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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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Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC)

Jun/9/22 11:07:27 a.m.
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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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Hon. Mark Holland

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/9/22 11:08:53 a.m.
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I am going to interrupt the member. I did not hear any blowback when the hon. member from the official opposition was asking a question. I would ask for the same respect when the government is answering a question. If individuals have other thoughts or views, then they should wait until they are recognized during questions and comments. The hon. government House leader.

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Hon. Mark Holland

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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Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

Jun/9/22 11:10:20 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, Bill C-5, in and of itself, is an interesting bill, but we get the feeling that it comes with a poison pill, which bothers me. Two bills that do not necessarily have anything to do with one another are being lumped together to get the less popular one passed. As the government House leader, the member is responsible for the government's strategy. Why is the government trying to hand us poison pills yet again? Why can we not have transparent debates in the best interests of Canadians on issues that affect them?

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Hon. Mark Holland

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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Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

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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Hon. Mark Holland

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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Mr. Larry Brock (Brantford—Brant, CPC)

Jun/9/22 11:14:34 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, it is time to dispel a myth that has been percolating in the House for some time now, particularly from the Liberal government and supported by the NDP. It is this notion that conditional sentences are going to substantially decrease the overincarceration of marginalized offenders, particularly Black Canadians and indigenous offenders. We heard at committee from two police chiefs. One was Chief Robert Davis, who is an indigenous police chief and the only indigenous police chief of a municipal police service. The other was Chief Darren Montour, who is an indigenous police chief on the Six Nations of the Grand River, which is the largest reservation in Canada. Both individuals, who have significant decades of policing, confirmed that conditional sentences do not work. They do not have the resources to monitor compliance. Working in the trenches, they are seeing prosecution after prosecution of offenders who continually repeat breaches of their conditional sentence orders. How can the government indicate now that this is somehow going to decrease the overincarceration rate? We have empirical evidence, particularly in my riding but as well as from across the country, that it does not work.

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Hon. Mark Holland

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/9/22 11:17:03 a.m.
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I am sorry to interrupt, but there are other questions. Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Development.

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Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.)

Jun/9/22 11:17:13 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague about David Daubney, who was a predecessor of mine in my riding. He was a Conservative MP in the Mulroney years. He was actually chair of the justice committee during that time. He said that during the Harper years, the “departmental distaste for research and recommendations is the opposite of the situation under administrations such as those of Conservative justice minister Kim Campbell.” He also said that “mandatory minimum sentences have been widely condemned in corrections circles” and added that the previous Harper government “misrepresented conditional sentences as permissive even though lawyers, judges and the public know they can be made suitably restrictive.” What does my colleague think about my Conservative predecessor in my riding of Ottawa West—Nepean?

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Hon. Mark Holland

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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Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Jun/9/22 11:19:12 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, there has been some discussion about why it is urgent to pass this bill and there is the idea that we can somehow just let this drift on. If we do not pass this bill soon, it means that additional people will be sent to detention or prison under the mandatory minimums. Those people, through no fault of their own, will end up losing their housing, losing their jobs and having their kids apprehended. There is an urgency here that we correct this mistake. It does not matter to me who made it in the past. It is urgent to eliminate these 20 mandatory minimums so that people can get sentences that are appropriate to their crimes and get things that will help reintegrate them back into the community instead of forcing them into worse situations.

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Hon. Mark Holland

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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Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)

Jun/9/22 11:21:00 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I find it fascinating that the member opposite talks about being in prison as a dark place for people's entire lives: the rest of their lives. We are talking about how hidden in this bill is human trafficking with material benefit. What does that mean? In the words of two women who live in my riding, Linda MacDonald and Jeanne Sarson, who wrote a book called Women Unsilenced, they talk about torture. They talk about the sale of women and girls. If that is not something that we need more time to talk about and make the House aware of, so that we can protect those who are vulnerable in our society, I do not know what is. For the government to talk about time allocation for such an important topic is absolutely untenable. It is unfathomable. It is absolutely ridiculous and, quite honestly, this is virtue signalling at its worst.

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Hon. Mark Holland

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/9/22 11:22:17 a.m.
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There is no debate going back and forth. Again, I want to remind the hon. members from the official opposition that if they have further questions and comments, they should wait until the appropriate time to be able to do that. I am sure that they would want to listen to what the government House leader has to say, so that they can really understand what he is saying and be able to respond accordingly in future questions. The hon. government House leader.

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Noise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking

Hon. Mark Holland

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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