then got into the prison farming program, and it completely changed who they were. They would then get out of prison and, yes, they may not have decided to become farmers, but they were completely changed individuals in how they approached life.
The fact that Conservatives chose to get rid of the prison farm program was so offensive, not only to those who had been through the program, or the guards who had seen how effective it was, but also to the general community. We had people protesting in Kingston for five years in a row. Every Monday, there would be protests on Bath Road right in front of Collins Bay Institution, protesting what the previous Conservative government had done when it closed prison farms.
The protesters knew that those programs offered meaningful opportunity for people to become rehabilitated, which brings me back to my point about the philosophical differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals. It comes down to whether we believe we have an opportunity and, more importantly, an obligation to help rehabilitate people so they can become productive members of society or whether we just lock them up and throw away the key, which is exactly what the Conservatives would like to do.
I want to talk very briefly about one last point, and that is the issue around the percentages of people who are being incarcerated, which has been brought up a number of times today.
We have to agree that when Black people represent only 3% of people in our country but 7% of people in our prisons or, even more staggering, when indigenous people represent only 5% of people in our country but 30% of people in prisons, we have a really big problem with systemic racism, and we need to address that. We need to look for opportunities.
We need to empower people who have the ability to impact lives, such as judges, to have the ability to set people off on a different course, one that could be beneficial to their life experiences and influence who they ultimately become. That is what this bill is, in my opinion. This bill is about empowering individuals, specifically the judges, to whom we have given the authority to cast judgment on those who break the law. We need to give them the ability to make sure that, if there is an opportunity to change a life, they can actually do that.
This is something that has been brought up by previous speakers today. It was also a call to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report. As was indicated so eloquently by one of my NDP colleagues, this is something that has not had the impact Conservatives, and possibly Liberals back in the day, had intended when they brought mandatory minimum sentencing legislation in at the time. We have an opportunity now to correct that, fix it and to put ourselves on the right path in terms of genuinely looking for ways to rehabilitate people so that they can be reintroduced into society and become productive members of that society.
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- Dec/13/21 5:42:39 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to amendments, I will not comment right now in advance of the committee being able to do the work to study it. We have members on that committee who can study that and look into it. I think that is not just good practice, but probably the best way for me to proceed on this.
I understand the member was a former prosecutor. Does he not have faith in the judges, who he used to stand before, to make the decisions that affect the lives of the individuals he brought forward to be prosecuted? Does he not believe that those judges can actually make the decisions we would empower them to make?
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- Dec/13/21 5:45:12 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I take great exception to the member for Foothills calling my colleague from Pickering—Uxbridge a liar. He would know that, although he may not have used those words, he certainly did call her so indirectly. What we cannot do directly, we cannot do indirectly.
I apologized earlier for doing the same thing. I am sure he will rise on a point of order after I am done talking to apologize to the member for Pickering—Uxbridge.
However, she hit the nail on the head. This is what I have been saying my entire speech, which is that Conservatives are not interested in actually rehabilitating people. They just want to lock people up and throw away the key. That is what their philosophy has always been when it comes to incarceration and Corrections Canada.
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- Dec/13/21 5:46:51 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what the Conservatives will have people believe, like the member for Portage—Lisgar did earlier, that there is this big desire within the Conservative movement to help people before they get to the point of being incarcerated, to make them better. However, when the Conservatives were in government we saw them build megaprisons throughout the country. Why did the Conservatives not use some of that money to actually do some of the things that the member from the NDP has asked me about, such as investing in youth, investing in cultural hubs and places where people can actually be productive members of society?
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- Dec/13/21 6:25:31 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the member reflected on the philosophical differences between parties. I appreciated what he and other members of the Bloc as well as the Liberals and NDP have been saying, that the data does not support the idea that mandatory minimums have the impact the Conservatives would like them to have.
I am trying to wrap my head around why the Conservatives still have this philosophical idea that there should not be a component of rehabilitating individuals to make them productive members of society. Could the member comment on why he thinks they might still be coming from the position that it is a requirement and needs to happen even though, as he indicated, the data does not support it?
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