44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 9, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/9/22 11:07:27 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the hon. member keeps perpetuating the same myth. He mentioned Newt Gingrich and former prime minister Stephen Harper. The mandatory minimums that would be eliminated in Bill C-5, and it is important for Canadians to know this, are not from a Conservative government. They are from a Liberal government. I do not know why Liberals cannot accept that part of their past.
The mandatory minimums for extortion with a firearm, discharging a firearm with intent, and robbery with a firearm were introduced by Liberal governments. I know the hon. member served with former Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary for justice Marlene Jennings. He knows her. She said, “It was a Liberal government that brought in mandatory minimum sentencing for gun-related crimes. This is a whole category of them, where currently it is a minimum of one year. There is a second category of designated offences where it currently is four years. Liberals sought to increase the one year to two years and the four years to five years at committee.”
Is the hon. member suggesting that Marlene Jennings does not know what she is talking about?
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- Jun/9/22 11:11:45 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I rise today to echo the calls from the Black Legal Action Centre, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.
We know that there have been some incremental steps that are, by and large, due to some of the good amendments that we were able to put forward as New Democrats. In the Liberals' submission to the committee, they called for the removal of mandatory minimums that were deemed to be unconstitutional, the removal of the band of conditional sentencing for offences that had mandatory minimum penalties, and the fulfillment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action 32 to allow a trial judge, upon giving reasons, to depart from the mandatory minimum sentence.
Finally, there are lots of conversations about these disproportional impacts on Canadians of African descent, yet the government still has not addressed an amendment to subsection 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code so that sentencing judges can have the information required to pass appropriate sentences on Black defendants.
When will the government finally get around to listening to communities and taking substantive steps, rather than incremental steps, toward justice within this country?
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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 11:23:13 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the Liberals had an opportunity, with this bill, to provide full decriminalization for simple drug possession. In fact, this hon. member voted against the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni's private member's bill, Bill C-216, which would have been an opportunity to provide justice to people.
How does the hon. member reconcile blocking the decriminalization of simple drug possession, while understanding all the impacts this has on our community when it comes to extended sentencing?
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- Jun/9/22 12:24:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which returns to the House after having been studied by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
Today, I propose to focus my remarks on the very important changes that the bill proposes to make to the conditional sentence regime in the Criminal Code. What we have seen consistently throughout the debate on this bill is that there remain some significant misunderstandings about the important function served by conditional sentence orders, or CSOs, in our society. In order to explain the importance of Bill C-5's amendments in this area, I would like to take a moment to speak about how and why CSOs came to be.
CSOs allow an offender to serve a term of imprisonment of less than two years in the community under strict conditions, including house arrest, curfew and court-mandated treatment for offences that are not punishable by a mandatory term of imprisonment. They were enacted by Parliament in 1996 in response to the well-documented problem of the over-incarceration of indigenous people. The aim of the CSO regime was to promote the protection of the public by seeking to separate the most serious offenders from the community, while providing that less serious offenders could remain in the community if they adhered to important conditions.
Amendments to the Criminal Code over the subsequent 15 years, however, significantly restricted the availability of CSOs. They were made unavailable for all offences punishable by maximum terms of imprisonment of 14 years or more, as well as some offences prosecuted by indictment and punishable by a maximum term of 10 years of imprisonment. The reform also introduced a list of ineligible offences to the CSO regime, including such offences as non-violent property crime.
It is uncontroversial at this point to acknowledge that systemic racism and discrimination in the criminal justice system have resulted in the overrepresentation of indigenous people, Black persons and members of marginalized communities in the criminal justice system. One only needs to look at the country's track record to see the pressing need for change. Indeed, recent data from the Office of the Correctional Investigator demonstrates that indigenous people make up 32% of the federal prison population despite accounting for less than 5% of the total population. Indigenous women, meanwhile, account for 48% of the population in women's prisons.
Members of the community who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system have long called for reform to address the systemic racism and discrimination they face at all stages, from their first contact with law enforcement through to sentencing. Indeed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Parliamentary Black Caucus have specifically called on the government to revisit the restrictions placed on the conditional sentencing regime in the Criminal Code.
