Thank you very much
Welcome to the committee.
I recall that in November of last year the former Minister of Justice came to Toronto. I think you were at that announcement, and you were very supportive of the bill at that time.
Just for those who were not present, breaking and entering with an intent to steal a firearm and robbery with intent to steal a firearm were part of that piece of legislation. Our government certainly was in favour of those bills.
Also, as you said, Minister, there are already 42 mandatory minimums in the Criminal Code, give or take one or two.
I was part of putting some of the evidence surrounding guns. I was part of getting that in during my term in Parliament.
Our police chief, just before he ended his comments, said it was the public's perception of safety. That is where the discussion comes in. The public wants to feel safe. You're talking about 500,000 charges every year in Ontario. If you multiply that by the rest of the country....
What do people read about? They read about the extreme acts of violence in the papers. That skewers their perception of the magnitude of the problem. We know there is a divergence with our criminal justice statistics.
I do want to correct something. The current Minister of Justice, when he was at committee the other day, talked about the Liberals wanting to double the mandatory minimums and misapplied that by saying from four to eight years. What we had in our bill were various other charges, where we were doubling the minimum one year to two years. I don't want that misperception to continue.
There are some mandatory minimums that, with a carefully drafted bill, I think the Liberals would be able to support. The way this thing is drafted has some real problems.
You were present, and you heard about the discrepancy between the long arm and the short gun. Those are ideological differences. There is no evidence to really back those up. We've not been presented with any evidence by the minister, or any documentation. What we're trying to do here is an evidence-based analogy. We are also constrained, quite rightly, by section 718 of the sentencing principles of the Criminal Code. There are six sentencing principles in the code, not just the two that seem to be mentioned all the time.
For the record, we had $50 million for the gun violence and gang prevention funds. It was community-based. There was $1 million just in Toronto, just to top up these violence initiatives. Those were the holistic things we heard the chief talk about and be supportive of. We also know that you were involved in that as part of the government of the day.
I'm going to get to the area that concerns me and that directly affects you. In the prisons, it will be the feds paying for the incarceration, but it does affect you as a provincial Attorney General, as the administrator of the courts of justice. The two areas are really of concern. They have been raised, and are continuing to be raised, even later today.
One is the legal aid problem you're facing. You are already in a $10 million deficit here. When the people come to our committee and talk about this, we hear that only people who are facing incarceration are eligible. Yesterday, I read, as I'm sure others did, about the per person capping in Ontario.
I'll tie that up, Minister, and then leave the rest of the time for the Askov situation. Mandatory minimums at the level we see in these bills are going to have an effect that will start at count one. You will not just see it at the third time, when somebody is facing some really...but all the way through. We're being told that you will have more trials. You have Askov problems already.
It's not just “you”; I'm talking about the administration of justice, not you personally.
I need you to address those, and I want to give you this opportunity to do that. I'd also like you to address the similar problem that you have on the gun registry.