44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 9, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/9/22 10:48:22 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
moved:
That in relation to Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage and not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the third reading stage of the said bill; and
That, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration at report stage and fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
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- Jun/9/22 10:55:50 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I would say that we diminish democracy when we talk to fellow colleagues in the way the member opposite just did. To talk about working collaboratively as parliamentarians and to categorize it in the way the member did is disrespectful to this place.
We had a minority government that was elected in the last election, and there was an expectation that Canadians had of us that we would come together, work collaboratively, reach across the aisle and try to find common cause and common purpose, and that, even as we criticize each other and even as we are in different parties and often have different views, we would respectfully try to find middle ground.
I would suggest that out of the gates the Conservatives were doing that on Bill C-3 and on Bill C-4, but somewhere along the line that disappeared. Suddenly, collaboration of any kind, working together in any way, is seen as undemocratic. That is preposterous. Having votes in the House of Commons is not undemocratic. Moving legislation through the House of Commons is not undemocratic. It debases this institution to say that it is, and it particularly debases this institution when the Conservatives themselves use time allocation more than anybody else in any government that has ever been, so it is dishonest—
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- Jun/9/22 10:58:33 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, there is no doubt we have had plenty of time for debate. We debated at second reading for several days, and the bill was in committee for nine days. Now we are here debating it at third reading and then the Senate will have time to debate it, so there has been a lot of time to debate and propose amendments. There comes a point when we have to vote and move into the action phase.
We see reducing the number of vulnerable people who come into the system having committed no serious crime as absolutely essential, along with reducing the number of indigenous and Black people in the system in general. That is our goal. We have spent a long time debating; now it is time to act.
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- Jun/9/22 11:00:40 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite, and I completely agree with him that there were a number of amendments moved at committee that improved this bill. A number were moved by the NDP, which I think were very important, and there was one moved by the Conservatives, which was adopted. That is what Canadians expect: that, despite the fact that we have our differences and we come to this place with different ideas of how we can improve the country, improve the safety of the country and improve the condition of Canadians generally, we find ways to work together. That is exactly what happened with this bill.
Addressing the absolutely terrible overrepresentation of indigenous people and Black individuals is something that is at the core of this bill, but really it is taking a lesson from what has not worked elsewhere: longer sentences, removing judicial discretion, and removing the opportunity to look at the individual circumstances of a case when we are dealing with somebody who does not represent a threat to community safety. When we are looking at first-time offenders when they are having that first intersection with their life turning down a dark path, we should make sure that we inject ourselves at that point, look at their circumstances and find a more positive way to redirect them. That is the right way to go. We have seen that in jurisdiction after jurisdiction that has tried the approach the Conservatives are pushing, it has failed. It has failed to increase public safety, and it actually makes things a lot worse.
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- Jun/9/22 11:03:52 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, to my hon. colleague, I will say that it is certainly not my preference. When we started, we actually had a really good beginning, I think, working with the Conservative opposition on Bill C-3 and on Bill C-4, where ideas came forward. We were able to work together and we were able to find middle ground. Then there was a change. All of a sudden, with Bill C-8 as an example, it took over four months. Consistently, we were told “just a couple more speakers, just a bit more time”. Four months disappeared, and an enormous amount of House time was used.
At a certain point in time, I had to come to the realization that there was no earnest effort to move things through the House, that the interest was in obstruction. We saw that in Bill C-14. Bill C-14 is a bill that the Conservatives support. Even though they support it, they were moving amendments to hear their own members, shutting down the House, moving concurrence motions and using them to obstruct. I am left with one of two choices: get nothing passed or use time allocation. As they obstruct, on the one hand they block any legislation from moving forward and not even allow that as an option; on the other hand, they criticize the only tool we have to actually get legislation done, a tool they used with great frequency.
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- Jun/9/22 11:06:16 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it was Newt Gingrich in the United States who started the movement on increasing the amount of time in incarceration. He called it the greatest mistake of his career. After reflection and seeing how disastrous it was in the United States, he said that policy was the biggest mistake of his political life. When we take a look at the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia, we see that in every instance where a policy has been pursued to increase incarceration, it has not led to lower crime rates. It has led to higher rates of recidivism, more problems and more crime.
We need to move outside of the talking points and actually think about what is happening. As the question posed by my hon. colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, has indicated, when we have first-time offenders, low-risk offenders, rather than have them in prison, where they learn to be professional criminals and where they are in an environment that is not conducive to their rehabilitation, if we can divert them and redirect them to a different path, that is what augments and improves community safety.
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- Jun/9/22 11:08:39 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, what I am suggesting is that science and evidence have borne out that giving judicial discretion improves community safety. What does that mean? It means that a judge can look at an individual situation and consider—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Jun/9/22 11:09:19 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I did listen very respectfully to my hon. colleague's comment and the discussion. I believe that he and I want to make sure that community safety is improved in this country, that our neighbours are living in communities that are as safe as they can possibly be, and that we adopt policies for that. If we both agree that is our premise, then obviously what we need to do is look at the evidence. The evidence says that judges are allowed to look at an individual situation, which, by the way, means that they can actually give a sentence that is greater than the mandatory minimum, but it means they might give one less than that if they determine it is not in the best interests of public safety and rehabilitation to have that higher sentence.
What we have seen, particularly for vulnerable people, is that if they are incarcerated for a long period of time, the likelihood of them reoffending is much higher.
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- Jun/9/22 11:10:53 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is clear to me that this bill is extremely important to national security and public safety, in general, and I do not think it contains anything that is inappropriate. One of its objectives is to reduce the incarceration rates of indigenous people and vulnerable people. I think this bill has clear objectives and will work well for the country.