Bill C-5 would make more offences eligible for community-based sentences while maintaining the importance of public safety in all circumstances. Let me repeat that last statement, as this point is too frequently lost in discussions about the proposed amendments. Removing these restrictions on the availability of CSOs will not negatively impact public safety. This is because in order for a court to impose a CSO, it must first be satisfied that this sentence would not endanger the safety of the community. If the offender represents a danger to public safety, then the court is precluded from imposing a CSO.
In addition, a court must be satisfied that a sentence of less than two years is appropriate in the circumstances, and that the community-based sentence would be consistent with the purpose and principles of sentencing set out in the Criminal Code. That is the law, and the proposed amendments would not change that.
Moreover, the amendments proposed in Bill C-5 would not indiscriminately render all offences eligible for the CSOs. Currently, all offences that carry mandatory minimum prison sentences in the Criminal Code are ineligible for a conditional sentence, and that would not change. Similarly, all offences that are linked to terrorism or organized crime, for which the maximum penalty is 10 years of imprisonment or more when prosecuted by way of indictment, are ineligible for a CSO. This too will not change. The bill would also render the offences of torture, attempted murder and advocating genocide ineligible for a CSO.
The evidence shows us that allowing low-risk offenders who do not jeopardize public safety to serve their sentence in the community under strict conditions is more effective at reducing criminality than institutional incarceration. This is because serving a sentence that maintains an offender's access to employment, family, community and health-related support systems allows them to avoid the stigma and trauma of a prison sentence and provides them with a prosocial alternative to criminal offending once their sentence is complete. Indeed, evidence gathered after the original enactment of CSOs supports this finding.
Within the first few years of the implementation of CSOs, recidivism rates declined and incarceration rates decreased by 13%. During the bill's study at the justice committee, the committee heard from experts and stakeholders in the field of criminal justice in Canada. Many of these witnesses, including the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, the HIV Legal Network, Dr. Julie Desrosiers of the faculty of law at Université Laval, the Criminal Lawyers' Association and the Canadian Bar Association, indicated that these reforms to the CSO regime represented a step in the right direction. I could not agree more. I firmly believe that these amendments strike the right balance between providing alternatives to incarceration where appropriate, while maintaining and prioritizing public safety where serious offending is at issue.
This legislation is an important component of the government's ongoing efforts to reduce the overrepresentation of indigenous people, Black persons and members of marginalized communities in our criminal justice system, and would afford more opportunities for rehabilitation in appropriate cases. I urge all members to support these important reforms.
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- Jun/9/22 12:58:43 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I reflect on this often, and I often hear from government members, NDP members and Green members that we Conservative members can all calm down because the bill would keep communities safe. They say we can trust our judges to always do the right thing. However, judges come from various backgrounds, which is why we have a myriad of different judgements from across this country, from coast to coast to coast. There is no consistency in sentencing.
In answer to the question, as a former prosecutor over the last two decades and previous to that as a defence counsel, I have repeatedly seen abuses by defence counsel who were properly retained with illegal funds from trafficking, etc., who shop for a judge, as there are judges who are more lenient than others. Bill C-5—
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- Jun/9/22 1:17:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand and speak to Bill C-5 at report stage. I would like to start by thanking all members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for the work they did in reviewing this bill and reporting it back to the House. As a former member of that committee, I know it is no easy task. I used to be a member, back in 2017. The bills that come before the justice committee are usually quite serious in nature. They demand a certain amount of responsibility to take up the task and make sure that the amendments we are making to the Criminal Code have in fact been vetted and that all of the implications of their passage are fully understood.
This being Bill C-5, my remarks today, of course, are going to concentrate on two themes. One is on the question of mandatory minimums and whether they still serve any kind of useful purpose in our criminal justice system. The second theme is on the incredible harm that is a result of Canada's current federal drug policy, and not only the harm that is meted out to people who are arrested and have criminal records that they have to deal with for the rest of their lives, but also the lack of action in tackling the root causes of the opioid crisis that I have heard members from every political party and every region in Canada speak so passionately about.
