44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2022 02:00PM
- Mar/30/22 4:05:27 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill. I agree with the hon. member that this is a substantive criminal justice reform bill that would effectively reverse a series of policies that frankly did not work, and that are being abandoned everywhere around the world, particularly in the United States, which served as an inspiration for the previous Conservative government to bring in these kinds of minimum mandatory penalties.
I was in Washington last week and met with a number of bipartisan groups and think tanks working on criminal law reform. The basic message from all of them was that incarceration does not work. We need to shorten incarceration periods and minimum mandatory penalties, and the kind of flexibility that conditional sentence orders offer is precisely the kind of reform that they are suggesting, and that we are suggesting. Even states such as Louisiana have abandoned minimum mandatory penalties, because they simply do not work.
The idea that this is in some way soft on crime or does not protect victims is completely false, for a number of reasons that I would be able to elaborate upon.
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- Mar/30/22 4:08:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, one of the hallmarks of a successful opposition party is that it does not just oppose all the time but comes to the table to propose.
I have heard the same tired arguments from the Conservatives about mandatory minimums, but they have yet to show the House evidence to back up their point, and they completely ignore sections in the Criminal Code that allow judges to increase or decrease a sentence based on the severity of the crime. Let us face it: Conservatives do not trust our judges.
My question to the minister is this. If Conservatives are so concerned about the content of the bill, would it not be a good idea for them to bring their arguments and their witnesses before the justice committee, propose amendments and demonstrate to Canadians that they are actually serious and know what they are talking about?
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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 4:29:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
I will first address the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. I challenge him to find one case where the maximum was imposed, if that was the case.
If we are going to discuss mandatory minimum sentences, I note there are a lot of mandatory minimum sentences in the Criminal Code. There are mandatory minimum sentences for sexual offences and mandatory minimum sentences for murder. Is that where we are going next with the logic that is being espoused by the minister today?
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- Mar/30/22 4:34:18 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, it is very concerning to hear the minister and the NDP-Liberals misrepresent what this bill would do. To be clear, what this bill would really do is reduce mandatory minimums for all kinds of existing gun crimes and also allow for house arrest for the kinds of crimes that leave people traumatized and harmed forever, like human trafficking, like sexual assault, like kidnapping, like abduction of kids under 14, like causing bodily harm by criminal negligence and causing bodily harm through assault or with a weapon, or like assaulting a peace officer causing bodily harm or with a weapon.
That is what this bill would actually do, so how on earth can the NDP-Liberals pretend that this protects public safety and has anything to do with justice?
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- Mar/30/22 4:35:07 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I would ask people to pay attention to what is being done in the bill and what is not. This is not the minimum mandatory penalties part of the bill, as a previous speaker from the other side seemed to intimate. This is the conditional sentence orders part of the bill and here we are allowing a judge to give a serious sentence where there is a serious crime. A conditional sentence order, and I tell the hon. member this, can only be done for a crime in which the sentence would be under two years and would not endanger public safety. They do not involve the kinds of acts, in any way, that were raised by the hon. member.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the sentiment behind my colleague's question, but my speech was on mandatory minimum penalties, which is what we are here to talk about.
This is an important step in the right direction. I would like to see the data surrounding other MMPs to see if they are also having a desperate effect on communities to see if we could further repeal those.
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- Mar/30/22 5:35:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Mississauga—Malton for his focus on this being about trust in the judiciary, first and foremost. My question for him builds on a comment he made earlier on wanting to go further.
Recognizing this legislation only targets one of five of the existing mandatory minimum penalties in the Criminal Code, and that, for example, Truth and Reconciliation Commission call to action 32 calls for departing from this, could he share more about his interest in going further in removing mandatory minimum penalties?
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