- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Red Deer—Lacombe
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $146,499.79
- Government Page
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-364, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing).
He said: Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for Peterborough—Kawartha for seconding this bill.
I want to thank all my colleagues who are a part of the rural crime caucus that we have in the Conservative Party. During the first term of the current government, we struck the rural crime task force. We consulted with Albertans and Canadians from coast to coast. We put together a report called “Toward a Safer Alberta”. That report had numerous recommendations in it, including legislative changes that could be made. Even though we have been through the pandemic, the rural crime statistics still apply today. The police have done what they can. They have reorganized themselves.
Governments that are not in charge of the Criminal Code have done everything they can to take this seriously, and there seems to be a new-found interest across the way in the plight of rural Canadians. We can just imagine someone setting up a chop shop or a meth lab in a rural area, far away from the various police stations and communities, which is done purposefully to avoid detection. They cause absolute hell for people in rural communities, because the crime from organized crime elements is absorbed by just a small number of residents. That is why this bill is so important.
I encourage my colleagues across the way to give consideration to it. It would change the Criminal Code at the time of sentencing and make it an aggravating factor if somebody is purposefully targeting somebody in a rural area, where proximity to emergency services and police services is a very difficult thing.
It does a number of other things, including strengthening provisions for sentencing, when it comes to using or carrying a weapon to a crime scene. It also changes the term “dwelling” to “place”, because lots of break and enters happen to barns and Quonset huts. Lots of other valuables are kept in storage in rural areas.
I really encourage all my colleagues in the House to take a look at the bill. Let us get this bill adopted post-haste.
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- Jun/10/22 11:23:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I hear from my constituents that their faith in the justice system is absolutely shaken. Rural communities repeatedly targeted by repeat offenders want serious action. Instead, the government is going to let the people who are beating, robbing and shooting at them stay out of jail for these and even more serious offences. This will make things worse.
The government's justice reforms fail to address overrepresentation of minority groups in the prison system and they also fail to enhance public safety. Why does the government not do something useful instead of just virtue signalling all the time?
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- Jun/10/22 11:22:15 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberal government continues to ram through legislation that has criminals jumping for joy. Criminals who steal people's wallets at gunpoint, shoot up the neighbourhood, traffic in weapons or use a gun in their other criminal activities are one step closer to reduced sentences.
Liberals claim it is to address overrepresentation of Black and indigenous people in the corrections system, but they ignore that these same communities are the ones most often victimized by gun crime.
How is it that the government lacks so much compassion for victims and people at risk of violent crime?
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- Dec/15/21 6:13:54 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, my colleague missed the opportunity to not get into a coalition with the government of the day, but that is fine.
The diversion measures that are in the legislation are certainly something that can be considered. As a former law enforcement officer, I had the ability to decide to pursue something or not. A Crown prosecutor has the ability to decide to pursue something or not. That is where the judgment needs to be made.
We do not need to legislate that judgment. We need to trust the men and women on the ground, not only in our law enforcement but in our prosecutorial services. They are the ones who can actually decide and are best positioned to weed out who is doing what on the ground, whether it is somebody caught up with addictions and simple possession or it is actual criminal activity. Let us let them do their work. They are—
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- Dec/15/21 6:12:10 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague is asking about whether people should be going to jail for simple possession. I would ask her if she shares my interpretation of the legislation.
Here is what the minimum penalties with respect to drugs are in Bill C-5: with respect to drug dealers, trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, which does not sound like simple possession to me; importing and exporting, or possession for the purpose of exporting, which to me sounds like drug smuggling across the border; production of a substance in schedule I, including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, crystal meth, which sounds like illegal drug manufacturing.
This bill is not addressing the simple possession issues my colleague is talking about. We can have a discussion about those kinds of things for simple possession and addictions all day long, and I would be happy to have the conversation with her.
This is about criminality and organized crime. Why would we be conflating that with simple possession? These are criminal organizations that are smuggling and manufacturing and distributing drugs. They should go to jail.