Bill C-5, like any piece of legislation, is not going to solve those problems by itself and I would argue that much more needs to be done. This is one small step on the path that we need to take, but it is nonetheless a step forward. That is why I will be supporting this bill and ensuring that the Senate receives it so that it can one day make its way to the Governor General's desk and be signed into law.
It is important to set up the context, especially when we are speaking about mandatory minimums. I do not need to argue about the harms that they cause our society. It has been well documented by many, including none other than the Correctional Investigator. The statistics are there, for indigenous, Black and racialized Canadians, on their share of the population in Canada and their extreme overrepresentation in our criminal justice system.
What is more is that there is simply no credible evidence that mandatory minimums work in any way to deter crime. That is a fact. I have had to sit in this place through question period after question period, listening to colleagues from the Conservative Party talk and deliberately misstate what is going on with this piece of legislation. The Conservatives are trying to weave a story for Canadians and trying to infect them with fear that with the passage of Bill C-5, somehow every person who is charged with a serious criminal offence is suddenly going to be placed on house arrest or released on the streets. Nothing could be further from the truth. What it speaks to is a distrust, among members of that party, in judges having the ability to make the right decisions for the cases that come before them. Mandatory minimums are a blunt instrument of justice. They do not allow a judge to take in the circumstances of a case and to look at the circumstances of the individual who has been charged with a crime.
Furthermore, in all of the arguments I have heard from Conservatives on this bill, the part they leave out is that even though these sections in the Criminal Code are being amended, the maximum penalties are still in force. While the mandatory minimum penalties are being taken away, many of these serious offences carry prison terms of up to 10 years and of up to 14 years. There is no doubt in my mind that if a repeat offender has committed very serious criminal acts under the sections of the Criminal Code covered by Bill C-5, that person will receive jail time.
A judge's solemn responsibility to society is public safety and ensuring there is justice for the victims of crime. Judges are always balancing society's best interests when a case comes before them. We have to trust them in that process. There is a reason that our legislative branch is separate from the judicial branch.
We have to trust in these men and women who are so very learned in law and who can appreciate all of the fine differences in each case that comes before them. We have to trust that they will always make the right decision. There are ways we can hold our judges to account. There are courts of appeal, and we can continue going up the judicial ladder until we reach the Supreme Court of Canada. I cannot accept the arguments that are being made against mandatory minimums in this place, because they are being made in bad faith.
I want to turn to the main part I really want to hammer out here, which is the important amendments that are being made to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
I was very honoured to stand in this place with my friend, colleague and neighbour, the member for Courtenay—Alberni, and vote in favour of his bill, Bill C-216. It would have essentially decriminalized personal possession. It would have set up a process of expungement. It would have set our country forward on a path of setting up a national strategy to deal with the opioids crisis.
Unfortunately, there were only a few members who were brave enough to stand up for that bold, game-changing policy and trying to put this country on a path forward. Even though we lost that battle, I think that vote and the conversation we had have been important milestones for this country's evolving laws toward drug policy. I am certain that in the years ahead we are going to see some fundamental reform in this area.
The main thing Bill C-5 would do with respect to our drug laws is set up a declaration of principles. We are at report stage now, but important work was done at committee. I have to take a moment to recognize the amazing and incredible work of my colleague and neighbour to the south, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. His knowledge of law, his expertise in that area and the diligent and hard work he has done at committee resulted in some very substantive amendments to Bill C-5. One of them in particular, although it is not going to be called expungement, is expungement by a different name.
One of the main harms we have had to people who have have criminal records for personal possession amounts is that those records follow them throughout life. They can affect one's ability to get into certain lines of work, affect one's ability to rent a home and very severely affect one's ability to travel. The amendments that were made by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke and accepted by a majority of the committee are essentially going to make sure that Bill C-5 would ensure that after two years those records are sequestered from the main records of that person, and no longer will anyone be able to find those records and hold them against that person.
It is important, and it is certainly not as bold of a step as we would have wanted, but I think it goes to show that this small caucus of New Democrats has been able to make monumental reform to a pretty important government justice bill. I think this is going to leave a lasting mark for people who have been negatively affected by this.
