44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/14/22 10:44:58 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I think my colleague got some things mixed up in his speech.
I believe that we must work to stop profiling by police. However, I do not think that eliminating mandatory minimums with Bill C‑5 for people who discharge a firearm with intent will help eliminate racial profiling.
I think that this sends a mixed message in Quebec, which is seeing a surge in gun crimes.
Could my colleague explain how removing mandatory minimums on people who discharge a firearm can help eliminate racial profiling?
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- Jun/14/22 10:45:48 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I have spoken extensively on systemic racism within the criminal justice system and why it is important to ensure that those who do not pose a risk do not end up in jail.
With respect to gun violence, it is a very important and real issue. My community of Scarborough—Rouge Park has dealt with this. I dealt with this when I ran a youth organization. I have buried my share of young people disproportionately in my community and it is an awfully painful process. It is one that I am still traumatized by.
What is important is that Bill C-21 addresses the issues that my friend opposite is talking about. It increases penalties for those firearm offences. It gives discretion to the judge to impose a sentence of up to 14 years, which is higher than we have right now.
What we are impressing in Bill C-5 is to make sure that those who do not pose a risk and maybe are first-time offenders are given an opportunity to get out of the criminal justice process and continue their lives.
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- Jun/14/22 10:51:52 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, does my colleague not think that, in some specific cases in which a person discharges a firearm, as pointed out by the member for Jonquière, this bill sends a rather odd message to the public, and especially Quebeckers, given the many incidents involving firearms that have happened in Montreal in recent months?
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- Jun/14/22 11:33:53 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his stated support of Bill C-5.
I realize and acknowledge the issues around gun violence. I want to point the member to Bill C-21, which is now before the House. It does, in fact, increase the penalties for firearm-related offences. This is the type of smart criminal justice policy that we are talking about.
We are, in fact, increasing the level of penalties available to judges for those who commit a crime with firearms. At the same time, we are ensuring that increased judicial discretion happens at the lower end of the spectrum where there are other alternatives for those who may be first-time offenders and those who may not pose a risk.
I want to thank my friend for the support, but I also want to reassure him that Bill C-21 will address many of the issues he has mentioned in his speech today.
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- Jun/14/22 12:48:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to explain why Bill C‑5 combines two fundamentally different elements: the repeal of minimum sentences for offences involving the use of a firearm, and diversion measures for simple possession.
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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 3:22:01 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 4:08:46 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech.
When I spoke with the member for Rivière-du-Nord, who is the Bloc Québécois critic on this issue, he began reading me the list of offences for which mandatory minimum sentences would be repealed, including using a firearm in the commission of an offence, possession of a firearm or weapon knowing that its possession is unauthorized, possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of a firearm obtained by the commission of an offence, and weapons trafficking. When he read all this to me, I must admit that I felt worried.
Will the bill we are discussing this afternoon make the public feel safer, or will it make them feel worried?
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- Jun/14/22 4:28:14 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-5 is a perfect example of the Liberals' backward approach to crime and justice. Liberals seem to believe that public safety means treating criminals like victims and treating law-abiding citizens like criminals. That is the reality of their soft-on-crime pattern. It is most obvious with gun crimes.
The Liberals implement a billion dollar confiscation of legally acquired firearms from lawful owners, hunters, farmers, collectors and sport shooters that the Toronto Police Service says is not an effective public safety measure, while Bill C-5 will get rid of mandatory jail times for gangsters and criminals who terrorize Canadian communities with drive-by shootings, robbery with guns and all kinds of existing gun crimes relating to illegal possession and trafficking, all crimes that, by the way, are skyrocketing in places like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver under the Liberal government. Meanwhile, it would also allow for dangerous criminals to remain in communities among their victims instead of in prison where they belong.
Of course, the Liberals are limiting debate and pushing through this deeply flawed bill with time allocation. As our colleague, the MP for Barrie—Innisfil, said last week:
[O]nce again, we are privy to a front row seat to the decline in democracy. Bill C-5, the soft-on-crime bill, has gone through committee, and there have been thousands...of dissenting voices on this bill. There have been advocates and stakeholders, and there have been police chiefs and police forces across Canada that have spoken against this bill....
The minister claimed during committee hearings that Bill C-5“will have no negative impact on public safety and will not signal to the courts that the offences concerned are not serious.” The minister also often suggests that others have not read this legislation, but it appears he himself does not understand the consequences of the bill or he is being deliberately obtuse about it.
Here is the reality. Under Bill C-5, a victim of sexual assault or a victim of kidnapping will be more likely to have to be back at home or in the same neighbourhood with the very predator convicted of assaulting or traumatizing them in the first place. Drug manufacturers and traffickers do not have to worry about mandatory baseline jail sentences either. Between Bill C-5 and the Liberals' plans to decriminalize significant and dangerous amounts of fentanyl, the Liberals are keeping addicts as open prey for emboldened dealers who are already usually chronic repeat offenders. It just makes no sense.
How can the minister tell Canadians that public safety will be protected by Bill C-5? Law enforcement, victims advocates, policy experts have all spoken out against it precisely because it will undermine public safety.
At committee, the executive director of the London Abused Women's Centre said the conditional sentencing provisions of Bill C-5“put women at greater risk. It puts them in harm's way. It puts them in the communities where the offenders are going to be.”