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- Dec/15/21 6:09:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I will gladly respond to that question. My colleague is missing the point altogether. If my colleague would actually read polling information that Canadians are responding to when they are asked the question about confidence in police and their justice system, he would see that the numbers have not looked good for the last six years. Crime is on the rise. Dangerous crime and violent crime are on the rise. Confidence in our police and our justice system is going down. That is because of the tone and the agenda set by the current government in going after the wrong people. The member has it wrong.
When it comes to rehabilitation, my colleague should know that the only way offenders are going to be able to access any of the programs and services offered by Correctional Service Canada is if they spend at least two years in jail. That is the threshold. When they go to a provincial prison they do not get any of that. When they go to a federal prison for two years, they get access to programs and services so that they avoid recidivism.
Why would the Liberal members of this House deny these people an opportunity to get the programs and services they need? They just want the votes of the hug-a-thug crowd in this country, and it is doing nothing for safety.
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- Dec/15/21 5:59:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, neighbour and colleague for Red Deer—Mountain View for his excellent speech.
As this is my first opportunity to deliver a speech on behalf of the constituents of Red Deer—Lacombe in the new Parliament, I want to thank all of my volunteers and my family. Of course, I thank the voters of Red Deer—Lacombe for sending me here for a sixth term. My commitment to them is to do my best in representing the issues and values that we hold deer in central Alberta. One of those is addressed in this proposed legislation.
Many of the hard-working people in central Alberta are law-abiding firearms owners. They get up every day, go to work, follow all the rules, follow the law, work hard and pay their taxes. In return, they simply want to be treated with dignity and respect by their government. They want their tax dollars used effectively and efficiently, and none of them feel very good right now about the direction that our country is heading, particularly when it comes to the legislative agenda of this current government. They are very concerned and very worried about government's approach, which is soft on violent and dangerous crime.
Bill C-5 is another iteration of Bill C-22, which appeared just before the election was called in the last Parliament, and the bill is absolutely abhorrent, I believe, in the minds of most of my voters back in Red Deer—Lacombe.
I am a law-abiding firearms owner, and I am a former law enforcement officer in the conservation law enforcement field. My job was to go into situations and deal with law-abiding hunters and firearms owners on a daily basis. I would go into situations as a conservation officer or as a national park warden where virtually every person I dealt with had an axe because they were camping; a knife because they were fishing; or a firearm, bow or crossbow because they were hunting.
I did this with complete confidence that the people I was going to deal with and work with were going to be honest and forthright people for the most part, and I had nothing to fear and nothing to worry about from law-abiding hunters and firearms owners in this country. I am proud to say that I safely did my job with a respectful group of hunters, anglers, campers and outdoor enthusiasts for a number of years before I ended up in this place.
These are good people, and they do not deserve to be demonized by this current government. They certainly do not deserve to be taken to task or held accountable for dangerous, violent criminals who are operating under the auspices of organized crime in our large urban centres, such as Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. Even in one of the largest cities that my colleague for Red Deer—Mountain View and I share, Red Deer, Alberta, which is a beautiful city full of good, honest, hard-working people, there is the odd one that causes problems. We need to be focusing on the ones that cause problems, which is the problem with the legislation before us today.
Ladies and gentlemen of Canada, and ladies and gentlemen of Toronto, who are watching need to know the crimes the people they voted for are actually reducing and eliminating mandatory minimum penalties for. One is robbery with a firearm. We would think that in a city such as Toronto, where there are virtually daily shootings being reported, that somebody would say, “Robbery with a firearm is a fairly serious thing and people should probably go to jail for that”, but not according to a Liberal member of Parliament members from that city.
Another is extortion with a firearm, which must be a pleasant experience for the victim. Why do we not do what Liberals do and get rid of any mandatory minimum prison sentences for somebody who is being extorted with a gun to their head? the thirds is weapons trafficking, excluding firearms and ammunition. Weapons trafficking is the illegal movement, sale and acquisition of firearms. This is the problem.
