SoVote

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Jun/9/22 1:57:13 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, it is interesting listening to the debate. The government claims that this bill is about systemic racism and in particular about the overrepresentation of Black and indigenous people in our prison population. If we read the bill, the bill makes no mention of racism and no mention of Black or indigenous communities. There is nothing in there about programs or processes to address the inequalities. It is simply a bill about lowering sentences for broad categories of offences. When there is overrepresentation, reducing overall sentences or removing minimum sentences or sentencing starting points does not change the fundamental cause of overrepresentation. There is nothing in the bill that actually addresses the issue of overrepresentation whatsoever, and the government's rhetorical defence of the bill has nothing to do with what is in the bill. I wonder if the member has a comment on that.

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Context: House Hansard - 85 - Jun/9/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Jun/9/22 2:17:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Communist Party continues to commit horrific acts of violence against Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims: acts that this House has rightly recognized constitute genocide. Actions by Parliament and the government continue to be vitally needed to more effectively block products made with Uighur forced labour, halt complicity in organ harvesting and prevent Canadian imports from supporting this repression, and to sanction perpetrators of violence. This week, I was very pleased to join Senator Leo Housakos in welcoming a leader in the fight for Uighurs and for human rights in general to Parliament: NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom. Honestly, I am not normally a big sports fan, but it was great to see the way that the convening power of celebrity could be used to constructively engage more people in an important cause. Mr. Freedom has leveraged his audience of millions to bring awareness and promote action in support of the world's most vulnerable. Uighurs in concentration camps often cannot have their voices heard, so Mr. Freedom is using his platform to magnify their voices. I also want to recognize his important work on human rights in Turkey to defend the rights of those persecuted by the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan regime. While many stars and corporate brands only stand for racial justice when it is convenient, Mr. Freedom is always a champion on the court that matters most. I thank him for being a voice for the voiceless.

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Context: House Hansard - 85 - Jun/9/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/9/22 3:10:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if you could clarify the process. Is it your ruling going forward that if a member is saying “no”, you will stop the reading of the motion? I think we have had cases where some members were saying “no” and yet the member continued with the unanimous consent motion.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Jun/9/22 4:14:21 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today to Bill C-5, a piece of government legislation aimed at reducing sentences for crimes, including very serious crimes such as sexual assault, kidnapping and weapons trafficking. Many of my colleagues on this side have ably spoken to the core issues in this bill, in particular the question of whether lower sentences and conditional sentences are appropriate for these kinds of very serious offences. I am not going to repeat their arguments today. Instead, I want to respond to what seems to be the main rationale that the government is using to defend this legislation. Comments from government members on this bill have generally avoided reference to the substantive measures in it and, in particular, to the changes to sentences for serious violent crimes. It is revealing that members of the government do not want to actually talk about and defend their decision to lower sentences for serious crimes. The government's attempt to justify this bill has focused on noting, correctly, how the problem of systemic racism leads to the over-representation of Black and indigenous people in our justice system, but then claiming, incorrectly, that this bill somehow addresses that problem. It is a fact that there is nothing in this bill to address any kind of racism. It contains no measures respecting anti-racism training, no measures to discourage racist behaviour, no funding for communities that are victims of racism and no special procedures to protect the rights of historically marginalized communities when they encounter the justice system. In fact, while the government evokes the challenges facing Black and indigenous Canadians every time this bill is discussed, the bill itself does not even contain the words “Black” or “indigenous”. A quick search of this bill shows that the bill actually says nothing about race or racism, either. This is a bill that is not about, and says nothing about, the racism facing Black and indigenous Canadians, yet the government's justification for this bill is to claim that it would do something that it demonstrably would not do for those communities. The government purports to believe that lowering sentences overall will somehow address the disproportionate representation of certain minority communities in the prison population. This seems, on the face of it, to portray a certain misunderstanding of how fractions work. Changing the average sentence for a particular crime from, say, four years to three years would do nothing to change the proportion of people from a particular community who are serving time for that crime. Reducing overall sentences would do nothing to change the proportion of those in prison who are from a particular community. Any mathematically sound strategy for reducing over-representation would obviously need to reduce sentences for the over-represented group only, increase sentences for the under-represented group only, or, best of all, identify and confront the root cause of over-representation in the first place. However, reducing sentences for both over-represented and under-represented groups by the same proportion would not actually address the phenomenon of over- or under-representation. In fairness to the government's position, it is not always quite that simple. It may be that there are certain crimes where the over-representation of certain communities is greater than other crimes. For example, in the case of drug crimes, there may be certain kinds of drugs that are more prevalent in some communities than others. There are cases and places where offences involving drugs that are more common in minority communities have carried more severe sentences than offences involving equivalent drugs that are more common in majority communities. In such cases, measures to equalize the sentencing for equivalent kinds of substances that are more or less common in different communities would be a step toward addressing the problem of over-representation. However, that is not what Bill C-5 would do. Bill C-5 would not make these kinds of granular adjustments. Rather, Bill C-5 is a relatively short bill that would lower sentences for broad categories of offences. I see no reason why these reductions in sentencing parameters would impact over-representation in any way. Perhaps I can make this point clearer with an analogy. We know that Black and indigenous people are over-represented in our justice system and also under-represented in our post-secondary system. We need to address the way that systemic racism leads to over-representation in penal institutions and under-representation in institutions that often lead individuals to positions of power and privilege. If members were to imagine—