The chief of the Brantford Police Service said, “With Bill C-5 we are now going to see sentencing become a joke. Victims will live in fear of gun violence and fearful of retaliation by armed criminals.” Importantly, Chief Davis is a Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River territory where Brantford is and the only indigenous leader of a municipal police service in Ontario. Chief Davis has served more than half of his career in indigenous communities, with most of that time in Six Nations and also in Ontario's far north. He said, “Conditional sentences” as suggested by this Liberal government under Bill C-5 “clearly will not work.”
This serious warning is echoed by the president of the Association of the Chiefs of Police of Quebec. At committee he said, “For the public to maintain confidence in the justice system, criminals who commit serious crimes, particularly with firearms, must face serious consequences.”
The truth is in Canada right now, the entire system, from charges to release, is already set up to support and protect rights, rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders, however, usually not very effectively given the high rates of recidivism. I would note that the Liberals have taken no action on the private member's bill by the Conservative MP for Tobique—Mactaquac, which actually is about resources and new strategies to reduce recidivism. The truth is there is actually very little by way of institutionalized, systemic and ongoing support for victims who can never get past or pardoned or freed from what was done to them.
However, the Liberals seem to see nothing wrong with setting up even more conditions that would enable criminals to revictimize people who have already been harmed. The Liberals' mixed messages and contradictions on gun crime are particularly mind boggling. The Liberals talk a lot about cracking down, usually right after a tragic shooting that takes the lives of innocent victims and leaves loved ones and communities struggling with a lifetime of fear and grief. The truth is that over many years, the Liberals have failed to stem the tide of illegal weapons entering Canada to stop the rise in gun crimes which has actually escalated while they have been in government or to make communities safer.
There is a gun trafficking problem in Canada, but the Liberals, actually through Bill C-5, are going to lower penalties for it.
The Conservatives have always taken a more realistic approach to combatting gun crimes and to keeping communities safe. We would increase funding and coordination for border security to combat illegal smuggling, ensure a floor of jail time for violent gang members, and target gangs and criminals instead of making life more difficult for law-abiding firearms owners, retailers and the airsoft sector, by ending automatic bail, revoking parole for gang members and new and tougher sentences for ordering or involvement in violent gang crimes. These are the kinds of measures that can and do make streets and cities safer, not the Liberals' approach, which helps criminals get softer sentences while subjecting law-abiding Canadians to warrantless searches and confiscating legally acquired property.
I can understand the Liberals want to claim otherwise, but Bill C-5 will eliminate mandatory minimum jail time for many serious existing firearms offences, like robbery, extortion, trafficking, unauthorized importing or exporting and possession, discharging with intent, using guns for offences, possession of prohibited or restricted firearms with ammunition, possession of weapons through an offence, trafficking, and discharging a firearm with recklessness.
Stéphane Wall, the retired supervisor for Montreal's police service, stated:
[W]e see young people laughing at the justice system.... We are already in this situation.
The passage of Bill C-5 would lead to lower standards and trivialize the possession of firearms for a criminal purpose.
The chief of police of the Six Nations Police Service pleaded with MPs to, “consider the well-being not only of the people of Six Nations, but also of all indigenous communities on Turtle Island” with regard to Bill C-5. He also stated, “We deserve to feel safe and, more importantly, our children deserve to grow up in a community free from violence”, which is exactly what indigenous leaders and constituents in Lakeland have said to me, but the Liberals are ignoring him and all of them.
The Liberals also often claim Bill C-5 will assist people struggling with substance abuse to get the help they need. Conservatives believe addicts should receive treatment, and with the discretion of law enforcement to decide between charges and recommendations for treatment or options in sentencing, as already exists with, for example, the Edmonton drug court, but that is not what Bill C-5 is about. The bill will eliminate mandatory jail time for convictions of trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking several types of illegal drugs. It will let drug manufacturers and traffickers off the hook, while Liberals have the gall to suggest it will help people get the treatment they need. Actually, the Liberals are great for dealers, but bad for addicts.
One of the more perverse aspects of Bill C-5 is it enables the greater use of conditional sentences like house arrest for extremely serious offences, such as prison breach, criminal harassment, sexual assault, kidnapping, human trafficking, abduction of kids under 14, thefts, breaking and entering, being unlawfully in someone's house, arson, fraud, causing bodily harm by criminal negligence, assault causing bodily harm or with a weapon, and assaulting a peace officer causing bodily harm or with a weapon. These are not minor offences. They are major or permanently damaging and traumatizing crimes for which I know the vast majority of people in Lakeland believe convicted offenders should be in prison where they belong with an automatic mandatory minimum penalty, not out on the streets or back at home where they can revictimize their targets or harm others.
Law-abiding Canadians, victims of crime and their loved ones deserve to live freely and without fear. Government must ensure the laws and systems deliver justice for victims, real consequences for offenders and deter criminal activity. The only thing worse I think than a government that fails in this core duty is one that promotes conditions that will ultimately lead to and frankly guarantee that violent criminals will strike again.
Bill C-5 will not do anything to make Canadians safer. It will put victims of crime and innocent Canadians in harm's way. It ignores the rights of victims completely. All of this and more is why Conservatives, and certainly the vast majority of people in Lakeland who I represent, oppose it.
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