- Member of Parliament
- Deputy House leader of the Bloc Québécois
- Bloc Québécois
- Saint-Jean
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $109,900.56
- Government Page
- May/9/24 12:33:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Montcalm for his speech, which was enlightening as always, because he himself is enlightened and well versed in his files. It is a pleasure to hear him speak.
This morning, several of us tried to get the Conservatives to explain the difference between decriminalization, legalization and diversion. They were unwilling to answer the question. However, we got the beginnings of a response when I asked one of my colleagues whether we were witnessing a public health crisis and he replied that drug addiction is a chronic disease.
My question is simple: Once we start to view drug addiction as a chronic disease, how can we do anything but decriminalize addicts' behaviour if we want to ensure that they receive proper treatment instead of throwing them in jail?
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Madam Speaker, I am also pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-320, which was introduced by the member for Oshawa.
This bill is very much in line with other private members' bills that have been introduced by various members from various parties. These bills demonstrate that there is complete unanimity on this issue, unlike in many other areas. All parties agree when it comes to the issue of protecting victims and integrating them better into the justice system.
For example, I can talk about two other bills that were debated very recently in the House, including Bill C-332, which was introduced by the NDP member for Victoria and seeks to criminalize coercive control. That bill focuses more on partners or spouses in a family context. I would like to read the bill summary:
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create an offence of engaging in controlling or coercive conduct that has a significant impact on the person towards whom the conduct is directed, including a fear of violence, a decline in their physical or mental health or a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities.
This bill seeks to create a new offence for conduct that often occurs in a domestic context.
I was also pleased to rise to speak to Bill S-205, which was introduced by now former senator Pierre‑Hugues Boisvenu and has to do with intimate partners. Once again, by way of explanation, I want to read the bill summary as it appears in the bill. It states and I quote:
This enactment amends the Criminal Code in respect of interim release and other orders related to intimate partner violence offences. The enactment also provides for recognizance orders to be made when there is a reasonable fear of domestic violence.
This bill, which I spoke to in the fall, is rather large in scope when it comes to measures to protect victims of domestic violence.
The two bills I just talked about deal with keeping women safe and protecting female victims. We know that the number of femicides increased by roughly 7.5% between 2009 and 2019. My colleague from Shefford also mentioned this. There is a great deal of work to be done to protect women. That is also the purpose of Senator Boisvenu's bill. It talks about the use of electronic bracelets, but also about the obligation to give the victim a copy of the order regarding the accused and to ensure that the victim has been consulted about her safety and security needs when a bail decision is being made.
There was already a strong interest in ensuring that victims of domestic violence offences or sexual offences are given more information about, and also have a say in, an accused's release, should a peace bond be issued. The idea is to ensure that the victim is aware of the situation and that she can even be involved in the release process, in a way, by helping monitor the actions of an accused who is subject to certain conditions, such as maintaining distance. Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies do not always have enough eyes to ensure that release conditions are met. Perhaps this is one way to ensure better monitoring and enforcement of orders.
Bill C-320 has some minor nuances. In this case, we are talking about victims in general. It is not just about victims of sexual offences or victims of domestic violence, but would include the families of murder victims, for example. The definition of victim as set out in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act includes the direct victim, but it also stipulates that someone else can act on the victim's behalf. This could include the victim's spouse or the person who was their spouse at the time of the victim's death, someone who was cohabiting with the victim, a relative or a dependant. This means that the bill can apply to a broader definition of victim. What this bill does is make it mandatory to give the victim more information on certain aspects.
We are not calling into question the very concept of parole, for example. That is something that the Bloc Québécois supports, because we believe in rehabilitation. The parole system may not be perfect, but we must still support it in the sense that, in some cases, rehabilitation takes precedence over a very strict desire to simply keep people incarcerated when it is not necessary or appropriate and when there is a real possibility of social reintegration.
Under the bill, the victim must be informed of the eligibility dates and review dates applicable to the offender in respect of temporary absences or parole, and they must be given an explanation of how those dates were determined. The victim must also be informed when the offender is released on escorted or unescorted temporary absence, on parole and on placement, meaning when the offender is sent to a halfway house. The victim must be informed of the date on which the offender will be released and how that date was determined. In short, explanations are given regarding the parole system, temporary absences and orders to place the offender in a halfway house.
