44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/14/22 10:42:34 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. Members would think that the hon. parliamentary secretary was speaking to the private member's bill just tabled by my colleague, the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, because he focused so many of his comments on the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. As somebody who worked in corrections, I can say that there needs to be reform, but why are we not doing the reforms there?
I want to focus on one of the sections. I believe it is proposed section 244.2, which essentially deals with drive-by shootings. There have been a number of incidents of gun violence. I would like this hon. parliamentary secretary to look into the camera and say “I am comfortable with people who commit drive-by shootings have a community-based sentence because...”
Right now, they will not be going to jail.
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- Jun/14/22 1:51:56 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. At the outset, I will note that I will be splitting my time with the member for Provencher.
Believe it or not, this is an area that is close to my heart as somebody who previously taught a sentencing class and somebody who worked in the criminal justice system, both in federal corrections as a defence lawyer and then as a Crown prosecutor. This is an area that I find a great deal of interest in. I have heard different perspectives, some more compelling than others today. What I find noteworthy is that most parliamentarians want to get to the same place when it comes to this debate. The question is: how do we get there?
I was quite struck by some of the commentary that we have heard today because it was talking about where we want to be. The question, in my view, is whether this bill actually gets us there. If we look at the issue, I believe everybody in the House would resoundingly and unanimously say that they want gun crime to go down. There is no doubt about it. Nobody wants to see any more people shot, especially innocent civilians caught in the proverbial crossfire. The question then is whether this is the right mechanism to do so. I note that not once does the word “victim” appear in Bill C-5 or Bill C-21.
Gun crime, in my view, and I think in the view of a lot of people in the House, is out of control. No one here wants to see more gun crime. We have two different approaches in Bill C-5 and Bill C-21. Bill C-5, with the elimination of mandatory minimums, has been a failed approach. I will note here something that is not brought up very often. The reality is that most mandatory minimums, when it comes to gun crimes, were actually struck down.
When we talk about a failed approach, if the approach failed, it has most recently been since the time that the mandatory minimums were struck down. We have essentially been operating in a time where mandatory minimums have been struck down for most gun crimes, but not for robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm or reckless discharge. Those minimums remain, but under section 95, for instance, that was struck down in the R. v. Nur decision many years ago. It is not as though we are talking about statistics as of last week, last month or last year when mandatory minimums were in effect. Most mandatory minimums have been struck down.
I want to now turn to what the parliamentary secretary said. When we look at the issue of overrepresentation, there will be no issue from me. I remember being a 22-year-old and a 23-year-old going to work in federal corrections for the first time and noting the overrepresentation of indigenous people, for instance, in the justice system. At that time, it was about six to one in terms of overrepresentation, so it was very substantial. As a young man, it was something that I had to learn about and, frankly, the decisions I made had to address. That is something I am quite proud of.
It is also something I had to address as a prosecutor. We have the R. v. Gladue decision, the Ippolito decision, and we also have subsection 718.2(e), I believe, that address this specific issue of overrepresentation. I was bound by those ethical precepts to address Gladue considerations in sentencing, and I always took great pride in putting those considerations at the forefront of my decision-making.
Where the parliamentary secretary and I part company is where he notes, on behalf of the government, that we are looking at alternatives to incarceration while keeping the public safe. This argument might hold water, but for the fact that there are serious offences that are included in this bill. I am going to fast-forward to them. For reckless discharge with a firearm, section 244(1) reads that, “Every person commits an offence who discharges a firearm at a person with intent to wound, maim or disfigure, or endanger life”.
We are talking about public protection. We are talking about gun violence. We want to reduce gun violence overall, yet this provision was included in Bill C-5. This allows what I would characterize commonly as a drive-by shooting. Rather than signal we are not going to allow a community-based sentence for such a serious offence, the question should be the length of incarceration. It is paradoxical.
I asked the parliamentary secretary about this, and I cannot remember his exact response, but essentially it was that I was using rhetoric. I am not using rhetoric. I am simply pointing out that a sentencing option now exists for drive-by shooters to serve their sentence in the community. I am not sure how we get here. I just do not know how the principles of sentencing in section 718 are enhanced and put forward by conditional sentence orders for drive-by shootings.
The hon. parliamentary secretary spoke about systemic racism, and he then spoke about corrections. My point is that I have no issue with targeting racism anywhere in Canada, none whatsoever. He talked about the custody ratings scale. As someone who has completed the custody ratings scale and who previously worked in corrections, I know that, if he wants to address the custody ratings scale and the overrepresentation of people in maximum security in federal custody itself, then he should do that. We would do that by amending the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, not by allowing conditional sentence orders for people who commit offences such as extortion with a firearm, robbery with a firearm, or most seriously, reckless discharge or discharge with intent.