I will conclude by saying that when it comes to mandatory minimums, it is important for us to remember that the Criminal Code is a massive piece of legislation. There are already sections within the Criminal Code, specifically section 718.2, the sentencing principles, that allow a judge to increase or decrease a sentence based on aggravating factors. The sentences that are spelled out in the Criminal Code for the specific sections of Bill C-5, in fact, could be lengthened, if there were aggravating factors. If a crime was committed against a person with a disability or if racial hatred and bias were involved in a crime, judges could take that into account.
I could say much more, but 10 minutes goes by very quickly. I will end by saying that Bill C-5 is a small step. We did our job to make it better. I will be pleased to vote in favour of this bill to send it to the Senate and hopefully into law in the very near future.
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- Jun/9/22 1:28:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I want tell my colleague that I truly appreciated his enlightening speech. We both served on the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying. I want to tell him that I agree with his analysis of the work that judges do, especially with respect to sentencing.
I would like him to tell me about some of the negative effects of minimum sentences with respect to these changes, because minimum sentences do have negative effects.
Can he provide some examples to help us understand why judges should have full responsibility over sentencing, which is the nature of their job?
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- Jun/9/22 1:29:28 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, in my speech, I referenced the statistics, which are there for everyone to see, but I will go even further.
There could be unique circumstances where charges have been levied against an individual who may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, mixed up with the wrong crowd, and the judge would have no choice on a guilty verdict. The judge may say, “I can see that the circumstances in which you find yourself are markedly different from the people I usually see before me, but my hands are tied and because of this mandatory minimum sentencing provision in the Criminal Code, I have to give you a three-year sentence.” It completely binds the hands of the judge.
Justice is not black and white. As much as the Conservatives want to see that it is, it is not black and white. Judges need to have the ability to make sure that the sentence is appropriate to the person before them.
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- Jun/9/22 1:57:13 p.m.
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- 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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- Jun/9/22 4:14:21 p.m.
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- 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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- Jun/9/22 4:20:15 p.m.
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- 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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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour to rise in the House today to speak to this important bill.
By way of introduction, it is important to note that this bill was reintroduced from the 43rd Parliament. It is an almost identical copy, with no changes except for the omission of coordinating amendments, which made some changes to the Firearms Act and adjusted some penalties for firearms offences. The reason I point out that it has been reintroduced is that this shows how slowly sometimes very important legislation moves in this place. That is particularly regrettable when we see the profound impacts that this legislation has on communities and people in this country.
Bill C-5 is the result of the justice minister's 2021 mandate letter, in which he was instructed to “introduce legislation and make investments that take action to address systemic inequities in the criminal justice system, including to promote enhanced use of pre- and post-charge diversion and to better enable courts to impose sentences appropriate to the circumstances of individual cases.” This bill responds to that, in part, and it does so by proposing to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for all drug offences. It would also remove mandatory minimums for some tobacco and firearms offences. It is important to note that all of these mandatory minimums were added by the Conservatives in their Safe Streets and Communities Act, Bill C-10, in 2011. This bill would also make conditional sentencing orders more widely available by removing the prohibition of using them for more serious offences, and it would make it possible for police and prosecutors to divert more drug cases from the courts.
This bill raises fundamental questions of effective criminal justice in Canada. It is fair to say that all parliamentarians across party lines share a number of goals in this area. We all want to see reduced crime, and we all want to keep people safe. We all want to protect victims, and we recognize that there is much more work to do in that area. We all want to reduce recidivism and make sure that in our criminal justice system, when people transgress and are part of the system, they come out and hopefully do not reoffend. Finally, we all want to address the root causes of crime.
I will pause for a moment and speak about the root causes of crime.
I was part of the public safety committee back in 2009 and 2010, when it conducted a study of mental health and addictions in the federal corrections system. In conducting that study, we toured federal corrections facilities across the country and went into federal penitentiaries to meet a wide variety of stakeholders. Among other facilities, we went into the Kent, Mountain and Pacific institutions in British Columbia. We went into an aboriginal healing lodge in British Columbia, as well as Ferndale. We went to an aboriginal women's corrections facility in Saskatchewan called Okimaw Ohci. We went to Kingston, an infamous Canadian federal penitentiary that is now closed. We went to Dorchester in New Brunswick and Archambault in Quebec. We also, by the way, went to the U.K. and Norway and toured institutions in those countries as well, to get a comparative example.