Without completely reforming the issue of parole, this bill ensures that the person does not learn through the media that an individual convicted of a crime committed against her or a member of her family was released without her full knowledge of the process, the mechanics of that decision. This will ensure greater confidence. In fact, I dare to hope that the bill will help give victims more confidence in the federal prison system and further involve victims in the process. If this transparency can make victims more confident, that can have an untold impact on certain aspects of the judicial process.
I mentioned this during the study of Bill S-205. One of the common problems encountered in court when the time comes to lay criminal charges against someone, and particularly in the context of domestic violence, is that the victim is often not a party to the case, but simply a witness. This witness is important because, often, they are the only witness the Crown can use to put someone in jail and proceed with a hearing. If the victim does not have sufficient confidence in the justice system, she may decide not to testify, for fear of retribution. It is often for these reasons that domestic violence hearings go nowhere, for lack of a victim.
This is an opportunity to improve overall knowledge of the justice system, from one end of the legal process to the other, as was done with the other two bills, and this one. We can help people understand the system better, have more trust in it and participate more in the process to ensure that those who have committed wrongdoing end up serving the sentence handed down for their actions.
However, we also need to ensure that better psychological supports are available. As soon as the institution is required to properly inform victims about the parole process, for example, this can retraumatize many victims. We must therefore ensure that there are sufficient resources and supports in place for these victims if we want to get this right. We will have to make sure that there is a useful purpose, but also that we think more about the victims in the sense that this bill puts victims at the centre of the process. We must not do just one part of the job. We have to make sure that the work is done properly and that victims are fully supported. Ultimately, we have to be able to say that the victim has been put at the centre of our concerns and is part of the judicial process. She is not just an outside witness.
This bill has good intentions, and that is why I am convinced that the parties decided to unanimously support it at second reading and in committee, and that they will support it now at third reading.
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Madam Speaker, today I am speaking to Bill C‑216. To summarize it in its broadest terms, this bill deals primarily with the decriminalization of simple possession of drugs and is based on three components.
First, the bill sets out the legislative amendments that are relevant to achieving its objective of decriminalization. These include amendments to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code, and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. In essence, the intent is to repeal subsection 4(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, as well as those parts of that act, the Criminal Code and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act that refer to this particular subsection. Subsection 4(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act states, “Except as authorized under the regulations, no person shall possess a substance included in Schedule I, II or III.”
The second part of the bill enacts a new law, the expungement of certain drug-related convictions act. It is a piece of legislation that is meant to be retroactive, in a way, since it seeks to establish a procedure for the Parole Board of Canada to follow to expunge convictions that occurred prior to the coming into force of this bill, if it passes. This part of the bill would wipe the slate clean on past offences. Expunging a conviction means that the convicted person is deemed never to have been charged and convicted of that offence, thus allowing a criminal record to be wiped clean. However, expungement would not happen automatically. The individual would have to apply for expungement, the board would have to review the application to see if it is valid, and then a notice would have to be sent to the RCMP and related departments and agencies to have their records relating to the conviction expunged.
The third and final part of the bill also creates new legislation: the national strategy on substance use act. This new legislation would force the Department of Health to develop a strategy by consulting the community, and it would require the department to report on the results of the implementation of this strategy. Although one of the goals of the strategy is to reduce the criminalization tied to drug use, the third part of the bill proposes that the primary goal be a matter of public health, with an approach that seeks to deal with the harm caused by problematic substance use.
According to Bill C‑216, the strategy must be developed in consultation with representatives of the provincial governments responsible for health care services and key stakeholders including advocacy organizations, frontline health care providers, individuals with lived experience of substance use, harm reduction workers and experts in problematic substance use and substance use disorder.
Although the Bloc is generally open to the idea of diverting people struggling with substance abuse away from the courts, we believe that Bill C-216 unfortunately misses the mark with respect to its main objective. Over the past few years, there has been a tendency to consider drug-related problems as public health issues rather than crime issues for several reasons.
