44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 6, 2022 10:00AM
- May/6/22 1:12:18 p.m.
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I would remind the hon. member that he is not to mention the absence or presence of other members in the chamber. Calling out a lack of quorum, however, is another matter.
And the count having been taken:
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès): Counting the six members participating virtually, we have 22 members and we therefore have quorum.
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- May/6/22 1:12:47 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, members on all sides of the House are very much aware that when we think of quorum, we should think about the members here virtually and those here in the chamber. The member made reference to me specifically but I never left the chamber. I ducked out to the corner to get a pedestal so that one of my colleagues would be able to speak, but that would have been for about three seconds.
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- May/6/22 1:13:17 p.m.
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I did remind the hon. member that we do not reference the presence or absence of members in the House.
The hon. member for Joliette is rising on that point.
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- May/6/22 1:13:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I want to apologize to the member for Winnipeg North. The rule against mentioning the absence or presence of a member had slipped my mind. I offer my sincere apologies to him.
However, I would like to point out that when I mentioned the lack of quorum, only four members had their cameras on to participate in the debates virtually. We were therefore nowhere near the quorum of 20, which is why I raised a point of order.
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- May/6/22 1:14:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I support the hon. member from the Bloc Québécois on the same point. There were only four people online, plus only a few here.
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- May/6/22 1:14:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I think this is an important aspect, and I would ask you as the Speaker to maybe have a discussion on it. I just brought it up with the Table. When we think of the members here virtually, to the best of my knowledge, there is no rule that says they have to have the camera on or off, nor was any formal thing written that says if a member's camera is off, they are not part of the quorum.
I am not looking for a response now, but I think the Speakers should have a discussion about this because there are arguments for and against having the camera on or off. I bring that up for what it is worth and would appreciate a ruling.
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- May/6/22 1:15:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, just to follow up, this has already been mentioned, but members in the chamber do not have the benefit of seeing who is online, whether members have their cameras on or not. That is one thing, which is why my colleague did not assume that there was no quorum. He asked that quorum be checked.
In addition, given our hybrid mode, we know that we can also rise to speak from a seat other than our own. However, for the purposes of calculating quorum, I understand that the member for Winnipeg North referred to members who were in the lobbies.
I would perhaps ask the Chair to clarify, in the hybrid context, what she considers as having quorum.
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- May/6/22 1:15:42 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, to the request from the hon. parliamentary secretary, the previous chair occupant already ruled and spoke to this. As he said, the requirement is that the camera must be on for a member to be counted toward quorum. That was said, and I am sure that if you check with our good folks at Hansard, they will confirm that was the ruling of the chair occupant on a previous quorum call today.
I would also note that while the parliamentary secretary—
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- May/6/22 1:16:18 p.m.
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We are getting into debate. We will definitely look into this. I am not going to make a ruling on it today, but I will certainly bring it to the attention of the Speaker, and we will come back to the House with a proper definition of quorum and what counts as quorum.
The hon. member is rising on the same point of order.
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- May/6/22 1:16:40 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I respectfully disagree with the member for Winnipeg North on his remarks regarding the rules. He should know the rules; he is in government. I think you should check those rules and clarify them.
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- May/6/22 1:16:51 p.m.
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I have just given an answer to that. We will look into it and come back to the House with a definition of “quorum”.
The hon. member for Whitby may resume his debate.
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- May/6/22 1:17:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was riveting, but I am glad to get back to the matter at hand. Obviously, the Conservative Party has—
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- May/6/22 1:17:15 p.m.
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The hon. Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario is rising on a point of order.
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Madam Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-19, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.
Furthermore, I am tabling the government's responses to Questions Nos. 409 to 417.
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- May/6/22 1:18:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is great to speak a bit further to the reason that Bill C-5 should not be hived off into two, contrary to the Conservative motion that we are debating on a Friday afternoon, which is unfortunate given the fact that there is important government business to finish, business of the nation, to implement Canada's budget for 2022.
