Philip Toone

[Business of Supply, October 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech. The excellent job she does in her riding is appreciated by many people.

Specifically on this responsibility question, the government seems to have a serious problem with accountability, especially that it took almost two weeks for the government to start a recall procedure.

I am wondering how risking the Canadian public in any way helps Canadian citizens to have any degree of belief in the credibility of the CFIA.

[Business of Supply, October 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the Conservative member to understand that it would be preferable if he were to inform us in advance before making a request for unanimous consent in the House.

I was interested to hear that he was very proud of the fact there is now a rapid response. I would like him to explain what a rapid response is. What is an acceptable response if the government had known for over two weeks that there was a problem and people were getting sick? It seems to me that its rapid response was rather slow.

Would he please define what rapid response is so that the people who got sick through this crisis will actually understand it? Perhaps they got sick a little too soon.

[Regional Economic Development, October 17th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the problem with the Conservatives is that they make arbitrary decisions without consulting anyone.

Nine projects in my riding were supported for months by Canada Economic Development, but then the minister suddenly and arbitrarily changed the parameters, thereby depriving those projects of the necessary funding.

Instead of coming into our communities and posing for photo ops in front of budget propaganda signs, can the minister outline the criteria he uses when selecting projects?

[Business of Supply, October 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government keeps on steamrolling democracy by not allowing debate on the real issues. Instead of looking at issues one by one, we are steamrolled and Canadians are not benefiting from a full debate on matters. The government keeps throwing out untruths and half-truths and a series of questionable statements that tend to misdirect the Canadian population.

Here I would quote Don Martin from September 18, in an article entitled “Truth dies when political warfare begins”, in which he stated:

Conservative stormtroopers have rolled out a welcome mat of sensational untruths.

There are enough cheap shots, personal swipes and fertilized lines of fact in the partisan parliamentary arsenal without unleashing outright fabrications to spread fear where it doesn’t exist....

[W]hen political warfare turns bloody, truth becomes the first casualty and lies live on in the public record.

When will the government stop treating Canadians with such disrespect and actually have a serious debate in the House on the real issues that matter to Canadians?

[Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, October 5th, 2012]

Indeed, Pontiac is easier.

To answer the question, our legal system goes back hundreds of years. It has been well developed and is very pragmatic. There is a reason why we have trial judges who are familiar with cases. They know what went on; they hear testimony. It is up to them to come up with a sentence to fit the crime committed.

That is why appeal courts do not hear testimony. They make rulings on specific legal questions. In our system, the trial judge is the one familiar with the case. Neither the appeal court nor the Supreme Court, and certainly not the House of Commons, is familiar with every case.

Members of Parliament must not think that they know everything about everything. It would be quite a bill if it took every possible situation into account. If people truly wanted to work on such a bill, it would be a lifelong project and it would never be done. We must not think that we are that smart in the House. We do not know all the facts. The trial judge is the one who knows the facts, and it is up to him to impose an appropriate punishment.

[Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, October 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, whose riding name is much longer than that of my neighbour from Témiscouata, Les Basques and so on.

[Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, October 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my riding neighbour, who represents a riding with a name that is too long to say today.

The surcharges and fines have a definite purpose. However, I do not believe that this purpose is properly reflected in the bill being studied, where surcharges are not used to rehabilitate, but to punish the offender. In that sense, it would be effective. The problem is that we must have a balanced judicial system. We must balance the desire to punish and the desire to prevent recidivism. The bill only deals with punishment, and there is nothing about rehabilitation.

[Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, October 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, today, I would like to participate in the debate on this bill.

Clearly, this bill would benefit greatly from additional debate in committee. It is very important that all the points that are raised there be debated.

Once again, the Conservatives are trying to pass a bill that will take discretionary power away from judges. We have to ask ourselves why that is. What is the reasoning behind this? What impact will it have?

In court, during the testimony and sentencing, judges are in the best position to understand and to determine the proper sentence for the offence committed. Why is this not being taken into consideration? This bill takes away judges' discretion, and I am very concerned about that.

Canada's legal system allows a judge to clearly understand the testimony, the evidence and the circumstances. The burden is on him to impose a fair and equitable sentence. We in the House of Commons must not think that we know all the facts and that we are always right, when all of this should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

We do not know the circumstances of the crime or the offender's ability to pay the fines. We thus do not know what sentence would be fair and equitable. Let us not forget that the purpose of a sentence should be rehabilitation; it should not encourage the offender to reoffend.

I will come back to that in a moment, but I would first like to share with the House what the Quebec justice minister has to say about fines on his website:

A fine is a sum of money that must be paid to the State by an offender within a time frame determined by the judge.