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Context: House Hansard - 85 - Jun/9/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/9/22 4:19:21 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, if I could speak to the same point of order. In this case, I provided my notes in advance to the interpreters. I have a great deal of respect for what they do. It is a bit of a challenge when members want to deliver a certain amount of content in a limited time frame, and we are under time allocation of course as well, but I think it is a question of the ability of members to need to convey ideas in a limited time frame, so—

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Context: House Hansard - 85 - Jun/9/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/9/22 4:20:15 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I hope the interpreters are able to deliver the content, but I am entitled to give my speech as a member, and I hope that, given I have provided the notes in advance, this issue will be addressed. I was speaking about under-representation in post-secondary institutions. I imagine if I were to propose that the way to reduce under-representation of Black and indigenous peoples in universities was to reduce the length of degree programs, we would recognize that did not make sense. If I were to claim that reducing the length of an undergraduate degree from four years to three years would address the under-representation of people from particular communities, we would recognize that is obviously absurd, because changing the length of a degree program does nothing to change the proportion of people from different communities who are there or to address the underlying factors that lead to under-representation. What is true for the length of degree programs is also true for the length of criminal penalties, which is that changing the overall length does not change the proportion. I want to now speak about the relationship between racial justice and judicial discretion. Bill C-5 lowers sentences for a variety of crimes, including very serious crimes, and does so in part by widening the window for judicial discretion. I believe that judicial discretion, as well as the setting of benchmarks and parameters by the legislature, are both important elements in sentencing. In a democratic society, it is right and important for the people's representatives to deliberate and give direction about the kinds of sentences they see as appropriate for certain categories of crimes. It is also important for judges to be able to exercise their discretion in accordance with the particular facts of each case, using the parameters and formulas established by the people's representatives. One key function of sentencing parameters set by the legislature is to help ensure relative consistency. If the facts of two different cases are virtually identical, then the sentences should also be virtually identical, even if the two defendants go before two different judges. The most effective way to ensure that two different judges in two different courtrooms apply a similar sentence to a similar set of facts is to have something such as sentencing starting points set by the legislative branch. Too much individual discretion leads to inconsistent decision-making. One risk of giving too much discretion to judges is that they, like all of us, have unconscious bias, a possible partial explanation for the over-representation of Black and indigenous peoples in prisons is that the unconscious bias of judges leads to relatively longer sentences being applied in cases with Black and indigenous defendants. To be fair to judges, I do not know for sure if that is the case or not, but insofar as parliamentarians regularly identify the presence of systemic racism and unconscious bias in virtually all other institutions, it seems at least consistent to acknowledge that unconscious bias impacts the decisions of judges as well. If that is the case, then widening the range of judicial discretion, as Bill C-5 does, actually risks exacerbating the problem of over-representation by allowing more space for subjective determinations based on how a judge evaluates the character and motivation of a defendant. Relying more on the work of legislatures to establish that a certain type of crime should carry a certain type of sentence in general reduces the range of difference that could be informed by unconscious bias applied to individual cases. This is not necessarily a defence of the idea of mandatory minimums as such, but I simply want to point out that, insofar as unconscious bias leads to differential outcomes when a decision-maker has broad discretion, a law which broadens the range for that discretion is more likely to increase than decrease the problem of over-representation. I suspect many members of this House will be familiar with the iconic opening of The Godfather trilogy. It is a scene about criminal justice and also about racism. The character Amerigo Bonasera, a Sicilian immigrant who had long trusted the American justice system, is seeking justice for a daughter who was violently beaten by two privileged young men. The racial element implied in the film is clear in the original novel, with Bonasera noting that the parents of the perpetrators in this case were “his age but more American in their dress”. The judge opts to be lenient to the perpetrators saying, “"because of your youth, your clean records, because of your fine families, and because the law in its majesty does not seek vengeance.... Sentence to be suspended.'” This injustice, the exempting of two young men from the consequences of their crime because of their so-called “fine families”, leads Amerigo to lose faith in the legal system and instead rely on the mafia to get what he considers justice. This is fictionalization of course, but it is compelling because it is very real to the circumstances and experiences of many people. Judicial discretion creates the space for preferencing those whose experience and background the decision-maker identifies with and, in this case, drives a further wedge between a minority community and the state, because Bonasera sees how the system is less likely to have the back of a person who comes from his background. This raises a critical question: What does this bill do for Black, indigenous and other minority communities who are victims of crime and who want the police and courts to be present and consistent in order to protect them and their families from crime? What does Bill C-5 offer them? It offers them nothing. In fact, it offers them worse than nothing because it does not actually address the real problem of racism. It does not address differential outcomes, and it makes every community less safe by causing the early release of serious violent criminals from any and all backgrounds. I have one more point I want to make. Black and indigenous people are over-represented in the prison population. Another group that is over-represented in the prison population is men. Men actually account for over 90% of adult admissions to federal custody. That is a very significant over-representation problem. It becomes even more striking when we overlay statistics for race and gender. Indigenous women make up about 2.5% of the total population and 3% of federal prison admissions. That is relatively close. Statistically speaking, the phenomenon of indigenous over-representation in prison is overwhelmingly a problem of the over-representation of indigenous men. Over 25% of total federal prison admissions are indigenous men. Clearly, gender as well as race has to be part of the conversation about over-representation. This raises challenging questions. Does our justice system have a problem with systemic sexism? How might the government go about trying to address the over-representation of men in the system? I do not have time to answer those questions, but what is clear is that Bill C-5 does nothing to address the issue of over-representation of particular communities. The bill itself makes no mention of the issue of over-representation or racism, and it contains no measures which targets those problems. Reducing sentences for serious crimes makes our communities less safe, and it makes victims and potential victims of all races and from all communities more vulnerable.