The hon. parliamentary secretary talked about Conservatives wanting to lock people up and throw away the key. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we want is a safe society with just sentencing—
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- Jun/14/22 1:59:27 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary referenced Newt Gingrich, saying that mandatory minimums were not successful in the United States. In my view, the United States' experiment with mandatory minimums was completely different than the Canadian approach. In the United States, sentences are often 10 times what they are here, and it has the three-strike rules. We do not have that in Canada.
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- Jun/14/22 3:06:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister continues to spread misinformation and cannot be trusted. Like me, the minister was a lawyer in his prior life. We both taught in a law school. I taught about the necessity of being honest. I trust he was honest with the courts.
Being honest with Parliament is even more important. He repeatedly told the House that law enforcement requested the Emergencies Act. They did not. This misled Canadians.
Will he resign?
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- Jun/14/22 3:08:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will expect the apology afterward. How dare the minister wag his finger at me, given his conduct in the House. The minister needs to stop diverting, stop deflecting and start divulging. He said that law enforcement asked for the Emergencies Act. They did not. He misled Canadians and put his own integrity into question.
Will he offer his resignation today, yes or no?
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- Jun/14/22 3:16:26 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I have only two and a half minutes left for my speech on Bill C-5. The point I want to emphasize to the House is this: There is a middle ground.
We have talked about what the government wishes to accomplish and we have considered how the government should go about accomplishing it. What I would propose and have proposed is to add a mechanism to this law that would allow mandatory minimums to remain in place but make an exception, by way of an exceptional circumstances provision, for somebody who represents a group that is overrepresented in the justice system or has had a life-changing event. This would enable the government to maintain mandatory minimum sentences, but in exceptional circumstances they would not apply.
This would do exactly what my counterparts on the other side of the House have advocated. It would allow for judicial discretion where necessary, but would still communicate to the public that gun offences will be taken seriously and that things like robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm and reckless discharge, as in a drive-by shooting, would still result in a substantial sentence, absent very significant circumstances.
Such a provision would be constitutional, and it is my belief that it would strike an appropriate middle ground. I wish the government had done the same in this circumstance; it did not, and I exhort the government to do so in the future.
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- Jun/14/22 3:19:24 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, we are experiencing an opioid epidemic, and at times I have seen the impacts of that first-hand. There should be serious consequences, particularly when it comes to the trafficking of certain opiates, like fentanyl. I believe we should be denouncing and deterring such behaviour with substantial jail sentences, and in my view a minimum sentence for trafficking in things like fentanyl would be appropriate.
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- Jun/14/22 3:20:50 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I know he cares a great deal about this issue and his constituents.
When we look at penalties, they are just one part of a bigger puzzle. When we look at Bill C-5, we are asking what the appropriate penalty is. If the member were to consult our recent election platform from 2021, he would see that we have been advocating treating substance abuse disorder as the health problem it is.
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- Jun/14/22 3:22:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague brings up a great point.
Section 718 of the Criminal Code deals with sentencing, and it talks about the principles of denunciation and deterrence. When we think about these things, we are asking, “What message are we sending to the public?”
I would answer the question with a question: What message do we send when a reckless discharge of a firearm can result in a community-based sentence?
In my view, the message that we are sending is that we are not serious enough on this issue. I am sure that everybody in the House has their heart ache when they hear about anybody being shot, particularly an innocent civilian, and I am worried about our messaging when we do not go hard on these very serious offences.
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- Jun/14/22 3:23:40 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, this question allows me to raise a vital point.
The sentence for robbery is a maximum of life in prison. Breaking and entering has a maximum sentence of life in prison. These are offences that we often see. Robbery is taking property by force from somebody. Sexual assault is taking a person's dignity by force, a person's sexual inviolability, yet sexual assault has a maximum of a 10-year sentence, while robbery has a maximum of life imprisonment. Why the discrepancy?
Parliament needs to act on this.
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- Jun/14/22 5:00:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the Conservative leadership race has nothing to do with the member's speech and he should not be getting into it.
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- Jun/14/22 5:04:38 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting that during his speech, the member said we are not going to be dealing with conditional sentence orders on some sort of sexual offence, as I heard it, but I cannot remember the term he used.
I will remind him that about two weeks ago, I brought up a case in the House where a seven- or eight-year-old was victimized by the child's caregiver. That person received a conditional sentence order. My reason for rising on that very point was to say that it is incumbent on Parliament to change the framework that led to these types of decisions. This decision may have been a rarity, but the point is that Canadians come to us, as I am sure they do to the hon. member and certainly to me, and say an outcome was unacceptable.
Why is it so wrong, if Canadians think an outcome is unacceptable, that it is being represented in the House through a mandatory minimum?
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