He then adds the following, and this is the part that seems important to me:

Before imposing a fine, the judge must be satisfied that the individual has the means to pay it.

This is not the first time in Canada's legal history or in our legal system that we have heard this said. In a legal system such as ours, the sentence must fit the crime. In the past, there were debtors' prisons, prisons for people who did not pay their debts. We can impose all the fines that we want on a homeless offender who does not have any money, but that will not change the fact that he does not have any and that he will never be able to afford to pay those fines.

We should not take away from a judge the power to waive a surcharge when he is fully aware that the offender does not have the means to pay that surcharge. The judge knows that because he is the judge of the facts and he is well informed.

Yet, that is what the bill will do. The judge will be fully aware that a fine will never be paid, but he will still have to impose it. It makes no sense. It is absolutely illogical that a judge who knows the facts should have to do that.

There a reason why we have our modern legal system. The trial judge looks at the facts and he is the one who has the responsibility of imposing a sentence, based on the offence and on the offender's ability to serve that sentence.

The sentence should also be an incentive to rehabilitate. I find it hard to believe that imposing a series of fines can lead to rehabilitation.

There is one thing we often hear and cannot ignore: jails are a place where offenders increase their ability to break the law, to remain offenders. Jails are crime schools. We should not feed jails like that. If we create this situation and the offender cannot pay his fine, what are we going to do? Are we just going to ignore the fact that a fine was imposed? No, we cannot do that. The fine exists and the offender must pay it. If he is unable to do so, he will be fined again and this will generate yet another legal process. We are imposing a burden that cannot be supported. It is important to understand that.

The current act already provides for a 15% surcharge on any fine imposed on the offender. If no fine is imposed, the surcharge is $50. That surcharge must be imposed because that is what the law says. Now, we want to increase the burden twofold, from 15% to 30% when a fine is imposed, and from $50 to $100 for offences punishable by summary conviction, when no fine is imposed.

Under the current act, the judge has a discretionary power. Section 737(5) of the Criminal Code reads as follows:

When the offender establishes to the satisfaction of the court that undue hardship to the offender or the dependants of the offender would result from payment of the victim surcharge, the court may, on application of the offender, make an order exempting the offender from the application of subsection (1).

As we can see, the lawmakers who wrote this legislation were wise enough to understand that, sometimes, one is not in a position to pay a surcharge. They even went a little further and said that the court must take into consideration the offender's ability to pay the surcharge. They also thought about a dependent: would imposing a surcharge harm this dependent? A dependent is usually a child, but it could be anyone.

I would point out that in international law and Canadian law, the needs of the child must always be given priority when a bill is drafted. And whenever judges have to interpret legislation, they have a duty, an obligation, to consider the impact it may have on a child. Looking at the bill that is before us, it may be that a judge will have no choice but to impose a surcharge, knowing not only that the burden is too heavy for the offender, but also that it might cause hardship for a dependent child of the offender. What this means is that it would be contrary not only to a number of Canadian laws, but also to international obligations.

It is incomprehensible that we could enact bills in Canada that might impose an unreasonable burden on a child who, clearly, does not have the means to pay a victim surcharge levied against the child's parents. We have to avoid, at all costs, imposing that kind of burden on a child who is an innocent party in the situation. And yet what we are doing is creating a situation that could cause hardship for a child. Frankly, and I will say it again, we would benefit from a longer and more thorough discussion in committee. That is why I will probably vote to send the bill to committee, but that does not mean it would not benefit from being amended.

I also want to note that the popular encyclopedia Wikipedia, which I often find to be an inspiring source, talks about surcharges and fines. This is what it says:

Fines are counter-productive if the offender commits more offences to get the money to pay the fine.

What that means is that there is little point in imposing fines when the person is not able to pay them, because that could actually encourage recidivism. A person who is not able to pay their fines has to get the money somewhere, or they will be charged with another offence. And again, that encourages recidivism. We are potentially creating a vicious circle. I hope that everyone will think carefully about this and there will be a good debate in committee.

[Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, October 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for her very informative comments, which were much appreciated.

I would like to point out that this bill would once and for all do away with the discretion judges currently have with respect to penalties, sentences and fines. Could the member comment a bit more on this matter?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, October 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, frankly, this crisis is a complete fiasco.

There are many problems. Broken sprinklers, improper cleaning and an inadequate monitoring system allowed thousands of pounds of beef to become contaminated. This went on for weeks, and the proper authorities, the minister included, did nothing.

As a result, tainted meat ended up on the tables in thousands of Canadian households.

The minister does not want to take responsibility. Why not replace him with someone who will?