We talked to everybody in these institutions. We talked to offenders, guards, wardens, nurses, chaplains, families, anybody who had anything whatsoever to do with working inside a federal institution. What is burned into my brain to this day is a shocking number, which is that across all institutions in Canada, the common number we heard was that 70% of offenders in federal institutions suffer from an addiction or a mental health issue. Probingly, we asked everybody, including the guards and wardens, what percentage of those people they thought would not be in prison but for their mental health issues or addictions. The answer we got, again reliably and consistently, was 70%. What that told us was that we are not, by and large, locking up criminals or bad people. We are locking up people with mental health issues and addictions, and most of their crimes are related to those two issues.
I think it is important to pause for a moment and talk about social determinants of crime, because there are highly correlated factors, like poverty, marginalization, childhood trauma and abuse, and others, that go into that prison population. By and large, I did not see a lot of white-collar millionaires in a single one of those institutions. What I saw were a lot of poor, indigenous, racialized, addicted and mentally ill Canadians.
The other thing I think we need to talk about, when we talk about root causes, is how well Canada's justice system and our federal corrections institutions respond to that. At that time, the answer was “not very well”, and worse. At that time, the Conservatives did something that I consider to be politically worthy of condemnation, which is that they politicized the issue of crime for political gain. They pursued a tough-on-crime agenda, because they thought that by preying on people's fears and sense of victimhood, they could gain political points, and they used prisoners and the prison system as pawns in that regard. By doing that, the very small number of rehabilitative services in Canada's correctional system at that time were closed by the Conservatives.
For instance, when I was visiting Kent, I walked into a huge, dark room, and when the lights were turned on, I saw it was full of equipment, such as band saws, Skilsaws and all sorts of construction equipment. There was a program where federal offenders were taught basic vocational skills, and they were making things like furniture, which was then purchased by the federal government at cost. Not only were we teaching marginalized people actual skills that they could use in the workplace when they got out, since more than 95% of offenders in federal institutions come back into society at some point, but the federal government was getting quality furniture at a below-market price. It was a win-win. However, that program was closed by the Conservatives.
When I visited the Kingston penitentiary, and also Dorchester, they had extraordinarily successful prison farm programs where the people inside were able to earn credit for good behaviour and gain privileges to work with agricultural projects and farm animals. By the way, there was a prize cow population at Kingston. The bloodlines were fantastic, and it was an absolutely outstanding herd. Members should have seen the impact that these programs had on the emotional and rehabilitative personalities of the people inside. However, those programs were closed by the Conservatives.
To this day, I say that we are doing a terrible job in Canada's correctional institutions of actually responding to the real needs of most offenders and ensuring that when they come out they do not repeat their offence. Here is the bottom line: I am not saying this out of a sense of compassion only; I am saying this because I do not want a single offender in Canada's correctional institutions to come back into society and reoffend, and that is exactly what they are going to do if we do not adjust and respond to their real needs.
I want to talk quickly about mandatory minimums. The bottom line is that I, and my party, oppose mandatory minimums, except for the most serious of crimes, where, of course, they are appropriate. Why? It is because they do not work; they do not have any deterrent effect. It is because they have a discriminatory effect. It is because they are largely unconstitutional. All we have to do is look to the United States, which is the pioneer of using such sentences, to see what effect they have on crime. The United States locks up the largest percentage of its population of any country on the planet.
I support Bill C-5. It is time that we start adopting progressive, rational, effective policies to keep Canadians safe. Punishing and keeping people in prison longer without access to the services they need does not work. It is cruel, and it does not keep Canadians safe. It is time to have policies that actually keep Canadians and victims safe in this country. Let us adopt the bill and take a first step towards that.
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- Jun/9/22 5:11:07 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. colleague's speech. There is the perpetuation of a mischaracterization of this bill that is being done here, which is that somehow these are mandatory minimums that came from a previous Conservative government.
