44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2022 02:00PM
- Mar/30/22 4:09:50 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, indeed, in the previous Parliament with this bill's predecessor, Bill C-22, and now in this Parliament, we have had ample opportunities to discuss this bill. We are still waiting for the opposition to show the evidence.
Today, the Parliamentary Budget Officer came out with a report looking at one of the minimum mandatory penalties that was thrown out by the Supreme Court of Canada. The clear conclusion of the Parliamentary Budget Officer was that not only did it contribute to the overrepresentation of Black and indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system, and not only did it cost more money, but it was completely ineffective at reducing the overall sentencing rates.
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- Mar/30/22 4:10:44 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to take the Minister of Justice back to 2019 when we had a round table in Scarborough with a number of different stakeholders who were directly impacted by mandatory minimum sentences, particularly members of the Black community. We know that the statistics are quite relevant here because MMPs have disproportionately impacted members of the Black community, as well as indigenous communities.
Can the minister give us a sense of how the changes to MMPs in Bill C-5 would ensure that fair justice is administered when it comes to racialized and indigenous people, as well as talk about conditional sentencing orders and what kind of impact those would have on sentencing?
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- Mar/30/22 4:13:45 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the fallacy and the argument that is being brought forth by the hon. member is quite clear. We are eliminating minimum mandatory penalties. There is still a maximum sentencing range that exists for all crimes. In the crime that he described, and in the circumstances that he described, a judge would have the flexibility and the opportunity to give a serious sentence. That is precisely what happens.
What we are doing is taking away the lower end, where a person perhaps has a few too many on a Saturday night and puts a couple of bullets into the side of an empty barn. There are differences in the way these sentences ought to happen. What we are doing is giving power back to the judges.
Judges are the hallmark of our common-law system. I do not know why the other side does not trust them.
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- Mar/30/22 4:15:27 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and I worked a great deal together, and continue to work a great deal together, on these kinds of issues.
What the bill would do is allow for context to be taken into account. I will give an example. In a ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada has allowed a sentencing judge to take into account factors, for an indigenous person, of how that person's life might have helped to account for the crime and what ought to be taken into account for the sentence. This was the so-called Gladue report.
A minimum mandatory penalty means the judge's hands are tied, with respect to it. With this bill, the judge would be able to look at, first of all, not having a minimum mandatory penalty, but also being able to fashion, using a conditional sentence order, the kind of appropriate treatment that a person might need. Whether it is a health issue or a social welfare issue, people could get the support they need. That better serves the community, it better serves the victim and it certainly costs us less money in the criminal justice system.
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- Mar/30/22 4:19:56 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I share the hon. member's concern for making the criminal justice system better and for decreasing the systemic overrepresentation and, quite frankly, the systemic racism against Black and indigenous people in the criminal justice system.
This bill is a first step, allowing more flexibility for sentencing judges through conditional sentence orders, removing minimum mandatory penalties and creating a bias toward diverting people from the criminal justice system for simple possession offences. However, it is only a first step. We have invested, as a government, in better Gladue reports and better coverage for Gladue reports. We have begun a pilot project in Nova Scotia, Toronto and British Columbia on impact of race and culture assessments for Black offenders. We are working on funding community justice centres and indigenous community justice centres so we can provide wraparound support, better serving victims and offenders so that we reduce recidivism and provide a more holistic response to criminal justice.
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Mr. Speaker, we are still studying that bill. Certainly the sentiment behind it is one that speaks well of the hon. member and of all people who would like to attack the opioid crisis and other problematic drug abuse situations in our country.
This current bill is not meant to do that. It is meant to address flexibility in sentencing to reduce the overrepresentation of Black and indigenous people in the criminal justice system. The fundamental challenges that are being attacked by the private member's bill on the other side are wider than that, and I will look at the bill, as will all of my colleagues, with due diligence.
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- Mar/30/22 4:25:04 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I have had lovely and intellectual exchanges with the hon. member over the course of our time here since 2015, but I reject the premise of his question.
Today, the error is in presuming that a judge would always give the minimum sentence. In the serious set of facts that he is describing or alluding to, a judge would have the power to go to the maximum sentence, according to the circumstances involved. What we are doing with this bill is not what he is referring to. Rather, we are referring to people who are innocently or naively caught up in something and not necessarily the major perpetrator, or who perhaps have a problematic addiction that needs to be dealt with. The bill allows a sentencing judge to take those circumstances into account and fashion a sentence that fits the crime.
Serious crime, I will assure the hon. member, will always be punished seriously in this country.
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- Mar/30/22 4:27:47 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I will also refer to the heckle by the hon. member from the other side. With respect to MMP subsection 95(2) of the Criminal Code that was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that taking out the minimum mandatory penalty has had no impact on the overall total amount of sentencing that has been handed out by judges. It is false to say that judges always go to the minimum.
What we are doing is what the hon. member wants us to do, which is help give judges the ability to give appropriate sentences so that we can rehabilitate. This is the point the hon. member is trying to make. We need to look at alternatives to incarceration.
I mentioned I was in Washington. The growing consensus is that we need to massively reduce incarceration rates to get better outcomes for communities, increase public security and rehabilitate victims. That is the belief we have in the criminal justice system. It is the animating belief behind this bill, and it is something that I hope hon. members will share. It is certainly shared across the United States and in many other jurisdictions, like the United Kingdom.