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- Jun/9/22 11:13:03 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it certainly is an incredibly important matter. The Black Canadian justice strategy is being developed right now, and this is something that is being looked at. I encourage the member to continue to participate in that process as we take action to make sure that what we do in our criminal justice system actually achieves the objective of improving community safety and making sure we do not disproportionately affect vulnerable people.
One thing is really unfortunate. We all hate crime, obviously. We all abhor it. We see violence and we want it to be over and to end it. When we play games with that and when we give overly simplistic solutions, it does an incredible injustice to what has to be done. What has to be done is to make sure that in each and every situation we look at what is in the best interests of rehabilitation, reducing recidivism and making our communities safe.
That is what this bill does. It would allow judges to have discretion in those cases where community safety is not threatened. Where there are low-risk offenders or first-time offenders, there is the opportunity to have the discretion to make sure their lives get turned on to a positive path and that we do not overincarcerate, thereby having our prisons overrepresented by certain populations.
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- Jun/9/22 11:16:02 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, actually, the evidence goes in the opposite direction. We are talking in this instance about people who are going to be incarcerated for less than two years. We are talking about individuals who are a low risk to the community. Most often, they are dealing with addiction issues, which are in fact mental health issues. We know that when dealing with mental health issues, keeping families together and having access to community services is the best chance at rehabilitation and getting people on a positive path.
It is not just that we do not want them to reoffend, because the objective in every instance in which there is intersectionality with our criminal justice system is rehabilitation. It is also fundamentally an issue of cost, if we want to look at it that way. Not only is it going to reduce crime, but conditional sentencing costs the system much less, which means we can put more dollars into preventing crimes from happening in the first place. Focusing on extending sentences, what it did in places like California and the U.K.—
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- Jun/9/22 11:18:04 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I would say that is a reasonable position, and one that is rooted in science and evidence. One of the reasons why I reference other jurisdictions is because there was a movement, many decades ago, toward mandatory minimums and higher rates of incarceration. That resulted not only in much greater costs, much larger numbers of people in prison and much larger numbers of vulnerable people in prison, particularly from the mentally ill and vulnerable populations, but it resulted in higher crime.
When one thinks about it, it is actually logical. When one expands a population and somebody has a first intersection with the law, and they made a mistake and have begun to head down a dark path, and one puts them into prison and keeps them there for a long period of time, instead of being rehabilitated, they are in a hardened environment where things get worse and they come out not as healthy. They are more likely to reoffend. That is why, and I will come to it in my next question, I think the example of California is very prescient.
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- Jun/9/22 11:19:53 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I think that this is precisely right. The reality is that not only is this bill exceptionally important for what it is going to do in the circumstances that the member has just referenced, but we have a lot of other important legislation that we have to get done in the next 10 days. Therefore, it is important that we move forward.
On the point that the member raised specifically, it is important to note that judicial discretion means that one can look at a case and if it is in fact very serious, one can go much higher than the mandatory minimum. If it is a circumstance where there were mitigating circumstances, community safety was not at risk, or an individual had an underlying mental health or other issue, there could be other means and other options available to make sure that this person was rehabilitated, healthy and back in the community. That means that this individual is less likely to reoffend and less likely to have violence in the community. It means that the costs are radically lower. It is proved in evidence. It is all there.
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- Jun/9/22 11:21:48 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the fact of the matter is that when a judge hears the matter of a serious crime of the nature the member is talking about, there will be serious sentences. In fact, they can go far beyond the mandatory minimums. That is not what we are talking about here.
I will go quickly to the example in California. In California, people, for political reasons, decided that it was really worthwhile to play up the worst offences—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Jun/9/22 11:22:38 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the reason we care about what happens in other jurisdictions is because when they try something and make a mistake, we avoid doing the same thing. It is the same reason why we look at what happened in California: It went to the approach that the Conservatives are talking about, and it led to an overburdened criminal justice system and a recidivism rate that was over 25% for violent recidivism. Ours is below 1%. The Conservatives' example cost more money, led to more crime and was a complete, abject failure, and that is the policy they are suggesting we pursue.
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- Jun/9/22 11:23:51 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, we worked with the NDP on every amendment its members put forward. This was not one of them, but I will say that, with respect to this item, we have to respect that every province has its individual jurisdiction.
An hon member: Oh, oh!
Hon. Mark Holland: Madam Speaker, we did do it in B.C. because we had co-operation working with the British Columbia government. What we need to be able to do is work with every province. We cannot just impose this upon provinces without the opportunity for provinces to prepare a plan and prepare for what they are going to do. That would be irresponsible. Frankly, that would be completely disrespecting our obligations under division of powers.
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- Jun/9/22 4:12:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the cornerstone of democracy is voting and showing up to this place and participating, and that is of course what we do. Whether it is Bill C-11 or Bill C-21, there will be an opportunity, obviously, to continue debating legislation.
On Bill C-11 specifically, there were nine days at committee and many days at second reading. We have opportunities at third reading, and it will be going to the Senate. It is taking essential action to protect Canadian creators and Canadian heritage. We are proud to support this bill, and part of the thrust and parry of this place is that sometimes we disagree. That is not a representation of a decline in democracy; it is proof of it working.
This afternoon, we will continue with the report stage of Bill C-5 in respect of mandatory minimums. We will then call second reading of Bill C-21, the firearms legislation.
Tomorrow, we will debate government Motion No. 16 regarding proceedings for Bill C-11, as I was mentioning, on the Broadcasting Act.
When we return next week, we will focus on this government motion debate and continue our work on Bill C-5 and Bill C-11, as well as on Bill C-14 concerning electoral representation.
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