Evidence of meeting #6 for Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Co-Chair, Law Amendments Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
We're here to support these Criminal Code amendments as one part of a larger initiative against violent crime, so clearly, sir, the public is calling for it.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Dykstra
Are you looking for comments just from one group in particular? Sorry, one of the other witnesses wanted to comment.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
No. If Mr. Jones wishes to comment on the same topic, I'd be pleased to....
5 p.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
Thank you, Mr. Kramp.
If, as you say correctly, the social root causes are paramount, put the resources there. That's what the evidence calls for.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
I'm suggesting, sir, with the greatest of respect, we are doing that as well, but this is a multi-pronged attack. We are putting resources there. We do need education. We do need to deal with the social impact to the community. I'm not just suggesting this government, but previous governments as well, are moving towards, obviously, all of the preventative measures as well as the rehabilitative factors.
Has our society dealt with this in a perfect manner? No. Particularly with rehabilitation, I think our record is dismal, but we also need protection from those who.... We're talking about a handful of people here. We're not talking about hundreds and hundreds of people being incarcerated. We're talking about a mere handful of people who have created the most heinous, unspeakable crimes and violations of humanity. Should there not be a degree of protection from people like that? That's my question.
5 p.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
There definitely should, but keep in mind that the crime rate has been in decline for 25 years running.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
I take issue with that. The violent crime rate is up, sir. The crime rate overall, I agree, is down, but we're not talking about summary conviction offences here. We're not talking about misdemeanours. We are talking about violent crime, and that's why this is a violent crime act that we're dealing with.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I continue to be concerned about the constitutionality of the dangerous offender part of this bill. I had to note Mr. Harris' comment today. He seemed to be saying that the Department of Justice had provided—I forget the exact words—an absolute assurance of the constitutionality of this. I am very skeptical that the Department of Justice would have been in a position to provide an absolute opinion on the constitutionality, and I'm interested in knowing how Mr. Harris knows this.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I'm not directing the question to Mr. Harris, but if Mr. Harris has information about this golden constitutionality opinion, I'd love to see it.
I want to ask Professor Schurman a question, because she teaches law and because my friends opposite here often engage in hypotheticals. Mr. Harris referred to this bill as targeting the worst of the worst. I'd be happy if we had a bill that actually did that, and properly did it. But we don't use those words. We have to use regular words in our statute, so we have to design something that protects our citizens.
I want to ask Professor Schurman this. Let's forget about the side of the scale that deals with the worst of the worst, the guy with the record as long as your arm, with tons of violent offences, Eddie Greenspan, our colleague, is his lawyer, and he has a full hearing and then is designated. Let's go to the other extreme; let's go to a citizen. Could you conjure up a hypothetical that in your mind would place these sections at risk in a constitutional challenge because of the circumstances of the person who is accused or convicted, because of the circumstance surrounding it? My gut tells me there is a vulnerability here to a charter challenge. Not on the “worst of the worst” scenario, but in some county town in northern Saskatchewan or northern Quebec, where you get a citizen who is suddenly facing a presumption. The citizen doesn't have a full education, might not have the best of lawyers, and might have committed some of the offences that you refer to in your testimony.
Can you offer us that hypothetical that you think would be likely to show an extremely weak charter position?
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
Sure.
Suppose you're dealing with a situation where you have a 19-year-old who is in a barroom brawl and all that's committed is an assault, but that's under the designated offences. And suppose you want to add to that that he had a weapon with him. He gets a two-year mandatory minimum. Then a couple of years later he's involved in some other business with his friends, when they all set out to do something. He's still only 21, and he still ends up with another mandatory minimum sentence. Then you find yourself in the position where those are both designated offences, so the burden is a little heavier on him.
But if you take that one step further and you look under primary designated offences, discharging a firearm with intent, put yourself in a first nations community, somewhere where you have some kind of big incident going on, discharging a firearm with intent. It doesn't take very long before somebody gets charged with something like that, discharging a firearm with intent. That now is a primary designated offence in this law, which brings--and I think the law also foresees--a higher mandatory minimum sentence for that. Take that same person, who, for argument's sake, might be 30 years old, who 20 years ago had some offence for which he had received a two-year sentence. That would then fall into this, even though it was so many years before.
So these are situations, but what you must remember, too, is that the constitutional challenge won't just come about because the facts of a particular case will permit it. When the Supreme Court of Canada heard Smith years ago on the mandatory minimum seven-year sentence for importation of narcotics, they upheld Mr. Smith's sentence. They said, “We're striking down this law. You're not going to benefit from it because we believe you deserved eight years, but we're striking down this law because we are going into hypothetical possibilities here. We're looking at it.”
So it won't even have to be that perfect fact situation before a challenge comes up.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I want to support this bill. Is there any way we can fix this? Is there any way we could modify, fix, band-aid—sorry about the use of the word “band-aid”—use some Polyfilla or something and get this thing fixed so it would be less vulnerable to challenge?
5:05 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
I'm not sure the fix doesn't already exist in the legislation as it is and perhaps redirecting the energies to the resources going to the people to use the laws as they are now. That may be your fix, because we may be just complicating our lives for nothing here.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Dykstra
We have two more people on the speaking list, and I'm going to let you know that you each have four minutes rather than five. We need to get to 5:15 when we have a motion that's been presented and will be debated and voted on at 5:15. That's the motion from Monsieur Ménard.
Mr. Jean.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate having the opportunity to ask these questions today.
First of all, to the police chiefs, I come from a background of 11 years as a criminal lawyer in northern Alberta, so quite frankly I don't think the changing of onus is going to make a tremendous difference to those individuals; to be blunt, I don't. I've been in the trenches working it and I don't think at all that the onus is going to change things tremendously. Would you agree?
5:10 p.m.
Co-Chair, Law Amendments Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I entirely understand your question. Change things with respect to whom?
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
As far as the criminals themselves in getting fair trials and having the ability to be heard.
November 14th, 2007 / 5:10 p.m.
Co-Chair, Law Amendments Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
I listened to the discussion of the reverse onus provisions. My understanding is that the Constitution and the charter are living documents. I have great faith in the Supreme Court of Canada to see the issues before us right now and to revisit the law if necessary.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Okay.
Do you actually think the minimum mandatories will send a clear message to criminals? Is that the purpose of it, or is it more to manage them separately from society after the fact?
5:10 p.m.
Co-Chair, Law Amendments Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Probably both. There is the specific deterrent aspect, clearly, but we know that the 21-year-olds killing each other with guns on the streets of our cities know what they're facing when they're found with a loaded gun. They know what the law is, and I'm sure if you practise criminal law you would understand that they know it.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
They do know.
Ms. Schurman, would you comment on that last question, as far as whether or not it sends a clear message to criminals or indeed if it's going to be used primarily to manage the situation for those 200 to 300—
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
The mandatory minimum sentences, you mean?