I want to quote someone. She was just named a Black Changemaker 2022. She is Marlene Jennings, a lawyer and former Liberal member of Parliament. She said:
It was a Liberal government that brought in mandatory minimum sentencing for firearm related crimes. There is a whole category of them where currently it is a minimum of one year. There is a second category of designated offences where currently it is four years. In committee...[we] attempted to increase the one year to two years and the four years to five years.
That is Marlene Jennings. Does the hon. member suggest that she has it wrong? Will he acknowledge that the mandatory minimums that the Liberals are trying to eliminate are in fact Liberal mandatory minimums?
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- Jun/9/22 5:12:10 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague on one point, very much so, which is that there is a continuing perpetuation of a mis-framing of this bill. I could not agree more with that.
The existing sentencing policies that were enacted by the Conservatives focused on punishment through imprisonment. They disproportionately affect indigenous people as well as Black and marginalized Canadians. MMPs have also resulted in longer and more complex trials, consuming resources.
The bottom line in all of this is of course that MMPs do not work, particularly for these drug-related offences and others.
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- Jun/9/22 5:16:17 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the Liberals' do-no-time, soft-on-crime bill, Bill C-5. This do-no-time, soft-on-crime Liberal bill eliminates mandatory jail time for serious firearms-related offences and serious drug offences, and significantly expands conditional sentencing orders, otherwise known as house arrests, for an array of violent and other serious offences.
Yesterday in the House, the Minister of Justice, in an effort to defend this soft-on-crime bill, said something truly remarkable. He said not to worry about it, because Bill C-5 targets “situations where public security and public safety are not at risk.” Really? Perhaps the minister should read his own bill because if he did, he would learn that Bill C-5 eliminates mandatory jail time for such firearms offences as robbery with a firearm, weapons trafficking, extortion with a firearm, using a firearm with the intent to injure and using a firearm in the commission of a crime, among other serious firearms offences. However, the Minister of Justice says that Bill C-5 targets “situations where public security and public safety are not at risk.” Is he kidding?
I think Canadians would be absolutely shocked if they knew that the Minister of Justice thought that robbery with a firearm, using a firearm in the commission of an offence and discharging a firearm with the intent to injure constitute crimes in which public security and public safety are not an issue. We literally cannot make this stuff up, yet there he was in this place asserting that with a straight face.
It goes on. As I noted, this bill significantly expands house arrests. With the passage of Bill C-5, criminals convicted of such offences as kidnapping a minor, arson for a fraudulent purpose, assault with a weapon, impaired driving causing death and sexual assault would be able to serve their sentences at home, instead of behind bars where they belong. There we have it. These are offences such as sexual assault, kidnapping a minor and arson for a fraudulent purpose, but the minister says that Bill C-5 targets “situations where public security and public safety are not at risk.” As I said, we cannot make this stuff up.
I will tell members who disagrees with the minister: Many of the key witnesses who came to the justice committee, representatives of law enforcement, victims' advocates and community leaders. They have a very different take on the impact that Bill C-5 is going to have.
Take the crime of sexual assault. Jennifer Dunn, of the London Abused Women's Centre, came before the committee and said now that perpetrators of sexual assault would be able to serve their sentences at home, the victims of sexual assault, particularly women, were going to be put at even greater risk because they were going to be stuck in the same communities, often, as the perpetrators. No kidding. This is a news flash to the minister.
Then there is André Gélinas, a retired detective sergeant from the Montreal police service who characterized Bill C-5 as “a race to the bottom”.
He went on to say:
It is paradoxical and totally dichotomous to think that abolishing mandatory minimum sentences that apply to criminal offences involving firearms will have a beneficial effect on our communities.
Staff Sergeant Michael Rowe appeared before the committee representing the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. With respect to the mandatory jail times involving serious firearms offences that Bill C-5 seeks to repeal, he said that these specific mandatory jail times “hold significant value when addressing public safety and gang-related violence”.
Anie Samson, a former Montreal municipal councillor and mayor of a borough in the most multicultural part of Montreal, which has unfortunately been ravaged by serious gun and gang violence, said that Bill C-5, in eliminating mandatory jail time for serious firearms offences, “exacerbates impunity”.
There we have it. Contrary to the Minister of Justice's ridiculous assertion, key witnesses before the justice committee said very clearly that Bill C-5 would in fact undermine public security, undermine public safety and put victims at risk, particularly victims of such crimes as sexual assault.