To get back to the matter at hand, I was just talking about how the Harper government was adding mandatory minimum penalties, and all the while, the evidence was clear that they were ineffective and racist in their application. In fact, Black offenders comprised a disproportionately high percentage of offenders admitted for non-violent firearms offences. Twenty-five per cent of offenders admitted for weapons trafficking and 42% of offenders admitted for firearms trafficking were indeed Black.
MMPs limit the ability of sentencing courts to fully take into account the myriad of social, economic, cultural, institutional and historical factors that create the conditions for criminality. These factors are disproportionately experienced by Black, indigenous and other racialized Canadians. It is my belief that our government is addressing those underlying conditions. While the Conservatives purport to be tough on crime, we are following the evidence and implementing solutions that make sense. In this case, that means repealing mandatory minimum penalties. It is important to remind ourselves that the Supreme Court of Canada, in R. v. Nur in 2015 and R. v. Lloyd in 2016, found that the use of MMPs for offences that “can be committed in various ways, under a broad array of circumstances and by a wide range of people are constitutionally vulnerable”.
In addition, the proposed reforms would encourage a greater use of conditional sentences, which are currently unavailable in cases where they would otherwise be appropriate. This more tailored approach that encourages rehabilitation allows offenders who do not pose a public safety risk to serve short terms of imprisonment in the community under strict conditions, including abstaining from the consumption of drugs and alcohol and not owning, possessing or carrying a weapon, including a firearm.
The community corrections movement has proven to be very successful in this country and deserves our support.
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- May/6/22 1:21:02 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, Bill C-5 is Bill C-22 from a previous Parliament. It died on the Order Paper when the government went to an election. If the Liberals were so serious about passing such a bill, they could have done it.
We believe in mandatory minimum sentences, strict monitoring for high-risk individuals, increased enforcement and prosecution of smuggling, safe storage provisions, firearms safety training, a certification system for all those wishing to acquire a firearm legally and putting more law-enforcement officers on our streets. Which one of these are the government and the hon. member against?
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- May/6/22 1:21:46 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I believe the member across the way is forgetting the fact that the mandatory minimum penalties in this case are being repealed because they are being applied to non-violent offenders.
When we are considering smaller offences that do not pose a large community safety risk, we are talking about youth who have made a mistake early on in life or someone who possesses a firearm but has not used it and has been convicted. These individuals deserve the chance to reintegrate back into society, and mandatory minimum penalties incarcerate them for much longer than is necessary. The gradual release process has been proven to be far more successful at keeping our society safe, and mandatory minimum penalties have been proven to have no deterrent effect on criminal behaviour.
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- May/6/22 1:22:49 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I thank the member from Whitby for his speech.
Just before him, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice made an interesting comment about the possible splitting of the bill. He said that if the bill were to be split in two, witnesses would probably have to be recalled to testify on the separate parts of the bill. What this comment implies is that the testimony cannot apply in the same way to the two parts of the bill that some want to split.
Are the Liberals not admitting that these two parts are different enough that we would want to vote on them separately?
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- May/6/22 1:23:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I cannot speak to what my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, spoke to, because I do not necessarily understand the full implication of dividing the bill in that regard, in terms of when it goes to committee, but I do not think that provides a reasonable argument for why this bill should be divided. It is all relevant to mandatory minimum penalties that are being proposed to be repealed in this bill. They have been proven not to work, so why not debate them together and pass this bill together? I urge members of the House to support this bill.
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- May/6/22 1:24:08 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I noticed at the onset of his intervention that the hon. member spoke about coming from a policing family. Of course, he said his father was a homicide detective. One of the things in the bill that is disturbing, and should be disturbing for all Canadians, is the reduction of mandatory minimums for gun-related criminal offences, gang-related offences and the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence.
I am just wondering how he can reconcile that part of this piece of legislation with an understanding of that policing background he has. I know that most police officers I have spoken to feel reducing those mandatory minimums would do nothing to deter gun crime in this country and, in fact, would embolden criminals.
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