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Context: House Hansard - 85 - Jun/9/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/9/22 4:27:14 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, the member identified a number of stakeholders who have a particular point of view, and I do not doubt that the committee heard from a broad range of stakeholders with different points of view on the bill. My point was fairly specific. It was simply to say that when we broaden the range of discretion for decision-making in a situation where the decision-maker may, or likely does, have unconscious bias, broadening the range of discretion for that decision-maker does not make the problem better. It makes the problem worse. We could talk about alternative mechanisms, like sentencing, starting points or clearer parameters for judicial decision-making, but in the absence of those things, when the government proposes a bill that widens the latitude for judicial discretion and there are concerns about unconscious bias, it does not make any sense to me to say that that is somehow going to address the problem of over-representation. It is not.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/9/22 4:29:11 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, clearly, judicial discretion and parameters set by legislators both have a role. The question of what is the appropriate sentence for a particular category of crime is a philosophical question. It is a moral question. It is something that in a democratic society the legislature, in general terms, should pronounce on. The question to what extent those broad parameters apply to the particulars of a case is a question of the facts of the case at hand, a question that requires surgical discretion that responds to the particular factors. That is why the legislature should not say this particular offence always or in every case carries exactly this sentence. It is legitimate for the legislature to say that, in general, we wish to express that we think this type of crime proportionately accords with this type of sentence.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/9/22 4:30:37 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, we need to be very clear that there are no mandatory minimums for personal possession-related offences for drugs. Our party does not support mandatory minimums for personal possession for personal use offences. We do believe that it should be against the law to possess drugs for personal use, but we do not support mandatory minimums in those cases. I am concerned about the fact that this legislation reduces sentences for very serious violent crimes like sexual assault, kidnapping and weapons trafficking. Those are clearly very different cases from the cases the member spoke about.

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