Do members know who would also be hurt and put at risk, contrary to the talking points of the Liberals? It would be persons struggling with addictions and vulnerable Canadians. The Minister of Justice, at second reading, spoke about the fact that we have an opioid crisis in Canada, and he is quite right. He spoke about the need, in order to address that crisis, to implement measures around education, treatment and rehabilitation. He would not find argument on this side of the House on that point.
However, Bill C-5 would do none of those things. What Bill C-5 would do is eliminate mandatory jail time for the very people, the very criminals, who are profiting from putting poison on our streets that is killing 20 Canadians a day and 7,000 Canadians a year in the opioid crisis. Those are the people who are going to benefit from Bill C-5, because Bill C-5 would eliminate mandatory jail time for producers and pushers of schedule 1 and schedule 2 drugs under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. These are drugs such as fentanyl and crystal meth.
I challenge the Minister of Justice to explain how it is that simply eliminating mandatory jail time for the producers and pushers of these killer drugs would make anyone safer. It simply would not. This bill really does speak to the priorities of the Liberal government or, I would submit, the misplaced priorities of the government. The government's priority is to put criminals first, public security, public safety and the rights of victims be damned.
This is a reckless and dangerous bill that would undermine safety in our communities, put victims last and put vulnerable Canadians at risk. That is why we on the Conservative side of the House will continue to fight this bill every step of the way.
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- Jun/9/22 5:26:11 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, while I disagree with my hon. colleague on his framing of the bill, I always appreciate the very well-delivered speeches he gives.
The member selectively quoted Jennifer Dunn in her appearance before the committee, talking about conditional sentencing. I also read what Jennifer Dunn said at committee, which is that, “Women are not protected by the law unless all mandatory minimum penalties are considered.”
Basically, she seems to be arguing that all mandatory minimums should be removed from the Criminal Code. Does the hon. member believe that really buttresses the case that he is making in his speech?
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- Jun/9/22 5:26:49 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I do not know how we are going to make anyone safe by eliminating mandatory jail time for serious firearms and drug-related offences.
With respect to conditional sentencing, which was the main purpose of her testimony, she noted that it is going to have a very negative impact on women because those predators are going to be serving time in the victims' communities. On top of that, it is often difficult to supervise these people, which again is putting vulnerable people at risk.
Very simply put, this bill from start to finish is a badly drafted bill that gets it precisely backwards. It is why we are going to continue to fight it.
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- Jun/9/22 6:41:02 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I absolutely will not apologize. This is based on evidence. In fact, the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Sentencing Commission, which met in 1987, have recommended getting rid of all mandatory minimum sentences other than the one for murder. That is because they do not work. They do not deter crime.
We want to ensure this absolutely. I am not only a mother. I am also a grandmother, and I completely understand where the hon. member is coming from, but when we dig into the evidence and ask if these mandatory minimums keep our children safe or have any impact whatsoever on someone who is twisted and horrific with an impulse to hurt a child? No, they do not.
What we need to do is make sure those people get the punishment that fits the crime. Judges in this country will not let people who abuse children, and who were brought through the criminal justice system and found guilty, walk out of jail.
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- Jun/9/22 7:26:47 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you are well aware of the Gladue principles, as am I. The Gladue principles often come with a Gladue report. That is something that is done and offered back to the judge, saying what a situation is for a first nation, Métis or Inuit person in Canada who can ask for a Gladue report to be done and submitted to the judge. These kinds of things should always be taken into account in sentencing.
What I would also like to see is that we maintain mandatory minimums, that if people do the crime, they do the time. We want to ensure that no matter who people are in this country, no matter what their backgrounds are, for similar crimes, there are similar punishments. The deterrence factor of these punishments is an important aspect of our criminal justice system.
That said, I do believe in redemption. I do believe that people can change, and I hope that our justice system will work to ensure that we do have rehabilitation and reintegration.
I would note that the member for Tobique—Mactaquac put forward a great bill to reduce recidivism. I very much supported that bill. I hope it will have the impact on our justice system that we are all hoping it will.
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