SoVote

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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Context: House Hansard - 49 - Mar/30/22

Hon. David Lametti

Mar/30/22 4:09:50 p.m.
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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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Context: House Hansard - 49 - Mar/30/22

Hon. David Lametti

Mar/30/22 4:18:05 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of the question of the hon. member. Human trafficking is not one of the minimum mandatories. There are a number of different gun offences, a number of different tobacco offences and a number of different drug offences. Any party that looks at the evidence, the statistics and the reforms that are happening around the world, including in the United States, realizes that minimum mandatory penalties simply do not work. They clog up the criminal justice system. An hon. member: They keep people safe. Hon. David Lametti: Mr. Speaker, they do not keep people safe. The majority of constitutional challenges to pieces of the Criminal Code are about minimum mandatory penalties, and over half of them succeed. They clog up the system and cause delays. Perhaps hon. members of the opposition will take responsibility if and when Jordan rulings come out as a result of the system being clogged up by minimum mandatory penalties.

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Context: House Hansard - 49 - Mar/30/22

Hon. David Lametti

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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Context: House Hansard - 49 - Mar/30/22

Mr. Iqwinder Gaheer

Mar/30/22 5:32:59 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5 Bill C-216

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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Context: House Hansard - 49 - Mar/30/22

Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

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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