We know from people like professor emeritus Gary Mauser from Simon Fraser University that a person is very unlikely to be a victim of crime from a law-abiding firearms owner. In fact, when we take a look at the statistics from Statistics Canada going back to 2012, we know that 0.6 in 100,000 murders in this country were committed by law-abiding firearms owners. That is less than the average of 1.8 murders per 100,000 in the country.
The safest person we can be around in this country when it comes homicide is a law-abiding firearms owner, but we are going to make sure that smugglers and people who traffic firearms and bring these guns into the country would potentially face zero jail time for their actions. There is also importing or exporting knowing that a firearm or weapon is unauthorized, which is called “smuggling”, and it is smuggling firearms across the border.
This is the problem. This is what Liberals in la-la land think deserves no jail time whatsoever. If voters are in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, these are the people that they voted for and sent here and this is what they are doing to the community. The Liberals are saying to the people who voted for them that they are going to remove mandatory minimum sentences for people who smuggle guns across the U.S. border and instead blame and conflate issues on law-abiding firearms owners. It is absolutely disgusting.
Discharging a firearm with intent, when does that happen on the streets of Toronto? Daily, but if someone is the one with the gun, apparently in Liberal la-la land, they do not need to go to jail.
With regard to using a firearm in the commission of an offence, holding somebody up, committing a robbery, committing a carjacking, using a firearm, in theft or any of these other types of activities, if people take a firearm along with them, they should not worry if they voted Liberal. The Liberals are looking out for their interests and making sure they spend no time in jail as a result.
On possession of a firearm knowing its possession is unauthorized, these are people that are not getting firearms licences like every law-abiding firearms owner in this country actually does. Canadians might be surprised to know that every single day all 2.1 million of my fellow law-abiding firearms owners are checked by CPIC to make sure that we are eligible to continue to possess firearms.
As a matter of fact, the law is written in this country that people cannot possess a firearm at all. Every firearm is illegal, unless they have a licence to have one. That is what the law currently says. Law-abiding Canadians by the millions in this country follow those rules on a daily basis and we are checked on a daily basis to make sure that we can continue to lawfully possess our property.
Instead of harassing people like me, the government is going to make life easier for people who are unlicensed. If people are found in possession of a basketful of handguns in downtown Toronto, they should not worry; they do not have an RPAL, the guns were smuggled and they might even be the smuggler. Guess what? They have the option of going home and sitting in their house and thinking hard about how bad they are because that is the Liberal solution to organized crime in our country. This is absolutely ridiculous.
On possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition, these are guns we are not even allowed to have, so now we are talking about illegal owners. They should not worry; the Liberal Party of Canada has their back. If they have one of these, they do not have to go to jail, here is a “get out of jail” card just like in the Monopoly game; they do not have to face the consequences.
Possession of a weapon obtained by commission of offence is theft. That is someone who comes into my home and steals my gun. That is someone who comes into a rural property in the County of Red Deer, the County of Lacombe, the County of Ponoka, or any one of our communities, steals from us and may be purposefully there trying to steal our firearms. The Liberal response is because our disarmament policy for law-abiding Canadians is not working, they are going to let thieves out of jail for free for stealing a law-abiding citizen's property.
This legislation is absolutely ridiculous. It flies in the sensibilities of everybody. On these mandatory minimums just on the firearms, and not getting into the drugs and all of the other things that the government is reducing or limiting minimum penalties for, in this legislation, virtually all of them except for one, guess who introduced these pieces of legislation in the Criminal Code? Was it Stephen Harper or Brian Mulroney? One of them happened under the government of Stephen Harper. The other dozen of these provisions in the Criminal Code were put in place by none other than Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. Today's Liberals are certainly not yesterday's Liberals, ladies and gentlemen. Our country is not any safer with these guys at the helm.
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