We cannot ignore the serious opioid crisis that has taken hold in North America since 2016. It is a serious problem that demands a government response. There was Nixon's tough on drugs approach, which strictly addressed the criminal aspect but never achieved the desired results. There is the positive experience of countries such as Portugal and Switzerland, which adopted a public health approach to issues arising from drug use. We also have a better understanding of problems related to addiction thanks to advances in scientific knowledge in this area.
The problem with Bill C-216 in general is that it puts the cart before the horse. The third part of the bill, which deals with a strategy on substance use is likely one of the most important aspects of the bill in that what we really want to do is help people with addictions overcome them. Basically, the main point of the bill is to save lives, given that opioid use has been on the rise since the 1980s. The number of opioid deaths has risen dramatically since 2016. They went from close to 3,000 in 2016 to over 6,000 just four years later in 2020.
The problem with this new bill is the timeline, the order in which the steps are to be taken. When the bill comes into force, the clauses pertaining to the offence of simple possession would take effect immediately, but the national strategy would only be implemented the following year, at the earliest.
While there may be some immediate benefits for some people if this bill is adopted, for example, first-time offenders, the bill would have no short-term impact on people with chronic addiction problems. Most importantly, we have no idea what the national policy will look like or how it will work with the governments of Quebec and the provinces, which are responsible for health care services.
In fact, our fear is that we will fall short of our objective if we only decriminalize simple drug possession for personal use without first making sure that we have health services in order, such as support, treatment and detox measures, especially when there is a rather blatant risk of interference in Quebec's and the provinces' jurisdictions.
In a way, members seem too eager to want to build on Portugal's success to justify Bill C‑216, while failing to consider what Portugal has done as a whole. While Portugal's success is widely cited as evidence that decriminalization works, the reality is much more complex.
In Portugal, an individual is generally not sent to prison if the total amount of possession does not exceed personal consumption. The individual could still face criminal sanctions, although such cases are rare. It is important to note that decriminalization is not the only measure contributing to Portugal's success. There are also diversion measures and accompanying services on the ground, such as supervised injection sites, education and reintegration resources.
It is important to understand that Portugal's policy is based on legal alternatives to simple possession of drugs for personal use. When an individual is arrested for simple possession, they are brought to the police station to determine whether the amount of drugs in their possession is below the permitted limits. Their case is then referred to a Commission for Dissuasion of Drug Addiction to assess the risks associated with their drug use. That commission then brings the individual before an expert panel of social workers, health professionals and legal advisors to assess the risks associated with the individual's behaviour. Depending on the risk, the individual is then offered a range of measures, including everything from simple education to drug treatment, fines and community service. In the most serious cases, such as repeat offenders or if other people are put at risk, individuals may be forced into treatment, and if they refuse, they could face criminal sanctions. The main objective is to encourage compliance with treatment or complete abstinence from drug use.
If Bill C-216 is passed, there is a concern that even if individuals who use drugs are not criminally charged, they will still run the risk of falling through the cracks because there will be no follow-up or systematic monitoring. That is why I spoke about putting the cart before the horse earlier.
In this context, I believe it would be more prudent to consider a more comprehensive, more holistic approach, somewhat similar to what Quebec is currently doing with the PTTCQ in particular, the Court of Quebec's addiction treatment program. The objective of this program is to help the justice system prevent crimes associated with drug addiction through measures that focus on providing treatment to offenders with drug addictions, rather than systematically treating them as criminals.
Based on what is already permitted under subsection 720(2) of the Criminal Code, the PTTCQ authorizes the court to delay sentencing so that an offender can get clean through court-supervised treatment.
The program also facilitates close collaboration between the court and addiction resources to develop a treatment plan that includes therapeutic, rehabilitation and reintegration components.
I therefore think that, while Bill C‑216 has a laudable objective, it is likely doomed to fail unless we create a framework to support drug addicts before we move forward with decriminalizing simple possession. Without such a framework, there is a risk that people who do not get support will wind up being criminalized regardless, for crimes indirectly connected to their drug problem, such as theft, if they do not have access to programs like PTTCQ, which is not available everywhere. It goes without saying that we cannot successfully decriminalize simple possession without also ensuring that health care resources are available.
In conclusion, I remind members that this is yet another example of how an unconditional increase in health transfers would have a significant impact on the lives of many.
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