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- Mar/30/22 4:33:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I personally feel that the conditional sentence order part of the bill is the most important part of the bill, in the sense that this is what brings back the flexibility in sentencing that allows for a judge to attack a problem or rectify a problem in the sentence that ought to be attacked. For example, a conditional sentence order will allow a judge to say a person needs to serve home arrest and get the appropriate mental health supports or the appropriate rehabilitation supports if there is a problematic addiction.
It allows for communities to take on the responsibility for the rehabilitation of people through a community justice sentence, which we are funding. This is one of the major ideas that has come from the communities themselves, whether they be racialized, indigenous or Black. They want to help rehabilitate people. Experts in the field tell us that this is the best way to move a community forward, to move society forward and to help everybody heal while protecting public safety. That is what conditional sentence orders do.
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- Mar/30/22 5:23:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the time has come to turn the page on many mandatory minimum penalties. This was a policy that in the end did not discourage crime. It certainly did not make our justice system any more fair. All it did was imprison far too many indigenous, Black and marginalized Canadians. The evidence is in the numbers of the prison population, and the numbers are stark. Indigenous individuals represent 5% of the general population but account for 30% of federally incarcerated inmates. This is double what it was 20 years ago. The number is profoundly higher for indigenous women, who represent 42% of those who are incarcerated, and these numbers are even more exaggerated in some provinces. Black inmates represent 7.2% of the federal offender population but only 3% of the general population. This is shameful.
The numbers are so high because of sentencing laws that focus on punishment through imprisonment. The centre of this is the mandatory minimum regime. The broad and indiscriminate use of MMPs, or mandatory minimum penalties, and restrictions on the use of conditional sentences have made our criminal justice system less fair and have disproportionately hurt certain communities. This rigid one-size-fits-all approach takes power away from judges to look at mitigating factors.
I want to be very clear: This is not a soft-on-crime approach and these are not hardened criminals we are speaking of. We are speaking of low-risk, first-time or non-violent offenders.
We are introducing legislation to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Bill C-5 is an important step in the right direction, as the legislation would make reforms to sentencing. We are proposing to repeal MMPs of imprisonment for all drug offences and certain firearm offences. These MMPs in particular have been shown to have had a disparate effect on Black, indigenous, and marginalized communities.
This bill would increase the availability of conditional sentencing orders in cases where offenders do not pose a risk to public safety. CSOs allow offenders to serve sentences of less than two years in the community under strict conditions, such as house arrest and curfew, while still being able to benefit from employment, educational opportunities, family ties, community and health-related support systems. By repealing these MMPs, we will restore the judge's ability to impose an appropriate sentence, moving away from the one-size-fits-all approach.
Again, this is not a soft-on-crime approach. To be clear, we are keeping some mandatory minimum policies in place for murder, sexual offenses, impaired driving offenses and serious firearm offences, including those that involve organized crime. The powers of judges will not be limited. In fact, we will allow them to do the job they have been trained to do.
I was in law school, and that is where I was introduced to certain ideals or principles within a justice system, one being that the aim of justice is not just retribution. Mandatory minimums are just that—retribution. There are more useful aims, such as rehabilitation. We can make ourselves into better people even after we have wronged and especially after we have wronged. The justice system should be a part of that rehabilitation. Mandatory minimum penalties do not work in criminal law terms. They do not have a positive effect on recidivism. They tend to overpunish people who should be helped through other channels.
When it comes to deterrence, MMPs do not do any better. In sentencing for less serious crimes, imprisonment is often ineffective and unduly punitive. A longer sentence is not going to do anything more than a shorter sentence will, except destroy entire lives. In America, for example, the notion that harsh minimums could seriously dampen the drug trade has collapsed in the face of the manifest failure of the drug war.
With the way our current justice system is set up, we have criminalized poverty, mental illness and problematic addiction. It is so much harder to get that second chance with MMPs in place. Once a person is out of prison, their opportunities are limited and their circle oftentimes becomes the people that they met in prison. This has to stop.
Canada is not alone in recognizing that the increase in the indiscriminate use of MMPs is problematic. They have proven to be costly and ineffective in reducing crime. Indeed, other nations have move away from this regime because it encourages cycles of crime.
MMPs are a failed policy, and we are turning the ship around. What we propose is a necessary reset for our criminal law, which is necessary to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system. This policy change is necessary, but further work must also be done.
We are also developing an indigenous justice strategy in collaboration with indigenous peoples, and we are developing a Black Canadian justice strategy. We will continue to address the social determinants of crime. Every action that we take to improve access to housing, mental health care, addiction treatment and youth employment helps build a safer country. Criminal justice policy is not developed in a vacuum, and we must do more so that we are better informed.
In my life, I have come to understand certain principles and rules, and that we are not just our mistakes. We are not just the worst thing that we have ever done. I believe we are more than that. As a society, we should make no mistake that we will be judged for our reason and our intelligence and for our technology and tools. We will be judged by the towers we build. Ultimately, our society will be judged for not how we treat the powerful, the rich and the privileged, but for how we treat the poor and condemned.
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- Mar/30/22 5:30:58 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
My hon. colleague and I do agree on a number of points, one of which is that there is a necessity to keep and to lower incarceration rates for marginalized people. Now, where he and I part company is when he frames the discussion as one around retribution. The courts in this country have consistently highlighted the need for denunciation and deterrence, and part of denunciation and deterrence comes by way of sentencing.
When we are talking about shooting at people, these are not the low-risk, first-time offenders, necessarily, that the hon. member highlighted. How does he reconcile those concepts?
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- Mar/30/22 5:35:49 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, again, these proposed measures represent an important step in further addressing systemic issues related to existing sentencing policies. We know rooting out systemic racism and discrimination cannot be accomplished with just one measure—
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